Forty Days of Musa Dagh (60 page)

Gabriel's suggestion, which after all afforded some vague hope of rescue,
and served in any case to alleviate the impending certainty of death,
was most eagerly and generally discussed. It was decided to send out two
swimmers. One young man might be enough to send to Aleppo. There was no
sense in uselessly exposing lives. Two people can hide better than three,
and one person finds it easier to slip past saptiehs and customs officials
than two. On Ter Haigasun's suggestion, the swimmers and the runners were
to be chosen from among the volunteers. The runners (either one or both,
it was still not decided) would be given a letter to take to the American
consul; the swimmers, another addressed to the suppositious naval commander.
To prevent these letters from falling into Turkish hands, should either
of the messengers get arrested, the leather belts which the couriers
wore were to be split open and the letters sewn up inside them.

 

 

Ter Haigasun appointed a day and hour at which to demand volunteers,
and arranged the method of the announcement. The münadirs should be
instructed to drum it that same evening around the camp. Gabriel offered
to write the letter to Jackson. Aram Tomasian undertook the other,
to the ship. He at once went apart from the rest and drafted the text
to give to the swimmers, in spite of all the noise of a new point under
discussion. From time to time he seemed carried away by his composition,
would suddenly spring up and read out a passage, with the majestic
intonation of a parson learning his sermon by heart. It did not take him
long to finish it. It has been preserved as a document of the forty days:

 

 

To any English, American, French, Russian or Italian admiral,
captain or other commander whom this may reach:

 

 

Sir! We beseech you in the name of God and human brotherhood -- we,
the population of seven Armenian villages, in all about five thousand
souls, who have taken refuge on that mountain plateau of Musa Dagh,
known as the Damlayik, and three leagues northwest of Suedia above
the coastline.

 

 

We have taken refuge here from barbarous Turkish persecutions.
We have taken up arms to preserve the honor of our women.

 

 

Sir! You no doubt have heard of the Young Turkish policy which seeks
to annihilate our people. Under the false appearance of a migration
law, on the lying pretext of some non-existent movement for revolution,
they are turning us out of our houses, robbing us of our farms,
orchards, vineyards and all our movable and immovable goods and
chattels. This, to our personal knowledge, has already been done in
the town of Zeitun and its thirty-three dependent villages.

 

 

Pastor Aram went on to describe his experiences on the convoy between
Zeitun and Marash. He told of the edict of banishment issued against the
seven villages, and gave vehement descriptions of the desperate plight
of the villagers in camp on the Damlayik. His appeal ended as follows:

 

 

Sir, we beg you in the name of Christ!

 

 

Bring us, we implore you, either to Cyprus or any other free
territory. Our people are not idlers. We want to earn our bread with
the hardest possible work insofar as we are given a chance to do
it. But if this is too much for you to grant us, then at least take
our women, take our children, take our old people. At least supply
those of us able to bear arms with guns, munitions, and enough food to
defend ourselves to the last breath in our bodies against our enemies.

 

 

We implore you, sir, not to delay until it is too late!

 

 

 

 

In the name of all the Christians up here

 

 

Your most obedient servant,

 

 

Pastor A.T.

 

 

This manifesto was drafted in two languages -- on one side of the sheet
in French, on the other in English. The two texts were carefully revised
under the aegis of Hapeth Shatakhian, that accomplished linguist and stylist.
But the task of copying them out, in minute and beautifully shaped letters,
was, strangely enough, not entrusted to teacher Oskanian, famed far and wide
as possessor of the best calligraphy, in every alphabet, but to Avakian,
a far less expert artist. Hrand Oskanian leapt out of his seat and
glowered at Ter Haigasun as though he were going to challenge him to
a duel in front of the assembled Council. This new humiliation bereft
him of words, his lips moved but could form no sounds. But the priest,
his mortal enemy, only smiled blandly at him.

 

 

"Sit down and be quiet, Teacher Oskanian, you write far too beautiful
a hand for this job. Nobody who saw all your squiggles and flourishes
could ever believe our position was desperate."

 

 

The black-haired dwarf advanced on Ter Haigasun with his head high. "Priest!
You've mistaken your man. God knows I am not anxious to do your scribbling!"
He shook his fists in Ter Haigasun's face as he added in a voice unsteady
with rage: "There's no calligraphy left in these hands, Priest! These hands
have given proof of something very different, much as it riles you!"

 

 

Apart from which absurd little incident the sitting had been held in
perfect amity. Even the sceptical Ter Haigasun could hope that, whatever
happened in the near future, peace at least would reign unbroken among
the elect.

 

 

 

 

Again after that day's council Gabriel went to look for his wife, both
in her tent and the place where she received her visitors. Here, too,
Oskanian and Shatakhian had come in vain, as they had so often in these
last days, to pay their respects to Madame. Hrand Oskanian especially
had been extremely disappointed at not being able to display himself
to Juiiette as the Lion of the South Bastion. He could only set his
teeth and admit that a tailor's dummy like Gonzague was more welcome
than a powder-blackened hero. But mistrustful and silent as he was,
he never got as far as suspicion. Madame Bagradian was too supremely
far above him to allow of one such unseemly thought. When Gabriel caught
sight of the teachers, he turned away quickly. He wandered indecisively
on from Three-Tent Square towards the "Riviera." Where, he wondered,
would Juliette be at about this time? He had turned towards the Town
Enclosure when Stephan ran across his path. The boy was as usual
surrounded by the whole Haik gang. The dour Haik himself walked on a
few paces ahead, as if to set a distance, proclaim his leadership, his
own doughty independence. But the poor crippled Hagop kept obstinately
beside Stephan while the others swarmed noisily round them. Sato lurked
as usual in the rear. The boys paid no heed at all to the presence of the
commander-in-chief; they tried to swarm past him without saluting, without
even noticing he was there. Gabriel called sharply after his son. That
conqueror of the guns detached himself, came slouching out from among his
fellows, and approached his father with the solemn pomposity of an ape,
which he had managed to learn from his new comrades. His tousled hair
hung over his forehead. His face was scarlet and damp with sweat. His
eyes looked filmed over with the very intoxication of conceit. Even his
kilt was stained and torn with peculiar heroism.

 

 

Gabriel sternly inquired: "Well, what are you messing about here for?"

 

 

Stephan gurgled and looked round vaguely. "We're running -- having a game
. . . we're off duty."

 

 

"Having a game? Big chaps like you? What are you playing?"

 

 

"Oh, nothing special -- only . . . playing, Dad!"

 

 

As he gave this disconnected information, Stephan eyed his father rather
strangely. He seemed to look up at him and say: Dad, why are you trying to
keep me down out of the position I've had such trouble to get, among all
these chaps? If you snub me now, they'll all begin ragging me. Gabriel
did not understand the look.

 

 

"You don't look like a human being, Stephan. Do you really dare to let
your mother see you in that state?"

 

 

The boy did not answer, he only stared at the ground in anguish. So far
at least his father had been speaking French. But the order that followed
came in Armenian; it was spoken so that the whole camp heard: "Off you go
now, straight to the tent and wash, and change your clothes! And report
to me tonight when you're fit to be seen!"

 

 

Then, when Gabriel had gone a few angry steps further south, he suddenly
stopped. Had the boy disobeyed him? He was almost certain that he had,
and indeed when, after a while, he went back to the sheikh-tent, he found
no Stephan.

 

 

Gabriel tried to think of a punishment. This was not merely a case of a
boy's disobeying his father, it was a breach of camp discipline. But it
would not be easy to punish Stephan. Gabriel went across to his trunk,
which was kept in his tent, and pulled out a book. Dr. Altouni's advice
that Juliette should read, and so get her mind off gruesome reality, had
given him the same inclination. Perhaps, for the next few, slack hours,
he could manage to forget reality, both outside and inescapably within
him. For today, nothing need be feared. The day wore on. Scouts from the
various outposts came in every hour with their reports. Nothing new in the
valley. A patrol had ventured nearly as far as Yoghonoluk and returned
to report that it had not met a single saptieh. Gabriel glanced at the
title of his French novel. It was by Charles Louis Philippe, a book he
had enjoyed, though he only half remembered it. But it was sure to be
full of little cafés, with tables and chairs, out on the pavement. Wide
sunbeams on dusty Faubourg boulevards. A tiny court with an acacia and
a moss-green, closed-in fountain in the middle. And this poor court had
more of the spring in it than all the glamorous myrtles and rhododendrons,
anemones and wild narcissi, of Musa Dagh on a March day. Old dark wooden
stairs, worn smooth as sea shells. Invisible footsteps clattering up them.

 

 

As Gabriel opened the book, a little three-cornered note fell out of it.
The child Stephan had written it a few years previously. That, too,
had been in August. Gabriel had attended the big conference assembled in
Paris between the Young Turks and Dashnakzagan. Juliette and the child
had been staying in Montreux. At that famous "congress of fraternization"
it had been resolved that the liberty-loving youth of both peoples should
act side by side to build up a new fatherland. Gabriel had, as we know,
tried to keep his promise by having himself, with other idealists,
inscribed as a reservist officer on the lists of the Istanbul training
school when war clouds gathered over Turkey. Stephan's little letter had
lain since then, innocent of any gruesome future, within pages describing
the Paris of Charles Louis Philippe. It had been written with immense
pain, in stiff, French, copy-book letters:

 

 

Mon cher papa! How are you? Will you stay a long time in Paris? When
are you coming to see us? Maman and I miss you very much. Here it is
very pretty. Lots of kisses from

 

 

Your loving and grateful son,

 

 

Stephan

 

 

Gabriel, seated on the bed in which Gonzague Maris slept, examined the
shaky childish handwriting. How could that prettily dressed little boy
sitting in a sunny room at Montreux, scrawling on Juliette's thick linen
notepaper (which retained its scent), be one with the young scamp of
an hour ago? Gabriel, as he sat there thinking of Stephan's restless
animal-eyes, of the throaty chatter of the herd, did not know in the least
that he himself had been transformed as much as his son. A hundred details
of that far-off day in August came back to life in him, darting into
his mind from that simple letter. No massacre, no gruesome brutality,
seemed more poignant than this withered leaf, shed from a life that
might never have been.

 

 

After attempting the first five pages of Charles Louis Philippe, Gabriel
shut the book. He did not think that now, as long as he lived, he would
ever be able again to fix his thoughts on one. It would be just as impossible
for a navvy to turn his hands to minute carving. With a sigh he stood up off
Gonzague's bed, and smoothed down the coverlet. He noticed then how,
across the bed end, Maris had laid out his clean clothes, carefully
washed. Thread, scissors, mending wool, lay beside them; for the Greek
did all his own darning and mending. Gabriel could not tell why the
sight of this washing warned him of some approaching departure. He went
back to his trunk and threw in the novel. But he pocketed the child
Stephan's letter. He came out of the tent thinking of the station at
Montreux. Juliette and little Stephan had awaited him. Juliette had
carried a red sunshade.

 

 

 

 

Gabriel stood outside Hovsannah's tent. He asked through the chink in the
door if he might come in to see the new mother. Mairik Antaram asked him
inside. In spite of all Mairik's efforts the baby seemed determined not
to flourish. Its tiny face was still a brownish color, and as wrinkled
as immediately after birth. Its wide-open eyes stared without seeing.

 

 

Mairik Antaram's voice sounded impatient.

 

 

"Cheer up, Hovsannah, and be glad that your baby has a birthmark on his
breast, not on his face. What do you expect?"

 

 

Hovsannah closed weary eyes, as though she were tired of continually
asserting her better nature in face of empty consolations.

 

 

"Why doesn't he take his milk? And why doesn't he cry?"

 

 

Mairik Antaram began to busy herself warming swaddling clothes round
a hot stone. She cried out, without looking up from her work: "Wait
another two days, till after the christening. Lots of children won't
begin to cry till they're baptized."