Liberation Movements

Libarid

“Everyone remain calm!” says Emin Kazanjian, waving his briefcase detonator at the head of the aisle. “If you stay calm, everyone will survive this trip!” The other three hijackers have taken positions throughout the plane, so they can see its length and breadth as Emin retreats, with the help of a terrified stewardess, to the cockpit.

Zrinka sits up and whispers to Libarid, “The one closest to us-you see his arm?”

Libarid’s not interested in what she has to say, not now, but he looks anyway at the small man in the aisle with shirtsleeves and an old Tokarev pistol. Down his forearm are three long, parallel scars. “Yes,” he mutters.

He doesn’t know why Zrinka continues to speak, but she does. “His name is Jirair, and he was tortured by Turkish police in Istanbul, three years ago. They brought him in on trumped-up charges of robbery, but they in fact believed he was a terrorist. He wasn’t, but after the experience he became one. Ironic, isn’t it?”

Libarid looks at her. “How the hell do you know that?”

“I told you,” she says. “I have a knack for suppositions. Sometimes it serves me well. For example, I knew this plane was going to be hijacked.”

“Everyone quiet! ” says the one nearest them-Jirair.

Libarid lowers his voice. “I saw you. You were talking with that first guy. In the airport.”

“I needed to get to know him.”

“What?”

“Don’t worry,” she says, a vague smile playing on her lips. “It’ll all be over soon enough. You’ll be in sunny Istanbul, and free.”

Zrinka places a hand on the armrest to get up, but Libarid grabs her elbow and pulls her back down. “You’re staying right here.”

“Am I?” That smile again.

“Explain to me what’s going on.”

“A test,” she says. “I’m being tested. But I’ve had enough of tests. I’ve had years of them, and this is where it’s going to end. I could just have them take the plane somewhere else-to Egypt, maybe-but I won’t have my brother pay for my selfishness. Besides, there’s always another side that wants to use you.”

“You’re not making things any clearer.”

“It’s doesn’t matter, Libarid. Zara will at least be happy you’ve survived the flight. And these guys will treat you well; though you’re nothing like them, you’re Armenian.”

“I’m not so different. I’ve hated the Turks as well.”

Zrinka opens her mouth, a peculiar expression crossing her face. When she speaks, it’s a stunned whisper. “No, you don’t hate them.”

“I did, ” he said. “They killed most of my family. Made refugees of my mother and me.”

Her mouth works air again. “But I didn’t know.”

For an instant, Libarid forgets the situation they’re in. “Christ, you’re strange.”

“But I’m sure it’s the same,” she says, nodding as if to reassure herself. “Yes. Now let go of my arm.”

As if it were controlled by the tone of her voice, Libarid’s hand opens up, and Zrinka stands. Jirair rushes up, swinging his pistol around. “Sit!”

Zrinka smiles at him. “I need to speak to Emin.”

“You don’t-”

But she interrupts, pointing at the marks on his arm. “His name was Talip Evren. He was short and fat, and he used a ceremonial Bedouin knife he got when he was in the army. He used the knife because it reminded him of when he was young and fit and strong. And you’re here because there was something wicked about him that keeps you moving even now, three years later.”

Jirair looks down at the marks on his forearm, then back at her.

“Emin,” she says.

Libarid watches as the small man deflates slightly, his shoulders drooping, his pistol hanging beside his hip. He’s very close, and for an instant Libarid believes he can reach out and snatch the gun from him. But he doesn’t. He’s thinking of the various repercussions that could follow, gunfights in this enclosed space, Zrinka getting shot, or, worse, himself being killed. The scenarios flicker through his mind slowly, retarded by fear, and Jirair and Zrinka are already walking up to the cockpit when he realizes he should have tried it-tried something.

Then they’re at the door, and just before entering, Zrinka turns to look at him with her pale eyes. The serene smile hasn’t left her face, and then she winks at him and mouths, It’s okay.

Jirair opens the door to the cockpit, and Libarid can hear Emin, from inside, shout in Armenian, “What is this?”

The door closes.

Libarid stares hard at the door, then at the deaf state security man who turns to peer back at him, confused. It’s okay, she said, but it’s not okay. As a young refugee, Libarid learned that other people have no power to help you. They may believe they can right what’s fallen apart, but they’re fooling themselves. What is good for you, only you can do.

He turns to the hijacker across the next set of seats and calls in Armenian, “Excuse me, can I use the bathroom?”

He’s a tall, gangly man, also with scars that mark the side of his face. One scar has split the corner of his wide mustache. He raises his gun and frowns. “What?”

Libarid smiles. Again in Armenian: “I’m sorry, but I don’t want to wet my pants.”

The hijacker looks across the plane to the other one at the front of Libarid’s aisle, who shrugs. The first one nods, and the second comes back to walk Libarid from his seat to the toilet. At the bathroom door, he asks Libarid, “You’re Armenian?”

“ Aayo. Family was from Vaspurakan. We were around for the slaughter.”

The hijacker inhales, his smooth face looking very young and innocent to Libarid. “Nineteen fifteen, April. You must have been a baby.”

“I was young.”

Libarid locks the door and stares into the mirror. That brief childhood in Armenia is hardly a memory to him at his age. When he was young, memories of Turkish soldiers marching the men of the village away, gathering families, drowning them in the local lake-they gave him an immature, violent courage. But over the years, after the death of his mother, his hatred of Turks was too exhausting to sustain. Then, once he’d acquired a wife and child-a family-he became more careful. Now, staring at himself, he can see this. It’s made him a less effective militiaman, one with too many worries and, at times, a crippling fear of death.

But now the situation is different. Libarid has kept up with the stories of various Armenian acts around the world, and their perpetrators’ awkward names: the Prisoner Gourgen Yanikian Group, the Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia, and now simply the Army of the Liberation of Armenia. Bombs placed in tourist offices in New York, Paris, and Beirut. The hatred he once owned is alive in these people, and he knows from his own experience what that can lead to. It’s a suicidal urge. If he doesn’t act, his freedom from his family won’t mean a thing.

So he looks around at the minimalist airline toilet for something to use. The cabinets are filled with paper products, and beneath the sink are extra rolls of toilet paper. The toilet itself has only a lid, but beside it, on the wall, is a two-foot-long aluminum bar to hold on to during turbulence. He tugs on it, and the plastic wall bends. The bar is held on each side by screwed-in metal brackets, but with some effort one of them pops free, and he slides the aluminum bar under his slacks, the bottom secured by the elastic of his sock, so that the bar is held loosely along the inside of his calf.

He checks his red face in the mirror, takes a breath, and opens the door.

His guard walks behind him back to his seat, and as they approach Zrinka’s large, deaf guard, Libarid mouths his instructions.

Five minutes, we both take them. You stand first.

The guard, surprised, nods and looks at his wristwatch.