A Little Peace
My father enjoyed the spectacle of the hangings. He would move close to the swinging body, reading off the list of crimes the man was accused of. Watching as the victims, and the victim’s friends and family spat on the corpse in disgust.
This, to my father, was justice being served.
Sitting across from one another after one of his many return trips from Armenia, my dad showed me some photos of antiquities he had been looking to acquire. One was a small ancient Egyptian perfume vial, glass infused with ruby dust, that glowed red in the light. Another was a statue of the four horsemen of the apocalypse, a relic of the medieval age, large and heavy, and difficult to transport.
My father had always been a lover of art. In the 80’s he worked as an art dealer. High value paintings from that time would transit through our shitty little apartment in Los Angeles, as he slowly filled the homes of well to do Armenians with the works of New York’s up and comers.
During a trip to Armenia, we made our way to the Vernissage, an open air market that mostly sold tourist trinkets and replicated artwork. We made our way to an innocuous table, and the man behind it immediately greeted my father. Right after the pleasantries he pulled out a large box, then looked at me.
“Does he know?”, he said, staring me down.
“This is my son,” my father responded.
The man returned to his friendly demeanor and began highlighting the contents of the box. Ancient Armenian vases and jugs, etched stones from bygone times. My father sifted through them, selecting some, rejecting others. The chosen few were put aside, to be dealt with later.
As we walked away, there was an unusual calm on his face.
One night we were watching a soccer match. He often bet on multiple games, parlaying them together so that if he won, he won big. He said it made watching the games more interesting by having a vested interest in the outcome.
But the game was dull, so he started to tell me a story.
It was about that lot between two buildings, the short cut he had used for as long as he could recall. One day, a crew was digging up the ground, blocking his way through. He asked the foreman what was going on. Apparently the lot had been sold and was going to be developed, but during the dig they had found a burial site with at least two ancient Phoenician sarcophagi and a bevy of relics surrounding them.
My father asked if he could get a closer look. The foreman walked him over, showing off the detailed etchings on iron plates that covered the sarcophagus. He reached out and touched it, like reaching out to the past and connecting with history.
My father left that day and returned that night.
Under the cover of darkness, and the absence of guards, he made his way back to sarcophagi. Again he ran his hands over the aged coffins, holding who knows who. And then, with his bare hands, he broke off a piece of the etched iron, a large semi-rectangular chunk, and then ran back home, wrapped it in a towel, and hid it in the top of his closet.
Whenever he was upset, or angry, he would pull the broken plate from its hiding place and stare at it. The piece would calm him, soothe him. And then he would delicately rewrap it and place it back in its secure location.
One day, particularly upset, he came looking for it once more, but could not find it.
He asked his mother if she knew where it was.
“That old, dirty thing?’, she replied, “I threw it away.”
Fifty years had passed since that day, but he had yet to forgive her.
One night we were watching a soccer match. He often bet on multiple games, parlaying them together so that if he won, he won big. He said it made watching the games more interesting by having a vested interest in the outcome.
But the game was dull, so he started to tell me a story.
It was about that lot between two buildings, the short cut he had used for as long as he could recall. One day, a crew was digging up the ground, blocking his way through. He asked the foreman what was going on. Apparently the lot had been sold and was going to be developed, but during the dig they had found a burial site with at least two ancient Phoenician sarcophagi and a bevy of relics surrounding them.
My father asked if he could get a closer look. The foreman walked him over, showing off the detailed etchings on iron plates that covered the sarcophagus. He reached out and touched it, like reaching out to the past and connecting with history.
My father left that day and returned that night.
Under the cover of darkness, and the absence of guards, he made his way back to sarcophagi. Again he ran his hands over the aged coffins, holding who knows who. And then, with his bare hands, he broke off a piece of the etched iron, a large semi-rectangular chunk, and then ran back home, wrapped it in a towel, and hid it in the top of his closet.
Whenever he was upset, or angry, he would pull the broken plate from its hiding place and stare at it. The piece would calm him, soothe him. And then he would delicately rewrap it and place it back in its secure location.
One day, particularly upset, he came looking for it once more, but could not find it.
He asked his mother if she knew where it was.
“That old, dirty thing?’, she replied, “I threw it away.”
Fifty years had passed since that day, but he had yet to forgive her.
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