Assaf Gavron - The Hilltop

“Jehu is one of us,” Othniel calmly responded. The kindness in his voice had disappeared. “You shouldn’t be reporting anything about him to anyone, either.”

“Of course, I not report anything anymore.”

“And no more trying to play it smart. No matter what happens, how it happens or who it happens to — you come straight to me.”

She nodded. “Of course, of course.”

“I’ll be letting everyone know now,” Othniel summed up. “I’ve been in this business long enough. Those bastards know how to latch onto and attract weak elements, how to confuse and get things out of people without them even realizing what they’re saying. We’ll let you off the hook this time, Jenia. This time.” He turned to fix Elazar with a stern look. “Take her home and explain it to her. Next time, we won’t be so forgiving. It’s your responsibility, man. Take charge of her.”

Jenia shot an anxious look at her husband. “ Chto eto , ‘let you off the hook’?” she asked in an effort to understand. Elazar trembled. His Adam’s apple turned circles. He lowered his eyes. “Yes, of course, Othni, trust me, you have nothing to worry about.” He took hold of his wife’s arm and gently prompted her onto her feet. “Thanks, Othni.” He nudged her toward the door. Elazar clearly wanted out of Othniel’s trailer before the latter changed his mind.

The revelation sent shock waves through the outpost’s residents. Gavriel Nehushtan bore the hurt of everyone, and Neta Hirschson fumed with rage, and Yakir felt a touch of compassion for the tall woman who had been sinisterly manipulated, and Jehu disappeared again for several days. Elazar Freud, so consumed with panic and shock, did absolutely nothing for days, couldn’t look his wife in the eyes. But after she tearfully but determinedly tried to get him to explain to her what was going to happen, he fell into her arms and sobbed, without saying a word.

* * *

Nachum Gotlieb knew that the Ki Teitzei Torah portion, read recently, dealt with going to war and not with going from slavery to freedom or from one place to another, but during those hot days, with the year coming to an end, he couldn’t help but think of Ki Teitzei as a sign, a directive from above, that it was exactly what he and Raya and Shimi and Tili their children should do — go. After making the decision, they informed Rachel Assis, began the formal process of closing down the optical store in Ma’aleh Hermesh A., let the tenants in their apartment in Shilo know that they’d be returning, reserved places for the children at kindergarten, and so forth. Nachum and Raya felt a huge weight lift off their shoulders, and they began filling their Nissan with belongings to transport load by load back to their previous lives.

* * *

Yakir, too, got going — away from Second Life, with no intention of ever returning, but he continued to mull over the stormy events he’d experienced there, their significance and implications. His sister Gitit began to depart from her innocence with the generous assistance of Yoni, delving blindly into a new and intriguing darkness, discovering fresh and wondrous feelings and emotions. Shaulit Rivlin, depressed by the bleak mood at home, despondent over her husband’s insensitivity and selfishness, also pondered setting out on a new path. Not to mention the outpost of Ma’aleh Hermesh C. itself, its people, its crops, and its structures… it was becoming increasingly likely that it, too, would be departing, or cleared out, at the very least, in the wake of moderate yet consistent pressure from the secretary of state and the United States ambassador, who would probably end up breaking the strong back of the defense minister.

* * *

Meanwhile, after departing from Gavriel’s house, Roni had walked and wheeled the large suitcase alongside him, turning things over in his head. Maybe he’d look for somewhere on the hilltop to crash for the night. Like his brother’s almost completed but not yet occupied cabin? Spread a blanket in the Mamelstein playground? Lay his head down on the unkempt woolly coat of Sasson’s camel cow? Perhaps he’d simply leave altogether and head to the plains, where he hadn’t been for years, and where there were colorful lights and densely packed buildings, filled with people?

No and no and no and no and no — those were the answers. He walked on and turned southward off the ring road, crossed through Othniel Assis’s fields, and went down to the terraces and up through Musa Ibrahim’s olive trees. His friend. His business partner. He was going to put his trust in him and ask if he could stay with him. And screw Gabi and his settler friends who weren’t capable of living in peace with their neighbors. As far as he was concerned, he didn’t mind even sleeping in the olive press, near the olives and the large millstones, wrapped in the fragrance of oil. Why not? If this is his new life, if this is the source of his income from now, he should live as a true worker of the land, who feels the earth and its fruits.

He knocked on Musa’s door. His wife opened the door, looked in surprise at the suitcase, said “Hi, Roni,” and ushered him in and served up Turkish coffee with cardamom. Musa will be here soon, she promised. Roni sat in the humble living room, wanting to feel more at home there than at his brother’s. It’s just a matter of time, he assured himself. And anyway, this isn’t his new home, the olive press is.

Musa arrived. Roni stood up and smiled. They shook hands. Musa looked at Roni’s large suitcase, and then looked up at him with smiling eyes. “The first rains are coming soon,” Roni said, “aren’t they? You feel it in your bones? You can already see the clouds. You can see they want to, right?”

“Sit, Roni, sit,” Musa said. “You got coffee?”

“I got.”

“Yes, the rain comes soon. Soon the olives. The whole village is waiting.”

“We are waiting, too, Musa, we are, too. I want to be in the thick of it already. To harvest, to work, to make the oil.”

Musa gazed at him. Roni gazed back.

After a few moments of silence, Roni asked, “What?”

And Musa said, “Has no one spoken to you?”

“Spoken to me about what?”

The Defense Minister’s Bureau. The session of the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee had ended, and they were now meeting in a more restricted forum, and briefly — or so at least they hoped — the minister; Malka, his adviser on settlement affairs; Giora, head of Central Command; and Avram, head of the Shin Bet’s Counter-Subversion Department. The director-general of the Defense Ministry had notified them that he’d be there in seven minutes.

“Yes, Malka,” the defense minister said. His eyes were red from lack of sleep, his nerves shattered from the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee meeting, where, as usual, they had come at him from all directions — a Palestinian inadvertently killed in Nablus, a breach in a stretch of fence along the border with Lebanon, barriers torn down on Hebron’s Shuhada Street, the acquisition of computer systems for tanks, the sale of computer systems for Chinese submarines, a demand to pave a stretch of road in the territories, opposition to the paving of a stretch of road in the territories, the suspension of work on the separation fence, revelations concerning abuse at an officers’ training course… there wasn’t a single decision made by his ministry or incident that had occurred that would fail to give cause to someone on the committee to attack him, berate him, sully him in rivers of slime and muck and contempt, and the minister would be forced to explain, and justify, and go on the defensive.

“What are we discussing?” He picked out two pretzels from the bowl on the table in front of him; he always ate them in pairs.