The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem Read online

  “Now listen and don’t interrupt again, because if you do, I won’t remember where I stopped and won’t know where to continue.”

  I nodded and promised not to interrupt anymore.

  “From Jaffa, Senor Avraham traveled for maybe three days, three nights until he reached Jerusalem. His dream was to kiss the stones of the Western Wall. In Jerusalem he met other Spaniols who took him to the synagogue and gave him somewhere to sleep. At the time small merchants, shopkeepers, artisans, and also goldsmiths and silversmiths who traded with the Arabs lived in the Jewish Quarter in the Old City. There was respect and good relations with the Ishmaelites, and the Spaniols wore dresses like theirs. They even spoke Arabic, and some of the Arabs even spoke Ladino.

  “Life was hard in this country back then—Dio santo. A woman had eight children one after the other, and they all died at birth or when they were babies.

  “I also had five children with your Nono Gabriel, but only my three daughters, may they have a long life, pishcado y limon, lived. The boys lived less than a month, and after Becky was born my womb closed up.

  “I did everything I needed to do to give Gabriel a son. Between the engagement and the wedding I and my future husband, your nono, were invited to a relative’s circumcision. During the ceremony they let me hold the baby and then hand him to my future husband, who passed him on to others, which was the custom for ensuring that a young couple would have sons.

  “And truly, blessed be His name, not many days passed after the wedding and I had conceived. How I loved being pregnant. Even my mother-in-law Mercada, who never made life easy for me, was good to me. She and all the women in the family pampered me with honey sweets to make sure I wouldn’t have a daughter, God forbid, and that with God’s help a son would be born.

  “Now you shouldn’t speak ill of the dead, Gabriela, but whenever she could, my mother-in-law Mercada, may she rest in peace, would stick a knife in my back and through my heart too, but during that first pregnancy she made sure that everyone showered me with love.

  “And when the time came, Gabriel rushed to the synagogue with the other men in the family to pray for my well-being and the well-being of the baby. I stayed with the midwife and the women in the family, and my shouting that night was heard from our house in the Old City as far away as Nahalat Shiva in the New City, and I pushed and pushed, dala dala dala, until my soul almost left my body, and it was only when I was sure that the Almighty was taking me to Him that a male child was born. Mercada opened the door and shouted, ‘Bien nacido, it’s a boy!’ and all the family standing outside the door responded, ‘Sano que ’ste, may he be healthy.’ The midwife took the baby, washed it, wrapped it in a white cotton cloth, and laid it on my bosom. But before I could even kiss his red hair Mercada took him from me and ordered the children to run to the synagogue and fetch Gabriel.

  “When Gabriel came, he took the baby from Mercada and held it to his heart as if it were precious crystal. Only after he gave thanks to the Almighty did he turn to me, lying between the sheets like a muerta, and for the first time in our lives he kissed me on the forehead.

  “What can I tell you, querida mia, that was one of the happiest moments of my life. For the first time since the wedding I felt a little love from Gabriel. Even Mercada, with her face as sour as a lemon, who never smiled at me and always spoke to me curtly and never asked how I was, said to me, ‘Como ’stas, Rosa? Quieres una cosa? How are you, Rosa? Do you need anything?’ And before I could reply, she ordered her daughter Allegra to fetch me some leche con dvash, milk and honey.

  “I was happy, Gabriela. I felt that for the first time since I’d become an Ermosa, Mercada and Gabriel were pleased with me. I’d given Mercada a grandson and Gabriel his first son. I felt a warmth in my heart, pride. I felt that now perhaps I belonged. Now perhaps I was part of the family.

  “The baby was named Raphael after your great-grandfather, who had died a short time before I’d married Gabriel.

  “How I loved Raphael, the apple of my eye. As tired as I was after the labor, I cleaned the room we lived in until it gleamed so the baby wouldn’t catch an illness, God forbid, and die, God forbid, like the babies of the Yemenites in Silwan who dropped like flies just from all the dirt. Raphael’s cradle stood under the window, and over it I hung a tara, an oil lamp that Gabriel brought from the synagogue, and every day after evening prayers Torah scholars would come and recite from the Book of Zohar in honor of baby Raphael.

  “But the baby, as much as we pampered him and loved him and prayed for him, he cried all the time, in his cradle, when I carried him whispering words of love: ‘Querido mio, hijo mio, mi alma, what’s hurting you, Raphuli? What’s hurting?’ I didn’t know what to do. I was a child myself, sixteen, maybe seventeen. The baby cried on and on, and then I cried until I ran out of tears, but he never did. He cried without even a break to breathe. Mercada said maybe I didn’t have enough milk, maybe we should bring in a wet nurse, but I didn’t want my baby to feed from another woman, didn’t want strange hands clasping that little body to strange breasts. To increase my milk, Mercada forced me to eat garlic even though I hated it, telling me over and over that only garlic would make baby Raphael feed properly, and then he’d be happy and stop crying.

  “Most of all I was frightened of the evil eye and evil spirits. I’d even dress Raphael in girls’ clothes to deceive Lilith, the worst spirit of all, who we knew especially liked to harm baby boys. According to our belief, Gabriela, to appease the evil spirit we had to ‘sell’ the child to somebody else. Gabriel’s mother had been sold when she was a baby, and that’s why she was called Mercada, which means bought.

  “When the time came to sell little Raphael, I went to my good neighbor Victoria Siton and informed her, ‘I have a slave for sale,’ which was the code for selling the child. Victoria agreed to ‘buy the slave’ and as payment gave me a gold bracelet. The next day our two families got together and slaughtered a goat for absolution and changed Raphael’s name to Mercado—bought.”

  “Is Victoria my other nona?” I asked, interrupting Nona Rosa.

  “Back then we didn’t know that Victoria’s son, your father David, would marry Luna and we’d become related, but at the time Victoria Siton was our neighbor in Ohel Moshe, and it was custom to sell your child to a neighbor. Victoria Siton kept baby Raphael in her house for three days, and then we held a new sale ceremony and bought him back from her. But nothing helped, Gabriela, not the girls’ clothes I dressed him in or selling him to Victoria Siton. The damned evil spirits outsmarted us, and when Raphael was almost a month old and we hadn’t yet held the redemption of the firstborn ceremony to celebrate that he’d been bought back, he turned blue like the eye hanging over his cradle to protect him, and by the time Gabriel and Mercada arrived, he was already dead. Mercada lifted Raphael’s blanket over his body and looked Gabriel in the eye and told him it was God’s punishment. At the time I didn’t yet grasp why your grandfather deserved such a punishment from God, and it was only after muchos anos that I understood what that sour old woman meant.

  “On the night little Raphael died, I died too. I didn’t die when the accursed Turks hanged my brother Rachamim at Damascus Gate, I didn’t die when my father and then my mother died in the cholera epidemic and I remained alone in the world, a ten-year-old orphan girl with a five-year-old brother. I didn’t die when I realized that my husband didn’t love me and perhaps never would and that the only thing that seemed to interest my mother-in-law was making my life miserable. But when my child Raphael died, I died too, and your grandfather Gabriel died as well, and it was only after your mother Luna was born that he began to live again.

  “After Luna was born, we had another son, and he died even before we were able to have him circumcised and give him a name. But for me, even after Luna was born, joy did not come back into my heart, and it didn’t after Rachelika and Becky were born either. Do you know who restored joy to your nona?”

  “Who?” I asked, looking wide-ey
ed at her.

  “You, mi alma,” Nona Rosa replied, and although she didn’t like kissing, she kissed my head and I felt as if my heart might burst.

  “You brought happiness back to me. My daughters, may they be healthy, have never loved me the way you do, hija mia, and perhaps I didn’t love them the way a mother loves a child. My heart was filled with pain and longing for baby Raphael, and there was no room left for them. But you, querida mia, you, mi vida, my life, I love you a lot. The moment you were born my heart opened again, and into it you brought happiness I’d forgotten could exist in this world.”

  “I love you, Nona, I love you best in the whole world,” I said, tightening my arms around my grandmother’s broad waist.

  “Love.” Nona Rosa laughed. “In our family, Gabriela, love is a word we never spoke. I never heard words like love from my mother, may she rest in peace. Her whole life was spent in poverty until she died from the epidemic that almost killed the whole of Jerusalem, and Gabriel, of blessed memory, I never once heard him tell me ‘I love you.’ And anyway, what is love? Who knows? Before they got married, my daughters said ‘I love David,’ ‘I love Moise,’ ‘I love Eli,’ and I said, ‘Love? The time of the Messiah has come.’ It’s luck, luck from heaven above that we only had girls, because in our family the men marry women they don’t love. The men of the Ermosa family, Gabriela, don’t let the word love out of their mouths, not even when no one is there to hear. But stories about love that broke hearts, Gabriela, stories about love in which there was no love, that’s something we have in the family. That, praise God, He didn’t keep from us.”

  She sighed. “Well, get up. That’s enough for today. I’ve already said more than I wanted. Get up. Your mother will be here soon to take you home and she’ll be annoyed that you haven’t had dinner. Come, querida, help me cut vegetables for the salad.”

  * * *

  The following Saturday after we ate the macaroni hamin and everyone went to watch the Beitar game from Clara and Jakotel’s balcony, I went to Nona’s again. Once more she sat me on her knee and continued the story of the Ermosa family.

  “Your great-grandfather Raphael was a very pious man, a scholar who studied the Kabbalah and even made the journey all the way from Jerusalem to Safed to pray with the Holy Ari, Rabbi Isaac Luria. They say that Raphael had decided never to stand under the wedding canopy, that he almost vowed never to have children and instead devote his whole life to Torah study.”

  “So how was Nono Gabriel born if his father wasn’t married?”

  “Paciencia, querida, all in good time. Listen to me and don’t interrupt, because if you interrupt again I’ll forget what I wanted to tell you and you won’t know anything. Dio santo, why do all the girls in the Ermosa family have no patience?”

  Nona took her time before going on with the story, lowering her voice as if whispering a secret. “They say that one day Raphael’s righteous father came to Safed and informed him that he’d found a bride for him—Rivka Mercada, the fifteen-year-old daughter of Rabbi Yochanan Toledo, a pious Jew and rich merchant. Raphael couldn’t disobey his father, but he demanded, and was granted, permission to remain in Safed for three more months, when the wedding would take place. From that moment he dove even deeper into a modest, ascetic way of life.

  “The three months passed slowly, and as the wedding date approached, Raphael became even more pious and spent days fasting. And then, Gabriela, then something happened that changed Raphael’s life forever.

  “You’re still a little girl, Gabriela, but you should know, mi alma: Love is not only blind, it also blinds. Love can bring great happiness, but it can also bring great tragedy. Your grandmother, Gabriela, didn’t know what the emotion of love was. Your grandfather never loved me the way a man should love a woman, and perhaps I too didn’t love him in the way the Song of Songs says. I was just by his side and gave him daughters, sanos qui ’sten, may they be healthy. I took care of him and the girls and did my best for us to have a good life, no more and no less. But every night before I fell asleep I’d think about what love was, and I couldn’t get this story I’d heard about your great-grandfather Raphael out of my head.

  “One day, so I heard, Raphael was walking down one of the alleys in Safed toward the Yosef Caro Synagogue, immersed in himself and murmuring a prayer. His eyes half closed, he accidentally bumped into a young girl. Raphael was startled, and when he raised his head, his eyes met hers, blue as the sea and deep as a well. Her hair was pulled into two golden braids and her skin was white as snow. Raphael, who felt as if he’d seen the beauty of the Divine Presence, quickly covered his eyes with his hand and hurried on his way. But in all the days and nights that followed, he couldn’t clear the girl’s image from his mind. It came to him in the morning when he said the morning prayer, and at night when he said the evening prayer. It came to him in the mikvah ritual bath, and it came to him when he lay down to sleep. He didn’t understand what he was feeling. He only knew that her blue eyes had hit him like a bolt of lightning. Dio santo, he thought to himself. It’s a sin, what I’m feeling for this strange woman, a sin.

  “He decided to fast even more and swore he would keep away from places where women were permitted, for he knew that his betrothed was waiting for him in Jerusalem. But the image of the Ishkenazi girl in the alley haunted him like an evil spirit and allowed him no peace. No matter what he did, he could not drive the girl from his thoughts, and he soon found himself lying in wait for her at the top of the alley where he had first bumped into her. He saw her leave one of the houses and followed her, but when she turned and transfixed him with her blue eyes, he again fled for dear life.

  “That same day Raphael decided he’d return to Jerusalem earlier than planned to rid himself, once and for all, of the dybbuk with the blue eyes. He couldn’t even imagine speaking to the girl who came from the Ishkenazi community, for he knew that things like that were forbidden, a sin. Do you understand, Gabriela? A sin!”

  I didn’t really understand what the Ishkenazi community was, and certainly not what sin meant, but Nona didn’t notice. She carried on telling the story as if possessed by a dybbuk herself, absent-mindedly rocking me on her knee as if she forgot I was there, and probably went on talking even after I fell asleep.

  When I woke up, it was quiet and only the murmur of praying and calls of the congregation from the nearby synagogue could be heard. I found Nona sitting pensively in Nono’s chair. “Good morning, querida mia,” she called to me even though it was already evening and dinner was on the table in the yard. Every now and then when I slept over at Nona’s, she’d bake borekitas especially for me and make me sütlaç with the Star of David just the way I liked it.

  “And not a word to your mother, Gabriela, so she doesn’t get used to it!” she said. “Let her go on making borekas for you and not ask me to do it.”

  Like the rest of the family, Nona didn’t know that Mother bought ready-made borekas from Kadosh, and believed that she baked them herself. My mother had made me swear never to tell anybody, and I kept quiet.

  Nona carefully peeled a hard-boiled egg and split it into four. “Eat, eat, good girl. You need to grow.” Then she sat back down in Nono’s chair and continued the story from where I’d fallen asleep a few hours earlier.

  “Do you understand what happened, Gabriela? Raphael, may he rest in peace, fell in love with the Ishkenazi girl from Safed, and it was absolutely forbidden for Spaniols to marry Ishkenazim. It was the time of the Turks, when there were maybe six thousand Jews in Palestine and almost all of them lived in Jerusalem. At the time there were not only Spaniol Jews in the country but also Jews from the Ishkenazi countries. Wai wai, how hard it was for the Ishkenazim. Miskenicos, poor souls, they didn’t know Arabic and they didn’t know Ladino and they just didn’t have a clue. Well, the Ishkenazim were Jews too, right? So the Spaniols opened their doors, let them pray in their synagogues, and the Ishkenazim did everything like the Spaniols, even started speaking Arabic and wearing dresses like t
he Spaniols, who dressed like the Arabs. They did everything they could to blend in with the Spaniols, because after all, we were all Jews and we should help one another. But marry? Heaven forbid! Because the Spaniols wanted to keep themselves for themselves and only marry one another, so as not to mix, God help us, with Ishkenazim and have half-and-half children.

  “Wai de mi, Gabriela, what scandal and shame an Ishkenazi bride could bring down on a family. Like Sarah, the daughter of Yehuda Yehezkel, who married Yehoshua Yellin the Ishkenazi. And though Yehuda Yehezkel reminded everyone over and over that the groom’s father was an esteemed Torah scholar, it didn’t matter. Nothing helped, what shame. The Sephardim were so opposed to marriage with Ishkenazim that Sir Moses Montefiore himself offered a prize of a hundred gold napoleons to anyone entering into a mixed marriage. And do you know how much a hundred gold napoleons is, Gabriela? Something like a thousand lirot, maybe ten thousand lirot, and despite the poverty in Jerusalem and even though a hundred gold napoleons was a sum that most people could only dream of, nobody jumped at the offer.

  “Raphael, may he rest in peace, couldn’t stop thinking about the Ishkenazi girl. Her blue eyes followed him wherever he went. You understand, Gabriela, mi alma, even though he’d just caught a glimpse of her she’d plunged deep into his heart and stayed there, and instead of studying Torah day and night he thought about the Ishkenazi girl. As I said, he walked the alleys of Safed moonstruck, looking for her—in the morning after morning prayers, in the afternoon when the hot sun forced people to stay inside their cool stone houses, and in the evening after prayers when his friends gathered at the synagogue. Late at night too, when even the moon and stars went to sleep, he would wander through the alleys, peeking into windows, opening yard gates, hoping he’d see her. But it seemed that the Ishkenazi girl had vanished. He never saw her again, and although she was still in his heart, deep inside he felt relief and saw it as an omen from heaven.