Forty Days of Musa Dagh

by Franz Werfel

  Of all the masses used by Christian sects the Armenian takes longest. The time from the Introit to the priest's last sign of the cross may easily be an hour and a half. No instruments, only tinkling bells and cymbals, accompany the choirs, which, on any impatient Sunday, increase their tempo to hurry the priest. But today the choirs were not successful. Ter Haigasun took longer than ever before over each sacred paragraph and act. Was he striving to hitch his prayer to the miracle of some incomprehensible rescue? Did he want to put off as long as possible the instant at which this flash of lightning would strike down on his unwitting flock? All too soon came the last blessing and the words: "Go in peace, and the Lord be with you." The benches began to rustle with departure. But Ter Haigasun came down to the edge of the chancel steps, spread his arms, and called:

  "What we have all been fearing has happened."

  Then, in a quiet voice, in a few words, he explained. Nobody must get unnecessarily excited, or let himself be carried away. The deathly silence of this instant must remain unbroken through the next days. No confusion, no losing of heads, no weeping or wailing, was of any use. It would only make things worse than they were already. Unity, resolution, discipline. They were the only means of avoiding the worst. There was still time to think out every step. Ter Haigasun invited the communes to the great assembly in Bagradian's garden. No healthy adult of sound mind, man or woman, should stay away.

  In this assembly it would be for the seven communes not only to decide collectively what line it was best to take, but to elect leaders to represent the people before the authorities no matter what happened. This time the usual show of hands at parish elections would not be enough. So let everyone bring pencil and paper to record his vote in proper form.

  "But now go quietly home," the priest implored them. "No standing about. Don't make disturbances. Perhaps they've sent spies to watch you. The saptiehs mustn't notice that you're warned. Don't forget to bring voting papers. Quiet, above all."

  He need not have given his second warning. Like dead people, or people already touched by death, they silently groped their way out into the daylight as if they had never known it. No man knows himself until he is tested. Gabriel's biography till that day: The son of a well-to-do family; brought up in comfortable surroundings; his life that of a leisured "intellectual" spent here and there in Europe, in Paris. Long since absolved from any ties which bind a man to his family, to the state, from any sense of community with the masses; a sheltered, an abstract human being. Very few angles to bark his shins on. An elder brother -- an invisible, imperceptible benefactor -- who, as head of the house, provided for every need. Then, strangely enough, the first interruption of this thoughtful, sensitive, introverted life -- the episode of the military training-school and war. That patriotic idealism with which the contemplative suddenly found himself imbued is not so easy to account for. The general political fraternization of Turkish and Armenian youth could not be a sufficient explanation. Perhaps something more was involved then: some secret restlessness, the attempt to get away from his own, all too well-ordered, easygoing life. And during that short campaign Gabriel Bagradian had discovered unsuspected capacities in himself. He was not only, as till then he had supposed, a man whose eyes were exclusively set on invisible worlds. He showed himself surprisingly equal to demands made on his powers of action, presence of mind, foresight, courage, and to a far higher degree than most of his Oriental comrades. He was promoted quickly, several times mentioned in dispatches, praised in commanders' reports. True that in the days which followed all that had seemed a thing of the past, an almost illogical memory, since his earlier nature resumed its sway, more mature, far more balanced than previously. But today -- it was the twenty-fourth of July -- made all the years of his life seem a pale preliminary.

  Samuel Avakian was amazed when he saw how the artificial foibles of weeks, the hobbies of a bored idler, dovetailed to- gether into one startlingly vivid plan of defensive action. They sat in Bagradian's study behind locked doors, which were opened to no one. The mysterious strokes, crosses, dotted lines, on the three maps, at which the student had smiled as at a dreamy testing of his patience, revealed themselves now as a unified, precisely thought-out system. The thick blue line along the northern saddle meant a long trench set back against the stone barricades (indicated in brown) of the rocky side. The thinner blue line behind denoted a reserve trench; the little squares to the sides of these trenches, flank-protection or outposts. Those figures, too, from two to eleven, which filled up the side of the Damlayik facing the valley, ceased to be meaningless numbers and became well-thought-out sectors of the defense. So, too, did various inscriptions take on a meaning: "Town Enclosure," "Dish Terrace," "Headquarters Peak," "Observers I, II, III," "South Bastion." The last was the best inspiration of the whole scheme. A garrison of two dozen men posted here ought to be enough to hold off any number of assailants. Even women might be able to hold it.

  Gabriel's face was aglow with eagerness. It had never looked so like the young face of his son Stephan. "I'm starting to feel very hopeful." He measured out a distance with Stephan's compasses. "I know what Turkish soldiers are like. And all their best troops are at the front. The sort of territorial off-scourings they'll have mustered up from Antioch, with saptiehs and the irregulars in the barracks, are only good for a little safe looting."

  Suddenly confronted with this strange new military work, Samuel Avakian's high, receding forehead took on a dull white look in contrast to the color in Gabriel's cheeks. "But at best we can only count on a thousand men. I don't know how many rifles and munitions they've got. And there are regulars in every Turkish town -- not only in Antakiya, but everywhere. . . ."

  "We have a population of about five thousand five hundred," interrupted Bagradian. "We need expect no mercy, only slow death. But Musa Dagh isn't so easy to surround."

  Avakian stared goggle-eyed through the window. "But will these five thousand all want the same thing as you do, Effendi?"

  "If they don't, they all deserve to perish together in Mesopotamian dust. . . . But I don't want to live. I don't want to be rescued. I want to fight! . . . I want to kill as many Turks as we have cartridges. And, if necessary, I'll stay on alone on the Damlayik. With the deserters!"

  It was not precisely hate. It was a kind of sacred, and at the same time exultant wrath that glittered in Bagradian's eyes. It was as though he rejoiced at the thought of standing out single-handed against Enver Pasha's army, a million strong. It lifted him out of his seat and urged him up and down the room, like a madman. "I don't want to live, I want to have some value!"

  The crumpled Avakian still refused to be talked round. "Very good. We can defend ourselves for a time. And then . . . ?"

  Gabriel halted his excited pacing and quietly sat down to his work again. "Anyway, within the next twenty-four hours we've got to solve all sorts of problems. Which would be the best place for the stockyard, the munition dump, the hospital? And what kind of shelters can we raise? There are enough springs, but what will be the best way to economize water? Here are some rough notes in which I sketched out the routine for the armed troops. Make a fair copy, will you, Avakian? We shall need them. In fact, get all these notes here into shape. I don't think there's much I haven't thought of. For the present it's all still theoretical, but I'm convinced that most of it can be worked out. We Armenians are always priding ourselves on superior brains. That's one of the things that's riled them so. Now it's for us to prove that we really are so much cleverer."

  Avakian felt profoundly disturbed. More even than by this general catastrophe was he confused by irresistible waves of strength which now seemed to emanate from Gabriel. There was about him not a shining atmosphere so much as a hot, glowing one. The less he spoke, the more quietly he worked, the more overpowering it became. Avakian felt this influence so strong on him that he could not concentrate his thoughts, could find no more words to express his doubts, had to keep on staring at Gabriel's face, deeply engrossed over w
ar maps. In this silent paralysis he even failed to hear Bagradian's next order, and had to have it impatiently repeated:

  "Go downstairs now, Avakian. Say I shan't be coming in to lunch. Ask them to send Missak up with something. I can't waste a second. And -- I'll see no one before the meeting. You understand? Not even my wife."

  By one o'clock the people had begun to arrive. The mukhtars, according to arrangements, personally supervised the doors of the park wall, to test the credentials of every member of the assembly. This precautionary measure proved superfluous, since Ali Nassif and his gendarmes had already set out for Antakiya without having cared to say good-bye to acquaintances of many years' standing. Nor had either the Turkish postman's family or any of the Moslem inhabitants of nearby villages secretly joined the throngs on the roads to Yoghonoluk. Long before the time given out, the last groups had been filtered through the sieve. Then the main entrance gates were closed, and finally the garden doors. The people massed on the wide empty space in front of the house. About three thousand men and women. There was a big stable-yard just beyond the left wing, but at Ter Haigasun's request this was roped off with clothes lines and kept free of people. The notables had assembled on the raised terrace before the house. The few steps leading up to it formed an excellent tribune for speech-making. The village clerk of Yoghonoluk had placed his little scrivening-table at the foot of these steps, to take down any important resolutions.

  Gabriel Bagradian stayed as long as possible in his room, the windows of which were turned away from the crowd. He was anxious not to fritter away the plenitude of emotion which possessed him in haphazard talks. He came out of the house only when Ter Haigasun sent for him. Sallow, despondent faces stared up at his, not three thousand, but one face only. It was the helpless face of exile, here as in hundreds of other places at this hour. The mass, without needing to do so, stood there so painfully jammed together that it looked far smaller than it was. Some way beyond it, where ancient trees bounded the open space, there lay or squatted a few stragglers, cut off from the rest as though their lives had ceased to matter.

  As Gabriel scanned this people, his own people, a sudden horror began to invade him. His scared heart missed a beat. Once again reality looked quite different from any concept which he had formed of it. These people here were not the same as those he had seen day by day in the villages, the object of all his daring calculation. A deathly severity and bitterness stared at him from wide-open eyes. Such massed faces looked like shrivelled fruits. Even the cheeks of the young were drawn and wrinkled-looking. He had sat in these peasants' workshops and parlors but had seen as little of the truth as a traveller driving through a village. For the first time now, in this instant of overwhelming attention, was a deep contact re-established between this uprooted "European" and his own. All he had thought and worked out in his room was losing validity -- so alien, so uncanny, the sight of these whom he wanted to impel his way. Women still in their Sunday clothes, with silk head-scarves, strings of coins round their necks, and clattering bracelets on their wrists. Many were wearing Turkish dress. Their legs were in wide trousers, and they had drawn the feredjeh round their foreheads, although they were devout Christians Proximity made such assimilations inevitable, especially in the border villages such as Wakef and Kebussiye. Gabriel stared at the men in their dark entaris, on their bearded heads fezzes or fur caps. It was hot, and some had pulled their shirts open. The flesh under their tanned and crowsfooted faces looked strangely white. The white, prophetic heads of blind beggars, here and there in the mass, stood out like searching assessments of guilt at a Last Judgment. In the very front stood Kevork, the sunflower-dancer. Even this half-wit no longer wore an expression of slobbering eagerness to be useful, but of reproach, which included this and the other world. Gabriel passed an ice-cold hand down the English tweed of his jacket. It felt as though he were stroking nettles. And the question rose in his mind: "Why me, of all people? How shall I speak to them?" The responsibility he was shouldering chilled him, like a sudden eclipse -- a shadow of bats' wings. The shameful thought: "Get clear of all this. At once, today. . . . No matter where. . . . Ter Haigasun had begun slowly hammering his first words into the crowd. They sounded clearer and clearer in Gabriel's ear. Words and sentences took a meaning. The eclipse had passed across his sky.

  Ter Haigasun stood motionless on the top step. Only his lips and the cross on his breast moved very slightly as he was speaking. The pointed hood shadowed his waxen face; his black beard, with its streaks of grey, stood out from deeply furrowed cheeks. His eyes, which he kept half shut, formed mysterious shadows. It looked not as though he were experiencing at that moment the first stirrings of infinite thoughts, but as though he had already lived through them, had weighed and pondered, and now, arrived at his conclusion, was at last able to seek repose. Although, like all Eastern languages, Armenian lends itself to tropes and images, he spoke in curt, almost arid sentences.

  They must see exactly what the government meant to do. There could scarcely be any among the elder people present who had not had a taste of the earlier massacres, if not in their own persons, then at least through the deaths and sufferings of their kindred over in Anatolia. Christ had watched over Musa Dagh with undeserved mercy. For many long and blessed years the villages had been left in peace while Armenians in Adana and other places were being killed off in their tens of thousands. But they must clearly distinguish between massacre and exile. The first lasted four or five days, perhaps a week. A brave man had almost always the chance to sell his life dearly. It was easy to find a place in which women and children could hide. The blood-lust of excited soldiers soon died down again. Even the most bestial saptieh sickened at the thought, once it was over. Though the government had always arranged such massacres, it had never admitted having done so. They were born of disorder, and vanished in disorder again. But disorder had been the best part of such rascally business, and the worst to fear from it had been death. Banishment was a very different story. Anyone might think himself lucky who was released from it by death, even the cruellest. Banishment did not pass, like an earthquake, which always spares a certain number of people and houses. Banishment would go on till the last Armenian had either been slaughtered, died of hunger on the roads, of thirst in the desert, or been carried off by spotted typhus or cholera. This time it was not a case of unbridled, haphazard methods, of whipped-up blood-lust, but of something far more terrible -- an ordered attack. It was all to go according to a plan worked out in the government offices of Istanbul. He, Ter Haigasun, had known of such a plan for months, even long before the misfortune of Zeitun. He also knew that not all the efforts of the Catholicos, of patriarchs and bishops, all the threats of ambassadors and consuls, had availed. The only thing that he, a village priest, had been able to do had been to keep silence, no matter how hard it had seemed to do so, so that the last happy days of his poor flock might not be destroyed. That time was over at last. Now they must look things squarely in the face. Nobody, in these discussions, need make the futile suggestion of sending petitions and delegations to the authorities. All that would be a waste of time. "Human compassion is at an end. Christ crucified demands of us that we follow Him in his passion. There is nothing left us but to die. . . ."

  Here Ter Haigasun paused for a scarcely perceptible instant, before concluding on a new note: "The one question is -- how?"

  "How?" shouted Pastor Aram Tomasian, and pushed his way quickly out beside the priest. "I know how I mean to die -- not like a defenceless sheep, not on the road to Deir ez-Zor, not in the filth of a concentration camp, not of hunger, and not of the stinking plague -- no! I mean to die on the threshold of my own house, with a gun in my hand. Christ will help me to it, Whose word I preach. And my wife shall die with me, and the unborn child in her womb. . . ."

  This outburst had almost broken Aram's chest. He pressed his hands on his midriff, to get his breath again. Then, more quietly, he began to tell them what life had been in the convoy, what he hi
mself had had to suffer, though only in the mildest form, for a very short time.

  "No one can possibly know what it's like, beforehand. One only begins to realize at the last minute, as the officer gives the order to move off, as the church and houses, when you look back on them, get smaller and smaller, till they vanish. . . ."

  Aram described the eternal route, from stage to stage, with one's feet getting worse every day, one's body swelling -- with fainting people left to die on the roads, with people who dragged themselves along, till gradually they got to be like beasts, with people who perished one by one, under daily thrashings from the saptiehs. His words themselves descended on the crowd like cudgel-blows. . . . Yet, strangely, not a cry had risen from the agonized souls of these thousands, not one wild outburst. They stood, still staring up at the small group of people round the house door, as they might have at a group of tragic actors playing what did not directly concern them. These vine- and fruit-growers, wood-carvers, comb-makers, bee-keepers, silkworm-breeders, who had felt so long that this would happen, could not grasp it with their minds, now it was here. The haggard faces still looked puzzled and concentrated. The life-force in them was still struggling to pierce the sick chrysalis stage of the last few weeks.