The Hilltop

by Assaf Gavron

  “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 doin
g 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.”

  Ariel glanced at Roni. Not the most sterile operation in the world. Again Roni winked at him.

  “It’s the best oil,” Musa said. “But no one makes like this any longer because too slow, and gives too small oil, you need healthy donkey, or motor, and many people to work. With new machines, you push button and everything works by itself, clean, and press more oil from olives. You understand?”

  Roni looked at Ariel and rubbed his chin. His eyes then drifted to Musa’s white mustache. “How much do they cost, the machines?” he asked.

  “Six thousand dollar for small Chinese compressor, six manpower. For one hundred thousand dollar, from Italy is best compressor in the world—six hundred horsepower. Extracts most oil from olives in short time.”

  “But the taste isn’t the same taste,” Roni said.

  “No.”

  “And that’s what matters.”

  “Yes, a little money we need to fix here because not work for a long time. Electric motor for turning, separator to separate instead of letting settle.”

  “You said the donkey will do the turning,” Roni responded. “I saw your donkey. As for the separating, you said it was best to wait.”

  “I didn’t say best. Letting settle takes two weeks instead of few minutes. I think pity to wait. And donkey has heart problem, is weak.”

  The eyes of the Israelis met again. Roni’s eyes read, I don’t have a cent to my name. Right now, I’d rather make a small profit on zero investment than a large profit after an investment—boutique oil. His mouth said, “For now, I say, let’s keep things down to a minimum. Original olive oil. Handmade. Boutique. Try with the donkey.”

  “Okay,” Musa replied, “but oil only a little.”

  On the walk back, Ariel aired out the sweat and clinging odors from his shirt and again frisked his pockets to ensure his wallet and keys and mobile were still there. The fact that he was still alive lifted his spirits, and soon they’d be back on the hilltop, which might have been an outpost in the heart of the occupied territories, but at this point in time, even Ariel felt secure there, surrounded by armed and bearded Jews and soldiers to keep the peace.

  “What can I tell you, Roni? I’ve made several inquiries since we started discussing things. The people at the Olive Boutique on Rothschild Boulevard sent me to see oil presses, the top of the line. The way they do things here, with sticks and stones and donkeys and containers that have been lying around for who knows how long—the world’s moved on since then. The production lines from Italy are a different world.”

  “Forget about it. Nothing beats the old way. The most natural, the purest. A production line means tons of oil a day. We’re a boutique, man. People want that. You tell them it’s organic, tried and tested for hundreds of years, made by hand, unrivaled quality, extra-extra-virgin.”

  “Actually, in Italy, if the oil comes from a press like that, the label shows an illustration of millstones.”

  “Exactly. You see? We’ll mark ours, too!”

  “I don’t know,” Ariel said, returning to his original standpoint. “Didn’t Musa look a little tired to you? With machinery, it’s more precise, cleaner. There’s the washing . . .”

  “A waste of water and a waste of space. Those Arab women are better than any machine when it comes to sorting out and discarding the leaves and shitty olives. That’s the real flavor, with the dust, and the earth, and the cigarette smoke, and a leaf here and there.”

  “There are automatic mills . . .”

  “And I suppose you also have a hundred thousand dollars lying around somewhere? Leave it, nothing beats millstones. A two-thousand-year-old success story, like the Jews!”

  They walked on to Ma’aleh Hermesh C.’s circular road. “Everything in life is relative, isn’t it,” Ariel said. “When I first got in here, I almost passed out from fear. But after surviving the Palestinian village . . . Now I’m just trying not to think about the drive back.” His gaze lingered briefly on a group of children in push cars alongside a mother, and he felt a pang of longing for his own son and wife. His eyes then moved to fix on the damaged windshield of a car—a weblike formation of cracks around a small hole where the rock had struck.

  “What’s that?” Ariel asked, gesturing with his head.

  “Ah, terrorists from one of the surrounding villages,” answered the mother, Nehama Yisraeli. “They threw stones at my husband on his way back from Jerusalem. Thank God for the armored windows.”

  “Armored windows?” Ariel asked in a shaky voice.

  “Enough of that now, Ariel,” Roni said. “What about our business?”

  Ariel, his face now pale, turned to face Roni again. “In a modern oil press, everything is controlled and directed from a central control panel . . .”

  “Musa’s mind beats any control panel, hands down—just like no computer has beaten Kasparov at chess.”

  Ariel smiled but remained silent.

  Roni stopped. “Listen, Ariel,” he said. “While you were out doing the rounds at sophisticated oil presses, I was working on the figures. If there’s anything I learned in America, it was to analyze figures, to construct business models, to maximize the dollars. Trust me, I’ve broken it down to cost versus output at the level of a single olive. You need a minimum of one hundred thousand dollars for a modern oil press, and that doesn’t include finding premises, renovations, paying rent. And then you buy the olives and transport them, and what about marketing? Bottles? Labels? More production lines. And then there’s dealing with the Olive Board to get a quality control label. Cold-pressed-shmold-pressed, extra-virgin-extra-shmirgin. You need insane loans, and then you have to sit tight for five to ten years until you start making a profit. Is that what you want now? The entire country is filled with them already. What’s your advantage over them? Anyway, it’s madness to invest hundreds of thousands of dollars in a production plant in the territories and then wait for five years. Who knows what things will be like here even next year?”

  Ariel slid his sunglasses up to his head; the sun had set. “So what do you propose?” he asked.

  “You already know what I propose. That Musa does everything, that we make a deal with him at a good price and commit to the entire season. We’ll label the cans—organic and original, with an illustration of millstones, the mother of all extra-extra-virgin, from the very earth and heart of Palestine. And we’ll sell it for twice the price at your Olive Boutique on Rothschild. It’ll sell like hotcakes to their sweet Tel Avivians.”

  “And who says the Palestinians will go for it? Roni Kupper has spoken and the entire village jumps to attention? They hate us, after all.”

  Roni rubbed his thumb against his forefinger. “Money,” he said. “That’s all. You pay them in advance, for the whole season. No one else is going to offer them something like that. I’ve spoken to Musa. Right now, those poor bastards have to cultivate and harvest, and then they go to an oil press that takes a t
wenty-percent cut, and then along comes some Palestinian merchant who screws them and pays them a ridiculous percentage only if he manages to sell anything. And how’s a Palestinian merchant going to sell? Who’s he going to sell to? As for the Israelis, they shit themselves every time they need to go through a checkpoint. Musa and his mates know, too, that this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Honestly, Ariel, Musa told me so.”

  Ariel bit down on the arm of his glasses. “Okay,” he finally said cautiously. “So let’s think about our costs: You spoke about paying up front for the olives; a separator; and an electric motor to replace the sick donkey.”

  “The donkey may be okay.”

  “Forget about the donkey. Bottles and labels. And we’re going to need something for marketing and distribution.”

  “Minimal, minimal,” Roni responded, fully aware he was fighting a losing battle.

  “Minimal, minimal, for sure, but we still get to tens of thousands of shekels to begin with. Thirty or forty. Let’s play it safe and say fifty. Twenty-five thousand each.”

  Roni hurriedly lit up a cigarette. He narrowed his eyes through the smoke. “How the hell did you get to twenty-five? You’re not in Tel Aviv, you’re in an Arab village in the territories. No one here talks in those numbers. Where am I going to get that kind of money?”

  “I don’t get it. What were you thinking—that it’s not going to cost a cent? It’s not a whole lot for starting a business with this kind of potential, and with the experience you’ve had, you know that all too well.”

  Roni’s face took on a look of anguish. “Ariel, I can’t go in fifty-fifty with you right now,” he said. “Can’t you invest the initial capital and we’ll sort things out further down the line? I came with the idea. And I found Musa. But when it comes to liquid cash, I’m a little pressed at the moment.”

  “I’m willing to put in more than you, but you have to come up with something, to show commitment. You can’t just leave me in the lurch with this. Don’t you have a little in the bank? Didn’t you leave something in America?”