The Hilltop (41 page)

He stopped outside McDonald's. He had heard about it. He rummaged in his pocket and examined the green bills and went in. Standing in front of the picture-heavy menu, he remembered it was a place for hamburgers. He hadn't touched meat in almost ten years, since the abduction at the kibbutz. But suddenly it no longer deterred him. He was too hungry, too tired, and didn't know of anywhere else. He decided to try. The soft bun, the sour ketchup, the crispy fries, the meat patty, too—he loved them. His head spinning, he finally made it to the small apartment of Erez, Yotam's cousin.

They didn't click. Erez wasn't pleasant. Didn't take an interest. Gabi felt Erez didn't really want to be hosting anyone in his apartment, which was small and home to another Israeli roommate, who didn't say a word. Gabi slept on a futon in the living room, and on the first morning Erez and his roommate spoke next to him as if he didn't exist and then left for work. Gabi went out and wandered the streets around the building for a while, ate at McDonald's because it was actually nice, went into stores and looked around but wasn't wanting for anything so he returned to the apartment. Johnny had recommended that he go see Central Park, the Statue of Liberty, and several museums, but he didn't really feel like it.

Erez asked him if he'd like to work the following day. They were looking for workers at his moving company. He woke Gabi at six the next morning and took him on the subway to the office. He told him on the way that he was leaving to do a three-day move. When they arrived, he
referred Gabi to another guy, also by the name of Erez, and he got into a truck with his crew and left.

Like the city, the place was large and chaotic and crowded. Drivers and workers dressed in red shirts raced back and forth. Dozens of red trucks fired up noisily, pulled in, pulled out, people yelled in Hebrew. The second Erez was a little more pleasant than the first, but he, too, wasn't much of a talker. He asked for Gabi's signature on a contract, gave him a red shirt, and led him to a truck where a driver with a dark complexion was already waiting, tapping impatiently on the wheel with his right hand, and smoking with his left. His name was Victor.

Cardboard boxes. And more cardboard boxes. And more: sofas, tables, chairs, dressers, from upstairs to downstairs, from downstairs to upstairs. From outside the apartment and into the lift and out the lift and out onto the street through the back door and from the sidewalk into the belly of the truck. The boxes weighed less than a banana stem but were harder to grip and less pleasing to the touch, or more accurately, Gabi knew how to load and grip and carry banana stems, how to enjoy the feel of the fingers of fruit on his back. Probably, if he carried the boxes and furniture of Americans long enough, he'd come to feel a similar intimacy with them, too. But on that first day, all he asked himself was why he was overseas carrying boxes when he actually wanted to travel around, and see things, and who knows what, but not work like this, certainly not when he had the money he'd gotten from Uncle Yaron.

He returned to the apartment and the silent roommate who was glued to the television, and went out and down to McDonald's, already knowing he'd order a Big Mac. He felt the tense urban atmosphere around his shoulders, heard the sound of loud youthful laughter, of customers at restaurants, smelled the oil and his own sweat and the grime of the city. He returned home and showered and waited in the living room for the roommate to finish watching television—and after the roommate went to his room and Gabi converted the couch into a bed and arranged the sheets and lay down on them, he remained awake for a long time, hours perhaps, and felt more alone than he had ever felt on his bed at the kibbutz.

In the morning he called the office and they told him there was no
work. He spent most of the day at home, went out only to eat. The next day they told him to come in. This time, he worked with a foreman by the name of Itzik, who spoke to him like a commander to a soldier and spoke to the driver—the same Victor—in a loud voice about parties and girls. They did a small move from the company's storage facility in Queens to an office in New Jersey. Afterward they went to load up an apartment in Manhattan.

The apartment—spacious, a high floor, spectacular view—was home to a middle-aged Israeli by the name of Meshulam, who was dressed in a suit and flip-flops and didn't say much. Gabi followed Itzik's orders and began taking the boxes downstairs to the truck. Victor waited in the truck's cargo compartment and arranged the boxes inside. They worked like that for about half an hour, and then Meshulam replaced his flip-flops with a pair of polished shoes and informed them he was going out to a meeting. Gabi sensed an immediate drop in tension on the part of Itzik. Every time he returned to the apartment after a trip down to the truck, Itzik had made himself more comfortable, until eventually Gabi found him stretched out on the sofa, Meshulam's cordless telephone pressed to his ear while he snorted loudly with laughter.

When he heard Gabi enter, he signaled with his fingers for him to wait a moment, continued talking for another three minutes, and then said, “Listen, I'm going down to get something to eat with Victor. Stay here to keep an eye on the apartment. I don't want the owner to return and find no one here. If he gets back before me, tell him we're on a short break. We'll take over afterward and you can go down and grab something.”

The owner returned. Gabi passed on Itzik's message. He nodded, loosened his tie, and sat down in an armchair. Then he sighed and turned away from the view to look at Gabi. “Been in New York for long?”

Gabi shook his head. “Three days.”

The man smiled. “It shows. You aren't managing very well, are you?”

Gabi wondered what he meant, what showed. “Not managing what?”

“The city. The work.”

Gabi looked at the man. Considered whether to be loyal to the company or to tell the truth. He smiled. “It shows?”

Meshulam laughed. He asked Gabi about his background and Gabi responded with an appropriate summary. He gave Gabi a can of soda from the refrigerator and Gabi drank appreciatively and glanced out at the canopy of clouds and the sun that struggled to break through them from above, and the tall buildings that tried to pierce them from below. “This city is so huge,” he said.

“You'll like the place I'm moving to more,” said Meshulam. “It'll remind you of the kibbutz.”

“Where?”

“Hollywood, Florida.”

Gabi was confused.

“It's not the Hollywood you've heard of. It's a different Hollywood. Nicer. You'll see when you go there to unload.”

“It won't be me.” Gabi smiled. “We aren't supposed to do long-distance in the first month.”

H
ollywood, Florida, was much nicer. According to company regulations, Gabi shouldn't have been on the truck, but company regulations stipulated that at least one worker who was there for the loading must also be at the unloading, and because Itzik and Victor were called in to help with a huge twelve-truck job down on Wall Street, the dispatcher bent one rule to stick to another. Or he simply didn't have any people.

They went by Meshulam's apartment one more time to load a few more new items he had purchased. When they told him they were continuing on from there straight to Florida, Meshulam told the foreman that he was also about to leave, and offered to give Gabi a ride in his car. That wasn't in keeping with company regulations, either, but worked best for everyone: for Meshulam, who clearly needed company and help with the driving on the long journey southward; for Gabi, who was worried at the thought of spending two or three days in the truck's cabin with the
two imbeciles he'd met ten minutes earlier who were treating him like he wasn't even there; and most of all for the foreman, the ruling authority, who couldn't believe his luck—not only had he managed to get out of the huge job in lower Manhattan but he could also head down to Florida with a friend and with extra room in the cabin.

One thousand, one hundred and eighteen miles is a long way to go, lots of time, lots of nature, lots of air. Leaving the big city, Gabi felt the tension drain from his body—the few days he'd spent in New York were the longest of his life in a city. Within hours he got used to the pace of the journey, the softness of the Chevrolet's beige leather seats, the regularity of the American road, the open spaces and rest stations and roadside diners. He ate something other than a Big Mac at last. And the English from the kibbutz began rolling off his tongue naturally again—the rust finally fell away.

One thousand, one hundred and eighteen miles is sufficient distance for deepening an acquaintanceship. Meshulam Avneri had been in the United States for eleven years. He had a student son, a soldier daughter, and one ex-wife in Israel, another daughter who was traveling in Ecuador, and a second wife who had been living with him in New York until two weeks before and had returned to Israel. Her father had fallen ill, but that was probably just an excuse. He didn't know if she'd be coming back. She wasn't too keen on the move to Florida, and claimed, anyway, that Meshulam had promised her they'd go back to Israel, although he didn't remember making such a promise. So now she was there and he was here and who knew what would happen. Besides, he traveled a lot and didn't get to see her half the time, so things hadn't changed much. On the other hand, he should have been doing less traveling from Florida, that was part of the improvement in the terms of his employment, his promotion. The New York office was the company's main office in the United States, and it was good to be close to the honeypot, the tail of a lion rather than the head of a dog, and all the other clichés. But being handed the North Florida zone, Palm Beach County, the region with the highest concentration of Jews outside of Israel, and what Jews, too, Jews of the perfect age and social status for his kind of work—that isn't an offer one refuses, and Nira could say and do whatever she pleased. When Meshulam said that,
his words were tinged with bitterness, and his eyebrows scrunched up into his graying face.

Meshulam worked for the Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael. Gabi recalled that it was the organization responsible for the forests in Israel, but Meshulam explained that that was only one of its activities. In America it was known as the JNF, the Jewish National Fund, and they were involved in raising money, which went toward all aspects of land development and land maintenance in Israel. Meshulam arrived as an emissary, and a few years later, after receiving a green card and subsequently an American passport, he became a local employee. His main job in Florida was to find people who would bequeath their money and property to the State of Israel, to make contact with them and to nurture the connection.

“How do you find people who want to leave their money to Israel?” Gabi asked.

“Ah, it's complicated. A JNF person needs to be well rooted in the Jewish community and the synagogues. He'll present brochures on the JNF activities and offer people the chance to adopt projects. He'll give lectures, leave business cards. Sometimes he'll hear of candidates in advance and make contact with them. Sometimes the donors themselves make the approach. We also publish ads.”

“And then what?”

“You set up a meeting. They're usually elderly Jews. Sometimes they have a family or friends or other organizations, and we get a portion of the inheritance. But the really big fish are people with money and assets who don't have a family, no heirs, and then we step into the picture. That's the real work.”

“What's the work?”

“I meet with them for lunches. Call to maintain the relationship. I show them the work the JNF is doing, and befriend them, try to make them feel that the State of Israel cares about them. There are financial arrangements, too. Sometimes they're complex, with lawyers and accountants. Sometimes it's simpler. The details are finalized over time: the size of the bequest, the validity of the will, the precise wording, where exactly the money will go, what will be done with the property.”

They drank coffee at a truck stop. Meshulam, who insisted on wearing
his suit and tie the entire journey, suddenly sighed, and Gabi wondered what he was truly feeling. “So your work is really just making friends with old people, sucking up to them, making sure they don't pick up the phone to a lawyer to tell them they've discovered some distant relative whom they've decided to leave everything to, and waiting for them to die.”

Meshulam smiled. “Not all the work, but that's a part of it.”

“Not bad.”

“You're away from home a lot, you eat with them, listen to them, treat them well. It's not that simple.”

“Actually, doesn't sound too bad to me.”

“It's tough with those people sometimes. They're not the most interesting. Or they're angry with someone, or something hurts them. You have to be there for them all the time.”

“Better than carrying boxes and sofas on your back.”

“I guess. And also, don't forget, it's Zionism in the end. We're building the country. We need that money.”

They resumed their journey. Gabi drove. Meshulam drove. Gabi drove and Meshulam slept. They stopped to spend the night in a city called Charleston, and at dinner Meshulam told Gabi about a client he once had in that city, not even a Jew, but he contacted the organization and decided to bequeath his home, a beautiful house with a large garden in the heart of town. Meshulam met him for dinner, at an amazing fancy seafood restaurant. It was a fascinating evening, the man had an interesting life story, he was a CIA agent in Italy for many years. They finalized all the details, the man was supposed to call his lawyer the following morning to change the will, but before he had a chance, he suffered a heart attack and died of food poisoning, and Meshulam himself spent all day hanging over the toilet throwing up and having diarrhea.