The Hilltop (37 page)

Othniel didn't stop him but looked at him in earnest. “Do you think she's the Shin Bet informer?”

“What?” The idea hadn't crossed Nir's mind. He was still thinking about Gitit. “Umm . . . I don't know . . . Do you think so?”

Othniel screwed up his mouth in thought. “Listen. Elazar Freud may have been an officer in the army and may have grown up on a settlement, but big idealogues they are not. He does something in computers, he explained it to me once, Google something, searches, advertisements, truth is, I didn't understand a thing. Do you have any idea what he does?”

“I only recall that he told me once he was sick of being a teacher and traveling every day to Jerusalem. And Jenia is a math teacher, right?”

“I have no problem,” Othniel said, “with residents who came here for
the landscape and the quiet and rent—every Jewish settler is welcome. But to say I'm in shock that the evil stems from there?”

“Well, we're not sure, I don't want to . . .”

“Thanks, Nir.” Othniel placed a hand on his shoulder. “You did good. Are you willing to help me check it out? I simply want as few people as possible to know about it right now, so let's keep it between us.”

*  *  *

Hilik Yisraeli struck up a conversation with Jenia the following afternoon, on the Sheldon Mamelstein playground, while the children ran wild around them. He approached her after a seemingly coincidental clash of heads between his Boaz and her Nefesh (Hilik had lightly pushed his son into Nefesh) and joint pacifying on the part of the parents and the initiation of small talk about this and that.

Hilik glanced over his shoulder and said to Jenia, “Did you hear about the Japanese who were here yesterday?”

“
Da
, I hear Japanese here,” Jenia said. “They wanted something olive oil.”

Hilik lowered his voice. “Olive oil is just the cover story. There's talk that they're collaborating with radical elements. They spoke to Jehu. That kid could get us all into trouble. Do you know what he is up to? That guy sometimes disappears for entire days.”

Jenia appeared very interested. “Moment, Jehu . . . You think that . . . But what Japanese have to do with it? The Japanese no have olive oil?”

“There's no shortage of crazies in Japan, right? They have underground movements, lunatics of all stripes, I don't know. I understand they may be passing weapons on to Jehu.” He stroked his mustache and leaned in closer to her. “Not that it's any of my business, but we've had enough drama in the settlement. We've been under the spotlight ever since the defense minister was here. We don't need any more trouble.” He tapped his finger twice under his right eye and whispered, “An eye that sees and an ear that hears.”

When Hilik returned to Othniel's place from the playground, he apologized for his bad acting and said he was sure Jenia had seen through him and that there was no chance that she, or any self-respecting Shin Bet agent, for that matter, would fall for it. Less than twenty-four hours later,
however, the sector's company commander, Omer Levkovich, turned up to visit his friends at C.

“Well, well”—Othniel smiled at him—“who do we have to thank for this visit of yours? Something happened?”

“Just a routine visit,” the pink-cheeked captain said, and glanced around. They both knew the visit wasn't routine. Ever since the newspaper article, Omer was a rare visitor at the outpost. The settlers hadn't appreciated the hostile quotes of the “high-ranking officer.”

“Anything happen here of late? Have you come across anything suspicious?” Omer asked.

“Suspicious?” Othniel played dumb.

“An unexpected visit, anyone unfamiliar hanging around?”

“Unfamiliar?” the veteran settler wondered out loud.

Following Omer's departure, Othniel ran into Yoni outside his home. Yoni appeared anxious, and Othniel seized the opportunity to press him. It turned out that Omer had questioned Yoni at length about the Japanese, and ordered him to report in immediately if he saw them in the area again. He also told him to keep an eye on Jehu, because there was talk that he was involved with a group of right-wing extremists. To finally tighten the screw, Othniel made a call to his friend Giora, the head of Central Command, to sniff around. The Shin Bet's Jewish Division, he knew, was as slippery and elusive as an eel. His fellow settlers had tried for years to plant countermoles and find a way inside, but Othniel had learned that Giora was the go-to man when it came to matters of urgency.

This time, the first thing Giora said after his secretary transferred the call was “Othni, what's this I'm hearing about Japanese kamikazes running around over there?”

Jenia Freud was summoned to Othniel's home that same evening. Together, he and Hilik had constructed a detailed action plan, a stage-by-stage takedown of the mole, the good cop and the bad cop and all that. Jenia cracked in the first minute.

Othniel and Hilik glared intensely as the math teacher sobbed in front of them, spouting fragmented apologies and excuses.

“Jenia,” Othniel demanded, and she raised frightened eyes. “Go on
home. We'll do some thinking and figure out how to right this situation. Meanwhile, you stay quiet.”

She left the trailer in tears, her hands covering her face, and Hilik and Othniel exchanged meaningful looks.

G
abi returned to the trailer, pricked up his ears—was Roni around? The silence reassured him, but then he heard the toilet flush. He sat down in the living room and took a religious book from the shelf. He didn't look up when Roni sighed and lay down on the sofa, his bed.

For several long minutes, not a word was said between them.

Gabi thought about Uman, the trip he had forgone. The dream. How much he craved the experience, the closeness to Rabbi Nachman. Abandoned for the sake of his brother. Man is the fruit of joy, and without joy there can be no faith, but where, where's the joy? Gabi went to Jerusalem that day, thinking he could manage to find a way after all. He visited the travel agency, the bank. Realized he didn't have a hope. It was $1,265 for a basic five-day vacation package, plus a visa, plus transportation from the airport, plus food. It would cost less if it were not Rosh Hashanah, but Rabbi Nachman said, “My whole mission is Rosh Hashanah . . .”

He couldn't and also didn't want to take out a loan. He didn't want to have to work the entire year to cover the cost of the trip. He added up all he had given Roni. He was his brother, flesh of his flesh, he shouldn't think that way. He tried to read verses from the Mishnah but couldn't concentrate, rested the open book on his chest, and closed his eyes.

Roni picked up on the energy flowing from Gabi. When he chose to break the silence, the first thing he said was “I'll get you the money, don't worry. It's on the way. Shame you didn't mention that Rosh Hashanah comes early this year . . .”

Gabi, in response, reached out his palm and waited. Roni looked at him without speaking. Gabi waited. His palm remained empty of money. “If you want,” he finally said, “put four thousand shekels down
here right now. But without talking. Without saying ‘soon.' Without promising that orders are about to start coming in or that you're going off to the bank to arrange a loan or that Rosh Hashanah comes early this year.”

Roni looked at the outstretched hand.

“Put four thousand shekels down here,” Gabi said. “Now. You're always telling me that I should be doing the things I truly want to do, so here goes. That's what I truly want. Show me the money, and if you can't, get out of here. Because if I don't go to Uman over Rosh Hashanah, I won't be able to live with you in this trailer for a single day more. This is my home and you invaded it and I accepted you without a word and with love and maybe I'm not good enough, not strong enough, not loving enough, but I can't take it any longer. Either I go to Uman or you leave me be.”

Roni looked into his brother's tearful eyes, his outstretched hand, and stood up. He put on a shirt, pulled down the suitcase he had stashed on the top shelf of the closet, and began tossing his belongings inside. Without a word, he collected them from around the house, put them in the suitcase, and zipped it shut. Went into the kitchen and drank a glass of water. Gabi remained in the same position, his hand out in front of him, as if he was giving him another chance, wasn't retracting the offer. He should have told him to stop, to stay, but he couldn't. After the glass of water, Roni returned to the living room, gripped the handle of the suitcase, and started wheeling it toward the door. Not another word was said. A gust of wind slammed the door shut, shaking the trailer's slender frame.

*  *  *

There are some days when enough is enough, when the waters rise up to flood the soul, there's something in the air, something in the wind—and something, of course, in the waters and the soul. Because at the same time the waters slowly rose up in Gabi's soul; at the same time Roni headed out, wheeling a suitcase along Ma'aleh Hermesh C.'s ring road, without a clue as to where he would go; at the same time the waters collected and trickled into the soul of Shaulit, and as a result—and only as a result and in that order—the soul of Nir, leading them both a bleak
assessment concerning the future of their life together; at the same time the defense minister of the State of Israel received yet another angry call from the State Department and realized that the waters had risen up to flood his wounded, war-scarred soul.

At the very same time, the waters approached like those of a swift-flowing alpine river after a sweltering summer has melted the last year's snows, and would soon come crashing down like an ill-fated waterfall on the tender souls of Nachum, Raya, Shimshon (Shimi), and Tehila (Tili) Gotlieb. Roni was still walking down the road as an old edition of the
Washington Post
—the same infamous edition—tumbled along in the quiet twilight wind. Roni didn't notice the newspaper, but he might have heard Tili Gotlieb's cries.

“What happened? What happened?” Raya cried as her daughter and son came crashing through the door like a gust of wind in a storm. Tili opened her small mouth, which was missing two front milk teeth along its bottom jaw, gasping for air. “What happened? What happened?” Tili finally found the air and released it in the form of a long and violent sob. “What happened, Shimi? What happened to her?”

“Condi bit her,” Shimi said.

“What, where?” She picked Tili up, wiped her tears away, soothed her. “Where, show me, sweetie.” Tili pointed to her ankle. Raya raised her eyes and encountered the gaze of her husband, Nachum. Her head shook from side to side in despair. He responded with a somber stare and knew the waters had arrived.

“That's Othniel's dog,” he said to her, the implication being, Listen, there isn't going to be a state commission of inquiry into this, there isn't going to be an apology, there isn't going to be any quarantining or punishing or educating about pets, because it's the sheriff 's dog, and no one lays a hand on the hilltop sheriff.

Raya dressed the wound. Tili's sobs subsided into snivels. Shimi went off to play with blocks in a corner of the room, struggling to erect towers on the uneven floor. Talking about waters rising up. They hadn't had rain for months, but a thin and persistent stream of water from a leak in one of the pipes had made its way to the same corner, and the PVC flooring had swelled and cracked and warped into mountains and valleys. Nice
perhaps for a game with a train, but not for blocks, or for positioning a sofa or lampstand.

“She needs a shot,” Raya said to Nachum, implying, Look, this place, with all due respect, as if the fact that it's harsh and basic isn't enough, the fact that we as newcomers are on the bottom rung of the status ladder and that if we've been bitten by the dog of the man on the very top rung we have no right to complain; as if it's not enough that the work is hard and the traveling long and the people few—it doesn't even offer basic services like a clinic.

Nachum didn't respond. What could he have said?

“I want to take her to the clinic.”

“Where will you go at this time of the day?” he asked, and looked at his watch.

“I can't take it any longer, Nachum.” That was the moment the waters found their way and completed their journey to Raya's soul. “I can't take it any longer. Just give me a clinic. Give me a village administration, Nachum.”

The husband looked at his wife and daughter. His hair and beard were scruffy and dense, both cropped just beyond what could be considered short. His face was narrow and long like his body and nose, which served as a base for a thin aluminum frame—selected as suitable by Raya—that surrounded the lenses of the glasses. The optical store he was trying to establish in Ma'aleh Hermesh A. wasn't taking off. He was patient, but sometimes he wondered what for. He motioned in a manner that shifted the glasses on the bridge of his nose without actually touching them and said, “Give me rabbis. Give me a daily portion. Give me three prayer services with a minyan.”

Tili was smiling by then. Her parents looked at each other.

“Give me a grocery store. Give me a bus into town. Give me a kindergarten and a preschool and a school.”

“Give me an air conditioner. Give me stone walls. Give me hot water.”

Nachum looked out through the screen window toward the Hermesh Stream cliff face, and beyond it to the homes of the Yeshua settlement. This kind of life didn't suit everyone. They supported them wholeheartedly, their right and its realization. But from afar—at demonstrations, in
petitions, at the polls. The newspaper continued to tumble in the wind down the road along the edge of the cliff face.

“Give me a library. Women's evenings. Proper parties for the holidays.

“Give me a community center. Give me a swimming pool.