Raquela (4 page)

Saturday belonged to Papa's mother, Señora Vavá.

Early Shabbat morning, Raquela strode happily between Mama and Papa while Jacob and Yair sauntered ahead, up and down the myriad hills that made up Jerusalem, until they saw Mount Zion and the ramparts of the Old City.

Señora Vavá lived just outside the Old City, in the oldest quarter of new Jerusalem, Yemin Moshe. Her house was halfway up a hill of broad yellow-stone stairs, amid a cluster of gardens, olive trees, and sun-dappled stone houses topped by a white windmill.

She stood at the window, waving to the family; then she came to the door, greeted Papa and Mama and the two boys, and bent to kiss her favorite grandchild, Raquela.

Raquela, properly respectful, kissed her hand. “
Shalom, Señora
Vavá,” she said. “Señora Vavá” was the Sephardic greeting; it meant, literally, “Mrs. Grandmother,” a fitting tribute of courtesy for the elegant matriarch. Raquela, aware she was singled out, danced after her, inside the door.

The house smelled of Shabbat. The tile floors sparkled; the bright oriental carpets caught the sunlight; the burnished oak table was festive with a white lace cloth and brass candlesticks. Raquela licked her lips as she drank in the rich, varied Mideastern odors of hot
barakhas
, the little cakes her grandmother stuffed with meat or vegetables, and the special Shabbat stew Señora Vavá prepared on Friday and carried to the communal oven, a huge black cave in the side of the hill. The baker kept the oven steaming hot all Friday night, until Saturday noon. For no food could be cooked on Shabbat; the stew, its delicious medley of odors wafting through all the houses of Yemin Moshe, was uniquely Jewish, born of the proscription against doing any work on the Sabbath, the day of rest.

They seated themselves around the oak table.

“Señora Vavá Raquela asked hesitantly, putting down her spoon, “were there Arab riots when you were a little girl?”

Her grandmother looked meaningfully at Mama, who nodded. “No, Raquela, we lived peacefully together inside the Old City; many of us lived next door to one another. Even though there were different quarters—the Jewish quarter, the Armenian quarter, the Greek quarter, the Moslem quarter—it didn't matter. We played games together, running and laughing through all the quarters; we were in and out of one another's houses all day long.”

Señora Vavá smiled at her five-year-old granddaughter, who basked in the warmth of the smile. Señora Vavá was a portrait in brown: her long, full dress was a rustle of brown silk, with tiny mother-of-pearl buttons from her high collar to her waist; a richly brocaded stole of brown damask woven with gold threads draped her shoulders; and a brown silk kerchief, which she knotted in front, Sephardic style, covered her long hair, which was blond, like Raquela's.

“Inside the Old City it was peaceful,” she went on. “But outside there was danger. Gangs of Bedouins used to rob and even kill travelers coming up to Jerusalem for the holy days to pray at the Wailing Wall.”

Raquela's eyes opened wide. The Wailing Wall! Why did they always seem to be killing people who wanted to pray at the Wall?

“Señora Vavá?” Yair spoke up.

“Yes, Yair?” Señora Vavá looked at him across the table. The children knew she carried the whole story of the family in her head.

“Abdullah—he's an Arab shepherd boy I meet sometimes when I play in the boulders—he says we had all these troubles, the Arabs killed all these people, because it was their country and they were here before us. But you always say our family is here three hundred years.”

Señora Vavá looked serious. “You tell your friend Abdullah your great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather came here in the year 1650.”

“From Spain,” Jacob added. At twelve, he was the intellectual of the family, following in Papa's footsteps.

“Yes,” she said, and nodded to Jacob. “We left Spain in 1492. The same year Christopher Columbus discovered America. Then our family went to Italy, and from Italy they came to Jerusalem.”

“But Abdullah says they were here before us,” Yair persisted.

She was angry now; Raquela felt uneasy.

“What does your friend Abdullah mean, they were here before us? Abraham was here more than four thousand years ago. Thousands of years before Mohammed, who died, if I remember right, in A.D. 632.”

The family sat around the table, silent. Señora Vavá's amethyst eyes were flashing.

“You, children”—she turned from Jacob and Yair to Raquela—“you are ninth-generation Jerusalemites. You are as much a part of this land as the rocks and boulders you play on. Our family, and not only ours—hundreds of families—have been here, making this land what it is. The Land of Israel.

“Your links go back even in your names.” She looked at Jacob, her first-born grandson. “You, Jacob Mordechai, you were named not only for my husband, Jacob Mordechai, of blessed memory, but you were also named for a long line of Jacob Mordechais. All rabbis.” She repeated the words, like a litany. “All rabbis. Spiritual men. Guarding Jerusalem. Keeping it holy.” Raquela had rarely seen Señora Vavá so impassioned. Usually she was calm, serene, with a little mysterious smile around her lips. Now her lips were tight as she spoke. “One of the holiest of all the rabbis was your grandfather; may he be a good petitioner for you. He was the right arm of the chief Sephardic rabbi of the Old City. Everyone came to him. He knew each person's problems; he knew their births and their deaths, their troubles and their happiness. Only your father broke the long line of rabbis. He became a teacher.” The smile returned. “Maybe it's just as well. It's not so bad having a famous son who's head of the important Elementary School for Boys.”

Raquela felt a surge of pride. She knew Papa was special; now Señora Vavá, who carried so much in her head, confirmed it.

Mama removed the empty plates and brought out the
barakhas
. They finished the Shabbat lunch and moved to the burgundy velvet sofa and the hard-backed chairs protected with lace antimacassars.

Señora Vavá sat in her favorite chair, near the window overlooking the Old City. She called Raquela to sit on a wicker stool at her feet.

“When I was a little girl, your age”—she leaned toward Raquela—“the Old City was so crowded, the people were so poor, they lived on top of one another in little rooms like chicken coops. Then, maybe fifty years ago, the great Sir Moses Montefiore came to Jerusalem in a golden coach with his wife, Judith, and saw the misery and poverty. And an American Jew, Judah Touro, who lived in a place called New Orleans, left money for the poor of Jerusalem, and with it they built these first houses outside the Old City. Both these men were like us—Sephardic Jews.”

She looked out the window. Raquela could almost see the Montefiores riding in their golden coach through Jerusalem.

“They had to pay some of the families to move out,” Senora Vavá said ruefully. “The people were afraid to leave the Old City, where the big gates, like the Jaffa Gate, were bolted shut every night. But not your grandfather. Not Rabbi Jacob Mordechai Levy. We moved out, in 1909 twenty years ago—to this very house. And we named our whole quarter Yemin Moshe—‘the hand of Moses'—for the great Moses Montefiore.” She shut her eyes. “We gave up the protection of the Old City so our children could live better. But these riots—who would have dreamt?” Her voice trailed off.

The afternoon sun fell in golden bars on the carpet.

The Sabbath was over.

Señora Vavá bade good-bye to the family and embraced her granddaughter. “When you come, I see my childhood all over again. I see myself in you. It is good you bear my name: Raquela.”
*

In the years that followed, tensions continued to build. Hitler came to power in 1933; a trickle of German Jews arrived in the Holy Land; by 1936, seventy thousand had found refuge in Palestine.

The Arab mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin el-Husseini, went on a new rampage to halt the immigration. Husseini was the most notorious terrorist in Palestine. In the early 1920s the British had appointed him “mufti of Jerusalem,” the highest Moslem post in Palestine, reasoning that power and money would make him turn respectable, and amenable to British rule.

At first, it seemed the British had chosen well. The red-bearded, blue-eyed mufti abandoned his terrorist tactics until he was elected president of the Supreme Moslem Council. This post gave him control over the mosques, the courts, the schools, the cemeteries, and all Moslem religious funds in Palestine. Now he discarded his cloak of respectability; he used his money and power to win over the illiterate
fellahin
, and sought to terrorize not only the Jews but also the British, hoping to drive them all out of Palestine.

The mufti sent his cohorts to roam the highways and to rob trucks for more money to buy more guns. They murdered in the kibbutzim; they rioted in the towns.

The Haganah, still outlawed by the British, and unable to rely on the Mandatory Government, grew stronger. Many of the farm settlements became fortresses, like the Seminar. And the Seminar itself became the Haganah's secret training ground for the whole western slope of Jerusalem. Here, too, young men and women of eighteen, idealistic and courageous, were sworn into the Haganah.

Jacob Mordechai Levy, not yet nineteen, descended the side steps of the Seminar, into the basement. The light was dim. He could make out a long table and the shapes of three men. Someone took his hand and led him to the table, facing the men. Gradually his eyes adjusted to the darkness; at one end of the table he saw a Bible, at the other end a gun. He understood the symbolism. He was to defend the Book, the Land of the Book, and the People of the Book.

A slender, attractive young woman—whom he recognized in the shadows as a Haganah leader from the Zichron Moshe quarter—approached him.

“Jacob,” she said, “stand up.”

He rose and moved to the wall.

“Place your hand on the Bible,” she said, “and repeat after me the oath of the Haganah.”

Jacob repeated.…“I hereby swear that I will dedicate all my strength, and if necessary give my life, for the defense of my people and my homeland, for the freedom of the Land of Israel and the redemption of Zion.”

Later, at home, Jacob called the family into the living room. “From now on,” he said, “you must never ask me where I am going or where I have been. If the British or the Arabs capture me, they will surely come here and try to force information from you. They may even torture you.”

Raquela flung her arms around her brother. But no words came from her throat.

Mama and Raquela entered the bus to go shopping downtown. Raquela could hardly sit still, anticipating her Bat Mitzvah, November
2, 1936
. It was her twelfth birthday—her coming of age in the Jewish community. They were to spend the day buying her a white party dress, white pumps, and an assortment of cakes at the Patt Bakery.

The bus was crowded. Behind her she heard two women speaking Hebrew with German accents. The German Jews had added a new ingredient to the rich, polyglot Jewish population. They had brought with them, to the still-provincial Middle East, their industry, their skills, their sophistication, their European culture. Listening to the women, Raquela thought of Rafi Blumenfeld, at school. His father had been the leader of the Zionist organization in Germany and was now a power in the Jewish Agency. Going to Rafi's house was like taking a trip abroad for Raquela. The furniture was German Biedermeier, stately and elegant, unlike Mama's simple, unadorned sofa and chairs. The Blumenfelds had brought a large record collection with them, and Raquela and Rafi, both now studying violin, sat transfixed, as if they were in a Berlin living room, listening to Bach and Mozart.

“I always feel better”—one of the German women sounded fearful—“when we get past this part of Jerusalem.” Raquela caught her anxiety: fear was a contagion, riots could break out any moment, anyplace.

They were driving through Romema. On the sidewalk Arab men with long black skirts sat on little stools in front of their shops and coffeehouses, smoking hubble-bubbles. Behind them were buildings of rose limestone in which Jews and Arabs lived together. The mukhtar of Romema had made a trip to America, where he had seen people from all parts of the world living peacefully together. He had made an unwritten covenant with the Jews and Arabs of Romema that they would never attack each other.

But he was anathema to the mufti Haj Amin el-Husseini. The mufti's terrorists beat him up so badly he was unable to walk for three months.

In a few more minutes they would be out of Romema. Only an empty field lay ahead of the bus. Then they would be in the Jewish quarter.

Suddenly two Arabs in red and white checkered
keffiyehs
leaped out of nowhere across the open field. They hurtled toward the bus and aimed their rifles into the windows.

Mama pushed Raquela to the floor. A bullet crashed through the window and over their heads. One of the German-Jewish women screamed, “
Gott in Himmel!
They've hit me.”

Raquela's stomach turned over. Through the shattered window, she could hear the two Arabs cursing.

The bus swerved toward Jaffa Road.

A third Arab surfaced and hurled a hand grenade at the rear window. The bus shook crazily; people screamed. Raquela's head hit the legs of the seat in front of her, exploding with pain. Dizzy, she opened her eyes to hear the driver shout, “Look at that! The grenade ricocheted. It was supposed to kill us. It's killed him. His body is flying in all directions!”

Raquela lifted her head almost involuntarily to look through the jagged glass.

“Get down, Raquela,” Mama called. “It's still not safe.”

The driver raced on until he reached the Hadassah Hospital, on Rabbi Kook Street. The wounded were helped into the hospital. The German woman was carried on a stretcher. Raquela and Mama crossed over to the Street of the Prophets. Raquela's body shook; her knees were buckling.