The Hilltop (58 page)

Musa didn't say anything. Just sadly stroked one of the burlap sacks. Then walked slowly along the remains of a short stretch of asphalt that had been shredded down to gravel recently by the administration because it was paved without a permit. Musa believed that deep down Roni was a decent guy. He didn't say as much to his son when Nimer spoke about
Roni and the settlers and the need for a response, but he wasn't certain it was Roni. Musa was old enough to know that in this life, in this place, nothing was certain, and few things make sense.

Sackcloth was mentioned later in the morning, too, at an urgent meeting that convened on the new and gloriously sparkling porch that for the most part drew compliments of Hilik Yisraeli's caravilla. Someone suggested praying with sackcloth and ashes to mourn the destruction, which would maybe alert the attention of the Supreme Being to the injustices taking place under His nose, or at least the attention of residents and citizens. “Where did we go wrong?” was the question asked, and several possible answers were offered: There was no need to brazenly tear down the orders; Josh shouldn't have humiliated Yoni; it would have been best to take up the matter with friends in the Knesset, in the government, and in the army and deal with the orders in a diplomatic fashion.

Little by little, the wind changed direction. Self-doubts and remorse gave way to offense, and rebuke, and accusation. Yoni was always hostile, and Omer Levkovich was the devil, and the defense minister was a disaster, and even the leaders of the Yesha Council were leading them to ruin. All of them—the leftists, the administration, the government, the council, the media, the Americans, the Palestinians, the police, the army—they were all against us. Things had truly escalated this time, for the first time in the history of the settlement a home was destroyed, the army crossed a red line and upset the status quo. And why are they coming down only on us and not on the Arabs, who build freely without permits and scoff at everyone? Jean-Marc demanded they be taught a lesson—let the status quo be upset for the Arabs, too—“and inflict revenge upon His adversaries, and appease His land and His people.” Those present exchanged looks, but then Othniel tapped his finger under his eye and said, “The eye sees, people,” and not another word was said on the subject.

Othniel tried to call his friend the major general but couldn't reach him. Close associate MK Uriel Tsur had become far less accessible since his appointment to the post of deputy tourism minister. The meeting ended with a series of decisions: to organize a mass demonstration; to
print a booklet that explained how several governments supported the outpost for years and thus it could not be illegal; to take up a collection and help Gabi rebuild the cabin to show that they were pressing on; and especially—to get in touch urgently with all required parties in order to quash the demolition and military demarcation decree, or at least delay it for some time in the wake of the crisis, and thereafter obtain new building permits for a cabin and additional urgently needed buildings.

After arranging the sawed-off branches in a heap and cleaning up around the wrapped trunks, Nimer Ibrahim sat down among the trees. They needed to complain. To call the army. Roni had taken revenge on their trees because they didn't go along with his plan. They needed to tell the army to arrest him. He probably got help from that village. Soon the army would come and they would tell them everything. The mukhtar needed to be told to talk to the army. Perhaps they should call someone. Or go to their village where the thin black soldier was stationed and tell him to tell the army. Or maybe to Roni himself and ask him what this was all about. He leaned against one of the burlap-wrapped stumps, looked around, waited for something to happen in response to the violent assault. But nothing happened. He huddled in the sweatshirt of
BATTALION 13—THE WILD ONES
against the cold wind. All that happened was the charred smell, and ants enjoying the loose earth, and the muezzin's call to the second prayer service of the day that brought him to his feet and led him to the mosque. He stopped by at home on the way to check on his father. He found him smoking a cigarette with a holder. “I called Roni,” Musa said before Nimer opened his mouth. “He's been in Tel Aviv since yesterday. I heard the noise around him, the honking of cars. He's there, Nimer. I don't think he was the one who set the fire.”

*  *  *

The day before at the outpost, Roni saw the soldiers arrive in their vehicles, the equipment they unloaded in the rain. When the demolition of the cabin started, he was in his trailer. He leaned over to the window and watched the commotion: searchlights and soldiers and the sounds of heavy metal implements crashing against wood. The longer the destruction of his brother's beautiful new home went on, the more resolved
Roni became regarding the decision he began forming while washing the dishes yesterday, to get the hell out of there. He needed a different vibe, alcohol, the sea. He wanted Tel Aviv.

Roni went out and walked with his head lowered, with his emotions running intensely high at the edge of the cliff. No one noticed him. It's now or never. He was wearing his coat, his wallet was in the coat, a little cash in the wallet. He didn't need a bag. Moran, the distributor and marketer for Othniel's farm, pulled up alongside him in his pickup. “You I haven't seen in a long time,” he said to Roni. “Jerusalem?”

“Even better,” Roni said, and got in.

“Finally the army's doing something,” Moran said as he pulled off, and shot a cautious glance at Roni. He knew he was Gabi's brother, but wasn't familiar with his views.

“I don't . . . It doesn't really interest me . . .” Roni said.

“Me, neither. I come to work. Arrive, load crates, leave. Hardly exchange a word. Tell me . . .” Here was the question Roni knew was coming. “What happened in the end with the olive oil? Like, I know the Japanese set up that factory, but back then you spoke to me about something small, a boutique, like, did that work? Did you give up? Are you going now to that friend of yours?”

Roni didn't want to talk about it. “Forget about it, the Japanese . . . The Japanese took . . .” he said blankly, and turned his head to the side of the road. He thought, Shame I didn't shower before I left. When did I last shower? Shit.

“Too bad,” Moran said, “it could have been a nice project. You had a nice idea . . . Cooperation. Traditional oil of a high quality. A small niche but . . .” Moran went on talking but Roni didn't listen. They drove through Jerusalem, where he hadn't been in many months. It's so simple, he thought. You get into a car and drive. He hadn't managed to do that for a year. Unbelievable. It was so easy to get stuck. He felt dizzy from the number of cars, from the green fields alongside the highway, from the new interchanges and railway lines under construction. Rain started to fall, and the wipers screeched with every movement. The prickles on his skin, the deep breaths, the pressure in his gut, they all signaled his excitement.

“Tell me,” Moran said after an aggressive blast on his horn to a driver who cut in front of him at the Latrun Junction. “I've always been curious. The women settlers there, there are . . . like, there are some good-looking ones, huh? Othni's eldest daughter, and also, you know . . .”

Roni didn't help Moran. He was still a little mad because Moran hadn't allowed him to smoke a cigarette a few minutes ago.

“I mean, you're secular, right? Gabi is a reborn, but you're not, right? Gabi's a good guy, by the way. Works well, quiet, I've often had a chance . . . Anyway, so, is there any action? If you understand what I mean.”

Roni felt tired. “Nothing, believe me.” Roni had almost stopped thinking about sex recently, surprisingly. He wondered why. Maybe the depression, maybe something on the hilltop stifled the urge. At first he wandered about within the same familiar horniness, dropped signals, and waited for a response. There was the sexy left-wing demonstrator, there was Shaulit Rivlin, whom he had eyed and for a brief moment thought there was a chance with when she threw her husband out of the house, and of course, the beautiful Gitit Assis, who had a thing with the Ethiopian. Bottom line, it's just another barren secular fantasy—that smoldering below the surface of a conservative and modest community are intense passions, all you need to do is scratch the surface to get to them. Roni succumbed eventually to the doused mood, and only from time to time did he feel a flicker of yearning for a specific feminine body part—a curved and pristine calf, the smooth valley of an armpit.

“What do you mean? Nothing? C'mon, bro, give me
something
.”

It was strange. Roni knew exactly what Moran wanted to know. But for the first time in his life he was looking at things from the other side, the side that doesn't understand the childish fascination with secrets, with the need to discover a different truth from the one apparent. With knowing that people have urges and give in to them.

An upbeat tune rang out in the space of the car and startled Roni.

“Hey, sweetie,” Moran said.

“Daddy,” came the sound of a small and cute voice. “I'm here. I'm at home.”

“Good, Mai, sweetie. What did you do today?”

How long, Roni returned to his previous train of thought, it's 2010 already, holy shit. So long ago that he barely recalled the feeling and didn't even feel sorry for himself any longer. Roni Kupper a monk, who'd have believed it. Religion—Roni went on talking to himself while Moran spoke to his eight-year-old daughter—was an interesting social attempt to deal with the fact that all men are addicted to sex and violence. He had learned in the last year that when it comes to sex, at least, it manages to suppress the urge.

He noticed that the further away from it he drifted, the more his mind was consumed by a new pattern of thinking, or perhaps an old one. The simplicity of life at the outpost, the distinct guidelines and order it dictated—he was enchanted by it. But on his way to Tel Aviv, with his body thrilled by expectation, with his musings about sex taking him by surprise from within the darkness of the cellar in which they had been imprisoned all this time as if to prove the point, he realized: It's not for me.

Mai told her father something about her teacher and then played a song on the piano that Roni struggled to recognize. Then Moran's wife came on the line. Moran said he'd be back soon and blew kisses into the air. They hung up and Moran said to Roni, “Well, what about that daughter of Othni, nothing there? She looks like one who's about to explode under those long denim skirts. She looks hot to me, hot!”

D
ressed in festive white, wrapped in a prayer shawl, eyes closed, Gavriel Nehushtan swayed purposefully beside the window that overlooked the Hermesh Stream riverbed. Sabbath evenings are always good, but this one was special, the synagogue was more beautiful than ever, inviting—with the rustic wooden beams and the roof impervious to the fine rain that hadn't let up for an instant. The love and support and offers of help he received from everyone moved him. He won all-around praise, too, of course, for the renovation of the synagogue, and although
he tried to deflect it onto Herzl Weizmann, he was the star of the show and would be one of the first in line to be called up to recite the blessing over the Torah the following day.

There are Sabbaths on which the sense of sanctity intensifies, and this was one of them: a new book, the Shemot Torah portion, the Burning Bush. The mood in the settlement was bleak, the trauma of the demolished cabin hung in the wet air, tears welled in the eyes of the people as they prayed. Visitors came from A. and B. and farther afield to express solidarity and support, the synagogue was full and warm. Contradictory feelings flooded Gabi's soft heart, profound pain mixed with elation, and he swayed intensely, clapped his hands, his eyes closed, his face aglow, exalted be the living God and praised, the First, and nothing precedes His precedence. And also, he suddenly realized: a Sabbath without Roni. Without his sour, grouchy presence. It took him a while to admit to himself that it was a big relief, to notice that his praying felt freer and more profound.

In the middle of the service, he went out and walked the few dozen meters to the edge of the cliff and sat on the wet rock face. A fine rain fell pleasantly on the back of his neck, moistened his beard, the tears flowed from his eyes. You're the real deal, Man, You're the righteous One, You took me, small me, and placed me before this huge desert, and showed me the way, You're such a sweetie. And if You took my home, like You took my son, You had good reason. He stood for the Amidah prayer. You're a Hero to the world, the Provider of the wind and the rain, You are holy and Your name is holy. Gabi recited the Seven-Faceted Blessing and “A song of David. The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want,” and returned to the synagogue for Aleinu L'Shabeach, the last prayer of the service.

After the service and more slaps on the back and kisses on the hand and a good Sabbath, he left the synagogue and walked along the path. Yesterday, after he was left homeless, more or less everyone invited him to sleep over at their place, and he spent the night in Josh and Jehu's trailer. Now he was thinking about the fact that Roni wasn't in his old trailer and considered for a moment sleeping there, and while he was still weighing his next move and had raised his head to the sky and drizzling
rain, he heard someone sniff and stopped in his tracks and turned his head to listen. The soft and black night air enveloped him. Another sniff. And the tiniest of giggles. And then:
“Shalom alechem malache ha-sharet malache elyon
 . . .” He frowned. It wasn't surprising, it was the right time to hear the traditional Friday-night song, the families were sitting at the table and welcoming the Sabbath. But the voice sounded clear, nearby. It wasn't coming from inside a house but from a yard. Someone was sitting in a yard and singing the song in a clear and hypnotic voice. Gabi stopped and listened. He wasn't supposed to and didn't want to do it, didn't want to secretly eavesdrop on his neighbors, didn't want to listen to the woman, didn't want to disrupt his time alone with his God and his own plans to welcome in the Sabbath. But something about the voice rooted his feet to the spot and pricked up his ears. She hadn't meant her voice to be heard in public, hadn't sinned, she was singing in a small and sweet voice, like to a baby. He looked around him in the thick darkness and sang along with her in his heart.