The Hilltop (19 page)

The arrangement worked well for all parties. Where else in the world would Gabi have been able to build, with his own two hands, a home of his choosing, his taste, and catering to his needs—at almost no cost at all? And from the point of view of the settlement, Gabi's pending move would free up a trailer that could then be used to house a new family. Moreover, the log cabin became a beautiful, eye-catching attraction, drawing visitors, political functionaries, and potential settlers.

Soon after Roni's arrival on the hilltop, Gabi took him for a walk and showed him the cabin, saying to him, more in earnest than in jest, “You can pay your rent while you're here by working with me here on the house.”

Roni, who absolutely loved the “open-air design” of the place, was quick to respond. “Sure, sure, no question about it,” he said. “I'll come to help regardless of the rent thing. Are you kidding me? Working here in this fresh air and these surroundings, it's a dream, man, it's America rediscovered. What am I talking about, America? Things like this don't exist in America, in America, things like this . . .” He took a deep breath and looked around, and his voice lost a little of its verve when he completed his sentence, “don't exist . . .”

Gabi could have counted on one hand the number of times that Roni came to help. And one spring morning, Gabi asked him to. New wooden beams and planks had arrived, and Gabi had freed up half the day and needed another pair of hands to measure the beams and nail them together. Roni glanced at his watch. “Today, of all days?” he said. “Ariel is finally coming over and we're going to have a look at Musa's oil press; it took forever to arrange.” Roni looked up from the watch to see
the look of disappointment in Gabi's eyes. “I'm sorry, bro, I have plans with some people. I tell you what, how about tomorrow? Let's make it for tomorrow. You really need to tell me such things in advance.” Gabi, however, would be spending the following two full days hard at work on Othniel's farm. He laced and tied his shoes and left, offering only a feeble “Good-bye.”

“A
riel!” Roni called out with a broad smile as the silver Toyota hesitantly approached along the circular road. He was sitting on an easy chair in the yard alongside the trailer and reading yesterday's newspaper that Gabi had found and brought home after guard duty during the night.

“Where's the bathroom?” Ariel, looking a little green around the gills, asked frantically as he hurried past his friend and burst through the door of the trailer. “Just don't tell me that Gabi's in there.”

“Gabi's at work, feel free. I'll put the kettle on.” Ariel, already out of earshot, hurriedly dropped his pants and sat on the toilet without drawing a breath. “That didn't sound good at all. Oh God, it doesn't smell all that great, either. Let's get outta here,” said Roni, cups of tea in his hands, as Ariel emerged from the bathroom. “How was the drive?”

“Scary as hell,” Ariel replied. “I couldn't relax for a second. They drive like lunatics, the Arabs—trucks, taxis, all going a million miles an hour. And their houses sit right on the road, almost. And where's the army? I had the shakes the entire way. And what if I had taken a wrong turn and ended up in the middle of a hostile village?”

Roni smiled, sat back down in his easy chair, and gestured to his friend to sit beside him. He pulled out a cigarette and offered, but Ariel declined. “Sit, take it easy, man. It's peaceful here. Believe me, I haven't felt this secure since the kibbutz.”

Ariel barely heard a word and certainly wasn't convinced. His eyes continued to dart left and right, and every few minutes he frisked the
four pockets of his pants to make sure his wallet, phone, and keys were where they should be. Ariel was a large man, with a bald, egg-shaped head that housed thin blue eyes. Those eyes finally fixed on the easy chair alongside Roni, and he sat down.

“You're crazy. I still can't believe you brought me out to this battle zone. I've never been so terrified in my life. What's that camel over there?”

“A camel cow—Sasson's. Forget it, man. Look at the view. Take a deep breath. The Land of Israel.”

Ariel's eyes met for a moment with the discerning orbs of the sand-colored camel cow and he attempted a deep breath. To no avail.

They sat quietly and sipped their tea.

“So, they've allowed you to come live here just like that? No questions asked?” Ariel asked.

“Sure, they ask questions. People always ask questions. But the people here are pretty laid-back for the most part. I'm visiting my brother . . . And what about you? How are things at the accounting firm? And what's happening at Bar-BaraBush? Do you still hang out there?”

“For sure, just like always,” Ariel said, somewhat distracted by the view of the light-colored hilltops in the distance. “You know, it really is beautiful here.”

“Oh, I see someone is beginning to relax a little. Give it a few minutes and you'll be addicted to the quiet.”

Ariel took the minutes, closed his eyes, and put his head back. “It's working,” he mumbled. “Such quiet.”

“Trust me,” Roni said, “this place needs a B-and-B. It would make a killing. It's closer than the Galilee, dirt cheap, quiet, the view. You should see the cabin Gabi is building himself on the edge of the cliff. Stunning.”

“Are you out of your mind? What lunatic would come here? Are you telling me you want to sell this beauty and quiet and these dirt-cheap prices to Israelis? They'll never come here. Bring it to them.”

“As in bring olive oil from here to their doorstep?”

“For example,” Ariel responded rhetorically.

“Okay, let's go see Musa.”

“Isn't he coming here?” Ariel's pulse rate and blood pressure, which had finally stabilized, reared their heads again.

“Are you crazy? No Ishmaelite ever dares to approach this hilltop. Come, let me first give you a small taste.”

The oil pleased Ariel's palate.

“The firmament of the Land of Israel is different from that of the other nations,” said Roni, gesturing toward the ancient landscape, after the two men set out.

“Huh?” Ariel responded.

“Don't worry, that's not me. That's the way Gabi speaks. Rabbi Nachman quotes all day and night.”

They passed by several of the outpost's inhabitants, Jean-Marc Hirschson, and Josh the American, and Nehama the kindergarten teacher, and the cheerful, singing, babbling toddlers from the day-care center, one of whom, Shneor, Hilik Yisraeli's son, was crying, with snot trickling from his nose. The locals waved greetings at the two men in their city suits, and they nodded in response, Roni with a knowing smile, Ariel with a touch of anxiety.

“Tell me, are they not lunatics, burning with messianic ideological fervor, outlaws and bullies who harass the Arabs and steal land and all that?”

“The only lunatic is my brother, and he's proud of it!” Roni said, and went on to quote Gabi saying things like “Devotion to the Lord requires doing things that may appear like madness.”

Ariel laughed and said, “It won't be long before you, too, are reborn.” Roni was quick to respond, “God forbid.”

“Seriously, though,” Ariel said, “aren't there problems here with the army and the Arabs and who knows what?”

“Listen,” Roni said, “clearly there are people here who are afraid. And I really couldn't tell you if there are or aren't any Kahanists here who go out at night on raids against the Arabs. But from what I've seen, most of the people here simply get on with their own lives—work, family, school, and prayer and religious studies, too.”

“How's Gabi?”

“He reads Rabbi Nachman. Prays like a madman. Rocks and sways like he's on a carousel. He's quiet a lot. He's building a cabin. Who knows. We haven't seen this much of each other since we were kids. To be
honest, I'm enjoying it, and I think he is, too. It's a little cramped in the trailer, but I'm trying to get into another one that is currently unoccupied, and Gabi will be moving into his cabin at some point . . . Okay, let's head off here to Musa.” Roni turned onto a path between two trailers and drove on in the direction of the olive groves.

“Are you sure?”

“This is what you came for, right?”

The sun burned white over sleepy mountains. The past few weeks had seen the days drag by, get longer, gradually lose their chill. And the hills were covered in a thin film of sourgrass, much to the delight of the goats and sheep of all nationalities. Behind Ariel and Roni, Ma'aleh Hermesh C. faded farther into the distance and ahead of them the village of Kharmish drew nearer. In between lay Musa Ibrahim's stretch of olive trees, absorbing the sun's long rays, which would strengthen over the coming months and bring fruit to their branches, evidence of which could already be seen in the form of tiny clusters, like embryos at their initial stage of development. This year would bring a bumper crop, and if they wanted to close a deal, it would be best to do so now, before the harvest in the fall.

Ariel's brow was covered in beads of sweat, his eyes were now hidden behind black sunglasses that wrapped around his head. “They aren't hostile? Are you sure?” he asked.

“Chill, baby. Musa!”

Musa came over, and friendly greetings and handshakes were exchanged, and Ariel's heart fluttered as he tried not to cast any mistrusting glances. They sampled another dark, bold-flavored oil, and then Roni said to the Arab, “Come, let's see what we spoke about.” They walked along the boundary between the village and its groves, and then turned right into the alleyways. Ariel froze, looked neither left nor right, and not for a moment did he take his eyes off Roni, who, for Ariel in that moment, was the only representative of a safe and familiar world.

“So, like I tell you,” Musa said, a cigarette attached to a black plastic holder between his fingers, “an oil press like this one, you could find maybe two others in West Bank. The old kind, made of stone. They don't make oil like this today no more. It's the old way.”

“Yes, yes,” Roni said, spurring Musa on. “Millstones, that's what we want to see.”

Musa continued. “My father worked the press for many years, and made oil for whole village,” he said. “Two years ago, he got tired, too much work, too many people to manage, too little oil. Someone in the village brought in an electric press and everyone takes their olives to him, me, too. Someone came and offered my father many dollars for each stone. But he didn't want. He wanted to sit back with his
narghile
and said the press must continue to work for the family. I said, Father, take the money, we'll make oil with the electric one. He said, No, the family has worked this way for a thousand years, and you will continue, and your son after you.”

“Of course,” Roni said. “He was right. It's the traditional way, the real way.”

Musa fixed Roni with a tired look. Ariel, still scared stiff, hid behind his sunglasses despite the shade in the narrow alleyways.

Musa produced a large set of keys and opened a lock that hung from a corrugated steel door. The door creaked open. He flipped a switch and a pale bulb on the ceiling lit up. A dank, dusty odor assaulted their nostrils. The room was dark and had a dirt floor. Two millstones stood in a vertical position inside a wide basin, also of stone. Musa explained the process—the harvesting, onto lengths of tarpaulin, was done by hand and with sticks and rakes. From there, the olives went into sacks, which were then loaded onto donkeys and carried to the press—from the tree straight to the stone,
min a-shajar ila ilhajar
, yielded the best oil—the women sorted through the olives, discarding the dirt and leaves, separating the good from the bad and the black ones from the green, then the olives were pressed by the stones.

“What about washing?”

“There's this washing pipe that can connect to water,” Musa responded, pointing to a thin brown rubber hose. “But the water in past years too little and weak. And my mother says washing is
zift a-tin
, takes all the flavor and color away. She say the dust and the earth is true flavor. The rain washes good enough. My mother and father aren't willing to taste any other oil. It's the taste of when they were children. They long for
it.” He pulled out another cigarette and put it in the holder. Ariel anxiously followed Musa's fingers with his eyes. The air inside the oil press constricted his lungs.

“I trust your mother, no washing for us,” Roni said, meeting the look of horror in Ariel's eyes with a wink.

The cigarette Musa had lit up made it even harder to breathe, and little help was offered by the tiny barred window, through which they could now see the faces of children, snooping and inquisitive. Ariel was sweating: This is the end, what am I doing here? But then Musa's wife entered with a tray bearing small cups of Turkish coffee, and Ariel accepted graciously and lifted one to his lips—delicious.

“From here, the olives we put on stone,” Musa continued. “The donkey we tie to thick beam, and his eyes we cover so he doesn't go crazy. He walks and pulls the beam in circle like this, and the stone crushes the olives, cracks them. This is most natural way and best way, no knives, no shredders, and no machines. The flesh of olives turns into
ajina,
mash, with a good smell. We collect the ajina with special rakes and we spread on the
akalim
”—he pointed out circular, flattened baskets woven from rope with a hole in the center—“and the akalim we put on this pole, one on top of other, and turn screw and press hard-hard, and so the oil seeps out into bath here. It's water and oil together, and we let lie to separate, or separator tool is also possible to use. After we separate, oil goes into pitchers, and there it is good to let sit for a while because it is cloudy, pieces of olives are float in it, and after a week or two, they sink and the oil is clear, and is possible to pour into cans.”