Forty Days of Musa Dagh

by Franz Werfel

  Kevork would not allow anyone else to rob him of even the smallest part of his dignity. He received the corpse, and, with a shove of his elbows, edged away the two other men who wanted to help him. The sea seemed still to keep some star-trace of former nights of perfect calm. Its white crests presented a reflected semblance of light, enough to outline the dancer as he worked. A few lanterns marked the threatening rock-edge. But, in spite of them, it was cruelly dangerous work for Kevork. For the Dish Terrace stood on what was known as the "High Wall," which fell sheer for over twelve hundred feet into the sea. The sea had eaten its way so deep into the foot of the High Wall, that this rock-plateau really looked like a dish, held out in space on a hand, and, from above, the surf could not be seen. A false step on this gigantic prow would have been the quickest, surest death. Yet now, when night was at its darkest, the dancer showed no trace of fear, no giddiness, though all the others drew quickly back. He, on this narrow, faintly illuminated ledge, was really dancing, rocking himself and the dead, like a powerful nurse. The corpses sank noiseless and invisible, into night. Kevork, in spite of the pitiful rations he had now been drawing for many days, had not lost any of his strength. When, after about an hour, rhythmically, on straddling legs, he had lightly heaved his forty-third body into eternity, he seemed downcast at the sight of his empty hands, He would have liked to cradle four hundred, a thousand, the whole people, and rock them asleep. An outsider might have been astonished to see how little horror there was in this burial, how much of beauty, indeed, there was in it.

  Unexpectedly the swimmers got back from Aleppo. Early one morning these two young men turned up in the north trenches, having slipped in safely past the extended lines of saptiehs and soldiers, which for the last few days had surrounded all the heights of Musa Dagh from Kebussiye to the coast village Arsus in the north. The physical condition of these swimmers in no sense suggested the toils and perils of their ten days' adventure. They were thin as skeletons, but wiry, swaggering skeletons, tanned with sun and the salt air. Strangest of all were their clothes. One was wearing a shabby but one-time elegant gentleman's dressing gown made of brown wool; the other, white flannel trousers, and with them the wreck of a dinner jacket from the dim antiquity of that garment's style. They both had heavy sacks full of hard army biscuits on their shoulders, an act of heroism on the people's behalf when one remembers the thirty-five miles of mountain country between Alexandretta and the Damlayik.

  Their return caused jubilation among the villagers, but the news they brought was such as to extinguish all hope. They had stayed six days in Alexandretta without seeing the sign of any warship in the outer harbor. A few battered Turkish tin-tubs were riding at anchor there, and coal-barges, fishing-smacks, and a Russian merchantman interned by the war. But the whole vast bay, which forms the deep snug angle between Asia Minor and Asia, lay empty, as empty as the coastline behind Musa Dagh.

  For many months no one in Alexandretta had seen even the shadow of a warship far out at sea.

  All this they related confusedly. Each jealously strove not to let the other go on speaking. They described their whole excursion day by day, every detail of it. If one forgot some trifle, the other at once became impatient. But the crowd, forgetting its own situation, could never have enough minute description.

  In the first day after they had set out, they had kept to the summit of the mountains, skirted Ras el-Khanzir, and so come unperceived to the road that leads along the coast from Arsus to the port. Then they had spent a whole day on a hill close to Alexandretta, where, safely hidden in myrtle thickets, they kept a sharp look-out on the front harbor. At about four that afternoon, a narrow grey streak, far out at sea, turned coastwards, with a line of foam in its wake. The swimmers, forgetting all precautions, had dashed down to the sea, plunged in and swum out, past the wooden jetty, into the open harbor. As their orders instructed them, they swam on closer and closer, in wide circles, in the direction of this supposed French or English torpedo boat, which quickly grew plainer before their eyes, till soon, to their horror, they had perceived that the half-moon flag flew on its deck. But the men on deck had sighted the swimmers. Piercing shouts! And, when these remained unanswered, the crew of this customs-inspection vessel, as now the ship turned out to be, commanded by the Turkish harbormaster of Alexandretta, had peppered them with a dozen small shot.

  They dived and swam on under water, experts as they were, a very long way. Later they hid among the cyclopean rocks on which the jetty itself is built. Luckily it was already evening and the harbor deserted. Nevertheless, high over their heads, they could hear the heavy thud of sentries' feet on the rotten planks of the bridge. There they had sat, naked and wet. Their clothes, their supplies, were lost. To make it worse, some near, intermittent light kept picking them out, at about half-minute intervals. They made themselves as small as they could. Not till well after midnight did they manage, giving the long port-road a very wide berth, to get back to land. There seemed now no choice, save between perishing wretchedly in the hills and venturing boldly on into the town. But they found a third way. On a parklike hill, just outside it, planted with eucalyptus to keep off malaria, stood several big and opulent villas. The swimmers, judging by all they had heard of Alexandretta felt convinced that one of these villas must surely be owned by an Armenian. And the name-plate on the first garden gate (they could read its inscription by moonlight) confirmed their hope.

  But the house was dead: no light, and the shutters nailed. The swimmers were not to be put off. They would have broken in to get shelter. They found a spade and a hoe left leaning against the garden wall. With desperate strokes they began to try to force the door without thinking that the din they made might equally well arouse an enemy. In a few minutes a chain rattled inside. The door was pulled open. A shaky light and a trembling man. "Who?" -- "Armenians. For Christ's sake give us something to eat and hide us. We've come from the sea. We're naked." The circle of light from the trembling man's electric torch eddied across their shivering bodies. "Merciful God! I can't let you come in here. We should all be done for. But wait!" Minutes dragged by. Then, through the half-open door, two shirts and two rugs were handed out to them. In addition to which they were given copious bread and cold meat and two pound-notes each. But their panicked compatriot still kept whispering: "In the Saviour's name don't stay here. They may have seen you, even now. Go to the German vice-consul. He's the only one who can help you. His name is Herr Hoffmann. I'll send an old woman to show you the way, a Turk. Follow her. But not too close! And don't talk!"

  Luckily Herr Hoffmann lived in the same parklike neighborhood. This German vice-consul turned out to be very well disposed. He had done already more than he strictly should have done, or could do, to help the Armenians in this district. Hoffmann had most kindly taken them in, fed them, given them a room, with two splendid beds in it, and fabulous meals, three times a day. He had offered to let them stay on in this magic sanctuary till things were normal again. Yet, on the third day of this life of ease, the swimmers had told him that they felt it was time to hurry back to Musa Dagh, to their own people. It so happened, by a curious stroke of fate, that Rössler, the consul-general, had come on a visit to Aleppo on the very day they informed the kind Herr Hoffmann of their decision. Rössler had advised the two young swimmers to be thankful they had managed to save their skins, warning them on no account to leave his safety and protection. These thoughts of a rescuing gunboat were the mere crazy fantasies of people whose troubles had unhinged their minds. First, there were no French warships of any description in the Northeast Mediterranean. True, there was an English fleet stationed in Cyprus harbor, but, since its business was to guard the Suez canal and Egypt, it never strayed into the north. Why should it? There was no chance of landing troops on the coasts of Syria. Secondly, Herr Rössler had pointed out to them, it was a piece of most exceptional good luck for Armenian refugees to be taken into a consul's house. And real help was out of the question. Neither he, Rössler, nor his A
merican colleague in Aleppo, Mr. Jackson, was able to offer it. But, he added, with obvious satisfaction, a few days ago Jackson had managed to shelter a young Armenian, who also came from the camp on Musa Dagh. The swimmers had rejoiced that Haik was safe.

  They had thanked Herr Rössler and Herr Hoffmann, but would answer further suggestions, indeed prayers, only with the curt embarrassment with which young men express such emotions. "We have our fathers and mothers up there . . . and our girls as well. . . . We couldn't stand it . . . if anything were to happen up there and we were here . . . alive . . . in this beautiful house."

  So on September 2 Vice-Consul Hoffmann had let them go again. They had told him of the lack of bread on the Damlayik, and he, though not by strictly official methods, had obtained two sacks of army biscuits from the Imperial Ottoman Commissariat, which he gave them as a parting gift. But the best thing he did was to take them in his consular yayli. The swimmers were put to sit on either side of him. On the box beside the coachman in his lambskin kepi, sat a resplendently uniformed khavass, who kept slowly waving a small German flag. Proudly they drove on past saptieh guardhouses. The gendarmes jerked to attention, with respectful salutes for the representative of Germany, his flag, and his two doubtful protégés. Herr Hoffmann had even taken them further, past the second guardhouse outside Arsus. There the two swimmers had got out and, weeping in spite of all their efforts, said good-bye to their warmhearted protector.

  Someone had fetched the widow Shushik from her hut. She was told that Haik was safe. First she seemed quite unable to grasp the fact. She crouched on the ground, bending forwards, dully. Since Stephan's death she had scarcely once raised her eyes. She looked more bony than ever. But now her hard, male fists hung limp at her sides. Now she only went from time to time to draw her ration at the distributing-tables. If anyone ventured to say a word to her, Shushik replied more brusquely than ever before. She was full of hate. Now, as she sat hunched up, she could hear them whispering behind her.

  "Shushik! Listen, can't you! Haik's alive. . . . Haik's alive."

  It took a very long time before their whispers reached her mind, before her hunched and angry back relaxed gradually, became feminine. One of the swimmers completed this softening process: he embroidered his tale -- a successful traveller.

  "Rössler and Jackson see each other every day. The German himself told me how he'd seen Haik. He said he was looking fine!"

  Then, at last, certainty could penetrate the remotest corner of Shushik's mind. Two long breaths, like groans. She stumbled a few steps nearer the rest. And these steps led Haik's mother out of a solitude which had lasted fifteen years, into the wide circle gathered round the swimmers and their families. One more tottering step and she lay full length, but at once propped herself up on to her knees. Into the colorless, ageless face of this giantess there came, like an astonishing revelation, like sudden sunlight, an inexpressible love of humankind. The standoffish Shushik, she who had kept herself to herself, raised heavy arms in the weakest supplication. Shushik's arms besought: Take me in, let me share this with you! Because I belong to you now.

  She had still not been thrust out of her shadow. As a rule she could only see moving blurs. If she made an effort, they came together and formed shapes. But she was far too clever to make efforts. Words and sounds beat in her ears, as hollow as though she lay in a padded room. So that, really, there she was, in the telephone-box at the lower end of the Champs élysées, calling up the Armenian Club for Gabriel, because there was a new comedy at the Trocadéro, which she wanted to see. But, when these cool uncertainties grew less vague, when they even threatened to take on solid form, she grew nervous and escaped at once. The one sense she could still trust and enjoy was not only normal, but highly developed: her sense of smell. She sniffed whole worlds into herself. Worlds which committed her to nothing. Banks of violets, early scents of spring in little villa gardens in Northern France, where colored glass balls mirror the roadway. Only, in Heaven's name, no roses! She could sniff that peculiar odor composed of sundust, of midday bustle, gasoline, stale incense, and cellar-damp, which assails our nostrils as we open the little wooden side doors which will lead us on inside the cathedral. To confess oneself again -- and receive holy communion! But is it really necessary to confess oneself, of something one has never really committed, something which was probably part of one's illness? Then again -- that horrible, all-pervasive scent of myrtle bushes. At least not that, Jésus! Marie! The myrtle bushes can be effaced by a very strong counter-irritant -- washing one's hair. So then she sat chez Fauchardičre Rue Madame 12, in the close, steamy warmth of her compartment, wrapped all in white, leaning well back in the swivel chair. . . . Not scent this time, only the clean and rustic smell of camomile. (Peasant women, going to mass on Sunday.) Juliette's head was foaming with a cloud of camomile. And her hair was quite smooth now, skimpy, plaited, like a leggy schoolgirl's. But already the warm, foamy camomile surged up all over this juvenile blond head and ruffled it out into a woman's. Sensitive fingers began to work on it. A white coolness laid itself on Juliette's forehead, on her cheeks and chin. Soon she'd be twenty-four; at certain hours the skin round her eyes and mouth had a tired look. It ought to be evening all day long, and the sun turned into electric light. Oh, how nice to be able to be in love with oneself again! Not to live for others! To be really absorbed in one's own perfectly cared-for body, full of delight in its charms, armed by it against all self-mistrust, as though there were no such things as men. . . .

  Yet, in spite of her wandering mind, Juliette could still keep a sharp eye on much that occurred in the present. (Even in her deepest unconsciousness, she had never lost her physical shame and cleanliness.) Now she could see plainly all the trouble Mairik Antaram was taking to get her well again. She heard how the doctor's wife and Iskuhi discussed the food which must be prepared for her. In spite of the dimness of her thoughts she still felt surprised that searching hands should always manage to find in the store chest a handful of fine ground rice, a packet of Quaker Oats, a bar of chocolate. Surely all that had been used up long ago! She tried to count all the people who lived on it. Stephan. Yes, and because of Stephan they ought to be very careful indeed. Then Gabriel, Avakian, Iskuhi, the Tomasians, Kristaphor, Missak, Hovsannah, and -- and . . . She couldn't at first think of the name. Her brain became muzzy again at once, her head swam and sang. Nor could she count, and her sense of time was all out of gear. Before, after, the things that had just been happening -- those that had happened long ago; it was all a jumble.

  She lay alone. Mairik Antaram had had to leave her for a couple of hours to go to the hospital hut. Then Iskuhi came into the tent and sat down opposite the bed in her usual seat, hiding her lame arm, as her habit was, with her shawl. Juliette, through eyelids grown transparent, saw that Iskuhi fully believed her to be asleep and so had ceased to control her thoughts and expression. But she knew even more. Gabriel had just left Iskuhi, and that, Juliette knew, was why this girl had come into her tent. And here Iskuhi would sit till he came back! Also she could see how Iskuhi's face, although it was no more than a hovering light, reproached her bitterly. Bitter reproaches for having let slip her chance to die. And this spiteful, this hatefully pretty, thing was really quite right. Since how much longer would Juliette be permitted to stay on, in her irresponsible border-kingdom? How much longer would they let her sleep and say nothing whenever Gabriel was about? Juliette felt -- like strong rays beating on her face -- this reproach, this blame, the enmity, in Iskuhi.

  Juliette had always imagined herself hard, and the Asiatic soft and yielding. Yet the hard had been dissolved by the soft. As she lay there, seeming to be asleep, she was overtaken by sharp perceptions. How was this? Not she, Juliette, had first claim on Gabriel. Iskuhi had an older, prior claim, and no one had any right to contest it if she took her own back. A great self-pity shook Juliette. Had she not done everything in her power to win the love of this Asiatic, she who stood so immeasurably above her? Had she not formed
that ignorant chit of a girl, dressed her up in all her own things, taught her how to care for her face and hands? (Oh, yes, and when she's stripped, that young woman, in spite of her pretty little breasts, has a grey-brown skin, and not even God could alter that for her. And a crippled left arm. Surely -- such a fastidious man as Gabriel . . . ?) Juliette was astonished to consider how, ever since she remembered life again, this arch-enemy, in spite of her continued vomiting, had kept coming back solicitously to the bed with a spoon and a cup. Why, she might have poisoned the cup -- she ought to have poisoned it; it had been her plain duty, so to do. Juliette blinked her thin eyelids. Et, voilŕ! Iskuhi had stood up; had, as she always did, stuck in the thermos under her left armpit; was unscrewing the top. This she put down on the little dressing table, carefully filled it, came towards the patient. So it had been more than empty suspicion then! The murderess was coming with her poison! Juliette pressed together her eyes and lips. And heard how the murderess, in the act, could still manage to sing, in her glassy voice, or at least hum softly. She sang like one of the mosquitoes which kept settling on Juliette's face. She listened intently.

  Iskuhi bent down over her. "You've had nothing to drink for five hours, Juliette. This tea is still quite warm."