Assaf Gavron - The Hilltop

This time, the first thing Giora said after his secretary transferred the call was “Othni, what’s this I’m hearing about Japanese kamikazes running around over there?”

Jenia Freud was summoned to Othniel’s home that same evening. Together, he and Hilik had constructed a detailed action plan, a stage-by-stage takedown of the mole, the good cop and the bad cop and all that. Jenia cracked in the first minute.

Othniel and Hilik glared intensely as the math teacher sobbed in front of them, spouting fragmented apologies and excuses.

“Jenia,” Othniel demanded, and she raised frightened eyes. “Go on home. We’ll do some thinking and figure out how to right this situation. Meanwhile, you stay quiet.”

She left the trailer in tears, her hands covering her face, and Hilik and Othniel exchanged meaningful looks.

Gabi returned to the trailer, pricked up his ears — was Roni around? The silence reassured him, but then he heard the toilet flush. He sat down in the living room and took a religious book from the shelf. He didn’t look up when Roni sighed and lay down on the sofa, his bed.

For several long minutes, not a word was said between them.

Gabi thought about Uman, the trip he had forgone. The dream. How much he craved the experience, the closeness to Rabbi Nachman. Abandoned for the sake of his brother. Man is the fruit of joy, and without joy there can be no faith, but where, where’s the joy? Gabi went to Jerusalem that day, thinking he could manage to find a way after all. He visited the travel agency, the bank. Realized he didn’t have a hope. It was $1,265 for a basic five-day vacation package, plus a visa, plus transportation from the airport, plus food. It would cost less if it were not Rosh Hashanah, but Rabbi Nachman said, “My whole mission is Rosh Hashanah…”

He couldn’t and also didn’t want to take out a loan. He didn’t want to have to work the entire year to cover the cost of the trip. He added up all he had given Roni. He was his brother, flesh of his flesh, he shouldn’t think that way. He tried to read verses from the Mishnah but couldn’t concentrate, rested the open book on his chest, and closed his eyes.

Roni picked up on the energy flowing from Gabi. When he chose to break the silence, the first thing he said was “I’ll get you the money, don’t worry. It’s on the way. Shame you didn’t mention that Rosh Hashanah comes early this year…”

Gabi, in response, reached out his palm and waited. Roni looked at him without speaking. Gabi waited. His palm remained empty of money. “If you want,” he finally said, “put four thousand shekels down here right now. But without talking. Without saying ‘soon.’ Without promising that orders are about to start coming in or that you’re going off to the bank to arrange a loan or that Rosh Hashanah comes early this year.”

Roni looked at the outstretched hand.

“Put four thousand shekels down here,” Gabi said. “Now. You’re always telling me that I should be doing the things I truly want to do, so here goes. That’s what I truly want. Show me the money, and if you can’t, get out of here. Because if I don’t go to Uman over Rosh Hashanah, I won’t be able to live with you in this trailer for a single day more. This is my home and you invaded it and I accepted you without a word and with love and maybe I’m not good enough, not strong enough, not loving enough, but I can’t take it any longer. Either I go to Uman or you leave me be.”

Roni looked into his brother’s tearful eyes, his outstretched hand, and stood up. He put on a shirt, pulled down the suitcase he had stashed on the top shelf of the closet, and began tossing his belongings inside. Without a word, he collected them from around the house, put them in the suitcase, and zipped it shut. Went into the kitchen and drank a glass of water. Gabi remained in the same position, his hand out in front of him, as if he was giving him another chance, wasn’t retracting the offer. He should have told him to stop, to stay, but he couldn’t. After the glass of water, Roni returned to the living room, gripped the handle of the suitcase, and started wheeling it toward the door. Not another word was said. A gust of wind slammed the door shut, shaking the trailer’s slender frame.

* * *

There are some days when enough is enough, when the waters rise up to flood the soul, there’s something in the air, something in the wind — and something, of course, in the waters and the soul. Because at the same time the waters slowly rose up in Gabi’s soul; at the same time Roni headed out, wheeling a suitcase along Ma’aleh Hermesh C.’s ring road, without a clue as to where he would go; at the same time the waters collected and trickled into the soul of Shaulit, and as a result — and only as a result and in that order — the soul of Nir, leading them both a bleak assessment concerning the future of their life together; at the same time the defense minister of the State of Israel received yet another angry call from the State Department and realized that the waters had risen up to flood his wounded, war-scarred soul.

At the very same time, the waters approached like those of a swift-flowing alpine river after a sweltering summer has melted the last year’s snows, and would soon come crashing down like an ill-fated waterfall on the tender souls of Nachum, Raya, Shimshon (Shimi), and Tehila (Tili) Gotlieb. Roni was still walking down the road as an old edition of the Washington Post —the same infamous edition — tumbled along in the quiet twilight wind. Roni didn’t notice the newspaper, but he might have heard Tili Gotlieb’s cries.

“What happened? What happened?” Raya cried as her daughter and son came crashing through the door like a gust of wind in a storm. Tili opened her small mouth, which was missing two front milk teeth along its bottom jaw, gasping for air. “What happened? What happened?” Tili finally found the air and released it in the form of a long and violent sob. “What happened, Shimi? What happened to her?”

“Condi bit her,” Shimi said.

“What, where?” She picked Tili up, wiped her tears away, soothed her. “Where, show me, sweetie.” Tili pointed to her ankle. Raya raised her eyes and encountered the gaze of her husband, Nachum. Her head shook from side to side in despair. He responded with a somber stare and knew the waters had arrived.

“That’s Othniel’s dog,” he said to her, the implication being, Listen, there isn’t going to be a state commission of inquiry into this, there isn’t going to be an apology, there isn’t going to be any quarantining or punishing or educating about pets, because it’s the sheriff ’s dog, and no one lays a hand on the hilltop sheriff.

Raya dressed the wound. Tili’s sobs subsided into snivels. Shimi went off to play with blocks in a corner of the room, struggling to erect towers on the uneven floor. Talking about waters rising up. They hadn’t had rain for months, but a thin and persistent stream of water from a leak in one of the pipes had made its way to the same corner, and the PVC flooring had swelled and cracked and warped into mountains and valleys. Nice perhaps for a game with a train, but not for blocks, or for positioning a sofa or lampstand.

“She needs a shot,” Raya said to Nachum, implying, Look, this place, with all due respect, as if the fact that it’s harsh and basic isn’t enough, the fact that we as newcomers are on the bottom rung of the status ladder and that if we’ve been bitten by the dog of the man on the very top rung we have no right to complain; as if it’s not enough that the work is hard and the traveling long and the people few — it doesn’t even offer basic services like a clinic.

Nachum didn’t respond. What could he have said?