Forty Days of Musa Dagh

by Franz Werfel

  Ter Haigasun, as the rain ceased, stood with bent head, confronting their fierce hostility, his cassock clinging to his body, the drops pouring off his beard. Bread and flour were utterly spoiled. The priest could not escape the terrible question why God, within the space of ten minutes, should have thought fit to confound the human reckonings of innocent and persecuted men. And this before the end of their first day on Musa Dagh! The sun sank in jagged mountains of crimson, oblivious of the whole incident. Birds sang on till the last instant of light, as though they were making up for lost time. All the humans had been struck dumb. Men, women, children, wandered half naked past one another. Housewives tied ropes between the trees and hung up the dripping clothes to dry. Nobody wanted to sit on the ground, though, before the moon was up, this thirsty soil had sucked in its last gout of moisture. None the less the campfire would not burn, since thick drops still clung to the logs and faggots. Single families squatted, bunched together, turning ill-tempered backs on their next-door neighbors. They must manage to sleep on the bare earth, since mattresses, coverlets, cushions could not possibly be dry till tomorrow night. But they slept in heaps. In misfortune one body needed another to touch, each grief to make quite certain of its neighbor.

  Pastor Aram Tomasian sat in an observation post which the scouts' division had set up in the branches of a very wide and shady oak. From this point one could get a clear view of the church square and village street of the large village of Bitias. The pastor had borrowed Bagradian's field-glass, so that the dust-swept square and road were clearly visible. Nokhudian's band of Protestants stood in marching order, outside the church. There seemed a surprising number of them; many of his co-religionists must secretly have gone over to Nokhudian. Surprise at finding every nest of Armenians empty as far as Bitias may have caused the müdir and the police chief to hold back their convoy from Saturday to this present Sunday. Saptiehs were scurrying in and out, brandishing their truncheons or guns. Impossible to make out exactly which. A distant zigzag of tiny shapes. Perhaps the gendarmes were already striking right and left. But no sounds of pain or rage drifted so far. Distance had toned down any horror to a framed, faintly animated miniature. Tomasian had to make a conscious effort to realize that this was not a puppet show which he watched so detachedly through the round end of his glass, but his own destiny. He might tell himself again and again that he had escaped from among the outcasts who down there in the dust-clouds of the valley were setting forth on their road to death, only to prolong his own earthly life by a few days. Up here, among oak leaves, the shade was so pleasant. Rest and comfort filled him from top to toe. The reality of that horror below him was being dispersed in tiny movements, which teased the eye, but left the heart more indifferent than any dream. Pastor Tomasian started, as he realized his own cold-hearted guilt. Down there was his place, and not up here! He thought of the mission house in Marash. The Reverend Mr. Woodley, sent him by God to test his heart, posed again his enigmatic question: "Can you help those children by dying with them?" The trap was set. But later, over there in Bitias, he had let slip his chance a second time, of adding to the pains by which he must bear witness to Christ.

  It was a long, a painfully long while, before the convoy, with his old, yet so much juster brother in God, Nokhudian, began to move off. And the freckled müdir seemed certainly to have made a few concessions. A line of sumpter mules walked in the train, the rear of which was even being followed by two carts, their high wheels jolting through the dust-cloud. Pastor Aram saw what he had seen so often in those last seven days in Zeitun: a sick, worming line of human beings, feeble to the point of extinction; a blackish caterpillar, with tremulous feelers, bristles, and tiny feet, winding its piteous length through the landscape, without ever seeming to advance. This mortally wounded, forsaken insect seemed to seek in vain for a place to hide in, among the open windings of the valley. Its peristaltic back thrust forward the foremost sections of its body, drawing the rear ones painfully after it. So that deep notches kept being formed, and often the creeping insect got split up into several parts which, urged by scarcely visible tormenters, grew jaggedly together, as best they might, to break once more when the join had scarcely healed. It was not the wriggle, it was the twitching death throes, of a worm, a last, writhing, stretching, convulsive shudder, as though already carrion flies were creeping up to the open wound.

  It seemed almost to be a miracle that, little by little, a gap should form between this worm and the last houses of the village, through which it dragged so unbearably slow a way. "They have several pregnant women," Aram reflected. The instant thought of Hovsannah weighed on his heart. By various signs it was apparent that his wife was very near her time. Nothing had been done, or could have been done, to help her. So that his first child would be born as roughly as any beast on Musa Dagh. Bad as this was, a deep presentiment burdened Tomasian still more heavily -- a fear lest this child in its mother's womb should have to suffer for his sin. He lowered his field-glass and, suddenly giddy, clung with both arms to the solid prongs of the fork within which he was sitting. When, after a while, he looked again, the miniature in the telescope had changed. Now the worm was wriggling on through Azir, the silk village. And a party of saptiehs had detached itself and was marching northeast, away from Bitias, towards Kebussiye. Pastor Aram sent instant warning to headquarters. The danger soon passed. The saptiehs did not wheel in the direction of the North Saddle of the Damlayik, but disappeared up the rising ground at the foot of the valley. They were on the wrong track, thanks to Nokhudian. The country lay quiet. A few hundred Moslems were prowling the squares and streets of empty villages -- mohajirs from the northwest, brought by the scent of booty, and the native riffraff of the plain. This scum still seemed not to have possession of the houses. Perhaps some government order had dulled its appetite. These gentry buzzed, like indolent horseflies, along the streets. The saptieh detachment was lost to sight, eastwards, down a side valley, before it had come as far as Kebussiye -- another proof of how it had been outwitted. The sudden hope -- perhaps we'll be left in peace for days . . . perhaps the Turks will leave Musa Dagh on their left forever.

  Pastor Aram jumped down from his spying-post. Wood-cutters' hatchets rang out on every side, in the dark groves. If he had not been able to prove himself God's priest, let him at least prove himself God's soldier. He almost ran the whole way back into camp, in his haste not to miss an instant's duty.

  The camp looked incredibly industrious. Long lines of burdened donkeys, piled high with heavy loads of oak branches, nodded past young Tomasian. Great stones for laying foundations were being trundled by on wheelbarrows. Father Tomasian's assistants were measuring out streets with lines of cord and marking off the spaces for the huts. Already, here and there, there had arisen the vague scaffolding of a hutment. Families competed in speed. Children, and even the very old, worked beside the strongest men and women. The "public buildings" were already surprisingly far advanced -- the hospital tent, under Bedros Altouni's supervision, and the big granary. But Father Tomasian in person supervised the government barrack, a work on which he had set his heart. It covered a wide space, with two side-cabins, provided with doors that could be locked.

  Meanwhile Juliette had installed herself in Three-Tent Square. Gabriel had expressly begged her to think of nothing and of nobody but herself, not even of him. He had brought up the matter for discussion at a Council sitting: "My wife has the right to lead her own life, even up here, on the Damlayik. She must live here just as she chooses. We others are of the same blood and so are subject to laws on which we've all of us decided. But she remains outside our laws. She's French -- the child of a more fortunate people, although she's compelled by fate to share our dangers. And therefore she has the right to our most generous hospitality."

  All the members of the Council of Leaders had responded to Bagradian's appeal. The three tents exclusively reserved for Juliette, the heaps of luggage, her special kitchen and separate household, her tinned food, her t
wo Dutch cows, bought by Avetis the younger -- all these exceptional possessions and special privileges would have to be made acceptable to the people. Gabriel had indeed given orders that most of the milk was to be distributed among the children of the camp, with whatever else could be spared from Juliette's kitchen. But these were very minor concessions, which left her still a highly privileged person.

  Enemies, or ill-disposed friends, to demonstrate the gap between precept and practice, needed only to point to Juliette's luxury when Gabriel urged the necessity for a careful sharing-out of supplies. They could not have denied that their leader did not sleep in a tent, but at his post; that he drew the same rations as all his men; that his property had gone into the general pooi and been of the greatest advantage to the community -- however, it remained equally undeniable that, for Juliette's sake, he withheld a great many luxuries from the common stock. This discrepancy might foster dangerous conflicts. But at present none of the leaders seemed to be thinking anything of the kind.

  And yet, not an hour before, the mayor of Yoghonoluk had had to submit to an acid lecture from his wife on the subject of Three-Tent Square. Wasn't she, the pupil of the Missionary Sisters at Marash, as much a lady as this Frenchwoman? Was she so very much beneath her that she had to live, just like all the common village women, in a wretched hut made of branches? And was he, her husband, Thomas Kebussyan, really such a poor little worm that now there was no difference between him and any beggarly Dikran or Mikael, whereas the difference was so immense between him and that inflated Bagradian? These wifely exhortations ended in Kebussyan's slyly contriving that he and his family should not have to live in a draughty hut, but in a spacious log house, especially built for them, close to the altar. That no bad blood might be caused by this stately edifice, the mukhtar had made up his mind to hang out a sign over the door, with the inscription "Town Hall." So that, remembering his intended ruse, he nodded approvingly to Bagradian's appeal on behalf of Juliette.

  Ter Haigasun looked Gabriel full in the face before lowering his eyes, as he always did when he was speaking: "Gabriel Bagradian, we all hope your wife may escape, even if sooner or later the rest of us perish. May she say a good word for us to the French."

  Juliette lived in one of the two hunting-tents. She had asked Hovsannah and Iskuhi to share the second. Hovsannah, in somber anxiety, awaited her child. In the sheikh-pavilion, half of which was used for stores and luggage, there were three beds. Stephan slept in one, the second belonged to Samuel Avakian, who, however, as staff officer and adjutant, always passed his nights within reach of Bagradian. Since the latter had curtly renounced all comfortable living, Juliette placed the third bed in the sheikh-tent at Gonzague Maris's disposal. She felt under some obligation to that young man for the very discreet homage with which he surrounded her, especially in these last, trying days. He had saved Gabriel's life. Also he was the one European, besides herself, on the Damlayik. There were many moments when this bond between them grew so intense that they eyed each other like conspirators, prisoners in the same jail. Juliette felt a dangerous inclination to slackness. Gonzague was still dressed out of a bandbox. She came upon him sometimes unawares, brushing a suit, with scrupulous care, outside the tent, sewing on a button, polishing shoes. His nails were always clean, his hands well cared for; he shaved, in contrast to Gabriel, every day. Yet this scrupulous care of himself suggested no particular vanity, seemed rather to be an active dislike of whatever was soiled or ill defined. A spot on his clothes, mud on his shoes, would cause Gonzague real unhappiness. It was as though by nature he could not tolerate anything fusty or half unconscious, as though, if he were to live at all, it must all be raised into the light of a clear purpose of his own. This meticulous approach to life, which refused to give way before any circumstance, impressed Juliette. All the less intelligible, therefore, Gonzague's placid decision to share the death of a set of foreigners.

  Once, when he had not been near her all day, she routed him out: "Have you begun to write your descriptive articles?"

  He watched her, surprised, and yet half quizzical. "I never take notes. My memory is my only real asset. I shan't need to save a few smudged papers."

  The young man's cocksureness annoyed her. "It remains to be seen if you'll manage to save your head -- memory and all."

  He answered with a short laugh; really he was expressing a deep conviction: "You don't surely imagine, Juliette, that Turkish soldiers, or anything else, could prevent my leaving this if I really wanted to?"

  Both this and the tone in which he said it displeased Juliette. This decisive biding of his time which Gonzague so often let her see in him repelled her. But there were other moments at which he could seem as lost as a stray child. Then a motherly pity would well up in her. And it did her good.

  Near Three-Tent Square, beyond the beeches, Kristaphor and Missak had set up a table with benches. This nook was as charmingly peaceful as though it had been the remote corner of a garden with alleys all round it, not part of an inaccessible mountain camp. Here of an afternoon sat Juliette, with Iskuhi and Hovsannah, receiving her guests.

  Usually these callers were the same as those who had frequented Villa Bagradian. Krikor was a regular visitor, and the teachers, whenever they happened to be off duty. Hapeth Shatakhian did his uttermost, as he expressed it, "to delight Madame by the purity of his French conversation." But Oskanian had ceased to appear as the maestro of poetry and calligraphy; he was now a fierce and impassioned warrior. For "afternoon calls" he still always wore his grey "milord's" morning coat; under it he had slung his trench knife to a belt, out of which the butt of a saddle pistol fearsomely lowered. He would neither lay aside his weapons nor remove his martial lambskin kepi.

  Juliette "received" not only gentlemen; the wives of the notables also frequented her. Mairik Antaram, the doctor's lady, came in whenever she had the time; the mukhtar's wife, Madame Kebussyan, less frequently, though when she did her alert curiosity was insatiable. Madame Kebussyan insisted on seeing all there was to see. Almost with tears in her eyes she begged Juliette to show her the inside of the sheikh's pavilion -- the rubber tubs, the dinner sets, the furniture which could be taken to bits, the expensive cabin trunks. With the deepest, most prescient emotion, she stuck her nose into chests of supplies, airing her opinions on sardine tins, patent foods, soap, and sugar. Juliette could manage to rid herself of this worthy lady, whose quick, mouse eyes ferreted in and out of every corner, only by offering her gifts out of the stores, a tin of food, a cake of chocolate. Then Madame Kebussyan's thanks, and promises of fidelity to her friend, exceeded even her praise of all these good things.

  Mairik Antaram, on the other hand, never came without bringing a small gift, a pot of honey, a cake of "apricot-leather," that reddish-brown fruit preserve, indispensable to the Armenian breakfast table. She bestowed her gift secretly. "When they're gone, djanik, little soul -- you eat this. It's good. You shan't have to go without things while you're with us."

  But often Mairik Antaram would look very sadly at Juliette, through her fearless, and never self-pitying, eyes: "If only you'd stayed at home, my pretty!"

  Iskuhi Tomasian saw less of Juliette on the Damlayik than she had in the villa in Yoghonoluk. She had asked Ter Haigasun to use her as assistant schoolteacher, and the priest had welcomed the suggestion.

  Juliette scorned this resolve: "Why, my dear, when we'd just begun to make you really well again, do you want to go off and work yourself to shreds? Whatever for? Placed as we are, it seems ridiculous."

  Juliette was still in the strangest relationship to Iskuhi. She seemed, by dint of the many acts of kindness which she had shown her from the very first, to have conquered, one after the other, both that stubborn shyness and eagerness to be of use, behind which the real Iskuhi was hiding. Iskuhi had even shown signs of shyly returning this affection. When they said good-morning or good-night, she would put her arms round this elder friend. But Juliette could feel distinctly that these tendresses were mere imitat
ions, adjustments, just as in speaking a foreign language we may often use its idioms without really knowing their shade of meaning. Iskuhi's hardness, the center crystal of her being, that which was for ever strange in her, remained untouched by all endearments. And it cannot be denied that Juliette suffered at this soul's impregnability, since every wound inflicted on her sense of power seemed to infect her whole estimate of herself. Even this business of "teaching school" meant a defeat for her.

  Now Iskuhi spent many hours a day on what was known as the "School Slope," far removed from Three-Tent Square. There was a big blackboard, an abacus, a map of the Ottoman empire and quantities of spelling books and readers. Several hundred benches. A whole army squatted, sat, or lay in the shade of a clearing, filling the air with shrill sparrow chirrupings. Since usually the whole male teaching staff was on duty in the trenches or in camp, Iskuhi would often be left for hours at the mercy of rampaging brats. To keep order, or even establish peace, among four- to twelve-year-old savages was impossible. Iskuhi had not the strength to take up the struggle. Soon she would cease to hear her own voice and wait, resigned, for the arrival of some trusty male pedagogue, say Oskanian, to scare the little devils to wan submission. That teacher, iron militarist that he was, strode in among them rifle in hand, since by military law he had now the right to shoot them all for insubordination in the field. The switch he carried, in addition to all his other accoutrements, swished round the shoulders of guilty and innocent indiscriminately. One unlucky group was put to kneel on pointed stones, another to stand for fifteen minutes with heavy objects held above its heads. After which Oskanian would leave his female subordinate to enjoy the fruits of his pedagogic method -- a deathly silence.