The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem (49 page)

Kerosene was also running out. We'll soon have to light the Primus with arak, thought Rosa. The kerosene the Mishmar Haam give out in glasses is barely enough for a pot of soup! Many families in the neighborhood had resorted to sending their children to stand by the chimney at Berman's bakery with tins to catch the dripping oil.

Life in the Ermosa house revolved around taking care of the babies and Gabriel, whose condition was worsening. His mind was as clear and sharp as it had always been, but his speech was increasingly difficult to understand. They had to bend over him and put their ear to his lips to comprehend him. And yet, though his handsome face was gray, it surprisingly did not bear a single wrinkle. Amazing, Rachelika thought. He has the face of a young man and the body of an old man, and he's not yet forty-eight.

Since he'd been called back from the front after Luna's injuries, David's life was divided between his wounded wife in the hospital, his baby daughter at his in-laws' house, and his guard duty at various posts surrounding Jerusalem. Every morning Gabriela's crying would rouse David from his restless sleep. He'd hurry over, pick her up, and tickle her tummy with his nose, and the child would smile back at him. He'd give her the bottle that Rachelika had pumped the previous evening, change her diaper, play with her a while, and then rush to the hospital to be with Luna.

At the hospital, he'd leap over the sandbags at the entrance and quickly climb the stairs to the second floor. The corridors were crowded with the wounded. Their cries, along with the weeping of relatives and the desperation of the few overworked doctors and nurses who were unable to keep up with the flow of victims arriving every hour, always broke his heart, and the awful stench of urine mixed with ointments and disinfectant made him dizzy.

“Lunika,” David whispered to her one morning. She was lying in her bed, eyes closed, hooked up to an IV and other devices which although he'd been told their function innumerable times, he still hadn't understood. She looked so small, a little, broken-winged bird, even the narrow hospital bed too big for her frame. Her face was twisted with pain, her lips, cracked. She was one big wound. He didn't dare touch her, God forbid he break her fragile body.

When she didn't respond, he put his hand under her nose, to her lips. She was breathing, thank God. This he did every morning to make sure she was alive, the way he did at night when he checked on Gabriela.

There wasn't a chair in the room, and he was afraid to sit on the bed in case he grazed her damaged body. “Lunika,” he whispered again.

“She's alive,” said the man in the next bed. “Barely, but she's alive.”

He was a boy of maybe eighteen, maybe twenty, and he was wounded from head to toe, his whole body swaddled in bandages. His face was swollen, and blood had collected on it and in his golden hair. Only his blue eyes burned with the vitality of youth.

“Where were you wounded?” David asked him.

“At Bab el-Wad,” the boy replied. “I was in a convoy that tried to break the siege when we were attacked from Beit Makhsir. Luckily they were able to get me out and brought me here in an armored vehicle. The doctors operated and saved my life, but it'll only be after they take off the bandages that we'll see what's been salvaged.” He grimaced in a short laugh.

“The main thing is you're laughing, and that's something.” David smiled.

“Well, what else can I do, cry?”

“And your parents, the family know?”

“My parents haven't been here yet. They live a long way away, in Nahariya, and the city's cut off, so there's no way they can get here and no way to inform them.”

“Is there anything I can do for you? Do you have family in Jerusalem?”

“No, all my family's in Nahariya.”

“Well, if there's anything you need, don't hesitate to ask,” David said.

“Thanks,” the young man said. “I'm Gidi, but the guys call me Ginger. I'm sorry I can't shake hands. And she,” he asked, “where was she wounded?”

“In the shelling on Agrippas Street.”

“A relative?”

“My wife, Luna. We have a six-month-old daughter. I was on the southern front when it happened. I was only told a few days after it happened and was granted permission to come to Jerusalem. I came with one of the convoys, and now I'm here looking after the baby and my wife.”

“They released you from the front?”

“I'm currently serving at the outposts around Jerusalem. I'll go back to the front when my wife's condition improves. I have to go now, I'm due on duty. If a miracle happens and she starts talking, tell her I was here. Tell her I'll be back tomorrow.”

*   *   *

Two complicated operations were needed to save my mother, and she barely survived either. My father was there when she had the first, sitting for many hours with Rachelika and Becky outside the operating room, praying for her life. He spent many days at his wife's bedside, and every other free moment he spent with me, his baby daughter. But as sixty days went by and there was no improvement in my mother's condition, he felt that if he continued living this way he'd go insane. He needed to be at the front, taking part in the war. That's what he'd done when he'd fought against the fascists in Italy, it's what he'd done when he'd fought against Rommel's army, and now he wanted to fight against Kaoukji's army. He missed the south, the jeeps, the stocking hat. He missed the battalion's Oras, raven-haired Ora and blond Ora, Ora the kibbutznik and Ora the Tel Avivan. They were always dancing attention on him and he liked to give each of them the feeling that she was the only Ora for him. He'd loved the easygoing atmosphere of his unit, the leather jackets, the goggles, the scarves, the unconditional bond. He loved telling chizbatim, tall tales, and most of all he loved being behind the wheel of the reconnaissance jeep. How he missed speeding between the hills. He'd never forget the fusillade of fire the battalion took near Negba. He'd felt that his life might be over when the jeep's tires were shot out and it came to a halt, but on the other hand, he'd had this feeling of elation. And right then, just as he'd really begun to enjoy the war, Luna had been wounded and he was sent back to Jerusalem.

*   *   *

When my mother's condition improved slightly, Rachelika decided it was time to take me for a visit to the hospital. “Perhaps if Luna sees Gabriela it will improve her mood,” she said. But to her horror, she recognized that not only wasn't my mother in the mood to see me, I wasn't in the mood to see her either. When they lay me beside her on the hospital bed I burst into tears and waved my little arms in every direction, and Luna devolved into hysterics. “Take her away, take her away,” she said. “And don't bring her anymore. A hospital's no place for children.”

It was a hard scene to witness, and my Aunt Rachelika, whom nothing in the world could break, couldn't bear it. Tears flowed from her eyes as she took me from my mother and gazed at her sister. Luna had lost weight and was as feeble as a leaf in the wind. Her beautiful hair had started falling out, and there were bald patches on her pate. She looked like one of the Holocaust survivors whose pictures frequently appeared in the newspapers.

Rachelika kissed her sister and took her leave. “You're right, Lunika, a hospital is no place for babies. We'll wait till you're strong enough to get out of bed and go down into the garden, and then I'll bring her again.”

My mother didn't answer, her spirits now so low that she didn't say a word for days on end. My father would plead with her, “Luna, say something?” but she'd remain silent. It sometimes seemed to David that she was punishing him. Only the redheaded boy in the next bed could rouse the occasional smile from her. Despite his condition, which was no less serious than hers, his spirit infected all the other patients in the ward, even Luna.

She was never alone. There was always a family member at her bedside to give her anything she needed. Rachelika, Becky, Rosa, other relatives, and neighbors all took their turn looking after Luna and taking care of me. “Chicitica miskenica,” Nona Rosa told me many years later, “how many hands you passed through!”

The war raged on. Every now and then one of the convoys managed to elude the Arab gangs lying in ambush and break through to Jerusalem. Rachelika and Becky would run down to Jaffa Road and together with “the whole of Jerusalem” would welcome the heroic soldiers with cries of joy and love, and then stand in line to receive the ration of food.

On one such occasion a surprise awaited them. From Tel Aviv Tia Allegra had sent a package containing oil, rice, flour, sugar, two tomatoes, a packet of butter, and even some sweets and bizcochos she'd baked specially. That evening the neighbors were invited for an equal portion of the goodies. That was the custom. Anyone who received a package would share it and not keep it, God forbid, all for themselves. They made a point of sharing with families with babies and sick people.

“We had a lot of tricks to invent food,” Nona Rosa explained to me many years later. “When the food ran out, your aunts, may they be healthy, would go with the neighbors to the fields behind Ohel Moshe near Sheikh Badr, where the Knesset building is now, and they'd pick hubeiza, mallows, like the Arab women. Then we'd make a fire in the yard, boil water, and add the hubeiza seeds, a little onion, salt and pepper, and we'd have a splendid soup. If there was enough flour and a drop of oil, my dear neighbor Tamar would bake bread, which was her specialty, and we'd dip it in the soup and have a feast for a king.”

Rosa did her utmost to keep the household in order, trying to stick to the traditional Spaniol dishes as much as she could, going to great lengths to make something out of nothing. She had long since stopped putting meat in the Shabbat hamin, and instead she made kubebas, bread dumplings that she spiced with salt, pepper, and herbs picked from the fields. Fortunately, the family loved her kubebas, and years later, even when they could afford meat and there was no shortage, my family continued to eat the kubebas that Nona Rosa had made during the war and the following period of austerity.

Three months had passed from the day my mother was wounded, and while her condition had improved somewhat, she was still unable to get out of bed. Most of the time she'd lie on her back, eyes closed. The redheaded boy would try to make her laugh and would just about squeeze a tired smile out of her.

“
Ahalan,
lovely lady”—he smiled at her—“I've been told you have green eyes, but I don't believe it.”

She opened her eyes.

“Oh, at long last. I've been lying here next to you for three months and this is the first time I've seen your eyes. You have such beautiful eyes, why do you keep them closed?”

She didn't answer, but deep down she took pleasure in the compliment. It was the first time since she had been wounded that somebody had gotten through to her.

As the situation in Jerusalem worsened, the number of neighbors and relatives who volunteered to sit with my mother dwindled, and the burden fell mainly on Rachelika and Becky. Nona Rosa preferred to look after the babies rather than sit with my mother, who even though she was critically wounded still scowled at her.

Between bombardments the neighbors would sit in the yard to get some fresh air, chat, and enjoy the sun after days and nights cooped up indoors.

“Heideh, querido,” Nona Rosa said to her husband, “let's go and sit outside for a while.”

“You go. I'm happy inside.”

“But querido, it's been a long time since we went outside. The sun will do you good.”

“Nothing will do me any good. What point is there in my life when I sit in the chair all day and can't even visit my daughter.”

Rosa's heart ached. She knew how much he was torturing himself for not being able to visit Luna. She decided to speak to David. Maybe he'd have an idea for getting Gabriel to the hospital.

And so my father parked an army jeep by the Ohel Moshe gate, carried Nono Gabriel to it, and sat him in the front seat. Rachelika and Becky climbed into the back, and Nona Rosa stayed behind to look after Boaz and me.

When they reached the hospital, my father carried Nono Gabriel up the stairs to my mother's ward. Carefully and gently he lowered him to the floor so he wouldn't fall. Supported by my father on one side and my Aunt Rachelika on the other, Nono Gabriel walked slowly and with measured steps to his daughter's sickbed.

“Lunika, look who's here,” Rachelika said.

Luna opened her eyes, and when she saw her father, the dam holding back everyone's tears broke. There wasn't a dry eye when the sick man bent over the bed and kissed his daughter's fevered brow, and Luna's cracked lips whispered, “I'm alive. Don't cry, Papo, I'm alive.”

*   *   *

The Arab Legion overran the Etzion Bloc and the defenders who weren't killed were taken prisoner. The Old City fell and its Jewish residents fled to the western part of the city. Arnona and Talpiot, the city's southern neighborhoods, were shelled incessantly. Kibbutz Ramat Rachel was also taken by the legion but was then retaken by the Israeli Defense Forces. There was a cease-fire in late spring, but a month later, as the figs ripened and the sabras, the prickly pears, were bursting with juice, the fighting erupted again in full force. The convoys barely made their way into besieged Jerusalem. People were starving, and infant mortality was on the rise.

One night Nona Rosa was awakened by my crying. She went to the playpen and picked me up. I had a high fever, my diaper was soaked with watery, bloody feces, and my face was contorted in pain. My wails tore at Nona Rosa's heart, and my crying woke the whole house.

“The child has a high fever,” Rachelika said. “We have to get her to Dr. Kagan and quickly.”

My father wrapped my little body in a blanket and with me in his arms ran all the way to Bikur Holim Hospital.