Forty Days of Musa Dagh (10 page)

 

 

"I heard all kinds of disturbing things -- but that's not the point.
Perhaps, really, very little may have changed. But it always comes suddenly,
like a desert storm. It's in my bones. My ancestors in me, who suffered
incredible things, can feel it. My whole body feels it. No, Juliette,
you can't understand! Nobody could understand who hasn't been hated
because of his race."

 

 

Juliette jumped out of bed, sat down beside him, and took his hands.
"You're just like Stephan. Whenever he's had a bad dream, he only
half wakes up and can't shake it off for the next hour. Why should
we ourselves be in danger? What about all your Turkish friends, those
charming, sensitive people we knew in Paris, who called so often? Have
they suddenly changed into cunning wild beasts? No. You Armenians have
always been unjust to the Turks."

 

 

"I'm not being unjust to them. There are some very fine people among them.
After all, in the war I got to know the poor people, how good and patient
they are. It isn't their fault and it isn't ours. But what difference does
that make?"

 

 

The dawnlight had kept increasing; the crest of Musa Dagh, beyond the
windows, had begun to sharpen. Gabriel stared up at the mountain. "I've
been thinking how odd it is that we should have come here in pursuit
of Avetis, who kept escaping us. As though he'd meant to lure me to
Yoghonoluk by his death. . . . But no -- really it was you who insisted
on coming here."

 

 

It was getting chilly. Juliette's bare feet were freezing. She did not
want to argue. "Well -- you see! It was just my obstinacy. That ought
to calm you."

 

 

But Gabriel's thoughts were pursuing another object. "Yesterday, for an
instant, I felt unshakably convinced that I'd been brought here by some
supernatural power, that God has something or other in store for me.
My feeling really was unshakable, though it only lasted an instant.
The life I've been leading so far can't have been right. It's so pleasant
to imagine oneself an exceptional personage -- the only grain in a wheat
sheaf, not subject to the law of gravity, but free to wander, without
obligations. . . . And so, by His will, through Avetis, God brought me
back here. . . ."

 

 

He stopped. For some time she had been peering into his indistinct face.
"This is the first time I've seen you afraid."

 

 

Still he did not turn away his eyes from the sharpening crest of Musa Dagh.
"Afraid? As I should be of anything supernatural. As a child I used sometimes
to imagine a tiny star in the sky growing bigger and bigger, swelling up,
coming nearer and nearer, and crushing the earth."

 

 

He shook himself to regain his self-control. "Juliette. It's not for me.
It's for you and Stephan."

 

 

Then at last she got very angry. "I simply don't believe in all your bogies.
This is 1915. I've never met with anything in Turkey, or anywhere else,
but friendship and civility. I'm not frightened of people. But, even suppose
there should be danger, do you really think I'd be such a low-down coward
as to run away and leave you here to face it? . . . I couldn't even do that
if I'd stopped loving you."

 

 

He said no more and shut his eyes. Juliette already wanted to get up quietly.
But Gabriel let his head sink into her lap. His forehead was damp and cold.
In a sudden burst the birds struck up their shrill dawn twitterings.

 

 

 

 

 

 

4. THE FIRST INCIDENT

 

 

This sudden weakness and surrender passed as quickly as it had come.
Yet Gabriel was transformed since that day in Antioch. He, who for
hours together had worked in his room, had now begun only to sleep at
home. But then he was so tired out that he slept like a corpse. He did
not say another word of the menace which had shaken him so profoundly
that Sunday night. Juliette, too, avoided the subject. She was convinced
that there was really nothing to fear. Already, in the course of their
marriage, she had been through three or four such crises with Gabriel
-- days of depressed, apparently causeless brooding, of heavy silences,
which no affection served to dissipate. She knew it of old. At such times
a wall grew up between them, and they were strangers, so unapproachable
to each other that Juliette felt appalled at the childish recklessness
which had let her join her destiny to this strange blood.

 

 

To be sure, in Paris things had been different for Juliette. Her own world,
in which Gabriel was the foreigner, had supported her like a higher power.
In Yoghonoluk their positions were reversed, and it is very easily understood
that Juliette, for all her irony, should have striven to fortify in herself
her feeling of being well disposed towards the "half-civilized" people
with whom she was living.

 

 

Gabriel must be left to his own devices. That painful talk in the night
seemed no more to Juliette than one of the moods she already knew. For
this Frenchwoman, grown up amid immeasurable security, could not imagine
in the least what Gabriel had meant by his "desert storm." Europe was
now a battlefield. Even in Paris people were having to spend the night
in cellars, taking refuge from enemy aircraft. But here she lived amid
paradisaic spring. A few more months of this would be delightful.
Then, sooner or later, they would be sure to return to the Avenue Kiéber --
and meanwhile Juliette's days were fully, and very pleasantly, occupied.
She had not the time to do much thinking. Her ambitions as a châtelaine
were aroused. These servants must be trained to civilization. She soon
found herself admiring the natural talents of Armenians; within a few weeks
Hovhannes the cook had developed into almost a cordon bleu. The butler
Missak was so versatile that she had thoughts of taking him back with
her to Paris. Her two maids bade fair to become expert ladies' maids. The
villa on the whole was in good condition, yet sharp feminine eyes could
pick out many points where decay and dilapidation threatened. Workmen
invaded the house. Their master, Tomasian, undertook to do all the
carpentering. But Tomasian must never be called a master-carpenter to
his face. He described himself as a "builder and contractor," wore a
heavy gold watch chain across his middle, hung with a big medallion of
his late wife, that had been painted by the schoolteacher Oskanian, and
never let slip a chance of telling people how his two children, a son and
a daughter, had been to school in Geneva. He was tediously thorough and
insisted on engaging Juliette in endless discussions. In compensation,
however, he succeeded in repairing any structural damage the house had
sustained and could even make certain additions and improvements necessary
to European habits. His men worked fast and with astonishing quiet.
By the beginning of April, Juliette was already proudly aware that here,
on the remotest coast of Syria, she possessed a country house which,
apart from its rather primitive lighting and sanitation, could easily
compare with any in Europe.

 

 

Her chief delights were the rose garden and orchard. Here her inherited
instincts found expression. Is there not in every Frenchman an inborn
gardener and fruit-grower? But Armenians also are born gardeners,
especially those round Musa Dagh. Kristaphor the steward was an
expert. Juliette had never conceived of such fruit. No one, without
having tasted them, can have any idea of the sweetness and juiciness of
Armenian apricots. Even here, beyond the watershed of the Taurus, they
retained all the savor of their home up along the shores of Lake Van,
so rich in gardens. Juliette kept making the acquaintance of more and
more new kinds of fruit, of flowers and vegetables of which she had never
heard. She spent most time in pruning rose trees, on her head a sombrero,
a vast pair of Kristaphor's gardening-scissors in her hand. For such a
rose-lover the delights of this could not have been equalled. Long beds
of rose trees, shrub after shrub, tree after tree, not in stiff European
lines, but a tangled tumult of scent and color, on dark green waves.

 

 

Apothecary Krikor had promised that, if she would send him enough baskets
of the real moschata damascena, he would extract for her a tiny vial of
that attar, the recipe for which goes back through the centuries. And
he told her a legend. A single drop of the genuine essence has such
power that a corpse, on to whose hair it has been sprinkled, will still
be perfumed with it at the Last Judgment, and so will influence the
recording angel in his favor.

 

 

Sometimes Juliette went for rides with Stephan. Behind them rode a
stable-boy, for whom she had designed picturesque livery. The instinct
to embellish, to decorate, possessed her completely. When she rode
forth with Stephan and the decorative groom down the village street and
across the church square of Yoghonoluk, she felt like the princess of
this fairy-tale world. She sometimes thought of her mother and sister
in Paris. What a much better time she was having! Wherever she went,
she was greeted with the deepest obeisance, even in the Mohammedan
villages, which she touched on her longer rides. It was obvious. Poor
Gabriel had another of his crises de nerfs. She, Juliette, could see
not the slightest sign of a changed world.

 

 

 

 

Gabriel Bagradian left the house early every morning, but no longer to
explore Musa Dagh. He went through the villages. His hankerings after
memories of his childhood had been replaced by more adult cravings. He
was determined to get to know these people thoroughly, their way of life,
their needs, their comings and goings.

 

 

At the same time he had sent a batch of letters to Istanbul, to Armenian
friends in the Dashnakzagan party, and some to former friends among the
Young Turks. He shrewdly hoped that, though the metropolitan censorship
might prevent most of these from being delivered, some at least would get
to their destination. The answers that came must decide the future.
If everything was as usual in the capital, or if it were simply a case
of general military control, he would, he had decided, break up this
household and dare the journey to Istanbul, even without the necessary
passport. If no answers came, or unfavorable ones, the old Agha's fears
must be well founded, his fate sealed, retreat cut off. Then there would
remain only the hope that such a friend of Armenians as the Wali Djelal
Bey might tolerate no "incidents" in his vilayet, and that a peasant
community like this round Musa Dagh would be left unmolested by the
firebrands, who, after all, congregate in big cities. In that case the
house in Yoghonoluk might, as the Agha had said, be an ideal refuge.

 

 

In so far as the absence of marching-orders was concerned, Bagradian
fancied he could perceive the exact workings of the minds of the
Turkish High Command. Why were Armenians being retired from the line
and disarmed? Surely the Turks feared that defeat would mean that a
strong minority, armed with all the latest weapons, might be tempted
to demand certain rights from the dominant race. But where there could
be no soldiers, officers, who at the proper moment might snatch up the
leadership of such a movement, were still less to be tolerated.

 

 

Valid as were all these reasons, Gabriel had not a second's real peace.
Yet now his unrest was no longer neurotically on edge, but fruitful
and purposeful. He found in himself a meticulous sense of detail, so far
known only in his scientific work. It was useful as a means of discovering
exact relationships. He did not once ask himself to what object his new
exertions were being directed or to whom he imagined they might be useful.

 

 

His first step was to investigate the village of Yoghonoluk. It was the
largest village. In its communal house the municipal business of all seven
villages was transacted, particularly their dealings with the authorities.
Mukhtar Kebussyan was away. The village clerk let Gabriel in with many bows;
a visit from the head of the fabulous Bagradian family was a great
distinction.

 

 

Was there a register? The clerk pointed ceremoniously to the dusty shelves
round the walls of his little office. Naturally there were lists. And not
only had every inhabitant been entered in the proper church register --
these were not Kurds or nomads, but Christian folk -- only a few years
ago the mukhtars had taken an independent census. In 1909 -- after the
reaction against the Young Turks and the big massacre in Adana -- Armenian
party leaders had given orders for lists to be taken in the villages. By
a rough calculation there must be about seven thousand Christians. But
if the Effendi so desired, he could have the exact figures within a few
days. Gabriel did so desire.

 

 

His next inquiry was more delicate. How were those young men placed who
were liable for military service? The village clerk had begun to squint a
little, like his master, the mukhtar. So far the order had concerned all
able-bodied men between twenty and thirty, though legally twenty-seven was
the age limit. About two hundred men in this whole village district had
been affected. Just one hundred and fifty of these had paid their bedel,
the sum which bought them clear of the army -- fifty Turkish pounds a
head. The Effendi knew how thrifty people were in the villages. Most
fathers began to save for the bedel the instant their sons were born
. . . to spare them the horrors of Turkish barrack-life. The Mukhtar of
Yoghonoluk, in conjunction with the gendarmerie station, had to collect
it as every batch received its marching-orders and pass it on to the
Hükümet at Antioch.

 

 

"But how is it," Bagradian asked, "that in a population of six thousand
there should only be two hundred men fit for service?"