by Franz Werfel
Towards morning the little gong outside the curtain was loudly struck. Juliette never stirred. Nor did Avakian's begging, imploring voice, which she recognized, move her to reply. Then came the cracks of the howitzer fire, and the terrifying shell from the Guichen. But for Juiiette it was still dark night, and she crept even closer under her coverlets, so that nothing should worry her in the grave. Her fears for the darkness of her sepulchre were stronger than any instinctive panic. Her sick memory forgot each shell as it was fired. She crouched closer and closer into herself not to hear these voices. But they kept assailing her. And now even her tent walls heaved, being wildly shaken from without. Were the Turks there?
Kristaphor's voice chimed in with Avakian's: "Madame, please! Open! Open at once, please! Madame!"
The tent heaved more and more violently; Juliette raised her head once. And now she also recognized Mairik Antaram.
"Answer, my darling, please, for Christ's sake! A wonderful piece of good luck!"
Juliette turned over on her side. She knew what these Armenians called "good luck." Let Gabriel come, too, it makes no difference, I shall stay where I am, I won't be drawn out. Who, after all, is this Gabriel Bagradian? Is my name also Bagradian by any chance? Juliette Bagradian? At last somebody outside slit up the laces, impetuously broke open this insecure vault. But she turned her back on the intruders, to show that, whenever she chose, she could be alone, in her own world. Avakian, Antaram, Kristaphor, were yelling, in strange, little high-pitched voices, something about a French warship called the Guichen. Juliette pretended to be unconscious, but pricked up her ears, and decided, with the incredulous mistrust of all neurotics: a trap! Had not Dr. Altouni only last night tried to force her to leave her beloved tent, her own, her very own -- to go off and live with all the others, those filthy animals, who made her feel sick and hated her. No doubt this clumsy trick was concocted by Gabriel and Iskuhi, this story of a French ship was to lure her out, put her at their mercy, with nowhere to hide. But Juliette was not to be got so easily. Her enemies should not manage to dislodge her from this motherly and beneficent encasement in which she need not know any reality. Juliette let Avakian, Antaram, and Kristaphor beg and whine, and lapsed into unconsciousness.
When at last all attempts proved useless, the old woman shrugged. "Let her be! There's plenty of time."
But Avakian and Kristaphor dragged the mishandled trunks outside the tent and loyally began to pack and tidy all that had not been stolen or torn to shreds. Gabriel sent to fetch them before they had finished.
Then, still early that morning, the curtain was again drawn back, and there stood two men, with Mairik Antaram. But these were two young men, in blue uniforms, with sparkling buttons and Red Cross bands round their left arms. Juliette, stiff on her back, saw two chubby, rosy, male faces, with clear, merry eyes. A delicious, startled commotion at the sight of the inexpressibly akin went shuddering through her. The shorter of the two young men saluted her stiffly; his brotherly voice spoke the sounds of a vanished world: "Sorry to disturb you, Madame. We're the hospital orderlies of the Guichen. We have orders from the head-surgeon to carry Madame down with all the rest. We'll be back later. Would Madame be so good as to be ready?"
And the little fellow drew himself up, his hand went up in salute to his sailor's cap, while the other, with clumping, embarrassed steps, came on into the tent to set down a thermos flask beside the looking glass, a dish of butter, and two rolls of fine white bread. "Head-surgeon's orders, tea, bread, butter, for Madame, just to go on with . . ."
He announced it like the progress of a battle, clicking his heels and turning his snub-nosed, chubby profile towards the bed, without appearing to see the woman on it. A deliciously clumsy boy! But Juliette emitted a whispering sigh, whereupon the two hospital orderlies, feeling that perhaps they disturbed the patient, clumped out of the tent on noisy tiptoe. They followed Mairik Antaram to the hospital hut, which the flames had spared. There the whole hospital staffs of the battleships had collected, with stretchers, to carry sick and wounded down to the coast.
Juliette stretched out two nostalgic arms towards her vanishing compatriots, and then flung off the sheet. She sat up on the edge of the bed. Her chrysalis sheath had split at last. Covering her face with both hands, she ran fingers through her wildly tousled hair. In horror, she whispered: "Frenchmen! Frenchmen! What do I look like! Frenchmen!"
And then it was as though, in this dried-up body, there shot to life a pillar of the old, flaming energy. She sat down before the glass. Her still, shaky fingers confused every objet de toilette that the dressing table still displayed. She daubed on rouge, without having rubbed off the face cream, and so looked more sickly and withered than ever. She worked away at her head with a brush and comb, whispering: "What do I look like!" again and again. She was too weak to manage to put her hair up. Then she put her head down on her arms and began to sob quite uncontrollably. But self-pity as usual proved so soothing that its soft caress made her forget she had any hair, and she left it hanging. A new, sharp panic. "Frenchmen! Frenchmen! What have I got to put on!" She began to look about for her things, the wardrobe trunk, all the other luggage -- nothing! The tent was empty! Juliette rushed like a mad thing round and round those few square yards. It was the old nightmare. She was being forced to attend a soirée, the most brilliant soirée, in her nightgown, with bare feet. After long, vain searchings, she ventured to put her nose outside the tent. The clear, gold September sunlight nearly drove her into it again. But the next minute she was on her knees by the wardrobe trunk. . . . Who'd played this dirty, common trick on her? Iskuhi? Everything was in ribbons, crumbled, turned inside out. Not one frock, of all those faded, last year's rags. Juliette had nothing to wear! And yet she must look her best, since these were Frenchmen!
Mairik Antaram found Juliette sitting on the ground, amid heaps of such slips, stockings, frocks and shoes as the deserters had left her. She was too exhausted to move, but she clamored obstinately: "The French are here! The French are here! What have I got to put on . . . ?"
Mairik Antaram stared at the invalid, unable to believe her ears. Was it conceivable that this woman, who scarcely had managed to say a word ever since she had ceased to be delirious, the woman who had put forth all her strength to defend herself against the horror of knowledge -- that now her mind could so run on clothes? But slowly Antaram understood. It was not vanity. Why, her brothers were coming! She was shy, she wanted to be worthy of them! Madame Altouni knelt beside Juliette and, in her turn, rummaged among gay heaps. But whatever she picked out made Juliette angry. After a long time, during which the invalid, in this curious fashion, defied her fate, and Mairik Antaram displayed celestial patience, a frock found acceptance at last. To be sure it was a stiff and formal frock, lace-trimmed at the opening round the throat. While the old woman, who really had little skill in such subtle arts, was with the greatest difficulty helping the almost inanimate Juliette to get into it, the patient moaned: "It's all wrong!"
But would any frock have been the right one in which to welcome rescuing brothers, since for broken lives there can be no rescuer?
Gabriel hurried on ahead to prepare her for the rear-admiral's visit. She was sitting on the edge of her bed when he reached her. Mairik was holding a cup of tea and petting the refractory Juliette as though she were a spoilt child. "If you want to look your best for the Frenchmen, you must keep up your strength, dear, or all your clothes will be no use. . . ."
Juliette stood up with formality as though a stranger had come in, whom she must follow. Mairik Antaram left the tent with a glance from one to the other of them. She took one of the rolls, since she herself was nearly dead with hunger. Gabriel saw his old life; it confronted him in a livid flash of perception, and he knew that the way back to it could not be bridged. This old life was wearing a stiff, taffeta frock, every movement of which rustled with memories. But the cheeks and limbs of the old life were shrunken and colorless; its form could scarcely keep upright and aro
used compassion in him. How close to him she had still been as an invalid! Only now, as he saw her in formal silks, could he measure the gulf of the forty days. He had to talk to her very guardedly: "Thank God, my dear, you're almost as you used to be. . . ."
He asked if she felt she had the strength to come a few steps to meet the admiral of the French squadron. He was sure she would not want to receive him here, in this dark sick-tent. Juliette looked round the place which so recently she had chosen to be her sepulchre. Then she put out her hands in a queer little gesture of longing for her lace-edged pillow. Gabriel took her by the arm.
"You'll have all your things there with you tonight, Juliette. They shan't forget anything."
But Juliette, in spite of this appeasement, turned again at the door of her tent, like Eurydice, towards the dark.
The admiral came with only his adjutant and a young officer. He had been warned not to come too close to this convalescent. The infectious fever on Musa Dagh was apparently a very dangerous species. But the admiral was a valiant seaman, on whom warnings usually had the contrary effect. In his stiff little steps, which over-emphasized those of youth, he came to her and kissed her hand. "You too, Madame, as a Frenchwoman, a stranger, have played a considerable part in the sufferings and heroic deeds on this mountain. Permit me to wish you a speedy recovery."
"And France, Monsieur?"
"France is in the midst of terrible trials, Madame, and must hope that God will show her His mercy."
The sight of Juliette really seemed to perturb the old gentleman. He took her shrivelled hand between both his. "Do you know, mon enfant, that this must be the first time I've set eyes on you, since you grew up. . . . You must have been quite a little girl the last time, when I spent a whole day with your parents not long after they married. I was never a very intimate friend of your father's, but I think that, when we were young men, we frequented more or less the same world. . . ."
Juliette let out a little sob, but it brought no tears; only strange, disconnected chatter: "But naturally . . . the house was sold after Papa's death . . . and Maman . . . Maman lives now . . . Ah! I forget the street! . . . You know nothing of her, Monsieur? But probably you'll know my brother-in-law. . . . I mean the one in the Ministry of Marine . . . a high official . . . What is his name? . . . My head! Coulomb, of course, Jacques Coulomb. . . . You know him? I so seldom see my sister. . . . But when I get back to Paris, I shall see all my friends again, n'est-ce pas? . . . You will take me to Paris?"
Juliette tottered. The admiral lent her his support. Gabriel ran into the tent for a chair. The invalid sat. But weak as she was, she could still chatter. Presumably she felt herself obliged to make conversation. Her gabble became stiffer every minute, more like a parrot. She mentioned more and more people, mutual acquaintance, so she supposed. Her talk jumped disconnectedly from one to another of them.
The old seaman grew more and more uncomfortable. At last he called to one of his young men: "Mon ami, you'll see to everything and accompany Madame on board. The Jeanne d'Arc is a warship, so you mustn't expect to be too comfortable. We'll do everything we possibly can to render your voyage agreeable, my dear child."
Even when the admiral, accompanied some of the way by Gabriel, had departed, Juliette's parrot-voice still chattered on. The young officer, left by his chief to escort and protect, sat nervously eyeing those poor pale lips, out of which spluttered endless questions which he could not answer. And the shadows under Juliette's eyes grew deeper. The officer was very relieved when Bagradian came, and then in a few more minutes the marines, who carried a stretcher.
At first Juliette struggled against it. "I won't lie down on that. What a horror! I'd far rather walk."
"You can't, Juliette. Be reasonable now, and lie down. Believe me, I shouldn't mind being carried down in one myself."
The two pink and white faces smiled encouragement. "Don't be afraid, Madame, we'll carry you as though you were glass. You won't feel a thing!"
Juliette surrendered and, on the stretcher, lay perfectly still, as she had before. Gabriel brought out a rug, put her beloved cushion under her head, and gave her handbag to the officer. He stroked her hair. "Don't worry. . . . Nothing that matters will be left -- "
He broke off suddenly. The officer glanced at him inquiringly. Gabriel nodded. The stretcher-bearers lifted her up, took the first steps. An excited Sato waited a little way off, to act as guide.
"I'll soon have caught up with you," shouted Gabriel.
Juliette shifted round so vehemently, that the stretcher-bearers stopped and put her down. A mad, twitching face turned back to Gabriel, and a voice screamed -- a voice he had never heard her use: "I say! Stephan . . . Look after Stephan!"
In deliverance even, the cup of sorrow was not full. A loud voice kept calling from the Tomasian tent: "Gabriel Bagradian! Come along, man!"
Gabriel had supposed Iskuhi to be with her sick brother. She was nowhere about. He went into Aram's tent. Bygones had now become absurdly indifferent. He found the pastor excited and feverish.
"Where's Iskuhi, Gabriel Bagradian, for Christ's sake! Where have you left Iskuhi?"
"Iskuhi? She was with me for a time after midnight up on the howitzer emplacement. Then I asked her to go to my wife."
"That's just it!" shouted the pastor. "This morning I was still perfectly certain that Iskuhi was with you in the line. She hasn't come back -- she's disappeared . . . I've sent out to look for her. . . . They've been looking hours for her. . . . The French stretcher-bearers have been waiting a long time to carry me down. But I won't leave the mountain without Iskuhi. . . . If anything's happened to her . . . I won't leave the mountain at all."
He caught hold of Gabriel's arm and pulled himself up, in spite of his wound. "It's my fault, Bagradian -- I can't explain to you now -- but I'm the guilty one. It's only just that God should be punishing me personally in my child and sister, after He's saved us all. And my wife was also the instrument of His justice."
"Where is your wife?" asked Gabriel steadily.
"She's gone running down to the beach. With the child. They told her there was some milk down there. I couldn't keep her."
His excitement got the better of the wounded Tomasian. He tried to get up, but fell back at once. "Damnation! You see I can do nothing! I can't move. Do something, Gabriel Bagradian! It's partly your sin with Iskuhi. . . . Even you . . ."
"Wait, Pastor . . . I'll go."
Gabriel said this in a weary voice. He moved off across Three-Tent Square and then some way further. He did not get far, but sat down somewhere to stare up at the sky. One thought trailed through his weary mind: So this is what it means to be saved! He tried to recall his talk with Iskuhi in the night. But his mind had kept no details, only a spectral breath of resignation. She had come to remind him of his promise to be with her at the very end. But he had turned her away, sent her to Juliette. Iskuhi must be somewhere safe. Had not that been his thought? But she had wanted something he could not give, a resolute, happy belief in their destruction. He had had to rob her of that courageous belief. Where was Iskuhi now? Gabriel could not have said what made him so certain that Iskuhi was no longer alive.
Gabriel was wrong. Iskuhi lived. Even as he set to his lips the whistle which should summon further help, Kevork the dancer had discovered her. Only just in time! The sole explanation was that Iskuhi must have lost her way in the dark on the stamped-out path, and so fallen into a little ravine, or rather a hollow, not very deep, overgrown with shrubs. Certainly this hollow was some way off any beaten track, on the very uneven ground which leads up to Dish Terrace. But what it was she had sought in that spectral region, between midnight and morning, no one could say. No harm had come to her, more than a few scratches on arms and legs; no wound, no broken bones, not even a shock, not even a sprain. Yet this fall in the dark had turned that state of deadly weakness, against which she had struggled for days, yet cherished, to final collapse. When Kevork carried her in, in arms which had certainly k
nown very different burdens, she was fully conscious, had huge, almost merry eyes, but could not speak. Luckily among the hospital orderlies who had still the last patients to carry down, there was a young second surgeon of the Guichen. He gave Iskuhi a strong heart-stimulant, but insisted that it was urgently necessary to get her on board as soon as possible to avoid the worst. So without delay or many words both Iskuhi and Pastor Tomasian were strapped on the stretchers. Gabriel had scarcely time to give Kristaphor orders that, as soon as the luggage had been moved out, the three tents and everything in them were to be set on fire without delay.
