The Hilltop (8 page)

“Anyway, he said you should bring him ten pieces, to sniff out the market. Roni and Musa, you said? Where are they located?”

“Listen, I don't know if I'll be able to organize ten pieces so quickly. Let me have a word with the people here. I'll see what I can do.”

“But is it really good? Organic? Baladi olives? All that extra-virgin, cold-pressed shit?” Ariel asked.

“I'll be in touch, Ariel. Got to go.”

*  *  *

The Sabbath fell on the hilltop like rain, bounteous and fresh.

There was no one outside as Roni hurried off, but the sound of the prayer song drew him to the large structure at the center of the outpost, two trailers that had been joined together. Elsewhere, absolute silence reigned, with the occasional gust of wind disturbing a sheet of plastic somewhere.

The two halves of the synagogue teemed with life and prayer. The men, complete with their long beards, swinging tzitzit, and skullcaps as broad as their self-assured smiles, prayed rhythmically. Roni spotted Gabi at the front, close to the Torah scroll, immersed in his God, swaying fervently. It wasn't prayer; it was a dialogue, a scream, an intense cry, ecstatic applause. An individual swept away to the point of utter detachment, crying one moment and laughing the next, his face displaying anguish, then pleasure. Roni watched his brother with a mixture of wonder and pride from a bench at the back of the synagogue. Wonder sparked by the fact that the kid was a champion, the outpost's champion of wild prayer, whose fervid movements threatened to tip over the entire structure; pride sparked by the fact that the kid was whole, a believer. He appeared content, and to have found his place. Or so his elder brother hoped.

Roni lost interest after a few minutes. He wasn't able to follow the service. He sneaked out, suppressed the urge to light a cigarette, and stood around watching the children at play. One boy came up to him and asked who he was.

“Roni. And you?”

“Hananiya Assis,” the boy responded, looking curiously at Roni's nonwhite clothes and the stubble on his face. “How old are you?” he asked.

“Forty and a half. And you?” Roni said.

“Forty and a half ? Whose grandfather are you?”

Roni laughed.

When he went inside to the back benches, two bearded men were
talking there in soft voices about Mamelstein and the Civil Administration. Roni flipped through the Sabbath leaflets that lay scattered on the tables. The two bearded men suddenly stood and broke into song along with everyone else. Roni followed their lead, standing when they did and sitting accordingly. It wasn't long, though, before he gave up trying to keep up with the flock, realizing that no one really cared anyway. He enjoyed the synagogue, browsed the leaflets, watched the worshippers with interest, and was fascinated by the combination of the sheeplike communal spirit (singing together, genuflecting in unison, everyone dressed in white) and the individualism (their skullcaps and prayer movements, the way they covered their eyes during the Shema prayer).

Some fifty hours had passed since he had fled the United States. He smiled wearily and allowed the noise that had been buzzing in his thoughts in recent months to subside. He'd stay here for a while. He'd take it easy out in nature, and rest. Perhaps he'd look into the possibility of doing something with that Musa guy and his olive oil. Or maybe he'd move into the new trailer that had arrived at the outpost. He closed his eyes, and all around him, the men sang to their God with increasing intensity. Yes, he thought, that's what he'd do. He'd leave the mess behind him. He wouldn't hurry to move on elsewhere. He'd get his life back in order.

A joyous melody started up, a Hasidic song. Initially, Roni didn't even open his eyes, the song gelled with the prayers, but then he felt it. First, the change in the mood, the stunned stares of the worshippers, and then, the vibration in his pocket. What was the phone doing there? And who calls on the Sabbath eve? He cast a fearful look over the synagogue. Did they know it was him? Did they recognize the acoustic tune as Gabi's ringtone? Yes, they know for sure. He lowered his head, stood up, and headed hastily for the door. The tune—which he would later discover to be “There's a Fire in Breslov” by Israel Dagan—played on and grew louder; the glares burned into the back of his neck.

Outside again, he answered the call. It was Ariel. He had been thinking more about the idea, and it sounded fantastic. When could he come by to see and taste the oil? he asked.

E
very summer, the kibbutz was overrun by the black beetles. Industrious little things, with eight or six spindly legs—he could never remember how many for spiders and how many for beetles—walking along the gray concrete paths, which they appeared for some reason to prefer to the lawns, just like the people. They gave off an awful, pungent stench, which may have been a secretion or may have simply come from the rotting bodies of the unlucky ones that lay crushed by the boots of the kibbutzniks, or met their demise by other means. In retrospect, his memory offered up the disgusting stench along with the bizarre spectacle of hundreds and thousands of small black bodies on the backdrop of the smooth, bare concrete that ran between the beautiful lawns tended by Dad Yossi and his landscaping team and the small homes that were known as “rooms.”

Of his father and mother, on the other hand, he had no image, odor, or sound to hold on to, but he did have biological facts: names, ages, causes of death, height, hair color. Where did the beetle invasion come from? From the mountain, said Mom Gila. And why did they come to the kibbutz? To look for food, to look for shade, said Dad Yossi. Mom Gila, Dad Yossi—as opposed to his real mother and father. It was never a secret. It wasn't a story that had remained hidden until one day in his teens, the father-who-he-had-thought-was-his-father had taken him for a drive and told him that he wasn't his father, and shock had turned into tears: But why didn't you tell me? It wasn't a tale about children whispering and giggling behind his back until one day, one of them had said, with a touch of curiosity, and cruelty, too, perhaps, You know, my father
made me swear not to tell you, but he says that your father and mother are not your real father and mother, followed by him bursting into tears and asking, What do you mean by a father and mother not being real? There's no such thing; and then going home and asking them, and them giving each other a look that said It had to come at some point, we could never have kept it a secret forever, and then his father taking his hand and saying to him with sadness, Listen, Gabi . . .

No, it wasn't that kind of a story. Mom Gila and Dad Yossi were, from the very beginning, Mom Gila and Dad Yossi, never Mom and Dad, and Roni's and Gabi's family name was always Kupper—until Gabi Hebraized it years later. As for the story about their real parents, well, Roni and Gabi heard that more or less at the same time they heard their very first words.

He could remember his brother, Roni, shouting, “Mom Gila! Mom Gila!” after finding him on the other side of the perimeter road, nearby the kibbutz fence, beyond which lay the plum orchards, with two black beetles in his mouth, alive but no longer whole. “Mom Gila! Mom Gila! Gabi's eating beetles!”

“What?” came the cry from the house.

To her credit, you'd have to say, she reacted quickly, initially with the cry and then by running outside in her nightdress to scoop him up in her arms. She wasn't mad at him, didn't spank his tush, didn't scold the older brother for failing to look after the little one. Instead, she hastily washed out his mouth and gave him some juice and a candy to get the taste out. And then she looked at him, and he smiled back at her, seemingly somewhat indifferently, perhaps a little inquisitively, and she burst into astonished laughter.

When Dad Yossi returned home, he took the infant in his arms, bronzed by the summer's labors, and said, “What's this I hear about you, you little cannibal?” And little Gabi, who wasn't talking just yet but certainly knew how to laugh, did exactly that, and from time to time thereafter, Dad Yossi would call him Cannibal, more frequently when he began devouring the bloody steaks that Dad Yossi would prepare on the barbecue on Independence Day and the other springtime holidays, and even after he became a vegetarian several years later, following the incident
in which a few more black beetles, of the same kind he had eaten that day, ended up in his mouth again. Dad Yossi returned from work, picked up little Gabi, and called him a cannibal, and all four members of the family laughed out loud—a warm and fuzzy family picture from the 1970s.

His first memory was of a mouthful of beetles, and the memories to follow were also associated with his mouth. He always had something in his mouth. Like that pink device that pushed against his upper lip so that his teeth could grow. It was a special device that no one else, including the grammar teacher, had ever come across.

“Gabi Kupper, do you have gum in your mouth?”

“No, miss.”

“So what do you have in there?”

“It isn't gum, miss.”

“Come here and show me.”

He walked over from his chair toward the teacher and pulled back his lip to show her the pink plastic device, trying at the same time to again say, “Ib ibn't gub, mish,” and not to hear the other children giggling.

And the plates, and braces, the various kinds of straightening devices, the retainers, those for use only at night, those with the apparatus that went around the head—he had one of those, with its framework covered in denim fabric, so he could look cool. Yes, cool Gabi, at the age of seven, with the plate in his mouth joined to a brace apparatus covered in denim fabric so that instead of resembling a torture device, it looked more like a lampshade that at any moment would connect to the ceiling, where the lighting element known as Gabi Kupper would dangle and thus illuminate the room with his teeth—crooked, yet glowing bright. Images etched into his mind for various reasons: the rides with Mom Gila, to see the orthodontist who came once a week to the neighboring kibbutz, or to Kiryat Shmona, or even to Haifa, when the treatment progressed further; the walks with Roni along the kibbutz pathways, to the pool, to the dining hall; Shimshon Cohen, who had returned to the kibbutz after serving ten years in jail for killing someone in a fight in the army, stopping the two of them, looking at Gabi, and saying with a smile, “What is that, a bird?”

Shimshon Cohen was the talk of the kibbutz ahead of his release from prison. Most of the children didn't remember him at all, most weren't even born or were very young when he was sent down, but everyone knew the story, and in the days leading up to his release, the anxiety level among the kibbutz children—and, to be fair, among the adults—rose to unprecedented heights. All went well, and everyone spoke of how peaceful and nice he appeared, and how good he looked, and everyone talked, too, about the VCR that someone had brought him from Lebanon and how no one on the kibbutz dared to say a word to him about it, despite the fact that some thought he should bring the device to the communal TV room. And what was this nonsense about him watching alone in his room, not to mention the sounds emanating from the device, Roni and his friend Tsiki had heard them, they dared to go listen outside the window at night, and they weren't the only ones to do so.

And here before them stood Shimshon Cohen, curly-haired, wearing a white undershirt, his shoulder tattooed decades before every kid on the block boasted one, his cheeks unshaved. His appearance clearly suited the mythology, the most terrifying fantasies, to a T. The man who, with his bare hands, had killed another for pissing him off. So what then do you say to such a man, a week after his release from prison, when you are eleven years old and he asks if your seven-year-old brother is a bird?

“Yes,” Roni said to him.

Shimshon laughed. “Who are you?” he asked. And Roni, his voice trembling, answered him, and Shimshon Cohen thought for a moment and then said, “Ah, yes, the kids who . . . yes.” And Roni nodded, his eyes welling up with tears, and eventually Shimshon Cohen ruffled his hair and said, “Look after the bird, okay?” And Roni nodded again.

From then on, every time the released convict saw Gabi, he'd break into a broad smile and affectionately pinch the boy's cheeks, and whereas Roni's heart would begin thumping again every time he heard the gruff voice or saw the large tattoo, Gabi would respond to him just like he did to the other grown-ups, one of the nice ones.

Beetles, and the pungent smell, and burning heat on the soles of bare feet, and the pool in the summer. Muddy boots and driving rain and radiators in the children's dormitory in the winter. Devices on teeth and
the regional school and trips to the Golan Heights, and Mom Gila and Dad Yossi, and their room, and Shimshon Cohen. And Ofir's Yemenite father on bedtime duty, reading to the children from Russian history books in the belief that his voice had lullaby-like qualities, but it always frightened Gabi, and he'd run from his dormitory to Roni's in the middle of the night, and Roni, half asleep, would always let him in, and they'd fall asleep in each other's arms. And getting up once whoever is on bedtime duty leaves, certain that everyone is asleep, and making coffee, and frying popcorn in a pan on the gas burner until all the seeds danced about in the utensil and exploded into tiny, crunchy cauliflowers. Getting locked in the dining hall's cold-storage room and riding at night on tractors to the plum orchards and stealing tampons from the girls and putting them in glasses of water. Who could say they didn't have a happy childhood?

R
oni Kupper spent the long summer holiday between eighth and ninth grades working with the cattle—the kibbutz's elite unit. He secured the job, for which he had volunteered, of course, thanks to his well-tanned and developing muscles and his serious attitude, and also his basketball talents, which had led the kibbutz team to the top of the Upper Galilee youth league and turned him into a small, local star, and had particularly impressed Baruch Shani, the cattle unit's manager and a passionate hoops fan. It was the summer in which Orit, Roni's classmate and the prettiest girl he knew, lost her virginity, thanks kindly to the very same Baruch, who had completed his military service in an elite commando unit two years earlier. It happened at the kibbutz's summer camp, on the shores of Lake Kinneret, near the banana plantations. Roni Kupper was among only a handful of others who knew about the budding romance between the twenty-three-year-old man and the fourteen-year-old girl, because he had seen her slipping quietly into his sleeping bag in the dead of night.