The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem Read Online Free Page B

old woman and soon I’ll die, and after I die, you will be the only one to miss me. My daughters, may they be healthy, will cry a bit and get on with their lives. That’s the nature of people. Time heals, people forget. But you, querida, you don’t forget, not like your mother, who has the memory of a bird. I noticed it when you were still a baby. You never shut your mouth, avlastina de la Palestina, asking questions all the time as if you wanted to inhale the whole world. Now, querida mia, I’m going to tell you about your Nona Rosa and Nono Gabriel and our family and how, from being very wealthy and living in a house with an elevator and a bath, and having the loveliest shop in Mahane Yehuda, we became horanis, poor primitives, with barely enough money to buy wine for Friday Kiddush.
    â€œEverything I know was told to me by your Nono Gabriel, who related the family history as he’d heard it from his father Raphael, may he rest in peace. After Raphael died, Gabriel promised to continue telling the family story, from the day they arrived from Toledo after King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, may their souls burn in hell, expelled the Jews from Spain to Palestine. And because Gabriel and I, for my sins, had no sons, he would tell the story over and over to Luna, Rachelika, and Becky, and make them swear to tell it to their children. But I don’t trust your mother to tell you because her head’s in the clouds and her memory, wai de mi sola , so it’s best she keeps quiet. So come, mi alma, come, bonica, sit here on your old nona’s knee and listen to Nono Gabriel’s story.”
    I did as she asked. I climbed onto her knee, burrowed into her bosom, and closed my eyes, inhaling her warm familiar scent that had the sweetness of sütlaç and rosewater. My nona toyed with my curls, rolling them around her thin finger, sighing deeply and pausing the way you do before saying something very important. Then she continued with her story as if she were telling it to herself and not to me.
    â€œAfter they expelled the Jews from Toledo, the head of the family, Senor Avraham, and his parents, brothers, and sisters traveled all the way from Toledo to the port of Saloniki and boarded a ship that brought them directly to the port of Jaffa.”
    â€œAnd your family, Nona?”
    â€œMy family, mi alma, also came from Toledo to Saloniki and stayed there for many years until my great-grandfather, may he rest in peace, came to Palestine. But I won’t tell you about my family, Gabriela, because from the day I married your grandfather and became part of the Ermosa family, the story of his family became the story of my family too.
    â€œNow listen and don’t interrupt again, because if you do, I won’t remember where I stopped and won’t know where to continue.”
    I nodded and promised not to interrupt anymore.
    â€œFrom Jaffa, Senor Avraham traveled for maybe three days, three nights until he reached Jerusalem. His dream was to kiss the stones of the Western Wall. In Jerusalem he met other Spaniols who took him to the synagogue and gave him somewhere to sleep. At the time small merchants, shopkeepers, artisans, and also goldsmiths and silversmiths who traded with the Arabs lived in the Jewish Quarter in the Old City. There was respect and good relations with the Ishmaelites, and the Spaniols wore dresses like theirs. They even spoke Arabic, and some of the Arabs even spoke Ladino.
    â€œLife was hard in this country back then—Dio santo. A woman had eight children one after the other, and they all died at birth or when they were babies.
    â€œI also had five children with your Nono Gabriel, but only my three daughters, may they have a long life, pishcado y limon , lived. The boys lived less than a month, and after Becky was born my womb closed up.
    â€œI did everything I needed to do to give Gabriel a son. Between the engagement and the wedding I and my future husband,