The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem (14 page)

Nine months after the wedding, Nona Rosa gave birth to their first child, Raphael, but he died before he was a month old. My mother Luna was born exactly eighteen months later. She liked to say that when she was born, all the birds in Jerusalem sang and all the church bells rang and could even be heard in the Misgav Ladach hospital where she was born. When I asked Nona Rosa about it, she said, “That one, who's got the memory of a bird, remembers how the birds sang when she was born? I don't remember it, so how can she?”

But Nona Rosa clearly remembered what happened when Nono Gabriel held my mother in his arms for the first time. As he hugged her close to his chest, she held his pinkie finger and opened her eyes. His heart missed a beat, and for the second time in his life he saw beams of golden light, this time illuminating his daughter's face.

“Preciosa,” he whispered, “preciosa mia, my precious, my beautiful one.” Then a miracle happened, and Nono Gabriel, who hadn't smiled since Great-grandfather Raphael died because of him and the Ashkenazia, and hadn't laughed even once since he married the orphan Rosa, laughed joyfully. He lifted his little daughter over his head and started dancing with her around the maternity ward. A full moon flooded the ward with bright light, and my grandfather looked at my mother, lifted her up to the window, and said, “Look, preciosa mia. Look at the moon shining like you, Luna mia.” And that's how my mother was named Luna after the moon, which on the day of her birth lit up my grandfather's life anew.

Every day after work Gabriel would hurry home to little Luna. “Bring her to the shop,” he'd say to Rosa. “Bring her at least twice or three times a day. This child is a blessing. She brings me luck.”

Rosa would diaper Luna in cotton cloth, dress her in pants and a pink tunic with pompons, and put white socks on her tiny feet and a white hat on her head, all of which she'd knitted while she was pregnant. Despite Rosa's halfhearted protests, Mercada had insisted that she get rid of the clothes she'd made for baby Raphael, may he rest in peace, right after they buried him, so that the dead baby's clothes wouldn't bring
, pishcado y limon
, bad luck. They were given to babies at the Sephardi orphanage together with the boy's cradle, and Rosa sobbed her heart out. Her mother-in-law had let her weep and told her daughters not to bother her. “It will pass by the time she has another baby in her belly,” she had said. Gabriel, who hadn't known how to cope with his young wife's pain, threw himself into his work in the shop. When Rosa had gotten pregnant a second time, they'd all made life easy for her. She shouldn't overdo it, lift things, bend. Her sister-in-law Allegra would come once or twice a week to sweep the floor, and following Mercada's orders, the cousins switched off cleaning the house. Mercada even forbade Rosa to cook, so the neighbors took turns bringing over food—kiftikas, sofrito, habas con arroz—and Mercada herself made the Shabbat macaroni hamin with haminados and the borekitas and the sütlaç.

After dressing Luna, Rosa would put her into a white wooden pram and cover her with a thick patchwork quilt. Rosa was very proud of the splendid pram, which very few could have afforded. Gabriel had gone specially to Tel Aviv to buy it. When she reached the Mahane Yehuda Market Rosa felt like the queen of England. All the market dealers, stallholders, and shop owners would greet her and call out, “Mazal tov, Senora Ermosa,
que estes sanas tu y tu nina
, may you and your daughter be healthy,” and Rosa would smile from ear to ear. This was her finest hour. The women would come over to the pram, click their tongues, and fawn over the gorgeous baby. And Rosa, who had long since forgotten the days when she and her brother barely had enough to eat, would smile and thank them all. Nobody, not even her husband, knew that when she was alone at home with the baby, she lacked patience. The baby's crying drove her crazy, and she'd lift her out of the cradle roughly, take out a breast, and stick the nipple into her mouth to shut her up. Nobody knew that when she was alone at home and the shutters were closed, she'd sit on the bed staring into the distance, waiting for the sun to rise so she could again go for a walk with the baby in the pram.

Rosa saw how Gabriel's eyes lit up every time he looked at Luna, how he took her in his arms with infinite gentleness, kissed her eyes, raised her in the air and exalted her as if she were a work of art. But she, she didn't have room in her heart yet. She hadn't finished mourning for baby Raphael, may he rest in peace, and now this one had come too soon.

Deep down, she was also jealous of the special attention that Gabriel lavished on their daughter. To Rosa, he was distant and spoke only about the baby and the house. He never honored her with words or gestures of love. He always simply did his duty. He had come to her bed only a few times since they were married, and not once since Luna was born. Even when he did come to her bed, he did only what he needed and then got up and went back to his own bed at the other side of the room. Rosa never complained, as life with Gabriel was far better than her previous life. She had food and clothing and was able to provide for her young brother. She was very fortunate to have been married into the wealthy and respected Ermosa family. Who would have believed she could be so lucky?

Although she blessed her good fortune, in her heart she hoped that her husband would eventually treat her lovingly and perhaps, just perhaps, touch her once the way she wanted to touch him, with pleasure, tenderness. Perhaps just once when he came to her at night, he would kiss her on the lips. He'd never kissed her, not even under the wedding canopy. She knew she'd disappointed him when baby Raphael died. He hadn't uttered a word of consolation, laid a hand on her shoulder. He'd never said a word to her about it at all.

*   *   *

Mercada had daily conversations with Raphael. After Luna was born, she lifted her face to the heavens and told him, “Luckily the child came out looking like Gabriel. God help us if she'd looked like Rosa.”

The insult she'd felt when Gabriel had not shown her the proper respect by naming the baby after her, as was customary, she didn't reveal to anyone, and certainly not to the baby's parents. Mercada had no doubt: This was Gabriel's way of expressing his displeasure that she had forced him to marry Rosa. If it makes him feel better, so be it. I don't need any favors, she thought, and she never raised the subject. And when her daughter Clara tried to comment, she cut her off and said, “Thank God, a healthy, sound child was born, and that's what's important. And you,
sera la boca,
shut your mouth, not another word about it, not to your brother and not to anyone else!”

Mercada understood her son's anger. In the evening, when all the women neighbors sat around the well on low stools and gossiped, Mercada would cast her eyes over them, noticing they all seemed worthier than Rosa. She also found herself visiting the homes of her other children more and more, especially Clara's. “God forgive me,” she said to her daughter. “I thought I was punishing Gabriel, but I punished myself. I can't stand his wife. I can't stand her smell. I can't breathe with her in the same house. I'm coming to live with you!”

“With pleasure, Mama querida,” Clara replied. “But don't forget that I, Yaakov, and the children live in the same room, so where will you sleep?”

“I don't care. If necessary I'll sleep on the floor, but I'm not living in the same house as that
gorda,
that fat one.”

The next day she packed a few belongings and moved into Clara's house without informing Gabriel or Rosa. When Gabriel came home from work, he asked where his mother was. Rosa shook her head and said she hadn't seen her since the morning, when Rosa had taken the baby for a walk in the pram.

Gabriel didn't pay further attention to his mother's absence. He went to Luna and lifted her up. She was his consolation, the reason he loved coming home each night. He would take her out to the yard and chat with the neighborhood women as if he were one of them, admiring his daughter's red hair and her clear eyes with their green and brown hue, her tiny hand and its perfect fingers. Each time she held his finger, he swooned, and when she smiled at him, his face glowed, and he'd give her little kisses and laugh. The neighbors were captivated by Gabriel's great love for his daughter,
sano que 'ste
, may he be healthy.

“He's not like a man, he's like a woman,” one of them said. “My husband was never like that with his children. Rosa's lucky she's got a husband like him.” When they saw him diapering the child, their awe reached new heights. Whoever heard of a man diapering his child? Nothing like it had been heard of in all of Jerusalem! When one of them revealed he not only diapered the child but also bathed her—she swore on her eyes that she'd seen Gabriel bathing the baby in a tin bath as if he were a wet nurse or its mother—Gabriel's stock was never higher.

And Rosa was quite happy to share child-care duties with whoever volunteered, all the more so if the volunteer was her husband. Before the baby was born, he'd go from the shop to the bagno and come home washed and clean, but now he came right home, washed himself in the water that Rosa heated for him, and quickly changed his clothes so the smells of the market wouldn't cling to the baby, God forbid. He'd take her out of the cradle and return her only when it was time to feed her and put her down to sleep. He loved Luna with all his heart. For a moment she managed to banish the thoughts of his other love, the one he'd sworn to forget. For the first time since his father's death and Rochel's disappearance, he felt much happiness.

It was only after he'd bathed Luna, diapered her, and dressed her in her pajamas, only after he'd handed her to Rosa to nurse, and only after he'd lain her down in her cradle and sung her a lullaby in Ladino, only then did he notice his mother's continued absence.

“Where's my mother?” he asked Rosa, who suggested she'd gone to the neighbors. He went into the yard and from house to house. “
Vizina, 'onde 'ste mi madre?
Neighbor, where's my mother?”

They all said they hadn't seen Mercada all day.

“Perhaps she's gone to the Western Wall,” one offered.

“Maybe she's gone to the Eliyahu Hanavi Synagogue,” said another.

“Nobody came to her for livianos today,” a third told him. “There wasn't a single person here in the yard.”

Concern began gnawing at Gabriel. His mother didn't usually just vanish. She was always at home or in the yard. Since Raphael's death she had stopped visiting the shop and rarely exchanged a word with him, saying only what she had to.

Although as time passed she had softened and her tremendous anger with him had dulled, Mercada hadn't let her son sense it. Even when Luna was born, she didn't lose control and fuss over the baby, though inside she was delighted when she saw how the baby had brought Gabriel joy. She had given him a lifelong punishment when she'd married him to Rosa, and had decided that was enough. She didn't need him to suffer any more than that.

And he, ravaged with guilt, had done everything he could to appease her. He married Rosa and went on managing the shop successfully. Although since his father's death and the loss of Rochel he had distanced himself from his God and become a secular Jew, he continued attending the synagogue to honor his father's memory and pray for the elevation of his soul. Gabriel was neither angry nor embittered. He named the child Luna not to punish his mother but because he truly felt that on the night she was born, the light of the moon had lit up his life anew. He had no doubt that he would name the daughter born after Luna after his mother.

Worried and anxious, Gabriel hurried to Clara's house in Sukkat Shalom and knocked on the door. When he saw his mother sitting at the table in the middle of dinner, surrounded by her grandchildren, daughter, and son-in-law, he heaved a sigh of relief.

“Thank God, I've been looking all over Jerusalem for you.”

“You've found me,” Mercada replied and carried on eating.

“But why didn't you tell Rosa that you were going to Clara's? Why did you worry me like this?”

“No more than you worry me,” she said with a sour expression.

“Mother,” he pleaded, “has something happened? Did Rosa do something?”

“She doesn't need to do anything. It's enough that she's like a bone stuck in my throat.”

“But she's my wife. Where do you want her to be?”

“In her own house, and I'll be here at Clara's. From now on I'm living with your sister.”

“Why with my sister? You've got a home.”

“I don't have a home. It's Rosa's home now, and thanks to you, I don't have a husband either, so I'm here,” she said, hitting the floor with her cane as if confirming a fact.

“Mother, por Dio! Come home with me.”

“Over my dead body.”

“What happened with Rosa?” he asked again. “What has she done? Did she not speak nicely to you?”

“She didn't speak to me at all. I'm not speaking to her, and that's that.”

Gabriel was silent. After a long period of suppressing his feelings and adopting a sort of numbness, he felt anger begin to roil inside him. He took a deep breath to dispel the sense of suffocation that gripped his throat, gritted his teeth, and clenched his fists, and when he could no longer contain himself, he roughly seized one of his sister's children by the shoulders, hauled the child out of the chair, and sat down facing his mother.

The frightened children stopped eating, his sister and brother-in-law looked in disbelief at his gradually reddening face, and only his mother went on slurping her soup as if what was happening had nothing at all to do with her. He felt he was going to explode at any moment. He hammered the table with his fist and said in a voice he didn't recognize, “You, you're not speaking to Rosa? You can't stand Rosa? And what about me? Do I speak to her? Can I stand her? If it weren't for you, Rosa wouldn't be living in our house. It was you who was in such a hurry to marry me to the
pesgada
, the clumsiest of all the girls in Jerusalem and the whole country. It was you who turned my life into a living hell, and I accepted the punishment imposed on me by the Almighty and you. I agreed to marry a woman for whom I feel nothing, nada! A woman to whose bed I've gone no more than three times in the three years I've been married to her, and then only so you'd have grandchildren. A woman who is of no interest to me whatsoever, with whom I've nothing to talk about, and you,
you're
not speaking to her?”