Forty Days of Musa Dagh (73 page)

 

 

He stopped, panting for breath. Better this way! These Armenian bullets
had tidied out of his mind whatever sense of guilt still clouded it. He
smiled. His eyes, under the short, slanting brows, moved alertly,
scanning the way in front of him.

 

 

At this minute Juliette still hovered uneasily between half-consciousness
and oblivion. Hadn't someone said: "Yes, sleep. Get to sleep, Juliette"?
And whose voice? Well? Had they kept on saying it? Or just said it . . . ?
"Yes, sleep. Get to sleep, Juliette."

 

 

She opened her eyes. In thirty seconds, she knew that this was the tent
. . . and Gabriel and Iskuhi. It was very hard to move her tongue. Her
gums, her mouth, had no sensation in them. These people were encroaching
on her solitude. Why wouldn't they leave her in peace? She turned
her head, heavy as a mountain, on one side. "What do you leave the
lamp burning for? . . . Do put it out! . . . The oil's smelling --
so unpleasant."

 

 

Juliette's eyes saw nothing. She had been looking for what wasn't there
to find. But something really terrible became clear to her. She seemed
to have got back all her strength, to be well again. She flung off the
blanket. She swung both legs out of bed. She shrieked: "Stephan! Where's
Stephan? Stephan's to come to me!"

 

 

Iskuhi and Gabriel forced Juliette, who struggled hard, back into bed.
Gabriel stroked and pacified; he talked to her: "You're ill, Juliette.
Stephan mustn't see you. It'd be dangerous for him. . . . Be reasonable."

 

 

But her whole life, hearing, comprehension, were centered in the screams
which kept coming out of her: "Stephan? Stephan? Where?"

 

 

This super-conscious terror which shrieked in the patient communicated
itself suddenly to Gabriel. He pulled back the canvas door and rushed
out, into bright moonlight, to the sheikh-tent, where Stephan slept.
It was empty. Bagradian struck a light. Dead lay the couch of Monsieur
Gonzague. Its occupant had left it painfully tidy. It looked as smooth
and undisturbed as though it had not been slept in for weeks. Not so
Stephan's, over which there writhed a wild, disordered vitality. The
sheets hung down. On the mattress stood the boy's open suitcase, out
of which underclothes, suits, pairs of socks, welled, in many-colored
profusion. The food chest in the corner had been forced open and
plundered carelessly. Stephan's rucksack, acquired in Switzerland,
had gone. And, of Gabriel's things, the thermos flask, which only
yesterday he remembered having placed on that little table, was not to
be found. Having looked again carefully, all round the tent, in search
of clues, he went slowly out into the night again, stood outside, with
his head bent slightly, and thought it out. What did it mean? "Probably
up to some new idiotic trick, which those damned boys have hatched out
among them." But everything hopeful and good in this explanation was
contradicted by some sardonic, deeper knowledge. He was very calm, as
he always was at decisive moments. In the servants' sleeping quarters
he found only Kristaphor, whom he roused. "Get up, Kristaphor, quick!
We must wake Avakian. He may know something. Stephan's missing."

 

 

These words were said without excitement. The worried steward wondered
how his master could be so calm, after all that had happened. They went
towards the North Saddle to find Avakian. For a second Gabriel turned back
indecisively to Juliette's tent. There, it was all quiet again. He went
on so quickly that Kristaphor could scarcely keep beside him.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

BOOK THREE

 

 

DISASTER, RESCUE, THE END

 

 

 

 

"To him that overcometh will I give to

 

eat of the hidden manna, and will give

 

him a white stone, and in the stone a new

 

name written, which no man knoweth

 

saving he that receiveth it."

 

REVELATION ii, 17

 

 

 

 

 

 

1. INTERLUDE OF THE GODS

 

 

"Here, my dear Dr. Lepsius, you have only a very small part of our dossier
on the Armenian question."

 

 

And so this affable privy councillor laid his white, nobly veined hand
on the dusty heap which towered so high above the desk that his equine,
aristocratic features kept disappearing behind the pile. The tall windows
of the noticeably empty little room stood open wide. A lazy breath of
summer found its way in from the Foreign Office garden. Johannes Lepsius
sat a little stiff on the visitor's chair, his hat on his knees. Scarcely
more than a month had passed since his memorable talk with Enver Pasha,
yet the pastor looked alarmingly changed. His hair seemed sparser, his
beard looked greyer than it had, his nose seemed to have shrunk and become
more pointed. His eyes no longer beamed. The dreamy distances had gone
out of him, replaced by an expectant, mocking suspiciousness. Could the
sickness in his blood have made ominous progress in these few weeks? Or
was it the curse on all Armenians which, in secret affinity, was devouring
him, the German? Was it the unheard-of amount of work he had managed to
do in so short a time? A new campaign against death and the devil was
fully organized. There was even money at hand; the most influential
people had been won over. And now all that remained was to force an
answer from the sphinx-like countenance of the State. The pastor's eyes,
from behind their twinkling glasses, scornfully viewed these piles of
documents. The affable privy councillor raised his eyebrows, not from
surprise, but to let his gold-rimmed monocle fall.

 

 

"Believe me, not a day passes without some instructions going out from
here to the Embassy in Constantinople. And there isn't an hour at which
our ambassador isn't doing his best to influence Talaat and Enver in the
dreadful Armenian business. In spite of the most pressing cares of state,
the Chancellor himself is most emphatically behind us, in all this. You
know him -- a man like Marcus Aurelius. Oh, and by the by, Dr. Lepsius,
Herr Bethmann-Hollweg asks me to apologize. It was unluckily quite
impossible for him to see you today."

 

 

Lepsius leaned far back. Even his sonorous voice had become uneasier and
sharper. "And what successes have our diplomats to report, Herr Geheimrat?"

 

 

The white marmoreal hand fished at documents. "Look here, all this is from
Scheubner-Richter in Erzerum. All these are from Hoffmann in Alexandretta,
and Rössler, the chief consul in Aleppo. Why, they do nothing else but send
reports! They're working themselves to the bone for the Armenians. Heaven
knows how many of these poor people Rössler alone hasn't managed to save.
And what thanks does he get for all their humanity? The English press
describes him as a bloodhound who stirred up the Turks to massacre in
Marash. What's one to do?"

 

 

Lepsius was now doing his best to meet and fix the affable eyes which came
and went behind paper clouds, like a somewhat capricious moon. "I know
what I'd do, Herr Geheimrat. Rössler and the others are very fine men,
I know them -- Rössler especially is a very fine fellow indeed. But what
can a poor, unimportant consul manage, if he isn't properly supported?"

 

 

"Really, Herr Pastor, I don't understand. Not properly supported?
That's more than unjust."

 

 

A slight nervous gesture from Dr. Lepsius implied that this matter was
far too serious, and time too short, to beat about the official bush.
"I know perfectly well, Herr Geheimrat, that all kinds of things are being
attempted. I know all about the daily interventions and démarches of our
ambassadors. But we aren't dealing with statesmen who've grown up in the
diplomatic game, we're dealing with people like Enver and Talaat. Every
conceivable démarche is far too mild for people of that kind, and not
even the unheard-of would be enough. The extermination of Armenians is
the keystone of their whole national policy. I've convinced myself of
that in a long talk with Enver Pasha himself. A whole barrage of German
démarches would at best only be a nuisance to them -- a strain on their
hypocritical politeness."

 

 

The privy councillor folded his arms. His long face took on an expectant
look. "And do you, Dr. Lepsius, know another method of intervening in the
domestic policy of a friendly, an allied power?"

 

 

Johannes Lepsius looked as intently into his hat as though he had stored
a sheet of notes in it. But, God! no notes would have been necessary.
Ten thousand notes, day and night, kept singing in that poor tired mind,
so that now he could scarcely ever sleep. He made an effort to collect
himself, to broach the thing shortly and methodically.

 

 

"We ought above all to be perfectly clear as to what is happening,
has already happened, in Turkey. An anti-Christian persecution of such
dimensions that former persecutions under Nero and Diocletian bear no
comparison. And more -- the worst crime in recorded history so far --
that in itself means something, I think you'll admit . . ."

 

 

Vague curiosity lit up the pale eyes of the privy councillor. He was silent
as, with careful words, Lepsius felt his way, further and further. No doubt,
since his defeat by Enver Pasha, he knew a little more than he had, about how
to deal with politicians.

 

 

"We mustn't see the Armenians as some kind of half-savage, eastern tribe.
. . . They're educated, cultivated people, with a nervous sensibility
which, frankly, I say one doesn't often find in Europe."

 

 

No twitch in the narrow, equine face gave any reason to suppose that
perhaps, in its view, this classification of the Armenian "mercantile
race" was slightly exaggerated.

 

 

And Dr. Lepsius continued. "This isn't by any means a mere matter of domestic
policy, for the Turks to settle as they think fit. Not even the complete
extermination of a tribe of pygmies can be considered as entirely a matter
between exterminators and victims. All the less can we Germans afford to
take refuge in deploring, or despairing, neutrality. Our enemies abroad
hold us responsible."

 

 

The privy councillor pushed away the documents with a shove, as though
he needed air. "It's part of the deepest tragedy of Germany's position
as a combatant that we, no matter how clear our consciences may be,
should be loaded with the blood-guilt of other races."

 

 

"Everything in this world is primarily a matter of morals, and only very
much later one of politics."

 

 

The privy councillor nodded approbation. "Excellent, Herr Pastor! I quite
agree. In every political decision one ought first to calculate the
moral effect."

 

 

Lepsius sensed a victory. He must make the most of his advantage.
"I'm not here as a mere powerless individual, Herr Geheimrat. I don't
think it's too much to say that I'm here in the name of the whole of
German Christendom, both Protestant and Catholic. I'm acting and speaking
on behalf of such influential men as Harnack, Deissmann, Dibelius . . ."

 

 

The privy councillor glanced appreciatively, his eyes gave due weight to
each of the names. But Johannes Lepsius was now in his old, and dangerous,
full spate: "The German Christian refuses to look on any longer with
folded arms at a crime against the whole of Christianity. Our consciences
will no longer permit us to be its lukewarm accomplices. The empire's
hope of victory is dependent on the satisfaction of German Christians.
I personally am sick with shame that the enemy press should be printing
columns on these Armenian deportations, whereas the German people gets
fobbed off with Enver's lying communiqués and otherwise isn't told a
word. Haven't we earned our right to know the truth about the fate of
our co-religionists? This shameful state of affairs must be ended."

 

 

The privy councillor, rather astonished at the hortatory voice, set finger
tips together, remarking innocently: "But the censorship? The censors would
never allow a thing like that! You really have no idea how involved such
matters are, Herr Lepsius."

 

 

"Not to be tricked is the simplest right of the German people."

 

 

The privy councillor smiled indulgently. "What would be the result of
such a press campaign? A heavy strain both on German nerves and the
Turkish alliance."

 

 

"That alliance must not be allowed to make us accomplices in the eyes of
history. So we want our government to act as quickly as possible. Why don't
you demand, with the uttermost insistence, in Istanbul, that a neutral
commission of inquiry of Americans, Swiss, Dutch and Scandinavians be
admitted to Anatolia and Syria?"

 

 

"You know the Young Turkish potentates well enough yourself, Herr Lepsius,
to be able to judge the sort of answer we should be likely to get to such
a demand."

 

 

"Then Germany must use the most drastic methods."

 

 

"And those would be, in your opinion . . . ?"

 

 

"The threat to withdraw all support from Turkey, recall the German military
mission, and retire German officers and troops from the fronts."

 

 

The repose, the winning affability, on the privy councillor's steady
features, melted into genuine kindliness. "You know, Herr Lepsius,
you've been described to me just as you are -- so . . . innocent."

 

 

S1im, he arose. His grey summer suit sat less stiffly on him than they
do usually on his kind. His slight negligence of manner inspired instant
sympathy and trust. He turned to the big map, Europe and Asia Minor, hung
on the wall. His blue-veined hand approximately covered the Near East.