Forty Days of Musa Dagh (61 page)

 

 

Hovsannah grimaced this away. "Provided we can make him live till then."

 

 

The doctor's wife got very angry. "You're a wet blanket, Madame Tomasian.
You depress everybody! Who can say, up here on the Damlayik, what'll have
happened in two days, to anyone! Christening or death? Not even Bagradian
Effendi could tell you for certain whether we'll be alive in two days."

 

 

"Well, if we are alive," said Gabriel, smiling, "we must all have a
christening feast, here outside the tents. I've talked to the pastor
about it. Madame Tomasian, you must say whom you want invited."

 

 

Hovsannah lay on, indifferent. "I don't belong to Yoghonoluk. I know
nobody here."

 

 

Iskuhi, sitting on her bed, had listened to all this without saying a word.
Gabriel eyed her. "Iskuhi Tomasian, would you care to come for a walk?
My wife's disappeared. I want to look for her."

 

 

Iskuhi's face questioned Hovsannah, who with a plaintively exaggerated
voice urged her to go with Gabriel. "Of course you must go, Iskuhi!
I shan't need you. It'll do you good. You can't help with the swaddling."

 

 

Iskuhi hesitated, she could feel some hidden spite in Hovsannah's words.
But Mairik Antaram insisted: "You go along, Sirelis, my pretty! And don't
let me see you again till tonight. What sort of a life is this for you!"

 

 

Gabriel and Iskuhi went towards the Town Enclosure, though there was not
much chance of finding Juliette there. They walked between the narrow lines
of huts. People were sitting out in front of them. The air up here was
cooler and pleasanter than it had been down in the valley. The sea sighed
mildly, in long cool breaths. All were at work. The women were patching
clothes and washing. The old men of the reserve were plying their trades,
soling shoes, planing wood, curing lamb and goatskins. Nurhan's munitions
works appeared to be working overtime.

 

 

They left the camp. They could only exchange monosyllables. The most trivial
questions and replies. They went westwards along the highest peak. Here it
was barren. They had come out of the wild plateau landscape. They were on
the verge of a desert without birds' voices, only stirred by a little
breeze, which blew across them, carrying their words to one another.

 

 

Gabriel did not look at Iskuhi; it was so good to feel her invisibly
beside him. Only when they came to steep declines, did he watch with
delight her hesitant feet which seemed to grow so charmingly embarrassed.
Then all talk between them ceased. What was there to say? Gabriel took
Iskuhi's hand. (Her lame arm made her walk on the left of him.) As they
walked she surrendered to him in silence, keeping nothing back, insisting
on nothing. They did not speak of this emotion which unfolded so swiftly.
They never kissed. They went on, belonging to one another. Iskuhi went with
Gabriel as far as the edge of the northern trench. When she had said
good-bye, he stood there a long time looking after her. No wish, no scruple,
came to life in him, no vague anxiety, thought of the future. Future? Absurd!
He was light with joy from head to foot. Iskuhi's being withdrew so
delicately that not one thought of her disturbed him as he worked out
his new plan of defence. Later, when Stephan came to report, he forgot
to punish the boy for his disobedience.

 

 

 

 

The new life on Musa Dagh had also its religious consequences. In the last
few decades it had been a sort of fashion among Armenians to change one's
creed. Protestantism especially, thanks to the efforts of its German
and American missionaries, had gained much ground since the middle of
the previous century. It is enough to remember those admirable mission
fathers of Marash, whose indefatigable efforts -- educational, charitable,
architectural -- had been of such service to Cilician and Syrian Armenians,
including those of the seven communes round Musa Dagh. But it was certainly
a most fortunate circumstance that religious differences had caused no
essential rift in the national unity. Christianity itself had so hard
a struggle against the Turks as to preclude petty spite and religious
intolerance. Pastor Harutiun Nokhudian of Bitias had been quite free
in the seven villages to preach his doctrine and theology. In all major
questions of conduct he had submitted himself to Ter Haigasun. Up here on
the Damlayik Pastor Aram, his successor, took over the old pastor's duty
of ministering to such Protestants as remained, though he too submitted to
the priest. Ter Haigasun let him have the use of the altar every Sunday
after Mass to deliver his sermon, which usually not only Protestants but
the whole population came to hear. Differences of ritual had ceased to
matter. Ter Haigasun was the uncontested high priest of this mountain,
and administered to people's souls as the superior both of Pastor Aram
and the smaller married village clergy. Therefore it went without saying
that Tomasian should ask him to baptize his newborn son.

 

 

The christening had been fixed for the following Sunday, the fourth
in August, their twenty-third day in camp. But Mass and other duties
prevented Ter Haigasun undertaking it till late in the afternoon of
that day. Since Hovsannah was still feeling too weak to manage to get
as far as the altar, Aram had asked the priest to baptize the child on
Three-Tent Square, so that the mother might be present at the ceremony.

 

 

Gabriel kept his promise to Hovsannah and sent out about thirty-five
invitations, to notables and the most important section leaders. The
reception into Christ's communion of this first-born on Musa Dagh was a
good way of maintaining cordial relations with the chief personalities
of the people. He had still nine ten-litre jars of the heavy local vintage.
Kristaphor was ordered to bring out two of them and a few bottles of
mulberry brandy. He could not, to be sure, offer his guests more solid
refreshment; the food supplies on Three-Tent Square were already
alarmingly reduced.

 

 

The guests assembled, at four, outside the tents. A few chairs had been
brought along for the older people. The sacristan had stood a little
tin bathtub on a low table. The very ancient and beautiful font in the
church had had to be left behind in Yoghonoluk. Ter Haigasun robed in the
sheikh tent. Gabriel, by Aram's wish, had consented to stand ginkahair,
godfather.

 

 

The church choir, led by the diminutive Asayan, had taken up its position
around the table, with its crucifix and the tin font. The lukewarm
christening water had already been borne before the altar. Now, to the
singing of the choir, one of Ter Haigasun's subordinate priests dropped
three drops of the sacred christening oil into the tub.

 

 

Gabriel, the ginkahair, gingerly took the child from Mairik Antaram.
The women, in honor of the occasion, had laid that sallow, brownish,
puckered object, which showed no strength, on a special cushion --
a magnificent cushion in view of the general circumstances. The child's
eyes stared without seeing at the world, into whose cruel life he had
come so guiltless. Nor did his voice yet find it worth its while to
whimper one assent to the light of God, which lights up this cruelty
so magnificently. Gabriel held out the wretched bundle, which seemed
in its estrangement to resent being captured by religion, with all its
consequences, in front of the priest, as the service prescribed.
Ter Haigasun's eyes, so humble, yet so coldly sacerdotal, did not seem
to know that this was Gabriel. Or at least they did not see the man,
only the officiating person, with a ritual duty to discharge. It was
always the same whenever Ter Haigasun stood at the altar or wore his
vestments. Every human memory and relationship faded out of his eyes,
to give way to the stern equanimity of his office. He asked the ritual
question of the godfather. "What does this child ask?" And Gabriel,
who felt very clumsy, had to answer: "Faith and hope and love." This
was repeated three times. Only then the question: "And what shall this
child be called?"

 

 

He was to be called after his grandfather Master Mikael Tomasian. At this
point of the ceremony that ancient was comically inspired to stand up and
make a little bow, as though he were being cited to share in the future
of his descendant. Opinions differed among the lookers-on as to what
that future might prove to be. Even if by some miracle they were saved,
the sickly, apathetic little body would scarcely have the strength to
hold on to life. Mairik Antaram, Iskuhi and Aram Tomasian had come over
to Gabriel. The child was unwound from its swaddling clothes. Iskuhi's
and Gabriel's hands touched more than once. A morose hopeless mood was
on the spectators. Hovsannah stared with a pinched puritanical face at
the group round the font. Something seemed to impel her very soul to
the bitterest desolation, hostility. It may have been the thought of
that deep bond between Aram and Iskuhi, brother and sister, from which
at this instant she felt shut out.

 

 

Ter Haigasun took up the child with inimitable, dexterous certainty.
His hands, which had christened a thousand children, worked with the
almost super-terrestial grace and elegance which all born priests display
in even the manual part of their office. For a second he held out the
child to the people. Everyone could see the large red birthmark on its
chest. Then he dipped it quickly, three times, in water, making the sign
of the cross each time with its body. "I baptize thee in the name of the
Father, of the Son, of the Holy Ghost." Hovsannah had pulled herself
up from her seat. She bent forward with a convulsive grimace. This
was the decisive moment. Would her child, as it touched the baptismal
water, break out at last, as Mairik Antaram had promised her, in a long
wail? Ter Haigasun reached the suckling back to his ginkahair. It was not
Gabriel, however, but Antaram who took him and dried his sickly body,
gently, with a soft cloth. The child had not cried. But Hovsannah, its
mother, shrieked aloud. Two long hysterical screams. The chair fell down
behind her back. She hid her face and stumbled into the tent. Juliette,
sitting at her side, had plainly heard her cry form, and repeat, a word:
"Sin! Sin!"

 

 

 

 

Aram Tomasian remained some time in the tent. He came back looking pale
and laughed uneasily. "You must forgive her, Ter Haigasun. She's never
really managed to get over the shock of Zeitun, though she hasn't shown
it up to now."

 

 

He signaled to Iskuhi to go in and look after Hovsannah. The girl glanced
desperately at Gabriel, and seemed to hesitate. He said to the pastor:
"Couldn't you leave your sister with us, Tomasian? Mairik Antaram's in
the tent, you know."

 

 

Tomasian pulled back a chink in the canvas door. "My wife has been asking
for her so urgently! Later, perhaps, when Hovsannah's asleep . . ."

 

 

Iskuhi had already disappeared. Gabriel could feel that the pastor's wife
could not brook the fact that, while she herself suffered unspeakably,
her young sister-in-law should not be chained to the same suffering.

 

 

Nor in the ensuing jollifications could the guests shake off the weight
of this christening. Gabriel had had another long table set end to end
with the one at which Juliette "received." They all sat down along the
benches. This arrangement, in the eyes of these socially hyper-sensitive
people, seemed to indicate a dual treatment, which wounded a number
of snobbish souls. The "best people" were all at Juliette's table. Ter
Haigasiin, the Bagradians, Pastor Tomasian, Krikor, Gonzague Maris and
-- shamelessly -- Sarkis Kilikian. Gabriel, who had invited that ragged
outsider, now even asked him to sit beside him. Madame Kebussyan, on
the other hand, in spite of the eagerest maneuverings, had found no seat
among the notables. She had been forced to take her place with the other
mayoresses, though her husband's wealth, notwithstanding the fact that
she had lost it, should really have set her high above them. Gabriel,
however, talked almost exclusively to Kilikian. He kept beckoning to
Missak and Kristaphor to fill up the Russian's tin mug, since Kilikian
would only drink out of that, and had thrust away the glass set out for
him. Was it mere stubbornness? Or a deep mistrust in the heart of the
continually persecuted? Gabriel could not be certain. He tried very hard,
but quite unsuccessfully, to get on friendly terms with his neighbor. That
impassive death's-head with agate eyes, brooding on nothing, would only
give monosyllabic answers.

 

 

Gabriel's feelings toward Kilikian were complex. Here was a man of some
education (three years in the Ejmiadzin Seminary). Hence, something more
than the ordinary Asiatic proletarian. And again, his life had been
so astounding that this young man's feaures looked as ravaged by it,
his eyes as dead, as though he were old. Set against the relentlessness
of this fate, the common Armenian woe became as a shadow. Yet the man
had mastered it, or at least he had not succumbed, and that, to Gabriel,
was enough to prove an unusual personality -- which compelled respect. Yet
vague mistrustful feelings of equal strength counterbalanced this positive
attraction. There could be no doubt that Kilikian looked, and had often
behaved, like a dangerous criminal. His vicissitudes could not always
have been unmerited; somehow they were too much in keeping with his
personality as a whole. Impossible to say whether prison had made him
a criminal or some inborn criminal tendency led him there by way of
politics. Nor did anything about the Russian in the least suggest the
socialist or anarchist. He seemed not to have the slightest feeling for
ideas and general social objectives. Nor was he altogether malicious,
though a good many women in the camp called him "the devil," from his
appearance. This did not mean that at any minute he might not have been
ready to do a murder in cold blood. His secret lay in his being nothing at
all explicit, in his seeming to belong nowhere, to be living at some zero
point of incomprehensible neutrality. Of all the people on the Damlayik
he and Apothecary Krikor were certainly the most unsocial beings. The
Russian, though he attracted him profoundly, depressed Bagradian.