Forty Days of Musa Dagh

by Franz Werfel

  "Well, then, Kilikian, you understand me, and I you. You don't even need to tell me so. Like you, I don't believe there's a God. Why should there be such a piece of tomfoolery? The world is a lump of dung, spinning in space -- mere chemistry and astronomy, that's all it is! I'll show you Krikor's book of stars -- there you can see it all, in pictures. Nothing but nature. And, if anyone made it, the devil did. There's a pig hidden in it, an unclean swine. But it can't take the last thing off me, Kilikian, see what I mean? We can spit in its face, we can make it look small, show it who really is the stronger, stamp it out! You see? -- Well, that's my idea! I, Hrand Oskanian, small as I am, can show nature and the devil, and God Almighty, what's what! I can annoy them, punish them. The gentlemen shall turn yellow with rage at Hrand Oskanian, against whom they're all so powerless, understand? I've found one or two people who see what I mean. I go along to the huts in the night sometimes. Ter Haigasun, ha, ha! can't stop me doing that. Have you ever watched that half-wit Kevork chucking out his corpses off the rock? They fly like white birds. Well, that's my idea! We'll all fly away, you and me and one or two more of us, before they force us, against our wills. One short step, and you don't know anything more till you touch the water. See? Then we shall all be dissolved in the waves. We shall have chosen that for ourselves, and so the devil and the Turks, and all the other gentry, will shout for rage, because we've beaten them, because it's really they who've been the weak ones. Do you see, Kilikian?"

  Sarkis Kilikian had long since been stretched out on his back again. His death's skull stared up at scurrying clouds. Nothing about him suggested that he had even listened to Oskanian's panegyric of suicide.

  But the long-haired thief stopped his game and glanced attentively at this cunning vanquisher of nature, as though he at least had grasped "the idea," and considered it really not so bad. He wriggled a little nearer. "How many store-chests are there in those three tents?"

  The teacher stuttered and flushed. He had spoken shamefully into a void. And any mention of Three-Tent Square was still painful. On the other hand, here was a chance to show all these hard-bitten devils who he really was, a "notable," the educated member of a very different social class, one of the people's chosen representatives.

  Oskanian's tone was something between bragging and disdain. "Only store-chests? Chests are about the least of what she has. Why, they've got huge great cupboards, boxes twice the size of wardrobes. And more women's clothes inside them than the richest pasha ever heard of. And all different. She not only wears a different dress every day, she changes three times a day. . . ."

  "What do I care about her clothes? What I want to know is how much food she has."

  Oskanian threw back his head. It was now so hirsute with wiry beard and fuzzy hair that only a tiny patch of yellowish face still peeped from its midst. "Well, I can tell you that exactly. No one knows that better than I do, because down in the villa the hanum asked to see me when all the stuff was being chosen and packed up. Well, they've got whole towers of little silver boxes with fish in oil swimming in them. They've got sweet bread and chocolate and biscuits. They've got jars and jars of wine. They've got American smoked meat, and whole baskets of groats and oatmeal."

  Oskanian stopped at the oatmeal. Beads of sweat stood out on his forehead. He slapped his knee mournfully. "Finish it! Finish it all!"

  And Sarkis Kilikian answered, in a very monosyllabic growl: "We mean to . . . tomorrow evening."

  The little teacher's hands turned cold as ice as he heard this sleepily casual remark. Nor did they become any warmer when Kilikian, in four curt, casual sentences, explained their intentions. Oskanian's round, pebble eyes stared as intently at the Russian as though his ears were not enough to listen with. Yet what he heard had for long been common talk among the men of the South Bastion. Sarkis Kilikian the deserter, and a few others under his influence, had had quite enough of the Damlayik. They intended to get away early before it was light, on the morning after the following day. The basest treachery to the commune! Perhaps only Kilikian had this feeling, to some slight degree. The others merely saw Musa Dagh, not as a fortified camp, in which they had pledged themselves to hold out, but as a temporary shelter, paid for at the very high rental of nearly forty days' fighting service. Now they were hungry. Famine had, in a sense, dissolved the contract. For several days no food had come down to them from their hosts save a few heaps of repulsive bones. Were they really to be asked to starve slowly, merely in order to fall into Turkish hands? What did they care for the people of the seven villages? Only a few of them had belonged to the Armenian valley. After all, before Ter Haigasun and Bagradian had come to take possession of the Damlayik, they had lived fairly well on the mountain. Not a man of them had the least intention of sharing the fate of the five thousand. Why should they? They could so easily save their own skins. It merely meant that they returned to the old life -- the life before the forty days. Beyond the Orontes, to the south, there extended the barren heights of Jebel el Akra, ridge upon ridge, almost as far as Latakia. This Jebel el Akra was not well watered and green like Musa Dagh, but barren, trackless, ragged, and so the place for refugees. Quite a simple plan. In the night, about a hundred strong, they would descend on the Orontes plain, past Habaste and the ruins. Since all the troops in the valley were concentrated round the northern heights, there would probably be only a few pickets of saptiehs on night duty guarding the edge of the mountain and the Orontes bridge at El Eskel. Not much fear of dangerous resistance! Whether or not they had to fight their way, the hundred could no doubt soon be across the narrow plain and have reached the mountains by sunrise. During their secret discussion a few of the more scrupulous among them had asked if it might perhaps not be permissible to warn the Council of their decision. This mere question had nearly led to their being thrashed. What would have been the results of such stupidity?

  And this criminal element refused to be satisfied with mere disappearance into the night. It had serious reasons to back its policy. First, there was the question of munitions. On that would depend the future existence of any vagrant robber band. That was the real meaning of the demand made by the long-haired thief with such cringing insolence to Gabriel, on the day their forbidden bonfire had been extinguished. Chaush Nurhan issued cartridges very sparingly. Only when a fight had almost begun, were munitions brought into the trench, and even then someone in the confidence of the leaders would distribute as few of them as possible. These deserters at present had only about five shots to a rifle. An impossible state of affairs! But in the government hut the lockers stood one above the other, there were troughs of cartridges. Nurhan's "factory" had worked on without a break, not only filling the used cases, but making fresh bullets for them to fire. The deserters felt it unavoidably necessary to supplement their present supplies from the camp armory. With that object they must visit the government hut; when and how still seemed undecided. And at the same time they could take a look round the enclosure, to see if this or that might not be worth carrying. A prolonged sojourn on the barren heights of Jebel el Akra would demand certain necessary implements, which the people here in camp, whose fate was sealed, could have no possible further use for. And, while they were looking round the enclosure, they could always keep their eyes open for certain unpopular public figures. Ter Haigasun, for instance. The priest had never pretended to like deserters. He had taken every possible chance of bringing the rigors of camp life home to them. You might reckon that the South Bastion as a whole had had five fast days to put up with. Nor had Ter Haigasun scrupled to sentence one or another of its garrison to a sharp dose of bastinado. It could do no possible harm to settle accounts.

  Sarkis Kilikian still lay on his back, heeding neither Oskanian's conversation nor the dark hints of the long-haired thief. Had any mortal been able to look into his mind, he would have found nothing there except impatience. His impatience was that of the scurrying clouds above his head. The brain behind that extinguished mask was restless with longing to bre
ak out of one jail into the next.

  The teacher had long since scrambled up on to his thin little legs. And he jutted his pigeon breast, as if to show that he, the panegyrist of suicide, would shrink from no deed, however bold. He stood there pursing his lips and wagging his head at them. He never stirred to warn the camp. Kilikian and the others must take this as a sign of admiration. The thought of giving the alarm fluttered behind the teacher's forehead like a caught bird. Against it his perpetual vain terror of being thought weak by Kilikian and the other "daredevils" -- he a "daredevil" among the rest! So that then, against his better judgment, a piece of vague but still profoundly treacherous information slipped out of him:

  "Tomorrow in the late afternoon, Ter Haigasun has arranged a special Mass of petition. But the decads are to stay in the trenches."

  One of the other "daredevils" answered Oskanian's self-abasement appropriately: "Well, then, you'll stay here with us till tomorrow, see! So that we can be sure you'll keep your mouth shut."

  The deserters shoved their government commissar in front of them back to their trenches. They need not have troubled to do this, since he came as a voluntary prisoner, without thoughts of escape. And they never once let him out of their sight. He sat perched glumly on an observation post, staring down at the narrow ribbon of highroad, far below, which leads from Antakiya to Suedia. Hatred of Gabriel, Juliette, Ter Haigasun, suddenly seemed to have flickered out of his heart. Fear had replaced it. He prayed that the Turks might attack. But they seemed to have no intention at all of breaking their heads a second time against the rocks of this barren slope. There was peaceful traffic on the road through the Orontes plain. Oxcarts, sumpter mules, two camels even, took their slow way to market at Suedia, as though on Musa Dagh there were not so much as an Armenian. Only near Yedidje, at the foot of the outer slopes of the mountain, did a tiny dust-cloud suddenly rise. As it settled again, a small, grey army car could be distinguished.

  It had dawned, the fortieth day on Musa Dagh, the eighth of Septemher, the third of famine. Today the women had not troubled to go in search of unnutritious herbs from which to concoct a bitter tea. Spring water was just as filling. All still able to stand clustered round the various well-springs -- old men, mothers, girls, children. It was a queer sight. Again and again, one after another, these exhausted faces bent down to the water-jets to drink without thirst, out of hollow hands, as though to drink were an urgent duty. Many lay down flat, breathing heavily, feeling that their bodies were like some porous clay that stiffened slowly in the air. Others dreamed happily. They felt certain that now they were growing wings, that as soon as ever they liked they could spread them for a short blissful flight. Over them all lay a veil of gentle slowness. The small children were all fast asleep; the bigger ones had ceased to be noisy. That morning three old people died, and two sucklings. The mothers kept their wretched creatures pressed against empty breasts until they stiffened and became cold.

  In contrast to these in the Town Enclosure, the men out in the trenches had still life and energy enough in them. Though they, too, were anything but sated. The meat ration and the remains of Gabriel's tinned food had not been even enough to take the first edge off their hunger. Yet these privations produced a strange mentality in the fighters. They inspired them with a crazy longing to do battle, get things settled once and for all. This new state of things had at least the advantage that Gabriel could arrange his proposed night-raid without having to trouble himself with the question whether or not the people would elect to leave the Damlayik. He was sure of his fighters. He had planned the attack for that same night.

  So every detail of this raid into the valley was discussed. He had forgotten nothing. Every man had his place, and every minute had been considered. Nothing had been left to chance.

  He had decided to keep the Turks occupied all that day, and alarm them, on the northern heights, with sudden bursts of firing and shows of attack, to get them to move as many troops as possible out of the valley. Unexpectedly they anticipated his wishes and performed this tactic of themselves. Their preparations plainly showed that, within the next twenty-four hours, everything was going to be decided. The heights beyond the Saddle were alive with the bustle of trench warfare before an attack. Over there, the Armenians could catch sight of lines of infantrymen, slowly and gingerly advancing, dragging thick tree trunks, stripped of their branches, which they dropped with a clatter on the hillside. There could be no doubt that these smooth, strong stems were to be made to serve as moving cover, when the extended lines crawled on. Gabriel and Chaush Nurhan went from man to man in the front-line trench, levelling sights to get the distances. Whenever one of the Turks on the counter-slope ventured too far out from among the trees, they gave single orders to fire. By midday a few enemies were disposed of. The one deadly bullet was always answered by a wild, undisciplined volley, which either passed over the heads of defenders, or spent itself in the heaped-up stones of the parapets. The fighters perceived with crazy pride that their new defense works were so strong that it would need artillery to deal with them. But of that there was still no indication. The strange dninkenness of hunger produced bouts of madness in these men. They were eager to use any method of luring the Turks to attack. They climbed their trench and danced on the parapet; many ventured far out into the obstacle zone. The Turks refused to be enticed.

  At about midday Ter Haigasun came to visit the trench. Gabriel asked him to say a prayer in their midst, since the decads would not be present that afternoon at the great service of petition. He prayed with them. Gabriel had also to tell the priest that these men's votes need not be taken at the plebiscite, since they had announced their decision through Chaush Nurhan of going wherever their leader might care to take them. Ter Haigasun was surprised at Gabriel's energy; the leader glowed with the excitement of coming action. Only a few days back he had still believed that his soul had not the raw strength needed to recover from Stephan's horrible death. But on his way back to the enclosure Ter Haigasun knew that Bagradian's soul had withstood nothing but itself, and even that, perhaps, for no more than these last few hours of intensity.

  General Ali Risa Bey was one of the youngest brigadier-generals of the Turkish army. He was not yet forty. But Ali, both in appearance and mentality, was the exact opposite of his chief, the picturesque dictator of Syria. He was, up to a point, representative of the very latest, most European type of soldier. It was only necessary to watch him walk up and down, as he did at present, in the selamlik of Villa Bagradian, where a subdued officers' council followed his steps with timid eyes, to perceive his mentality. And the whole difference became apparent when one compared this young general with, for instance, the wounded yüs-bashi, whose arm was still bandaged, and who waited, in the respectful posture prescribed, on some stray remark from his superior. This major, with his cigarette-stained fingers, his tired and dissipated face, had something forlorn and slightly soiled about him, when contrasted with Ali Risa Bey. And now, impatiently, the general pushed open the drawing-room windows to let out the clouds of smoke, with which the other officers filled the room. He neither smoked nor drank; he loved neither woman nor man; and it was said that, because of a weak stomach, he lived exclusively on raw goat's milk. A translucent ascetic of war. The onbashi came in to him with a report.

  The general glanced at it; he compressed thin lips. "We've just had some losses from an Armenian attack in the north. . . . I intend to make company commanders strictly responsible for this sort of thing. . . . I hope you gentlemen will all take note of what I say: I've promised His Excellency that not a single man on our side shall be sacrificed in this whole action. . . . We're clearing out a camp of scoundrelly mutineers. . . . Anything else would be sheer disgrace. . . . Disgraceful enough to have let it get so far."

  His glance sought out the adjutant. "Still no news of those two batteries?"

  The adjutant answered a brief "No." For two days now they had been impatiently expecting the arrival of mountain artillery, se
nt to Aleppo. But, since this transport came, not via Aleppo, but by way of Beilan and the difficult route across the passes, it was delaying endlessly. So that now the general had been forced to put off his main attack till tomorrow.

  He stopped again in front of one of the junior officers. "How many yards of telephone wire are there in the company stores?"

  The young officer paled and began to mumble. Ali Risa Bey did not even listen. "Well, it's no business of mine. But by this evening, by one hour before sunset, mind, a telephone must have been installed in this house, connecting me up with the mountain, both northwards and southwards. How it's to be done is your look-out. I shall want telephonic reports of tomorrow's attack from the major. Now you can go."