Forty Days of Musa Dagh

by Franz Werfel

  Gabriel kept close beside Iskuhi, as often as it was possible to do so. But the path was almost too narrow for one man, and in places where the bare rock-wall opened out on their right, the bearers had all they could do to get past, with their loads. Just ahead of them swayed the wounded pastor. Iskuhi came next, with the young doctor. But she was not the last of the procession, since three men crippled with wounds from the fight of August 23, and a woman in labor, brought up the rear. Behind these again a swarm of stragglers, men from the decads who had been to what was left of their family huts to rake about in the ashes for anything the fire might have spared. The bearers halted two or three times on the wider ledges for a rest. Then Gabriel bent down over Iskuhi. But he himself could scarcely speak. And two paces further lay Pastor Aram. The doctor kept returning every minute to make Iskuhi take a sip of milk, or feel her pulse.

  Gabriel whispered disconnectedly: "Where were you trying to get to, Iskuhi? . . . What were you after . . . out there? . . ."

  Her eyes answered: "Why are you asking me something I don't know? . . . It was as though I hovered up off the ground. . . . We've scarcely any time left, less than we had in the night."

  He knelt beside her and put his hand under her head, as though this would make her speak. Yet his own words were scarcely audible: "Any pain, Iskuhi?"

  Her eyes understood him at once and answered: "No, I don't feel my body. But what really hurts me is that this should have happened as it has. Wouldn't it have been better without this ship? This is a kind of end, but not ours, Gabriel. . . ."

  Gabriel's eyes could neither speak nor perceive as Iskuhi's could. And so, therefore, he said something entirely false: "This is just a collapse, Iskuhi. . . . It's because you've had nothing to eat." And, turning to the surgeon, he spoke French: "Isn't it, Doctor? In three days, when we've got to Port Said, you'll be feeling ever so much better. You're still so young, so young, Iskuhi."

  Her eyes darkened and answered sternly: "At a moment like this you ought not to be saying such banal things to me, Gabriel. I don't in the least mind whether I die or go on living. You're wrong if you think I want to die. Perhaps I shall live. But can't you see it'll all be different, once the ships have taken us on board; even for us it will. We can only really be together for as long as we've still the earth of Musa Dagh under our feet; you as my love, I as your sister."

  Not all, but much of this, Gabriel seemed to have understood. His next whisper came out hesitant, like the mirrored echo of what her eyes said: "Yes, where will we be . . . you and I . . . sister?"

  Her lips opened at last, to form two syllables, their passion contradicted all she had said: "With you . . ."

  The stretchers were lifted again for the easy remainder of the way. Already many voices had arisen. Down on the beach, on the narrow ledges, there was a dangerous crowding and jostling, made still worse by the many sailors who, on various pretexts, had got shore-leave. Embarcation was already in full swing, a hundred times entangled confusion, and wild yelling. Gabriel was besieged on all sides with demands, requests, questions, petitions. The people, for no reason, had made of him the secret worker of this miracle by which they were saved. And now, as the kinsman of mighty France, the man sent by God, it would still be his business to go on helping his fellow-countrymen in their exile far from Musa Dagh. His former enemies on the Council, Thomas Kebussyan, and his lady, with the quick mouse-eyes, most urgent of all, could not now show him enough obsequious cringing. He had to fight his way on through a flood of excited demands for protection. So that when, at last, he came to the landing stage, the boat with Aram and Iskuhi had put off, ahead of all the others, by order of the officer in charge of sick-transport. Juliette, too, had long been taken on board the Jeanne d'Arc in the admiral's motorboat. The sunlight glared off the sea in unbearably dazzling splintered rays. Many boats were on their way to the ships, others were moving along the coast. Iskuhi lay hidden in hers. Gabriel could make out only the rigid shape of Hovsannah, clutching to her breast her miserable bundle, the quiet first-born of Musa Dagh.

  The embarcation proceeded slowly. There were many difficulties to surmount. Though a good half of the villagers might easily have been taken abroad the troopship, the doctors unanimously opposed this easy solution of the room problem. It would be far too risky to herd together hundreds of people in close proximity to their sick. It must, on the contrary, be so managed, that only these sick, the enfeebled, the doubtful cases, the waifs and strays, were shipped on the transport steamer. They must be kept well apart from the crews and from healthy Armenians. The wretched troopship, therefore, in contrast to the warships -- even more to the splendid Jeanne d'Arc -- was a Gehenna, an abode of woe, of destitute flotsam and jetsam. A special medical commission, composed of doctors and naval officers, examined every single Armenian for lice and disease before he was classified. Its methods were very severe. Anyone in the least doubtful was banished at once to the transport. Ter Haigasun was the only one of the former leaders on Musa Dagh with a seat on this classification board. Bedros Altouni's strength had ebbed precariously in the course of the day. The head-surgeon had long since shipped him on the Guichen. The mukhtars, too, seemed to regard their term of office as at an end. They had retired into private life, as the fathers of families. Nor did the teachers, or any of the subordinate village priests, consider this a concern of theirs. They had ceased to worry.

  So that only Ter Haigasun remained to defend the interests of the people, that is to say to persuade the officers and doctors not to separate families unnecessarily, and to see to it that even the troopship got the right passengers.

  Gabriel approached the medical board, which functioned not far from the landing jetty. He put his two hands on Ter Haigasun's shoulders. Ter Haigasun turned. His face was as quietly waxen again as ever. Only his singed beard and the burn on his cheek told of the last events on the Damlayik. His shyly resolute eyes remained fixed on Gabriel. It had seldom happened in all these days: "Good that you've come, Gabriel Bagradian; I've something to ask you."

  Ter Haigasun was speaking very quietly, though certainly the French would never have understood his Armenian. "The two worst scoundrels have disappeared, I mean Oskanian and Kilikian, and some others as well. . . ."

  "Kilikian's dead," said Gabriel, and the thought did not worry him in the least.

  A brief glint in Ter Haigasun's eyes seemed to indicate that he understood. He pointed across to the flat rock, where a knot of Armenian men stood herded together. "Well, this is my question. Have those scoundrels over there any right to be saved? Oughtn't I to drive them back?"

  Gabriel took a second or so to answer. "Had we any right to be saved? And who's doing the saving? Anyway, we, the saved, haven't the right to exclude anyone from safety."

  Ter Haigasun's eyes were twinkling. "Good. I only wanted to make certain. . . ."

  The priest was now no longer the sorry sight he had been that morning. A ship's chaplain had supplied a coat. His old trick of hiding his hands in his sleeves forced them, with an unaccustomed movement, into his pockets. "I'm glad, Gabriel Bagradian, to find that we still agree about everything as we always did."

  And now his smile had almost a look of embarrassed tenderness. Gabriel stood a long time to watch the commission. Since his thoughts were far from it, he saw only empty coming and going.

  At last Ter Haigasun turned, in some surprise. "Still here, Gabriel Bagradian? The motor launch for the Jeanne d'Arc has put out again. . . . Look! You shouldn't stop here helping me. Your duty's finished. Mine isn't, yet. So go with God's blessing and rest. I shall be on the Guichen."

  Something in Gabriel impeded any final leave-taking. "Perhaps I'll be back here later to look for you, Ter Haigasun."

  He pushed his way back through the waiting crowds and went aimlessly a few paces up towards the mountain path. Avakian came down it to meet him. After him Kristaphor, Missak, Kevork, dragging the Bagradian trunks. The faithful Avakian had saved everything which human strength and ing
enuity could manage to drag down this steep path. Only the bedding and the furniture had been left to burn in the tents.

  Gabriel laughed. "Hullo, Avakian! Why all these exertions? This looks like a pleasure trip up the Nile."

  Reproachfully, through nickel-rimmed glasses, the student gazed at his employer with the eyes of a poor man who knows the value of things better than the unsuspecting rich.

  But Gabriel put his arm into the tutor's, and held him fast. "Avakian, there's something more I want you to do for me. I've been thinking all this time how we can manage it. I'm endlessly in need of rest. I must have it. And it's just what I shan't get in the next few days. The admiral has asked me to sit at his table. So that for hours on end I shall have to talk to indifferent strangers, tell them stories, brag, or pretend to be modest, all equally tiring. Anyway, another prison! And I won't do it! You understand, Avakian? I refuse! At least for these three days I'll be alone -- entirely alone. And so I've decided not to go on the Jeanne d'Arc, but on the troopship. There there'll be only a few officers. They'll be bound to give me a berth to myself, and I shall rest."

  Samuel Avakian seemed horrified. "But, Effendi, the troopship is certain to be kept in quarantine."

  "Well, I'm not afraid of quarantine."

  "But wouldn't it be another prison, which might last even longer than forty days?"

  "If I really want it, they'll let me out."

  Avakian sought hesitant objections. "Won't you be hurting the admiral, who, after all, is our good angel?"

  "That's just it. And this is where I want you to help me, Avakian. You must go to him at once in my name, and apologize with some really convincing reason. Tell him the troopship has some of our most undependable people on board, people without prospects. And say there's been no time to get the thing properly organized. Tell him there must be somebody there who can guarantee to keep people like that in order. Say I've undertaken it. . . ."

  Avakian did not seem in the least convinced. But now Gabriel insisted: "It's really quite a good reason. You needn't worry. An old sailor like that will perfectly well understand a scruple of that kind. He just won't give it another thought, believe me. Well -- do it, Avakian, please!"

  The student still hesitated. "So we aren't going to meet for the next few days?"

  These words sounded anxious. But Gabriel glanced across at the embarcation jetty. "Time to go, Avakian! The motor launch of the Jeanne d'Arc mustn't have to make any more journeys. Stick to those papers of mine for the present."

  The motor launch was signalling impatiently. Avakian scarcely had time to shake Gabriel's hand. Gabriel watched him go, lost in thought. Then he asked one of the officers what time the last boat would leave for the troopship. Most patients were on board, he was told, the rest, those told off to travel on her, would be shipped last of all. That may go on for hours, thought Gabriel, watching the dense crowd which still pushed and shoved round the isolation commission on the landing place. He felt rather pleased and rejoiced to know himself free of the admiral and life on board the Jeanne d'Arc. He lounged away towards the mountain path. Since he had so long to wait, it would be a relief to get far from these sounds of cackling women, the glare of this September sun, into the shadows and quiet. Gabriel had to pass the place where the lousy herded, waiting, sent there to be out of the way of the more favored. Many of them, especially the churchyard folk, had gone there at once to avoid the trouble of submitting themselves to inspection for lice. Bagradian watched his future fellow passengers. Sato grinned, ran a bit of the way with him, and stuck out a begging paw. She had never done it in Yoghonoluk. A few contrite deserters sprang up eagerly. Nunik and the other keening-women sat on sacks whose moldy treasures they intended to carry off to another continent. They held long staffs in their left hands, with the right they touched their breasts, lips, foreheads, to greet the master, Gabriel Bagradian, the last, the son of Mesrop, grandson of Avetis Bagradian, the great benefactor and founder of churches. But in him Nunik, the timeless, beheld the child at whose birth she secretly had worked a magic, carefully hidden away from Bedros Hekim, traced crosses on walls and lintel with her sis, to drive off devils. The blind, white-headed prophets crouched on the rock, gently singing to themselves. Thick clusters of flies were on their eyelids, and they did not trouble to drive them off. Unmoved by what had been, untroubled by what was to come, these prophets sang in their low voices. They scarcely cared to ask how all this had happened; having lost no homes, they followed only the rumors in their minds, and let Nunik, Wartuk, Manushak, the guides of the blind, lead them, wherever they might choose. Their frail hummings sounded pleasantly mournful, with rapturous, high-pitched, treble quaverings.

  Yet this was the sound which made Gabriel's heart sink. It lured Stephan to his side. He climbed on and on up the path as far as he could get from the song of the blind. But in exchange he had soon to listen to Juliette's parrot-chatter all over again, and then to her scream: "Look after Stephan!" He went on, faster and faster, thinking too deeply to know his thoughts. At last he stopped in surprise; he had come so far up the mountain. But this seemed a pleasant enough spot. A natural rock seat, shaded with myrtle and arbutus, with a mossy back to it. Here, in this pleasant place, he sank down. From here he could see everything below him, the swarm on the rocky beach, the five blue-grey, motionless ships, fast soldered to their thick waves. The troopship was the farthest out to sea. The Guichen, with Iskuhi, was the next. The pastor's fishing raft had been roped in firmly to the rocks. Over it the marines had set a plank bridge. The rescued multitude shuffled in single file, down the long plank, to reach the boats. Often the whole contraption began to sway, spray flew up, and the women screeched. This picture put everything else to flight. The swarm still looked as big as ever. "I've a long, long time," thought Gabriel. But that he ought never to have thought. Nor should he have sunk down in this pleasant place, any more than a half-frozen man should lie down in snow. The embarcation dimmed before his eyes. God spread a mighty sleep over Bagradian. This sleep was made up of all the strain, all the watchful nights, of the forty days. Against it there was no longer will nor strength.

  A mother whose child can no longer keep its eyelids from shutting says of it: "He's dropping with sleep." Gabriel Bagradian was dropping with the sleep of the dead.

  7. TO THE INEXPLICABLE IN US AND ABOVE US!

  Five ship's sirens hooted. Their entangled notes were various: short, threatening, hollow. Gabriel quietly opened his eyes. He looked down for the swarming ant-heap which he imagined he had seen a minute ago. Surf leapt more angrily than it had on an empty beach. The raft was beginning to come apart. The Guichen had already turned her course. Her bows, running southwest, cut a deep foam-cleft in the sea. The other ships of the squadron were ahead of her. Like heavy, yet gracefully purposeful dancers, they strove to execute a perfect figure. At its center, the Jeanne d'Arc slowly maneuvered. Gabriel watched all this attentively. Only then did he think: And Ter Haigasun? Didn't he notice? No! He thinks I'm on the Jeanne d'Arc. Gabriel jumped up and began to shout, with signalling arms. But his voice would not carry, and the movements were not those of a desperate man. Just then the sun struck the jutting rocks of Ras el-Khanzir, and the high cliffs of Musa Dagh lay deep in shadow. All reason should have sent Bagradian flying out to the rocks, to climb the furthest of them, and use any means to get himself seen. The deck of the Guichen was thronged with Armenians, leaning over the rail, to watch their mountain out of sight, which seemed to lower darkly over them with the glumness of a murderer balked of his prey. Though the sea might be breathing loud, the screw throbbing, someone on deck, or in the observation turret, would surely have seen Gabriel Bagradian. But the wretched Gabriel not only refused to leave his shadowy place, he even stopped his cries and signallings, as though grown tired of such vain formality. A man placed as he was ought surely to have shouted for help like a madman; he ought to have hurled himself into the sea, swum after, been fished out, or drowned, if necessary. The ships seemed to m
ove so slowly. There was still time.

  Gabriel could not understand his own calm. Was he drowsy still? The flask which the Frenchman filled with café and cognac for him still lay on the pleasant rock where he had sat. He drank long gulps to make himself feel desperate. They had just the opposite effect. His blood quickened, his muscles began to feel more alive, but his peace remained, just as before. No cries. No deathly panic. He felt joyous, consoled. The earthy, the material Gabriel was ashamed. I'll climb to a higher point with a clearer outlook and wave my coat. But there was no sense in doing that. Gabriel was merely making excuses to hide his intentions from himself. He was impelled to climb, not to descend. And, naturally, he was still thinking: What shall I live on? He felt in his overcoat pockets. Three rolls and two bars of chocolate, that was all. No food at all in his jacket pockets, the map of the Damlayik, a few old letters and notes, an empty cigarette case, and then, Agha Rifaat Bereket's coin, with the Greek inscription. He kept his hold of this golden object. Then he remembered that on the evening of the great exodus, he had turned back to the villa to get the coins. How much better to have left them. And it felt as though now, at the very last, he would throw the amulet away. He did not, but pocketed it again, and began to ponder the inscription. Not in the earliest day of the defense had Gabriel felt so strong and well. Every trace of fatigue had gone out of his legs, his knees felt supple, his heart was not beating a jot faster than usual, so that, before he knew how it had happened, he had come out on to a free ledge, high above the sea. Gabriel walked to the end of the jutting point, to wave his greatcoat in wide circles round his head. But scarcely had he even begun to do this when he let his arms drop to his sides again. And now in one clear flash, he realized -- that he did not want the ships to see him . That his being here was no unlucky accident, but the deepest decision; not God's decision only, but his.