Forty Days of Musa Dagh

by Franz Werfel

  Meanwhile Ter Haigasun had said a few words of admonishment to the Aleppo runner, blessed him, and crossed his forehead. This farewell was far quicker and more casual. The widow Shushik had neither any relatives in these parts, nor had she managed to make one friend. Strangers are always suspect. Nor had Widow Shushik herself so far made any attempt to consort with her neighbors. Her huge peasant hands had always fended for themselves. Therefore only Aram Tomasian and Ter Haigasun could accompany her, as now she offered up her sole remaining treasure, her Haik.

  Ter Haigasun, replacing his dead father, embraced and kissed the young Aleppo runner, and held out his hand for the boy to kiss. He and Aram had a sum of money to give to Haik, so that he might, if need arose, buy his life with bribes. They left the mother and son alone. But Shushik did no more than stroke Haik's forehead in quick embarrassment, before she turned to follow the two priests. Yet Stephan noticed that she did not go back among the people, already streaming off towards their huts, but wandered indecisively away, in the direction of the rock barricades.

  It was the first time that Gabriel Bagradian had not spent a whole night in the north trench. For tonight the Council had given the command to Chaush Nurhan the Lion. Luckily no attack seemed possible. The scouts announced no threatening movement in the valley, only peaceful troops going about their normal soldiers' routine along the village roads between Wakef and Kebussiye.

  This sense of security possessed not only the garrison but Nurhan, who played cards with the elder men. They all were relaxed. The South Bastion was an almost undisciplined nest of deserters. Sentries kept leaving their posts to gossip with comrades. The commandant, who as a rule was not to be joked with, even allowed his men to infringe one of the strictest prohibitions and light several twig fires.

  These freshly kindled bonfires and shouting voices enabled Stephan to make a quick dash over the crest, on the opposite side, without being seen or hailed from the camp. He was in a hurry, since Haik must by now be well ahead. Stephan ran as hard as he could. The rucksack on his back was by no means heavy: five boxes of sardines, a few bars of chocolate, a couple of biscuits, a few underclothes. The thermos flask which his father had forgotten in the tent he had asked Kristaphor to fill with wine for him. These, and a rug, formed his whole accoutrement, apart from his kodak. Stephan could not bring himself to part with that Christmas present, the last in Paris, though he had used up every roll of film. It was sheer childishness. And, since Haik carried no weapon, he had also abandoned his intention of stealing a gun from one of the stands of arms. In a few minutes he had come to the counter-slope. There a long, wide clearing stretched in front of him, upon which, in ebbing moonlight, unsullied here by any smoke-swaths, the Caucasian giantess Shushik sat erect. Her long, rigid legs, under spreading skirts, and the shadows cast by them, fantastically lengthened by the moon, covered a whole stretch of Musa Dagh. But Haik her son, bony and tall as he was, had nestled up to his mother like a suckling. He sat half in her lap, and kept his head buried in her breasts. It looked, in this marble light, as though the woman had bared them, to let her almost grown-up child drink from her blood again. Haik, the dour, tough Armenian boy -- the disdainful Haik -- seemed to long to creep back forever into his mother. His breath came short, with little sobs. Her own stifled grief kept forcing its way out of the giantess, as she stroked her sacrificed child. Stephan stood rigid in his hiding place -- ashamed at having to look at this, and yet not able to see enough of it. When Haik suddenly sprang up and helped his mother to her feet, Stephan felt as though his body were cut in two. The widow's son only said a few curt, admonishing words, and then at last: "Now you must go."

  The uncouth Shushik at once obeyed, without inflicting the pain of another embrace upon her boy. She left him in a busy haste to end it quickly. Haik stood motionless, looking after her. His face twitched as she turned, but he did not raise his hand to greet her. When Shushik's great shadow had disappeared, he sighed with relief and set out slowly. Stephan waited, in his hiding place, to give Haik a little leeway. His companion must have time to forget these farewells before he ran after him. But young Bagradian had not reckoned with Hagop. That yellow-haired cripple, the "book-reader," a sensitive boy, had not managed all day long to get young Stephan off his conscience. He too had scoffed at his friend. True that Hagop had done his best to atone for treachery when the crowd began to chase Stephan. But cripples, like all other despised people, find it hard to repress a feeling of triumph when any superior, even their own friend, is degraded. So it was not enough. Hagop not only felt guilty, but very anxious. He was full of presentiments. For hours he had been looking about for Stephan, hopping with wild nimbleness round the enclosure and all the other places where boys assembled. He had even dared to spy into Juliette's tent, through a chink in the canvas door. He could not rid his mind of what he had seen: the tall, white woman stretched out like a corpse on the bed, and the leader, standing and staring down at her, as though he were dreaming where he stood. Then, when the one-legged Hagop had caught sight of Stephan with his rucksack in the crowd that had come to say good-bye to the messengers, his vague fears had become certainties. Now, panting with the exertion, he held on to Stephan.

  "You mustn't do that. No! You've got to stay here!"

  Stephan with a brutal shove sent Hagop spinning to the ground. "You're a dirty dog. I don't want anything more to do with you."

  Gabriel's son was not of the kind who forgive easily. But Hagop caught him by the leg. "You aren't to go. I won't let you. You're to stay here."

  "Let me go, or I'll give you a kick in the face."

  The cripple hauled himself up by Stephan; he hissed despairingly: "You've got to stay. Your mother's ill! You don't know yet . . ."

  Even this did not lure. Stephan only hesitated a second. Then he drew down the corners of his mouth. "I can't do anything for her. . . ."

  Hagop hopped a few steps backwards. "Don't you know you'll never come back here -- that you won't ever see her again?"

  Stephan stood for a while and stared at the ground; but then he turned and began to run after Haik.

  Hagop still panted after him. "I'm going to shout -- I'll wake them. . . . They'll lock you up. . . . I'll shout, I tell you!" And indeed he began. But his thin voice could only carry far enough to stop Haik, who was still not two hundred yards away from them. The Aleppo runner turned and stood still. Stephan rushed to meet him, with Hagop following, scarcely a hand's breadth after his two-legged friend.

  To prevent Hagop's voice from cutting across him Stephan shouted as he ran: "Haik, I'm coming along with you."

  The "people's messenger" let the two come along before he answered. He scrutinized Stephan, half closing his serious eyes. "Why are you keeping me back? I can't afford to lose a second."

  Stephan clenched resolute fists. "I mean to come with you to Aleppo."

  Haik had cut himself a stick. He held it out like a weapon, as though to impede the unauthorized intruder. "I'm sent by the Council of Leaders, and Ter Haigasun has blessed me. You haven't been either sent or blessed. . . ."

  Hagop, whom Haik's presence always made timid and rather fawning, repeated this with malicious zeal. "You haven't been sent or blessed. To you it's forbidden."

  Stephan gripped the end of Haik's stick, which he pressed like a hand. "There's enough room for you and me."

  "It isn't a question of you and me. It's a question of the letter which I've got to deliver to Jackson."

  Stephan slapped his pocket in triumph. "I copied out the letter to Jackson. Two are better than one."

  Haik planted his stick on the ground, firmly, to put an end to it. "Always trying to be cleverer than anyone."

  This, too, Hagop faithfully echoed. But Stephan gave not an inch of ground. "You do as you like! There's enough room. You can't stop me going to Aleppo."

  "But you can stop the letter from reaching there."

  "I'm no worse a runner than you."

  That scornful note crept into Haik's voic
e, which so often before had made Stephan wild. "Can't ever stop bragging. . . ."

  After all today's intolerable wounds, this was too much for Stephan. He sat on the ground and hid his face. But Haik let him feel all his disdain.

  "Crying already -- and that says it wants to go to Aleppo!"

  Stephan could only sob: "I can't go back -- Oh, Jesus Christ -- I -- can't go back

  Now perhaps Haik got an inkling of what was happening in Stephan. He may perhaps have thought of Shushik, his mother. Perhaps he even felt he would like a companion on the long, dangerous way. Who can say what he thought? But at least his manner became far more conciliatory as now he remembered Stephan's words. "You're quite right. There's plenty of room for you, too. No one can stop you."

  But Hagop summoned up all his courage for one desperate objection. "What? I can stop him. Christ Saviour -- I'll go and tell the leaders."

  This was the stupidest thing he could have said. It was these few words brought the decision, since they put Haik in a rage. Serious and tall as he was, Haik, in the depths of his heart, still obeyed the moral code of schoolboys -- that one fundamental law of their being, which all the world over is the same: no squealing! It made no difference what you squealed for, or when. To squeal remained the one unforgivable crime. So Haik, with his brutal frankness, turned on the cripple: "Tell the leaders, will you? Before you do, I'll knock your one leg so lame that you won't be able to crawl back home on it."

  Hagop hopped back, a good long way, in sheer alarm. He knew Haik, whose habit it was to carry out his threats with two iron fists. Haik could not abide the fair-haired Hagop. This opposition had provoked all his natural tyranny. It turned the scale in Stephan's favor. Now came his matter-of-fact question: "Have you got enough to eat for five days? It'll take as long as that -- if we get there, that is."

  Stephan thumped his knapsack magnificently; he might have had supplies for a long expedition in it. And Haik made no further inquiries. He ordered curtly: "Well, quick march! You've made me waste too much time as it is!"

  He had not said which way Stephan was to march -- back to the camp, or on to Aleppo with him. He went striding on, and concerned himself no further with the others. Stephan kept close on his heels. So that Haik had not taken Stephan with him, but only allowed him to come along. Certainly there was "plenty of room" in the trackless mountains.

  Hagop stood undecided, watching the people's messenger and the runaway till they disappeared over the top of the next moonlit slope. It took him nearly an hour to hop back to the Town Enclosure. Stephan's senseless flight weighed like a rock on him. What ought he to do? In his family's hut they were all asleep. His father growled a few sleepy words of reproof at him for being so late. Hagop, without undressing, flung himself down on his mat and stared up at the roof of branches, through which faint moonshine was filtered, as through a close sieve. He had still not managed to get to sleep when Avakian, long after midnight, came in to wake the whole family. Poor Hagop confessed at once, and led Gabriel, Kristaphor, Avakian and the other men whom Gabriel had summoned to help him to the place where he had left Stephan and Haik. Search parties were sent out at once. It was sunrise before Gabriel got back, having searched in vain, with Kevork the dancer. The boys had got much too far ahead. Nor had Haik followed the route set by the Council, but let his own sure instinct guide him.

  While the swimmers, skirting the Cape Ras el-Khanzir, were directing their steps with certainty towards Arsus, the village on the coast, the boys walked on all night long, by difficult up-and-down paths through the mountains. Haik had been warned to remain as long as he possibly could on the safe mountain ridges till he came to the southern end of the valley of Beilan. Then, having come down on to the plain via Kyrk-Khan, he was to keep along near the big highroad which leads to Aleppo by way of Hammam. These moonlit August nights would make it easy for him to push on over reaped maize fields and burnt-up plains, where he would find enough cover if he were threatened. But as he came nearer the big town, he must venture out on to the highroad and jump into one of the peasants' carts loaded with maize or licorice root. With God's help he could hide in it and get past the military barriers into the outskirts of the town. But, whatever happened, the letter to Mr. Jackson must not be found on him. Haik explained all this precisely to Stephan, giving gruesome pictures of dangers and obstacles which they would meet, the instant they touched the plain. Here in the empty mountains it was still child's play. After about an hour's walk the goats path, which Haik, without seeing it, sensed with his feet, dipped into the valley.

  The people's messenger stopped and admonished Stephan: "Now's your time, if you want to turn back. You can't get lost. Think it over! Later you won't be able to do it."

  Stephan made an angry movement. But his heart was full of doubts. His reasons for running away from home seemed suddenly not quite so valid as they had been.

  Haik pointed to the Damlayik, where a far, red shimmer still showed the woods to be on fire. "You'll never get back there, and see them again -- "

  Young Bagradian still could not manage to find out what he really wanted. He would rather have died than let Haik think that he was soft. Shamefaced, he pulled out the map of this neighborhood which had once hung in Uncle Avetis's study. He pretended, with a solemn face, to be doing his best to get his bearings in the clear moonlight. But Haik, annoyed by such "stuck-up twaddle," struck the map out of Stephan's hand and wasted no further good advice. This brought out all Stephan's resolution. He'd show him! Why, he could march much better than Haik! He began to walk on, at a crazy pace, straining every muscle to tire the other. But Haik did not so much as think of allowing Stephan to force him to an idiotic speed. He kept an even pace, almost a slow one. Stephan's heart stood still. He was alone! Instead of "showing" Haik, he had only managed to lose his way and -- he could feel -- without help from the other, would never manage to find it in this wilderness. His heart thumped, but he dared not call. When, after one eternal minute, Haik came out through some bushes into the moonlight, not troubling even to notice the independent one, Stephan submitted in silence to the stronger, though he pretended not to have had this shameful experience. That settled their long struggle once and for all. Haik was supreme. They soon came into the narrow valley. On their right was the long, straggling village of Sanderan. Thank God, not a light was burning in it! Only one nasal human voice could be heard, raised in a subdued hum. It was a hair-raising sensation to go creeping past inhabited houses, with death in all of them. But the wild dogs of Sanderan could not be tricked; they picked up the trail of the young Armenians, and followed them a long way past the village. Haik, with his incredible certainty, found another goat-track, leading northwest, back into the mountains. As once again they walked through a sparse wood, drenched in moonlight, a sense of wild adventure crept into Stephan. The air was so fresh! He forgot everything. He would have liked to shout and sing. Was there such a thing as being tired? By sunrise, in spite of several halts, they had covered a distance of nearly ten miles, and reached the place where the mountains slope down northwards in wide terraces of woodland. Stephan, map and all, would have been quite lost.

  Haik sharply pointed their direction. "We've got to go that way. Beilan!"

  He could sense it all, though he had only been to Beilan once in his life, with his mother, that is to say, riding on donkey-back, and even so by quite a different way, along the coast. Now he was pleased, and said they had better hunt out a sleeping place and rest till midday. That short sleep would have to be enough; otherwise it wasn't to be managed. Haik did not need to nose round for long before finding a shady place, with good turf to sleep on, and even a stream; though that was, perhaps, not such a miracle in these watered surroundings of Musa Dagh. For Haik, whose very skin made him aware of the hidden peculiarities of every strip of ground, the least alteration of temperature, any difference in vegetation or of animals near him, it was nothing at all to pick out water. The boys set up their camp beside the stream, which here, e
ven, formed just the kind of pool they had been looking for. They slaked their thirst. And then, to Haik's amazement, this child of the West pulled a cake of soap out of his rucksack and began to wash himself. Haik watched these superfluous proceedings with serious, sarcastic eyes. When Stephan had done, he dipped his feet deliciously into the cold pool, since feet were what mattered. Then they swapped food with all the pleasure of youth. Shushik had given her son three big sausages stuffed with finely chopped mutton, fat, and onions and a loaf as hard as stone -- though Heaven knows how she had got hold of it. It was the worst crime on the Damlayik to hide bread or flour or corn of any kind, punished by several days' fasting. Yet such secret treasures kept appearing hi the huts, and their origin still remained a mystery, it is always the same old story. No legal rationing, not even the most drastically controlled, can quite dam up the creative torrent of life, which always succeeds in producing the incredible, out of nothing.