Forgiving Ararat

by Gita Nazareth

  By the time the officer opens the door of his car, I have all my insurance and registration documents in order, and Sarah’s starting to cry now that I’ve turned off the music. Maybe he’ll give me a break because of Sarah and my arm. Against the glare of the high-beams I can see only his silhouette in the mirror with his revolver bulging at his hip. He’s short, thin, and slightly bow-legged, not the large, powerfully-built patrolman you normally see. I counsel myself to say nothing incriminating and roll down the window, but strangely he stops at the rear door and tries to pull it open.

  “Up here, officer,” I say, always polite to the police, thinking he somehow mistook the rear door for the front.

  He inserts his arm through my open window and around the pillar to unlock the back door, then climbs in and slams the door shut.

  “What’s the problem, officer?” I ask innocently, believing there must be some good reason for his behavior. Maybe he’s afraid of being hit by passing traffic if he stands at my door.

  A young male voice answers calmly: “Do what I tell you, Mrs. Wolfson, and nobody’ll get hurt.”

  I look in the mirror and see a gun pointing at my head. The kid holding the gun appears to be in his late teens or early twenties, with soft, downy whiskers on his chin, pale skin, and thin, almost feminine lips. His head is shaved and he’s wearing a camouflage Army shirt. I’ve never seen him before in my life.

  “Get out of my car!” I yell, outraged that he has the nerve to do something like this and not yet comprehending the gun or the reality of the threat.

  A savage smile darts across his face. He points the gun down toward Sarah and there’s a loud crack and a bright orange muzzle flash. Time slows like a rock falling through water. I feel myself screaming but my ears are ringing because of the concussion.

  “Sarah! Sarah!”

  I try to reach back to her, but the kid slams the gun into the side of my face, knocking my head forward. The heat from the barrel stings my cheek, and the bitter scent of gunpowder fills my nose. From the corner of my eye I see the hammer cocked to fire again. It’s an oddly shaped handgun, older, like something I’ve seen in World War II movies.

  “Drive the car!” he orders. “Now!”

  But I’m crazed with panic, and I’m still screaming, “Sarah! Sarah!” I force my head back against the gun, scraping the barrel across my cheek like a razor. I can see her now. There’s no blood...and...yes, thank God...she’s still crying! The shot must have gone through the seat beside her. The kid slams the gun into my face again, producing a stabbing pain through my sinus and a thin trickle of blood from my nose.

  “Drive!” he yells. “Now!” He rolls down the rear window and waves to the car behind us. The lights stop flashing, and it pulls out in front of us. “Follow him.”

  I try to move the gear selector, but I’m shaking so badly that the stump of my right arm slips off the lever. The kid reaches up, slaps it into place with a jolt, and I pull out onto the road. We drive to a stop sign and turn left onto Route 22. With each oncoming car, the kid presses the gun against my head, warning me not to do anything to alert them. I’m searching frantically for a police car, or a gas station where I can pull off for help. All the while, Sarah’s screaming at the top of her lungs, terrified from the gunshot.

  “Make her stop!” the kid shouts at me.

  “Please, just let us go,” I say, trying to reason with him. “You can have my car and my purse, whatever you want; just, please, let us go.”

  “This isn’t about money,” the kid says. “Keep driving.” He uses his free hand to cover Sarah’s mouth, which only makes her cries louder.

  “You’re hurting her!” I shriek, hysterical that he’s touched my baby. “There’s a bottle in the diaper bag on the floor. Give her the bottle, and let her go.”

  The kid finds the bottle and puts it in Sarah’s mouth. She drinks the stale formula left over from her afternoon feeding, cries out, drinks again, then finally begins to settle down.

  Everything is happening so fast I have no time to think. We turn off a side road at Ardenheim and up an old dirt logging road into the mountains. The car we’re following shuts off its headlights, and I’m ordered to shut mine off too. We drive into the woods in darkness and stop. The driver of the car in front gets out; in the moonlight I can see that he’s about the same age as the kid in back but taller and more muscular; his head is shaved and he’s wearing camouflage Army clothes as well, and he’s carrying a gun in one hand and a videocassette in the other. He opens my door and yanks me out of the car, wrenching my left arm. The kid in back climbs out with Sarah and hands her to me, then takes the videocassette from the bigger kid, gets in the driver’s seat of my car, puts the videocassette on the passenger seat, and backs my car into a grove of pine trees until it’s covered with boughs and can’t be seen from the narrow dirt road. Reemerging moments later through the branches, he says to the bigger kid: “Ok, Tim, let’s get going.”

  The bigger kid, whose name I now know is Tim, shoves me toward the other car.

  “Please,” I plead with them, “you’ve got my car and my money. Please, just leave us here. I won’t tell anybody.”

  “Shut up,” Tim says, ramming his gun into my back.

  They really aren’t interested in my car, or my money, and I begin to worry they’re planning to kidnap and rape me.

  “Please, please don’t do this,” I beg.

  “I said, shut up!” Tim yells, slamming me against their car, crushing Sarah between me and the window. She starts crying again.

  “I told you, Mrs. Wolfson,” the smaller kid says, “if you do as you’re told, nobody’ll get hurt. Now get in the car.”

  How does he know my name?

  “You still want me to drive, Ott?” Tim asks.

  “Yeah.”

  Now I know the smaller kid’s name and that he’s the leader of the two.

  I climb in back with Sarah on my lap and try to comfort her. Ott sits beside us, digging his gun into my ribs. Tim takes the driver’s seat and backs the car down the logging road the way we came, switching on the headlights when we reach the highway and turning south to Route 522, then Route 322 east toward Harrisburg. Sarah calms with the motion of the car and me holding her close. I’m trying frantically to remember the next exits, and whether there are any police stations, and what I’ve heard about self-defense—how the worst thing you can do is to allow an attacker to drive away with you in a car. While cradling Sarah, I slip my hand around the door handle to be ready to leap out at the first opportunity for escape; if I were alone, I might have jumped while the car was moving, but I can’t take that chance with Sarah.

  The miles go by. Ott and Tim say nothing to each other, or me, as we drive. Their actions are disciplined, efficient, and well-rehearsed, suggesting this is not some last second lark by a couple of teenage punks. I smell no alcohol on their breath and notice no slurring of their speech. Ott keeps checking to see if we’re being followed. Eventually Tim turns the radio on low, tuning it into country music stations, and Sarah finally falls asleep; I’m thankful she has no idea what’s happening to her. An uneasy peace descends upon the car. Ott relaxes slightly and sits a little less rigid but he’s always on alert, jabbing the gun into my side whenever we slow down.

  “I’ve got money in the bank,” I whisper to him. “Lot’s of it. You can have it all, just let us go. If you stop now, you won’t get in any trouble.”

  Ott says nothing. Five minutes pass, ten, and fifteen. We’re on a four lane highway, driving farther south toward Harrisburg.

  “Why are you doing this?” I ask.

  “Why?” Ott asks, incredulous, without taking his eyes off the road ahead. “Because Holden Hurley was sentenced today; he got fifteen years because of your Jew husband, that’s why.”

  “Holden Hurley?”

  “Yeah, don’t you watch the news? Your Jew husband was there at the courthouse, gloating in front of his TV cameras.”

  Shaved heads, camoufla
ge fatigues...I begin to understand.

  “You’re members of The Eleven, aren’t you?” I ask, more terrified than ever. I want to tell him my name is Brek Cuttler, not Brek Wolfson, that I’m a Catholic, not a Jew, and Sarah isn’t Jewish either because it passes through the mother; but telling him this would be betraying my husband and my own beliefs; it would be betraying God. I wonder in that moment what I would have done if I was being questioned by the Nazis. Would I tell them I wasn’t a Jew to save myself and Sarah, and let them take Bo away?

  A State Police car pulls around us to pass on the four lane. I don’t feel the gun in my ribs anymore and I lift my arm to try to signal it. Ott sees me and says, “Look, Mrs. Wolfson, your baby likes the new toy I gave her.” I look down and see the muzzle of his gun sticking in Sarah’s mouth. I drop my arm.

  “Why are you doing this?” I ask again. “The government won’t let him out because you’ve kidnapped us, they don’t negotiate criminal sentences with anybody.”

  “Because somebody’s got to tell the truth.”

  “About what?”

  “About the Holocaust...about my family.”

  “Are you Holden Hurley’s son?”

  “No, I’m just his friend. I’m Barratte Rabun’s son, and Amina Rabun’s grandson. Do you remember them, Mrs. Wolfson?”

  My heart starts pounding. I didn’t know Barratte Rabun had a son, or that the Rabuns had any connection to The Eleven. None of that came out in the litigation. I begin to realize this isn’t about criminal sentences or making a political statement, it’s about revenge.

  We turn onto Route 283 at Harrisburg, then Route 30 at Lancaster, and Route 41 south toward Wilmington, Delaware. Fifteen minutes later, we’re on Route 926, rushing past signs with arrows pointing toward Kennett Square, Lenape, and Chadds Ford. The gnarled, old oak trees along the two lane country road jeer at us, waving their limbs in the dancing shadows like the Damned welcoming our entrance into hell; leaves fall in eruptions of red, yellow, and orange flames as we hurl down the abyss. I’m nauseous with fear, and my mind is racing. How long will it be before Bo calls the police? He’ll expect us no later than eight, and he’ll probably call work and the daycare to track us down. Maybe he’ll figure we’ve gone to the grocery store or the mall. Ten o’clock—nothing could keep us out that late. He’ll check first with my parents, then the television station to see if they’ve heard about any accidents, and then he’ll call the police. They’ll take the information, but they’ll probably treat it as a domestic dispute and wait and see. Who knows when they’ll start looking for us, probably not until tomorrow.

  The turns quicken and the pavement deteriorates. We’re on a gravel road now, descending a steep ravine through woods and ending onto rutted dirt tracks leading through an open, overgrown field, and back into more woods, down an even steeper slope. There are no streetlights or power lines, and the sky is coal black, without the hope of stars or the kind solace of the moon. The last home passed from view miles ago, asleep in the cool harvest air pregnant with the scent of decaying leaves and apples. I start to panic again. They’re going to kill us! They’ve taken us out to the middle of nowhere to kill us!

  “Listen,” I tell him, “I’m sorry about what happened to your mother and grandmother. I’ll do anything I can to make it better. You’ve got to understand, it was the government, not us, who put her in jail. We had no control—”

  Ott slams the gun so hard into my side that I lose my breath.

  The road ends at a crumbling cinderblock building protruding from the ground like an ugly scab with windowless walls standing barely one-story tall, pocked with black streaks of mold and a leprosy of flaking white paint. It resembles the shell of an abandoned industrial building and looks out of place in the country. The cloying stench of manure and mushrooms make the air heavy and difficult to breathe.

  We pull to a stop about twenty yards away. With the headlights illuminating the building, Tim leaves the engine running, pulls his gun, and goes inside. Ott waits nervously in the car with me until Tim reappears at the door and waves all-clear, then disappears inside again. Ott climbs out and orders Sarah and me out with him. Pretending to fix my suit jacket, I stall for time. This may be our only chance. Ott is standing at the end of the open rear door, his head turned over his shoulder looking at the building; the engine is running, but he could easily stop me if I tried to climb over the seat. I have to get him away from the car. I gently place Sarah into the footwell where she’ll be safe. She stirs and looks up at me; under the dome light on the roof of the car, her eyes reflect back her love for me, as though she knows what I am about to do and she’s thanking me for risking my life for her. She’s trying to be so brave. I love her with all my heart. Tears fill my eyes.

  I climb out of the car, shaking. Ott’s waiting for me but still looking at the building. He’s only a few inches taller than me and not nearly as intimidating as Tim. I decide what to do. I place my left hand on the door frame for balance and then, with all my strength, I thrust my knee up hard into his groin. He doesn’t see it coming and instantly collapses to the ground with a sucking groan. It worked! I slam the rear door closed, jump in the driver’s seat, and hit both locks with my elbow. As I reach around the steering wheel with my left hand to shift the gear selector into reverse, Tim comes running from the building at full speed, covering the ground so quickly that by the time I step on the accelerator, he’s already even with my door and he’s pointing his gun straight at me through the window. Time slows again, slicing the final moments of my life into small frames to be archived for the rest of eternity, decoupling memory from reality and reaching back to everything before—to the hands that bathed me when I was delivered from my mother’s womb and hugged me as a young child, to my husband, my family, my friends, my daughter...to the moments and the memories that had become Brek Abigail Cuttler. But just as Tim is about to fire, Ott lunges up at him from the ground, causing his gun to bark harmlessly into the air.

  Suddenly there is life, and perspective accelerates to real time, to the blur of adrenaline and the desire to live. The car roars backward, toward home and safety, toward all we had created. I’m racing backward so quickly and the path is so narrow that I lose control and we careen into a tree with a terrible jolt. Sarah starts wailing. I slam the gear shift into drive and stomp again on the accelerator, steering straight for Ott, who is on his knees aiming his gun at us. He fires four shots. The car slows and becomes less responsive, and I realize he’s shot out one of the front tires. For a fraction of a second, I think of swerving to avoiding hitting him because he has just spared my life twice; but we are frozen in time, Ott Bowles and I, controlled by instinct and the will to survive. I accelerate straight for him but he rolls out of the way at the last second and the car plows into a manure pile. Determined to win our freedom, I rap the selector into reverse again and stomp on the accelerator. There’s a loud explosion and the rear door window shatters into a hailstorm of glass pellets. Ott is sprawled on the trunk with half his body sticking through the rear window, his gun pointing down at Sarah in the footwell, both arms outstretched and locked, police style. I hit the brakes and bring the car to a stop.

  “Don’t make me do this!” Ott yells at me. “Don’t make me do this!” His chest is heaving, every muscle tensed.

  “Do it!” Tim shouts from the other side of the car, his eyes wide and crazed, intoxicated by the violence. “Do it now!”

  Ott hesitates, and in that moment of indecision I shut off the engine and hand Ott the keys over my shoulder.

  “Take it,” I say, my voice quivering, just above a whisper, desperate to calm him down. “Please. She’s just a baby. Take it.”

  36

  * * *

  “So, how long have you known Holden Hurley?” Ott Bowles asked the well-dressed, dark haired, bearded man seated across from him at the small cocktail table. He asked this question while sipping a beer and following the major league baseball game playing on a television over
the bar.

  “Two years,” the man said, exhaling smoke from a cigarette, uninterested in the game.

  It was late afternoon, on a bright, summer Saturday, and the bar was deserted. Ott was not yet of legal age to consume alcohol, but Trudy, the owner of the bar built against a mountain on Route 26 between Huntingdon and Altoona, served her customers without regard to age and, for this reason, Ott had been there many times. Trudy was a large woman with flaming red hair, and this afternoon she sat behind the bar watching the game and waiting for customers. The man sitting across from Ott was obviously of legal age but he sipped club soda through a straw.

  “Yes!” Ott said, clenching his fist as a runner crossed home plate. “Bottom of the ninth, and the Pirates just scored, they’re coming back!” He swallowed a gulp of beer and belched. “You got to admit, Sam,” he said, “that Hurley’s one weird dude.”