Forty Days of Musa Dagh

by Franz Werfel

  This was the first stroke of a cruel day. They had marched two hours when the first death occurred in their ranks. An old man suddenly sank to the ground. The convoy halted. The young and, as a rule, so friendly officer came riding up in anger. "Get on!" A few tried to lift the old man up. But they soon had to let him slip to the ground. A saptieh prodded him with his foot. "Come on. Get up, you swindler." But he still lay on, with open mouth, and turned-up eyes. His corpse was flung into the ditch. The officer harried them: "No standing about. Forbidden. Get on. Get on." Not all Aram's prayers, nor the howls of the family, could procure either leave to carry the corpse, or a quick burial. It must suffice that they raised the old man's head a little and placed big stones on either side of him. There was no time left even to cross his hands on his chest, since the saptiehs brandished their cudgels, cursing and driving on the hesitant crowd. Panic descended on the transport -- a trotting run, like a stampede, which only ceased when the corpse had been left far behind and carrion birds from the Taurus came circling nearer it.

  Scarcely had the horror of this first sacrifice been surmounted when a yayli, a ponderous two-horsed coach, held up the convoy. It thrust the exiles off the narrow highroad, into swampy fields. Inside it a portly young gentleman of about twenty-five, with many rings on his fingers. Carelessly he thrust a bejeweled hand through the carriage window to present a document to the officer. It was a government order, duly stamped, giving him the right to select one or several Armenian girls for domestic purposes. Since his coach happened to be surrounded by orphans, his jaded, benevolent eyes alighted on Iskuhi. He pointed his stick at her, beckoned her to him with a smile. This important gentleman did not consider himself in the least a violator of women, but their benefactor -- was he not ready to snatch one of these dirty creatures from her fate, take her to his bosom, to that of his highly respected family, in his dignified and secure town house? All the greater therefore his amazement when the fair one, instead of taking happy refuge in his sheltering arms, ran away from him with loud shrieks of "Aram." The coach pursued her. Perhaps no reasons with which the pastor strove to protect his sister would have availed. That he should have mentioned her European upbringing was a mistake, born of desperation, since this served only to put an edge on the ardor of her would-be protector. Only the sharp intervention of the young commanding officer settled the matter. He most unceremoniously tore up the suitor's government order, adding that, as officer in charge, he alone had power to dispose of Armenian convoys. Unless the Effendi instantly made himself scarce, both he and his yayli would be arrested. He emphasized all this with a cut of his riding-switch on the flanks of the horses. The corpulent benefactor, wounded to the quick at having been balked in a good deed, clattered on at a remorseless trot. Iskuhi soon recovered from the incident. Soon she was seeing it as a joke, so that certain of its comic details made her shout with laughter. But her amusement was not to last long.

  That same afternoon it began with the sufferings of the orphans. It is strange that these children should not singly have noticed their wounded feet, but all together -- so that a sudden howling, whimpering, wailing, which tore the women's heartstrings, filled the air. The easygoing young officer, however, was ruthlessly in earnest on one point -- no rests or delays over and above the regulations. He had orders to reach Marash with his convoy two hours after sundown. This he was determined to carry out punctually, though in all the rest he might use discretion, often against the clear indications of his superiors. His professional pride was involved in this. There could therefore be no question of any halt for the children's bleeding feet to be dressed with oil.

  "All that's no good to you. See that we get to Marash in time, then you can dress your wounds. Forward."

  There was nothing for it. Some of the children had to be carried. Here even the weak Iskuhi distinguished herself, though soon she too was involved in disaster.

  Her brother had repeatedly warned her not to lag in the rear of the convoy, or even among the orphans who composed it. It was certainly the unsafest part of the transport, immediately in front of the ill-disposed soldiers of the escort and the many varieties of hideous vagabond which straggled inquisitively out of villages. But Iskuhi refused to listen, for she felt her place to be with the children, especially now that, with every fifteen minutes, they became more weary, ill and footsore. The other teachers of the orphanage little by little went on ahead, leaving only Iskuhi doing her best to shepherd and encourage, with various arts, her yelping infants. They stumbled more and more miserably, and for this reason the line was often broken, till at last there was a fairly wide gap between the rear and the main body. At such a juncture as this Iskuhi felt herself gripped from behind. She screamed and tried to wrench herself free. Over her there appeared a terrible face, gigantic, with filthy stubble, snorting, rolling its eyes, stinking, inhuman. She let out another piercing scream and then struggled silently with the man, whose spittle dripped into her face, whose brown claws were tearing her dress to shreds, to fasten themselves into naked breasts. Her strength failed. The face above her swelled into a mountainous, shifting hell.

  She sank into its horrible breath. . . . It was Iskuhi's good fortune that, attracted by the piercing howls of the children, the officer came galloping sharply back to them. The brown claws flung her to the ground. The tramp tried to run away but did not escape a final stroke with the flat of the sword on the back of his head.

  Iskuhi struggled to her feet but could not even manage to cry. At first she only supposed that her left arm had been numbed in the struggle. "As though it has gone to sleep," she thought. Then, suddenly, wild pain flamed up in it. Speechless with this, she could not tell her brother what had happened. Hovsannah and Aram led her. Not a sound passed her lips. Everything in her became unconscious -- only not her feet, which still took quick, little steps.

  It is still a riddle how they ever managed to reach Marash. As soon as the town was in sight, the desperate pastor went to the officer and even ventured to ask him how long he thought the exiles would be allowed to halt there. That, he was plainly told, would depend on the Mutessarif. He might safely reckon on a halt of several days, since most of the out-going transports were still in town. There would be some regrouping. Aram raised imploring hands. "You see what a state my wife and sister are in. I beg you to let us go to the American mission, for this evening."

  The young officer was a long time thinking it over. In the end his pity for poor Iskuhi overcame all official considerations. Still on horseback, he scribbled a leave-chit for Pastor Aram and the two women.

  "I haven't the right to let you go. If you're caught escaping, I shall be held responsible. You are ordered to report to me daily, in the concentration camp."

  The mission fathers received their three protégés and pupils with compassionate love. They had devoted their whole lives to Armenian Christians -- and now this thunderbolt, which might be the merest indication of the devastating storms to come! A doctor was sent for at once, unluckily a very young, inexperienced one. He jerked Iskuhi's arm backwards and forwards. The infernal pain of this, added to all that had gone before it, made her really faint for a few minutes. No bones were broken, said the doctor, as far as he could see, though the arm looked curiously disjointed. The hurt was in the shoulder. He put on a big, tight bandage and gave her a draught to dull the pain. It would certainly be as well, he advised, if she could keep her arm stiffly resting for at least three weeks. Iskuhi did not sleep a wink that night. Hovsannah, in the room assigned to the women, had dropped at once into a sleep which was like unconsciousness.

  Aram Tomasian sat at the missionaries' table, discussing what was to be done. The vote was unanimous. The rector, the Reverend E. C. Woodley, said decisively: "Whatever else may happen, you can't go back into that convoy. Hovsannah and Iskuhi would be dead long before you reached Aleppo. And, apart from that, you aren't natives of Zeitun, but were sent there by us."

  Pastor Aram had one of the hardest spiritual conflicts
of his whole life to sustain. "How can I leave my people, at the very time when they need me most?"

  How many Protestants were there in the convoy? they asked. He had to admit that, apart from a tiny minority, they all belonged to the Old Armenian or the United churches. But that did not console him in the least. "In such circumstances I can't worry about trifles. I'm the only priest they have."

  Mr. Woodley calmed him: "We'll send someone else with them. But you're to go to your home. You must wait there till we have another cure for you."

  "And what's to happen to my orphans?" groaned Aram Tomasian.

  "You can't help the children by dying with them. The orphanage in Zeitun is our property. You've done more than your duty by bringing the orphans to Marash. Leave all the rest to us. It's ceased to be your affair."

  A teasing voice in Aram was not to be silenced. "Am I not bound to more than just my duty?"

  Old Woodley showed impatience, though his heart was rejoicing over Aram. "You surely don't imagine, Aram Tomasian, that we intend to submit to this treatment of our orphanage so tamely? It's not decided yet, by any means, what is to happen to these children. But you're getting in our way, my dear boy. As pastor of Zeitun you're compromised. Understand? Good. I release you formally from your charge as director of the orphanage."

  Aram felt that, if only he could hold out a few minutes longer, Woodley would not only cease to oppose, but would bless him for his Christian courage in sacrifice. But he said no more, in spite of this distinct sensation, and submitted to the mission father's arguments. He believed he was doing this for Hovsannah and Iskuhi. And yet, every time he woke out of a sleep crowded with images, he was filled with the heavy sensation of defeat, of having betrayed his vocation to the priesthood, with the shame of weaklings.

  Next morning the Reverend E. C. Woodley, accompanied by the American vice-consul, went to the Mutessarif and procured for Tomasian and his wife and for Iskuhi an official permit to travel to Yoghonoluk. But this would be valid for only fourteen days, within which they must have reached their destination. So that, in spite of the serious state of Iskuhi's arm, they were forced to set out three days later. They might have chosen the shorter route, via Bagche, the nearest railway station along the Anatolian line. They were advised most strongly against it. The Taurus line was crowded with transports for Jemal Pasha's fourth army. Nowadays prudence forbade any unnecessary contact with Turkish troops, especially with Armenian women to escort. Since the pastor had already submitted to the Marash fathers' decision, he was equally ready to let them choose his route. Instead of the short railway journey they began a very difficult carriage drive, of several days' duration, on mountain roads. First into the mountains, to Aintab, then along the wretched winding tracks over the passes of Taurus, down to Aleppo. The mission fathers placed a large two-horse carriage at Aram's disposal, and an extra horse, which could also be used as a mount. They wired to their representative in Aintab to prepare relays.

  But the travellers were not yet past the suburbs of Marash when pursuing, imploring howls drowned the clatter of hoofs. The orphan girl Sato and the house-boy Kevork came running up behind them, clamoring. Fortunately it was early morning, there was still no one out in the streets to betray this scene. Inconvenient as it was to have to do so, nothing remained for Pastor Aram but to rescue these two unwanted additions to his party. The little vagabond Sato had always been a very difficult child and a burden on the Zeitun orphanage. About every three months she would be overcome with longings for a vagabond life. Then she would vanish for days, to come back in an almost subhuman state, lousy and caked with dust and very subdued. And before these attacks she was quite unmanageable -- incapable of connected speech or any other laboriously acquired attainment. Nor was it any use to lock her up. She seemed to get through walls like a ghost. But, if she could not manage to get away, Sato would be possessed by devils and could alarm the whole house with her genius for malicious damage. Iskuhi had been the first to influence her to the point at which her malice could be restrained and perhaps at last even exorcized -- and this not by any specifically educational means. Iskuhi knew very little of pedagogic methods. For this little tramp was devoured with love for young Iskuhi, love which wrought sad confusion in Sato's already bewildered brain, and even seemed to have the power to engender that most dangerous of emotions -- self-contempt. Now, in her pleated orphanage smock, Sato came pattering down the street with many cries.

  "Küchük Hanum! Miss! Please don't leave Sato alone," this skinny little waif besought, with eyes widened by deathly fear and yet at the same time insolent -- eyes which concealed inescapable resolution within their depths. Neither Iskuhi nor Hovsannah had ever really been able to repress a shudder of instinctive repugnance at the sight of Sato. Even when she was clean and kempt, she inspired a certain physical disgust.

  Yet now this unwelcome acquisition had to be stowed away on the back seat. The house-boy Kevork took his place on the box beside the driver. Kevork came from Adana. Ever since, as a half-grown lad, he had been hit over the head with a rifle-butt, in the course of one of the numerous "incidents" there, he had remained a good-natured cretin. He could only talk in a stutter. And when, like Sato with her uncontrollable longings to run wild, he was seized with his mania for dancing, he too was impossible to control. This solemn fit had caused him to be named "the dancer." It was a quiet and very harmless peculiarity, which seldom possessed him altogether, and then only when something had stirred his mind. Otherwise Kevork faithfully discharged his duties as stoker, water-carrier, wood-chopper, gardener, and with mute zeal did the work of two grown men. How many promising children and useful adults (the thought flashed into Aram's mind) were there to rescue -- and yet God sends me a little criminal girl and an idiot. It seemed to him a significant answer to his lukewarm shrinking away from sacrifice on behalf of the banished folk of Zeitun. Sato, however, was shaken by eerie, boisterous merriment. She wriggled up, with her pointed knees, against Iskuhi; she laughed and jabbered all day long, as though exile were the best conceivable holiday. Perhaps it was her first ride in a carriage. She let her thin little hand, with its big, filthy nails, hang out, as though over the side of a boat, drawing it after her with delight through the cool wake of surrounding air. These high spirits only annoyed and alarmed the others. Iskuhi jerked away her knees. The pastor, riding beside the carriage, threatened Sato that, unless she could sit still, he would either put her down without compunction or tie her hands.

  The exhausting journey to Aintab -- their nights had to be spent in wretched village khans -- passed without catastrophe. In Aintab itself they rested three days. The Armenian colony there had received Mr. Woodley's wire and the relay horses were waiting. On the previous day the first convoy from Zeitun had reached the town. The people of Aintab had seen these miserable people and now awaited their own fate in despair. They scarcely went out of doors. Horrible rumors kept circulating. It was said that the government intended to give even shorter shrift to Aintab -- that the Armenian quarter was simply to be set on fire, its inhabitants shot in batches. Yet the Aintab commune could not be kind enough to the pastor. It was as though the sight of these rescued victims inspired in them the hope of themselves being saved. Aram Tomasian tried to find a home in the town for Sato. But she clung in such strident terror to Iskuhi that he ended by taking her back into the carriage, perhaps as an act of penance for his own sin.

  Things still went smoothly as far as Aleppo, though they spent four days crawling down the passes of the Taurus, had the greatest difficulty in finding relays at the post-houses, and had twice to sleep in empty barns. But the big town, with its many bazaars, its well-paved streets, its government and army buildings, pleasant gardens, and opulent mission-houses, inns, and hostels, acted like a charm on these ailing and dispirited people. In spite of sharp inquisition by saptiehs at the octroi -- Sato and Kevork, after several minutes' palpitating fear, were passed as "servants" -- the very sight of these streets, with their streams of undist
urbed-looking people, gave bondsmen the illusion that they were free. Their reception, however, by the missionaries and heads of the commune was very different from those at Aintab and Marash. The fathers here were so overburdened with business and worries of all kinds, they were so bureaucratically organized, that Aram shrank from demanding their help. All he asked was two small rooms for himself and his family. The Armenian colony here was very rich, and so more timid, more hardhearted, than the smaller people in Aintab. Their terror was intensified by the fact that they had so much more to lose than the others. Worse still, when the pastor mentioned Zeitun, he perceived at once that the very name of this town of revolt aroused mixed feelings in these city-brethren. They did not wish to seem, in official eyes, to have any connection with such folk, pilloried now as stubborn rebels. The pastor's very presence in their offices was enough to compromise them. At present, if one hoped to save one's skin, it was necessary to seem a fanatical devotee of the state and scrupulously shun all suspected company. Aram was offered a sum of money. They could do no more for him. He refused it with thanks.