Assaf Gavron - The Hilltop

“Hah…” Yona broke into the slow and beaming smile of someone who is completely wasted. “That was Yona’s, Eyal’s mother’s, idea. She wanted everyone to think it was Shimshon Cohen. Because look, I have smooth hands, look.” He held out his arms.

“But wasn’t Shimshon Cohen a friend of yours? Why did she want to incriminate him?”

“Ooh. A long story. We’ll have to save that one for another time.”

The thought of having to spend another evening with Yona made Roni shudder.

“Taxi!” Roni shouted, and when one appeared and stopped out of nowhere, Yona chuckled and said, “God’s on your side, kid.”

He got into the back and closed the door, and after the cab pulled away, the window came down and he yelled, “Regards to your brother the loco. Let’s hope he recovers.”

Only after the cab disappeared did Roni realize that Yona hadn’t told him how Yona and Yona had given the father hairy arms like those of Shimshon Cohen.

When Roni told Yona that Gabi was in New York, he had no idea that Gabi had left New York in favor of Hollywood, Florida. Roni wanted to call Gabi to tell him of his discovery. He got the number of a kibbutznik who was working in the moving business in New York, but he told Roni that Gabi had been there with him for a few days and had then disappeared. With only this flimsy lead to go by, Roni decided on second thought that he didn’t want to inform Gabi of his discovery. What for. Why pick at old sores.

Gabi Kupper returned to New York on one occasion. It was to meet the daughter of Cyril Zimmerman, a millionaire from Boca Raton, an important client of Meshulam Avneri and the JNF branch. Zimmerman had agreed to leave a significant portion of his estate to the Jewish National Fund, and was about to amend his will to arrange the bequest. Meshulam had met with him several times, some together with Gabi, and made a note to himself that Zimmerman fit the profile of a candidate who could very well come up with a large contribution, if they could maneuver around a number of obstacles on the way.

One such obstacle was Jennifer, Zimmerman’s fifty-nine-year-old daughter, who lived on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. The elderly man told them about her one day. He said she was asking questions about the JNF and the inheritance. He didn’t believe it’d be a problem, but he didn’t want to create unhealthy tension, or as he put it, “to leave this world on a discordant note,” and therefore wanted to give her the answers.

“What’s she asking?” Meshulam pleasantly inquired. He had told Gabi about such cases. The children of a potential donor ask questions, particularly when it came to an inheritance. Meshulam stressed the need to display understanding for the suspicion, and to propose a series of confidence-building measures — a presentation, lecture, meeting, even an invitation to Israel, so the children could see with their own eyes the work being done. There were cases in which children had secured a post facto annulment of the will on the claim that their lonely parents had been exploited, and there was no point in butting heads over such incidents, as it would tarnish the image of the organization. All such problems had to be resolved in advance.

“Well, what could she be asking — how come all of a sudden I plan to give half my money to people I don’t know?” Zimmerman said, and sipped his white wine. He had pinkish skin, glasses, and a full mane of white hair. He’d made his fortune as a lawyer. “I say to her, Jenny, it’s the JNF, it’s the State of Israel, it’s what’s written in the will, the text is being scrutinized by a thousand pairs of lawyer eyes, including mine, everything’s kosher, everything’s been defined and reviewed, the bank accounts, the money will go to recognized institutions. So she says, with all due respect to the State of Israel…”

The thing is, Zimmerman said, Jenny doesn’t even need the money. She married, and then divorced, a Jew who’s even wealthier than me, Shulman, the steel magnate, know him? They didn’t. She had a lot more than she could spend in her lifetime even if she tried, and she’s also still supposed to get half the inheritance of her father, as his only daughter. Her intentions are good, she only wants to protect him, to make sure his head isn’t being turned, he said. So all that needs to be done, in his opinion, is to send this young man to see her — he pointed at Gabi, who had been sitting there in silence through most of the dinner, eating politely and slowly, smiling at all the right times — so she can see that the money really is going to the “good guys” and not some Israeli swindler. Gabi sat up straight when Zimmerman said that, with a piece of wonderful rustic bread in his mouth, which he tried to swallow whole. He looked at Meshulam in surprise, and noticed a glimmer of recognition in his boss’s eyes. A flight to New York was scheduled for the following week.

A few months had passed since Gabi moved into the separate apartment in Meshulam’s Hollywood home. He felt comfortable there. It wasn’t really like the kibbutz, he soon realized, but there were the yard, the single-story homes, the nearby beach, with its grains of white sand on the backdrop of warm turquoise water in which beautiful-looking girls waded and splashed. He often visited the cinema and wandered among the theaters, which screened the same movies over and over again.

He was fortunate — two junior positions had just opened up at the local JNF office. They were supposed to be reserved for local employees, Americans, but he was able to land a temporary work permit that would tide him over until all the visa paperwork was completed. He began by getting to know the local staff and their work: establishing ties with Jewish institutions in the area, organizing gatherings in homes, identifying donors and keeping in contact with them, putting together delegations to Israel, distributing and collecting the blue collection boxes. He sometimes accompanied Meshulam to meetings, and the rest of the time he spent in the office. The first project he handled entirely alone was a lecture tour by former Israeli justice minister Dan Meridor to a pair of local retirement homes.

The work was interesting, easy. He did the math and found that the moving business had actually paid more, but the JNF salary was still pretty good, and his expenses were minimal. The constant brush with the wealthy, people who all their lives chased after money and attained it but were left alone, not knowing what to do with so much, taught him something, namely that in the end almost everyone shrivels and fades away with only a few family members around, at most, and the money they’ve worked so hard for lies scattered around them like fallen leaves that someone’s forgotten to rake up.

Even after months, he remained unable to get a full grip on Meshulam. His family status, and the motives behind his willingness to offer a job and a place to live to a young guy he barely knew. Or what exactly he did in his free time. Sometimes Gabi heard muffled noises, the footsteps of more than one person on the hardwood floor, or the turn of a key in a lock in the early hours of the morning — Gabi was a light sleeper and he’d raise his head, glance at the clock — three, four — and go back to sleep, but they always met up at eight thirty to leave for the office, and Meshulam always looked well groomed and fresh. Gabi tried two or three times to engage him in conversation — to ask about the situation with his wife’s father or what chance there was of her returning to the United States, or if he had done anything interesting the night before. But Meshulam wasn’t forthcoming, and Gabi gave up. He sensed that Meshulam was a loner. That he possessed a bitter side.