Eleos, p.1
Eleos, page 1
Eleos
A Book of Trials and Secrets
D. R. Bell
Also by D. R. BELL
The Metronome
The Great Game
The Outer Circle
Marshland
Eleos
All rights reserved.
Copyright © 2018 by D. R. Bell.
This book is intended for personal use only, and may not be reproduced, transmitted or redistributed in any way without the express written consent of the author. You can contact the author at drbellbooks.com or drbell2022@gmail.com.
This novel is a work of fiction. The main characters and many of the events portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. In such cases any similarity to real persons, living or dead, events or entities is coincidental and not intended by the author.
However, the backdrop for the story is formed by the events that took place between 1915 and 1991 and people that lived during that time. The Commentary section delineates which events and characters are real and which are entirely fictional.
The image on the cover is from the Auschwitz Album.
“The question of conscience is a matter for the head of the state.”
Adolf Eichmann
“Only the truth will make us free. The whole truth which is always awful.”
Friedrich Heer
CONTENTS
Prologue
Part 1: Avi
Part 2: David
Part 3: Avi
Part 4: David
Part 5: Avi
Part 6: David
Part 7: Iris
Part 8: David
Part 9: Avi
Part 10: Iris
Part 11: Rose
Epilogue
Commentary
Prologue
October 6, 1944
“Can you make the delivery to Oberscharfúhrer Schawik tomorrow morning?” Ezra asked.
“What if there is a transport?”
“We had no transports in weeks.”
Ezra was right: transports stopped, and the great pyres no longer burned.
“Why won’t you do it, as usual?”
“I can’t. Hauptscharführer Möll told me to fix that oven where the bricks had gotten loose on the inside. You know how he is.”
Yes, we all knew how Möll could fly into a rage at the smallest pretext. And one didn’t want to be around then.
“But I don’t have a pass.”
“I have one for you. And here’s the donation.”
Inside the bag there was a gold ingot, a pair of gold cufflinks and gold earrings. The ingot bore “JK” initials, for Jacob Kurzher, one of the jewelers busy re-smelting gold fillings.
“Jacob made these cufflinks for Schawik,” said Ezra. “A special gift. The earrings are for the guard. You’ll be fine.”
I inhaled the fruity aroma of slivovka, a plum vodka that Ezra “organized.” It burned going down. We drank just outside our barracks: you were not allowed to be out at this time, but the discipline had gotten somewhat looser lately. Especially since bombardments began in August. Unfortunately, they bombed the IG Farben plant five kilometers away, not Auschwitz. We were close enough to the door and the half-moon illuminated the path, so we could scramble inside if anyone was coming.
“I saw you whispering with Zalman and Yehuda this evening. Are you planning anything?”
“No, just organizing tomorrow’s shift. David, what are you going to do when this is over?” he asked.
“I don’t think about that. Nobody makes it out of here.”
“But if you do?”
“Well, Ezra, if I do get out, I’ll make them pay. Kill as many as I can.”
“So, you want to be Raquel.”
“Who?”
“Raquel, archangel of vengeance and justice.” Ezra was religious and well-read. And when he drank, he became philosophical as well.
“Is that in the Bible?”
“No, the Book of Enoch. He is one of the seven angels. He takes vengeance on those who have transgressed God’s laws.”
“Well, he’s been slacking on the job.”
“But I was always more partial to his brother Ramiel, the angel of hope and compassion. He guides the souls of the faithful into heaven.”
I’m afraid I snorted.
“Now, that one must have been working hard. But what a dull, wimpy name he has. Ra-mi-el.” I giggled, the vodka spreading warmly through my body and my brain.
“You don’t like Ramiel? How about Eleos?” I could almost see Ezra smile. “From Greek mythology. Eleos, the goddess of mercy and compassion.”
“That’s better.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. I think of compassion, I think of a woman. And I like the sound: E-le-os. Rolls off the tongue.”
“Very well,” Ezra agreed. “Eleos if you prefer. You think you can change people with compassion?”
“Don’t make me laugh, Ezra. All the compassionate people I’ve met here are dead. Next, you’ll tell me about the merciful G-d that won’t let innocents suffer. I’ve seen very little compassion lately.”
“But what compassion you saw was that much more precious,” Ezra said. “It was a German bricklayer that helped me to survive the first month. And you would not be alive if you had not met some compassion along the way.”
“For each small act of compassion, there were hundreds of cruelties.”
“You’re right, David.” Ezra poured us the rest of the slivovka. “But perhaps you think of compassion too narrowly. To save a life is an act of compassion. To punish a murderer is also an act of compassion, especially if it prevents another murder. We must remember those that helped. And those that killed. Anyway, don’t forget to go see Schawik in the morning.”
Part 1: Avi
1
“Well, this is it,” said Erik Babayan, after carefully leaning his surfboard against the fence. “Your late uncle’s house.” He was a solid-built man about fifty with sharp angular features, thin mouth, curly black wet hair with a bit of gray in it. An overweight version of Tom Petty in swimming shorts, a Hawaiian shirt and sandals. Normally, you would expect a lawyer to wear a suit, but Hermosa Beach was a very laid-back place. Babayan did carry a green folder under his left arm, giving a slight hint of being a professional.
“You’ve never been here?” He must have read the expression on my face.
“No.”
“Hmmm, the man was your uncle.”
“We were not close. I did not even know he was back in town, until the funeral notice.”
“He was in jail in Europe. They let him go when they figured out he was dying and had a few weeks left. Didn’t want to create a martyr, I guess.”
“How did he find you?”
“It was his father who found me thirty years ago. Walked into my office and said: ‘My name is Aram Arutiyan. You’re the nearest Armenian lawyer and I want to make my will.’ I had just opened my practice in the office on Pier Avenue, a five-minute walk from here.”
“That was my grandfather.”
“Yes.”
“Did he leave everything to my uncle?”
“Not quite. Your father was the primary beneficiary. But there were conditions attached, and your father decided not to pursue his part. Your uncle had no heirs. He left everything to you, his closest living relative. Of course, ‘everything’ is this house and a few hundred dollars in the bank.”
We were standing on a small street connecting Hermosa Avenue with The Strand on our left, where throngs of people were walking, rollerblading, bicycling. Beyond them was the beach and then the expanse of the Pacific Ocean. You could hear the breaking waves. Despite this being January, the day was sunny and warm, quite a contrast to the cold drizzle of Seattle.
The front of the house could not have been more than twenty-five feet wide, about a third of it taken by the garage and the rest by a small porch with a rusty beach chair. On the right side there was a similar small house, and then what looked like an apartment building. On the left the house abutted a narrow alley, followed by a two-story house that faced The Strand.
“It doesn’t look like much, but it’s only half a block from the beach. Some developer back in the fifties took regular-size plots, divided them in half and built small narrow houses shaped like wagons.” Babayan shrugged. “Shall we go inside?”
The door opened right into a living room with a kitchen. The walls were plain off-white but with a tint of dirt. The wooden floor looked discolored with age and badly chipped, as it creaked under our steps. The furniture consisted of a couch, a table and three chairs, all from a different era. The kitchen was separated by a breakfast nook. I could see a big black spot over the stove and the two kitchen cabinets near it looked burned. There was another door on the right: I opened it and found myself in a dark one-car garage, which had no car but a lot of junk. The place gave out a stale smell of urine, ashes and motor oil.
“Well…” Babayan sniffed. “Your uncle was renting the place out while he was gone, and that did not always work out.”
I shut the door and followed Babayan down a hallway. There was a bathroom on the left and two bedrooms, one on each side. One of the bedrooms had a single bed, a desk and a chair; the other was empty except for a mattress on the floor. Babayan opened the door at the end of the hallway, and we found ourselves in a tiny fenced backyard decorated with two dead plants and a chipped ceramic table with one chair. In the house across the alley the gara ge was open, and I could see a man standing by a Corvette. The lawyer waved to him.
“When did my grandfather buy this house?”
“Back in 1961. Sarkis inherited it in 1965.”
“Grandfather was killed in Germany then. A robbery.” I was not even four years old when it happened, but I remembered that year. Grandfather’s not fully explained death changed the family, and not in a good way.
“And your uncle went to jail in France a few years later. Your family should avoid that part of the world,” Babayan commented wryly. “Look, there is a bit of bad news. You see, the property taxes have not been paid in some time and the county wants to seize the house. You have a couple of months to come up with the payment.”
“How much is owed?”
“Because of penalties, just under six thousand. It’s all here.” Babayan handed me the green folder.
“Can you help to reduce penalties?”
“You’ll just waste your money trying. There is no mortgage, so when you fix up the house and sell it, you’ll walk away with a quarter million at least.”
He just assumed that I’d be going back to Seattle. Except that I had no good reason to go back.
I saw Babayan out and wandered through the house, trying to imagine myself living here. I grew up in West LA, spent the last eleven years in the Pacific Northwest. This was a different world from both. I went back to the courtyard and was about to open the folder that Babayan left, when someone called out to me.
“Hey.” It was the man from across the alley. “Are you moving into this house?”
“I don’t know yet. Just inherited it from my late uncle.”
“I see.” He came to the fence and offered his hand. “Jack Burns, your potential new neighbor.”
Jack had a big, rhythmically moving gum-chomping jaw. Above the jaw there was a round big-nosed, full-lipped reddish face ringed by curly dark brown hair. The hand I shook was as meaty as the rest of him, except for the disproportionally small ears. He looked to be in his late thirties.
“Avi Arutiyan.”
“Why don’t you come over, Avi? Have a beer with me? We’ll sit in the front, watch the girls go by on The Strand.”
There were indeed tons of girls in bikinis walking, rollerblading, biking past the house. Jack seemed to know quite a few of them.
“How long have you lived here?” I asked.
“Almost ten years. Bought it in 1981. I came to the area a few years before that, when I took a job with TRW. It’s a local aerospace company.”
“I know. Are you an engineer?”
“Yes.”
“Me too. I worked for Boeing in Seattle until recently. You could afford a place on the beach on an engineering salary?”
“Well, not quite.” Jack laughed. “My dad left me some money. I always wanted to live on the beach. So, you are not sure that you’ll keep the house?”
“I’ll have to think about it. It all happened quickly. I lived in Seattle for eleven years, but things have changed.”
“A woman?”
“Yeah.”
“Got it. I stay away from complicated personal stuff.” Jack nodded. “Been married once, that was enough. Listen, if you decide to sell, let me know. I’d love to buy it.”
“Really?”
“To be honest, your house had been a bit of a problem. It was often vacant, so squatters moved in. Two years ago, they started a fire. Police would evict them, they would find a way to sneak back in. It was a pain in the butt.”
“Hey, Jack!” Three bikinied girls stopped in front of us.
2
“Is it really over between you and Amy?” Mom avoided looking at me as she tried to pick up her take-out fried rice with chopsticks. “I heard you talking in your sleep last night.”
“Yes, it’s over.”
“Perhaps you should try again? You’ve been together for twelve years …”
“Only ten, Mom, only ten.”
Amy and I met in the summer of ’79, the year that my family fell apart. In May, my older half-brother, Tigran, came back from Lebanon in a closed casket. Father aged quickly after that. In July, I ran into Amy at a party. She came down from Seattle to visit her friends. In September, instead of enrolling in UCLA, I packed a bag and moved to the Pacific Northwest. From then until our breakup in May of 1990, it was ten years and eight months. At least that was how I counted it.
Mother gave up and put the chopsticks aside. “In any case, it was a long time …”
“Mom, why are you digging?”
“Avi, I just worry about you,” she said, her eyes getting moist. “I know it hurt you. Perhaps you two may want to try again.”
That’s what moms do to you. They worry, and it becomes your fault because you must fix whatever it is that worries them. Amy had given me a few of those “I’m OK, you’re OK” or ‘I’m OK, you’re not OK” lectures about us being responsible for our own feelings, blah, blah, blah. I wondered at what point these talks were meant to prepare me for her departure.
“Mom, it’s been eight months since we broke up. And she’s pregnant. By another man.”
I first asked Amy about having a baby five years ago, after I finally finished college and got a job at Boeing. She said we were too young; she was just getting going in her career at one of those giant department store chains. She was now engaged to their executive vice president. He came from the family that founded the chain and lived in a giant mansion on Bainbridge Island. I saw it when in one of those angst-filled days I took the ferry and parked my Datsun across the street. Until a cop car pulled up and started asking questions. Someone in the house must have called. Amy went from a wild skinny-dipping teenager to a trophy second wife, and I somehow missed the transition.
“So, are you coming back to LA?” Mom must have decided to stop with questions about Amy.
“Yes, I figure I am.”
I’d thought about it for the last few nights. I needed a change, and there was nothing of substance keeping me in Seattle. The prospect of living by the beach sounded good. Especially next to a neighbor who knew a lot of local girls.
“I guess I won’t be moving to New Jersey then.” She smiled. She had a sister in one of those leafy New York commuter suburbs. “How are you doing on money?”
“I’ve got a bit of savings plus a severance package.” Now that the Soviet Union had collapsed, the country was enjoying a “peace dividend.” For some of us in the defense industries, this meant layoffs. Mine was two months ago, an accidentally good timing.
“Is Grandpa Aram’s house a money pit?” I noticed she said “Grandpa Aram” instead of “Uncle Sarkis,” even though Grandpa had been dead for over twenty-five years.
“It’s not too bad. And I like the area. So different.”
After all these years, my parents’ old house no longer felt like home. I grew up in what Dad jokingly called the slums of Santa Monica, halfway between the UCLA campus where Mom worked and downtown Santa Monica where Dad worked. The area had a college feel to it because the north-south streets were named after famous universities: Princeton, Harvard, Yale, etc. Four blocks north of us, beyond Wilshire Boulevard, lived the really rich people. All quite different from the vibe of Hermosa Beach, the vibe I wanted now.
I flew back to Seattle, cleaned out the apartment. Anything that would not fit into my Datsun, I gave to the neighbors. Except for a few of Amy’s things, which I mailed to her new place on Bainbridge Island. I ignored her voice mail and pointed the car south on Interstate 5. I did it all without slowing down to think, afraid that if I stopped, I’d lose my nerve. It was only after I crossed the Columbia River Interstate Bridge and found myself in Oregon that I pulled over. I sweated and had difficulty breathing, suddenly overcome with the fear of making a terrible mistake. I wanted to turn around and retrieve the box of pictures of Amy and me. I failed to include the box in the package of her things. Unable to decide whether to mail it or throw it away, I placed the box on the side of the stair landing and forgot it there. If I could only get that box, the last year could be rewound like a VHS tape. A knock on the window broke the spell: it was an Oregon state trooper asking if I was OK. I rolled down the window, assured him that I was indeed just fine, and drove the remaining nine hundred miles south to start a new life in the old place.
