Assaf Gavron - The Hilltop

Not a word was spoken throughout the ordeal, nor was he beaten. All the abductor did was fill his mouth with black beetles and, perhaps, various other bits of flesh, insects, dirt, stones, fluids that smelled like the urine of certain animals, soft solids whose sharp and concentrated taste indicated they were possibly animal feces of some kind — and force him to swallow. There were black beetles for certain, because at the hospital the following day, they found pieces of legs stuck between the braces that still graced Gabi’s teeth; and there was probably a frog, too, because something resembling the leg of one turned up after they flushed out his stomach.

He couldn’t recall how long he was there. He lost his sense of time and place at some point, between the vomiting and the refilling of his mouth. They didn’t hit him, but they didn’t exactly caress him, either. He didn’t know how many of them there were. The large man who grabbed him must have been there, as well as a driver, because the man remained alongside him during the drive. There may have been others. He tried not to think about the things that were being stuffed into his mouth, and to block out the stench of their odor and their sour taste.

Years later he realized that the blindfold had been his savior — because, in general, being sickened by food wasn’t related to its taste but rather to its appearance. Nevertheless, and despite his savior, he understood what they were doing, and he could feel ants crawling over his hands and on his tongue. He identified the beetles — a likely flashback of his tastebuds to his experience as an infant. The rest felt like things one doesn’t usually put in one’s mouth — too dry, too smooth, too abrasive — but he tried not to think, and ate and threw up, and ate and threw up. They left him, bound and blindfolded, outside the room of his adoptive parents.

The last time he’d been at Ziv Hospital was some two months previously, when his parents, teachers, and more or less the entire kibbutz insisted he visit Eyal. Dad Yossi went with him. They approached the bed and all Gabi could see were Eyal’s eyes and the black rings around them. The remainder of his face was in a plaster cast, while the rest of his body lay hidden under a blanket in the small bed. The new school year had started a few weeks earlier, and Eyal had yet to begin second grade, but children and teachers from his class had been coming to his bedside to tutor him and fill him in on things. Eyal’s eyes stared up at him, cold and dull. They looked nothing like the plucky and mischievous eyes that had looked at him alongside the cottage cheese, when he addressed Gabi as Jaws. The spectacle amused Gabi and filled him with a sense of satisfaction, but he tried not to let on. Eyal’s mother and father — both named Yonah, an interesting coincidence in and of itself and the source of many a joke in the kibbutz newsletter and dining hall — were standing on the opposite side of the bed. Dad Yossi nudged his shoulder, and he looked at the parents and then at Eyal.

“I’m sorry,” Gabi said, and then could no longer hold back — and cracked up laughing.

“Gabi!” Dad Yossi commanded, and Eyal turned away, and his parents shook their heads in disbelief.

After the abduction, everyone was sure it had been an act of vengeance by someone close to Eyal. There could be no other explanation for such revenge on Gabi. No one looked into it, of course; no one thought to report it to the police. God forbid! The abduction and abuse of a young boy might have been a criminal offense, but dirty laundry isn’t aired in public; the kibbutz has a very efficient washing service. Gabi’s cannonball onto Eyal remained an in-house matter, too. Roni would learn the identity of the abductor only many years later.

For Eyal, the pool incident had resulted in a broken jaw. He struggled to open his mouth for months afterward. Initially, he couldn’t eat; his bottom teeth were bent out of shape and pushed against his molars. He spent years undergoing mouth and jaw surgery and never regained the ability to whistle or yawn. And as long as Gabi lived on the kibbutz, every time he ran into him on the concrete pathways or in the dining room or the basketball hall, Eyal’s crooked face would remind him of what he had done and what he had suffered in return — the stares of the horrified kibbutz members, dozens of pairs of eyes glaring at him at every meal in the dining hall; the attitude of his friends, or those he once considered his friends. Even Yotam and Ofir gave him the silent treatment for a long time afterward, despite being the ones who had encouraged Gabi not to hold back. They fanned the flames of the humiliation. They were the ones who ignited the fire that propelled him with outstretched legs off the high concrete diving platform and into the face of the small wiseass boy.

They didn’t come to see him at Ziv after the abduction. He wasn’t sent any candy, and no one sat at his bedside to help him catch up on the schoolwork he missed. Aside from Mom Gila, Dad Yossi, Roni, and Roni’s girlfriend, Yifat, he couldn’t recall any other visitors. They gave him an enema, and his stomach was flushed twice. Blood and urine tests were done to ensure no traces remained of food poisoning, intestinal infections, or other harmful effects from the unidentifiable creatures he was fed. It turned out he had in fact contracted a disease called toxoplasmosis, but the doctor claimed it had been dormant in his body for quite a while, long before the abduction and assault. Was he in the habit of eating beetles and other creepy-crawlies before the assault? Gabi shook his head — not since the age of two. Had he been in contact with cats or had he touched their feces? No. Had he had any contact with pigeons or touched their secretions? Gabi stopped shaking his head.

He continued to vomit at frequent intervals in the days following his return from the hospital. And after his first attempt on Independence Day to enjoy a mouthful of barbecued steak, he was overcome by such intense convulsions that he stopped eating meat — all meat, of any animal, finned, winged, or on legs, nauseated him. He could hardly bring himself to eat salads and cheese and eggs. He wouldn’t particularly enjoy food at all for a number of years. This time, the memory of the beetles would remain fresh in his mind for a long while. He was no longer the two-year-old for whom sorrowful events would course through his veins only to quickly fade from memory. He was twelve, and when the legs of beetles get stuck in your braces, when the slimy skin of a frog is dragged over your tongue, and when your lips feel the ooze of a deshelled snail, you don’t forget quite so fast.

Yonah, Eyal’s father, had smooth arms. The arms of the fathers of Eyal’s friends were smooth, too. The volunteers’ arms were smooth. Baruch Shani had large, hairy arms; but Baruch was Roni’s friend, and Roni assured Gabi there was no way he would have done such a thing. Baruch aside, the largest and hairiest arms on the kibbutz belonged to Shimshon Cohen. And Shimshon Cohen, as everyone knew, had during the course of his life done far more serious things than stuff a few beetles into the mouth of a ten-year-old boy. Gabi, who had always considered himself on friendly terms with Shimshon and didn’t fear him like the other kids did, tried to test his theory. He greeted him every time he saw him, smiled at him, even tried to get up close to him to smell him, to see if he could recognize the sweetness of an aftershave or a sour odor of sweat. The findings were inconclusive. Shimshon remained kind toward him, continued to smile and pinch his cheek, and never showed a hint of hostility or anger. But Shimshon did work on the avocado team with Yonah, Eyal’s mother, so there was a possible link.

A few days after his discharge from the hospital, when Roni came to visit him at the dormitory with Yifat, Gabi suddenly noticed just how beautiful she was. He understood then what Roni saw in her and why he spent every free moment of his time in her company. Her eyes, deep and brown, smiled at him with concern. Her teeth flashed at Roni’s jokes. Her head nodded in agreement at his promises to exact revenge, to watch Gabi’s back “because no one messes with us.” Semi-prone in bed, Gabi watched as Roni’s hand constantly reached out to touch hers, and how he’d lean in from time to time to kiss her and be kissed in return.