Assaf Gavron - The Hilltop

Not much was said when they first began working that morning, either. The work was simple. Herzl climbed a ladder, used a screwdriver and adjustable wrench to go over all the new fixtures, and attached a few final ones. Gabi handed him large bolts and nuts and in the interim cleared the synagogue’s spacious hall of materials and tools, which he amassed in a corner and moved outside after the rain stopped. Together they fitted the uppermost wooden beams, which added a rustic and eye-pleasing dimension to the ceiling, as well as support.

During their first break, Herzl said, “You work well, I have to say. I wish I always had workers like you.”

Gabi smiled and sipped the tea. “There’s plenty of work to do, praise the Lord. But thanks. If I’m free, I’ll be happy to.”

Silence ensued. Steam rose from the tea. The rain continued to tap lightly on the roof without a break. Herzl said, “You know, the first time I saw you here, you looked so familiar to me.” Gabi raised his eyes. They looked at each other for a long moment, brown eyes crossing in cold air.

“Really?” Gabi said.

“Ever live in Mevasseret, or thereabouts?”

Gabi shook his head. Why was there tension in the air? Perhaps the eyes registered before the brain, and sent signals into the air. “I grew up in the Upper Galilee. On a kibbutz. Were you perhaps…” Herzl’s head shook from side to side. A half-smile gathered in the corner of his mouth. He lifted the mug and sipped with a noise caused by the meeting of tongue, lips, liquid, and air designed to cool the hot liquid on its way to the throat. When Gabi was living in the United States, an Asian donor once told him about the art of soup-drinking in the Far East. He took him to an authentic Chinese restaurant and said, “Listen.” Gabi listened. He was surrounded by the sound of slurping, and when he looked around, he observed the technique, the pursing of the lips, the forming of the narrow tunnel, the inhaling of the air, and the sucking in of the soup. In a Western restaurant it would be perceived as ill-mannered, vulgar. Yet when Gabi took out a tissue and loudly blew his nose, the Chinese fixed him with a look of disgust. Every culture has its own definition of vulgarity.

“Where were you in the army?” Herzl asked, and immediately afterward, Gabi’s pupils widened, a film covered his eyes, a few drops of coffee went down the wrong way; he coughed violently and hung his head. Yes. He recognized him. Of course. Oh my God. Oh. My. God. The eye sees and the ear hears and all your deeds are inscribed in the book. He closed his eyes and said to himself, God, Man, you are testing me, you sent him to me, what am I supposed to do, Man. The coughing fit passed and he opened his eyes, and Herzl Weizmann looked at him with a smile and tilted his head, and asked, “What?” and took out a box of L&M Lights and pulled out a cigarette from it and lit up, and from within the smoke and the squinting of his eyes and the blackness of his hair continued, “Everything okay, my bro?”

* * *

I couldn’t sleep. I opened Mishali’s footlocker and from it removed two stun grenades, large and smooth and purplish-brown in color, like eggplants. The cooks were animals, not human beings. I identified the room and dragged over a large, heavy wooden bench to serve as a barrier against the door. I walked around, found the window, and managed to open it. I pulled out the pins, reached in with both hands, released the grenades, closed the window, and fled from there to my warm bed, hearing on the way the huge booms…

* * *

Gabi signaled that all’s well, just a sudden coughing fit, the wrong pipe. Weizmann sucked on the cigarette and looked and asked, “So where were you in the army?” And Gabi quickly answered, “Golani,” but felt, knew, that Herzl would soon recall. He waited, told the God in his head that he was ready, let the man give him what he deserves, turned his gaze to the window, felt Herzl’s eyes on him. How hadn’t he remembered immediately? Herzl. One of the cooks who refused to prepare a late dinner. Who laughed in the face of his commander and beat him. Who were sleeping soundly in their warm room when the stun grenades blew them into the realms of trauma, horror, the hospital. Gabi waited in surrender to his fate, but Herzl only said, “Come, my bro, let’s get back to work.”

The rain eased off, and they went outside to check the synagogue’s stonework. In addition to the yellowish and masoned Jerusalem stone, Herzl had added a layer of wooden boards between the stone and the drywall, for better insulation. Herzl took a step back and gazed with pride.

“It used to look like two trailers, huh?” He was right. The synagogue looked for all intents and purposes like a stone structure, with strong walls and a large and impressive roof.

“You’re a righteous man,” Gabi said, and believed it with all his heart — building and beautifying the hall of worship is sacred work — but inside of him a storm was raging and he was conducting a fierce debate with his God about what he should do.

They prepared cement in the manual mixer and completed the final wall. Gabi carried the stones and mixed the cement, Herzl applied and plastered and cleaned and banged with the wooden hammer. Little by little their conversation deepened. Herzl told Gabi about his life. He was twice divorced. The second time his wife behaved “really badly. I don’t want to go into details, you’re a religious man, you don’t need to hear such things, but really badly.” When Herzl discovered how she was behaving, he took a suitcase, got into the car, drove to the junior school where his son was in third grade, waited for recess, found his son, told him to get his bag, we’re going on a drive. Drove off.

“Bro, I didn’t have a chance,” Herzl said. Chance of what? Gabi wondered. The rain came down again and Herzl said, “Let’s get back inside.”

Herzl boiled more water on the gas burner. “What terrible weather, my God.” He smiled and extended a mug of tea to Gabi. “What about you? A reborn?” Gabi nodded and Herzl said, “It shows on you,” and Gabi wanted to know what showed on him but there was a knock on the door and the two men turned their heads and saw a tall, blond, large-breasted woman enter the synagogue.

“I see you two work whole day in hard rain. People with gold heart. Deserves something to eat, yes?” Jenia Freud was carrying a tray bearing two sandwiches and two triangular pieces of baked apple pie and had an apologetic smile on her face.

“Jenia, thanks! You’re a saint, you, believe me,” Herzl said, and placed the tray on the concrete block that was serving as a coffee table. “I was just thinking about popping over to the grocery store in A to get something.”

“No, what you mean driving, in rain like this… Eat, eat. Meat okay?”

A thin smile rose on Gabi’s lips and he said, “Thank you, good woman.”

She left, and Gabi recited the blessing over the food, and they ate the sandwiches with the pastrami, and Gabi recounted how Jenia had regained the trust of the hilltop residents following her exposure as a Shin Bet mole. Herzl thought she had acted wisely, plucking at heartstrings by means of a house-to-house campaign of apologies, tears, and supplication; rolling over the blame to the Shin Bet, who deceived her and exploited her naïveté; and drumming up sympathy through acts of generosity like this one. “Who’s going to say a bad word to her when she does such nice things?”

“There are enough people here who’d say something nasty, don’t worry,” Gabi said. “They said she needs to go. That they’d always suspected her. That she’s probably a shiksa, you know, because of the height and the hair…”

“Yes, and the… So how did she manage to stay?”