Assaf Gavron - The Hilltop

“I want to take her to the clinic.”

“Where will you go at this time of the day?” he asked, and looked at his watch.

“I can’t take it any longer, Nachum.” That was the moment the waters found their way and completed their journey to Raya’s soul. “I can’t take it any longer. Just give me a clinic. Give me a village administration, Nachum.”

The husband looked at his wife and daughter. His hair and beard were scruffy and dense, both cropped just beyond what could be considered short. His face was narrow and long like his body and nose, which served as a base for a thin aluminum frame — selected as suitable by Raya — that surrounded the lenses of the glasses. The optical store he was trying to establish in Ma’aleh Hermesh A. wasn’t taking off. He was patient, but sometimes he wondered what for. He motioned in a manner that shifted the glasses on the bridge of his nose without actually touching them and said, “Give me rabbis. Give me a daily portion. Give me three prayer services with a minyan.”

Tili was smiling by then. Her parents looked at each other.

“Give me a grocery store. Give me a bus into town. Give me a kindergarten and a preschool and a school.”

“Give me an air conditioner. Give me stone walls. Give me hot water.”

Nachum looked out through the screen window toward the Hermesh Stream cliff face, and beyond it to the homes of the Yeshua settlement. This kind of life didn’t suit everyone. They supported them wholeheartedly, their right and its realization. But from afar — at demonstrations, in petitions, at the polls. The newspaper continued to tumble in the wind down the road along the edge of the cliff face.

“Give me a library. Women’s evenings. Proper parties for the holidays.

“Give me a community center. Give me a swimming pool.

“Give me shows for the children. Dancing classes and judo.

“A babysitter.

“Yes, a babysitter.”

Raya Gotlieb smiled at her husband. She knew the business wasn’t going to work. She had been in the store twice that week, helping with the office work, waiting with Nachum for customers to come in. They were told they’d get some from the settlement, from neighboring settlements, from Jerusalem, even. The percentage of people with glasses among the religious was twice that of the general population. But there were only a handful here. And they were thrifty, went to the Halperin Optics discount center at the Malcha Mall. They were told they needed to be patient, that thousands of new settlers were on their way. But this government, those Americans. Raya shifted her gaze from her husband to the tiny kitchen.

“Give me a normal kitchen. With a normal-size oven. A normal-size fridge.”

“And a normal floor?”

“Definitely.” Raya looked at the linoleum-free square on the floor of their kitchen. Over the past months, the glue that had been under the linoleum had attracted dust, leaves, webs, and nests. Life-forms could be detected in there. Raya gave up on cleaning it. She grew accustomed to the sound of shoes sticking and releasing. She accepted the empty square, the void, as an integral part of her abode. The mystery had been solved just a few days earlier: she was talking to Shaulit Rivlin on the playground, and the conversation went on for quite some time — the usual topics, children and kindergartens and breast-feeding and cooking — and when the heat rose and the two women looked for shade, they slowly began pushing their baby carriages from the playground to the ring road, and when they approached the Rivlins’ home, Shaulit invited her to stay and they sat on the swing bench in the yard while the older children played inside and sounded content.

Shaulit didn’t tell Raya about her moribund relationship with her husband. And Raya didn’t say a word to Shaulit about her general despair with life on the hilltop. The two enjoyed the conversation, supported each other with more than just words, just by listening. And then, while in the middle of breast-feeding, Shaulit needed a diaper and a pacifier and explained to Raya where she could find them inside the trailer. Raya went in and noticed a square of green linoleum that had been stuck down in the kitchen, cleaner and newer than the rest of the linoleum around it. She moved closer and checked and measured the length and width with her thumb and finger so she could compare later at home, though it wasn’t necessary, it was obvious.

She didn’t say a word when she emerged with the diaper and pacifier, but back at home, after confirming her measurement with her finger and thumb, she told Nachum and he looked at her in disbelief and then grew angry and said, “I’m going over there right now. I’ll rip it off their floor. I’ll show that scoundrel.”

Raya, however, smiled indifferently and said, “Let it go, Nachum, it doesn’t matter now,” because by then she knew they wouldn’t be staying long at that outpost, in that trailer, in that kitchen, with the partial floor.

“Yakir!”

“Yes, Dad?”

“Do me a favor, do a search on your Internet for some Japanese sect or group that…”

“That what?”

“That… I don’t know. Supports the idea of a Greater Israel? Likes Arabs? God knows, is looking for something here…”

Yakir did a search. There’s the Makuya sect in Japan, they’re Israel lovers. But Othniel had met some nice tourists from the Makuya, and those businessmen didn’t appear to be connected to the sect. So Yakir searched some more. There were all sorts of right-wing neo-fascist movements. There were several terror groups. There were organizations opposed to the regime, opposed to minorities of various kinds, including Arabs. When he typed in the word Japanese , followed by Judea and Samaria , he found, among the slime that Google presented, a short report on an unfamiliar website, with fluctuating numbers and green and red graphs at the top and bottom of the page. He showed the report to his father, and Othniel narrowed his eyes, trailed a thick finger — callused and yellow-nailed from the work in the fields — across the small flickering letters, and mumbled as he read:

Japanese Farming Machinery Company

Penetrates Israeli Olive Oil Market

Japanese company Matsumata (MATS — Dow Jones and Nikkei) has announced plans to enter the Israeli olive oil market. The Japanese giant, whose operations include the manufacture of electronic devices and engineering and agricultural machinery, has branched out into the field of food imports and exports. Olive oil has become popular among the middle and upper classes in Japan, Korea, and China. These countries have also seen an increasing consumer awareness of the advantages of organic food and the benefits of olive oil in terms of reducing cholesterol and fighting cancer. Matsumata employees reviewed olive groves in various locations in the Mediterranean basin, and the company has displayed particular interest in Palestinian groves. The European Union and the Japan International Cooperation Agency previously announced a special program of support for the Palestinian economy, wherein investors receive tax breaks and favorable financing. Thanks to this program, Palestinian olives may be cheaper than the European olives, despite the security situation. Furthermore, for millions of Christians in East Asia, the significance of olive oil from the Holy Land…

Othniel’s finger moved away from the screen. “It’s killing my eyes,” he said to his son. “Where does it mention Ma’aleh Hermesh?”

“Ma’aleh Hermesh isn’t mentioned. Only Judea and Samaria.”

“So what’s it got to do with us?”

“I didn’t say it has anything to do with us. You did. It only says they’re looking for olives from Arabs in Judea and Samaria.”