Beauty queen - is there a beauty expert?

The backyard of our house bordered three buildings, which belonged to Ben Yehuda Street in Haifa. In the building closest to us lived a family that raised a terrible boxer dog that unleashed its wrath on the whole neighborhood. The daily walks with him were mainly in the back yard which was well fenced around and were assigned to their ten year old daughter Ronit Shema. My sister's and my small room had a closed balcony but only two windows. One of them was above my bed and looked out over the yard of the Boxer, my neighbor.

The main pastime of Haifa in 1956 was party games and a lot of reading, so one day, probably bright, I was lying in bed reading when suddenly the familiar growls of the boxer who came to the yard to frolic and extract bones were heard. I stood on my knees in bed, resting my hand on the open window sill and watching. A beautiful girl, holding a leash tied to a dog and that's how I met him and Ronit who was leading him. Being already fifteen years old I had a fine discernment and expertise of beauty and I understood at once that this girl had a look that meant something. The fact that I was impatiently waiting for the dog to bark in order to observe Baroness and enjoy her beauty.

The dog runs in the yard from corner to corner. Smells, looks for something and turns his head on every rustle. He tries to take advantage of the minutes allotted to him to go wild before returning home to beat him in his corner. No animal dared to enter the yard to his restaurant, except cockroaches which did not interest him at all. His specialty was cats, who for some reason refused to socialize with him and tried for their lives when he went down to the yard for his daily walk full of energy and in an uplifted mood. In the nearby yard I notice a large white cat, walking towards the forbidden yard. The boxer who noticed him, fell silent, stood on his feet, thanking the god of dogs for finally sending him someone to play with. Ronit did not see from her place what I saw from my window and continued to turn around while watching the completion of her task of walking the dog.

The cat, who probably came from another neighborhood and didn't know all the rules here, made the mistake of his life and entered the forbidden yard. I wanted to shout, alert, warn him but for some reason I was speechless. Everything that happened happened in a few fateful seconds. The cat noticed the dog who started panting as if he was getting ready for a long run, or maybe out of joy that a playmate had finally come. The cat didn't wait to find out what thoughts were going through the dog's mind and ran amok towards the big olive tree that was in the corner of the yard nearest to me. The cat quickly began to climb the high branches feeling a sense of relief at his perfect performance. The dog, as if shot out of a cannon, jumped from his place and with a mighty leap in the air caught the cat in the middle
The race to the top.

The dog landed on the ground with the poor cat between its teeth and began to shake its head wildly left and right while slamming the cat into the ground. Ronit shouted, cried and begged but the dog did not let go of the friend who finally came to play with him. I couldn't see the end anymore and before I closed the window I still managed to see the cat lying on the side lifeless and the dog looked for another playmate who might have come along with this cat. From that incident, when I lay down to read and heard the growl of the boxer, I simply closed the window while giving up observing Ronit's beauty.

Seven years flew by and my prophecy, a childhood prophecy, came true. Ronit was chosen to be the beauty queen of Israel and a year later was chosen as the second runner-up of Miss World in a competition held in Florida. When Bagra was seen on Saturdays at the Carmel beach, dressed in a minimal swimsuit and all the company' and I stand without shame and stare in admiration. No one was surprised that she won the coveted titles.

I don't know what happened to the bitten dog and what happened to Ronit I only know from a few sentences published here and there over the years.