The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem (57 page)

She lay next to him in silence. Her body had just been defiled by her husband, a stranger to her as if he were not the father of her daughter. She hadn't wanted to have sex with him, but she knew that just as she took Gabriela to school, just as she did laundry, washed dishes, cooked lunch and dinner, she had to have sex with her husband. She got out of bed, went into the kitchen, and washed her thighs with a wet towel as she had in the past. She wasn't hurting, she wasn't grieving, she had no regrets. She didn't even feel she was betraying Gidi. She didn't feel a thing.

The next day when they met in their hotel room, Luna told him. She didn't want secrets and lies to come between them. She wanted her relationship with Gidi to be as pure and clean as the way they made love. To her surprise, he held her tightly to his chest and told her, “It's all right, my lovely. Just don't tell me again, okay?”

She nodded and never told him about other times. If he was jealous, he showed no trace of it. He just didn't want to hear and didn't want to know.

Luna wanted to explain that this way, the way that she and he made love, was the only way she liked it: a kiss, a touch, a caress, a word, a look, accelerated heartbeats, the feel of his lips on her body, his skin against hers, her soul in his. How she wanted to tell him that she didn't need his penis inside her the way her husband did it. She didn't like it that way at all. She wanted to swear on her life and his that this was the whole truth, but Luna knew Gidi like she knew herself. She knew he agonized over losing potency, and she knew that anything she might say would hurt him even more. I'll go on loving him, she decided. I'll love him till I die, like no woman in the world has ever loved a man, and with the power of my love he'll overcome the pain. She vowed to protect Gidi, look after him, make him feel like a man, because for her he was a man among men.

Nine months after she had sex with David, Ronny was born, named after Aharon, David's father. When she'd discovered she was pregnant, Luna had wept. She hadn't known how Gidi would take the news. But to her amazement, he'd kissed her belly and congratulated her, and she'd hugged him, snuggling up to him as if he could shield her from the whole world.

 

10

A
FTER MY MOTHER DIED,
I escaped to gloomy London, far away from Rachelika and Becky's endless fussing and my uncontrollable anger at my father. At first I fled just to Tel Aviv, but it turned out Tel Aviv wasn't far enough. I had to move to a place where I wouldn't get a daily phone call from Rachelika or Becky, a place where Father wouldn't turn up on surprise visits. If it had been up to me, I'd have gotten on a plane and vanished without saying good-bye. But even I didn't dare do things like that in our family.

When my mother died, I didn't mourn, I didn't cry, I didn't hurt, but I was angry. I was terribly angry with my mother, who'd left me before I could make peace with her, and with my father, who before even a year had passed had already brought his Hungarian lover Vera and her children into the house. The woman who almost caused my mother to divorce my father was now sleeping in my mother's bed and cooking in my mother's kitchen and watering my mother's plants on the roof.

But I didn't wait for Vera to move in with my father to flee to Tel Aviv. Even before my discharge from the army I'd rented a room in Amnon's big apartment on Motzkin Boulevard behind the Dizengoff Street police station, which he'd inherited from his grandmother. He was my only friend in Tel Aviv. I settled into the little room, with its bed, table, and closet, and hardly went to Jerusalem. I even spent the Passover Seder with Amnon and a few other refugees from their families. We called it an “orphans' Seder.” Everyone there had their own reasons for not being with their family. I told my father and aunts that I was on duty at my army base, but the truth was that I couldn't bear a Seder without my mother. I couldn't imagine a Seder without the annual competition between the three Ermosa sisters—which one of them made the best haroseth. My mother had now dropped out of the race, and I knew it wouldn't be interesting without her.

After my discharge from the army I moved from job to job. I was a waitress and got fired. I was a go-go dancer at Tiffany's, the discotheque under the Dan Hotel. I was an extra in the crowd scene in
Blaumilch Canal,
which was shot at Herzliya Studios, and the secretary of an aging film producer who had tried to feel me up every chance he got. And I did all this with one aim in mind: to save enough money to get the fuck out of Israel and go to London, the center of the world, the city of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, of Pink Floyd and Cat Stevens and Marianne Faithfull, Sex and Drugs and Rock 'n' Roll and “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.” Each time I accumulated a decent sum of money, I'd run to the travel agency on Frishman Street and deposit my savings in an account with the agent so I could eventually buy the ticket.

When I began thinking about my daily rush from one nonbinding job to another, I realized I was in constant flux. Fleeing for my life from everything I'd known, from everyone who knew me, fleeing to forget my old world and adapt to a new one: a world without a mother, with a father so incapable of being alone for one second that he was already bringing a new woman into our home, with aunts whose grief was so oppressive that it made me want to scream, and with a young brother I'd left to cope on his own. But what could I have done? I couldn't have soothed Ronny's pain as well. I couldn't have allayed the pain of Rachelika and Becky, who had begged me not to go back to Tel Aviv after my discharge.

“We haven't yet parted from your mother and you're already going,” Becky wept.

“My mother's dead,” I said every time anyone mentioned her. “I'm not dead, I'm only going away. It's not the end of the world.”

My father didn't ask me to stay. He hugged me and slipped some money into my pocket, to start off with, and made me promise to ask for help if I needed it.

Regardless of Vera, I didn't want to live in Jerusalem. Ever since I was a little girl and we'd visited Nona Mercada and Tia Allegra on Rothschild Boulevard in Tel Aviv, I'd decided that just as soon as I was my own woman I'd live in Tel Aviv. I said as much to my father, I tried to explain it to him, but he wasn't prepared to listen. He was hurt and didn't come see me.

Rachelika and Becky brought Ronny to Tel Aviv to visit, along with pots overflowing with food, baskets full of vegetables they'd lugged all the way from Jerusalem as if there wasn't a market in Tel Aviv, and borekas and bizcochos they'd baked specially for me. From the moment she stepped inside, Rachelika took over and started cleaning. Becky put the pots in the fridge and made a fresh salad, and only when they were sure I had enough food for a month and sat down with me and heard that I had a job and friends and ascertained that I wasn't lonely, miskenica, and that there was somebody who'd share the food they'd cooked for me, they went back to Jerusalem, not before each had surreptitiously shoved some money into my hand without her sister seeing how much, and made me swear that if I was short, God forbid, I wouldn't be ashamed to ask.

“First you come to us,” Rachelika said, “so you don't have to ask a stranger, God forbid. We're your first call, remember that.”

We stood at the door and they showered me with hugs and kisses so I shouldn't go short if by chance, God forbid, I wasn't kissed or hugged until the next time we got together. And just before I closed the door and they were already in the hallway, Rachelika came back and whispered in my ear, “My Gabriela, isn't it time you made peace with your father? Do you know how sad he is because of you? He's not sleeping.”

“He's sleeping very well,” Becky burst out from behind her. “He's sleeping with his Hungarian woman in my sister Luna's bed and isn't ashamed of himself.”

“Basta!” Rachelika said. “Don't add ammunition to the fire. David's a man, that's how it is with men, they get on with their life.”

“As far as I'm concerned, Gabriela, you can carry on not speaking to him for the rest of your life,” Becky said. “I don't speak to him either. He should be ashamed of himself!”

“Aunt Rachelika,” I asked my kind and always considerate aunt, “aren't you angry with my father for bringing that woman into my mother's home?”

“Of course I'm angry with him, but what's to be done? Your mother isn't coming home, your father needs a new wife, and perhaps Ronny needs a new mother.”

“A new mother!” Becky exploded. “Just listen to yourself! What, Ronny's a baby? He's grown up already, he'll be in the army soon. And he has you and me, thank God. He doesn't need a new mother.”

“He needs a father who's a good man,” I said quietly, “who doesn't bring his Hungarian whore into our home.”

“Shhh, sweetie, don't curse,” Rachelika said.

“There's no other word for the Hungarian,” Becky interjected, “just that one! I hope she gets … Every time I think of David, I get mad. How isn't he ashamed of himself, how could he do something like this to Luna?”

“Don't let me start saying things I'll regret,” Rachelika said softly.

“It really is best you don't open your mouth, sister. I hope for your sake that Luna isn't watching you right now.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked them, confused. What wouldn't my mother want to hear? What bad word would Rachelika have to say about my mother, her beloved sister, especially now, after her death, when both of them had elevated her to sainthood?

“Nothing, my sister's just chattering,” said Becky. “Ignore what she's saying, it's all from grief. And you, Gabriela, sweetie, look after yourself and call, and remember, whatever you need, anything, we're here for you. Remember, Gabriela, if anything happens, God forbid, the first thing you do is call us.”

*   *   *

I got on with my life. Work, parties, drugs, sex. If my aunts had known the tiniest bit about my lifestyle, if my father had known—but they didn't. I didn't stay in touch with my father, and when I called my aunts once a week as I'd promised, I told them what they wanted to hear: that everything was fine.

One day when I was sitting with Amnon and some friends in the apartment rolling joints, the doorbell rang.

Amnon went to the door and peered through the peephole. “Cops!” he yelled in panic.

All at once we started getting rid of the suspicious paraphernalia. Some we flushed down the toilet and some we threw into the yard. All our friends hopped over the ground-floor balcony and took off through the backyard, leaving Amnon and me to deal with our visitors.

When I opened the door and saw the cop standing before me, I burst into hysterical laughter. Uncle Moise in his policeman's uniform had come to visit with Father. I almost choked as I invited them in, ignoring Amnon's stunned expression as he fled to his room and locked the door.

“What's so funny?” Uncle Moise asked as he followed Father into the messy living room.

“No hello for your father?” my father asked. “No kiss?”

I brushed a kiss onto his cheek.

“Are you still angry?” he asked.

“I don't want to get into that,” I said and moved away from him, avoiding his outstretched arms.

“That's not nice, Gabriela,” Uncle Moise said.

“So now you've brought help?” I said to my father in an icy tone. “You can't deal with me on your own?”

“No, Gabriela, I can't deal with you on my own anymore. I don't know you. My girl got lost and I can't find her. You're a stranger I don't know.”

“If I'm a stranger, then what are you doing here?”

“I really don't know. Come on, Moise, let's go,” my father said and turned to leave.

“Hold on a minute,” Moise stopped him and turned to her. “You're throwing your own father out?”

“I'm not throwing anyone out. If he wants to go, he can go.”

“Your father swallowed his pride and came all the way from Jerusalem to see you,” Moise rebuked me. “He's missed you. Tell her, David, tell her. Don't be ashamed.”

“I'm not ashamed,” my father said. “There's no shame in a father missing his daughter. I don't sleep because of you,” he continued painfully. “I know you're angry with me, Gabriela, but please, before you interrupt, listen to what I have to say.”

“I don't want to hear it,” I raised my voice. “I don't want to hear anything.”

“I've come all the way from Jerusalem to talk to you, and whether you like it or not you'll hear me out!”

“No! No!” I put my hands over my ears. “I don't want to hear it, leave me alone!” I was on the verge of hysteria. “Go back to your Hungarian girlfriend!”

My father looked shocked and helpless. “I'm going,” he said. “Just calm down, I'm going.”

I started crying, and my father took my hands from my ears and despite my resistance held me in his arms. His familiar smell filled my nostrils as his strong arms encircled me. I lay my head in the hollow between his neck and shoulder, the place I loved so much, and for a moment I felt as I had when I was a little girl and he'd protect me from the whole world, from my mother's rage.

“Pretend you're crying,” he'd say with a wink when he was supposed to be punishing me, and afterward he'd sing me a lullaby. I needed him to sing to me now. I wanted to fall asleep and wake up to find my mother alive, as angry with me as ever, fighting with my father as always, sitting at her dressing table and applying lipstick to her heart-shaped, puckered lips, smoothing her dress over her fabulous figure, and click-clacking on her heels to Café Atara. Her death was no more than a bad dream and now I was waking up in my father's arms. But it wasn't a dream, because he was crying with me.

Even as I shouted about his relationship with Vera and my mother's humiliation, my father continued clasping me to him, not letting go when I tried to free myself from his grip.