The Hilltop (39 page)

She nodded. “Of course, of course.”

“I'll be letting everyone know now,” Othniel summed up. “I've been in this business long enough. Those bastards know how to latch onto and attract weak elements, how to confuse and get things out of people without them even realizing what they're saying. We'll let you off the hook this time, Jenia. This time.” He turned to fix Elazar with a stern look. “Take her home and explain it to her. Next time, we won't be so forgiving. It's your responsibility, man. Take charge of her.”

Jenia shot an anxious look at her husband. “
Chto eto
, ‘let you off the hook'?” she asked in an effort to understand. Elazar trembled. His Adam's apple turned circles. He lowered his eyes. “Yes, of course, Othni, trust me, you have nothing to worry about.” He took hold of his wife's arm and gently prompted her onto her feet. “Thanks, Othni.” He nudged her toward the door. Elazar clearly wanted out of Othniel's trailer before the latter changed his mind.

The revelation sent shock waves through the outpost's residents. Gavriel Nehushtan bore the hurt of everyone, and Neta Hirschson fumed with rage, and Yakir felt a touch of compassion for the tall woman who had been sinisterly manipulated, and Jehu disappeared again for several days. Elazar Freud, so consumed with panic and shock, did absolutely nothing for days, couldn't look his wife in the eyes. But after she tearfully but determinedly tried to get him to explain to her what was going to happen, he fell into her arms and sobbed, without saying a word.

*  *  *

Nachum Gotlieb knew that the Ki Teitzei Torah portion, read recently, dealt with going to war and not with going from slavery to freedom or from one place to another, but during those hot days, with the year coming to an end, he couldn't help but think of Ki Teitzei as a sign, a directive from above, that it was exactly what he and Raya and Shimi and Tili their children should do—go. After making the decision, they informed Rachel Assis, began the formal process of closing down the optical store in Ma'aleh Hermesh A., let the tenants in their apartment in Shilo know that they'd be returning, reserved places for the children at kindergarten, and so forth. Nachum and Raya felt a huge weight lift off their shoulders, and they began filling their Nissan with belongings to transport load by load back to their previous lives.

*  *  *

Yakir, too, got going—away from Second Life, with no intention of ever returning, but he continued to mull over the stormy events he'd experienced there, their significance and implications. His sister Gitit began to depart from her innocence with the generous assistance of Yoni, delving blindly into a new and intriguing darkness, discovering fresh and wondrous
feelings and emotions. Shaulit Rivlin, depressed by the bleak mood at home, despondent over her husband's insensitivity and selfishness, also pondered setting out on a new path. Not to mention the outpost of Ma'aleh Hermesh C. itself, its people, its crops, and its structures . . . it was becoming increasingly likely that it, too, would be departing, or cleared out, at the very least, in the wake of moderate yet consistent pressure from the secretary of state and the United States ambassador, who would probably end up breaking the strong back of the defense minister.

*  *  *

Meanwhile, after departing from Gavriel's house, Roni had walked and wheeled the large suitcase alongside him, turning things over in his head. Maybe he'd look for somewhere on the hilltop to crash for the night. Like his brother's almost completed but not yet occupied cabin? Spread a blanket in the Mamelstein playground? Lay his head down on the unkempt woolly coat of Sasson's camel cow? Perhaps he'd simply leave altogether and head to the plains, where he hadn't been for years, and where there were colorful lights and densely packed buildings, filled with people?

No and no and no and no and no—those were the answers. He walked on and turned southward off the ring road, crossed through Othniel Assis's fields, and went down to the terraces and up through Musa Ibrahim's olive trees. His friend. His business partner. He was going to put his trust in him and ask if he could stay with him. And screw Gabi and his settler friends who weren't capable of living in peace with their neighbors. As far as he was concerned, he didn't mind even sleeping in the olive press, near the olives and the large millstones, wrapped in the fragrance of oil. Why not? If this is his new life, if this is the source of his income from now, he should live as a true worker of the land, who feels the earth and its fruits.

He knocked on Musa's door. His wife opened the door, looked in surprise at the suitcase, said “Hi, Roni,” and ushered him in and served up Turkish coffee with cardamom. Musa will be here soon, she promised. Roni sat in the humble living room, wanting to feel more at home there than at his brother's. It's just a matter of time, he assured himself. And anyway, this isn't his new home, the olive press is.

Musa arrived. Roni stood up and smiled. They shook hands. Musa looked at Roni's large suitcase, and then looked up at him with smiling eyes. “The first rains are coming soon,” Roni said, “aren't they? You feel it in your bones? You can already see the clouds. You can see they want to, right?”

“Sit, Roni, sit,” Musa said. “You got coffee?”

“I got.”

“Yes, the rain comes soon. Soon the olives. The whole village is waiting.”

“We are waiting, too, Musa, we are, too. I want to be in the thick of it already. To harvest, to work, to make the oil.”

Musa gazed at him. Roni gazed back.

After a few moments of silence, Roni asked, “What?”

And Musa said, “Has no one spoken to you?”

“Spoken to me about what?”

T
he Defense Minister's Bureau. The session of the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee had ended, and they were now meeting in a more restricted forum, and briefly—or so at least they hoped—the minister; Malka, his adviser on settlement affairs; Giora, head of Central Command; and Avram, head of the Shin Bet's Counter-Subversion Department. The director-general of the Defense Ministry had notified them that he'd be there in seven minutes.

“Yes, Malka,” the defense minister said. His eyes were red from lack of sleep, his nerves shattered from the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee meeting, where, as usual, they had come at him from all directions—a Palestinian inadvertently killed in Nablus, a breach in a stretch of fence along the border with Lebanon, barriers torn down on Hebron's Shuhada Street, the acquisition of computer systems for tanks, the sale of computer systems for Chinese submarines, a demand to pave a stretch of road in the territories, opposition to the paving of a stretch of road in the
territories, the suspension of work on the separation fence, revelations concerning abuse at an officers' training course . . . there wasn't a single decision made by his ministry or incident that had occurred that would fail to give cause to someone on the committee to attack him, berate him, sully him in rivers of slime and muck and contempt, and the minister would be forced to explain, and justify, and go on the defensive.

“What are we discussing?” He picked out two pretzels from the bowl on the table in front of him; he always ate them in pairs.

“Approval for the laying of Route 991.” Giora stood and elaborated on the map. Avram tapped uneasily on the table with a box of cigarettes. The discussion dragged on. Giora outlined the strategic significance of the road. Malka gave a briefing on the political pressure for and against the road. The minister was well aware of Malka's opinion, and knew by then how to relate to his briefings and alleged objectivity. He had even developed a mathematical system for calculating and understanding what truly lay behind his assistant's position, by determining an average between what Malka said and the opinion of the ministry's director-general and the decision of the head of the Finance Ministry's Budgets Department. Regarding the road, everyone was actually of the same opinion.

From time to time, his aide informed him of an incoming call or a visit. The minister was hungry, and earlier, on the way from the committee meeting to the office, he had a little accident in the bathroom and wet his pants when his stream of urine split into two, and he didn't notice it until he felt the wetness.

“Okay, bring me the documents for signature,” he ruled with lowered eyelids. He knew he'd come in for a lot of criticism for the road. He knew he'd get calls from Ambassador Milton White and from the secretary of state and from the leader of the opposition and from representatives of the left-wing parties on the committee the following week, not to mention Army Radio, the UN, and the peace movements. Well, let them fly off the handle. Let them call. One's got to move ahead in life. “Anything else for this forum?” he asked his aide while signing the paperwork.

“Yes, something small, actually. Just came in.”

All eyes turned to Malka. “What?” the minister asked.

“The Japanese ambassador has submitted an official complaint about that story with the Japanese anti-Muslim underground sect that's passing on weapons to radical Jewish elements in the territories.”

The defense minister's eyes widened. “The sect that . . . What was that? A complaint about what?” He turned to look at the head of the Shin Bet's Jewish Division, who appeared to be trying to bury himself in his cigarette box. “I don't understand. Will someone explain to me what is going on?” the minister demanded. Malka reached out to drag the bowl of pretzels a little closer and fished out two, in a perfect impression of his boss.

“Forget it, it's a ridiculous story,” Avram said, fruitlessly trying to evade the issue.

“What do you mean, ridiculous? I have a complaint from Japan here on the table. Do you realize who we're dealing with here?” the minister said. Curious now, too. “Get the director-general,” he said.

“Some Japanese company is getting involved in the territories in an olive oil project. They've closed deals with Palestinian growers throughout the West Bank. They're setting up a large olive press near Ramallah with their own equipment, a state-of-the-art—”

“Ah, Matsumata,” the defense minister said. And to the surprised eyes that stared at him, he responded, “I read about it in the
Marker
. With the support of the EU and JICA, tax breaks and all that.” He knew more than that, of course. Pressure from Japan had played a part in the suspension, for now, of construction work on the separation fence along that route; something that few knew about, aside from the prime minister, the defense minister, and the director of the Fence Administration. Perhaps Malka, too.

The minister glanced at his aide skeptically, feigning innocence. “So why are they complaining?”

Avram exchanged a look with Giora and sighed. “Someone played a prank. On one of their visits, the Japanese ended up at one of the outposts in error. And someone at that outpost spread a rumor . . .”

“Which outpost?”

Malka swallowed hard. Avram lowered his gaze. “Ma'aleh Hermesh C.,” he said.

The defense minister stopped chewing his pretzel. Malka feared the minister was choking and extended a glass of water. The minister's eyes were steely and red. He swallowed, sipped from the glass, and, seemingly at ease, he focused for several seconds on a random point on the other side of the room. The images rose in his thoughts again, and with them came the feelings. The fucking “Scram” that had stuck to him and wouldn't go away. The ingrates. He went there to support them, and they spat on him. In any normal country, the outpost would have been dismantled and they would have been thrown in jail. He didn't care that he and his predecessors had provided permits or turned a blind eye, as Malka took the trouble to remind him sometimes. That's no excuse. No longer.

“Ma'aleh Hermesh C.?” he asked. “Them again? Just as the Americans and Peace Now finally get off my back a little on that place and move on to Route 991 . . . Hasn't there been a High Court ruling regarding them?”

“Still under deliberation,” Avram said defensively. “The state prosecutor submitted a response to the petition, on your behalf, on behalf of the commander of the IDF forces in the West Bank, on behalf of the head of the Civil Administration, and on behalf of the commander of the Judea and Samaria police district. You all confirmed that the outpost in question is illegal, but because the required resources are currently occupied elsewhere, you've requested a delay in the evacuation.”

“Okay,” the minister said, and extended two fingers toward the pretzels. “So, someone was looking to have some fun, you said?”

“And spread a rumor that the Japanese from Matsumata are actually some kind of underground terrorist sect that's supplying weapons to extremist Jews in the outposts. They even gave the name of some hilltop kid whom the Japanese supposedly visited at the outpost to make a deal with. Something like that.”

“Okay, so some settler made up a bullshit story. How does it get to this?” He picked up the Japanese fax that Malka had placed in front of him, waved it in the air.

“The person who heard the story was our informer at the settlement. She relayed it to us. And there was some kind of misunderstanding. The
story wasn't connected to Matsumata, no one connected the dots, and we issued an alert, and our guys were involved in a small incident with the Japanese.” The defense minister hung his head, his right hand supporting his forehead. “And our informer was exposed,” Avram continued. “That in fact was the essence of the prank, because they suspected her, and . . .” Avram's voice trailed off.

The minister remained in the same position. The room was quiet. The muffled ring of a telephone came from the other side of the door. The past few days hadn't been easy. His beloved dog, Soldier, had passed away over the weekend after a lengthy illness. Soldier had in fact lived with his ex, his first wife, but his death stung nevertheless. His second wife called that morning to tell him that both toilets were blocked. And he felt uncomfortable in his wet pants, and a faint smell of urine seemed to be emanating from them. But even all that wasn't what prompted him to say what came next when he resumed speaking. Nor was it the stress and the questions and the demands and the accusations that rained down on him from every direction at the meeting of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee and every day and every minute, in conferences, at meetings, on the telephone, in the newspapers. Nor was it Route 991, the laying of which he had just authorized with his signature, as a gesture, so to speak, to the settlers and the right-wing parties, and which perhaps he now needed an action to offset, to appease the critics, a little candy for the Americans and the leftists and the attorney general—after all, almost every action is designed to offset, to appease, to serve as a gesture toward someone who's been offended . . .