Assaf Gavron - The Hilltop

Several weeks passed before the Absorption Committee managed to get together, and in the meantime, the new home remained as good as new, more or less. By the first Saturday night following the delivery of the home, some unknown individual had already managed to overcome the lock on the door, and one by one, solutions were found for faults and problems with numerous other residences throughout the settlement. A rickety shower door was replaced; window shutters; a sink faucet; a showerhead. Even a square, meter-by-meter piece of greenish linoleum from the kitchen floor was removed with a sharp Stanley knife and found its way, with the help of a strong adhesive, onto the floor of another home as a replacement for a piece of flooring already bulging and dirty and rotting from a water leak. Nevertheless, notwithstanding several essential built-in components that quickly became built out, the waiting list for the home had lengthened considerably; and before Rachel even produced the printed sheet of paper with the waiting list, various people, from within and without, began tugging at her sleeve, seeking her ear, whispering to her.

A number of the hilltop residents suggested converting the trailer into a day care for toddlers so that the synagogue could have its own structure and the women’s section would no longer have to serve a dual function, with the partition in place during prayer times and otherwise down. The issue had been a contentious one and the subject of many a committee debate since the dawn of the settlement: Who is more important, who is more entitled to their own home — children or God? There weren’t many children in the early days, and the synagogue came first, but the number and ages of the children had increased, and a structure specifically dedicated to their education was now a necessity.

Others supported the idea of inviting a family of new immigrants, and some suggested young couples. And parents whose children were without like-aged peers at the outpost tended to look for families with such children. Roni Kupper, Gavriel Nehushtan’s brother, who arrived at the outpost at the very same time the trailer was delivered, requested occupancy on a temporary basis, simply to lay down a mattress for a while until the selection of the new family. And then there were the friends of the Rivlins, a young, sweet family from Efrat. The relatives of Jenia Freud, new immigrants from the former Soviet Union who lived in Karnei Shomron and were looking for “a new challenge and a pioneering lifestyle” and certainly ticked all the right boxes for Ma’aleh Hermesh C. Several youths from Ma’aleh Hermesh A. called, as well as an American by the name of Sarah, who had wanted to establish an outpost herself but made do with a spa named after her husband, who, she claimed, was murdered on one of the nearby roads, despite the fact that everyone remembered the incident and recalled nothing more than a regular vehicular accident. And there were more friends and acquaintances and others who had visited the hilltop or were familiar with it — the modest abode, deemed a blessing on arrival, turned into an arena of confrontation among conflicting interests and rivalries, and Hilik Yisraeli, who knew all the families who had come and gone, beginning with Uzi Shimoni, served as the final litmus test to determine and approve the candidates’ suitability for the hilltop and its inhabitants.

Roni got word somehow of the meeting and requested and was granted a hearing, in which he tried to plead his case: In light of the unclear status of the trailer, originally designated for Givat Yeshua and still wanted there, and due to the High Court of Justice’s rejection of the petition against the military demarcation order — in other words, the entire settlement was slated for evacuation at some stage in the future — it might not be worthwhile to bring in a new family before ascertaining which way the wind was blowing, and until then, “Regardless of what emerges, let me move in. I’m already here. If I need to move out, I’ll do so in a flash. Truth be told, I won’t be staying longer than a month or two in any case, three at the most…”

“Until you tie up your deal for the oil from the Arabs from Kharmish?” came Rachel’s question, followed by a chuckle from Hilik, and Othniel Assis fixed him with a look of stern disapproval. Roni had heard that Othniel was a believer in Jewish labor, despite once having employed Thai workers in his mushroom greenhouses for a period of time, and wasn’t happy about Roni’s business dealings with Musa.

“Yes… No…”

“Tell me,” Othniel said, winking at Hilik, “have you asked him yet about the Kibbutz Movement as a failure-in-waiting for your doctorate?” Hilik’s smile turned a little bitter. He hadn’t been working on his doctorate like he should have.

Roni lost. The status of the trailer, and of the outpost as a whole, was indeed hanging in the balance, but there was nothing new in that — for that very reason, there was a need to establish facts on the ground so as to tip that balance resoundingly and unwaveringly in their favor. Therefore it would be best, too, for settlers to move in rather than designating the home public use as a day-care facility. The committee thus decided to bring in the Gotlieb family, who came across in their hearing as very sympathetic — precisely the human makeup they were looking for, a young couple with two children from Shilo, the man an optician who wanted to open a store in Ma’aleh Hermesh A., the woman a rabbi’s daughter.

“Please tell them,” Rachel requested, “to come for a welcoming Sabbath, and as far as I’m concerned, they can move in immediately afterward, with the greatest of pleasure and success. And tell them to speak to me about the home’s missing pieces. We’ll have a chat with the Settlement Division.”

The nerve of them, Roni thought, deeply disappointed. Instead of being thankful that someone normal like me is willing to live in their dirty asshole of a place, what do they do, make fun of me? Bunch of lunatics, they can go shove their trailer. He returned to his bed, Gabi’s former sofa, and lay there, morose. The living room had become stifling and oppressive for both of them. He wasn’t at ease, and he had noticed that even his brother was struggling with the situation. Gabi was all smiles and love like always; everything, as he viewed the world, was God’s will — tests, gifts, whatever he used to say. But Roni knew his brother well, and beneath his smiles, he could see his patience wearing very thin.

The bulldozers arrived on a scorching hot day in May, the Hebrew month of Iyar, when Israelis celebrated their independence and their memories. With concerned looks in their eyes, a group of outpost residents gathered on the outskirts of the hilltop and watched as the gray monsters slowly progressed, emerging from the alleyways of Kharmish like enraged chicks hatching from their shells.

“Are those loaders?” asked Elazar Freud, who had been roused from his desk by the noise.

Hilik snickered. “No, they’re D-9s,” he said. “Loaders have wheels and are smaller. Those ones, with the tracks, are the real mean beasts.”

“They didn’t dare come here, huh?” Elazar said.

“No,” piped in Othniel. “It’s because they need to work on their side. The route of the fence runs adjacent to that olive grove over there.”

“Yes, Musa’s,” Roni said. “The bastards!”

“And they also want to move up to our land. Do you realize just how absurd that is?”

Yoni arrived, his rifle at the ready angled across his chest. “Okay, guys,” he said, “let’s break up this demonstration.”

“What demonstration?” The six residents, whose gazes had been firmly fixed southward until then, turned to face him.