Assaf Gavron - The Hilltop

Every Friday Nir Rivlin made his way on foot from his new home in Ma’aleh Hermesh A. to visit his daughters and son at C. Ever since the separation from Shaulit, he had dropped the Friday-morning class at the Jerusalem School of Kosher Culinary Arts. In fact, he pretty much gave up on the school entirely — he no longer met the attendance quota, wouldn’t pass the final exams, and wouldn’t do an internship. With his guitar on his back, he crossed fields, descended along the Hermesh Stream riverbed, and climbed the dirt path to the settlement, among the puddles.

It was clear that morning. The heavy clouds had disappeared and left behind crisp and cool air that Nir liked to draw in between his teeth. Traffic on the road was abundant. He waved away offers of a ride. Thought about the Torah portion of the week, Shemot, about Moses and the Burning Bush, about the lesson from the rabbi he’d heard the day before yesterday. Ran a hand through the curly ginger hair he’d been growing of late, patted down his new skullcap, more colorful than its predecessor, stroked the beard he’d started trimming and grooming. He thought about the song he was going to sing to Amalia and Tchelet and little Zvuli; he was excited to see them. He tilted his head back and smiled up at the sky — life’s good! If only Shaulit would agree to his coming home, it would be perfect, and he was sure she’d agree in the end. For the sake of the children. She was right to throw him out — he was drinking, was lazy, didn’t help, was insensitive, lost control. But she’d see the change. The investment in the children. He hadn’t had a drop of alcohol in more than a month, the pot he had stopped almost entirely. She’d break, she hadn’t asked for a get , after all, and the rabbi was on his side, promised to appeal to her heart. Perhaps she’d forgive him today? A new Hebrew month was on the doorstep, a new Torah scroll, the sun in the sky — a perfect Sabbath for new beginnings. Or renewed. He reached the final steep ascent and tackled it with a burst of energy, navigating among the pools of mud, his calf muscles dragging his body upward, homeward.

Nir was shown the door after a night of rage when he drank one beer too many and swung a fist just centimeters from Shaulit’s ear. The fist struck the wall of their bedroom and left behind an indentation that remained clearly visible. Shaulit looked at it every time Nir begged her to give him another chance. The indentation gave her the strength to withstand the onslaught. What was the punch for? Nir didn’t remember, perhaps he no longer even knew he’d swung it, with all the alcohol swimming in his head, but Shaulit remembered well: Zvuli had been crying all that day, he was teething, probably, and perhaps his tummy was hurting, too. He clung to Shaulit. And then Tchelet and Amalia started fighting over a hairband in the other room. Shaulit yelled at them, but because she was breast-feeding Zvuli, she couldn’t intervene. She could hear the discordant notes from the hammock in the yard and called to her husband again and again, and then yelled. Finally he came in with red eyes and slammed the door behind him. “What? What? What? Can’t you hear I’m trying to work on a song?”

Shaulit ignored his Four Questions. “Go see what the problem is with the girls.” The two girls were shouting and pulling at each other’s hair, and Zvuli, perhaps in solidarity, had broken away from his mother’s breast and joined in the general crying. Nir went to the girls and forcibly separated them. When he turned around, the battle resumed.

He turned back again, yelled “Enough!” and violently pulled Amalia off Tchelet. He pushed her forcefully to the one side of the room and her sister to the other.

The girls cried louder. Zvuli, too. “What are you doing?” Shaulit shouted. “Have you gone mad?”

“Quiet. Stay in the room, it’s none of your business.”

“What do you mean, none of my business?” Shaulit tried to approach Tchelet, who was howling louder still.

Nir blocked her path. “I said stay in the room!” he growled, and pushed her into the room, the look in his eyes wild and unforgettable. The girls’ wailing continued, Zvuli was screaming, Shaulit tried again to approach, and Nir pushed her and she yelled and he pushed her up against the wall and slammed a fist centimeters from her ear. And then, bless the Lord, turned and left.

With every visit Nir begged forgiveness and said he’d made a mistake. Explained he was going through a stressful period. Mentioned Jenia Freud’s exposure as the mole. “I did something for the hilltop when I uncovered the secret,” he once said, “and in return they throw me out?” His estranged wife shot a glance at the indentation in the wall and didn’t respond.

The night of the dent, he slept in the playground. In the middle of the night he opened his eyes suddenly and saw a shooting star and a frightening thought paralyzed him: Everything is so transient, everything can vanish in a second. Not only here. Everywhere in the world. But here especially. Everything you have can be lost. Our holy Rabbi Nachman of Breslov teaches us to go out into nature, to sit among the trees with the chirping of the birds, the wind on the air, to see the stars, the moon, to speak to God, to tell Him everything, to shout, to sing, to dance, to return home at ease and happy and loving. He fell asleep with a smile and in the morning came home filled with remorse. Shaulit said she wanted to separate. He promised he wouldn’t drink. She said it made no difference what he was going to do, she didn’t want him at home. When he insisted, she threatened to go to the rabbi, the neighbors, tell them what he’d done. He asked for one night’s grace. Pack your things and leave, she said. He packed hurriedly and left, carrying a suitcase to his battered metallic-sky-blue Subaru.

He drove along the ring road, agitated and humiliated, and stopped outside the Assis family’s home. Gitit was in the yard with one of her young brothers. Nir lowered the window and, with a curled finger, instructed her to come over. When she approached, he suggested she get into the car and join him for a drive. She didn’t understand why the car all of a sudden, why a drive all of a sudden.

“Do you need my dad?” she asked.

“No, you.” Nir Rivlin, his skullcap slipped forward on his head, looked up at her and smiled. And then said, “I know about you.”

“What?”

“With the Ethiopian.”

Her eyes widened. She tried to hide the panic. “What? What are you talking about?”

Minutes after failing with his wife, Nir again tried to impose his will: “If you don’t want me to tell your dad, come with me for a drive.”

“A drive? What are you talking about? Have you lost your mind?”

Perhaps he had lost his mind? Good God.

He drove off. Slept a few nights at his parents’ house in Beit El. Called Shaulit every day. Eventually returned and found a room with a separate entrance in Ma’aleh Hermesh A. Promised the landlords that it was only temporary, “maybe a month.” Had been living there for several months by then. One afternoon, after he again tried to persuade Shaulit, she fixed him with an alienated stare he wasn’t familiar with and said in a cold, self-confident voice, “Nir, I don’t want to live with you, why don’t you get that?” He left the house and went to the neighbor’s house and saw Gitit. He proposed that she marry him in exchange for his silence. She inquired into the possibility that he had fallen completely off the rails. When he declared that he was serious, she snickered. When he finished with “Well, what do you say?” she turned and walked away. He entered her father’s home.

Gitit was sent to the Eshet Chayil all-girls’ religious high school in Samaria.