The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem (24 page)

With the help of her cane she got up and walked through the door. And he, who had been brought up on his mother's miracles and all the healing properties of the livianos, felt that she had brought him back to life.

And now the talk with Rabbi Pardess had shaken the serenity with which he had been filled since his mother had healed him. A great fear gripped his heart, a profound concern for Luna's future, and most terrible of all, doubts about her character. Did he really not know his daughter? And who knew what else she did that he didn't know about. Had he failed so badly with her upbringing? Where had the
draga de siete cavezas,
the seven-headed dragon, learned to lie?

Gabriel walked the length of King George to Terra Sancta and cut across toward Azza Street until he came to Café Rehavia, a place he'd sometimes go to escape, far away from everything familiar. He sat in the café for a long time, sipping a cup of strong black coffee, staring through the window at the passersby, trying to arrange his thoughts and feelings. Perhaps better not to tell a soul, not even his mother, about his daughter's doings. He didn't want her to be labeled a liar, a street child. He had to protect her good name, or she would never find a husband from a good family and things would get out of control. He stood up, paid the waiter, and started the long walk back to Ohel Moshe, determined to keep a close eye on Luna, to make sure he knew where she was every minute of the day. And for the first time since she was born, he decided to punish her.

When the family gathered for dinner that evening, Gabriel glanced around the table at his daughters. “Come here,” he said to Rachelika, who immediately obeyed and stood beside him. He kissed her forehead and praised her for her outstanding performance at school. From the corner of his eye he saw the jealousy burning in Luna's eyes. She couldn't stand her father paying attention to anyone else, not even to her sister. Then he called upon Becky and sat her on his knee. “And you too, chicitica, are outstanding, so well done!” he said and kissed her.

After Rachelika and Becky had kissed the back of his hand in turn and returned to their places, there was a tense silence. Everyone was expecting Gabriel to ask Luna to come to him so he could praise her studies. But he said nothing. Becky, who could no longer restrain herself, asked, “And Luna? What did Rabbi Pardess say about her?” And Gabriel, ignoring Becky's question, said in a voice as cold as ice, “The food is getting cold. Rosa, put it on the table.”

Without a word Rosa placed the pot of couscous on the table, and beside it, one containing peas and meat in tomato sauce. As she picked up the ladle to serve the food, Gabriel caught her wrist.

“Basta,” he said, “let Luna serve it.” Rosa's arm froze in midair. “Heideh, Luna, what are you waiting for? My talk with Rabbi Pardess gave me an appetite,” he said without looking at his daughter.

Luna's face reddened. Her father had never spoken to her in such a tone, had never before shown her up like this. But what hurt her most was the knowledge that she had disappointed him, that she had shamed him before the school principal. She realized that Rabbi Pardess had told her father about her absences from school. How could she have thought that she would get away with it? She had implicated her father, tarnished his honor, and if there was one thing more important to her father than all else, it was honor.

Her hand shook as she ladled the couscous onto the plates. Dinner was eaten in silence except for the clink of forks on plates. Luna didn't touch her food, and unusually for him, Gabriel didn't try and persuade her to eat.

When they finished, Rosa and the girls hastened to clear the table, but Gabriel stopped them. “Leave it. Starting today, only Luna clears the table and only Luna washes the dishes. If she's not learning anything in school, she can at least learn something at home.”

Every day for seven days, at every meal, Luna laid the table, served the food, cleared the table, washed the dishes, and returned them to their place in the cupboard. Rosa could barely contain her pleasure. Gabriel had chosen not to tell her about his talk with Rabbi Pardess and said only one thing to her: “Not a word about what's happening in this house with Luna gets out. You will not speak about it, not with Miriam, my brother Shmuel's wife, not with my sister Clara, not with your neighbor Tamar, not with the other neighbors, and not even with yourself.” And Rosa, for whom her husband's word was law, kept silent.

For the whole week Luna seemed like a shadow of herself. She went to school in the morning, sat in class for every lesson, and didn't even go outside during recess. She was prepared to take any punishment, wash the dishes, scrub the floor, fold laundry, and even the worst punishment of all, not leave the house, but she couldn't bear her father's silence. It hurt her as if he'd beaten her with a stick. Rachelika, whose heart went out to her sister, tried to talk to her, but Luna withdrew into herself.

“What have you done for Father to punish you like this? It can't be because you're a bad student.”

Luna remained silent. She was ashamed to tell even her beloved sister Rachelika why her father was punishing her.

“Luna, why are you being so stubborn? Don't be an
azno
, a mule. What have you done to make Papo so angry with you? Did you steal something?”

“Shut up, stupid! You yourself have stolen!” she said and chased after Rachelika, grabbing her by her black hair and tugging it hard.

“Ay-ay-ay!” Rachelika yelled. “Let go of my hair!”

But Luna wouldn't. She pulled her hair, almost tearing out a handful. Pulling her sister's hair made her feel powerful. Every time Luna fought with her sisters, she pulled their hair, and she did the same when she sought to show affection. Even the neighbors' children got this treatment from her. Everybody knew about her craze for pulling hair.

Rachelika's screams brought Rosa out of the kitchen. She grabbed hold of Luna's thin body and dragged her away in an effort to separate her two daughters. But Luna yelled and resisted and lost all control of herself until she fell to the ground and started crying.

For a long time Luna stayed on the floor, hugging her knees and weeping. I'll never have the strength that this child demands, Rosa thought as she covered her ears, amazed at the degree to which she had hardened herself to her daughter's suffering. She didn't know what Luna had done to make Gabriel punish her like this, what had made him bring the girl to tears, but she didn't ask him. He'd tell her if he wanted to.

*   *   *

Stubborn as a mule, Luna, she hasn't even asked my forgiveness, Gabriel thought as he tended to the shop. She had looked him straight in the eye without remorse at the dinner table. At least she wasn't weak like her mother. Still, he saw how she stole glances at him when he was talking to Rachelika or Becky. He saw how she bit her upper lip when he talked to Rachelika about articles in the newspaper. She couldn't hide her pain from him. Hija de un mamzer, how much character this girl has!

He had to put an end to this tension. It was killing him. But how could he, the father, humiliate himself before his daughter? Why didn't the
draga de siete cabezas
come to him and beg forgiveness? In another moment he'd break and clasp her to him and kiss her forehead, and in the end he'd ask for her pardon.

The year 1940 was almost over. For six months of the year he had been more dead than alive. The shop had certainly suffered. Gabriel was in no doubt that there had been some financial skulduggery going on while he was durmiendo. How couldn't there have been? Not that he was accusing his brother of stealing, God forbid, but Matzliach could hardly add two and two, so how could he keep the books? And even if, God forbid, his brother had his fingers in the till, he didn't want to know. He couldn't bear any more disappointment.

When he went back to the shop after his mother cured him, the stock wasn't fresh, and they were short of Turkish delight, halvah, Aleppo pistachios, and tea. The Arab women had stopped bringing cheese from the village because Matzliach hadn't paid them on time. They were short of pickled cucumbers, smoked fish, olive oil, olives. Right away Gabriel buckled down and got back into the swing of things. He didn't want to go to Tel Aviv because he feared he might see the woman who walked arm in arm with the Englishman—he couldn't even utter her name. So instead he sent Avramino to Chaim Saragusti on Levinsky Street. He made a list of everything they needed, and even though Avramino couldn't read, Gabriel knew that Chaim Saragusti could, and he trusted his old friend to fill his order and send it to Jerusalem.

Soon enough the shop, thank God, was restored to its former state and was again filled with customers. On more than one occasion the thought flashed through his mind that perhaps Luna had been right and that it wouldn't have been so bad to take her out of school so she could help him in the shop. But he'd dismiss the idea right away. The world was becoming increasingly modern, and he wasn't prepared for his daughter to be an ignoramus like her mother. She needed to have an education.

He himself regretted that he had attended only a Talmud Torah religious school. He felt that he could have been someone important, maybe a doctor at Bikur Holim Hospital or a lawyer, or perhaps—and this was his secret dream—a Haganah commander. He would have wanted to be a confidant of Ben-Gurion, to work with Eliyahu Golomb, the leader of the Jewish defense effort. These men were the salt of the earth!

If he'd had an education, he certainly wouldn't have been a shopkeeper content to talk about mundane matters with Franz the fat newspaper seller. He would have conversed with dignitaries on matters of paramount importance, people like David Yellin, who, following the murder of his son in the riots at the beginning of the year, together with his wife Ita returned the medal of honor they had been awarded by the English bastards. How he admired Yellin, who'd said, “I consider this medal of honor to be a medal of dishonor.” Ach, what people we have in this country, and here I am, stuck in the shop all day with Matzliach the troncho and Avramino the boor.

The thoughts didn't stop running through his mind, drilling away until his head was ready to burst. Gabriel took off his apron and walked through the market toward Jaffa Road. The heady smells of the market filled his nostrils, but instead of pleasing him they only intensified his headache. He arrived at the newsstand, and as he had done every day before his illness, bought a copy of
Haaretz
.

“And how are you today?” the fat newspaper seller asked his favorite customer.

“Thank God, blessed be He,” the favorite customer replied as he scanned the front page.

“See what those bastards did? They wouldn't let the boat dock,” Franz said, and Gabriel's eyes lit on the headline announcing that a large ship with many immigrants on board had been turned away.

“Sons of bitches,” Gabriel hissed. “They're sending those poor people to Beirut. They do whatever they want, the bastards.”

Gabriel returned to the shop. He despised the British more every day. He couldn't stand their haughty presence as they walked through the market in groups in their pressed uniforms, as if they were the lords of the land. Some had come to Palestine from remote villages, simple country boys who'd shoveled cow shit in their English villages, and here in Palestine they behaved as if each of them was the son of the king of England.

But how long could this situation continue? There was a war in Europe, Nazi Germany had invaded Poland, and yet in Palestine it was business as usual. How long will we go on burying our heads in the sand? he wondered. It's lucky there are people volunteering to fight the Germans, just as it's lucky there are people trying to drive the British out of Palestine.

No, he didn't mean those Stern bandits, but the good people of the Haganah. He knew that half the people in Ohel Moshe supported the Etzel and Stern's Lehi underground organizations, but there was another half, people like him, who supported the more moderate Haganah. He didn't believe in an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. He believed in words.

*   *   *

A letter from America had finally arrived. Rosa couldn't contain herself and ran to the shop so that Gabriel could read it for her. Nissim, who went by Nick in America, wrote that he's doing very well in the “shmattes business,” and thank God, because his eldest son will soon be married and his family is growing. And how is everybody in Jerusalem? he wanted to know. How is her husband Gabriel and how are her daughters? How is Ephraim and what is he up to these days? Is he working in Gabriel's shop or has he opened one of his own? And following the letter a big package will be coming by sea with clothes for her from his factory, so she'll see how well he's doing, and clothes for the girls and her husband, may he be healthy, and also for Ephraim who was a little boy when Nissim fled to America, and now he's a man and surely has a wife and children.

Rosa's heart lurched. It had been two years since the British police took her to the Russian Compound for questioning, and she hadn't heard a word from Ephraim. She didn't have anybody to talk to about him. Gabriel had only to hear his name and he'd get angry. He didn't like the Lehi. When they'd tried to kill Morton, a British CID officer, on Yael Street in Tel Aviv and instead killed Schiff, a Jewish police officer, Gabriel was so incensed that she covered her ears to protect herself from his virulent words. “They're killing Jews as well, they have no limits! They should all be thrown into Acre Jail, all of them! They're not Jews, these people. Jews don't behave like that!”

If only she could see Ephraim just once, to hear that everything's all right. There were rumors that Yitzhako, Sara Laniado's son from Sukkat Shalom, was also with Stern's people. Perhaps his mother knew something.

That afternoon she went to Senora Laniado's house and knocked on the door.