The Hilltop (24 page)

A
few days later, in the evening, Gabi's phone rang. “Gavriel Nehushtan, hello,” he answered. The name Gavriel still managed to bring a smile to Roni's face. “It's for you,” Gabi said. Roni's smile turned into a frown.

An hour later, Roni walked into the neighboring trailer of the Yisraeli family. Nehama made him tea with mint leaves and offered cookies. Hilik gestured toward a chair and Roni sat down.

“I don't understand why you invited me over,” he said to Hilik, Othniel, and Jean-Marc Hirschson, who sat across from him on the sofa. “What is this, an Absorption Committee rerun?” He smiled, cookie crumbs clinging to his teeth. He was hoping deep down that they had
changed their decision regarding the new trailer and were now going to offer it to him instead of the Gotlieb family.

“Look, Roni,” Hilik began, his eyes focused on a point slightly above Roni's head as he scratched his forehead with his fingernail, close to his skullcap. Othniel looked him straight in the eye, while Jean-Marc appeared transfixed by the alligator on his pink Lacoste shirt. “Let's get straight to it. We know that you won't be able to confirm or elaborate on all we have to say to you now, but we invited you here nevertheless because we feel it's important to tell you that we know.”

“Know what?” Roni asked.

“Hang on, let me finish. Where was I?”

“We feel it's important to tell him that we know,” Jean-Marc said without taking his eyes off Roni.

“Yes, we simply want you to know that we know. Do as you see fit with this information, tell or don't tell your handlers, it's your decision entirely.” Roni fixed Hilik with a stupefied gaze. “Now look here, I want to say another thing. We appreciate you guys. Very much. You do a very tough and blessed job, day and night, in order to maintain the security of the country, including in the settlements, the Jewish Division and all that. I mean, the monitoring is a little over-the-top, after all, and as strange as this may sound to you, we are not sitting on the hilltops and plotting the murder of prime ministers or Arabs. But we won't deny the existence of undesirable elements, bad seeds. Let's just call them guys who, in the name of positive goals, get caught up in negative actions, sometimes as provocation, sometimes not entirely through any fault of their own, but we won't get into that now.” Othniel nodded. “So we understand the importance, and the need, for people inside the settlements who relay information.”

Hilik paused and took a sip of his instant coffee. Shneor called to his mother from his room. Roni cast a bemused look over the three men who sat across from him. He opened his mouth to speak, but Hilik cut in. “Look,” he said, “the story with the Gotlieb family. We realize you were offended. We understand that you wanted to move in there temporarily.”

“Ah, never mind. It's dead and buried,” Roni said.

“It causes problems, you see,” Hilik continued, disregarding Roni's
remark. “There was a waiting list, and we prefer young families, religious ones, people we can count on for the long run . . .” He looked at his fellow sofa occupants and then turned again to Roni. “We're simply saying, okay, your work is important, do what you have to do, but if possible, at this point in time, hold off for just a little, allow us to get organized. It's not like we've been planning a terror attack! A trailer arrived, we moved a family in, that's it. No reason to run out and announce it to the world.”

Roni pointed a finger at himself in astonishment, as if to say, You mean me? Are you saying I was the one who let on? Who would I have inform—

“Anyway,” Othniel broke into his thoughts, “good luck, I mean it. You know, Roni, that you're a welcome guest here with us, with your brother whom we love very much, and we wholeheartedly invite you to remain here under our roofs for as long as you want, okay? But when the time is right, let's coordinate our positions, okay?” Othniel tapped his nose with his finger.

“We know you can't say yes or no or admit to anything,” Jean-Marc went on. “But we're simply saying that we know, and if you can, be considerate. That's all.”

The three settlers sipped from their mugs. Jean-Marc bit into a cookie. “Mmmm . . . apricot.”

Roni gathered that the meeting was over and stood to leave. “Okay, I'll be off then, yes? Unless there's something else?”

Othniel stood and placed a broad hand on Roni's shoulder. “We're done, buddy, off you go. Good night, and regards to Gavriel. And Hilik”—Othniel turned to his friend—“perhaps you really should get Roni to help you with your doctorate on the kibbutzim?”

“I'd love to,” Hilik responded. “I'm sure I'll have more time after Nehama gives birth.”

With the suspect gone, the three exchanged looks in silence.

Roni decided to go for a short walk along the ring road. There was a chill in the night air, but the wind had dropped somewhat and he managed to light a cigarette using his hands as cover. Along the way, he was surprised by his brother, who was beginning the night shift. “What's up, bro?” Gabi asked.

“Everything's cool.”

“What did they want?”

“Oh, nothing, really . . . I don't know. Truthfully, I didn't understand, exactly.”

“Okay, tell me later. I'm heading in to read some teachings. I've been waiting to do this all day.”

Amused, Roni looked at the book in his brother's hand. “Go for it. Have a blast, bro.”

*  *  *

A few days later, Ariel called. Roni was still in his underwear in bed, his legs raised. Gabi sat across from him, his face buried in one of Rabbi Nachman's books, his tongue whispering, his eyes aglow, entirely oblivious to any outside disturbance. Roni noticed the bare furrows forming under his brother's broad skullcap, the inevitable beginning of baldness. He ran anxious fingers through his hair, but all was well. It still grew thick, dense and bushy, dark, and at a length that by then justified a quick visit to the barber, had he been living in a normal place, that is. Ariel had spoken to an expert on millstones. He was having second thoughts. He had sent Roni a link by e-mail and told him to take a look.

Roni went over to the old laptop in the kitchen. “The Internet connection here alone is going to break me and send me back to the real Israel,” he said to Ariel. While waiting to connect, to the screeching sound of the dial-up modem, the power went out. Lacking a battery in working order as backup, the computer shut down. “Enough already! Enough! I've had enough! I'm sick of this dirty asshole of a place! How can anyone live like this? Fucking hell!” The power returned moments later, and Roni restarted the computer. It rattled and hesitated, went black, lit up, and displayed the Windows logo on a sky-blue background, played the opening tune. A full three to four minutes went by before it had warmed up and booted up and was ready for operation. Roni again clicked on the Internet connection button, and again waited to the sounds of the dial tone and then the engaged signal, the dial tone and then the engaged signal, until the connection attempt was finally snapped up into the shrieking and whistling and rising and falling jaws of the Internet. He opened the e-mail program, which appeared, too, to be in no hurry to
go anywhere, and found the desired message and clicked the link that opened the Internet browser, at a snail's pace, until he finally reached the promised land.

His eyes clouded over.

“Are you kidding me?” he asked Ariel, who had been waiting on the line all this time. “I thought we'd settled that issue by now.”

“The quality of the oil from millstones is inferior to that from modern presses with centrifuges. My expert says no one uses them these days for good reason. They're dirty, you need more people to operate them, they get moldy, and the oil acquires a more acidic taste, an unpleasant aftertaste, it goes bad. He says the Arabs are fixed in their ways, they don't spray against the olive fruit fly—”

“Of course they don't spray! It's organic! Ariel, forget about the pretentious Tel Aviv experts! Despite all their fancy explanations, Musa's oil tastes way better than the lot of them, and precisely because of everything that has touched on those stones over the years. Do you truly believe that anyone gives a damn about centrifuges when tasting olive oil? Who cares? Bring them a flavorful, cheap oil, tell them it's organic, made in the traditional way, tried and tested through the ages. It'll sell like hotcakes.”

Silence at the other end of the line.

“What's your problem with the deal with Musa?” Roni asked.

“I don't want to do anything illegal.”

“Just a moment,” Roni said. He threw on a pair of shorts and a T-shirt, slipped his feet into his flip-flops, went out, and walked to the playground, sat down on a bench. A handful of children were still swinging and sliding before darkness fell.

“We're not breaking any law,” he whispered into the mouthpiece. “We're doing business.” He felt a tremor of déjà vu down his spine. Someone had said the very same words to him not too long ago. “That's what's so great about the territories,” he continued. “There are no rules, you can make them up as you go along. It's so cheap here, it's another country. The Chinese produce for the Americans, but many people don't realize that the territories can produce for Israel. The genius of simplicity.”

“You want to label it extra-virgin without receiving the Olive Board's stamp of approval.”

“Everyone does it. Didn't you read about it in
Yedioth Ahronoth
? So we won't mention the Olive Board. We'll simply label it extra-virgin. You know what, we'll write it in English only.” He removed his sunglasses to gaze at Gitit Assis's long, black hair as she pushed her brother Shuv-el on the swings. Talk about extra-virgin, he thought.

“Did you find a boutique that will buy from us in cash?”

“Are you sure you don't want to do this properly, with books and all?”

The sunset was in its full glory, accompanied by a strengthening wind. Roni scratched behind his ear. “I don't want to get involved with the tax and VAT authorities until we're certain that the business is going somewhere. It's not breaking the law, it's a running-in period, until we find our footing and know if it's worth the effort. What do you want, to get started with all the red tape, and to set up a company, and register, and begin paying taxes to those shits before we've seen a single shekel?”

Silence on the other end of the line.

“Jesus Christ! Lighten up.”

“I don't know, Roni. I need to think about it.”

“What's to think about? Come visit again. First of all, there's a check waiting here for you—my share, which you rightly requested. Besides, you need to loosen up a little, you know. It isn't so scary the second time, you'll see. Five minutes with the desert spread out before you and you'll be talking differently. You're so, so, soooo tight-assed down there.”

“And what if we don't find a boutique who wants to sell it? What if they find out that it's oil pressed by some Arab and his donkey?”

“That's no way to speak about Roni and Musa's Oil. Put a drop on their tongues and then let's see what the centrifuges do for them. Tried and tested for five thousand years, nothing beats millstones!” The last sentence, said in a higher tone, caused Shaulit Rivlin to look up from little Zvuli's baby carriage. Roni smiled and waved at her; she smiled in return and resumed her singing to the infant. “Ariel, you're wearing me out, man. As they say in Spanish,
muqa-muqa
, one thing at a time. Come visit, let's discuss it when we're chilled. Then you can go to the boutiques. I'd like to see the boutique that doesn't take it at this price.”

“You know what? Maybe. I'll see when I can come by.”

Roni chuckled. “I knew this place had grabbed you, you settler boy,
you!” He hung up and thought, It hasn't grabbed me. He was still bristling from the power outage and slow Internet service, and he wanted a haircut and a Diet Coke in a glass bottle and a cigarette and cashew nuts. But where would he get them now? How did people live like this?

E
vening settled on the hilltop. Cars passed through the gate and guard post—drivers returning from their daily routines, attending classes and teaching and visits to the hardware store in the city. They waved to the smiling Yoni, pulled up outside their homes, and retrieved their shopping bags from the backseat. The wind picked up when the light faded, in perfect harmony. At this time of the year, the wind can be a real nuisance, rattling the trailers, the swing sets in Mamelstein Playground, the Donald Duck in Gabi's yard, passing under the floors, through the hole where a window once was in the now-torn-up chassis of a Peugeot 104, rocking the traffic sign near the synagogue, flapping the plastic sheeting of Othniel's mushroom greenhouse. The wind carried the lonely, angry barks of Beilin and Condi and the cries of the hungry or tired or hurting infants. The wind smacked against Roni's flesh—he had stepped outside in a T-shirt to take a call—and it caught Gitit's beautiful hair. It blew up grains of sand and dust, formed small whirlwinds in the distance, swirled clouds in the sky, and sometimes carried a few errant drops of wet rain.

Mothers and big sisters played with the little ones and read stories and began bathing them, together or one by one. The men tossed their newspapers on armchairs and sat down for a while, hugged whichever child chose to jump on them, drank a cup of tea. Those who performed manual labor washed off the day's troubles and dirt. Others lifted their fingers from their keyboards and rubbed their eyes.

On the way to evening service at the synagogue, they hugged their prayer books and themselves, stooped but determined. Some attended the late-afternoon service before the sun went down, and then went out
for a cigarette break on the wooden bench newly arrived from Jerusalem, made inquiries about the bulldozers, and verified gossip. They raised their voices and lowered their heads against the wind, patted down their skullcaps and hurried back inside, and when the final prayer service for the day ended, they returned home to join their wives and children.