Forty Days of Musa Dagh (5 page)

 

 

And Gabriel smelt the savors of his childhood. The whiff of seething oil of
sesame, which came in sharp gusts across the street through crevices in the
herbalists' vats, the onion-laden reek of mutton fricassees, simmering over
open fires. The stench of rotting vegetables. And of humanity, more noisome
than all the rest, which slept in the clothes it wore by day.

 

 

He recognized the yearning cries of the street-venders: Jâ rezzah,
jâ kerim, jâ fettah, jâ alim -- so the boy who offered for sale his
rings of white bread from a basket still chanted sentimentally. --
"O All-Nourisher, O All-Good, O All-Provident, O Knower of all things."
The ancient cry of the ages still proffered fresh dates -- "Thou brown one,
O brown of the desert, O maiden." The salad-vender retained his throaty
conviction: "Ed daim Allah, Allah ed daim" -- that the Everlasting alone
was God, that God alone was the Everlasting -- some consolation, in view
of his wares, to the purchaser. Gabriel bought a berazik, a little cake
spread with grape syrup. This "food for swallows" also brought its memories
of childhood. But the first bite of it turned his stomach, and he gave
the sweetmeat to a youngster who had stood in rapture, eyeing his mouth.

 

 

His heart sank so, that for an instant he had to close his eyes. What
could have happened to change the world so completely? Here, in this
country, he had been born. Surely he ought to feel at home here. But --
the irresistible, evenly moving crowd in the bazaar seemed to put his home
at enmity with him. And that young müdir? Surely he had been scrupulously
polite. . . . "The highly esteemed Bagradian family . . ." Yet in a flash
Gabriel knew for a certainty that this suavity and its "highly esteemed
family" had been no more than a single piece of insolence. It had been
worse -- hate masked as courtesy. This same hate flowed around him here.
It seared his skin, galled his back. And indeed his back was suddenly
panic-stricken, with the panic of a man hunted by enemies, without a soul
to befriend him in the world. In Yoghonoluk, apart, in the big house, he
had known nothing of all that. And before, in Paris? There, in spite of
all his prosperity, he had lived in the cool spaces surrounding aliens,
who strike root anywhere. Had he struck root here? Here for the first
time, in this mean bazaar, at home, he could measure fully the absolute
degree of his alien state upon this earth. Armenian! In him an ancient
blood-stream, an ancient people. But why did his thoughts more often
speak French than Armenian -- as for instance now? (And yet that morning
he had felt a distinct thrill of pleasure when his son answered him in
Armenian.) Blood-stream, and people. To be honorable. Were not these
mere empty concepts? Human beings in every age have strewn the bitter
bread of experience with a different spice of ideas, only to make it
still more unpalatable. A side-alley of the bazaar came into view. Most
of its venders were Armenians, standing before their shops and booths:
money-changers, carpet-sellers, jewellers. So these were his brothers,
then? These battered faces, these glistening eyes, alert for custom? No,
many thanks, he refused such brotherhood, everything in him rebelled
against it! But had old Avetis Bagradian been anything other, or better,
than such as these? -- even though he were more far-sighted, gifted,
energetic. And had he not his grandfather alone to thank that he was not
forced to live as they? He went on, shuddering with repugnance. Then he
was suddenly conscious of the fact that one of the great difficulties
of his life sprang from the circumstance that nowadays he saw so
much through Juliette's eyes. So that not only in the world was he an
alien, but within himself, the instant he came into contact with other
people. Jesus Christ! Couldn't one be an individual, free from all this
seething, stinking hostility, as one had that morning on Musa Dagh?

 

 

Nothing more unnerving than such a test of one's reality. Gabriel fled from
the Usun Charshy, the Long Market, as the Turks called the bazaar. He could
no longer endure its hostile rhythm. He found himself in a little square,
composed of new buildings. A pleasant-looking house leapt to his eyes,
hamam, the steam-bath, arranged, as everywhere in Turkey, with a certain
luxury. It was still too early to call on the old Agha Rifaat Bereket.
And, since he felt no inclination to go into one of the dubious restaurants,
he turned into the bath.

 

 

He spent twenty minutes in the big steam-room amid slowly mounting vapors,
which not only made the other bathers look like far-off ghosts, but seemed
even to divorce him from his own body. It was a kind of minor death.
He could feel this day's impenetrable significance.

 

 

In the cooling-room next door he lay down on one of the bare couches
to submit to the usual treatment after a bath. Now he felt more naked
than he had before in the steam. An attendant hurled himself upon him
and began, according to all the rules of his art (which truly is one),
to knead his flesh. With resonant smackings he played on Gabriel's rump
as on cymbals, humming and panting as he did it. A few Turkish beys, on
the other pallets, were undergoing similar treatment. They surrendered to
it with gasps of dolorous pleasure. At intervals, interrupted by grunts
of pain, their voices talked in broken phrases through the angry zeal of
the masseurs. Gabriel had at first no wish to listen. But, mingled with
the hummings of his torturer, their voices assailed him inescapably. They
sounded so individual, so sharply distinguished from one another, that
he felt as though he could see them.

 

 

The first, a well-fed bass. No doubt a very self-assured gentleman, to
whom it was highly important to know the ins and outs of everything --
if possible, even before the officials concerned. This man of information
had secret sources. "The English sent him in a torpedo boat, from Cyprus
to the coast. . . . That was near Oshalki. . . . The fellow brought money
and arms and was seven days nosing about the village. . . . Of course,
the saptiehs didn't know anything. . . . I can even give you the names . . .
Köshkerian is the name of the unclean swine."

 

 

The second voice, high and flurried. An elderly, peaceable little gent,
who always did his best to be optimistic. The voice seemed somehow not so
tall as the other, as though it were looking up at it. Its interjections
of pleasurable pain were framed to an august verse of the Koran: "La ilah
ila 'llah. . . . God is great. . . . We can't have that sort of thing. . . .
But it may not be true . . . la ilah ila 'llah. . . one hears all kinds
of things . . . This is probably only a rumor."

 

 

The well-fed bass, contemptuously: "I have very serious letters from a
highly placed personage . . . a close friend."

 

 

Third voice. That of a strident amateur politician, who seemed to find it
highly satisfactory that things in the world should be so unsettled.
"We can't let it go on much longer. . . . We shall have to finish it. . . .
What's the government there for? What about Ittihad? . . . The unfortunate
thing is this conscription. . . . We've even armed the curs. . . . Now, how
do you think we'll be able to deal with them? . . . The war . . . For weeks
I've shouted myself hoarse."

 

 

Fourth voice, heavy with the cares of state: "And Zeitun?"

 

 

The peaceable voice: "Zeitun? Why, what do you mean? . . . Good heavens.
. . . What's been happening in Zeitun?"

 

 

The politician, ominously: "In Zeitun? . . . Why, the news
has been posted up in every reading-room of the Hükümet. . . . Anyone can
convince himself . . ."

 

 

The informative bass: "The reading-rooms established everywhere by the
German consulates . . ."

 

 

A fifth voice, interrupting from the farthest pallet: "We ourselves
established them."

 

 

An indistinct tangle of obscure allusions: "Köshkerian -- Zeitun . . .
We've got to finish it . . ."

 

 

But Gabriel understood, without knowing the details. As the bath attendant
dug his two fists into his shoulders, these Turkish voices roared in his
ears like water. Acute shame. He who a short time ago had passed the Armenian
shopkeepers in the bazaar with such a shiver of repugnance felt himself now
to be involved, answerable for the destiny of his people.

 

 

Meanwhile the bather farthest away from him had heaved himself, groaning,
off his pallet. He gathered up his burnous, which served as a bath-gown,
and, on toddling feet, ambled a few steps about the room. Gabriel could
see only that he was tall and stout. His consequential way of speech,
the respect with which they heard him out, made Gabriel conclude that
this was a very wealthy man.

 

 

"People are unjust to the government. Impatience alone does not suffice to
determine policy. The true state of affairs is very different to what the
uninformed masses suppose it to be. Treaties, capitulations, considerations
of all kinds, foreign opinion. . . . But let me assure the beys in confidence
that orders have just been issued by the War Office, by His Excellency
Enver Pasha in person to the district military authorities, to disarm
melun ermeni millet (the treacherous Armenian race) -- that is to say,
to recall Armenians from the firing-line and degrade them to the basest
tasks -- road-making, carrying loads. . . . Such is the truth. . . .
But it must not be mentioned."

 

 

"I can't let it pass. I won't swallow that," Gabriel said to himself.
Another voice warned him quietly: "You yourself are the persecuted."
But some dark force, which drew him up from the pallet, decided the
struggle. He pushed the attendant to one side and sprang on to the
tiles. He tied the white towel around his loins. His face aglow with
rage, his hair disordered from the bath, his broad chest, seemed not to
belong to the gentleman who, that morning, had worn tourist's tweeds. He
planted himself squarely before the rich man. Suddenly, by the dark bags
under the eyes, the liverish face, he knew the Kaimakam. The sight only
served to increase his fury.

 

 

"His Excellency Enver Pasha and his whole staff had their lives saved
in the Caucasus by Armenian troops. He was as good as taken prisoner
by the Russians. You know that as well as I do, Effendi. You also know
that His Excellency, in a letter to the Catholicos of Sis, or to the
Bishop of Conia, praised the valor of sadika ermeni millet (the loyal
Armenian people). This letter was posted up by government order. That
is the truth. And whosoever poisons that truth by spreading rumors is
weakening the conduct of the war, destroying our unity, is an enemy of
the empire, a traitor. I, Gabriel Bagradian, tell you this, an officer
in the Turkish army.

 

 

He stopped, and waited for the answer. But the beys, nonplussed by this
wild outburst, did not utter a word -- not even the Kaimakam, who only
drew his burnous more tightly around his nakedness. So that Gabriel could
get out of the bath victorious, although still shaking with excitement.
As he dressed, he was already aware that this was the stupidest thing he
had ever done. Now the way to Antioch was barred. And it was the only
way in, or out, of the world. He ought, before offending the Kaimakam,
to have considered Juliette and Stephan. Yet he could not altogether
reproach himself.

 

 

 

 

His heart was still beating fast as the Agha Rifaat Bereket's servant
conducted him into the selamlik, the reception-room of this cool Turkish
house. Gabriel walked up and down over wide vistas of carpet lost in the
gloom. His watch, which, idiotically, he still kept set to European time,
pointed to the second hour of the afternoon. It was, therefore, the sacred
domestic hour, the hour of kef, the never-to-be-encroached-on midday
peace, in which every visit was a very serious piece of tactlessness. He
had got here far too early. And the Agha, a stickler for the forms of
old-Turkish etiquette, allowed him to wait.

 

 

Bagradian walked to and fro, from one end to the other of this almost
empty apartment, in which, besides two long divans, there were only
braziers and a little table for cups. He justified his discourtesy to
himself -- There's something brewing, I don't quite know what it is,
but I haven't a minute to waste till I get it clear. -- Rifaat Bereket
had been a friend of the house of Bagradian from its origins, even in the
palmy days of old Avetis. Some of Gabriel's pleasantest, most respectful
memories centered upon him. He had called on him twice since coming to
stay in Yoghonoluk. The Agha had not only helped him to make purchases,
but from time to time would send him agents with offers, at absurdly
low prices, of rare finds for his collection of antiques.

 

 

The master of the house, who entered noiselessly on thin slippers made
of goatskin, found Gabriel talking to himself. The Agha Rifaat Bereket,
over seventy, with a white goat-beard and thin features, half-shut eyes,
and small, shimmering hands, wore a yellow scarf around his fez. It was
the emblem of the Moslem who performs his religious duties more exactly
and regularly than the many. This old man's little hands waved in
ceremonious welcome; they touched his heart, his mouth, his forehead.
Gabriel was equally ceremonious. No impatience would have seemed to
tighten his nerves. The Agha came nearer and stretched forth his right
hand towards his visitor's heart, so that his finger tips just rested on
Gabriel's chest. This was the "heart-felt contact," the closest form of
personal sympathy and mystic usage, which pious men of a certain order
of dervishes have adopted. The small white hand gleamed whiter still in
the pleasant twilight of the selamlik. Gabriel fancied this hand a face,
even perhaps more sensitive and delicate than the actual one.