Forty Days of Musa Dagh (75 page)

 

 

"The best thing is not to try to do anything, but to keep still, and die."

 

 

Had Lepsius not noticed how this house, the patriarchate, was surrounded
with police spies? Every word they were saying would be reported next
morning to Talaat Bey. And so, with terror in his eyes, Monsignor Saven
asked his visitor to put his head close against his lips. In this way
did Lepsius get news of the Armenian revolt on Musa Dagh, the defeat of
Turkish regulars, that the mountain had so far proved impregnable. The
patriarch's whisper became unsteady: "Isn't it terrible? They say the
army has lost over a hundred men."

 

 

Johannes Lepsius did not consider it terrible by any means. His blue eyes
shone like a boy's behind sharp-rimmed glasses. "Terrible? Magnificent!
If there'd been three Musa Daghs, we should have heard a very different
story. Oh, Monsignor, I only wish I were up on the Musa Dagh."

 

 

The pastor had said it far too loud. The patriarch's hand lay, stiff
with fear, upon his mouth. As he took leave, Lepsius handed over some
of the funds collected in Germany. The priest crammed the banknotes,
as swiftly as though they were red-hot coals, into the patent safe in
his office. Not much hope of their ever reaching their destination, Deir
ez-Zor. The monsignor was whispering again, sharply, in the German's ear,
something which at first was unintelligible.

 

 

"It isn't we of the patriarchate, nor you, nor any other German, nor any
neutral, who can help us. We should have to find Turks as intermediaries,
you understand. Turks!"

 

 

"Turks?" Dr. Lepsius murmured, recapturing a glimpse of Enver Pasha's face.
"What a mad idea."

 

 

 

 

What a mad idea, and yet already, independently of Dr. Lepsius, it was on
its way to being realized. The pastor, in his hotel dining-room, had made
the acquaintance of a Turk, a doctor of about forty. Professor Nezimi
Bey was very well dressed and westernized. He lived in the Tokatlyan,
but had his consulting-room in one of the best streets in Péra. At first
Lepsius mistook him for one of the least uncongenial incarnations of
the spirit which infused the Young Turkish world. But, in spite of his
European science, of clothes admirably cut, appearances proved to be
deceptive. They often got into conversation. Three or four times they
arranged to have their meal at the same table. Lepsius was extremely
cautious. He was forced to be so. The Turkish doctor was anything but
cautious or reserved. The German started, and held his tongue, as the
doctor began to vent his hatred of the policy of the people in control,
his utter detestation of Enver and Talaat. Had they sent an agent
provocateur? But, as he eyed Nezimi's pleasant features, considered his
position, his way of expressing himself, his really surprising powers
as a linguist, such suspicion seemed to be too absurd. Impossible that
Enver should dispose of agents of this calibre. Yet Lepsius was still
wary enough not to let himself be led into talking freely. He did not
deny that he was doing his best, as a Christian priest, to mitigate the
lot of his co-religionists. But he would not criticize, and confined
himself to the role of attentive listener.

 

 

Though Nezimi seemed not explicitly pro-Armenian he raged against the
Committee's deportation policy. "Those fields of Armenian corpses will
mean the end of Turkey."

 

 

Lespius still looked stolid. "The vast majority of the nation is behind
Enver and Talaat."

 

 

"What?" Nezimi glared up at him. "The vast majority of the nation!
You foreigners haven't any idea how insignificant that party really is.
Above all, how morally insignificant! Why, it's composed of the shabbiest
parvenu scum. When people of that sort insist on their Osmanian race,
it's the worst insolence! These pure-bred Osmans mostly come out of
the Macedonian stewpot in which the racial ragout of the whole Balkans
floats."

 

 

"That's an old story, Professor. Usually the people who dwell on their race
are the ones who have most need of something of that kind."

 

 

Nezimi gazed sadly at Lepsius. "It's a pity that a man of your kind,
who has made so close a study of our conditions, should still have no
idea of the real Turkey. Do you know that all true Turks detest these
Armenian convoys, even worse than you do?"

 

 

Lepsius pricked up his ears. "And who are these true Turks, if you don't
mind my asking, Professor?"

 

 

"All those who haven't lost their religion."

 

 

But Nezimi would say no more than that. That same evening he knocked at
the pastor's door. He gave an impression of strange excitement.

 

 

"If you like, tomorrow I'll take you into the tekkeh of the Sheikh Achmed.
It's the greatest honor I could pay you. And there, besides, you'll be able
to speak your mind about the Armenians, and perhaps find out some way of
helping them."And he repeated: "I shall be doing you the greatest honor."

 

 

So that, immediately after luncheon next day, Nezimi escorted Dr. Lepsius,
as they had arranged. Most of the way was done on foot. That day a cool
breeze off the Sea of Marmora tempered the sweltering midday sun. Flocks
of herons and storks sped across the vivid afternoon sky of Istanbul, to
their nests on the opposite side. The doctor conducted Dr. Lepsius along
past Enver Pasha's Seraskeriat and the mosque of the Sultan Bayazid into
the endless streets of Ak Serai. They walked interminably westwards. They
had penetrated the ruined confusion of the innermost town. Pavements had
ceased to be. Herds of sheep and goats flocked round them. The ancient
Byzantine city wall, above a chaos of wooden houses, frowned on them with
its crenellated turrets. But the pastor was by no means in the mood to
rejoice his aesthetic sense at the spectacle of a highly picturesque,
even if intensely squalid, neighborhood. Nor did that innermost heart of
Islamic piety, which today was to open itself for his benefit, interest
him as a new experience. Like all minds in the throes of some obsessing,
tormenting struggle for an end, he saw it all solely in its relationship
to Armenian woes. So that, anything but receptive to new experiences,
he was already turning over suggestions and projects. It was these and
not curiosity which inspired him to question his guide. "I suppose we're
on our way to the Mevlevi dervishes."

 

 

Lepsius, in spite of long sojourns in Palestine and Asia Minor, knew
next to nothing about Islam. To him it was merely the fanatical enemy
of Christendom.

 

 

But since it is one of our saddest human weaknesses that we always know
least of the very person whose mind we should penetrate to the core --
of the enemy -- the pastor had the vaguest notions of the world of true
Moslem belief. He had only said "Mevlevi dervishes" because their very
well-known name was familiar to him.

 

 

Dr. Nezimi waved off the suggestion: "No! No! Sheikh Achmed, our master,
is the head of an order, called by our people 'the thieves of hearts.'"

 

 

"What a strange title for an order. Why 'the thieves of hearts'?"

 

 

"You'll see that for yourself."

 

 

Still, even on their way, the guide condescended to explanations.
He informed the German that the flood of Mohammedan religion divides
itself into two main powerful streams, the Shaariat and the Tarikaat.
Let the Shaariat stand approximately for the concept of the Catholic secular
priesthood, the idea of the Tarikaat would be falsified by comparisons
with western monasticism. To be a dervish does not mean to renounce the
world and withdraw for one's whole life into a tekkeh. Anyone might
become a dervish, provided he fulfilled certain conditions, and he need
not therefore renounce his profession or family. The grand vizir was
equally eligible with the tailor, coppersmith, bank clerk, or officer.
So that thus the most diverse brotherhood was scattered up and down the
whole country, and brothers knew one another everywhere, "by instinct,"
without further recognition.

 

 

Johannes Lepsius asked, reflectively purposeful: "So that numerically
these dervish orders constitute a considerable power?"

 

 

"Not only numerically, Herr Doctor, believe me."

 

 

"And in what does their religious life consist?"

 

 

"You, I believe, would call it 'spiritual exercises.' But probably that's
another misleading expression. We meet from time to time. We exercise our
spiritual faculty. We pray. It's called 'zikr.' And everyone, once or twice
in his life, has to serve the tekkeh, and live there some time. But the chief
thing is, we obey our teacher and superior, out of the fullness of our
hearts, from love."

 

 

"Your teacher and superior is the Sheikh Achmed, Professor?"

 

 

Though Lepsius had not directly asked who Sheikh Achmed exactly was,
Nezimi supplied the answer:

 

 

"He is a weli. You would say 'holy man' -- and that again would be a
complete mistranslation. His life, which is a higher life than other men's,
has enabled him to develop powers in himself. You know the French expression
--
initiation
. And as you'll see, the most splendid thing about him is that
he's just an ordinary man."

 

 

They stopped at a high wall. Fig trees, and the tops of cypresses,
goldenrain and wistaria, betrayed a garden. Nezimi Bey tapped with his
stick on the worm-eaten door, let into the wall. They were kept a long
time waiting. Then an old man, heavily built, with mild, kind eyes, came
and opened to them. The dark miracle of the garden disclosed itself.
A cedar, many centuries old, stood predominant. The two rusty halves of a
heavy chain dangled from the strong branches of the tree. Long ago, Nezimi
told the pastor, the cedar had been chained in its youth, till its sap,
rising in strength, forced the chain asunder. A symbol of the dervish's
life. In this peace, strangely cut off from the din of streets, splashed
a fountain. That too seemed fully emblematic of the Turkish reverence
for water. A strange dark house bounded the garden to the right, to the
left a bright one, in good repair. They entered the bright, wood house,
having left their shoes. Nezimi led the German up dark close stairs to
a kind of loggia, built over the big apartment of the tekkeh, which,
with its slim wood pilasters and walls cut in filigree at the top, had
the look of a vast pavilion. In its east wall, turned to Mecca, there
was a throne niche, built in, with a raised mat. A few men squatted on
either side of this raised divan. The doctor described them as "caliphs,"
as deputies or trusted followers of the sheikh, the men nearest his
heart. They all wore the white turban, even the infantry captain,
who oddly was one of them. Lepsius also noticed a little, spare old
man, who must be suffering from a nervous complaint, since his thin,
goat-bearded face kept twitching. One remarkably handsome man with a
soft brown beard, wearing a long, shirt-like cowl, Nezimi called "the
son of the sheikh." Beside this youthful-looking man, whose robe seemed
to glint with a sheen of silver, there squatted a fifteen-year-old boy,
the son of the son, as whitely clad as his father. But Lepsius's eyes
were especially turned on one of these men, something in whose bearing
and attitude showed him to be the master of them all, the strongest
personality in the room.

 

 

Thus did the pastor picture to himself the great caliphs, Bayazid, Mahmud
the Second, perhaps the Prophet himself. A face tense with fanaticism,
a blue-black beard forcing its way up the face almost to the sockets of
the eyes. The staring look which rested on nothing, had no mercy in it,
either for enemy or for friend even. "This is the Türbedar of Brussa,"
Lepsius heard, and he learned further that this title described a very
exalted symbolic office, the guardian of the tombs of sultans and holy
men. The man was also a great scholar, not only in the learning of the
Koran but in several modern sciences also. The little old gentleman,
sitting there facing him so quietly -- yes, that one there, with the white
hands, twisting amber beads -- also fulfilled a high symbolic function,
"Supervisor of the genealogical table of the Prophet."

 

 

"Do these men always live in the tekkeh?"

 

 

"No, it's a great and very fortunate coincidence that you should be
visiting the sheikh today. The old gentleman over there, the supervisor,
comes from a long way off, from Syria, Antioch, I think. He's the Sheikh's
oldest friend, you know. His name is Agha Rifaat Bereket."

 

 

"Agha Rifaat Bereket." Lepsius repeated it absent-mindedly, as though the
name were not entirely unknown to him. But he had no eyes, either for the
Agha, or for the thirty-five other people whose murmuring voices filled
the apartment, but only for the proud Türbedar. Therefore he did not
notice the arrival of the Sheikh Achmed until the instant when he took
his place on the divan. Nezimi Bey had been right. Outwardly the head of
this ghostly order, which must control the lives of a hundred thousand
faithful, showed little of his dignity and powers. He was a corpulent
greybeard, whose features expressed staid good nature, and did not fail
to suggest a practical shrewdness in their estimate of the things of
this world.

 

 

They had all sprung up, and were crowding eagerly, avidly round the old
sheikh, to kiss his hand. Not until all the others had stilled their love
and reverence to the uttermost, by means of this gesture, did the Türbedar
bend down over the soft, fat right hand of Achmed.