Full Moon over Noah's Ark

by Rick Antonson

  Access to Mount Ararat had been restricted to foreigners on and off for many years. It was formally “closed” from 1990 to 1999. Climbers wanting to hike Ararat during the Soviet Union’s domination of Armenia were often denied permission or harassed by Russian troops. That much I knew. But clearly I didn’t know the whole story.

  She turned to face the mountainside. “These guides, they are Turkish and do not want us here. They take our money but do not give respect. The Turks, they killed our people. Many people deny genocide swept here. Turkey certainly does.” Her anger put a sting in the tail of her words.

  “I should know more of this history,” I admitted. The sentiment firmed my resolve to spend time in Armenia, to learn. One might be forgiven for having an imperfect understanding of historical twists and turns of a land that has witnessed vast changes over thousands of years; unless, of course, the topic was genocide.

  “The world remembers the Jews and the Holocaust,” she replied. “That is important. But it was not the first genocide. Nor was it the last. Think of Rwanda. Bosnia.”

  With that, she dove into the core of her evening’s harsh feeling. “Mount Ararat witnessed genocide. It is a mountain Turks then took from Armenia.”

  Later, one of the Armenian hikers walked over to where I stood alone near the horses. He’d watched the woman and me talk earlier, heard the exasperation in her voice and my muted responses as the scope of the Armenian accusations settled in on me. I wondered how many others among “the internationals” did not know this horror.

  Into the quiet he said, “Do you recognize her?”

  “No, we’ve never met,” I replied.

  “She is an actress. Her name is Arsinée Khanjian. She has been in many films, but for here, you should know of the movie Ararat.”14

  Bolts of understanding fell into place for me. Travelers should not visit this part of the world without viewing this movie, and I hadn’t. Knowing of the film’s existence was not enough; I’d seen the preview in my trip research, but what is ninety seconds? If I had viewed the movie, I’d have been aware of the Siege of Van and of why so much anxiety filled our campsite.

  Charlie was the first one I met heading back to the camp. He was in a contorted pose. He was a yoga instructor. Beside him was an Armenian from America, wearing a denim shirt over brown cords that were tucked into his wool socks. His boots were off. “I’m taking instruction,” he said before folding to the ground and rolling to a sitting position. Out of his shirt pocket he pulled a cigar. “Saving this for the summit.”

  When his student was gone, Charlie told me, “I had a wonderful conversation with the woman. She’s an actress. We talked about MOPE—the Most Oppressed People Ever. Oppressed peoples talk about MOPE. She feels MOPE are the Armenians. I feel the Irish. You?”

  “My ancestors are Norwegian,” I sighed. “They were the oppressors.”

  Earlier, I’d asked Ian where to stow my pack in the empty tent. He’d said, “On the mountain up-side, in case a rock tumbles down toward us.” I lay thinking about such a prospect. Ian nodded off, his feet up on Big Bertha. Near to our shelter, Goran and Charlie sorted out their own difficulties posed by the limited space with all the alacrity of a marriage squabble.

  “Great. Zipper stuck in my sleeping bag,” Charlie complained.

  “Should have brought your own, instead of renting,” Goran said. “Sleep warm.”

  “If you’d move your bag, I’d have more room,” Charlie replied, laughing like he was gargling.

  “If you didn’t need so much room,” Goran said, “my pack would be just fine.”

  Before he finished, Charlie kept at him: “If you don’t like it here, hang your clothes in another tent. You’re old enough to move out.”

  Goran softened. “I need to borrow your sweater vest for tomorrow, and those extra pants you offered. I’m cold.”

  “Stay cold!” Charlie scolded.

  “If you want room, put your pillow and head outside the flap.”

  Mountain silence descended amid the guffaws.

  13 Although Navarra’s wife accompanied her husband and their three sons to the foothills of Mount Ararat, she—like Noah’s wife—remains nameless in her husband’s story.

  14 Core to Ararat’s storyline is a film being made within the film, portraying documented events to draw out Turkey’s denial of the genocide. As the New York Times said, “the film is ultimately committed to the belief that anguished remembrance is far preferable to willful amnesia.” The UK’s Independent reported that Turkey’s deputy prime minister chaired a meeting of the Commission Against False Genocide Accusations, during which “a decision was taken to utilize all the resources of Turkey’s culture and foreign ministries to prevent the movie’s opening.” Khanjian’s husband, Atom Egoyan, wrote and directed the 2002 film.

  TEN

  MOUNTAIN OF PAIN

  “There is not enough water on the earth now and there would not have been [then] to actually submerge most of the earth.”

  —Dr. Bülent Atalay, University of Mary Washington

  The campsite was quiet when I awoke around 5:30. I went looking for a coffee to warm me up. A quiet chant softened the morning. Niecit poked his head out of the cook tent and held a mug, anticipating my request. I was grateful to accept; it was hot and flavorful, brewed from his private stock.

  I walked up the slope to exercise my legs. Ararat’s upper reaches appeared only in brief glimpses, teasing me. The closer we got to the peak, the more unknowable it seemed.

  Ian showed up, rubbing his eyes. “You snore.”

  “No,” I parried, used to it now. “I’m cured.”

  “You are not cured.”

  Breakfast sorted itself out much as dinner had. Those who were around early took the seats they wanted. Last night’s shared angst about today’s climb had melded the two expeditions. Charlie sat talking with Arsinée and an Armenian man, both of them with daypacks at the ready. Ian and I matched up with Armenians at our end of the table. A squat man talked about the simple joy of being on the mountain. “It is here I have wanted to be. It is here I now am.” An Armenian and Goran helped serve instant coffee, watery tea, and hot chocolate. Flat, beige biscuits were on offer. Ian passed them over, joking with us, “These might make the difference between a successful summit and a missed opportunity. Eat up.” I looked around; Nico and Patricia were nowhere to be seen.

  Fesih moved with quick steps over to the table with a pan of scrambled eggs. He walked around the table swiftly, mindful that everyone wanted them hot, ladling a steaming spoonful on each plate. He began the circuit again, continuing to share wisely until they were gone. Goran emerged from the cook tent with a plate of fried ground meat that he placed in the middle of the table. The piping pile went quickly.

  When our extended family was seated, Eric rose from his end of the table. “Everyone,” he began, “I’m not going any further up the mountain. I talked with Kubi just now. He’s sending one of the cooks down with me this afternoon. You know I don’t have my proper gear. The makeshift stuff isn’t working.”

  There was consternation among his Armenian group. A fellow traveler said, “Let us work to fix it. There’s no need to leave.”

  Eric was firm: “It’s my decision to take. It’s taken. I will leave.”

  Goran said, “We can find a way to help.”

  One joker interjected, “I’ve got extra stuff I don’t need. Can you take it back to the hotel for me?”

  Eric was content in his situation. “I’d be happy to. I’ll wait till you’ve all gone up the mountain and rifle your packs before I head down.”

  Everyone laughed. Eric would leave with our best wishes. Many years earlier, Fernando Navarra had written of a teammate turning back once partway up Ararat, noting that the man simply announced, “I have never climbed so far before. I shall not go farther.” Navarra felt that “these were the words of an honest man. They meant that he could climb farther, that he would be able to reach the summit, but t
hat he did not want to.”

  Ian leaned over to me. “And then there were eleven,” he said.

  Charlie and Goran sat down in the empty chairs across from us. Goran said, “I think the guide is right. Yesterday showed a strain on some. Some climbers should wait at this camp while the rest of their group climbs further.”

  “Have you seen Nico?” I asked.

  “I saw him and Patricia on a walkabout.” Charlie pointed. “They’re coming down from the rise.”

  Nico gestured us to come to them. With coffee mugs refilled, we scrambled up the embankment to their tent.

  “This is not my mountain,” said Nico. With unflinching honesty he admitted, “Yesterday was tough on me. I know mountains, and sometimes they don’t want you. Not sure why. This is as far as I’m going.”

  “Ağrı Dağı,” breathed Charlie, drawing out the Turkish name for Ararat with an Irish accent. “It means ‘mountain of pain.’”

  “We’re in no rush. We’ve an extra day to acclimatize,” Ian said. “Take your time.”

  Nico: a man and a mountain. As James Salter wrote in his mountain-grounded book, Solo Faces, “The classic decision is always the same, whether to retreat or go on.”

  “For sure, Nico. We can pace ourselves differently today,” Goran agreed.

  Nico’s weather-beaten soul was resolute. “You can’t outsource your adult decisions. I’m going out this morning.”

  Ian said, “We hear you, Nico. You could stay here at Base Camp, and we’ll pick you up on the way down.”

  Nico shook his head. “Guys, I’ll see you at the hotel in a few days.” He added, “Patricia told me she’s going to the summit.”

  Nico’s intention was to ensure that the five of us climbed unhindered. Reduced in size, our group was stronger. It felt like his gift to us.

  Nico turned to me. “Rick, take care of Patricia.”

  “I will.” I knew he was leaving his partner on a dangerous mountain and wanted nothing more than a sense of trust and insurance. Everyone respected Patricia’s self-contained style and sense of competition.

  Nico looked around the camp and back at the four of us. “She keeps her own tent.” He winked.

  Then his left hand wrapped the back of my neck in a nudge directing me away from the others. We walked among the volcanic debris where it was desolate, stopping to look up the face of a beckoning mountain.

  “I was hoping to stand with you at the summit, Nico.”

  “Rick, I’m sixty-nine,” he replied. “Most of my good friends are dead. Two brothers are dead. Relationships are to be treasured. I want our friendship to see another day.”

  “Me too.”

  “Living takes skill. I’m going to live by walking down this mountain.”

  The boy who was loading the packhorses had stacked goods beside them. He tossed the buffer blanket over the horses’ bare backs. He’d rolled up the sleeping pads used to cushion us against the rocky ground under sleeping bags. He was ready to strike out as soon as a taller person helped him pile up the gear and tie it down.

  Enter Goran—tall, without any horse-packing sense. The boy directed him. With Charlie helping out, they apportioned and secured the load. When it was all done, Kubi pushed hard against the stack of plastic stools that had been lashed across the top of bedding and crammed on one of the packs. The load held. The boy knew he’d passed a test. So had Goran and Charlie.

  * * *

  We were no longer in the run-up of gentle slopes; now we were on the mountain’s steeper slant, and the trail was rough. Ian, clenching two climbing poles, said, “I wished earlier that I’d brought two climbing poles. Now I have Nico’s. Right thing. Wrong reason.”

  Kubi had encouraged the Armenians to split their group in two: those capable of further ascent, and those, in his view, less fit for the day’s demanding climb. He’d suggested two or three of them might stay at Base Camp. “I would leave one of the teenage boys here with you for security and to help with meals.”

  But the Armenians were clear. “We go together,” said one of the men.

  The horses and handlers were soon out of sight. It was the young men’s job to prepare Camp II for our arrival—a lot of work. We followed, down to one cook-guide, Niecit. Fesih was descending with Eric and Nico.

  Kubi saw off the Armenian group and climbed fast to catch up with us, leaving the tension between the Armenians and their alternative guide at the 10,000-foot level. The rift would catch up to us by dusk.

  The six of us made steady progress until Kubi, who was in the middle of our group, said, “It’s midday. I don’t see any Armenians below.”

  “The stronger ones are waiting, I think,” Patricia said.

  Above, we could see the packhorses, the young boy, and Niecit on the trail. Kubi whistled. With hand signals he communicated that our group was now Niecit’s responsibility. They should slow their pace and keep us in sight. Kubi bid us goodbye. “I’m going to help guide. We make two teams for them.”

  Goran, seeing the cook and his helper seated for rest, made no move to lead us on. Instead he asked, “Do you really think Noah docked his ark on this steep mountain and avoided a shipwreck?”

  Patricia responded first: “A barge, hundreds of feet long? I don’t see that flat of a surface on the mountain.”

  Ian, being practical: “Say the Ark had a draft of twenty feet. You couldn’t know what formation was below you, mountain cliff or field landing.”

  Charlie added, “A rough landing would send all the animals tumbling to the front of the boat.”

  I liked these expedition mates for their sense of selves, their nonplussed attitudes and irreverence. Laughing, we picked up our packs and started up, steeply.

  We were a tired group arriving in Camp II. At 14,000 feet, our camp was higher than the 12,782-foot (3,896 meter) peak of Lesser Ararat.

  The cook and the boy had commandeered a wide space for our campsite, one where they’d camped on other occasions, though mountain protocol didn’t automatically grant them this spot. We could see the Russian tents pitched above us, but they showed no sign of life. “If the Russians left a bit late or faced delays, they should be coming down by now. Sure hope everything is OK for them,” Ian wondered aloud.

  West of us was the camp of Spaniards, the cook told us. “Weather not good last night. They try tonight.” That might explain the Russians’ absence. Maybe they’d dodged the bad weather by deciding to make a daytime ascent and descent. Whatever they did, they only had a few hours left before darkness.

  The altitude slowed our breathing. We’d felt the drag for the last two hours on the trail. Relaxing at the campsite, we were happy the lad had pitched our tents for us, flaps facing away from the anticipated wind. We unpacked. The boy had taken Patricia’s pack to her tent. When she was refreshed, she came over to sit with Ian and me, wearing the same look of tiredness that I felt.

  “Me too,” was all she said.

  Ian was buoyant. He once had to troubleshoot in a mineshaft over ten thousand feet below sea level, and now was standing that many feet above it. Being here was a refined sensation for him, even if it left him a little linguistically altered by the altitude—“This moment. Feel it good.”

  “We have an extra day built into our ascent. Like the Spanish over there,” said Goran. His span took in the orange tents and the smoke of the Spaniards’ cooking fire across a valley. “We thought they were ahead of us. They should have been up and down by now, heading lower.”

  “Today was our day to acclimatize,” I said. “It was set for us to climb up here. If the altitude bothers anyone, we could descend and stay again at Base Camp.”

  “Go back down?” Patricia asked. “Are you serious?”

  “That’s the option,” Goran said. “Then we’d ascend to here again tomorrow, adjusted and in better shape for the summit attempt. That extra day may be why the Spanish expedition is still here.”

  Ian was emphatic. “There’s no need to go back down. You all look fine.
”

  “You all look terrible,” Charlie said.

  In anticipation of our ascent, these mountain five look more relaxed than we actually felt. From left: author, Goran, Charles, Patricia, and Ian.

  We laughed. We were tired, yes, but fine. Dinner would bolster our strength. No one wanted to go back down in order to acclimatize. It had seemed an odd option to me when I’d first heard about it from Zafer. Why head back down when we’d worked so hard to get here? We could walk about an extra day if we needed. Looking back now, it was a mistake to think that way, to assume that it would simply be a matter of time before you adjusted to the altitude. Not so. Altitude illness could come quickly and unfairly. The best antidote was to move to a lower elevation and give your body more time. But at the moment we all felt adequate with the reduced oxygen.

  “What this means for us,” Ian began—thinking to leave an opening for a delay day if anyone needed it—“is that we might attempt the summit tonight.”

  “Tonight?” Charlie wasn’t hesitating or skeptical, only curious.

  “Yes,” said Goran. “Leave camp later tonight. It’s either that, or we hike around tomorrow, let the altitude work with us and go up tomorrow night.”

  “Tonight,” said Ian. “We should go tonight. We can see the mountain. The weather, we think we know. Tomorrow may be bad. Let’s take tonight.”

  “So long as Kubi guides us,” Patricia said, settling the question.

  Ian asked, “All in?”

  There was a round of eye-to-eye checking, one to the other, everyone facing everyone else. It was not a moment for false pride.

  Nods came from two of them, followed by two separate yeses.

  “Make it five,” I said.

  “Plus Kubi,” said Patricia.

  “He may already be planning that,” said Ian, “but we have to find the right time to ask him. We should approach him together, but not until he’s finished dealing with the day’s frustrations. Let him get here and settle down, have dinner.”