Assaf Gavron - The Hilltop

Other memories: Mickey’s silences. Sudden, without apparent cause. Something he didn’t like, something that was said, or any slight change in the way his toys were arranged in his room or the living room. It pushed Gabi over the edge, and Mickey soon mastered the technique and used it as a weapon, without restraint or accountability, as is the wont of children. Gabi tried various tactics — repeating the question, raising his voice, using logical explanations, yelling, threats of punishment, tempting with rewards, countersilences, leaving the room. With every attempt he turned increasingly helpless, and the ever-increasing helplessness saw Mickey become more and more entrenched in his silence, and that led to gritting of the teeth, tightening of the jaws; to rage, which always clutched Gabi to its bosom with open, comforting arms. The rage, which evolved into a small debt-collection department: the forcible removal of clothing, twisting arms and legs and pinching at the same time; ear tugging, firm pressure on the head, squashing up against the wall while growling, shoving a heaped spoon into a gaping crying mouth. You’re not talking? Take that, you little hero, take that into your silences, cheeky thing. And the adrenaline pumping inside him while he did so, and the screams of the crying child, and the deep sense of regret five minutes later, the mutual apologies and the oath to himself not to get to that point again, not against his toddler son.

Alongside the memories, the mitigating footnote, which says, We spent too much time together while Mom was studying and traveling to Afula, we got on each other’s nerves, we learned to live together, we were just learning to live together, we were in the throes of the process, and we would have made it, it would have worked out, if only we’d had the chance. But the stern footnote says, You didn’t deserve to be a father, and you never have. The role was too big for you to play, and thus the role was taken from you. You were put to the test, and you failed.

When Gabi would come to learn sometime later about the power of silence (“Silence — as if to say, ‘Be silent, thus is the highest thought.’ The righteous man is silent”), he’d appreciate his son even more, he’d see in his silences the legacy of the strong man, the righteous man, who left the weak behind to learn and improve himself.

A red traffic light — often it’s merely a suggestion. When you’re young, and brimming with confidence, and look right and left like you were taught, and don’t see a car on the horizon, you cross on red, too. Once, in your childhood, at the Tiberias central bus station, a policeman stopped you and gave you a token fine, but you haven’t heard of a fine like that in years and you assume the police no longer bother with such trivialities. It begins with an empty street at a crossing, and moves on to crossing a street not at a crossing, and gets to decisions to cross not only when there are no cars, but also when you see them and judge that you can make it. Once or twice it’s a close call, you get honked and yelled at, on rare occasions your heart will race or your skin will bristle and your brain will think you need to watch out, because it could end badly. You think about that word, almost . You even imagine sometimes what would have happened if that car had hit you, if you hadn’t noticed it at the last second, or it you. A wheelchair? A complete life change? But when it remains “almost,” those thoughts drift away with the flow of life. Because it hasn’t changed, because nothing happened. So what’s the point of waiting for green?

And then you have a son and you walk with him in a stroller through the streets of the city and become responsible. You stop on red. When it comes to the life of a child, there’s no playing around and no taking risks, even if you’ve looked right and left and there’s no real danger, and the road is empty. Because it’s a child, and it’s a stroller, and it moves slowly, and if suddenly out of nowhere there comes a car traveling overly fast, you won’t be able to hustle out of the way like you’re used to doing. You discover alongside you the people who wait at a red light. You’ve always seen them, when you were younger, you thought about them, obeying the rules, not cutting corners, not questioning them. People who would wait at a red light even if they were to come across one in the middle of the desert with the nearest living soul several days’ journey away. Now, stopping and waiting alongside them, fists gripping the handles of the stroller, you come to respect them.

Bottom line, however, you are not one of them. With time, the defenses drop and the self-confidence rises. You walk with the stroller day after day, learn it, and if you’ve become more responsible now that the life of a toddler and not only your own life is in your hands — fuck it, the road’s clear, what’s the point of standing around? It’s a matter of principle, after all. When you, too, were alone, you didn’t want to risk lives, you crossed when you felt sure no harm would come to you, so what’s actually the difference? So you begin to cross with the stroller and with the baby, too. Even when from time to time you almost get caught up in an unpleasant situation and regret crossing, and your thoughts wander to What would have happened if ?—they vanish into thin air as usual. Because it’s only “almost.”

The last age that Gabi told Mickey was three years and two months and twelve days. He collected him from day care and asked, “How was preschool today?” And Mickey responded, “Fun,” and asked, “Where’s Mommy?” And Gabi answered, “Mommy’s in Afula, she’ll be back in the evening.” Mickey hummed a song. Gabi listened, tilted his head, and narrowed his eyes and brought his ear closer, and eventually recognized it, a birthday song.

“Was there a birthday party at kindergarten today?”

“Yes.”

“Whose?”

“Ido’s.”

“And did you have cake?”

“Yes!” And he began singing again, and Gabi joined in. They walked like that, leisurely, the weather was pleasant, there was no reason to go home.

“When I have birthday I wear crown,” Mickey said.

“What?” Gabi said. And the boy repeated the sentence and the third time his father understood and asked, “A crown? What crown?” And Mickey said, “With red flowers,” and Gabi remembered there’s a crown like that lying around at home somewhere, and said, “Sure, sure, when it’s Mickey’s birthday, he’ll wear the crown with the red flowers,” and added, “But that’s only in another nine months and two weeks and three days, so there’s time.”

Mickey pointed at a small hopping bird and said, “Birdeeee!” stressing the deeee . Gabi asked if he’d like to put a sweater on, but knew the response would be “No.” A chilly fall wind was blowing in a clear sky dotted with a handful of clouds, and darkness was about to fall on the day.

Gabi pushed the stroller in the direction of the park and asked Mickey if he’d like to see the ducks on the lake.

“Ducks on the lake!” Mickey repeated excitedly, and bounced his small body up and down in the stroller.

Gabi smiled to himself. They came to the crossing. The light was red.

“Ducks on the lake!” repeated Mickey, and continued to bounce his body, which was restrained by the stroller’s safety harness.

Gabi looked right and left. The road was clear, almost. A blue bus was driving at a safe distance and was signaling to stop at a station.

But it didn’t stop at the station. And Mickey was no longer buckled up. Had somehow freed himself from the safety harness, jumped quickly off the stroller, and ran into the road, heading for the ducks.

When Gabi turned to look straight ahead again and saw Mickey in the road, he screamed, “What are you doing, you fool!” and ran into the road after Mickey. The bus approached and Gabi could already hear the air brakes breathing down his neck. Gabi afterward wasn’t able to reconstruct exactly what he did, the bus driver and his passengers either, the entire situation remained strange and unexplained, but a review of the outcome tells the following story. The blue bus braked but hit the stroller, which for some reason Gabi had carried on pushing into the road, and sent it crashing into Mickey, and the blow from it and from the resulting fall broke the boy’s right arm and cut into the flesh of his thigh. A light injury, very light, even. Lucky. Almost. Another almost, one that does indeed shake the heart more than a run-of-the-mill almost, but is likely nevertheless to subside and grow faint before long, after the cast is removed and the sutures dissolve. Gabi, meanwhile, exactly how remains unclear, completed his part in the scene some distance from the stroller, leaning over Mickey and showering him with hysterical screams, harsh curses, which frightened and offended the boy more than the blow, the fall, and the pain.