Forgiving Ararat

by Gita Nazareth

  “You’re taking me to be judged, then?” I said, backing away. “I really am going to hell for putting my arm in a manure spreader?”

  “Judged? You?” Luas said, genuinely surprised by my question. “Of course not! I told you all that was forgiven long ago. I’m taking you to receive your heavenly reward, Brek, not to send you to hell. You’ve always hoped and prayed you would come here. Shemaya has been the motive behind your every decision, the basis of your every interaction from the first moment of your life to the last; it has been your longing and your dream, just as it has been the longing and dream of almost every human being since the beginning of time. You knew it most vividly after your accident, when you realized you suffered not because you would never again be able to dangle from monkey bars on a playground or swing a softball bat or play a violin, but because it was unjust that millions of other girls could.”

  Luas removed his hands from my shoulders and puffed his pipe.

  “A member of the bar, not the clergy, offered you justice after the accident, isn’t that right? And so you discovered at an early age that the legal system provides the redemption religion can no longer afford, and that lawyers are the true priests and judges the true prophets. You craved justice more than anything else in your life. Growing older, you felt the same sting when somebody cut you off in traffic or said an unkind word, as when a drunk driver wiped out a family or a tornado flattened a town. Although different by degree and implication, you knew in your heart neither of these was more or less capricious, and neither was more or less unjust.

  “On the day your childhood friend, Karen Busfield, told you she was accepted into a seminary to become an Episcopal priest, you were filled with despair, not joy. You were already in law school by then. Do you remember how you mocked her while cross-examining her motives? You said: ‘When a child with bruises all over her body tells you her father did it, Karen, what will you do? Ask her to pray and put it in God’s hands? And when she tells you she’s been praying every night for ten years, but the beatings still continue, what will you say then? God’s hands can’t be bothered with children, Karen! If you really want to save people’s souls from sin—not just the sin of hating others and themselves but the sin of hating the God who breathed life into them and then abandoned them—you won’t pray for them, Karen. You’ll give them one of my business cards and tell them to call me.’”

  I stared at Luas, trying to understand how he could possibly know all these things.

  “And do you remember Karen’s reply?” Luas continued. “She said you didn’t let her finish; she was planning to join the Air Force, like her father, and become a military chaplain. ‘The Air Force doesn’t call lawyers when somebody misbehaves, Brek,’ she said. ‘They drop bombs on them. Now that’s justice.’ And you said to her: ‘They’ll never take you, Karen. They’ll see right through you.’” Luas puffed his pipe. “You understood the great truth of life, Brek Cuttler. You understood that the pursuit of justice is the purest form of religion and the highest human aspiration. You became a disciple of justice. Now, as I said, the time has come for you to receive your reward. You have been chosen to join the elite lawyers of Shemaya who defend souls at the Final Judgment. I was being facetious when I asked you if you could defend yourself in the Urartu Chamber. That always gets the attention of new arrivals; one’s own jeopardy helps focus the mind. No, the only question now is whether you can walk through those doors if someone else depends upon what you say and leave unsaid? If you speak for humanity, not yourself. But this question was answered about you long ago, was it not? My job is not to assess your fitness but to show you the way.”

  Luas emptied his pipe into an ashtray on the wall, then slipped his hand into his vest pocket and removed a golden key from which dangled a sparkling Magen David, the crescent moon of Islam, figures of Shiva and Buddha, the Yin and Yang, and a crucifix. “This is yours,” he said, handing me the key. “It’s the key to the Urartu Chamber.”

  I refused to take it.

  “This isn’t the time for fear and indecision,” Luas said. “You’ve been waiting for God to smite the evil and reward the righteous since you were eleven years old and you put those boys on trial for murdering crayfish. To you, even crayfish deserved justice! How wonderful! Rejoice, Brek Abigail Cuttler! Your prayers have been answered! There is justice after all! Finally, praise God, justice!”

  The memory of the crayfish trials came rushing back to me. Little did I know then how important those trials would become to my life—and my afterlife.

  8

  * * *

  Behind my best friend Karen Busfield’s house in Tyrone, Pennsylvania, beyond the ash piles left over from the old coal furnaces and the small abandoned building with the words “Tyrone Casket & Vault Co.” fading from its side, glistened the wide pleasant stream known as the Little Juniata River. The Little Juniata flows north out of the Allegheny Mountains, draining the small creeks and springs that bless the hills and valleys with life, then due south when it reaches Tyrone, where my father’s family, the Cuttlers, who were simple farmers, are from. When the Little Juniata reaches Huntingdon, it spills into the big Juniata River, which is a big river only during twenty year hurricanes and at other times just normal sized, not wide, not deep, and not fast. The big Juniata River continues south until it empties into the Susquehanna River at Clark’s Ferry near Harrisburg, and the Susquehanna River, which is a big river all year round, continues south until it reaches Harve de Grace, Maryland, where it flows into the Chesapeake Bay. There is a marina there, where my mother’s family, the Bellinis, who were more wealthy and better educated than the Cuttlers, docked their sailboat. And so it was that my father’s and mother’s families were connected in this way, by the rivers, long before my parents married or met. I remember being astonished when I discovered this relationship on a map, like suddenly recognizing the shape of a connect-the-dots rabbit. I wondered about its meaning, and, like an astrologer searching for signs in the heavens, I began reading all kinds of maps for signs of what my future might bring. After that, when I waded into the Little Juniata River, or sailed the Chesapeake Bay with my grandparents, I could not resist wondering where the water had come from and where it was going and whose lives it would bring together.

  The Little Juniata River is shallow in midsummer and has a limestone bottom of slippery, moss-covered river rocks; Karen and I could walk for miles through its knee-deep, clear waters wearing cutoff shorts and old sneakers, stumbling, sliding, drenching ourselves, and laughing merrily. We carried our lunches with us and ate along its banks, pretending to be early explorers charting the river for the first time. The aboriginal tribes we encountered, which is to say the boys from the different neighborhoods along the river, tracked our movements warily, as if we really were from a faraway land. Girls never played in the river, but Karen and I were different from most girls—not because we were more tomboyish or brave, but because we thought of things differently. For example, we thought the river was interesting and full of possibilities, which most girls did not, and we believed we had equal right with the boys to play in it, which most girls would not. Ours was a difference of curiosity and perspective. And fairness.

  One hot July afternoon, while Karen and I were exploring the river, we shocked ourselves and the boys by catching crayfish with our own bare hands—no easy feat for a girl with only one arm, which made catching things like bugs, baseballs, crayfish, and boys, a challenge. Little Juniata River crayfish, in particular, are difficult to catch. Like handicapped girls, they’re timid little creatures, seemingly aware of their vulnerability and embarrassed by their bizarre bodies. You must approach them from behind without casting a shadow, while they’re sunning themselves in shallow waters on the mossy green river rocks they try so hard to imitate. They dart backward when frightened, vanishing in a cloud of silt into the nearest crevice. You must be fast, and you must grab them by the large middle shell to avoid their sharp pincers—like lifting a snarling cat by the
scruff of its neck. Held this way, they’re perfectly harmless; but make a mistake, and they’ll give you a painful snip and you’ll drop them back into the water.

  Karen and I proudly waved our crayfish high in the air that afternoon, cheering and hollering with the excitement of biologists discovering a new species. We examined them up close, noticing how their tails curled into a ball to shield their soft underbellies and their pincers strained to reach back over their heads to nip at our fingers; we stroked their antennae and clicked our fingernails against their hard shells; and finally we returned them to the river, worried they wouldn’t survive if we kept them out too long. Ethically, there isn’t much more you can do with a crayfish. You might shake it in the face of a boy to make him wince, but you could embarrass him this way only once, and the consequences for the crayfish were dire. When the boys saw we were still alive after handling the nasty things, they bravely attacked the river and a fierce competition set in. Soon buckets were filled with crayfish and records made of who caught the most and the biggest. This is where the minds of girls and boys turn in opposite directions. Karen and I were content to study the crayfish for a minute or two and set them free. The boys, on the other hand, weren’t satisfied until they’d tortured and executed the lot of them. Their buckets became killing grounds. The crayfish snapped ferociously to defend themselves, but in the confined space of the buckets they succeeded only in maiming each other, not their captors. A thick algae of amputated pincers, antennae, and other body parts soon floated upon the water; each new crayfish added to the hoard set off a fury, and when things settled down the boys stirred the buckets to see them go after each other again. When the crayfish became too exhausted to fight, the boys tore their bodies apart with their hands and tossed the fragments back into the river.

  Karen and I were horrified. We pleaded with the boys to end the competition and spare the crayfish. We tried to wrestle the buckets away, but the boys were too strong; we threw rocks at them and called them names; we even offered to let them kiss us—and threatened to kiss them if they refused to stop—but it was no use. There must be something genetic in boys that makes the suffering of living creatures an endless source of fascination and amusement.

  Even though we couldn’t liberate the crayfish, I was determined to bring the boys to justice for their crimes, so I established a courtroom of rocks and logs along the riverbank and held trials. I had seen my Pop Pop Bellini, valiant and righteous, cross-examining witnesses in court, and I had testified about the accident with my arm, answering the questions Mr. Gwynne asked as carefully as I could, so I knew just how to do it. I appointed myself prosecutor and told Karen she could be the judge and the jury. To my shock and dismay, Karen betrayed both the crayfish and me by refusing to participate, claiming that punishing the boys wouldn’t do any good. I thought she was sweet on one of them, probably Lenny Basilio, who kept running up to show her his crayfish. Even the boys doubted Karen’s motives, but to their credit they knew they’d done wrong, and they’d gotten bored with the killing and thought trials might be fun. Since Karen wouldn’t help, they offered to sit as the jury for each other, promising to listen impartially to the evidence and render a fair verdict. I would hear none of it, but Karen, relishing her role as spoiler, reminded me that a jury is supposed to be composed of the defendant’s peers, leaving me no choice but to agree. I would be both prosecutor and judge, and Karen would sit by and watch.

  I put Lenny Basilio on trial first to spite her. Lenny was the fattest boy and the weakest, the one always being pushed around. He was also the nicest. He’d been afraid at first to catch the crayfish and had to be teased by the others into doing it, but once he got started he became very efficient and caught the largest crayfish of the day—a wise old granddaddy of a crustacean the size of a small baby lobster. Although by far the biggest and most powerful crayfish in his collection, it was too heavy and slow to defend itself against the younger ones and became the first casualty in Lenny’s bucket. Lenny looked genuinely remorseful when the big crayfish died. I knew he’d be easy to convict for the murder.

  I called him to the witness stand—a flat piece of river rock resting on a platform of sticks—and told him to raise his right hand. We recognized no right against self-incrimination along the banks of the Little Juniata River; all defendants were forced to testify.

  “Do you swear to tell the whole truth, Lenny Basilio, so help you God?” I said.

  Lenny shrugged his shoulders and sat down.

  I placed his bucket before him, fetid and stinking, filled with crayfish parts. “Did you put these crayfish in this bucket?”

  Lenny looked into the pail and then over at his buddies.

  “Remember, Lenny,” I warned him, “you’re under oath. You’ll be struck dead by a bolt of lightning if you lie.”

  Lenny let out a whine. “But the crayfish pinched me first!”

  “Yes or no?” I said. “Did you fill this bucket with crayfish?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s right, you did. And after you filled it, you stirred it up so the crayfish would snap at each other, didn’t you?”

  Before Lenny could answer, I dredged through the water and pulled out the lifeless granddaddy crayfish, already turning white in the heat like a steamed jumbo shrimp. Its right pincer had been amputated, just like my right arm. I showed the crayfish to the jury and made them take a good long look at it; although a few of them snickered and made coarse jokes, the expressions on most of their faces suggested that even they were appalled and saddened by what had happened. Then I showed it defiantly to Karen, who shook her head silently, and turned back to Lenny.

  “You did this, didn’t you Lenny Basilio?” I said. “You killed it. You put it in your bucket and killed it. Now it’ll never see its family again. What if somebody reached down here right now and pulled you off that rock and put you in a bucket?”

  “But I didn’t mean to,” Lenny pleaded. He looked like he was about to cry.

  I dropped the crayfish into the bucket and turned toward the jury in disgust. “The prosecution rests.”

  “Guilty! Guilty!” the boys all cheered.

  “Wait a minute,” I said sagely. “You’ve got to vote on it to make it official. We have to take a poll. John Gaines, what say you?” I spoke the way the courtroom tipstave spoke while polling the jury during my trial.

  John Gaines glared at Lenny. “Guilty,” he said, leaning forward and barring his teeth for effect. “Guilty as sin.”

  “Mike Kelly, what say you?”

  “Guilty!” he said with enthusiasm.

  “Ok,” I said. “Robby...I don’t know your last name.”

  “Temin.”

  “Robby Temin, what say you?”

  Robby looked sympathetically at Lenny. “Guilty,” he whispered.

  “Jimmy Reece?”

  Jimmy threw a rock at Lenny and laughed. “Guilty...and he’s a crybaby too!”

  The boys all laughed.

  I slid behind the judge’s bench and banged a stone against the river rock. “Order in the court!” I hollered. “Order in the court!” The boys became silent instantly. I was impressed with my newfound power.

  “Wally Nearhoof, what say you?”

  Wally glared back at me, full of insolence and venom. He was the biggest and meanest boy, the bully of the bunch. Everybody was afraid of Wally Nearhoof, including me. He had a look of malice about him, and he held it for a long time on me, boring through me like the twist of a drill.

  “Not guilty,” he said, keeping his fixed eyes on me.

  My jaw dropped. Before I could protest, the other boys chimed in: “What? Not guilty? No way! He’s as guilty as the devil!”

  “I said, not guilty,” Wally insisted.

  Lenny Basilio’s face brightened. By some miracle, Wally the bully had actually come to his rescue. It was a first. With a warm smile of gratitude and friendship, he virtually danced over to Wally to thank him; but as soon as Lenny got there, Wally cocked
his arm and thumped Lenny hard in the chest with the heel of his hand, knocking him to the ground. He leered at the other boys. “Just kidding,” he said. “Guilty. Guilty as hell! Let’s hang him!”

  The boys broke into a riot of cheers. “Guilty! Guilty as hell! Hang him! Let’s hang Lenny!”

  Lenny scrambled to his feet and backed away. He looked terrified; tears poured from his eyes.

  I clapped the river rocks. “Order! Order!” I said. “Order, or I’ll hold you all in contempt and end this trial right now!”

  The boys quieted down and I turned to Lenny, staring back at me with miserable, desperate eyes. I felt no sympathy for him. I was still thinking about what he’d done to the crayfish.

  “Lenny Basilio,” I said gravely. “You’ve been found guilty of murdering crayfish.”

  Lenny hung his head low.

  “Murder is the most serious crime there is,” I continued, “but since everybody else did it too, we can’t hang you.”

  Lenny perked up but the boys started booing.

  I slammed the rocks together again. “Order!”

  “We can’t hang you, Lenny, but you’ve got to be punished....” I thought for a moment what his punishment should be, then I picked up his bucket and shoved it in his face. “As the judge of this court, I hereby sentence you, Lenny Basilio, to spend the rest of your life inside a bucket, like the crayfish you killed!” I emptied the crayfish parts on the ground and put the bucket over Lenny’s head like a dunce cap.

  “Life in a bucket! Life in a bucket!” the boys all laughed and cheered.

  Lenny pulled the bucket off his head. Hatred filled his eyes. “One-armed freak!” he screamed at me. “It should have been you that died in the bucket, not the crayfish!” He punched me as hard as he could in the stomach, knocking the wind out of me, and ran home.