Assaf Gavron - The Hilltop

He tried afterward to reconstruct how they got onto the subject of Mickey. He was astounded by himself, by her — just like that on a wintry weekday with tea on a bench swing in the yard of Shaulit Rivlin’s home. She asked why he hadn’t been at some wedding that took place at Ma’aleh Hermesh A. The fact that she had noticed his absence warmed his heart, and he explained to her that he felt uneasy at weddings. The dancing, the circles, the songs, the seemingly unbridled joy — he felt sometimes, from the sidelines, that it was very bridled, almost forced, and noticed that for the most part he didn’t feel a part of it. From weddings they moved on somehow to talk about birthdays. She told him that her late father, bless his memory, would have celebrated his birthday that coming week. She said that the pain seemed to be more intense on his birthday. On his birthday, of all days, not on the day he was taken by the terrorists, may they rot in hell. Well, said Gabi, the day of his death marks the end, the beginning of life without him. In fact, it’s a remembrance day that reminds you of yourself. But his birthday marks the time that should have been; marks his life, which is no more. His birthday reminds you of him.

“How do you know that?” she asked him, like someone whose stream of hot water has suddenly appeared.

“I know,” he replied. His own birthday was approaching, he told her. He smiled, and the smile exposed his large teeth, narrowed his pleasant eyes, tugged at the bachelor’s beard that needed grooming.

“But how do you know the difference between the birthday and the day of the death?” she insisted. And he told her about Mickey. Mind you, not dead, thank God, but every year Gabi marked the day of the separation, the day after which he never saw his son again, a like-death day. He didn’t explain why he couldn’t see or talk to him, laid the blame on his ex-wife and said she’d fled to the other side of the world, that she was a little strange, and that she didn’t allow him any contact. And he recounted how, every year as Mickey’s birthday approached at the end of the fall, with the world gloomy and the days growing darker, he felt terrible. Mickey will be eight this year, he told Shaulit, and she listened with sparkling eyes, the first of the hilltop residents who heard about Mickey from Gabi himself. There was something liberating about Shaulit; she drew you into relating the most intimate stories. He spoke about Mickey, and a pain paralyzed him, but he didn’t stop: it was impossible to escape the pain of a child. The pining. The remorse for every argument, for every refusal. That void is so unfathomable, never-ending. He tried not to blame Anna. She didn’t have the faith in God Almighty to give her the strength to cope.

“During a lesson I once attended,” Shaulit said, “the rabbi said that longing is the engine of the world. The beginning and the end. Longing comes with so much pain that can break you. Whatever we do, we’re broken vessels. Rabbi Nachman brought music out of longing. The heart beats and lets up. Longing — touches and leaves.”

The phone rang in the house and Shaulit disappeared inside. Gabi heard “Yes, Hedva” and “What an insane day, right?” and silence the length of three sentences, and then “Just fine, Hedva, sure, I’ll be there.”

Gabi got up and walked to the pathway and saw Yoni carrying something. A wave of rage passed through him; he had been told of the fervor with which Yoni had led the demolition of the cabin. Gabi turned around and saw Shaulit emerge from the house, a tray in her hands, and on it a pot of tea and halvah cookies. She said she had a team meeting at the school in the afternoon — did he discern disappointment in her voice? Did the disappointment stem from the cutting short of their conversation? The tea and cookies said to him, We have a little more time together.

She sat down beside him again, and told of her longing for her father, of the pain. She poured more tea. Offered another cookie, made a face that said “I just can’t be bothered” when the phone rang again. After every interruption she remembered the point at which he had stopped, heard every word. And understood. They felt like members of the same tribe.

“I always think about the choices we make,” he said. “The bottom line is, nothing is incidental, there has to be some kind of design, otherwise how do things turn out the way they do? All the choices that led me and Anna to turn up on the same subway platform in New York at the same time — and all that has happened since: being together, returning to Israel, having a child…” He always returned to those thoughts, played with them, wondered if a different chain of events, one that stemmed from different choices, would have turned his life out differently.

“You can’t agonize over choices you made. We are so insignificant. We don’t have the ability to influence things. Rabbi Nachman also lost sons in his lifetime. That’s God’s design. He’ll come back to you one day, you’ll see.”

He nodded. “That’s true. I realized that there is someone who directs things,” he said, “otherwise it couldn’t happen, otherwise living would be impossible. And the moment I realized that, suddenly everything fell into place. I looked back on my life and I saw the providence everywhere… Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil for Thou art always with me. The pain doesn’t let up, but you understand that it’s part of something logical. And thus you overcome. Because I am not here for nothing. I have a mission in the world. Not for nothing did God Almighty put me through this test…”

“That’s so right,” Shaulit said as Neta Hirschson stepped onto the pathway leading up to the house and approached them, and from the look on her face, it was clear she didn’t give any thought to the situation she was walking into, to the intimacy, to the grief, to the encounter that indeed isn’t secretive or inappropriate, yet isn’t exactly common, and could raise an eyebrow — Neta didn’t raise an eyebrow, but instead said, “Friends, a party!” And to their blank faces, from within the shattered moment, she continued, “Enough crying and agonizing and mourning. It’s Purim soon, and I’m organizing a party. We’ll celebrate the festival at our hilltop, and also the fifth anniversary of breaking ground. And to unite against the deportations and the demolitions and the orders. And to show everyone that we are happy and together. And also”—a smile spread across her face and her gaze wandered between her two listeners and then she closed her eyes and tilted her head to the sky—“I’m pregnant, bless the dear and good Lord.”

“Congratulations! Mazel tov and good wishes. Bless the Lord!” Shaulit said. “Just say when, we’ll be there!” She looked at the time and got up hastily to collect Zvuli. Gabi stood and said to Neta, “Congratulations, hallowed be His name,” and on the way home felt a mixture of relief, and wonder, and excitement, and the pangs of a longing for Shaulit that had already taken root, for her auburn hair and understanding eyes and unrivaled attentiveness, and wondered if, when she said, “We’ll be there,” she had meant only her family or was including him, too.

The darkness sneaked in from below. Among thorns and rock crevices, from the depths of the east, from the chasms of the salt, from the fissures of the sickle, it crept in and stung the poor sputtering generator. The green rectangular box, the provider of light and heat and cold, the lifeblood of the computers, the telephones, the heaters and television sets, which was born in China and had survived years of afflictions and neglect and types of fuel that weren’t diesel because it ran out, which had made it through heat waves and snowfalls and even taken hits from a few rocks — this time it went kaput, as they say.