La Visita

By Judy Belsky¹

From the seven species, 2018-2020 courtesy of the artist, Judy Belsky

Tikir Dag on the Sea of Marmara, Turkey, February, 1914

Louna thinks of herself as the eldest. Esther and Yaakov die before she is born.
Sometimes she sees them outlined in cumulus clouds. They are forever babies.
They always fade away.

Sometimes, when her mother brushes her hair, Louna sees the babies in her mother’s eyes.
Those days, her mother makes her braids too tight. Over under, through, she plaits the past,
present and future.
Louna is the future.

********

Her grandparents invite her to visit them in Bursa, a journey of several hours by train. Her mother agrees to two Sabbaths. Louna folds herself into the pleats of a painted fan. She waits for the story to begin.

***

As they travel, her uncle shows her pictures of the newly built train station in Istanbul with its indoor gardens, and terraces down to the Golden Horn:

Turkey will be the bridge to Europe and Asia. We will live in an electric world.
The silk mill will be obsolete.

Louna shuts her book over her finger and holds tight to the spot. Bridges do not beckon her, electric worlds fail to enchant her. She wants to decipher the blueprint to her grandparents’ world.

Louna wonders: Will my grandmother love me as much as I love her?

Her grandmother places her hands over Louna’s head and blesses her. Mi alma, Mi vida/ My soul, my life. Her touch is so light Louna is never sure whether her hands caress her head or the air just above it. Louna’s head feels different as if it leaves its usual borders to receive a blessing.

*****

Nona’s skin is almond toned with pink underneath, like two sides of a blossom. Louna is as tall as her grandmother, but when she must settle in a strange bed her throat feels as crowded as the teeming train station with motion pulling from opposite directions. Her grandmother lies down next to her, she puts her hand on Louna’s quilt. Surprise overtakes Louna’s tears.

She hears her grandmother say the nighttime prayer Hear O Israel. She tries to recite each word directly after hers, like a small child running to keep up. Somewhere between you shall love and with all your heart she is asleep.

In the lavender scented chamber above the sweet cave of sun-dried sheets, Louna’s dreams come out to play with her Nona’s.

Later, later, she will discover she is her Nona’s dream.

******

The rise and fall of her grandfather’s voice awakens her just before dawn: May the pleasantness of my Lord, our God be upon us.

Nona has already made fresh ground coffee and warm almond milk laced with honey.

May the pleasantness of my Lord, our God be upon us,
and the work of our hands may He establish for us.

Pink satin billows against the eastern sky. Papu walks to synagogue.

By the time the sun pulls itself over the horizon, he has finished morning prayers, donated charity for a poor bride, studied Maimonides’ Thirteen Principles, and recited the day’s psalms.

His work at the silk mill is wedged between two bookends: Morning prayers and Afternoon prayers.

******

Grandmother and Louna sing morning hymns together. Louna finds no visible seam between Nona’s work and Nona’s prayer.

Exalt the Living G-d
Stretch dough thinner 
Than you thought you could
There is no unity like His Oneness
    But not until transparent
He has no form or body
    Press out circles
    With a water glass
His Holiness has no measure
    Place heaping spoon full
His flow of prophecy
At the center of every circle

Master to every creature
    Crimp edges
    Some will escape
To his treasured people
None like Moses will rise again
    Bake until high and golden
His clear vision
    In the perfect pan
He will never change
His laws for all eternity
    Permit the contents to grow
    Against tension of sides
Our innermost secrets
    Test with tines of fork
He perceives the outcome
At the beginning
He will revive the dead
    Awaken the children
In abundant kindness
    Sing together
    Serve together
Blessed forever
His name

*******

In the courtyard, kittens tumble over their mother. The one Louna chooses has black rings around his eyes, a diamond shaped patch at his chest and white boots. She names him Court Jester.

Wisteria and jasmine cover the walls of the courtyard like floral carpets. Grapevines provide a lacy awning overhead. Spearmint, parsley and basil cascade over tall earthenware pots. Pomegranates, lemons, and oranges beg Louna to pick them.

Grandfather tends rows of crisp cucumbers and small round squashHe teaches her to stake plants whose fruit outweighs its vines. He teaches her to notice things. Tomato leaves smell as good as tomatoes. Tight buds open into flowers, flowers unfurl fruit.

Louna pulls the ripe bounty from the damp aromatic earth. She tilts her head to the sun, shuts her eyes and sends up her garden prayer:

Maravillas del mundo
Wonders of the world
Senor del Mundo
Thank You, Master of the World
who creates the fruit of the trees

****

Silence sits on her grandmother like a tiara. Her grandmother acts precisely,

but without words. Louna imagines the text: As they knead Sabbath bread, they say, consecrate a small piece for a blessing:

This is the way to pray and feed your children in one fistful of time

Louna learns to toast almonds and pumpkin seeds, to use her sense of smell, to discern when they are toasted, not burnt. To judge when loaves are golden.

Timing is in your hands

And when they prepare cheese turnovers and stuffed grape leaves and Baklava in honor of Sabbath:

To feed them and teach them honor is the same task.

******

Mondays, a laundress washes and wrings out clothes. Louna helps her hang them in the sun. With rose-scented salve, Nona’s fingers press recovery into Sarika’s chafed hands. Sarika blesses Louna’s grandmother.

Every day, the house and everyone in it float under a canopy of blessings.

The day’s work is done. The kitchen is filled with silence and aroma: meat, rose jam, sesame candy glazed in honey.

On the old kitchen sofa, its brown leather smoothed to suede, Nona settles herself at one end, Louna at the other. Nona spreads a velvet patchwork quilt over them. To keep awake, Louna names stitches: Feather stitch, Blanket stitch, Lazy daisy. She drifts off.

******

More than two Sabbaths have passed. Letters are exchanged. Louna is to stay another week and another.

Nona traces Louna’s feet on brown paper. A week later she has her first high-heeled slippers. They are black painted with pink roses. Now she tap-taps around the house to the same rhythm as her Nona.

******

In the magic of the silk mill, limp strands transform into cloth. Louna notices a fine-twined weave everywhere.

Her Papu shows her a room filled with woodcuts. Designs dance on the wall: flowers and vines, birds and trees, fruit and seas, paisley and sky. Workers dip into dye and imprint the cloth.

Louna chooses patterns for shawls. For her mother, grape vines. For her sister, blossoms, some closed tight, some open. For herself, a small bird in flight above the trees.

*****

Late afternoons, Louna plays the oud. Her grandmother accompanies her with black lacquer castanets and a tambourine inlaid with mother of pearl. Louna sings Arboles/Trees. Nona applauds as softly as rain on a mossy courtyard. One day her Nona dances while Luna plays. As she dances, she becomes younger, younger until they are both girls.

******

Nona works a Sabbath tablecloth for Louna’s mother. The silks are gold, silver and blue. To form the center of flowers she embroiders French knots. After each stitch she gives a tug to secure the silk to the cloth. With each stitch, Louna is anchored to her Nona like a small boat tied to a larger one.

I will not float away, Louna promises. I will not play hide-and-seek in clouds.

Nona adds to Louna’s dowry linens: tea towels, a tablecloth embroidered with peacocks, pillowcases edged with knitted lace.

Nona makes multi-colored threads fly. Only the needles speak in clicking tongues. Finished pieces will wait for years in a wooden chest until Louna’s wedding day.

Louna imagines sleeping on those pillowcases. Will she dream of roses? Will the vines reach back into the earth? Will the roots spread back to Istanbul? Back to her grandmother’s garden? Back to her grandmother’s hands?

Nona works on something white but, whenever Louna enters the room, she hides it in her worktable.

*****

Sabbath

From the synagogue, fragments of Sabbath music filter into the house

Come my beloved friend
to meet the bride

****

Nona dresses in Sabbath clothes. Louna thinks she looks like a queen, or like the Mothers Sarah, Rebecca or Rachel. Or like the Woman of Valor in the Sabbath prayer: Fine linen and purple are her clothing.

She wears a silk entari robe striped in silver, strength and splendor are her garments.
She wears a folded sash at her waist, she girds herself with might.
Her long gold kolana chain at her neck, greater than pearls is her worth
And on her head a silver and blue tokada, come in peace Crown of her husband come with happiness. A fringed paisley shawl, and spread over us the shelter of peace.

She encircles the Sabbath lamps three times and in their golden light
she blesses Louna:
novia que te veamos
May we see you as a bride

Louna’s chest tightens
Where her heart pounds against its door:
Novia que me vean
May you see me as a bride, she says

.

Bless the one who blesses!
Her Nona’s laugh rings like small silver bells over the gate.

*****

One day, they bake cookies. Suddenly, her grandmother says: You can take these home to surprise your mother.

For seven Sabbaths, Louna’s longing for home stays submerged in a dark, cool cellar. Now she brings it up to daylight.

She folds her yearning into smaller and smaller squares. Like a letter from a loved one concealed inside her hand, but Nona leans over, reaches into her longing, and raises it like a banner.

They choose gifts for Louna to take home: velvet vests and reed flutes, pottery whistles and wooden hoops they wrap in yards and yards of silk for Louna’s mother.

******

When it is time for Louna to leave, Nona loosens the silver tassels of a tapestry pouch. Inside is a white satin cap embroidered with delicate seed pearls couched in silver thread. Long lacy ribbons dangle from its ends.

Louna will study the elegant stitches. She will recognize ones she has mastered. She will learn new ones. She will discover her Nona’s pattern.

She will remember the little tug at the end of each stitch, how her grandmother keeps her and how she lets her go.

The cap holds in memory.

She will remember how her head inclines toward her grandmother’s outstretched hand. How her head feels when Nona’s hands hover over it.

The cap holds in the music to her identity, her Nona’s silent script, and the text Louna writes to accompany it.

The cap holds in the blessings they recite together before bed, their voices blending:

To my right Michael
To my left Gavriel
Behind me Refael
Before me Uriel
And over my head
Shehinat El, The Presence of God.

 

---

1 Judy Belsky is a writer, artist and clinical psychologist. She lives in Israel. She has published a memoir and several volumes of poetry. One of her main themes is her Sephardic background in Seattle, Washington. A second memoir in progress is entitled The Passover Scarf. She writes that "La Visita is based on a visit made by my then young aunt to her grandparents. The silk mill existed. The dialogue, setting, and relationships are imagined."