by Franz Werfel
Ter Haigasun, too, had recovered and scrambled to his feet. His first thought had been to pile his vestments, his torn alb, the stole, and all the rest in a careful heap. He covered his own nakedness with a rug which someone had lent him. A strand of Ter Haigasun's beard had been singed away, and a large red burn covered his cheek. His face looked entirely different. Those yellowish, hollow cheeks, the color of cameos, were suffused with some dark flush of fever and rage. He struggled in vain for words at the sight of Gabriel.
The people had ceased to struggle against the blaze. What energy they still had was barely enough to impel their crazy eddyings round the square, and these, little by little, ceased. Nor could the decads, sent by Nurhan, save anything more for them. They stood idle, watching the flames, which seemed not only to leap from outside upon the huts, but to burst from within them. The crackling roofs of leaves and branches were lifted, while puffs of wind drove fiery scraps across the sky. Soon the whole camp was squatting close on the bare earth of the big square, women, children, old men. These famished people could move no more. Firelight flickered across their earthy faces; the eyes showed no sign that they were aware of it. Their attitudes expressed only one desire: that no leader should ask them to stir another inch, raise another hand, or show the least sign of fresh activity. Here they would squat, awaiting the end without further resistance. That state which might be described as the "peace of annihilation" had come upon them.
But these shrivelled souls, these wasted bodies, were to be roused again from this comfortable understanding with death. Behind closed eyelids Gabriel had collected his thoughts. It happened almost against his will. At first he even struggled to escape the very painful effort it needed to concentrate. Then, it was as though, in that echoing mine which was now his head, not he, Bagradian, was thinking, but, apart, independently of himself, the task he had assumed, long ago in the valley, the task of carrying on this defense to its last possibility. An unbribable, implacable power went on calculating. Had the last possible hope been lost? No. The Turks had apparently occupied the South Bastion. They had brought up machine guns. The camp was on fire. What was to happen? A new line of defense, which should block their way as well as might be. Above all, the people must be cleared off the heights, they must be moved down on to the shore. Then to the howitzers!
Avakian approached. Gabriel called to him: "What are you still doing here? Quick, go to Nurhan! He's not to move from where he is! All the decads I chose for the attack to come here at once. And half the scouts group and the orderlies. We've got to form another line, with at least head cover."
Avakian hesitated, tried to ask questions. Gabriel pushed him away and went into the midst of the somnolent multitude. "Why are you in despair, brothers and sisters? No need for that! We've still got seven hundred fighters and rifles, and our two big guns. You needn't worry! It'd be better for the defense if the communes would set up their camp down on the shore for tonight. The men of the reserve to stop with me."
By this time even the mukhtars had come to themselves. Ter Haigasun ordered them each to collect his village and lead it down the path to the shore. He himself would go on, and find the best camping-grounds. The priest, there could be no doubt, was in high fever, and had to make a tremendous effort to turn back to life and to his duty. His face with the singed beard looked shrunken and dark.
He turned to Gabriel. "To punish is the most important of all! You must shoot down the culprits, Bagradian!"
Gabriel stared at him in silence. " I won't find Kilikian," he thought. By degrees the comatose people had struggled up again. A drunken, lurching confusion had begun. The mukhtars, the village priests, two of the teachers, herded and shoved them into groups. No one resisted. Even the children no longer howled. Bedros Hekim stole away unobtrusively, to bring at least those patients in the two hospitals into safety who could still move. Disaster gave this falling wreck of an old man the strength of a giant.
Gabriel left it to Ter Haigasun to break up the camp. Not another second must be lost, since who could tell how far the Turks, even in the dark, might not dare to advance? The howitzers were in danger. And another danger was the pack of scoundrelly deserters. Forward! Now it was not a question of thinking things out from A to Z, but of simple, blindly resolute action. Gabriel mustered together all the armed and half-armed men around him, the young and the old. Even little boys had to come along. The wind had fallen, it was quiet. The sharp pungence of smoke enveloped them. With it mingled the stink of singeing cloth. They could scarcely breathe, and their eyes were streaming. Gabriel gave the signal to move off. He and Shatakhian, who meanwhile had been routed out, went on ahead of the widely extended lines. Exhausted men plodded after them, a hundred and fifty, a third of whom were sixty years old. And this wretched, famished troop were to turn back victoriously four infantry companies at war strength, commanded by a major, four captains, eight first lieutenants? It was a good thing that Gabriel did not realize the enemy's strength.
On their way to the howitzers they passed the big new graveyard. The graveyard folk had followed their custom in the valley and taken up their quarters beside the dead. And now Nunik, Wartuk, Manushak, and all the others bestirred themselves to cram their tight sacks with moldy gear. Sato assisted them. This fresh migration seemed to make little difference to these folk. The two newest graves were Stephan's and Krikor's. Krikor had asked that his grave should not be picked out by any inscription. A rough wooden cross had been planted on Stephan's mound. His father went stiffly past, without a glance at it. Now it was night. But the red glow of the blaze over-arched the Damlayik. It might have been a huge city on fire, and not a few hundred huts of twisted branches, a few clumps of trees.
Midway, however, as the grassy knoll of the howitzer emplacement came into sight, something unexpected happened. Gabriel and Shatakhian stopped. The plodding men behind them flung themselves down. Down the slope ran a line of riflemen. Only their black silhouettes were visible as they waved rifles frantically at the oncomers. Turks? The men sought what cover they could in the dark. But the black shapes, outlined by a flickering red sky, were advancing timidly. About thirty of them. Gabriel noticed that they were pushing a bound man on in front of them. He went forward to meet them. They carried lanterns. Five paces off, he saw that Sarkis Kilikian was their prisoner. They were deserters. They flung themselves down flat on their faces and touched the ground with their foreheads, the most primitive of all gestures of self-abasement. What was there still to say or justify? Their way out was barred. These ropes with which they had bound Kilikian were their proof that they regretted their heinous deed, had brought a scapegoat, were ready to suffer any punishment. Some, with an almost childish eagerness, heaped up their plunder at Gabriel's feet -- cartridges stolen from the armory stores plundered from the tents. But Gabriel saw only Kilikian. They had forced him down to his knees, his head flung backwards. In this flickering twilight the features of his face were quite visible. Those indifferent eyes as little expressed the wish to live as the wish to die. Impassively they watched their judge. Bagradian bent a little nearer this gruesomely impassive face. Not even now could he rid his mind of the tinge of liking and respect which he felt whenever he saw the Russian. Was Kilikian, that spectral observer, the real culprit? What if he was! Gabriel clicked back the catch of the service revolver in his pocket. He set it to the Russian's forehead swiftly. The first shot missed fire. Nor had Kilikian shut his eyes. His mouth and nostrils were twitching. It was like a suppressed smile. But it felt to Gabriel as though he had turned the unspent bullet against himself. When he pressed the trigger again, he was so weak that he had to turn his head away. So died Sarkis Kilikian -- after an incomprehensible life in many jails, having escaped Turkish massacre as a child, and, as a man, a Turkish firing party, to end at last by the bullet of a fellow countryman.
Gabriel signaled quickly to the others to fall in with the men behind.
Two of these repentant scarecrows had zealously spied out the Turk
ish positions. What they had to report was an exaggeration of hard reality. Perhaps their own miserable fear of punishment may have caused them to distort the already formidable; perhaps they tried to diminish their own guilt by describing a gigantic enemy power. Since how, even without this monstrous crime of theirs, could the few South Bastion defenders ever have resisted the sly envelopment by the Turks? Gabriel looked past them in silence. He was aware that he himself was largely responsible for their crime. He had not taken Nurhan's warning to redistribute these rascals in other decads.
Samuel Avakian and the men of the surprise-attackers had joined Gabriel some time previously. It was an hour before these few straggling skirmishers, in two lines, disposed themselves diagonally across the mound and in the many hollows of the plateau to the zone of bushes, and in among the rocks. Even the best fighters of the north trenches had come to the end of their strength. What could one ask of elderly reservists? Each man lay like a log where he had been told to lie, half awake, half asleep. The order to pile up stones and earth as head-cover was scarcely obeyed. When Gabriel had passed from man to man, down the whole length of this utterly hopeless front, and posted a few stray pickets in advance of it, he went off to the howitzers. He had every square inch of the Damlayik in his head, every distance, the lie of all its ground. For the area of the South Bastion he could check his ballistic elements by his notebook.
This was the first autumn night, after a day of grilling desert heat. It was suddenly cool. Gabriel sat alone beside the howitzers, having sent their men to get some sleep. Avakian spread out a rug for him. But he did not wrap himself into it, since his body was hot all over, and his head, grown far too light, was threatening to fly away from it. Gabriel stretched himself out, neither sleeping nor waking. He stared up at the red flat lake in the sky. That red mirror of conflagration seemed to deepen and broaden out as he lay and watched it. How long has the altar been on fire? The melodious question kept repeating itself. Then, for some long time, he must have known nothing more about himself, since something in his neighborhood waked him up. It was not a hand nor a voice, only something near him. But this very sensation of being waked, this long, fabulous instant of deepest experience, was so materially soothing in its effect that he struggled against any fuller consciousness. His exhausted unity with this presence was so complete, in this one short instant, that Iskuhi's reality almost deceived. Since she, after all, brought back the inevitable. The sight of her made him think, with a start, of Juliette. It was an age since he had seen his wife or thought of her. His first scared inquiry was therefore this: "And Juliette? What's happened to Juliette?"
It had taken all Iskuhi's failing strength to drag so far. For her, all these recent happenings had fused into something indistinct. She was aware only of the one persistent, burning question: "Why doesn't he come? Why has he left me? Why hasn't he sent for me at the last?" And now those questions were coldly throttled by the inquiry about Juliette. She said nothing, and it took her a long time to collect her thoughts for a hesitant account of all that had taken place on Three-Tent Square: the raid, Shushik's death, Tomasian's wound. Bedros had tried in vain to persuade Juliette to let Kevork carry her down to the seashore. Juliette would have no such thing and had screamed that she wasn't going to leave her tent. The wounded Aram also lay on, in his.
Gabriel stared up at the flat red sky. It had become no paler. "It's all right as it is. . . . Nothing will happen before morning. . . . Time enough. . . . A night in the open might kill Juliette. . . ."
Something in these words hurt Gabriel. He switched on his electric torch. But now the last used-up battery gave out scarcely as much light as a glowworm. In spite of the tragic red above him, and flames still shooting up in the Town Enclosure, this night felt darker than all former ones. He could scarcely see Iskuhi beside him. Softly he felt about for her face, and started, so cold and thin were her cheeks and hands. Kindness moved him.
He took the rug and wrapped her into it. "How long is it since you ate anything, Iskuhi?"
"Mairik Antaram had brought us something before it happened," she lied. "I've had enough. . . ."
Gabriel pressed her close, seeking again the half-sleep of her presence. "It felt so good, just now, to wake up beside you. . . . What a long time since I had you with me, Iskuhi, little sister. . . . I'm very happy now that you're here. . . . Happy now, Iskuhi."
Her face sank slowly against his; she seemed too weak to carry her head on her shoulders. "You never came. . . . So I've come. . . . It's got as far as that, hasn't it?"
His was the drowsy voice of a sleeper: "Yes, I think it's got as far as that. . . ."
In Iskuhi's words there was an exhausted, yet defiant insistence on her rights: "Well, you know what we promised . . . what you promised me . . . Gabriel . . . ?"
He returned from distances. "There may still be a long day in front of us."
She echoed his words in a deep breath, making a gift of them: "Still a long day . . ." She clasped his arm with ever-increasing warmth.
"There's something I want you to do for me, Iskuhi. We've often talked about it. . . . Juliette's far poorer and more unhappy than we are. . . ."
Her cheek bent away from his face. But Gabriel took her lame hand, he kept stroking and kissing it. "If you love me, Iskuhi! . . . Juliette's so inhumanly lonely . . . inhumanly lonely . . ."
"Juliette hates me. She can't bear the sight of me. I never want to see her again."
His hand could feel the tension shaking her body. "If you love me, Iskuhi, I ask you, please, to stay with Juliette. . . . You must leave the tents at sunrise. . . . I shall feel easier. . . . She's nearly mad, and you're well. . . . We shall see each other again . . . Iskuhi. . . ."
Her head sank forwards. She was crying without any sound.
He whispered: "I love you, Iskuhi. We'll be together."
After a long while she tried to get up. "I'm going now."
He held her fast. "Not yet, Iskuhi. Stop with me a little while now. I need you. . . ."
Long silence. His tongue felt too heavy to move. The sharp, thudding headache increased. Gabriel's light, winged skull changed into a gigantic lead bullet. He sank back into himself as though another rifle-butt had felled him. Sarkis Kilikian's eyes stared at him with apathetic gravity. He shuddered. Where was the Russian lying? Had he given an order to move the body? The events of these last hours seemed completely alien; they had nothing to do with him: they were like some mad rumor. He relapsed into vague and heavy broodings, in which he himself was the center point of a headache which surged about him in waves. Then, when Gabriel started up in terror, Iskuhi was already on her feet.
He felt in horror for his watch. "What time is it? . . . Jesus Christ! . . . No, time . . . time! Why have you given me the rug? . . . Why, you're shaking with cold. . . . You're right; better go now, Iskuhi. . . . Go to Juliette. You've still got five, six hours in front of you. . . . I'll send Avakian when it's time. . . . Good night, Iskuhi. . . . Please take the rug. . . . I don't need it. . . ."
He held her in his arms again. But it felt as though she were struggling to get loose, and had grown more disembodied and shadowy. So he promised again: "This isn't good-bye. We'll be together . . ."
Some time after Iskuhi had left him, as he was about to stretch himself out again, the sudden memory of her made his heart sick. She had scarcely been able to move for weakness. Her legs and arms had been stiff with cold. Her fragile body had scarcely seemed to be there at all. Was not she herself ill and declining? And yet he had sent her away to look after Juliette. Gabriel blamed himself. He had not even gone a stretch of the dark and difficult way with Iskuhi. He hurried half up the slope and called: "Iskuhi! Where are you? Wait for me!"
No answer. She was too far away to hear him.
Towards two that morning the fire had sunk down in the enclosure. At about that time Gabriel waked Avakian. The student had thrown himself down beside the howitzers and was so heavily asleep that Gabriel had to spend some time s
haking him. The character of a man may be tested by the way in which he behaves when you wake him suddenly. Avakian, after a few movements of protest, raised his head in drowsy confusion. But as soon as he felt that this was Gabriel, he sprang to his feet and smiled a startled smile into the dark.
Gabriel handed him a flask, in which there were still some dregs of cognac. "Here, drink, Avakian. . . . Buck up! I need you now. We shan't have any more time to talk."
