Forty Days of Musa Dagh

by Franz Werfel

  Gabriel insisted again, to Chaush Nurhan and the other platoon leaders, on the need for the very strictest discipline. From now on let no one leave his post without permission. Nor must any man in the front line be allowed to sleep in the Town Enclosure with his family. Nights must be spent in the trenches unless special leave were given by the commander. Bagradian also set up his headquarters at a place where all could easily reach him. There, every day, two hours before sunset, he would hold a session, which every section and group commander must attend. He would be ready to hear requests, complaints and denunciations, arrange for reinforcements, and give out the following day's orders. That completed the broad outlines of military organization. Now it would all depend on will and endurance to get things going. Gabriel, map in hand, discussed the disposal of his thirteen sections of defence. Three of these required larger garrisons -- the others were mainly strong observation posts, for which, provisionally, one or half a decad sufficed. To the trenches and rock barricades of the North Saddle, on the other hand, Gabriel assigned a skeleton force of forty decads, with two hundred rifles in good repair. He himself was to command this important sector. His immediate subordinate was Chaush Nurhan, to whom the command of the positions above the ilex gully and the task of general inspection were entrusted. His responsible duties comprised especially the renewal of munitions and supplies and the proper care of rifles. Chaush Nurhan had the invaluable faculty of being in ten places at once, and had indeed made all his preparations for a workshop and cartridge factory. All the necessary tools and material had been carried up from his secret store in Yoghonoluk. All that now remained was the question who should command the South Bastion. The garrison of this most distant sector would be composed of fifteen decads. For reasons already stated, deserters, both authentic and bogus, had been detailed off to make up this force -- a very large one, considering the fortress strength of the point. Provisionally these men were being commanded by a reliable native of Kheder Beg. But Bagradian pursued a definite object. Sarkis Kilikian was, after all, a gallant soldier, with very recent trench experience in the Caucasus. He was both intelligent and educated. He had suffered unheard-of cruelties from the Turks and, if he still had anything like a soul in him, it must be parched with an inhuman thirst for revenge. Gabriel therefore intended to keep a sharp, provisional eye on Kilikian, and entrust him with this command if he proved satisfactory. He hoped that this might not only release a valuable force, but give him full power over the deserters, unreliable people in the main. So, when the decads marched off, he had kept back the Russian. All this while Kilikian had stood scrutinizing Gabriel, with a kind of rigid detachment that seemed too bored even for insolence. This figure, emaciated by slavery in the oil fields, by jails, by a hundred gruesome adventures, clothed as it was in earthy rags, and the face like a young death's-head stretched with tanned hide, looked aristocratic, imposing, in spite of everything. Since he never once turned his light, contemptuous, observant eyes away from Bagradian, he may have sensed a kind of respect even in this pampered, well-dressed "boss." Perhaps he mistook for simple fear what in reality was the tribute to his own indescribable fate and the strength that had managed to surmount it. But his very inkling of a fear, in conjunction with the appearance of this bourgeois, who could never in all his life have known a second's real want, degradation, terror, aroused all the malice in Kilikian. Bagradian called sharply, like an officer, to him:

  "Sarkis Kilikian, report to me in two hours, in the north trenches. I've got a job for you."

  The Russian's eyes (he had still not turned them away from Bagradian) took on the dull shimmer of an agate. He replied with a jerky laugh: "I may come, and again I may not. I really don't know what I'd care to do."

  Gabriel knew that everything would depend on his reply. He must make quite sure of his rank. His authority would be gone for ever if he struck the wrong note, or fate went against him. They were all listening eagerly; many a hidden, unholy joy flared up. Gabriel had made for himself a uniform, out of a hunting-kit, scarcely worn, which had belonged to Avetis. With it he wore leggings and a sun-helmet. This he put on before bearing down, in slow, swinging steps, upon the Russian. The helmet made him taller by half a head. He struck at his leggings with a cane.

  "Listen to me, Sarkis Kilikian -- and keep your ears wide open."

  His approach had been so direct that it forced the Russian a step back. Bagradian paused. His heart was thudding; he could feel that his voice was not quite steady. This good luck he conceded his opponent. He waited, therefore, never taking his eyes off this death's-head, till he could fill to overflowing with clear, cold will power.

  "I myself give you leave, Kilikian, to do whatever you think you must. But before you leave here, you'll have to have made up your mind. . . . You're free. You can go to the devil, no one's keeping you. People of your sort are the very last we need in this camp."

  Gabriel paused, as though expecting Sarkis Kilikian to avail himself immediately of this permission and slouch off in his usual slow, contemptuous way without another glance at the Damlayik. But the Russian stood rooted. An inquisitive glint had found its way into the dead, agate shimmer of his eyes.

  Bagradian's voice became coldly pitying: "I intended to distinguish you, who've been a soldier, from your comrades, by entrusting you with a post of leadership, since I know you've had more to bear from the Turks than most of us. You might have taken bloody revenge on your own behalf, and on theirs. . . . But -- since you really don't know whether you'll care to -- since you're really nothing but a skulking coward of a deserter, who can't even see his duty to his own people, after having taken a solemn oath -- get out! We don't need a slacker, an insolent hound, eating the food of our wives and children. If you ever dare show yourself here again, I'll have you shot. Go over to the Turks. Their regiments will soon be here. They're expecting you."

  For such a man as the Russian there should really have been nothing left after this but to rush on this "capitalist" and bash his face in. But Sarkis Kilikian never moved. His eyes lost their staring calm and strayed from man to man in search of supporters.

  Gabriel let five seconds elapse, seconds which raised his authority like a wave before bellowing with unrestrained harshness: "You seem to have made up your mind. Well -- quick march. Get along."

  It was curious how this sudden cracking of the whip could transform the Russian into the old jailbird he was. His head sagged down between his shoulders, his sulky eyes glowered up at Gabriel, now much the taller of the two. Kilikian's whole weakness lay in the clarity with which he could estimate his position. He was fully conscious that this was a moment of nauseating defeat -- yet all violence depends on a spirit so drunk with hate that the will is not lamed by a previous calculation of consequences. For months he had lived secure on Musa Dagh. He had begged enough to eat in the villages. This general migration on to the heights came as an unforeseen improvement in his condition. But, should he get turned out of camp, his last chance of finding human sustenance would have vanished. He would not dare show himself in the valley, while even the surrounding hill-country would be invested, in a hand's turn, by the Turks. Death, which had so often passed by him carelessly, might snap him up. The least he could expect from the Turks would be to be flayed alive, killed by inches. All this had flashed, in the fraction of a second, upon Kilikian, and neither his pride, his hate, nor his defiance prevailed against such certain consciousness. He attempted another laugh, but could manage only a piteously degraded sneer.

  Gabriel did not budge an inch: "Well? What are you still hanging about for?"

  Sarkis Kilikian's face, the cowering face of an old convict, turned. "I want . . . "

  "Well . . . ?"

  The Russian looked up, but with different eyes, no longer of a pale untroubled agate, but the eyes of a hesitating schoolboy. Gabriel had to remember the boy of eleven, with a carving-knife in his hand, shielding his mother. It was some time before Kilikian could manage to announce his defeat: "I want to s
tay."

  Gabriel reflected. Would it not be as well to force this recalcitrant to his knees, make him whine out his petition before the assembled decads, and oblige him to take a more rigorous oath? He decided against it, not merely out of pity (his vision of the boy of eleven) but because his deepest instinct forbade. It would have been beneath any leader's dignity to make too much of this puny victory, and unwise to burden his own defence with the hate of a profoundly humbled enemy. He allowed a tinge of kindness to creep into his officer's growl: "This time I don't mind letting you off, Kilikian, and I'll watch your behavior for a bit. But you aren't worth the slightest responsibility. Look out! You'll be under surveillance. Dismiss!"

  So the South Bastion was to be manned only half by deserters. As Kilikian's insolence had shown, they needed a martinet in command of them. A poisoned thorn would have to be driven into their flesh. Bagradian felt certain that in Oskanian, the self-opinionated dwarf, he had found the right kind of commander. So he offered that somber little schoolmaster the leadership of the South Bastion. He was to enforce impeccable service, the sharpest discipline -- was, above all, instantly to report the most trifling slackness or sabotage.

  Hrand Oskanian puckered his low forehead, so that his thick, black eyebrows formed a single line above his nose. He appeared to be magnanimously considering whether this half pedagogic, half punitive job was beneath so considerable a man. At last he stated his conditions: "If I'm to take charge of the South Bastion, I must be very well armed, Bagradian Effendi. The fellows'll have to see I'm not to be trifled with."

  So Teacher Oskanian arranged with Chaush Nurhan that he was to be given, not only a rifle with a double belt of five cartridges, but a huge holster pistol and a large, broad-bladed fascine-knife. Thus, armed to the teeth, he hurried off to Three-Tent Square, where he advanced pompously on Juliette to announce his rank. He did not deign a glance at Gonzague Maris, convinced that this smooth-tongued weakling would vanish at the sight of him -- the warrior.

  During this first day on Musa Dagh work on the trenches advanced so well that there was every hope of completing all the essential defences before sunset. This fever of industry so enthralled them that past and future alike were forgotten in laughter and songs.

  The morale of the Town Enclosure turned out to be far less satisfactory. Ter Haigasun and Pastor Aram had their work cut out to deal with the crop of problems that arose. Gabriel's suggested solution, at the first sitting of the council, of that major problem, private property, had already displeased the mukhtars and the rich. But now these hardheaded peasants saw for themselves that no life would be possible on the Damlayik without communal ownership of the herds. So and so many sheep must be slaughtered daily, by precise regulation of supplies, and therefore it would be quite impossible to consider individual owners of flocks. Every reasoning person could also see that the slaughtering must be done by communal butchers on ground set apart; that the delegates of the Council of Leaders must superintend the daily distribution of meat to decads and families, unless there were to be injustice, and so, dangerous discontent. Since one thing leads to another, the mukhtars had at last been got to consent even to a communal kitchen. And this was still not enough! Their duty demanded that not only should they provide these common necessities, but should supervise their distribution, and make them palatable. Such recent converts found it no easy matter to struggle to establish a social order whose ingrained opponents they were themselves. The housing question was solved more easily. Ter Haigasun had always insisted that too rigid and constricting a community, from which there could be no escape, would seem unnatural, and be bound sooner or later to bring its own nemesis. To adapt oneself with the minimum of friction to a new day-to-day life -- such was the formula which he championed. So that living quarters were to be made as extensive as possible. Even tomorrow, as soon as hands and tools could be spared from trench-building, Tomasian senior was to start work on the new settlement of huts, to be built of branches as designed by Aram. There were about a thousand families on the Damlayik, so that a thousand of such huts were intended, planned according to the numbers each must contain. There was abundant wood, to be cut down. Gabriel, even today, had released a certain number of men for tree-felling.

  All this was hard, but the real difficulties only began with bread and flour. Here, in view of the urgent necessity to economize, Ter Haigasun was implacably communist. Every sack of grain which single families still possessed -- oats, bulgur, maize, potatoes -- all that they had baked in their own ovens and labored to carry up the mountain must be surrendered without mercy. Out of this communal store, at the morning distribution of meat, each family would receive a minute ration. And not only flour was to be sequestered, but salt, coffee, tobacco, rice, spices -- all the precious things which careful housewives, with the greatest labor and wisest foresight, had got together for their own use. Opposition to this drastic decree continued for hours. At last Aram Tomasian and the mukhtars, by prayers and curses, had got so far that a few of the more virtuous fathers of families reluctantly set out for the depot, with their bread and flour, their coffee and tobacco. These confiscated goods of the people were classified and arranged there for distribution. Such exemplary self-sacrifice brought imitators, till, little by little, spurred on by shame (since the open camp afforded no means of concealment), the majority followed. Sacks of flour and maize were piled up one beside the other. Old Tomasian was commissioned to build, early next morning, a roof for protection over these stores. Five armed guards were posted round the depot. Ter Haigasun chose these five from the poorest families in the villages.

  Ter Haigasun, Gabriel, and the Council had planned, without self-deceiving optimism, against the annihilation of Musa Dagh from all four quarters of the globe. But one danger-spot had so far escaped their calculations. And so, shortly before sunset on the following day, it was just this quarter that delivered an irreparable onslaught, the effects of which were never to be made good. That day the work was going better and better, if only because the sun was overcast. It refrained from slanting its grilling rays across the bent backs of these poor robots, and no one was forced to seek shelter. But, although the sun was covered, there was not a cloud in the whole sky, nor was it any cooler than yesterday. The air was saturated in some composition of dreary mist, some hog-wash rinsings of the universe, surrounding the world like an unclean conscience; instead of the blazing heat, sultriness lay mountainous over all things. The sea was glassy; from time to time a hot puff of wind came from the west, without ever rippling its firm surface. Yet, for all its heavy immobility, from midday onwards surf kept leaping upon the rocks, with more strength, more suppressed anger, each minute. The workers, their minds fast set on their own care and labor, had paid no heed to the evil squintings of the sky. So that the sudden deluge fully achieved its aim. Four, five gusts of rattling wind, like a short ultimatum of war. The whole Damlayik -- every rock, every tree, every myrtle and rhododendron bush -- became alert with terror. A terrific thunderclap-war was declared! And already this southern storm, bristling with flashes, and itself as swift as any lightning, swept on to the attack, enveloping all things in its stifling thicknesses of dust. Mats, coverlets, beds, cushions, white sheets, headkerchiefs, pots and jugs, lamps, heavy things, light things, clattered and swirled past one another, were upset, caught up, and swept away. The people, lifting up their voices, chased malevolently fugitive gear, ran into one another's arms, trod one another's goods into the soil. This noise of assault drowned the wailing voices of many babes, who had all seemed to sense the deeper meaning of this celestial thrashing on their first day. Almost at once this mad chase of vanishing possessions was cast to earth by such a hailstorm as few among these mountaineers could remember. After vain efforts to stand up to it, many lay down flat on the steaming earth, offering their backs to the bastinadoing skies. They bit the ground. They longed to perish. A sudden shout -- the munition dump! But luckily Gabriel Bagradian had had the cartridges moved into the sheikh's te
nt, while Chaush Nurhan had found means for keeping the loose gunpowder dry. Provisions! came the second thought. The men rushed shouting to the grain depot. Too late! The flat cakes were reduced to a sticky mass, the loaves to eviscerated sponges. All the meal sacks steamed like slaking lime. This destruction was a very serious matter. Most of the salt had melted into the ground. Many began to think of that age-old threat, that on Judgment Day a man shall pick up with his eyelids whatever salt he has spilt during his life. This disaster made them cease to struggle. Drenched to their skins, whipped with hailstones, they huddled on the marshy earth, indifferent to the deluging clouds which poured down swathes an inch thick. Not even their women complained and yammered. Everyone wrapped himself up in brooding solitude, nursing unutterable wrath against Ter Haigasun and the Council, who had this food depot on their consciences, this thrice-accursed order to give up stores. Nothing so much relieves the pent-up breast of a human being as to make individuals responsible for a natural disaster and heap reproaches. Nor did the glowering folk on the Damlayik consider, till long after this, that disaster was in no way the result of Ter Haigasun's command to deliver supplies, since in private hands it would have been just as impossible to rescue them. In the minds of these peasants Heaven seemed, by this punishment, to make manifest its wrathful dislike of communal ownership, its championship of private property. The converted mukhtars, with squinting Thomas Kebussyan at their head, relapsed at once to their first persuasion. They mingled their growls with the reproaches which now assailed the priest from every side.