The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem (35 page)

“I'm worried about Rachelika. That's why I didn't enjoy the film at all.”

As they did every evening, they'd gone to see a film, this one starring Hedy Lamarr, and now they were on their way to have coffee at Café Atara before he took her home.

“What's the matter with Rachelika?” David said indifferently.

“Two kalaniot brought her home during curfew yesterday.”

“Rachelika? Kalaniot?” She had finally caught his attention.

“They picked her up outside during curfew.”

“They should go to hell, them and their curfew. Did they bring her home in one piece? Is she all right?”

“You don't understand, David,” she whispered. “It's much more complicated than that. I'm going to tell you something, but swear you won't tell anyone.”

“I swear!”

“She was putting up Etzel posters, but thank God she was able to dispose of them just before the kalaniot picked her up. I don't even want to think what would have happened if they'd caught her red-handed.”

“Rachelika's in the Etzel? Well, I'll be damned. Who'd have believed it?”

“Believe it, believe it. She was in the Haganah at first and now she's in the Etzel. We have to get her out of the mess she's in. We have to find her a boy, one of your friends from the British army.”

“Lunika, Rachelika isn't for any of my friends. How can I put it gently? It won't work.”

“Why not?” she asked angrily. “Rachelika's not picky and she's pure gold. She's got brains like my father.”

“Lunika, my lovely, brains like your father isn't enough for any of my friends to want to go out with her.”

“Why not?”

“Don't get angry, mi alma, but your sister isn't exactly Greta Garbo.”

“What nonsense you're talking, David! My sister's better looking than all the girls your friends go out with. She has a beautiful soul and that's more important than anything else!”

“Bonica, you know it's not more important than anything else. Otherwise you wouldn't be wearing this dress that drives me crazy. Lunika, if anybody knows that beauty is everything, it's you.”

On most occasions she would have blushed at the compliment, but not this time. This time she got angry. He took her hand and she pulled it away.

“Lunika, what did I say? Do you know what beauties my friends had in Italy?”

“Like you had?”

“There were as many girls as we wanted, one more beautiful than the next…”

“And was there a particularly beautiful one?”

“Did I say a particularly beautiful one? There were beautiful girls there,” he said, smoothly evading her question. “It was long before I met you. You know that all my friends are jealous because I've caught the most beautiful girl in Jerusalem.”

Luna put her hand back into his. He had softened her with his flattery. She was lucky to have found the handsome man of her dreams. She was happy, but her concern for Rachelika gnawed at her happiness. Tears welled in her eyes.

David noticed the cloud that hung over her delicate face and an idea came to him. “Maybe we should introduce her to Moise,” he said. “Our Moise isn't all that particular about good looks anyway.”

*   *   *

Luna didn't find it easy to persuade Rachelika to meet Moise. “Am I such a good-for-nothing that I need a matchmaker?” Rachelika grumbled.

“It's not as if his father is sitting with Papo and deciding for you and setting the terms. It's David and me introducing you to his friend. You like him—fine. You don't like him—that's fine too.”

“I don't like being set up with boys like this. It embarrasses me.”

“It embarrasses me that instead of meeting boys you're getting into trouble with the British police. Enough, don't be an azno, what can happen? At worst you'll have a coffee together, and if you don't like him, you say good-bye nicely and never see him again.”

“I don't know, Luna. It's a headache. It stresses me out. I don't want to!”

“Then what about a foursome? What if David and I go out with you?”

“That'd be better,” Rachelika said. “Fine. I'll go.”

Later that week, the four of them went to Orion to see
Children of Paradise
and afterward to Café Zichel. Unlike David, Moise was a shy man with little experience with women, but Rachelika found that despite the fact that he didn't talk much, he was polite and courteous, and so at the end of the evening when he suggested they meet again, she agreed.

And just as Luna hoped, from the moment that Rachelika started going out with Moise, she ceased her Etzel activities. When Moshe Alalouf demanded an explanation, she told him her father was sick and she had to get home right after school to look after him. When he tried to press her, she evaded him, rebuffing his pleas to talk.

Not long after they started going out, Rachelika brought Moise home and introduced him to her father. “Papo, I'd like you to meet my boyfriend Moise.”

Gabriel raised his face to the big dark-skinned man facing him, and his eyes met large brown ones. Later he'd tell Rachelika that he'd never seen so much kindness in someone's eyes.

“It's an honor to meet you, sir,” Moise said and held out his hand.

That evening Moise joined them at the dinner table. Gabriel was overjoyed on seeing his good manners, and Rosa was equally overjoyed with Rachelika's happiness. At long last, dear God, at long last you've put a smile on the child's face. At long last she's getting something good, gracias el Dio.

Luna, who felt like the matchmaker in chief, didn't stop prattling and telling over and over how she had made up her mind to find a boy for Rachelika and how her delightful David had chosen his best friend for her. Of course she didn't mention the conversation that had taken place before David suggested Moise. She was happy for her sister, who almost from the start had confided that their relationship was serious.

After dinner, Gabriel sat down in his usual chair, turned on the Zenith radio, and took a cigarette from his silver case. Moise swiftly lit it for him and sat beside him.

“Senor Ermosa,” he said in his deep, pleasant voice, “with your permission I would like to have a few words with you.”

“My pleasure,” Gabriel replied.

“I know, Senor, that I am new to you, but Rachelika and I have known each other for several weeks and I have the greatest respect for her,” Moise said in his beautifully accented Hebrew. Gabriel's curiosity was aroused. Was he going to ask for his daughter's hand? Should he consent? After all, this was the first time he'd met the boy. What did he know about him except that he had good manners?

“In one of our talks, Senor,” Moise went on, “Rachelika told me that you want her to stop studying and take charge of your shop.”

“There's no choice.” Gabriel sighed. “I'm not what I used to be and I need her to run the shop in my place. She's the only one I can trust.”

“Senor, I don't want to interfere in other people's business, and I hope you don't see this as such, but with your permission I'd like to make a suggestion. Rachelika continues with her studies and I help her in the shop.”

“Help her in the shop?” Gabriel didn't even try to conceal his amazement. “First of all, I can't afford to pay you, and second, I don't know who you are, young man, I don't know your family, and I don't know what your intentions are regarding my daughter.”

“My intentions are good and serious, Senor Ermosa. And with regard to payment, you need not worry. I'll work without pay until we get the shop back on its feet, until there's money in the till. And regarding Rachelika,” he went on, “we're only just starting to get to know each other, but in a few months' time, if Senor Ermosa gives us his blessing, with God's help we shall stand under the wedding canopy.”

“No time soon,” Gabriel muttered, but he was pleased with the young man's answer.

“Senor Ermosa,” Moise said, “my father is from the Maghreb, a Maghrebi, but my mother is one of yours and I'm half-and-half. I look like a Maghrebi, but I speak Ladino like a pure Sephardi, my mother insisted on it, and I know enough so that no one can cheat me in Ladino.”

“That's very good,” Gabriel said, “especially if you want to work in the shop. We have a lot of Ladino-speaking customers, and it's also important you understand what the staff are talking about among themselves.”

“I promise you, Senor Ermosa,” the excited Moise said, “I promise you that Rachelika and I together will turn the shop around! I give you my word!”

I hope so, Gabriel prayed. I hope that Rachelika and Moise succeed. But as much as he was impressed by the young man and as much as he believed in his daughter, he doubted they would be able to do anything. How could they cope with the stupidity of Matzliach and with old Avramino, who couldn't even lift a sack, but he, Gabriel, didn't have the heart to let him go and take on a young man in his place? How could these two pure souls stand up to that brute Mordoch? God almighty, how could Rachelika and Moise deal with the Kurdish snake with all his smooth talk, the razor-sharp words that dripped from his lips like honey? Cursed was the day he met the Kurd and succumbed to his sweet talk and agreed to be his partner in the halvah factory. How had that bastard pushed him out of the factory without him even noticing? Why hadn't he listened to his brother Matzliach, who for the first time in his life had tried to give him sound advice: “He's not one of us, Gabriel,” Matzliach had said. “How will you get along with him? He thinks black and you think white; he thinks day and you think night.”

“Don't worry, Matzliach,” he'd told his brother. “An apple tree can't threaten a fig tree.” What he hadn't taken into account was that the apple was rotten, and if it fell near the fig tree, it too would rot.

One day Mordoch the Kurd had come to Gabriel and said, “Gabriel, we have to close the factory.”

“Close it? Why?”

“
Halas
, it's seen enough,” the Kurd said. “We're losing money. We're deep in debt. We have to close it down and repay the debts.”

And so it was. Gabriel's head wasn't firmly on his shoulders at the time. He was already feeling unwell and his mind had suffered for it. Otherwise, how could he explain that without asking for any documents and without looking into it, he gave Mordoch his consent and Mordoch sold the factory to another Kurd?

“Where's my share?” Gabriel had asked, and Mordoch, without batting an eyelid, replied, “What share? There isn't a grush left. With all the money I got for the factory, and that was about a quarter of what it's worth, I paid off the debts.”

Gabriel was stricken and defeated and sick and didn't ask for any proof. In a strange way he'd been glad to be rid of the Kurd and the halvah factory, which were like a chain around his neck. He'd hoped he'd never see Mordoch again, but the Kurd hadn't disappeared from his life. On the contrary, he'd stuck to him like a leech and continued coming by the shop and the King George apartment, talking business as if Gabriel hadn't known the Amalek had cheated him.

And then he lost the King George apartment too. He hadn't had enough money to pay the rent, and so with a heavy heart he'd told his wife and daughters to pack up their belongings. They were going back to the old house in Ohel Moshe.

The girls, especially Luna and Becky, tried to protest, but one look from him stopped them in their tracks. Normally he would have sat down with the girls and gently explained the situation to them, but times weren't normal. He had lost his money; he was losing his health and strength, and more to the point, his renowned patience. Rosa didn't say a word, but he knew that inside she was happy. She'd never felt at home in the big King George Street building, and only his good Rachelika, only she with her kind expression, gave him the sense that he was doing the right thing.

Before deciding to move his family back to Ohel Moshe, he'd endured many sleepless nights. He understood that it meant admitting to neighbors and relatives that his financial situation was as bad as could be. He thought about his mother Mercada, what she'd have to say about her good-for-nothing son who instead of taking one step up had taken ten down.

But when she'd heard the news, his mother fully believed that her son was still paying the heavy price for his father's death. Even though at the end of the livianos treatment she had blessed him and made her peace with him, deep in her heart that stubborn old woman would never find room for true forgiveness.

And now they'd been back in Ohel Moshe for ten months, and as he'd expected, things had not gone back to what they were. The neighbors had not forgotten Matilda Franco's death. His borracho brother-in-law had sullied the family name forever. All that was left for Gabriel was to shut himself up within his four walls and sit in this chair. The constant contact he'd had with scores of people in Jerusalem had been reduced to contact with just his close family. Mashallah, even so, we're fighters, thank God, he thought. And if that's how it has to be, then so be it.

He was tired and his head was reeling. Tomorrow,
ras bin eini
, he'd get up out of the chair and go to the shop, even if he had to have Moise carry him. He'd go to the shop and sit by the door so that all the market merchants, all the shoppers, could see that Gabriel Ermosa was still alive and kicking.

Apparently Mordoch had been walking around the shop like a
khanzir,
a pig, sniffing here, sniffing there, asking questions, taking bags full of goodies without paying, as if the shop belonged to
him
. Well let's see the Kurd, the big hero when faced with Rachelika, let's see him now when I show up.

*   *   *

“Selichot, selichot.” In the dead of night, the voice of the synagogue beadle called the people to prayer before Yom Kippur. Rosa went over to Gabriel's bed, touched his arm lightly, and whispered, “Gabriel querido, it's time for selichot. Are you getting up?” He groaned in his sleep and didn't answer. She shook him gently and whispered again, “Gabriel, the beadle's called selichot three times already. Aren't you getting up, querido?”