THE SEPHARDIC SISTERS


At the time of this writing, Zimbul and Bulisa have reached the enviable ages of seventy-six and seventy-eight respectively. Despite minor ailments of which they never cease to complain, the two sisters are in good shape. God forbid they should admit it and count their blessings. And blessed they were, in more ways than they could have dreamt, that September afternoon in 1938, when they sailed away from their ancestral Greek island of Rhodes then occupied by the Italians. Aaronico, their younger brother, had taken great pains to convince them to join him in Seattle, Washington, where he had established himself as a dentist. Till the very end he'd sent most of his savings to their parents, who, like a great number of Sephardic Jews, remained in Rhodes, trusting nothing would happen to them as long as they were protected by the Italians. But in 1942 the whole Sephardic community was deported to the concentration camps.
Had their lives not been disrupted, the two sisters, who were in their early thirties, probably would have found husbands. But now their benefactor brother was everything to them. They literally worshipped him. Whenever the sisters had an argument, Zimbul, the stronger-willed of the two, would scoff: 'Entikiyada' - which is a person wasting away from a consumptive disease - 'you couldn’t have taken a bit of his brains, could you?'
During the first years the spinsters remained with Aaronico in the cottage he'd bought, by the lake. While he worked at his dental practice downtown - often until late evening - they busied themselves with the household chores, errands, and cooking. They knew just enough English to do their shopping and avoid being stranded in town. The sisters took special pride in preparing the typical delicacies of Rhodes which la mamma had so lovingly taught them. Though Aaronico didn't eat much, he relished this food, and his American friends wolfed it down to the last morsel, licking their fingers. Some of them even suggested the sisters open a restaurant. 'What do you say, Zillie, and you, Billie?' They never could get the names straight. If it wasn't Zombie and Beulah, it was Zoom and Boom or Zany and Boolsie. The variations were always colorful.
'Are you sure they're ... Jewish?' Aaronico's Jewsh friends would ask as they listened to the sisters chattering away in Spañol, the Judeo-Spanish vernacular. 'They must be, they're my sisters,' the young host would reply, with a chuckle. Despite Aaronico's explanations of the origins of the Sephardics, going back to the Spanish Inquisition, his friends remained puzzled because the sisters didn't speak Yiddish.
Forcing a smile, Zimbul would mutter to her sister, 'Hamores,' which means 'bunch of mules,' and Bulisa would correct the insult with the word for 'blockheads.' adding, 'Now they'll think we're Mamelukes.'
Zimbul and Bulisa carried on their routine as it the clock had stopped in 1938. The Franco cottage became a haven that perpetuated the spirit of Rhodes, oceans and continents away, with the lingering smells of tomato fritadas , honey-soaked dulces , and sesame rusks. Gaudy oriental furnishings adorned the rooms, shielded from prying eyes and from the evil eye by heavy floral curtains. The spinsters did not neglect the occasions to quarrel; otherwise, life would have been too dreary.
This relatively happy state of affairs lasted until Aaronico announced one day: 'Keridas, my dear ones, I'm going to get married to a truly lovely girl. She's been my assistant for the past six months.'
The sisters nearly fell through the floor. What demon had suddenly taken hold of their young brother, usually so docile and level-headed? They made scenes and howled at him for a solid week. How could he have done such a thing without consulting them, his beloved hermanas ? After all, they had replaced his mother and father - may their souls rest in peace, if there'd be any more peace. No, la mamma and el papà would have been utterly distraught. And that girl Amanda (whom they'd never set eyes upon) was a gwerka ajena - a foreign she-devil. Had they deserved such punishment from the Almight?
After many tears and recriminations, the spinsters consented to meet the girl who, through this terrible misfortune, would soon be sharing the Franco name with them.
Amanda was a tall, slender blonde with brown, honey-flecked eyes. Out of regard for her sisters-in-law, she put the Wurlitzer upright piano, Aaronico's wedding gift to her, in the couple's own bedroom. To her smiles and gestures of overture, the spinsters responded with acrimonious mutterings and icy stares. They avoided meeting her eyes when they spoke to her and seldom addressed her in English.
Gradually Amanda began to recognize Spanish words here and there, especially those that were repeated most frequently, and she had the unpleasant feeling that some or these words and phrases were directed at her in a derogatory manner. Whenever the spinsters pronounced them, they would pretend they were referring to their cooking or other domestic matters.
Several months later, Amanda was pregnant and stopped assisting her husband at the office. After a few weeks at home, her nerves on edge, she finally opened up to Aaronico. He pricked his ears and consoled her as she burst out crying. Yet he guarded himself from translating the words she questioned him about. 'They're a little backward,' he said ' 'After all, darling, they didn't have the opportunity, like us. to get a proper education. Try to make allowances for their shortcomings. Give them time to appreciate you. Deep down, they're good-hearted.'
During her eighth month of pregnancy, Amanda confronted her husband again: 'You knew what those bulldogs were calling me all along, and you never dared to shut them up. 'Almendra podrida y amarga ' - i'm a rotten and bitter almond, am I? And a gwerka ajena ! Are you some kind of masochist, that you want to live with a foreign she-devil? No need to tell you what other niceties I've been showered with,' she fumed. . And then Aaronico was suddenly put up against the wall: 'Either the bulldogs leave or I do, is that clear?'
The young dentist stood aghast at the metamorphosis his wife had undergone. Regaining his composure, he admitted it wasn't very nice of Zimbul and Bulisa to treat her like that and promised he'd settle the misunderstanding. After giving the matter serious thought, he diplomatically convinced the spinsters to spend a couple of months in Montgomery, Alabama with their cousins, the Taricas. 'They’ve been insisting for years that we pay them a visit,' he pleaded.
Aaronico and Amanda had a little boy, Mark, who was born with a mischievous dimple and downy hair that changed from hues of copper to flame-red under the light's play. Amanda couldn't resist twisting his middle curl around her finger, then smoothing it down luxuriously, as if it were some exotic silk.
The bliss of her maternity was marred by the return of her sisters-in-law.
'No es asi,' Zimbul would say, snatching the milk bottle away from Amanda. 'Gimme el bebe,' Bulisa would command as Amanda started to bathe the child. When Amanda played the piano, which had been moved to the living-room during the spinsters’ absence, Zimbul would urge her to 'cut out el clatter, Markito he'll get diarrhea.' Without asking the mother's permission, they'd dress Markito and tuck him into the pram for his daily outing. His slightest ailment would be attributed to the mother's supposed lack of care. When she heard Bulisa mumble. 'Whaddaya espek from a madre desnaturada,' Amanda blew her top. The sisters- in-law gaped at the transmogrified woman. 'I've had it with you two,' she yelled. 'You're not in Rhodes here! One more of your Spañol insinuations and you can pack off. What's more, as of this second, you keep away from my baby. And that's an order!'
Bulisa, twitching her mouth in an effort to fight back tears, shifted her gaze towards Zimbul, whose moon-shaped face had suddenly become jaundiced. Then Zimbul exhaled a contemptuous 'Phew!' and motioned her sister to their bedroom.
A week after the incident, Zimbul and Bulisa moved out of their brother's house of their own accord. They stayed in a downtown hotel until Aaronico could settle them in a small but comfortable apartment near his office. Every day on his way home he would call to see how they were, and they would give him plastic containers filled with spinach or meat pies, and sponge cakes, baklavas, and coffee cookies.
'Let me know if my little angel liked what his tia cooked for him,' Bulisa would say. Zimbul, to satisfy her curiosity, would probe, without mentioning Amanda by name: 'Are things smooth at the cottage? I do hope Markito isn't catching any germs. You can't afford to be absent-minded with a child, like playing too much piano. And also. not everybody has our sense of cleanliness. Then she'd shrug her shoulders fatalistically.
The months slipped by, until one day, returning from her errands, Zimbul happened to overhear one of her sister's telephone conversations. Bulisa, who had just put down the receiver, shrieked at the sight of Zimbul. 'You gave me an awful fright,' she puffed. 'Entikiyada , you should have swallowed your tongue and choked.' Zimbul charged, before her sister could speak. 'So you've apologized to the madam, accepting an invitation behind my back... after all that gwerka has done to us!'
Bulisa sank deep into her armchair and bawled. Between stutters and hiccoughs she managed to defend her gesture. It was going to be Markito's second birthday, and she couldn't bear any longer to see him fleetingly once a week when Aaronico brought him to the apartment. Hello and bye-bye, while the child's mother waited in the car - what kind of relationship was that? Zimbul responded with another ot her peppery tirades and swore on Markito's life that she would never set foot in her brother's cottage until the gwerka cleared out. Divorces were in fashion in this country: she would wait.
For the next five days, the spinsters vied with one another, cooking tomatoes stuffed with rice and minced meat, crusty macaroni pies, matzo pies, cheese and eggplant boyos , and the inevitable array of desserts. All the while, Zimbul reiterated her opposition to Bulisa's going to Markito's birthday party. It was demeaning, she said. She herself was working so hard in the kitchen only for the sake of Markito and Aaronico. What had come over their brother, such a kind and altruistic person? The gwerka was sucking his blood and he wasn't even aware of it.
On the morning of the party, Zimbul appeared before the mirror in the entrance hall in a lace-trimmed taffeta dress that suited her olive complexion. Bulisa stared at her in amazement. 'I thought....' 'I've decided to come along,' Zimbul cut in, 'to spite the gwerka . Whose slave am anyway? I've broken my back doing all this cooking, so that you alone should get the compliments?'
Arriving at the party, Bulisa approached to embrace Amanda, eyes brimming with tears, and got a nasty nudge in the ribs. Zimbul was tight-lipped as she stiffly stretched out her hand to her brother's wife, and she enjoined Bulisa to go and sit with her on the loveseat.
'Entikiyada ,' she admonished her, 'what were those crocodile tears for? You just behave, maimona ' - monkey - or else!'
Except for the interruptions when Aaronico introduced them to his friends, the spinsters focused their entire attention on Amanda. According to Zimbul, the gwerka had gained weight, especially around the hips. She was certainly expecting a baby - those bags under her eyes were proof enough. 'Go ask her,' ZImbul ordered. Instead, Bulisa, who genuinely wished to win over Amanda, spent the remaining part of the evening helping her attend to the guests. Bulisa pretended not to see her sister's hawkish glances until Zimbul came to the table and pinched her forearm so viciously that poor Bulisa squeaked and spilled a cup of steaming coffee on her blouse. 'It serves vou right, entikiyada ,' Zimbul hissed.
The party was a reconciliation of sorts, and the spinsters were invited once a month to have lunch at the cottage. Other people were always present, so that Zimbul never had a chance to strike directly at her arch-enemy. Amanda's ply had worked, and she closed an eye to the constant bickering between her sisters-in-law. On the second weekend of the month, it was the sisters' turn to ask the family over. Not to be outdone, they too made a point of inviting some of Aaronico's friends. More than ever, the spinsters’ lives revolved around those visits. It wasn't easy for Amanda to keep a straight face when her sisters-in-law were addressed as Zombie and Beulah or Zillie and Billie. Zimbul continued to watch that bulge under Amanda's belt until she realized, with the passing years, that nothing was going to happen. 'La gwerka has dried up, ' she finally decided.
Zimbul and Bulisa haven't relinquished their favorite pastime; they continue bickering over their sister-in-law, now turning grey. In spite of some bone creaking and wheezing sighs,however, neither has yet become an entikiyada .

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Tag der Veröffentlichung: 28.12.2009

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