Forty Days of Musa Dagh

by Franz Werfel

  Stephan sat huddled up on his mat. He dreaded the colic, which was returning. Even more did he dread being left alone. The night was not cloudy, like last night, but stainlessly clear. The vast Milky Way, dense and sparkling, overarched the Turkoman's roof. For an instant Stephan felt Haik's hand in his. That was all. And he could hear his voice, as gruffly disdainful as of yore: "Listen -- mind you don't forget to tear up your letter to Jackson!"

  Haik's foot was already on the ladder, but he turned back once again to Stephan. Quickly, without a word, he made the sign of the cross on his forehead and on his chest. It was done shyly.

  Where there is danger of death, any Armenian is the priest and father of any other. So Ter Haigasun had instructed him, when he taught him their religion in Yoghonoluk, at a time when not one of them had known that death was already near.

  Just outside the village Ain el Beda the cart-track turned into the plain. The Turkoman lashed his little horse into a trot, through the fresh, empty morning. The laden cart rattled, with agonizing jolts, over the deep, stiff ruts. But Stephan scarcely noticed these painful joltings. He lay on his rug among bundles of reeds in a feverish doze. The fever was merciful. It deadened his sense of time and space. It surrounded him with vague but most pleasant pictures, so that he did not bother to think where he would be taken, nor what the future might produce. And again this fever, which tanned his brown skin to a deeper shade, helped him to play his part. Each time the peasant rested his horse, climbed off his seat, and came round to have a look at his passenger, Stephan would moan, and shut his eyes. So that none of the good Turkoman's many attempts to get into conversation really succeeded. All he got were monosyllabic groans with, now and again, a whining prayer to continue their journey. Haik had taught him what to say: "Ben bir az hasta im" -- "I'm not very well." The reckless Stephan kept repeating it, on every occasion. It got him out of all his religious exercises, since Islam dispenses the sick and ailing from the performance of religious duties, which make demands on the body. When they had crossed the little river Afrin, by a wooden bridge, the peasant thought it time for their midday halt. He took his horse out of the shafts and stung on its nosebag. Stephan too had to get down, and sit with the old man by the roadside, on the dry steppe. This cart-track was scarcely frequented. All that morning they had only met two oxcarts, coming in the opposite direction. Most of the peasants in these parts used the great highroad, which leads from Hammam to Antakiya.

  The Turkoman unpacked a flat loaf and goat's cheese, and pushed some over to Stephan. "Go on, boy, eat! Eating kills pain."

  Stephan did not want to wound his host, and did his best to swallow some cheese. He chewed and chewed at the first mouthful but could not manage to get it down.

  The friendly Turkoman watched with troubled eyes. "Perhaps you'll want more strength than you have, little son!"

  Stephan could not understand the guttural, but knew that he must look as though he did. So he bowed, laid his hand on his heart, repeated his slogan, hoping for the best: "Ben bir az hasta im. . . ."

  The Turkoman kept silence for some time. Then he began to work his huge jaws and, gripping his knife, made a mighty gesture, as though he were cutting something in two. Stephan froze to the marrow. He listened to Armenian words: "Your name's not Hüssein! Stop your tales! Do you really want to go to Antakiya? I don't believe it."

  Stephan was almost unconscious. For all his fever, cold sweat stood out on his forehead.

  The Turkoman's little deep-set eyes had a very sad look in them. "Don't be afraid, whatever your real name is -- and trust in God! As long as you stay with me, nothing shall happen to you."

  Stephan gathered all his wits about him and tried to stammer something in Turkish. But the old peasant waved him to silence, his hand still brandishing its knife. He needed no more words. He was thinking of the droves of wretched people, driven day and night past his house by saptiehs.

  "Where do you come from, boy? From the north? Did you get away -- escape from the convoy? Was that it?"

  Stephan could only confide. No denials would have been any use, now. He whispered, in quick, staccato Armenian, so that only his host might hear what he said, and not the listening, hostile world: "I come from round here. From Musa Dagh. From Yoghonoluk. I want to get back home. To my father and mother."

  "Home?" The old, horny peasant hand stroked at the grey beard, with the gesture of wisdom. "So you're one of those who went up on to the mountain and are fighting our soldiers?" The good man's voice had become a growl. Now, Stephan thought, it'll be all over. He sank on his side, surrendered to fate, buried his face in the brown, dry grass. The Turkoman still held his big knife. He had only to stab. When would he do it? But the old man's growl was all that assailed him: "And what's the name of the other -- your cousin Essad? He was a sly one. He'd not be so easy to catch as you, boy."

  Stephan did not answer. He waited, ready for death. But soon he found himself being lifted, by hands as hard as stones, but gentle.

  "You can't help your parents' sin. May God return you to them. But it won't help you, or them either. Now, come on! We'll see what's best to be done."

  So Stephan was put back into the wagon, among bundles of reeds. But now the Turkoman seemed to have grown impatient, and thrashed at his little horse, though the beast had covered so many miles, and his rough brown coat glistened with sweat. They went at a sharp trot, at times they galloped, while the peasant talked oddly to himself -- or cursed his horse. Yet, no matter how much Stephan was jolted, he felt himself more and more safely in God's hand. He thought, with an effort, of Maman. Was she really so ill? She couldn't be. But, strangely, Maman became Iskuhi. It was hard to get the two to separate. Stephan could do nothing to keep them apart, though their double image was strangely painful to him. Then Haik's voice began to warn. He mustn't waste time! This was the daylight! He ought to be sleeping, getting up his strength to walk in the night. He obeyed his friend and shut his eyes. Fever refused to let him sleep.

  The peasant drew up and told his feverish passenger to get down. Stephan, with an effort, came to himself and crept out of the cart. Not far off he saw a bare little hill, surrounded with walls of fortifications, and white, domino houses at the foot of it.

  The Turkoman thrust at this picture with his whip. "Habib en Nedjhar, the citadel. Antakiya! You must hide yourself better now, boy!"

  And in fact, two hundred paces further, the jolting track opened out on to the district highroad of Hammam, also reconditioned by Jemal Pasha. The new road was full of unexpected traffic.

  The Turkoman pushed apart his bundles of reeds; this left a deep cavity in the cart. "You crawl in there, son! I'll take you on through the town, and then a bit further along, past the iron bridge. But no further than that! There now, get in and lie still!"

  Stephan stretched himself out. The peasant covered him very skilfully, so that he got enough air, and was not too burdened with the load. There, in this grave, all thoughts were obliterated. He lay, no more than a lump of indifferent heaviness, bereft of courage, without fear. They were trundling now, on the broad highway, pleasant and smooth. Noisy voices all round them. Stephan in his coffin heard them indifferently. They trundled on, jolting, it appeared, over cobblestones. Suddenly, with a startling jerk, they stopped. Men were approaching, standing round the cart. Saptiehs, no doubt -- police or soldiers. Their voices reached Stephan vaguely, and yet loud, as though through a speaking trumpet.

  "Where are you going, peasant?"

  "In to the town. To market. Where else should I go?"'

  "Got your papers all right? Hand over! What are you carrying?"

  "Goods for market. Reeds for the binders, and a couple of okas of licorice . . ."

  "No contraband? You know the new law? Grain, maize, potatoes, rice, oil, to be given up to the authorities."

  "I've already delivered my maize in Hammam."

  Hands were already hastily turning over the top layers. Stephan could feel them doing it -- bereft of courage,
and of fear. Now the tired little horse was going on again. They drove through a tunnel of noisy voices, at walking pace. Less and less light seeped through to Stephan. It was dark when they got held up the second time. But the Turkoman did not stop. A high, chiding voice pursued them.

  "What new habits are these? Next time you'll drive by daylight. Understand? Will you clodhoppers never realize we're at war?"

  The hoofs were rattling over the wide, square paving-stones of the Crusaders' bridge, called "the iron bridge" for some forgotten reason. Beyond the bridge the Turkoman took the load off his feverish passenger. Now Stephan could again lie wrapped in his blanket, upon bundles of reeds.

  The old man was delighted. "Cheer up, son! The worst's behind you! Allah means well by you. So I'll take you on, a little way further, as far as Mengulye, where I can stable and spend the night with a friend of mine."

  Though Stephan's hold on life was now so relaxed, his relief at this was still sufficient to plunge him at once into leaden sleep. Again the Turkoman urged his poor jade to a trotting pace, to arrive as soon as possible with his protégé in the village of Mengulye -- from which, however, a good ten-mile walk lay ahead of Stephan to get him back to the place where the road branches into the valley of seven villages. But the simple mind of this Turkoman peasant was not endowed with nearly enough prescience to foresee the intricate ways of Armenian fate, Stephan was roused by the glare of acetylene lamps, hooded lanterns, bobbing up and down above his face. Uniforms were bending over him, moustaches, lambskin kepis. The cart was in the midst of a camp of one of the companies sent by the Wali from the town of Killis to the Kaimakam of Antakiya as reinforcement. The soldiers' tents stood in two lines along the road. Only the officers had taken up their quarters in Mengulye. The Turkoman stood peaceably by his cart. He was striking at his little horse, perhaps to cover his own fears.

  One of the onbashis cross-questioned: "Where are you going? Who's the boy here? Is he your son?"

  The peasant shook his head reflectively. "No! No! He's no son of mine."

  He tried to gain time to form a good thought. The onbashi bellowed at him not to stand there, saying nothing!

  Luckily, having attended its various markets, the old man knew the names of most of the villages in the district. So now he sighed, rolling his head about: "We're going to Seris, to Seris, over there at the foot of the mountain. . . ."

  He sang it like an innocent litany. The onbashi turned a sharp beam on Stephan.

  The Turkoman's voice began to whine: "Yes, you take a look at the child. I've got to get him back to Seris, to his own folk,"

  Meanwhile corporals and privates had begun to swarm around the cart. But the old man seemed suddenly full of excitement. "Oh, don't go too near! Don't go too near! Be careful!"

  And indeed this warning startled the onbashi. He stared at the peasant, whose finger pointed at Stephan's face.

  "Can't you see for yourself the child's got a fever on him, and doesn't know where he is? Keep off, you over there, if you don't want the sickness to get you, too. The hekim has sent the lad away from Antakiya. . . . And now this worthy Turkoman appalled even the onbashi with his use of the words "spotted typhus." In these days, in Syria, not even the words "plague" and "cholera" had such power-evoking terror as "spotted typhus." The soldiers darted off at once, and even the grim, resolute onbashi stepped back. But now this excellent man from Ain el Beda pulled out his papers, demanding scrutiny, waving them close under the very nose of this sergeant, who, with a curse, renounced his office.

  In ten seconds the road was clear again in front of them. The Turkoman, beside himself with pride and satisfaction at his own success, left his exhausted pony to its devices and walked, chuckling, beside Stephan. "You see, my boy, how well Allah means by you. Didn't he mean well by sending you to me? Be thankful you found me. Be thankful! For now I shall have to go half an hour further with you, to sleep somewhere else."

  Stephan's last terror had so paralyzed him that he scarcely heard what his friend was saying. And when later the Turkoman waked him, he could not stir. The old man took him up in his arms, like a child, and set him down on the road which leads along the bed of the Orontes, into Suedia.

  "There's not a soul about here, boy. If you hurry, you can be back in the mountain before it's light. Allah does more for you than he does for most of us."

  The peasant gave Stephan some more of his cheese, a flat loaf and his water flask, which he had had refilled in Antakiya. Then he seemed also to be giving him counsel and advice, some heartening words, as he bade Godspeed. It ended with the wish of peace, "Selam alek." But Stephan could hear none of all this, since a loud roaring was in his ears, and his head was swimming. He could only see how the light turban and whitish beard moved rhythmically, and now both turban and beard permeated the darkness, with ever more beneficent light. How Stephan Bagradian longed for that mild sheen, the source of all light and consolation, as the stumbling clatter of hoofs became remote. The vanishing cart hung out no lantern. The moon had not yet risen from over the steep gullies of the Amanus.

  Ter Haigasun had sent down a message -- probably his first since he had held jurisdiction over these parishes -- to the graveyard dwellers in all the villages. Nunik and her sisters were to set out through the country round Musa Dagh, after news of the lost Stephan Bagradian. Should they succeed in getting any important information, or even, perhaps, bringing back the fugitive, a great reward was to be theirs. They would be given their own camp beside the Town Enclosure. It was a stroke of genius in Ter Haigasun to have offered such a high reward. Gabriel Bagradian was the most important man on the Damlayik. The whole future would depend on the state of mind and body of the leader. All that could be done must be attempted to prevent Gabriel's inward strength -- Juliette had delivered the first blow against it -- from sustaining irreparable damage from Stephan's fate. This reward seemed immense to these dregs of the villages. And yet Nunik had scarcely a hope that they would gain it. Since the last great Armenian victory, things had been getting cruelly difficult for the people left behind in the valley. The müdir had issued an order, posted up in all the villages, by which it was the duty of every Mussulman to arrest any Armenian he encountered -- no matter who. Blind, sick, mad, crippled, an old man or a child, it was all the same. This significant order was designed to render impossible all espionage on behalf of the mountain camp. It had not been pasted up two days on the walls of the church, and already the graveyard population, which originally, in the seven villages, might have been reckoned at close on seventy people, had shrunk to forty. Those who had survived were therefore forced, if they wanted to go on living a little longer, to find some really close and effective hiding place. And, Christ be praised, they had found it! Only the bravest and strongest, like Nunik, the eternally wandering, ventured forth between midnight and daybreak, in search of food -- at the risk of destruction -- to poach a lamb or a she-goat. Stephan's way home led past this sanctuary.

  About a mile outside the village Ain Yerab, the ruins of ancient Antioch cluster together into what becomes a veritable town. This town is surmounted by the pilasters and vast broken arches of a Roman viaduct. The road, which, so far, has been an easy one, here narrows down to a vague track, which leads on, alorg the bed of the river, deeply channelled into the rocks, through the stony waste, which once was a human habitation. At places the way is strewn with square-hewn stones, fragments of columns, fallen capitals, which almost block it. Stephan, dazed with fever as he was, went stumbling on, tripping up again and again on blocks of stone, getting himself entangled in creepers, skinning his knees, falling flat, dragging himself up, stumbling forwards. From his right, concealed in the farthest ruins, firelight kept flickering faintly from time to time. Had Stephan been Haik, he would have sensed, even without the firelight, from miles off, the presence of these miserable beggars, whose very misery made them his allies. His sure feet would have carried him straight to them. But where might Haik be at this hour? Thirty paces off the
side of the path he followed there was safety waiting for Stephan, with even a lighted bonfire to help him look for it. Nunik, Wartuk, Manushak, would have been able to hide Stephan safely, nursed him for a day and a night, and then, by the sure ways of their experience, brought him back to the Damlayik, to claim the great reward. But this town boy was afraid of fire. He felt himself being pursued as he rushed on up the steepening road. He came to the top, and drank a swig of flat, lukewarm water out of his flask. Musa Dagh was before him. Here in the moonlight the thick, black smoke-swaths which eddied up off the center of the mountain could plainly be seen. The flames seemed to have died down, since now there was no longer a wind to fan them. Now and again a burning coal would glow and vanish.