Forty Days of Musa Dagh

by Franz Werfel

  His heart sank so, that for an instant he had to close his eyes. What could have happened to change the world so completely? Here, in this country, he had been born. Surely he ought to feel at home here. But -- the irresistible, evenly moving crowd in the bazaar seemed to put his home at enmity with him. And that young müdir? Surely he had been scrupulously polite. . . . "The highly esteemed Bagradian family . . ." Yet in a flash Gabriel knew for a certainty that this suavity and its "highly esteemed family" had been no more than a single piece of insolence. It had been worse -- hate masked as courtesy. This same hate flowed around him here. It seared his skin, galled his back. And indeed his back was suddenly panic-stricken, with the panic of a man hunted by enemies, without a soul to befriend him in the world. In Yoghonoluk, apart, in the big house, he had known nothing of all that. And before, in Paris? There, in spite of all his prosperity, he had lived in the cool spaces surrounding aliens, who strike root anywhere. Had he struck root here? Here for the first time, in this mean bazaar, at home, he could measure fully the absolute degree of his alien state upon this earth. Armenian! In him an ancient blood-stream, an ancient people. But why did his thoughts more often speak French than Armenian -- as for instance now? (And yet that morning he had felt a distinct thrill of pleasure when his son answered him in Armenian.) Blood-stream, and people. To be honorable. Were not these mere empty concepts? Human beings in every age have strewn the bitter bread of experience with a different spice of ideas, only to make it still more unpalatable. A side-alley of the bazaar came into view. Most of its venders were Armenians, standing before their shops and booths: money-changers, carpet-sellers, jewellers. So these were his brothers, then? These battered faces, these glistening eyes, alert for custom? No, many thanks, he refused such brotherhood, everything in him rebelled against it! But had old Avetis Bagradian been anything other, or better, than such as these? -- even though he were more far-sighted, gifted, energetic. And had he not his grandfather alone to thank that he was not forced to live as they? He went on, shuddering with repugnance. Then he was suddenly conscious of the fact that one of the great difficulties of his life sprang from the circumstance that nowadays he saw so much through Juliette's eyes. So that not only in the world was he an alien, but within himself, the instant he came into contact with other people. Jesus Christ! Couldn't one be an individual, free from all this seething, stinking hostility, as one had that morning on Musa Dagh?

  Nothing more unnerving than such a test of one's reality. Gabriel fled from the Usun Charshy, the Long Market, as the Turks called the bazaar. He could no longer endure its hostile rhythm. He found himself in a little square, composed of new buildings. A pleasant-looking house leapt to his eyes, hamam, the steam-bath, arranged, as everywhere in Turkey, with a certain luxury. It was still too early to call on the old Agha Rifaat Bereket. And, since he felt no inclination to go into one of the dubious restaurants, he turned into the bath.

  He spent twenty minutes in the big steam-room amid slowly mounting vapors, which not only made the other bathers look like far-off ghosts, but seemed even to divorce him from his own body. It was a kind of minor death. He could feel this day's impenetrable significance.

  In the cooling-room next door he lay down on one of the bare couches to submit to the usual treatment after a bath. Now he felt more naked than he had before in the steam. An attendant hurled himself upon him and began, according to all the rules of his art (which truly is one), to knead his flesh. With resonant smackings he played on Gabriel's rump as on cymbals, humming and panting as he did it. A few Turkish beys, on the other pallets, were undergoing similar treatment. They surrendered to it with gasps of dolorous pleasure. At intervals, interrupted by grunts of pain, their voices talked in broken phrases through the angry zeal of the masseurs. Gabriel had at first no wish to listen. But, mingled with the hummings of his torturer, their voices assailed him inescapably. They sounded so individual, so sharply distinguished from one another, that he felt as though he could see them.

  The first, a well-fed bass. No doubt a very self-assured gentleman, to whom it was highly important to know the ins and outs of everything -- if possible, even before the officials concerned. This man of information had secret sources. "The English sent him in a torpedo boat, from Cyprus to the coast. . . . That was near Oshalki. . . . The fellow brought money and arms and was seven days nosing about the village. . . . Of course, the saptiehs didn't know anything. . . . I can even give you the names . . . Köshkerian is the name of the unclean swine."

  The second voice, high and flurried. An elderly, peaceable little gent, who always did his best to be optimistic. The voice seemed somehow not so tall as the other, as though it were looking up at it. Its interjections of pleasurable pain were framed to an august verse of the Koran: "La ilah ila 'llah. . . . God is great. . . . We can't have that sort of thing. . . . But it may not be true . . . la ilah ila 'llah. . . one hears all kinds of things . . . This is probably only a rumor."

  The well-fed bass, contemptuously: "I have very serious letters from a highly placed personage . . . a close friend."

  Third voice. That of a strident amateur politician, who seemed to find it highly satisfactory that things in the world should be so unsettled. "We can't let it go on much longer. . . . We shall have to finish it. . . . What's the government there for? What about Ittihad? . . . The unfortunate thing is this conscription. . . . We've even armed the curs. . . . Now, how do you think we'll be able to deal with them? . . . The war . . . For weeks I've shouted myself hoarse."

  Fourth voice, heavy with the cares of state: "And Zeitun?"

  The peaceable voice: "Zeitun? Why, what do you mean? . . . Good heavens. . . . What's been happening in Zeitun?"

  The politician, ominously: "In Zeitun? . . . Why, the news has been posted up in every reading-room of the Hükümet. . . . Anyone can convince himself . . ."

  The informative bass: "The reading-rooms established everywhere by the German consulates . . ."

  A fifth voice, interrupting from the farthest pallet: "We ourselves established them."

  An indistinct tangle of obscure allusions: "Köshkerian -- Zeitun . . . We've got to finish it . . ."

  But Gabriel understood, without knowing the details. As the bath attendant dug his two fists into his shoulders, these Turkish voices roared in his ears like water. Acute shame. He who a short time ago had passed the Armenian shopkeepers in the bazaar with such a shiver of repugnance felt himself now to be involved, answerable for the destiny of his people.

  Meanwhile the bather farthest away from him had heaved himself, groaning, off his pallet. He gathered up his burnous, which served as a bath-gown, and, on toddling feet, ambled a few steps about the room. Gabriel could see only that he was tall and stout. His consequential way of speech, the respect with which they heard him out, made Gabriel conclude that this was a very wealthy man.

  "People are unjust to the government. Impatience alone does not suffice to determine policy. The true state of affairs is very different to what the uninformed masses suppose it to be. Treaties, capitulations, considerations of all kinds, foreign opinion. . . . But let me assure the beys in confidence that orders have just been issued by the War Office, by His Excellency Enver Pasha in person to the district military authorities, to disarm melun ermeni millet (the treacherous Armenian race) -- that is to say, to recall Armenians from the firing-line and degrade them to the basest tasks -- road-making, carrying loads. . . . Such is the truth. . . . But it must not be mentioned."

  "I can't let it pass. I won't swallow that," Gabriel said to himself. Another voice warned him quietly: "You yourself are the persecuted." But some dark force, which drew him up from the pallet, decided the struggle. He pushed the attendant to one side and sprang on to the tiles. He tied the white towel around his loins. His face aglow with rage, his hair disordered from the bath, his broad chest, seemed not to belong to the gentleman who, that morning, had worn tourist's tweeds. He planted himself squarely before the rich man. Suddenly, by th
e dark bags under the eyes, the liverish face, he knew the Kaimakam. The sight only served to increase his fury.

  "His Excellency Enver Pasha and his whole staff had their lives saved in the Caucasus by Armenian troops. He was as good as taken prisoner by the Russians. You know that as well as I do, Effendi. You also know that His Excellency, in a letter to the Catholicos of Sis, or to the Bishop of Conia, praised the valor of sadika ermeni millet (the loyal Armenian people). This letter was posted up by government order. That is the truth. And whosoever poisons that truth by spreading rumors is weakening the conduct of the war, destroying our unity, is an enemy of the empire, a traitor. I, Gabriel Bagradian, tell you this, an officer in the Turkish army.

  He stopped, and waited for the answer. But the beys, nonplussed by this wild outburst, did not utter a word -- not even the Kaimakam, who only drew his burnous more tightly around his nakedness. So that Gabriel could get out of the bath victorious, although still shaking with excitement. As he dressed, he was already aware that this was the stupidest thing he had ever done. Now the way to Antioch was barred. And it was the only way in, or out, of the world. He ought, before offending the Kaimakam, to have considered Juliette and Stephan. Yet he could not altogether reproach himself.

  His heart was still beating fast as the Agha Rifaat Bereket's servant conducted him into the selamlik, the reception-room of this cool Turkish house. Gabriel walked up and down over wide vistas of carpet lost in the gloom. His watch, which, idiotically, he still kept set to European time, pointed to the second hour of the afternoon. It was, therefore, the sacred domestic hour, the hour of kef, the never-to-be-encroached-on midday peace, in which every visit was a very serious piece of tactlessness. He had got here far too early. And the Agha, a stickler for the forms of old-Turkish etiquette, allowed him to wait.

  Bagradian walked to and fro, from one end to the other of this almost empty apartment, in which, besides two long divans, there were only braziers and a little table for cups. He justified his discourtesy to himself -- There's something brewing, I don't quite know what it is, but I haven't a minute to waste till I get it clear. -- Rifaat Bereket had been a friend of the house of Bagradian from its origins, even in the palmy days of old Avetis. Some of Gabriel's pleasantest, most respectful memories centered upon him. He had called on him twice since coming to stay in Yoghonoluk. The Agha had not only helped him to make purchases, but from time to time would send him agents with offers, at absurdly low prices, of rare finds for his collection of antiques.

  The master of the house, who entered noiselessly on thin slippers made of goatskin, found Gabriel talking to himself. The Agha Rifaat Bereket, over seventy, with a white goat-beard and thin features, half-shut eyes, and small, shimmering hands, wore a yellow scarf around his fez. It was the emblem of the Moslem who performs his religious duties more exactly and regularly than the many. This old man's little hands waved in ceremonious welcome; they touched his heart, his mouth, his forehead. Gabriel was equally ceremonious. No impatience would have seemed to tighten his nerves. The Agha came nearer and stretched forth his right hand towards his visitor's heart, so that his finger tips just rested on Gabriel's chest. This was the "heart-felt contact," the closest form of personal sympathy and mystic usage, which pious men of a certain order of dervishes have adopted. The small white hand gleamed whiter still in the pleasant twilight of the selamlik. Gabriel fancied this hand a face, even perhaps more sensitive and delicate than the actual one.

  "Friend, and son of my friend" -- the long-drawn emphasis of this was still a part of the ceremony of welcome -- "your visiting-card has already come to me as a pleasantly unexpected gift. Now your presence itself brightens the day for me." Gabriel, who knew his manners, found the right formula for reply.

  "My deceased parents very soon left me alone. But in you I find a living witness of their memory and fond attachment. How happy am I to possess in you a second father."

  "I am in your debt." The old man led his guest to the divan. "Today you honor me for the third time. It has long been my undischarged duty to await you as a visitor in your house. But you see in me an old and infirm man. The road to Yoghonoluk is bad and long. And, besides, a long and urgent journey lies before me for which I must spare my limbs. Forgive me, therefore."

  This ended the ritual of reception. They sat down. A boy brought coffee and cigarettes. They sipped and smoked in silence. Custom ordained that this young visitor must wait for the old man to give him an opening to direct the conversation as he desired. But the Agha did not yet seem inclined to emerge out of his own twilit world into any reality of the day. He signed to his serving-boy, who handed the master a small leather case, which he held in readiness. Rifaat Bereket pressed a spring and the case flew open; his thin, old fingers stroked the satin, which embedded two ancient coins, one silver, the other gold.

  "You are a very learned man, who has studied at the Paris university, a decipherer and knower of inscriptions. I am only an uneducated lover of antiquity, who could never vie with you. But in the last few days I have had these trifles prepared as a gift for you. The one, the silver coin, was struck a thousand years ago by that Armenian king whose name resembles that of your family, Ashod Bagrathuni. It comes from the neighborhood of Lake Van, and they are rarely found. The other, the gold, is of Hellenic origin. You can decipher the profound and beautiful inscription, even without a magnifying-glass:

  "'To the inexplicable, in us and above us.'"

  Gabriel Bagradian rose to take the gift. "You shame me, Father. Really I do not know how to thank you. We have always been proud of bearing a similar-sounding name. How plastic the head is! A real Armenian head. And one should wear the Greek coin round one's neck as an admonition. 'To the inexplicable, in us and above us.' What philosophers those must have been who paid their way in coins like these. How low we have sunk!"

  The Agha nodded, pleased indeed with so conservative a sentiment. "You are right. How low we have sunk!"

  Gabriel laid the coins back on the satin. But it would have been impolite too soon to change the subject of the gift. "I would beg you to choose yourself a present in exchange from among my collection of antiques. But I know that your belief forbids you to set up any image that casts a shadow."

  On this point the old man lingered with unmistakable satisfaction. "Yes, and for that very reason you Europeans despise our holy Koran. Is there not supreme insight concealed in this law, which forbids all statues that cast shadows? The imitation of the Creator and His creation is the first beginning of that wild pride in men which leads on to destruction."

  "These times and this war seem to show us that your prophet was in the right, Agha."

  This conversational bridge extended its curve towards the Agha. He began to cross it. "Yes, so it is. Man, as the insolent imitator of God, as technician, falls into atheism. That is the deepest reason for this war into which the West has dragged us. To our misfortune. Since what have we to gain by it?"

  Bagradian tested the next step. "And they have infected Turkey with their most dangerous pestilence -- racial hatred."

  Rifaat Bereket tilted his head a little backwards. His soft fingers were playing listlessly with the beads of his amber rosary. It was as if these hands emitted a faint aureole of sanctity. "It is the worst of doctrines, to bid us seek our own faults in our neighbors."

  "God bless you! To seek our own faults in our neighbors. This doctrine has possession of all Europe. But today, alas, I have had to learn that it has its adepts even among Turks and Moslems."

  "To which Turks do you refer?" The Agha's fingers suddenly ceased to tell his beads. "Do you mean that absurd pack of imitators at Istanbul? And the imitators of those imitators? The apes in frock coats and dinner jackets? Those traitors, those atheists, who would annihilate God's universe itself, merely in order to get money and power? Those are neither Turks nor Moslems. They are mere empty rascals and money-grubbers."

  Gabriel lifted the tiny coffee cup, in which by now there was only thick sed
iment. An embarrassed gesture. "I admit that years ago I sat together with these people, because I expected good things from them. I took them for idealists, and, perhaps, in those days they really were so. Youth always believes in everything new. But today, alas, I am forced to see the truth as you see it. Just now, in the hamam, I heard a talk which troubles me greatly. That is the reason why I visit you at this unseemly hour."