Assaf Gavron - The Hilltop

“Know what?” Roni asked.

“Hang on, let me finish. Where was I?”

“We feel it’s important to tell him that we know,” Jean-Marc said without taking his eyes off Roni.

“Yes, we simply want you to know that we know. Do as you see fit with this information, tell or don’t tell your handlers, it’s your decision entirely.” Roni fixed Hilik with a stupefied gaze. “Now look here, I want to say another thing. We appreciate you guys. Very much. You do a very tough and blessed job, day and night, in order to maintain the security of the country, including in the settlements, the Jewish Division and all that. I mean, the monitoring is a little over-the-top, after all, and as strange as this may sound to you, we are not sitting on the hilltops and plotting the murder of prime ministers or Arabs. But we won’t deny the existence of undesirable elements, bad seeds. Let’s just call them guys who, in the name of positive goals, get caught up in negative actions, sometimes as provocation, sometimes not entirely through any fault of their own, but we won’t get into that now.” Othniel nodded. “So we understand the importance, and the need, for people inside the settlements who relay information.”

Hilik paused and took a sip of his instant coffee. Shneor called to his mother from his room. Roni cast a bemused look over the three men who sat across from him. He opened his mouth to speak, but Hilik cut in. “Look,” he said, “the story with the Gotlieb family. We realize you were offended. We understand that you wanted to move in there temporarily.”

“Ah, never mind. It’s dead and buried,” Roni said.

“It causes problems, you see,” Hilik continued, disregarding Roni’s remark. “There was a waiting list, and we prefer young families, religious ones, people we can count on for the long run…” He looked at his fellow sofa occupants and then turned again to Roni. “We’re simply saying, okay, your work is important, do what you have to do, but if possible, at this point in time, hold off for just a little, allow us to get organized. It’s not like we’ve been planning a terror attack! A trailer arrived, we moved a family in, that’s it. No reason to run out and announce it to the world.”

Roni pointed a finger at himself in astonishment, as if to say, You mean me? Are you saying I was the one who let on? Who would I have inform—

“Anyway,” Othniel broke into his thoughts, “good luck, I mean it. You know, Roni, that you’re a welcome guest here with us, with your brother whom we love very much, and we wholeheartedly invite you to remain here under our roofs for as long as you want, okay? But when the time is right, let’s coordinate our positions, okay?” Othniel tapped his nose with his finger.

“We know you can’t say yes or no or admit to anything,” Jean-Marc went on. “But we’re simply saying that we know, and if you can, be considerate. That’s all.”

The three settlers sipped from their mugs. Jean-Marc bit into a cookie. “Mmmm… apricot.”

Roni gathered that the meeting was over and stood to leave. “Okay, I’ll be off then, yes? Unless there’s something else?”

Othniel stood and placed a broad hand on Roni’s shoulder. “We’re done, buddy, off you go. Good night, and regards to Gavriel. And Hilik”—Othniel turned to his friend—“perhaps you really should get Roni to help you with your doctorate on the kibbutzim?”

“I’d love to,” Hilik responded. “I’m sure I’ll have more time after Nehama gives birth.”

With the suspect gone, the three exchanged looks in silence.

Roni decided to go for a short walk along the ring road. There was a chill in the night air, but the wind had dropped somewhat and he managed to light a cigarette using his hands as cover. Along the way, he was surprised by his brother, who was beginning the night shift. “What’s up, bro?” Gabi asked.

“Everything’s cool.”

“What did they want?”

“Oh, nothing, really… I don’t know. Truthfully, I didn’t understand, exactly.”

“Okay, tell me later. I’m heading in to read some teachings. I’ve been waiting to do this all day.”

Amused, Roni looked at the book in his brother’s hand. “Go for it. Have a blast, bro.”

* * *

A few days later, Ariel called. Roni was still in his underwear in bed, his legs raised. Gabi sat across from him, his face buried in one of Rabbi Nachman’s books, his tongue whispering, his eyes aglow, entirely oblivious to any outside disturbance. Roni noticed the bare furrows forming under his brother’s broad skullcap, the inevitable beginning of baldness. He ran anxious fingers through his hair, but all was well. It still grew thick, dense and bushy, dark, and at a length that by then justified a quick visit to the barber, had he been living in a normal place, that is. Ariel had spoken to an expert on millstones. He was having second thoughts. He had sent Roni a link by e-mail and told him to take a look.

Roni went over to the old laptop in the kitchen. “The Internet connection here alone is going to break me and send me back to the real Israel,” he said to Ariel. While waiting to connect, to the screeching sound of the dial-up modem, the power went out. Lacking a battery in working order as backup, the computer shut down. “Enough already! Enough! I’ve had enough! I’m sick of this dirty asshole of a place! How can anyone live like this? Fucking hell!” The power returned moments later, and Roni restarted the computer. It rattled and hesitated, went black, lit up, and displayed the Windows logo on a sky-blue background, played the opening tune. A full three to four minutes went by before it had warmed up and booted up and was ready for operation. Roni again clicked on the Internet connection button, and again waited to the sounds of the dial tone and then the engaged signal, the dial tone and then the engaged signal, until the connection attempt was finally snapped up into the shrieking and whistling and rising and falling jaws of the Internet. He opened the e-mail program, which appeared, too, to be in no hurry to go anywhere, and found the desired message and clicked the link that opened the Internet browser, at a snail’s pace, until he finally reached the promised land.

His eyes clouded over.

“Are you kidding me?” he asked Ariel, who had been waiting on the line all this time. “I thought we’d settled that issue by now.”

“The quality of the oil from millstones is inferior to that from modern presses with centrifuges. My expert says no one uses them these days for good reason. They’re dirty, you need more people to operate them, they get moldy, and the oil acquires a more acidic taste, an unpleasant aftertaste, it goes bad. He says the Arabs are fixed in their ways, they don’t spray against the olive fruit fly—”

“Of course they don’t spray! It’s organic! Ariel, forget about the pretentious Tel Aviv experts! Despite all their fancy explanations, Musa’s oil tastes way better than the lot of them, and precisely because of everything that has touched on those stones over the years. Do you truly believe that anyone gives a damn about centrifuges when tasting olive oil? Who cares? Bring them a flavorful, cheap oil, tell them it’s organic, made in the traditional way, tried and tested through the ages. It’ll sell like hotcakes.”

Silence at the other end of the line.

“What’s your problem with the deal with Musa?” Roni asked.

“I don’t want to do anything illegal.”

“Just a moment,” Roni said. He threw on a pair of shorts and a T-shirt, slipped his feet into his flip-flops, went out, and walked to the playground, sat down on a bench. A handful of children were still swinging and sliding before darkness fell.

“We’re not breaking any law,” he whispered into the mouthpiece. “We’re doing business.” He felt a tremor of déjà vu down his spine. Someone had said the very same words to him not too long ago. “That’s what’s so great about the territories,” he continued. “There are no rules, you can make them up as you go along. It’s so cheap here, it’s another country. The Chinese produce for the Americans, but many people don’t realize that the territories can produce for Israel. The genius of simplicity.”