Forty Days of Musa Dagh

by Franz Werfel

  The cohort was continually on duty. A group of orderlies had always to be within call of the thirteen teachers; others around the numerous observation posts. Teacher Shatakhian inspected his scouts every day, and gave unexpected practice-alarms. So that a major, unofficial enterprise could only be carried out in the sheltering dark, when the boys were off duty and not being supervised. In the course of this same day on Musa Dagh, Stephan was already explaining his scheme to the ever-unapproachable Haik. How miraculous that a foreigner should have thought of it, not a real Armenian! Since the villages moved up on to Musa Dagh one or two daring people had already ventured down into the valley, in the hope of completing supplies. Always they had come back empty-handed, since strong patrols of saptiehs paraded the villages, day and night. Stephan's plan was that the cohorts should replenish the diminishing common stock by a night raid into the orchards. Haik eyed his ambitious rival thoughtfully, as a finished artist might an amateur, who has no idea of the real difficulties. Then he at once began to organize this secret rally and pick out raiders. Stephan was naturally afraid lest his father should get to hear of the scheme and curtail his liberty. He admitted his fears. But Haik, who seemed to have forgotten that the whole suggestion had come from Stephan, answered in the insufferable voice which he knew so perfectly how to use:

  "You'd better stay up here if you're scared. I think that's the best thing you could do."

  These words pierced Stephan to the quick and made him resolve not to give his parents' anxiety another thought. About ninety boys stole sacks, barrows, baskets, all they could find. At ten in the evening, when the campfires were all extinguished, they crept in twos and threes past the sentries and over the barrier. In long lines they raced down the mountain and had reached the outlying orchards within three quarters of an hour. Till one in the morning, by the soft light of a sickle moon, they picked like mad -- apricots, oranges, figs. Here was a chance for Stephan to show his strength, though he had never done such work before. Haik the leader had managed to untether three donkeys and bring them along. They were loaded up at furious speed. And each of the boys had a heavy burden. But they managed to be back in camp by close on sunrise.

  These vagrants, who had risked their lives for a trifle, without really knowing the danger, were received with scoldings, even blows, and yet with pride. Stephan darted away from the rest before they got to the Town Enclosure, and slipped into the sheikh's tent, which he shared with Gonzague Maris. Gabriel and Juliette never heard of this escapade. Its results were scarcely worth mentioning in a population of five thousand. All the same it gave Pastor Aram Tomasian the notion of going down, three evenings later, with a hundred reservists, guarded by decads, to make a similar attempt. Unluckily the yield was small. Mohammedan peasants in the neighborhood had meanwhile raided all the orchards, stripping away the good fruit harvest, and leaving only unripe and rotting windfalls.

  Gabriel had made the most of the grace allowed him by the Turks. By now his defence-works could really be described as completed. The men of the decads, the workers of the reserve, had had to sweat as hard during this week as even before August 4. By now these trenches had all been lengthened and deepened down, and the foreground areas strengthened with encumbrances. Connecting trenches linked up with the second line, as well as with the advanced sniping-points, which were well camouflaged with branches, to enable the hardiest defenders to snipe an attack in the rear, or shoot down stragglers. Gabriel was forever racking his brains to invent new methods of defence, snares, entanglements, and feints. He wanted to make the issue of an attack depend less and less on the human factor. His casual training in the officers' school at Istanbul, his experience in the artillery battles at Bulair, helped him less than an old infantry manual, issued by the French War Office, bought, in sheer, idle curiosity, at a secondhand stall along the Paris quays. The sight of this book, now so unexpectedly a treasure, produced a strange philosophical sensation in Gabriel. It was too vague to be called a thought.

  "I bought this book without ever knowing I should use it, simply because I liked the look of the title-page, or because the unknown subject vaguely attracted me, though in those days military science didn't attract me in the least. And yet, at the instant in which I bought it, quite independently of my will, my fate was predetermining itself. Really one would almost think that my kismet is mapped out from A to Z. Since in 1910 it made me stop at the secondhand stall on the Quai Voltaire simply because it needed this book for its future purposes.

  This was the first meditation to which Gabriel had succumbed for many weeks. He shook it off as an encumbrance. Even in Yoghonoluk, at the time when he was preparing his defence, he had noticed how his sense of reality dimmed, the instant he let himself give way to his natural, meditative bent. He came to the instant conclusion that the true man of action (which he was not) must, of necessity, be mindless. As to this technical handbook, it furnished him with numerous warnings, hints, diagrams, calculations, which he could use on a small scale in any circumstances. Chaush Nurhan (they had named him "Elleon," the Lion, as a reward for his feats on August 4) drilled the decads to exhaustion-point all day. Gabriel set innumerable tactical exercises, so that every man might know the ground by inches, and be fully armed against all possible methods of assault. The alarm signals, too, had been perfected to the uttermost. In just an hour, notwithstanding the considerable distances, each point could now be occupied and surrounded, and the movements of troops, on their largest scale, be carried through.

  The camp itself was not merely divided into communes, its huts were arranged in lines of "streets," all leading towards the big Altar Square. This Town Enclosure was built over rocky, uneven ground, but these settlement streets were so disposed that the ups and downs had been fairly mitigated. The Altar Square, the central point of this primitive but crowded encampment, made an almost magnificent impression. When the mukhtar, Thomas Kebussyan, succeeded in getting his special wooden "town hall," his six colleagues, no less in dignity, would not be pacified till they too had obtained the right to have similar huts around the altar. But Father Tomasian's masterpiece was, and remained, the big government building, which had not only real doors and windows but a shingle roof, supplied from his stock. That solid structure stood as a kind of symbol for the bold hopes inspiring these defenders. It had three rooms; a big center room, the session-room, and two little cabins at the sides. The right side-room was separated off from the session-room by a thick wall. This large-sized kennel was intended as the communal jail, in case there should be serious crime to deal with. Ter Haigasun was convinced it would never be used. The left-hand kennel had been assigned to Krikor, who meanwhile, between himself and politics, had erected a solid wall of books, behind which stood his bed. He passed in and out through a narrow gap in it. His decorative jars, retorts and vases had been set up on shelves against the wall, while, to his deep personal satisfaction, petroleum tins, bales of tobacco, and ironmongery had all been impounded by the commune. So that the government barrack had not only the character of a Ministry and parliament house, but also of a court of justice and even a university and state library. For here Krikor received his disciples, the teachers.

  This tiny sample of humanity, the five thousand souls encamped on Musa Dagh, had therefore caught up again, in one bound, with civilization. A small store of petrol, a few candles, only the most essential tools -- such was their entire cultural heritage. The first hailstorm had almost ruined their wretched provision of mats, covers, bedding, the only remaining comforts they possessed. And yet, not the lowest human necessity had sufficed to extinguish in their souls those higher needs, for religion and order, for reason and intellectual growth. Ter Haigasun said mass as usual on Sundays and feast days. School was taught on the school slope. The seventy-year-old Bedros Altouni, and Mairik Antaram, had succeeded in setting up a model hospital, and bickered with all the other leaders for the best food to give their patients. Compared to what was usual in the valley, the general standards had eve
n risen. These worn, pale faces even expressed a certain peace.

  The long August days were not long enough to get through all the work that had to be done. It began at four in the morning, when the milkmaids gathered in the square, where the shepherds had already herded the ewes and she-goats of the flock. Then the milk was carried in big tubs down to the northern side of the Town Enclosure, where already Mairik Antaram awaited it, to dole it out to the mukhtars, the hospital, the cheese-makers. At the same time a long line of women and girls were on their way to the nearby streams to fill their tall clay pitchers with fresh spring water, which remained cold as ice in these receptacles, even in the grilling midday sun. The many springs of clear icy water on Musa Dagh were one of its greatest natural benefits. The seven mukhtars, as the lines of water-bearers returned, were already on their way to the pasturage, to pick out the beasts for the next day's killing from among the flocks. As to the supply it was now evident that the position would soon have become threatening. A fat sheep in these parts, in spite of its almost double weight when alive, gave less than thirty-six pounds of eatable meat. But since five thousand people, many of whom had the hardest manual labor to perform, had to live almost exclusively on this meat, it was necessary to kill about sixty-five sheep a day, if the decads and the reserve were to be fed properly. How long would life be possible on the mountain if the stock diminished at this appalling rate? Everyone could do the sum for himself. Ter Haigasun and Pastor Aram Tomasian, on the very first Sunday, gave stringent orders that no part of the sheep, not even the entrails, was to be wasted. At the same time the daily number of victims was reduced to twenty-five sheep and twelve goats. And none of this did anything to mitigate the many dangers besetting the herds. Much pasturage had been used up in the Town Enclosure and the camp buildings surrounding it, not least by the various entrenchments. In the very first days on Musa Dagh these flocks were already beginning to lose weight, yet no one dared to send out the herdsmen into the meadows, beyond the North Saddle. The stockyard was near a little wood, a good distance away from the Town Enclosure. This did not prevent terrified bleatings from sounding every morning through the camp. At first the slaughtermen suspended their disembowelled wethers on the trees, to hang for two days. But this was the hottest time of year, and the meat was very quickly spoiled. Therefore, after the first unpleasant experience, they buried it, since it kept in the earth, and was better seasoned. As, in the earliest morning, one detachment of slaughtermen finished its work, to march straight back into the decads, the next began to get busy. On long tables, fashioned of tree trunks slung together, the meat was chopped into equal parts. From there the women on duty as cooks carried it away to the campfires. There, on ten bricked open hearths, the huge logs and brushwood crackled already. Gargantuan pots were swinging on tall tripods above the flames. But the meat was roasted on long spits, or poles, at the open fire. Food was distributed once a day, by each mukhtar, to his commune under the supervision of Pastor Aram. The portions assigned to the separate villages were again set out on the long log tables, where each family's share was divided up. So that a hundred and twelve housewives came marching, single file, to their village table, and each, from the hands of her mukhtar, received her exactly proportioned share. An official person, usually the village priest or teacher, checked the number of recipients from his list, and ticked off each meal as it was distributed. Naturally all this took time, and seldom happened without recriminations, Nature had, alas, not designed her sheep, or indeed her goats, with sufficient accuracy. The claims of absolute justice were never satisfied. The more morose among the women saw in the injustice of fate the evil machinations of hostile men, meanly directed against themselves. It needed all Aram Tomasian's tact to appease and convince these chiding matrons that, though Madame Yeranik or Madame Kohar had been scurvily treated by fate today, yesterday she had been fortune's favorite. Usually Madame Yeranik and Madame Kohar were quite incapable of such logic.

  Before this distribution to civilians, the army had already received the best, carried down into its trenches by the young orderlies. But the whole camp had to be satisfied with a meal a day, since in the evenings only water boiled in the big cauldrons on the square. Some kind of roots had been thrown into it and the net result christened "tea," for the sake of calling it something.

  Pastor Aram had also organized a police force. Twelve armed men kept order in the Town Enclosure. They went on their rounds day and night with the threatening tread of a constabulary. As they walked down the lines of huts, they made the inhabitants feel that this was wartime and everyone must be on his best behavior. They were responsible for the sanitary measures on which Bagradian, Bedros Altouni, Shatakhian, and other "European fanatics" had insisted as a major problem. Much that had been usual in the villages was forbidden on Musa Dagh. No leavings to be thrown outside the tents, no dirty water emptied into the "street"; above all the dictates of nature to be obeyed only in the places designed for obedience to them. One of Bagradian's first measures had been the digging out of big latrines. Anyone caught infringing this law of hygiene was punished with a day's fast; his daily ration was not served out to him.

  That, in its broadest outlines, is the life this people led on Musa Dagh for the first fortnight of its encampment. The germs of everything which makes up the general life of humanity were already there. This people dwelt in a wilderness, exposed to every peril of the void. Death so inescapably surrounded them that only the most sentimental optimist could still hope to avoid it altogether. The commune's short history worked itself out according to the law of least resistance. This law had imposed communal forms, to which it submitted with as good or ill grace as it could muster, though all would far rather have felt free to fend for themselves, just as they chose. But the rich especially, the owners of expropriated herds, deeply resented this nationalization of private property. Their clear perception that, in a convoy, they would by now most probably have lost not only their property, but their lives, did not in the least assuage the bitterness of having been "pauperized." Even now, when what was left to them of life seemed likely to be a matter of days, they did all they could to distinguish themselves from plebeians by at least "keeping up appearances."

  In the center of the camp rose the altar. When, at about the hour of the last night watch, one hour before the greying of the skies, the Milky Way, grown fainter, moved on above it, as though it were the center and heart of all things, Ter Haigasun, the priest, would sometimes kneel on the highest step, leaning his head on his open missal. Ter Haigasun knew the world and was a sceptic. For that very reason he strove so passionately to draw into himself the strength of prayer. When everyone else had ceased to believe in any rescue, he, the last of them all, would have to be permeated with the sure sense of impending miracle. Certainty that they were not to be lost, the faith that can move mountains, raise from the dead! Ter Haigasun's soul struggled, in shy, solitary petition, after this mountain-removing faith in a paradox, which his mind refused when confronted with surrounding realities.

  Juliette had pulled herself together. She was leading an entirely different life. Now she would be up just after sunrise, and dressed so quickly that she managed to help Mairik Antaram with her morning distribution of milk. From there, as fast as possible to the hospital. After all, it was the only thing she could do. Gabriel had been perfectly right. No one can go on living indefinitely as a "distinguished foreigner" -- in a void.

  A superficial observer would find Juliette easy enough to criticize. What did this snob really expect? What had she, who resisted her husband's world after fifteen years of married life, really got of her own to be so proud of? Were there not in Turkey, at that very minute, many other European women heroically engaged in efforts to help the slaughtered, outraged Armenian people? Was there not Karen Jeppe in Urfa, who hid refugees and kept back the saptiehs, with her arms spread out across her door, till they took themselves off, since after all they dared not kill a Danish woman? Had not German and American m
issionaries found their way with considerable hardship as far even as Deir ez-Zor, and into the desert, bringing such help as they could muster to the lost and famished children and widows of murdered men? None of these had married an Armenian, none had borne an Armenian son. Such strictures might sound extremely just, and yet they would be unjust to Juliette. She alone on Musa Dagh suffered with far more than the general suffering; she suffered worst of all from herself. Juliette was too miserable to be snobbish. Being French, she had a certain natural rigidity. Latins, for all their surface pliancy, are set and rigid within themselves. Their form is a perfection. They have perfected it. Northerners may still have something of the vagueness and infinite plasticity of cloud shapes; the French as a rule hate nothing so much as to have to leave their country, get out of their skin. Juliette shared in a high degree this set quality of her race. She lacked that power of intuitive sympathy which usually goes with formless uncertainties. Had Gabriel, from the first days of their marriage, been firmly resolved to guide her gently in the direction of his own people, perhaps it would all have worked out differently. But Gabriel himself had been "Parisien" -- one of that race of assimilators who, when they thought of Armenia, thought of her as a classical exemplar, but as not quite real. What little he had managed to see of Armenians, the excited political contacts he had made in the year of the Turkish revolution, his engagement of Avakian to teach Stephan -- none of all that had been enough to give Juliette the right perspective, far less to bring her over to his side. For fifteen years she had really only been aware that she had married an Ottoman subject. What it really means to be Armenian, the duties and destiny it entails, she had had to discover a few weeks previously, with appalling suddenness. So that really Gabriel himself was largely to blame for Juliette's attitude.