Fortunate Sons

Dr. Pearlman's story

Sue and the others trudged on along the dirt road trail, tired, exhausted and on edge from their walk. Their clothes were filthy and dirt flecked and all of them were starving. Two of the group members complained while Leah bit her tongue and kept quiet. Dr. Pearlman on the other hand was as silent as the Than Ahn cemetery.

"Doctor Pearlman?" she asked. "Doc? Ari?"

Dr. Pearlman was taken aback. Sue had been the only out of all of them who hadn't called him "Doc" or "Dr. Pearlman" and had the audacity to use one of his nicknames.

"You ok?"

"Huh? Oh.....oh yeah I was just thinking was all." Dr. Pearlman replied. "Sometimes when you're out in such a rural area you get to thinking.....alot."

Sue laughed a little. Usually Dr. Pearlman was such a chatterbox but as of late he had been unbelievably quiet. "I know what you mean," she said. "Thinking of home?"

"More or less," Dr. Pearlman replied. "Family, home......wife."

"Wife?"

"She's back home in Tel Aviv," Dr. Pearlman replied. "Wrote her the other day just to see how things were."

"And?"

"She's good," Dr. Pearlman replied. "She just wishes I was home soon that's all."

Sue had begun to suspect there was more to the doctor's claim than she already knew. He's never this quiet....she thought.

"Ari," she said. "What's really going on here?"

"I'll tell you when we find a place to rest."

They walked on for a few more hours and found a shady place to rest on the side of the road near a rice paddy. The rest was a welcome relief for now the sun hung high above their heads and beat down on their already fried backs and shoulders.

"You know," Dr. Pearlman said. "It's funny.......this isn't the first time I've had to go on the run."

"What do you mean?" Sue asked him.

"Seems like all my life I've been running from people who have tried to kill us," Dr. Pearlman replied. "This time the thing that's chasing us isn't human."

"What do you mean people have tried to kill you?"

Dr. Pearlman fell silent for a few long seconds before he spoke again. "It's not an easy thing for me to talk about," he sighed. "Sometimes I even have nightmares about it."

Sue perched herself on the large, smooth rock next to Dr. Pearlman. "Go on," she said.

"I don't tell anybody this story for reasons of my own," he said. "It's a painful one that I've kept for a long time."

"I won't tell anyone if that's what this is," Sue replied. "Your secret will be safe with me."

Dr. Pearlman smiled a bit at her and shook his head a bit. "I told you that star had belonged to my mother.....but I never told you where she got it did I?"

"No."

"My mother Zelda lived in Warsaw her entire life," Dr. Pearlman explained. "The entire family lived with her, grandmothers, grandfathers, sisters, brothers, cousins.....life seemed more perfect than a paperback novel. She met my dad at a cousin's wedding and before you know it, my grandmother decided to play matchmaker and see if they'd work out."

"Did they?"

"You bet they did," Dr. Pearlman chuckled. "They were together for two years before he asked her to marry him. Next thing you know they're married at the temple in Warsaw with the whole family there to see it. My God, Mama was the most beautiful woman you'd ever seen and Papa.....Papa was the spitting image of my grandfather."

Sue laughed remembering how Uncle had been the spitting image of Ong Noi. The same shit faced, mischievous grin, the bad boy charm....all of it was her grandfather passed onto Uncle and his brothers.

"About a year after they got married," Dr. Pearlman continued. "My mother, her sisters, my grandmother and my aunts were all at home preparing for the Sabbath. Bombs started falling on the city, people were in terror.....it was all just out of the blue. No warning, no signal....nothing."

Sue was amazed that Dr. Pearlman could remember such details. She never remembered when the war had started.....only that she had been too young to understand.

"From what my Aunt Ruth and Uncle Lev had remembered," Dr. Pearlman said hoarsely. "It sounded like thunder. Just awful.....tanks rolled through and soldiers marched through the streets. There really wasn't anything people could do."

"What happened to your family?" Sue asked. It wasn't something she wanted or needed to know, but she felt as though it had to be asked.

"About a year after the invasion, maybe a little before....I don't remember," Dr. Pearlman continued. "They moved my family along with hundreds of others into a ghetto where they were forced to live. The conditions were terrible. Sometimes it'd be ten or fifteen people to a small building. My aunts said that the floors were so dirty that not even bleach would have been able to clean them."

"They lost everything didn't they?"

"Yes," Dr. Pearlman answered. "And more. They lost their freedom, their way of life.....even the people they were closest with. I was born in the Warsaw ghetto not long after my family was relocated. My mother had me in a tiny room at the back of the house they shared with at least three members of the family. She and my father named me Ariel after my grandfather."

"What happened after?"

"I wouldn't remember much," Dr. Pearlman replied. "I was so small, barely able to understand what was going on. The only thing I remembered was a lady coming to the house one day and my mother handing me off to her. But me being only three, I didn't want to go."

Sue felt her chest tightening with sorrow when she heard the doctor's story. Small world isn't it.....? She thought. Some people aren't so different after all......

"I remember the lady taking me in the middle of the night to an old church where the priest had taken in other children," Dr. Pearlman continued. "I didn't realize until later in life that they had all come from the ghetto. I stayed there until I was about eight years old and they sent me away to an even stranger place. Later on I'd find that place was home and the only one I would ever know."

"But why?" Sue asked. "Why did the dog run away when it smelled the pendant?"

Dr. Pearlman reached down the front of his shirt and showed the pendant to Sue. "It wasn't just because it is a holy symbol," he said. "It was the love of my mother, my father and my family. Pure and unconditional. It was their sacrifice and their love was what chased away such an evil creature. Even though I never saw them again, I keep them with me....forever and for always."

Sue felt her eyes stinging as she tried to hold back against the deeply moving story. The thought of losing her own parents and several family members all welled up at once. She didn't want anyone, not even one of her closest confidants to see her if she broke.

"C'mon," Dr. Pearlman said. "Let's go."

He and Sue rose to their feet, rallying the others to get a move on. From there, they continued the long and arduous walk down the road with the hot tropical sun beating down on their heads, wandering their way into uncertain danger that awaited them every step of the way.