Assaf Gavron - The Hilltop

Why had he given in to Othniel? Why should Othniel care if a local Palestinian got some work and made a little money? Kamal wasn’t a terrorist, he was a good guy. There were some good apples, too, and they’d really had it rough in recent years. Hilik had talked with Roni the previous day. He wasn’t about to speak out in favor of Roni’s olive oil business with Musa — another good guy, as far as he knew, despite having jumped onto the IDF’s D-9—but he was willing to admit to himself that he did agree with Roni on occasion. Herzl Weizmann from Mevasseret certainly talked the talk, but who knew if he was any good, or if his ideas were worth considering, and how much time and money would be involved. All Hilik wanted was a little more legroom and for the children to have space to grow up.

What struck Hilik the most about Herzl Weizmann, more than the black curls and white eyebrow and odd gaze, and more than the heavy shoes that Hilik suspected were fitted with insoles to compensate for the man’s small stature, were his plaster-casted forearms — two tubes of plaster, no longer white, from the wrist up to the elbow, equal in length.

“It’s nothing, don’t worry, it doesn’t bother me. An accident,” Herzl Weizmann said in response to Hilik’s stare. He didn’t elaborate and changed the subject. “Forget about the container, we’ll get lumber from the guys down there”—he pointed out the kitchen window in the direction of Gabi’s cabin—“and we’ll build a great little extension for you.”

“Who says he has enough to give me? His entire cabin is about the same size as the extension I’m planning.”

“So, we’ll ask. And if there isn’t enough, we’ll order from his supplier. Or I can arrange something for you through my carpenter. No problem.” Herzl squinted and took in a panoramic view of the settlement.

Yemima-Me’ara, meanwhile, had fallen asleep, and Hilik set her down in her crib and went with Herzl to Gabi’s cabin to ask about the lumber. The wood boards, it turned out, had come from the carpentry workshop at Ma’aleh Hermesh A. at a price that Herzl defined as “not bad, not bad at all — relatively speaking.” They returned afterward to Hilik’s trailer. “Whoa, looks like that camel has escaped from the Bedouin!” Herzl exclaimed on the way back, pointing at the animal.

“What Bedouin?” Hilik said. “That’s a camel cow, Sasson’s camel cow.”

“Tell me, Dr. Hilik,” Herzl said once they were back at the house and were sitting in the living room sipping coffee, “what’s the name of that guy at the cabin? He looks so familiar to me.”

“Who? Gavriel?”

“Gavriel?”

“Yes, Gavriel Nehushtan.”

“Gavriel Nehushtan.” Herzl rubbed his chin and pondered. “Gavriel Nehushtan,” he said again, as if repeating the name would somehow jog his memory. “No, the name doesn’t ring a bell. Has he been here for long?”

“A few years, I can’t recall exactly.”

“A few years, huh?” He rubbed his chin some more.

After the coffee, he got into his car and placed his plaster-casted arms on the wheel. “I’ll call you with a quote,” he promised.

“Thanks,” Hilik responded indifferently.

“Okay, hang in there,” Herzl said, and stepped on the gas.

That evening, Gabi ran into Hilik at the evening prayer service. “Your handyman looks familiar to me,” Gabi said to him. “Is he from the Galilee or something?”

Hilik chuckled. “Not at all, from Mevasseret,” he responded. Gabi frowned and returned quickly to his prayer book.

Nir Rivlin, with his red hair and beard, sat at the kitchen table and sipped from a large bottle of Goldstar beer. Tears flowed from his red eyes. Between sobs, he mumbled sentences like “I don’t understand. What have I done?”

“You haven’t done a thing,” Shaulit said while Zvuli suckled from her ravenously. “And that’s part of the problem.”

Nir had come into the kitchen from the porch a few minutes earlier to retrieve the bottle of beer from the refrigerator — his third that evening, and they hadn’t even sat down to dinner. He had been sitting on the porch for the past hour with his guitar, trying to compose a new song. But aside from coming up with the line “All pain is but another scale in the armor,” which he ended up repeating to himself over and over, and consuming two beers and a joint, he didn’t make much progress — until he finally gave up and began playing “Berta.”

Shaulit, at the same time, had bathed Amalia and Tchelet, had made them dinner and then fed them with Zvuli in her arms, and the infant, too, demanded attention and his own food. Amalia wanted to help but she was too small to hold him, too impatient to play with him or watch over him for more than two minutes. After dinner, Shaulit put the girls to bed, read them a story, and returned to the kitchen to wash their dishes and begin preparing dinner for herself and Nir. All the while, the flat chord had repeated itself, the pain and the scale in the armor. For her, every slap in the face — or simply every minute of the day — was a scale in the armor. But tough armor could sometimes crack, too. And then things were said. Threats were made. And Nir, whom she knew well enough, would immediately revert to acting like the small child within him, that was his defense mechanism, and the beers didn’t help things, weakening the walls of defense and self-awareness of the man he was meant to be, and then the tears would come, and she’d be expected to apologize, to take pity on him, but she had reached her limit that evening. She knew what was coming — an admission to the fact that he had been wrapped up in himself of late, that he didn’t know what had come over him, that he was struggling terribly with his culinary studies (What’s so hard? she wanted to scream. Inserting a piece of cucumber in a sushi roll? Peeling a yam?), and with all this uncertainty concerning the outpost, no one knew if their home would even be there for much longer, the evacuation was on one day and off the next — he wasn’t one for fighting battles, but just let them decide already, all this stress. Nir believed it would soon pass and he’d be able to be of more help to her. He felt that this phase he was going through would spark new creativity and that he’d be able to record these songs.

She knew he’d never record those songs anywhere at all, it was a waste of time, his and primarily hers, but she didn’t have the heart, despite the anger and exhaustion. She didn’t have the heart to yell at him and to tell him that — and perhaps it wasn’t a matter of heart but of years of habit and upbringing. He could do as he pleased, while she kept the household functioning. And after the tears and the admission and the promise and the hope — she knew, expected it, readied herself — his spirit would be renewed, and with that would come the transfer of the blame.

“Perhaps it’s postpartum depression?” he offered. At that stage, she had already tapped her hand lightly on Zvuli’s tiny shoulder to encourage a burp and then placed him in the rocking chair, broke eggs into a frying pan and sliced tomatoes and cucumbers, removed hummus and cottage cheese and cream cheese from the refrigerator and bread out of the bread box, and set the table.

“Perhaps you should go speak to someone? Perhaps we should consider seeking help? Perhaps someone like Gitit could come over to help out for a few hours every day?”

She responded with nothing more than a weak “Perhaps,” but she knew that Gitit had her hands full with her five younger siblings, and that they didn’t have the money to pay Gitit, and that the whole idea was stupid anyway — she only needed his help from time to time, goddammit. He couldn’t even say, like most men, that he didn’t know how to cook — he was studying to be a chef, for crying out loud! And as for the postpartum depression, who knew, maybe. Or perhaps they simply weren’t suited to each other. Perhaps they married too young, in their teens, without really getting to know each other and without knowing anything about life.