Forty Days of Musa Dagh

by Franz Werfel

  And so, with all the steadiness and certainty of his voice and manner, he kept persuading her that Bagradian would be bound to make what arrangements he could, to assure her immediate well-being. There was not a hint of vulgar adventure in what he said, though he frankly reckoned on Gabriel's, and perhaps Stephan's imminent death. (As Juliette saw, he was perfectly willing, if she insisted, even to encumber himself with Stephan, though it would certainly complicate their escape.)

  As he came to the end, he grew impatient, since their last, precious hours were now on the wane. And how many times had he not had it all to say before? Had Juliette been able to think, she would have had to admit the justice of every word. But, for the last few days, the most casually heard, or thought, words or expressions had clung like leeches to her brain, obstinately refusing to be pulled off. Now she heard the words: How would you live?" The loud "live" blared in her mind incessantly, as the needle on a worn-out phonograph record sticks and repeats the same maddening notes. Incredible mists kept rising out of the earth, as though they had been sitting beside a swamp. She herself had become a worn-out phonograph record, and the needle stuck.

  "How should I live, how should I live, how should I live, in Beirut, Beirut.. . . What for?"

  Gonzague took pity on Juliette, whom, as he imagined, her conscience tormented. He wished to help her. "You shouldn't take it so badly, Juliette. Only think what it means! You'll be saved! If you like, I'll be with you -- but not if you don't."

  As he was saying that, she could see the sick boy from Aleppo, the deserter, over whose mangy, red-spotted chest she had bent a few days ago in such an exalted wave of despairing emotion. She must really go and see her mother. Maman was living in a hotel. A long corridor, with hundreds and hundreds of doors. And Juliette had forgotten the number.

  Now Gonzague's voice was tender and charming. It was doing her good. "I shall be with you."

  "Will you? Are you with me now, Gonzague?"

  Amiably, he became matter-of-fact. "Now, listen carefully, Juliette. Tonight I shall wait about for you here. You must be ready by about ten. If you need me sooner -- let's suppose Bagradian wants to speak to me -- send someone along. I'll help you. You can easily bring your big suitcase. I shall manage to carry it. . . . Be careful how you choose your things. But you'll be able to buy anything in Beirut."

  She had really been doing her best to understand him. She began repeating it, like a child: "Tonight, about ten. . . . I'm to bring a suitcase. . . . I can get anything in Beirut. . . . And you? . . . How long will you stay with me?"

  These vague mutterings, at so decisive an hour, exhausted his patience. "Juliette, I loathe the words 'forever' and 'always' . . ."

  She gazed devoutly at him. Her cheeks flamed. Her half-open lips pouted out. It was as though she had just opened the right door. Gonzague was sitting at the piano, strumming the matchiche he had played the night the saptiehs came. He'd said to her: "There are only moments."

  It filled her with profound hilarity. "No, don't say 'always' or 'forever.' Just think of the moment!"

  Now she could understand, with an indescribable super-clarity, that there are only moments -- that, tonight, the steamer, the suitcase, Beirut, her decision, had really not the slightest meaning for her; that impenetrable solitude was awaiting her, into which neither Gonzague nor Gabriel would find a way, a solitude full to the brim of home-comings, in which it would all be settled and cancelled out. The happiness of it came rushing in on her, filled her with strength. The amazed Gonzague had no longer a shattered woman to deal with, a woman driven into a corner -- he had the châtelaine of Yoghonoluk, more beautiful than ever before. He took Juliette in his arms. It might have been for the first time.

  Her head toppled strangely from shoulder to shoulder. But he paid no heed. And the meaningless words which she seemed to mutter in dreamy ecstasy passed his ears unheard.

  Until the men came where she could look at them, Sato still did not know what was going to happen. She was on guard a few yards away from the adultery, but was feeling too empty, too morose, to crawl in through the bushes and view the pair. . . . Yes, if she could only have worked it up a bit! How pleased old Nunik would have been with her; what thanks and pence she might have earned! But Sato was caught! Sato was no longer allowed to take profitable messages to the valley, and bring them back from the valley to the mountain. All the more corrosive, therefore, her jealousy, the one cogent emotion she still possessed. To get Iskuhi away from the effendi! To pay the effendi back! She lay, with her knees drawn up under her, staring at the smoky sky.

  Then came the men. They came on slowly. Sato perceived the Leaders of the Council -- Ter Haigasun, Bagradian Effendi, Pastor Aram. After these, the mukhtar Thomas Kebussyan, Teacher Oskanian, and some village elders of Bitias. The elect had only just finished a short, but very serious conversation, and seemed depressed. They had every reason to be so. The food situation was very grave. The herds had not diminished "according to plan," but by the unknown law of some wild progression of ever-diminishing returns. Rations were being cut down every day. Yet that did nothing to check the dwindling supplies, for which bad fodder seemed responsible. In spite of all Tomasian's efforts, his fishery made no headway. And this new, contagious fever in camp was beginning to take alarming forms. Only yesterday four fever patients in the isolation-wood had died. Dr. Bedros Altouni could scarcely move on his weak little legs, crooked with age. Over fifty wounded lay in and around the hospital hut, and at least as many in the log huts, all without drugs or proper bandages, left to their own devices, or God's. Worst of all, this growing exasperation, an unforeseen result of victory, which had taken such a hold on all men. No doubt the cruel heat of the burning countryside, this itching cold in the head produced by pine-smoke, the over-fatigue, had all contributed -- and the eternal meat. Its deepest cause was the fact that life up here was insupportable. In the last few days, apart from the Kilikian incident, there had been many brawls, and knives had been used.

  Today all this impelled the leaders to give more attention than they had to the seacoast side of the Damlayik. Up on the Dish Terrace, which stood far removed from all these happenings, there fluttered the great signal: "Christians in Need." Two scouts of the cohort of youth were continually on duty beneath it, scanning the sea for passing ships. It seemed likely that some undependable lad had overlooked one ship, or several, since not even a fishing-smack had been sighted, and this in August, at a time when, as a rule, the Bay of Suedia is covered with this kind of petty craft. Did God really intend to let the sea become a desert, merely to take from his Christians on Musa Dagh what slight hope they still had of survival? The Council had decided to strengthen this look-out, and recondition it. The watch on the Dish Terrace was henceforth to be kept by grown-up men. At some jutting point, farther south, a second would have to be established. The leaders had come out today to settle on the likeliest promontory.

  At first the soft crop-grass of this highland muffled, even for Sato, the men's approach. When she twisted round on her side, they were fairly near her. She was up in a flash -- something sprang to life inside her -- and waving wild arms in their direction. At first they paid no attention. Whenever Sato made her presence known, in any group, it was the same. All eyes would seem not to have noticed her, all heads would be slightly averted, in a kind of severe, shamefaced discomfort. Sato was an "untouchable"; all who encountered her felt the same, though, to the Christian, all God's creatures are, by birthright, equal in His eyes. Today these serious men, full of care and business, saw, without having seen, this waving half-wit, and went calmly on. But the last of them, Thomas Kebussyan, suddenly stopped and turned round to Sato. Her conquest had so definite an effect on all the others that they, too, halted, as by a spell, and eyed the sign-giver. So much at least, her strength had achieved. The leaders stood as if bewitched, eyeing the repulsive little creature, since now she pranced about like an evil thing under unclean influence. Sato's eyes sparkled, her spindle-legs, beneath t
hat once so maidenly little frock, twitched with excitement. The contorted mouth, such a mouth as only deaf-mutes usually show, was doing its best to jabber words; the waving arms kept pointing again and again, into the myrtle bushes. The suggestion given by all this gradually disarmed these men's resistance. They came almost up to Sato, and Ter Haigasun grumpily inquired what she was doing here and what she had to tell them. Her sallow gipsy-face grimaced and twitched. She blinked in tortured desperation as though it were impossible to reply. All the more eagerly she continued her urgent pointings, towards the sea. The men looked at one another. The same questioning thought was in all their minds: "A warship?" Little as they cared to have to do with this misbegotten ape of sinfulness, everyone on the Damlayik was aware what a keen pair of eyes Sato had. Perhaps those repulsive lynx-eyes had discovered a tiny thread of smoke, away on the farthest horizon, where no one else could have managed to see it.

  Ter Haigasun gave her a little prod with his stick and told her curtly: "Go on! Lead the way! Show us what you've seen."

  She went hopping proudly, started to run, stopped from time to time to beckon the men. Sometimes she put her hand to her mouth, imploring them not to talk, or even make a noise with their feet. And now, full of a strange excitement, they all obeyed her and held their tongues. All walked cautiously, on tiptoe, suddenly fallen under the influence of this little guide and their own deep curiosity. On, past box and arbutus, they came into the mass of thick-leaved shrubbery which, in a broad belt, forms the frontier of the coastside of Musa Dagh. There were many gaps through the dark, cool undergrowth, corridors, intertwining lanes. A stream ran in and out among it, to fall in cascading swaths over the cliff. Here and there a pine or rock wrapped round in creeper sprang up out of the confusion, Nothing else suggested a wild mountain summit. In many cases it almost gave the impression of an artificial maze in some southern garden. On his many strategic excursions in those early, preparatory weeks, Gabriel had scarcely visited this paradisial belt of the Damlayik. Yet, cool and refreshing as it was, he followed now, at the tail of the group, with a sensation of heavy discomfort, on legs which seemed to resist every step he took.

  Sato had picked so artful a way through the undergrowth that the men all suddenly found they had emerged on the clearing most favored by these lovers, a little open space fronting the sea. Sheer amazement, like a blade of descending lightning, bewildered Juliette and Gonzague, who had fancied themselves more hidden than ever before. One of those eternal uneasy moments began, whose acute discomfort anyone who has had, as a victim, to experience it will remember to the end of his days, with only the burning wish he had not been there. Gabriel arrived in the nick of time to see Maris spring up and swiftly put his clothes in order. Juliette sat on motionless, with bare shoulders and hanging hair, her fingers, right and left, digging into the ground. She stared like a blind woman at Gabriel, seeing him, not with her eyes, but with all her senses. The event passed in complete silence. Gonzague, who had retreated a few steps, followed these proceedings with the victorious and precise smile of a fencer. The strangers, Ter Haigasun first of all, having turned their backs on the woman, stood rigidly staring, as though they were finding it impossible to bear their own shame another instant. The Armenian people, between the Caucasus and Lebanon, are implacably chaste. Hot-blooded people are always inclined towards severity, only the tepid are easygoing. These people esteemed no sacrament so highly as marriage, and looked down disdainfully on the lax polygamy of Islam. The men who now turned their backs in shame would probably not have hindered Bagradian, had he ended the business once and for all with a revolver bullet. Certainly Ter Haigasun would not, nor the Pastor, though he had lived three years in Switzerland. But Hrand Oskanian stood leaning forwards over his rifle, not moving an inch. It looked as though that gipsy-faced teacher were about to thrust the barrel into his mouth, as though his eyes only sought the right minute to pull the trigger. He had good reason for this symbolic posture. The madonna of his only prayer had degraded herself forever in his eyes.

  The unapproachable backs of the men were expectant. But nothing happened. No shot from Bagradian's army revolver. When, after a while, they could turn their faces back to this reality, they saw Gabriel take the cowering woman's hands and help her up. Juliette tried to walk, but her feet refused. Bagradian supported her under the elbows and led her away between the myrtle bushes, as one leads a child.

  The men, with unforgiving eyes, watched this incredible proceeding. Ter Haigasun growled a few short words at them and, slowly, each by himself, they left the place. Sato scampered around the priest, as though that supreme head of the people owed her a reward for her useful service.

  Not another look was cast at the stranger, who stayed on alone.

  No people can manage to live without admiration, and just as little without having something to hate. Hate had long been brewing in the encampment. All it had needed had been an object. Hate against the Turks and government? That was too vast a target to appease; it was only there as space or time are ever present in human consciousness, as the first condition of all living. Hate against one's immediate neighbors? Whom could such daily jars and bickerings satisfy? Not even the chiding women themselves. So that the flood which, in spite of bloody slaughter and many rigorous privations, had collected in the hearts of these people had to find another channel for itself.

  Before the men vacated that painful ground, Ter Haigasun had shouted a few curt words to them. These words contained the admonition to keep what had happened a close secret, since the priest all too clearly foresaw the repulsive sequel, should this scandal reach the ears of the Town Enclosure. Ter Haigasun had warned men, but not husbands. Mukhtar Thomas Kebussyan, in spite of all his inflated dignity in public, was both uxorious and henpecked. An organic necessity to supply his stronger-minded mate with as much gossip as he could find for her was so compelling a part of his nature that he ran straight home, to lay this jewel, with many imploring admonitions to silence, at his wife's feet. Madame Kebussyan had scarcely heard him out before, with a scarlet face, she flung a shawl about her shoulders and ran forth from the mayoral residence to seek the huts of the other mukhtars' wives, those ladies "of the best society" whom she, within certain lńnits, patronized.

  Sato took charge of all the rest. It was her threefold triumph. First, she had done something to the effendi, from which he would not easily recover. Second, having stirred this hell-broth, she had now a perfect right to regard herself as the highly considered and useful member of a virtuous, order-loving community. Third, she had firsthand information. It was the least deceptive of her assets.

  She began by enticing a few over-developed schoolgirls with her racy suggestions of "knowing a thing or two." They were joined by others. Sato was a born journalist. She eked out her "story" to its limits, and soon had the never experienced thrill of finding herself the center of attraction. Finally, in the coarsest words, used to form the ugliest pictures, Stephan heard of his mother's shame. At first he could not realize what it all meant. Maman stood far too high for Sato and her mob even to mean her when they used her name. Maman (as recently Iskuhi) was a veiled goddess in Stephan's eyes. Stephan grew more and more bewildered as the rabble surrounded him with its gibes and Sato kept jabbering out fresh nuances. Suddenly she had lost her throaty stutter and was talking with the fluency of an expert. Just as failure benefits the soul, so is success good for the body, so that these few minutes of heightened consciousness triumphed over Sato's speech defect. Stephan's big eyes widened. He had nothing to say.

  But then it needed only a second for him to throw himself straight on the spy and punch her head, so hard that blood streamed out of her mouth and nose. He had done her no serious harm; for a while her nose bled. But Sato, like all primitives, could get far more woefully panicked by blood, was more terrified of it, than the developed. She let out long, terrific howls, as though she were at least being massacred. And now the tables were turned. A cynic would have rejoiced to see it.
Sato, the jackal, the waif on the edge, the "stinker," the pariah cur, had in a trice become the object of universal sympathy and concern. Hypocritical voices were being raised: "He's hit a girl." And so a long suppressed dislike of foreigners, of stuck-up outsiders, could be released. That kingly rank, silently accorded the Bagradians for a few hours after every repelled attack, was forgotten. All that remained was the deeper hatred of people who "don't belong." The boys, with murderous, twisted faces, all set upon Stephan, and there followed a fight that was half a chase, from the Town Enclosure to the altar square. Hagop kept pluckily with Stephan. He hopped in, with wide, angry leaps, again and again, between his friend and his pursuers. Haik was not there to prove how he really felt towards the Bagradians. That Aleppo runner was spending his last hours on the Damlayik, alone with his mother, the widow Shushik. Stephan, though he fled before the pack, was stronger and bigger than most. When two of them hung on his arms, he shook them off, as a bear shakes hounds. A terrible pain seemed about to choke him. . . . "I can never go home again."