Forty Days of Musa Dagh (79 page)

 

 

The uncouth Shushik at once obeyed, without inflicting the pain of another
embrace upon her boy. She left him in a busy haste to end it quickly. Haik
stood motionless, looking after her. His face twitched as she turned, but
he did not raise his hand to greet her. When Shushik's great shadow had
disappeared, he sighed with relief and set out slowly. Stephan waited,
in his hiding place, to give Haik a little leeway. His companion must
have time to forget these farewells before he ran after him. But young
Bagradian had not reckoned with Hagop. That yellow-haired cripple, the
"book-reader," a sensitive boy, had not managed all day long to get young
Stephan off his conscience. He too had scoffed at his friend. True that
Hagop had done his best to atone for treachery when the crowd began to
chase Stephan. But cripples, like all other despised people, find it hard
to repress a feeling of triumph when any superior, even their own friend,
is degraded. So it was not enough. Hagop not only felt guilty, but very
anxious. He was full of presentiments. For hours he had been looking
about for Stephan, hopping with wild nimbleness round the enclosure and
all the other places where boys assembled. He had even dared to spy into
Juliette's tent, through a chink in the canvas door. He could not rid
his mind of what he had seen: the tall, white woman stretched out like
a corpse on the bed, and the leader, standing and staring down at her,
as though he were dreaming where he stood. Then, when the one-legged
Hagop had caught sight of Stephan with his rucksack in the crowd that
had come to say good-bye to the messengers, his vague fears had become
certainties. Now, panting with the exertion, he held on to Stephan.

 

 

"You mustn't do that. No! You've got to stay here!"

 

 

Stephan with a brutal shove sent Hagop spinning to the ground. "You're a
dirty dog. I don't want anything more to do with you."

 

 

Gabriel's son was not of the kind who forgive easily. But Hagop caught him
by the leg. "You aren't to go. I won't let you. You're to stay here."

 

 

"Let me go, or I'll give you a kick in the face."

 

 

The cripple hauled himself up by Stephan; he hissed despairingly:
"You've got to stay. Your mother's ill! You don't know yet . . ."

 

 

Even this did not lure. Stephan only hesitated a second. Then he drew down
the corners of his mouth. "I can't do anything for her. . . ."

 

 

Hagop hopped a few steps backwards. "Don't you know you'll never come back
here -- that you won't ever see her again?"

 

 

Stephan stood for a while and stared at the ground; but then he turned
and began to run after Haik.

 

 

Hagop still panted after him. "I'm going to shout -- I'll wake them. . . .
They'll lock you up. . . . I'll shout, I tell you!" And indeed he began.
But his thin voice could only carry far enough to stop Haik, who was
still not two hundred yards away from them. The Aleppo runner turned and
stood still. Stephan rushed to meet him, with Hagop following, scarcely
a hand's breadth after his two-legged friend.

 

 

To prevent Hagop's voice from cutting across him Stephan shouted as he ran:
"Haik, I'm coming along with you."

 

 

The "people's messenger" let the two come along before he answered.
He scrutinized Stephan, half closing his serious eyes. "Why are you keeping
me back? I can't afford to lose a second."

 

 

Stephan clenched resolute fists. "I mean to come with you to Aleppo."

 

 

Haik had cut himself a stick. He held it out like a weapon, as though to
impede the unauthorized intruder. "I'm sent by the Council of Leaders,
and Ter Haigasun has blessed me. You haven't been either sent or blessed.
. . ."

 

 

Hagop, whom Haik's presence always made timid and rather fawning,
repeated this with malicious zeal. "You haven't been sent or blessed.
To you it's forbidden."

 

 

Stephan gripped the end of Haik's stick, which he pressed like a hand.
"There's enough room for you and me."

 

 

"It isn't a question of you and me. It's a question of the letter which
I've got to deliver to Jackson."

 

 

Stephan slapped his pocket in triumph. "I copied out the letter to Jackson.
Two are better than one."

 

 

Haik planted his stick on the ground, firmly, to put an end to it.
"Always trying to be cleverer than anyone."

 

 

This, too, Hagop faithfully echoed. But Stephan gave not an inch of ground.
"You do as you like! There's enough room. You can't stop me going to Aleppo."

 

 

"But you can stop the letter from reaching there."

 

 

"I'm no worse a runner than you."

 

 

That scornful note crept into Haik's voice, which so often before had
made Stephan wild. "Can't ever stop bragging. . . ."

 

 

After all today's intolerable wounds, this was too much for Stephan. He sat
on the ground and hid his face. But Haik let him feel all his disdain.

 

 

"Crying already -- and
that
says it wants to go to Aleppo!"

 

 

Stephan could only sob: "I can't go back -- Oh, Jesus Christ -- I --
can't go back

 

 

Now perhaps Haik got an inkling of what was happening in Stephan. He may
perhaps have thought of Shushik, his mother. Perhaps he even felt he
would like a companion on the long, dangerous way. Who can say what he
thought? But at least his manner became far more conciliatory as now he
remembered Stephan's words. "You're quite right. There's plenty of room
for you, too. No one can stop you."

 

 

But Hagop summoned up all his courage for one desperate objection.
"What? I can stop him. Christ Saviour -- I'll go and tell the leaders."

 

 

This was the stupidest thing he could have said. It was these few words
brought the decision, since they put Haik in a rage. Serious and tall as
he was, Haik, in the depths of his heart, still obeyed the moral code of
schoolboys -- that one fundamental law of their being, which all the world
over is the same: no squealing! It made no difference what you squealed
for, or when. To squeal remained the one unforgivable crime. So Haik,
with his brutal frankness, turned on the cripple: "Tell the leaders,
will you? Before you do, I'll knock your one leg so lame that you won't
be able to crawl back home on it."

 

 

Hagop hopped back, a good long way, in sheer alarm. He knew Haik, whose
habit it was to carry out his threats with two iron fists. Haik could
not abide the fair-haired Hagop. This opposition had provoked all his
natural tyranny. It turned the scale in Stephan's favor. Now came his
matter-of-fact question: "Have you got enough to eat for five days? It'll
take as long as that -- if we get there, that is."

 

 

Stephan thumped his knapsack magnificently; he might have had supplies for
a long expedition in it. And Haik made no further inquiries. He ordered
curtly: "Well, quick march! You've made me waste too much time as it is!"

 

 

He had not said which way Stephan was to march -- back to the camp, or on
to Aleppo with him. He went striding on, and concerned himself no further
with the others. Stephan kept close on his heels. So that Haik had not
taken Stephan with him, but only allowed him to come along. Certainly
there was "plenty of room" in the trackless mountains.

 

 

Hagop stood undecided, watching the people's messenger and the runaway
till they disappeared over the top of the next moonlit slope. It took him
nearly an hour to hop back to the Town Enclosure. Stephan's senseless
flight weighed like a rock on him. What ought he to do? In his family's
hut they were all asleep. His father growled a few sleepy words of reproof
at him for being so late. Hagop, without undressing, flung himself down
on his mat and stared up at the roof of branches, through which faint
moonshine was filtered, as through a close sieve. He had still not
managed to get to sleep when Avakian, long after midnight, came in to
wake the whole family. Poor Hagop confessed at once, and led Gabriel,
Kristaphor, Avakian and the other men whom Gabriel had summoned to help
him to the place where he had left Stephan and Haik. Search parties
were sent out at once. It was sunrise before Gabriel got back, having
searched in vain, with Kevork the dancer. The boys had got much too far
ahead. Nor had Haik followed the route set by the Council, but let his
own sure instinct guide him.

 

 

 

 

While the swimmers, skirting the Cape Ras el-Khanzir, were directing
their steps with certainty towards Arsus, the village on the coast, the
boys walked on all night long, by difficult up-and-down paths through
the mountains. Haik had been warned to remain as long as he possibly
could on the safe mountain ridges till he came to the southern end of the
valley of Beilan. Then, having come down on to the plain via Kyrk-Khan,
he was to keep along near the big highroad which leads to Aleppo by
way of Hammam. These moonlit August nights would make it easy for him
to push on over reaped maize fields and burnt-up plains, where he would
find enough cover if he were threatened. But as he came nearer the big
town, he must venture out on to the highroad and jump into one of the
peasants' carts loaded with maize or licorice root. With God's help he
could hide in it and get past the military barriers into the outskirts
of the town. But, whatever happened, the letter to Mr. Jackson must not
be found on him. Haik explained all this precisely to Stephan, giving
gruesome pictures of dangers and obstacles which they would meet, the
instant they touched the plain. Here in the empty mountains it was still
child's play. After about an hour's walk the goats path, which Haik,
without seeing it, sensed with his feet, dipped into the valley.

 

 

The people's messenger stopped and admonished Stephan: "Now's your time,
if you want to turn back. You can't get lost. Think it over! Later you
won't be able to do it."

 

 

Stephan made an angry movement. But his heart was full of doubts.
His reasons for running away from home seemed suddenly not quite so valid
as they had been.

 

 

Haik pointed to the Damlayik, where a far, red shimmer still showed the
woods to be on fire. "You'll never get back there, and see them again -- "

 

 

Young Bagradian still could not manage to find out what he really wanted.
He would rather have died than let Haik think that he was soft. Shamefaced,
he pulled out the map of this neighborhood which had once hung in Uncle
Avetis's study. He pretended, with a solemn face, to be doing his best
to get his bearings in the clear moonlight. But Haik, annoyed by such
"stuck-up twaddle," struck the map out of Stephan's hand and wasted no
further good advice. This brought out all Stephan's resolution. He'd show
him! Why, he could march much better than Haik! He began to walk on,
at a crazy pace, straining every muscle to tire the other. But Haik did not
so much as think of allowing Stephan to force him to an idiotic speed.
He kept an even pace, almost a slow one. Stephan's heart stood still.
He was alone! Instead of "showing" Haik, he had only managed to lose his
way and -- he could feel -- without help from the other, would never
manage to find it in this wilderness. His heart thumped, but he dared not
call. When, after one eternal minute, Haik came out through some bushes
into the moonlight, not troubling even to notice the independent one,
Stephan submitted in silence to the stronger, though he pretended not to
have had this shameful experience. That settled their long struggle once
and for all. Haik was supreme. They soon came into the narrow valley.
On their right was the long, straggling village of Sanderan. Thank God,
not a light was burning in it! Only one nasal human voice could be heard,
raised in a subdued hum. It was a hair-raising sensation to go creeping
past inhabited houses, with death in all of them. But the wild dogs of
Sanderan could not be tricked; they picked up the trail of the young
Armenians, and followed them a long way past the village. Haik, with
his incredible certainty, found another goat-track, leading northwest,
back into the mountains. As once again they walked through a sparse wood,
drenched in moonlight, a sense of wild adventure crept into Stephan.
The air was so fresh! He forgot everything. He would have liked to shout
and sing. Was there such a thing as being tired? By sunrise, in spite
of several halts, they had covered a distance of nearly ten miles,
and reached the place where the mountains slope down northwards in wide
terraces of woodland. Stephan, map and all, would have been quite lost.

 

 

Haik sharply pointed their direction. "We've got to go that way. Beilan!"

 

 

He could sense it all, though he had only been to Beilan once in his life,
with his mother, that is to say, riding on donkey-back, and even so by
quite a different way, along the coast. Now he was pleased, and said they
had better hunt out a sleeping place and rest till midday. That short
sleep would have to be enough; otherwise it wasn't to be managed. Haik
did not need to nose round for long before finding a shady place, with
good turf to sleep on, and even a stream; though that was, perhaps, not
such a miracle in these watered surroundings of Musa Dagh. For Haik,
whose very skin made him aware of the hidden peculiarities of every
strip of ground, the least alteration of temperature, any difference
in vegetation or of animals near him, it was nothing at all to pick out
water. The boys set up their camp beside the stream, which here, even,
formed just the kind of pool they had been looking for. They slaked their
thirst. And then, to Haik's amazement, this child of the West pulled a
cake of soap out of his rucksack and began to wash himself. Haik watched
these superfluous proceedings with serious, sarcastic eyes. When Stephan
had done, he dipped his feet deliciously into the cold pool, since
feet were what mattered. Then they swapped food with all the pleasure
of youth. Shushik had given her son three big sausages stuffed with
finely chopped mutton, fat, and onions and a loaf as hard as stone --
though Heaven knows how she had got hold of it. It was the worst crime
on the Damlayik to hide bread or flour or corn of any kind, punished by
several days' fasting. Yet such secret treasures kept appearing hi the
huts, and their origin still remained a mystery, it is always the same
old story. No legal rationing, not even the most drastically controlled,
can quite dam up the creative torrent of life, which always succeeds in
producing the incredible, out of nothing.