A Garden to the Eastward

by Harold Lamb

  "Don't I demand enough?"

  "Not nearly." Then she cried, "But I don't want you to be different. I'm different enough for both of us."

  When the east wind blew and the clouds cleared from the summit, Jacob discovered that the clusters of tents below had increased. The new camps showed black around the shrine.

  "You did not know?" Vasstan eyed him curiously when he asked about them. "Have you forgotten that a Kurdish huryat, an independent Kurdistan, has been proclaimed—in print on posters? A conference of leaders has also been called."

  "By whom?"

  "Ask your wise men of the East—ask of those of Araman! Do they know?" Irritably, Vasstan muttered to himself in German. Then he seemed to find amusement in his own exasperation. "Jacob Ide! For the last time I tell you what happens. Undine will smile—she is clever."

  He glanced around to make certain they were alone in the plaza. "The tally-ho huntsmen, the British, ordered the conference, to name leaders of the Kurds"—he closed his eyes to relish this the more—"of the tribal Kurds. Now, what else happens, as we know? The Soviet circus appears, proclaiming a free and happy Kurdistan under different leaders, members of the new Democratic party. This is all quite en règle; no one speaks of war. Not even of coercion! It is even altruistic. Yes, the British huntsmen idealistically wish to support the elderly aghas and begs of the tribes, while the Soviet circus men are eager to aid the proletariat to education and land. Only they show themselves to be in too much of a hurry."

  A gleam of something like triumph came from the inflamed eyes. "All this I see, and more that I do not tell you. What am I? A ghost. I watch your great Allies who marched into Berlin at the end of the last war, to make the world safe for democracy!"

  Vasstan himself appeared to be in a hurry. Loading his blankets and some supplies upon Badr's back, he hastened ahead of the Kurd out the Lion Gate, to take up his quarters in the encampment.

  Without the German's binoculars it was hard to distinguish the growing crowds below. Jacob observed that more huts had gone up in the Russian square, including one large building. When he tried to go down again with Daoud, he slipped badly on the icy steps and had to turn back, leaving the archaeologist to make the descent alone.

  Daoud had been moody and anxious, although he said little. It was an old custom of the Kurdish tribes to hold their assemblies in the valley of Araman in summer, he had explained.

  "I'm glad it's all in the valley," put in Michal, "and not here in Araman."

  With only Father Hyacinth and Jan, the quiet of their height would not be bfoken, and after a while the encampment would go away, as camps always did when there was no war.

  Daoud came back less cheerful than at the end of his first visit below. Tribal leaders were coming in, he explained, from the Baradust and Begzadeh, and there was much sheep killing and feasting near the shrine. The young son of Mullah Ismail had appeared, to speak for the Herki until his father could make the journey through the snow. The Ghazi himself, head of the Azerbaijan Kurds, was expected from Sanjbulak. "Only a few, Jacob, and all of them from the older tribes of the heights."

  When Jacob asked if the new Russian building was going to be used for a place of assembly, Daoud almost choked.

  "A cinema, Jacob! They have a small projector, and a man to explain to the tribesmen, who go because they have never seen such pictures. They see the Red Army in action—tanks and guns. The commentator tells them how other people are being liberated by Russian tanks and guns."

  "Does the audience enjoy it?"

  "The audience, except for me, had never seen a moving picture. To see is to believe, Jacob."

  Quite clearly the motion pictures had disgusted the archaeologist. Yet Jacob wondered if he would have been so put out by scenes of Britain at war.

  From that hour Daoud almost disappeared. His daily routine changed, and he slept through the hours of sunlight, to sit with the Watchman and Gopal after dark. In Paul's absence, the old painter had ceased to work on his wall, where the portrait remained sketched in in charcoal. On the other hand, Daoud had resumed making notes, working with concentration as if against time. But what he was doing he did not see fit to explain to Jacob.

  For those few days the two Americans were left to themselves almost as utterly as when they had first come to the summit. Michal felt this acutely, because she knew that Jacob was disturbed again, although he said little about it.

  "The sense of peace we had is gone," she declared.

  With her inherent honesty, she had to admit it was not the fault of the Russians. They had not interfered. Matejko's hopelessness, Daoud's abstraction in a new task of his own, Vasstan's departure—all had been due in some measure to their own natures. Something intangible had pulled them apart, like marionettes when the play begins.

  "But we're not marionettes," she cried to herself. "We're alive, and most of us are young."

  If only they could break through the barriers of language; Omejko had been friendly to Matejko because they had fought the same enemy once; Daoud could teach the youthful Dr. Anna so many things; and she conjectured that the distrait Vorontzev would like to talk to her in his excellent French—if he dared speak so, apart to her. There was no reason to be afraid in Araman. What they all feared—if they did fear—lay outside the mountains.

  "Hasn't the village always been a sanctuary?" she asked Jacob. "Otherwise why would strangers have been admitted for so many ages ?"

  Sanctuary. Michal had a way of conjuring words up that cut through ordinary thought. When Jacob went out at the end of that day to a break in the wall, to examine the condition of the steps below, the word lingered in his mind. As usual, the steps shone faintly under hard ice. That side of the mount lay in shadow now, and as soon as the sun left it, ice froze hard.

  Father Hyacinth appeared with his pipe, to sit on a flat rock and contemplate the valley before darkness closed in. The shadow had obscured the camps below, yet it was too early for fires to be lighted, so the white valley gleamed beneath them, its only visible scar the dark line of the road to the east.

  After a polite "Good evening," Jacob had said nothing to the priest, not being able to make himself understood well in French.

  They didn't understand each other very well even in thinking. Jacob found that he missed the forthright Paul, who met every question honestly, like a soldier. He had not seen Paul since he had probed so deep into the secret of Araman.

  And he wondered, as he had done a hundred times, what means might exist within this bare summit to affect the course of warfare in any way. Obviously the young soldier knew of some latent force, of which his father had been aware. Methodically, Jacob's mind had probed for the nature of that power, without success so far, except to eliminate the obvious.

  Once Paul had admitted that modern invention had made this power difficult to use. It could hardly, even as a fantastic possibility, be a neutralizing force—some hitherto-unknown development of electronics which would neutralize electricity. Apparently, it must operate on human beings, as the mild religions of the East had sapped the will to war of the Romans. A new religion? There had been no trace of that. The doctrine of non-resistance, once developed by Gandhi? That had turned out to be no more than political action affecting some of the inhabitants of one country.

  In Asia, people could be moved by an immensely strong personality, by a new idea—even by a token, although by no ordinary token. Sir Clement had understood that. But there was no visible sign of such a fantastic talisman.

  Father Hyacinth had been saying something, pointing with his pipe.

  "The city?" Jacob asked absently. "What city?"

  "The City of God."

  Of that Jacob could make nothing. Probably the priest meant the effect of the sunset light. It was unusual. The circumvallate rock peaks, purple and gray in the distance, did assume the shape of towered structures. When he half closed his eyes against the glare, Jacob could fancy that these houses hung between the white surface of the sno
w and the deepening blue of the sky. Evidently the priest found significance in these mountains. Jacob remembered the monastery and the nearer bell tower.

  It was very quiet here.

  Moving aside one of the crudely shaped stones, he sat down by the Armenian, who knew every aspect of these valleys.

  "Was the monastery built," he asked, "because of this——"

  He waved his hand outward, vaguely, searching for words.

  "It was built beyond the threshold of this," responded the priest. "Yes, at the gateway, you understand, where people come in. They come to learn to live together and endure."

  An odd tradition, Jacob thought. The monastery of Mar Giorgios had not been placed within the higher valley but at the entrance. Yet the bell tower was here. For the first time he wondered who had actually sounded the bell, unless the wind itself . . .

  Sanctuary. An invisible city, extending over these mountain summits, a barrier against the outer world, a habitation for refugees.

  With the stone held absently on his knee, he pondered that. Even Vasstan had used the word Asyl. Matejko as well as Michal had found refuge here. These mountains stretched out a vast way, at least as far as Ararat and Mount Demavend, on the borderland of eastern Turkey and Iran. If they could be made into a sanctuary——

  What had become of man-made sanctuaries—final inviolate refuges—in the outer world? Vatican City, in which Jacob had studied manuscripts for some years, had been extraterritorial, removed from outer political interference. A small area, cramped within rambling, medieval buildings. Was it still as it had been? Certain temples in Hindu India had protected anyone crossing their thresholds. Within some politically backward tribes the right of asylum could still be claimed. Where else?

  At the monastery Mar Shimun had predicted that peoples of the nations would flee for refuge to these mountains.

  For an instant Jacob had a vision of fugitives from the outer world escaping the terrors of war, or famine, or devastating pestilence, within the shelter of these heights. Here they might survive, as in legend other folk had survived earlier floods on Ararat. They might live, to resume their slow progress again, in the outer world.

  He shook his head. That was an old myth. He had merely thought of Ararat, and, subconsciously, of Araman, to the summit of which these people had retreated as they had been driven from the lowlands. No, there was something more.

  Then he sat quiet, hugging the stone. Myths or no myths, these mountains had been a sanctuary once for human beings. They could be that again if the great powers of the nations would agree to set them apart, as a refuge. To cut these unsurveyed mountain ranges from the political map and hold them inviolate.

  It had been done for animals, why not for men?

  Setting down the stone, he went away without saying anything more to the priest. Father Hyacinth only glanced curiously after the strange lame man and at the stone beside him.

  When Jacob poured out his imagining to Michal, she listened silently.

  "We have our house, Jacob," she said at last; "and now——"

  "It's been accomplished in a way in the Swiss mountain cantons. There you have mixed people living their own lives, kept inviolate by the surrounding great powers."

  "And there you have hotels and skiing and tunnels and nice little railroads guarded by a little Swiss army, all very modern and restful." Then, glancing up at him, she smiled swiftly. "But it's a nice dream to have, Jacob."

  The next afternoon five Russians appeared at the summit. Anna and Omelko were accompanied by Vorontzev, who looked bored and tired after his climb, and by two of the camp guards who sat themselves down in the Lion Gate and lighted cigarettes. Jacob eyed them with some curiosity before he went on with the others.

  Instead of coming to call, Dr. Anna explained, they had instructions to carry out. They had been informed that arms were hidden in Araman. If this were true, could they see the weapons? They had noticed nothing of the kind, themselves.

  "It's a collection of old weapons, not at all hidden," Jacob explained, and led them into the armory cavern. Only Omelko made any close scrutiny of the weapons, and he seemed to be more puzzled than startled. For a moment he fingered the Thompson sub-machine gun, putting it back when he discovered there was no ammunition for it.

  "Nothing Russian is here," the woman archaeologist summed up, relieved. Evidently it had not occurred to her that this collection could date before modern times. "And you have nothing—no ammunition—in your own house, Mr. Ide?"

  "Why not come and see?"

  Briefly, Jacob wondered who had instructed them to make this new search of the summit. But it was natural enough, along that frontier, to keep a close check on weapons that might be lying around—especially in such a strategic strong point as this summit. For an instant he smiled, thinking of the village of Araman defending itself with modern firearms.

  Michal and Daoud were taking tea by his fireside, and Anna came in, uncertain of her welcome, fingering the blue scarf around her throat at sight of Michal. She said, "Good evening," and hurried in to examine the bronze water basin. Then her expression changed and she almost ran to pick up the winged Pegasus. With professional interest she turned it in her fingers.

  Stealing a glance at Daoud, Michal said inwardly, "Oh, Lord," and said aloud with her friendliest smile, "It's one of the best pieces of Araman, isn't it, Dr. Anna?"

  Impatiently the Russian shook her head. "This statuette is not handiwork of Araman. Its provenance is within our steppes."

  "You mean it comes from Russia?" Thinking of the silent Daoud, Michal hastened on. "Will you have a cigarette, Dr. Anna?"

  Taking one without lighting it, Anna continued her inspection of the bronze horse. "We have found similar objects in Bashkiria."

  "With wings?" demanded Daoud abruptly.

  "Not yet have we found objects with wings, Professor. From excavations in the Minusinsk basin we have obtained horses with rudimentary wings."

  Michal thought: she doesn't mean to be dogmatic, she is only repeating what she has been told, but it will infuriate Daoud. To her relief, Jacob intervened.

  "The Siberian art? The one you call the art of the steppes?" he asked amiably.

  "Yes, Mr. Ide. It is actually the animal style of central Eurasia, which is the most ancient of all. It influenced the Chinese on one hand and the Babylonian on the other."

  She repeated that easily, more confident now. Jacob had a way of quieting people.

  "You mean," he pressed her, "that the first culture—the articulate intelligence of the human species—originated in the plains of middle Eurasia and spread outward."

  "Yes, Mr. Ide, that is correct." Something like warmth came into Dr. Anna's flat voice. "From our steppes."

  "At what time?" Daoud put in.

  "The earliest time, possibly after—— No, that is not correct. Before five thousand years, Professor."

  Again Jacob intervened. "Tell us how, Dr. Anna." And he smiled encouragement to her.

  "It is evident of itself." Anna had lost her shyness. "It could not have been in our taiga, that is our forestland, or in the brown, dry steppes. No, it was upon the good earth of the black steppes where wild cattle and grain multiplied. There the most ancient people who were our ancestors had water in abundance and metals near the surface in the Urals. The requirements of a culture growth are two, no more. First, fertility of land; second, ease of communications. By the first people grow strong and dynamic; by the second they meet, in war or trade, and fertilize. Out of conflict the strong grow stronger, the weak are eliminated. All these conditions were present in middle Eurasia, so that not only a few but thousands upon thousands of human beings strengthened themselves upon our steppes, over millions and millions of hectares of land. Nowhere else were conditions so favorable."

  Nursing his pipe, Jacob squinted at the fire. "Then you believe that human beings progressed upward by their ability to propagate their kind and make war?"

  "Of course, yes, Mr. Ide. Th
at was made clear by the Englishman, Professor Charles Darwin, who proved that only the most fit can survive."

  "A good deal depends," murmured Jacob, "on what you mean by the most fit."

  "The strongest, who win in the struggle for life."

  "Is there such a thing, except in war, Dr. Anna? I'd call it the struggle in life."

  He touched the book near his knee. "Tens of thousands of Greek hoplites did not survive their generation. But the mind of one Aristotle endured and multiplied itself in these books. Numbers and strength and ease of living can't be everything."

  To this she did not answer. Either she did not understand him, or she had closed some door in her mind abruptly.

  "What do you think has survived in Araman, Dr. Anna?" asked Michal curiously.

  Doubt vanished from the open face of the Russian woman. "Unmistakably it is no more than a single primitive tribal culture. The patriarch, who is also priest, obeys an inherited superstition, because he keeps burning the altar fire. We have found similar groups among our Kara Kirghiz and Dungans, except that they are nomadic. This remnant of a tribe is sedentary, perhaps for a thousand years."

  "Anna!" With a single motion Daoud came to his feet, his voice strained with temper. "You have made a mistake!"

  Fleetingly Michal sensed that his anger was not directed at the woman, and, curiously, Anna's swift flash of fear was not caused so much by Daoud's temper as by what he said.

  "What you say of the open grasslands is true in every way of animals. It is not true of human beings." Facing her, the Kurdish scientist lifted his arms. "If it were true, your people of the steppes today would be a species of superior animals, cunning in ways to protect themselves and get meat. You would have no souls."

  Startled, she stared at him.

  "You are an archaeologist, Anna," he stormed, "but you have made the mistake ignorant people make. You assume that human evolution has gone forward in a straight line from the lower animal forms to the highest humans. That the aboriginal Esquimaux or Tasmanians are vestiges of what we were a few millenniums ago. Is not that what you think?"