Forgiving Ararat

Of course, little Ott understood none of this at the age of eight. He knew only that he had been hit viciously during the football game by children nearly twice his size. During halftime, he pleaded with his father not to be sent back into the game. His father, like his father before him, responded by belittling him on the sideline for acting like a baby and ordered him back onto the field. Yet a strange thing happens to men as they age: Toby Bowles, the grandfather and former perpetrator of such callousness, climbed down from the bleachers to make his surprise appearance by intervening on his grandson Ott’s behalf, asking Tad to give the boy a break. Ott was all bruises and wonderment at this fallen angel about whom he had heard only terrible things, but who bore such a strong resemblance to his own father. Although he had never laid eyes on the man before, he suddenly seemed like his only friend in the world, and Ott loved him on contact. But Tad, the victimized son and current perpetrator, was enraged. Harsh words were exchanged between the two men-words that should have been spoken fifteen years earlier when there was context in which to understand them and love left to heal them, but that landed now like hammers on the firing pins of revolvers. When Tad could bear no more and restrain himself no longer, he shoved his father-hard enough to cause Toby to lose his balance and fall to the ground in front of the other parents, spectators, and children. Ott’s wounded eyes swelled with hatred into hostile slits-eyes that Toby, sprawled on the ground, recognized instantly as his own son’s eyes in the back seat of the car at church after the fight with Claire about Paul and Marion Hudson. Stu

Ott did, however, come to know his maternal grandmother well. No

Bill Gwy

Bill and I promptly initiated the lawsuit, making it every bit the publicly embarrassing spectacle for Amina and Barratte Rabun promised in Mr. Goldman’s letter. Bill was a master, both in the court of law and the court of public opinion. I watched in awe, helping him behind the scenes. This was the type of case lawyers wait for their entire careers, but there I was, working on it fresh out of law school. From a torrent of Hague Convention subpoenas, we obtained from German archives copies of contracts signed by Amina’s father for the construction of the crematoria at Osweicim and Majdanek. Although these documents bore no direct legal relevance to our claim for recoupment of assets derived from the Schriebergs’ theaters and home, they made sensational copy. Soon the publisher of the award-wi

These war contracts were the first solid pieces of evidence Amina and Barratte had seen of their fathers’ involvement in the Nazi death camps, and they were devastated. Even so, they had been through far worse during the war, and in facing this new common threat they found again the mutual love and trust for each other that had sustained them during those terrible days, weeks, and months after Kamenz. Plus, now, there was young Ott to think of. With Amina’s refusal to bear children, Barratte’s twelve year old son held the only hope for a new generation of Rabuns. With the survival of the family at stake, the cousins held each other and turned their backs against the coming storm, unyielding even when Bill and I convinced the Buffalo Evening News to print portions of Patentschrift Nr. 881 631, Verfahren und Varrichtung zur Verbre