Assaf Gavron - The Hilltop

“Enough, enough with the shooting,” said Roni, his throat hoarse and out of breath, “we’re almost there,” and Josh turned and hurled a fistful of stones. The Arabs gathered with renewed strength and increased adrenaline. Tires appeared from somewhere and were set alight, and black smoke rose and befouled the cold air. Josh yelled, “Shoot them in the head,” and Roni responded, “Have you lost your mind?” And Yakir took aim and fired one last shot into the sky, and thought with a quivering heart: It’s not worth it, I don’t want to die for this nonsense.

And then the snow stopped hesitating and really began to fall — in thick, slow, soft, regal chunks.

Soldiers, police, and settlers turned their heads toward the shots heard from the south, and saw a Palestinian mob storming toward them from the direction of Kharmish and black smoke rising into the air. “What the fuck?” mumbled Omer Levkovich just as the D-9 struck an electricity pole, the music stopped and the lights went out, a series of pops rang out and sparks flew from power cables, cries of panic and oh-my-God filled the air, and everyone scattered in all directions, and screamed, and cried, and only the mild-mannered snow continued its quiet descent, like Mordechai’s raiment.

The snow lay on Ma’aleh Hermesh C. for three whole days, covering, silencing. The quiet froze, and the peacefulness slowed, and the surrounding hills winked in their whiteness, and the distant landscapes, the desert landscapes, the lower-lying ones, joined in the mood with a lighter than usual beige, which was reflected in the sky, which whitened and blinded the sun, which finally appeared somewhat feebly, hanging its head in humility.

And from within the silence came nothing but the sound of a small hammer, banging, knock-knock-knock: Gabi resurrecting the cabin. And the joyful cries of the children making snowballs in the Mamelstein playground and sliding down the hilltop slope on their bottoms on plastic bags.

Roni Kupper spent the first night after the Purim party in Josh and Jehu’s bachelor trailer, which was also Gabi’s temporary residence. He was consumed with thoughts and emotions from the events of the past days, from the phone calls with Rina and the quick visit to Tel Aviv, from the smashed trailer that had been his home in recent months, from the peace delegation he had led to Kharmish that went utterly awry — but in the end, he realized, achieved precisely the objective that Othniel had envisioned.

Despite the adrenaline and racing thoughts, he fell asleep the moment his head hit the mattress, and woke in the morning to the white hilltop, marveling at its pristine beauty. Rina rang, and they spent the snowy days on one endless heart-to-heart call, and the moment cars could set out from the hilltop, he went to Tel Aviv. They shared a clumsy embrace when they met, and a hesitant kiss on the cheek. Over lunch they continued to develop the idea: a bar-nightclub that they’d call Kindergarten After Hours, which would operate during the night hours out of Rina’s kindergarten on Shlomo HaMelech Street. Rina stressed over and over — as if trying to convince herself — that the partnership between them was strictly business. She desperately needed money, because the municipality was bleeding her dry and children had left the kindergarten and the costs weren’t coming down and she was spiraling into debt but didn’t want to shut down. She loved the work, that’s what she knew how to do, and she did it well. Roni was sure Kindergarten After Hours was going to be a hit. The customers would love the kindergarten décor because it wasn’t décor but the natural setting of the place. People like authenticity. He’d set up a small bar in the one corner. He’d make sure that at the close of every night the place would be clean of cigarette butts and beer stains, fragrant and tidy. He even thought that by pulling a few strings from his pub days, he’d manage to get a semi-official permit from the municipality. He was excited, because he wanted it. Because it suited him. Yes, he promised Rina, it’s strictly business, that’s clear. But they parted with a long stare and a lengthy embrace, and when Roni wandered through the streets of the city afterward, he knew he was excited not only by the business and the return home but also, and perhaps mostly, by the warmth of her body and her brown eyes.

On his next and last visit to Ma’aleh Hermesh C. — after the snow, after the winds had died down, after the final decision to return to Tel Aviv — he’ll show up with a small black puppy, from a litter birthed by the dog of Rina’s best friend. A charming puppy, quiet, tiny, and furry, that Roni decides will make a great roommate and friend for his brother. A farewell gift. It’ll bring a smile to Gabi’s face. He’ll tickle the puppy under its chin and lay down a bowl with water and another with cottage cheese, which the dog will lick with its small and sturdy tongue. Amalia and Tchelet will go crazy for it, Gabi will think. He knew his brother thought he needed a friend to relieve the loneliness. Okay, let him think so, good luck to him. If he hasn’t understood by now that I am never alone with the Master of the universe, he’ll never understand it. The dog’s cute, seriously cute. It’ll have a good life here. We need to find him a name, we’ll think about one with the girls. Gabi will tell Roni that it’s tailor-made for him, Kindergarten After Hours. He’ll wish him only well. And his brother will reply, “You know what? This Breslov thing, with the pompom at the top, is tailor-made for you, too. This time you’ll manage to hold on, and the new cabin, too, may it be built quickly. Honestly, my bro.” They’ll share a long embrace, and Gabi will feel light, light, light as a feather.

Roni will make do with a visit to his little brother. On his way out he’ll stop and rest his eyes on Musa Ibrahim’s olive groves. What’s done is done. His gaze will wander to whatever remains are left of the trailer, the mobile home where the Gotlieb family got burned, the one that turned up one day by mistake, and stayed, and was nationalized, and looted, and populated, and deserted, and populated again, and again deserted, and finally demolished by the teeth of the heavy-duty engineering machinery of the Israel Defense Forces. Bad karma it had, that trailer. Perhaps its fate was for the best.

The guy from the Electricity Corporation will explain that there was an electrical short. It probably started in the trailer that was destroyed, which was full of patchwork electrical jobs. The electrician won’t understand the manner in which they were hooked up to the grid, it was completely amateurish, and dangerous, and fortunately nothing worse happened. He’ll install a new control panel and a spanking-new fuse box, a new world of three-phase electrical power on the hilltop: without power outages and voltage drops and thinking twice about water boilers and geysers and air conditioners and heaters and losing material on the computer. “Just tell the guy from the demolished trailer,” the man requested of Othniel Assis and Hilik Yisraeli, who were escorting him, “to take it easy with exposed cables and improvised electrical connections, and not to leave the coil heater on all the time.”

“We’ll tell him, we’ll tell him,” Othniel will say, and slap the technician on the shoulder. They won’t say a thing to Roni Kupper, of course, because Roni will no longer be using electricity on the hilltop. If they were to say anything at all to Roni, Othniel thought, it would be a huge and massive thank-you with all their hearts: once for the exposed cables, the electrical patchwork jobs, and burning coil heater that led to the installation of an excellent power supply system; and a second time for the naïve quest to deliver a Purim gift basket to Kharmish, which led to the mother of all Arab riots, with stones and burning tires and shots in the air, the redirecting of the military resources from the outpost to Kharmish, and the postponement of the evacuation to an as-yet-undetermined date, which would be set, or so they were assured, “next week.”