The Hilltop (6 page)

“It's me.”

“What's you? The Gavriel, I get. What's with the Nehushtan?”

“Kupper in Hebrew is
nehoshet
. Didn't you know? Our forefathers in Germany must have been coppersmiths. Copper is the strongest material in the world.”

It was Roni's turn to raise his eyebrows. Gabi looked at his brother's body slumped limply in the armchair—no longer the muscular physique of old, but still manly, stubbled and thick-haired, a soft mane covering his dark-skinned chest. His brother was the broader of the two, shorter, and more hairy. A stranger might struggle to pick out any resemblance at first glance. Even though their brown eyes cut the same shape, Roni's expressed warmth and playfulness, while Gabi had been told his own reflected caution and naïveté. Gabi continued, “Someone once told me that when the Ice Age returns at some point in the future—and it'll happen for sure; after all, God spins nature in a cycle—the entire world will be covered by a layer of ice several kilometers deep. And the immense weight of this layer of ice will crush the whole world we know today into a thin layer, just a few centimeters thick. Everything will turn to dust. But if someone during that coming Ice Age were
to dig deep into the heart of the earth and look at a cross section of that two-centimeter layer of what used to be humanity, they would see mostly copper. And that's because we use so much of that material and it is so strong. Everything else will turn to dust, into nothing. But the copper will survive.”

“And what is that supposed to say about our family? That we're strong?” Roni laughed his small laugh. Gabi shrugged. “Did you change your name officially, at the Population Registry?”

“No.”

They drank in silence for several minutes. Then Gabi asked, “What do you mean by ‘I have nothing'? What's happened?”

“It's a long story.”

“I'm listening.”

Roni opened the screen and threw out his cigarette butt. “Not now,” he said. “We'll find the time. Aren't you off to work now?”

“Yes, but I'd also like to know what has happened to my brother. And it'd be nice to know how long you intend to stay. Are you in some kind of trouble?”

“No, no, everything's great, nothing's happened. I simply need to air myself out a little. Who's that? That's quite a look he has there,” Roni said, pointing at a picture the size of a large postcard that stood on one of the bookshelves, a black-and-white photograph of a bearded man wearing a furry hat.

Gabi looked at the picture. “That's Rabbi Kook,
Ha-ra'aya
,” he said, using the common Hebrew acronym for the revered Torah scholar.

“
Ha-ra'aya
? What's that supposed to mean?”

“Such zeal, right?” Gabi responded, turning to face his brother again. “But why are you changing the subject? Is it ‘nothing' or is it ‘a long story'?”

Failing to elicit a response from his brother, Gabi went back into his bedroom, returned shortly afterward dressed in blue work clothes over his tzitzit, and sat down to lace up his heavy work shoes. He then smiled and stood up. “Okay, we'll talk later. I really do need to get going.”

“Don't worry,” Roni said, “I won't be a burden for long. I just need to chill, get back on my feet, and then move on. In any event,” he continued,
getting up to put his head out the window and look around, “I haven't got what it takes to live in a place like this for too long.”

Gabi smiled. “Okay, I'm outta here. Have a good day.”

“Have a good day, Gavriel Nehushtan!” Roni exclaimed, breaking into a loud laugh, but when the door shut behind Gabi, the smile on his face instantly disappeared.

*  *  *

“What an insane morning,” Gabi heard Shaulit Rivlin say to Nehama Yisraeli as he passed by the two expecting mothers and nodded in acknowledgment without looking at them directly. The morning sun felt good on the back of his neck. He walked by the new trailer and then the new playground just beyond it. God must be so righteous, he thought. If He had sent his brother to him on a day filled with new and joyous beginnings for the settlement, surely that must be a blessing. Something caught his eye. A small shoe. He picked it up off the playground grass. A Nimrod sandal, size 23. He took it over to the toddlers' day-care center before continuing on to Othniel's farm. Othniel was there already, standing outside with one hand shielding his eyes from the sun and the other holding a telephone to his ear. “Let's get moving, Nehushtan!” he said, hastening Gabi along. “We need to prepare the crates for Moran. Just a minute, I'm on the phone.”

Fridays were short workdays, and getting hold of anyone at a government ministry was no easy feat, but, thank God, Othniel Assis had the mobile telephone numbers of several influential individuals, the first being MK Uriel Tsur, who had spoken yesterday at the dedication ceremony for the playground.

“Good morning, Uriel, Othniel here . . . Yes . . . Thank you . . . Tell me, do you know anything about this demarcation order we received yesterday? . . . Demarcation, demarcation . . . Captain Omer . . . Berkowitz, no, Levkovich . . . Yes, after the ceremony . . . Okay, thank you, thank you . . . But before Sabbath, right? Thank you, sir.”

Othniel spent a fair deal of time on his phone that morning. Gavriel, meanwhile, worked alongside him, preparing the crates of vegetables and dairy products for Moran, their distributor. Regarding the new trailer, explained Natan Eliav, the secretary of Ma'aleh Hermesh A., who had
personally made calls to Dov, to the council head, to the IDF Central Command, and to various other officials, apparently there had been a mistake. The new home was intended for a different outpost, Givat Yeshua, an extension of the Yeshua settlement on the other side of the wadi. After losing his way and failing to reach anyone on the phone, the truck driver simply off-loaded the trailer at the first seemingly vacant spot and departed.

As it turned out, the removal of the trailer from the settlement would probably take some time. Yesterday, Natan Eliav continued, there was a transportation permit for the mobile structure, but there was no construction permit or approval for its connection to any infrastructure, which would have allowed for the home to be off-loaded and placed on the ground. Since then, apparently, a construction permit had come through with the help of their guys at the Housing and Construction Ministry, but the defense minister himself had intervened and was no longer willing to issue a second transportation permit. Someone must have gotten word to him, leaked something to him.

“Who knows, perhaps you've got a Shin Bet security service informer among you,” Natan Eliav muttered, which got Othniel thinking, Perhaps we do—it wouldn't have surprised him. But who? Maybe that new guy, Gavriel's brother? He glanced over at Gavriel, who was working beside him, and wondered if he should say anything. You never know. In any event, Natan continued, the defense minister won't allow it to be moved. In fact, he added, the defense minister's antisettlement intervention means that the new abode will be staying in the settlement for quite some time, so perhaps it would be a good idea to go through the waiting list and invite a new family to set up home there.

Othniel knew precisely in which drawer at home the waiting list could be found. Rachel, his wife, headed the settlement's Absorption Committee, together with Hilik Yisraeli. He decided to wait a few days, and if the defense minister remained adamant about withholding a transportation permit, they'd move a family in. He went outside to help Gavriel with the crates.

MK Tsur eventually got back to him. “The order has something to do with the separation fence,” he told Othniel.

“What!” Othniel replied. Surveyors and architects and military officers and various other officials related to the fence had indeed been wandering around the area. But they had been doing so for years, and no one paid them any attention. “I thought they weren't building the fence in this area.”

“I don't know if they really are going to build it, but apparently they've decided to do something about it there,” the MK said. “And based on what I was told, it is supposed to run through the olive groves of your neighbors from Kharmish.”

“So what's that got to do with us?” Othniel questioned.

“Well, the area that falls under the seizure order issued by the IDF for the purpose of building the fence and for the security zone on either side of it includes a portion of your land.”

“But how is that possible?” Othniel cried out. “Since when have they been building the fence through Israeli settlements? Haven't they heard of democracy and basic human rights over there in Jerusalem?”

“You're right,” the parliamentarian replied, “it is unusual. The land they are appropriating this time is again private Palestinian land, but it seems you have settled on part of it. There's another problem, too. Your settlement doesn't appear on any map.”

“What are you talking about?” Othniel responded, knowing all too well, like Tsur, that this was indeed the case, and thankfully so. It would be better if the maps weren't updated and for the air force to refrain from any aerial photography. It spared everyone headaches. Years of experience in the settlement enterprise had taught them this.

“Besides,” Tsur continued, “the lefties are making noise with the Defense Ministry. They want to know why the fence is being built through an olive grove belonging to Arabs when right next to it sits an illegal settlement that has continued to expand, with a playground, new trailers, and the like. The defense minister wants to look good, so he's telling them that the outpost, too, will be evacuated, and he's sent you the demarcation order. Are you with me?”

Othniel's one hand held the phone up against his ear. His other hand rested on his forehead. He tried to think. Who had told them about the playground? And what new trailers? Only one had arrived, and mistakenly, at that.

“Anyway, Shabbat shalom, my friend. I wouldn't worry too much if I were you. We'll take care of it next week. Hang in there. Give my regards to the lefties,” Tsur said, and laughed.

“What lefties?”

“Haven't you heard? The lefties are staging a demonstration this afternoon in your Arab village.”

Othniel closed his eyes and rubbed them. As if he didn't have enough to deal with before the Sabbath, he thought. “But . . . What are they demonstrating about?” he asked. “They got what they wanted, didn't they? The order's been issued.”

“God only knows! Against the fence. Against the outpost. In support of the Arabs' olives. There's no shortage of things for the lefties to demonstrate about in Judea and Samaria on a Friday afternoon, is there? Trust them to find something. Okay, my friend, today's a short one. Shabbat shalom.”

T
he tip, the point, the bulge. What was it about them that excited him so much? His eyes were always drawn to them. He knew it was impolite, but he wasn't the one who made the decision, his eyes did, and they always went there, before anywhere else. And the best days were those last days of the winter, when the caress of the morning sun created a sweet illusion that suggested dressing in short, thin clothing, before the sun remembered that the spring had yet to arrive and disappeared behind the clouds, and a sudden chill set in.

What he liked most was that there was no barrier, nothing in the way, and that they were right there, just beneath the thin cotton. That was a far more beautiful image than bare breasts, which left nothing to the imagination; they could be too thin, too big, too small, asymmetrical, saggy, eggplant-shaped. Bare breasts could look exactly like the things they are—fatty milk glands, and fatty milk glands did nothing for him. Titties, too.
Titties
was a word for teenagers. But breasts—
breasts
was a man's word.
And when they were right there, hidden minimally under a thin layer of worn silk or cotton, that was what really got his blood pumping.

And that's what Roni could see, freely bouncing up and down under a shirt bearing the slogan
THE OCCUPATION WEAKENS US
—large and juicy, and at their center, poking against the fabric, erect, fleshy nipples of volume and experience, the nipples of someone who knows they are there and how to leverage them.

When he left San Francisco two days earlier, with no intention of ever going back, thin, revealing clothes were a distant memory. And after arriving in Israel, and heading east from Ben Gurion Airport, he figured that such sights, which, with the coming of the spring, would sprout up and flourish in Tel Aviv, would be lacking at the settlement where he was headed. Less than twenty-four hours later, however, he was standing, arms folded across his chest, in the large olive grove of an Arab village adjacent to his brother's outpost, facing dozens of demonstrators brandishing signs that read
DOWN WITH THE SEPARATION FENCE
and
SETTLERS GO HOME
—
OUTPOST OUTLAWS
, with his deviant eyes unable to budge from that one protestor's magnificent chest, until he forced them to do so and his gaze drifted up to her pleasant, somewhat porcine face, and to the placards, and then across to a group of residents from the village. And he couldn't help but notice the eyes of one of them fixed precisely at the right height, their lines of sight intersected—Up with promiscuity! Down with the separation bra! End the occupation of the breasts!—and, like sharers of a secret, their mouths curled upward into smiles of mutual appreciation. There are some things that transcend politics and justice.

Roni's gaze wandered on, aiming higher and farther afield, and then stopped suddenly in its tracks in surprise: Herodium! And he became aware of the perfect roundness of the hilltop in the distance, how it surged forth sensually from the body of the flat desert, light in color and so inviting—a breast! A breast in the middle of the desert! I've come to the right place, Roni thought, and looked around at the hilltops, at their soft curves, their gentle contours, and their feathery, after-the-rain covering. A few days from now, Nir would tell him that Yosef Ben Matityahu or Titus Flavius Josephus himself had written of the Herodium that it looked just like the breast of a woman.