Forty Days of Musa Dagh (103 page)

 

 

One of the two assistant priests kept poking his head round the door of
the presbytery hut to warn him. It was long past Mass time; there was
danger that the following general assembly might have to be prolonged till
after nightfall. Yet still Ter Haigasun could not manage to tear himself
free. It was as if some inner power would not let him go, as it strove
to prevent this Mass of petition. Giddiness and weakness threatened to
force him full length on the bed. He was ill, famished. Should he cancel
the Mass, or let another priest say it instead of him? Ter Haigasun
perceived that this time it was not weakness, but his fear of being
unequal to the task which today lay before him. And something else,
something vague. He stood up at last and gave the sign. The acolyte
took up the tall cross to carry it on ahead of the procession. Slowly,
with joined hands and downcast eyes, Ter Haigasun followed deacons
and singers. That sacerdotal, inward-turning glance, as he passed
on his way through dividing crowds as indifferently as though he had
walked between bushes, was still aware of it all, with the sharpest
intensity. Ter Haigasun had not more than fifty paces to reach the
altar. Yet, with each of these, the spiritual state of the people round
him seemed to pierce him like a radiating agony. That morning's lethargy
had dissolved, replaced by restlessness and excitement. Human nature,
in this final hour, had drawn up out of itself some last reserve or show
of energy. The smallest children especially were becoming most artfully
unmanageable. They kept bellowing with all their strength, throwing
themselves flat on the ground. It was perhaps the swollen pain in their
small bellies. Their angry mothers shook and slapped, since that was the
only way to quiet them. Some grown ups were just as restless. These were
old men -- mostly the familiar "small owners" -- who launched out into
long, rambling speeches, not stopping respectfully, as they once had,
when the priest came past them to the altar. Ter Haigasun perceived that
demoralization had kept pace with hunger. "A good thing," he reflected,
"that the decads won't be coming to this meeting. As long as they hold
out, all is not lost." In the midst of which consoling reflection he
raised his eyes and stood for an instant, rooted. What did it mean? Armed
men in the congregation! Singly, to be sure, or in little groups,
but in any case in the flattest contradiction to his and Bagradian's
definite order. Who had sent these men out of their trenches? Since now
the women had conquered that morning's lethargy well enough to put on
their Sunday best for this Mass, the brown streaks these warriors made
were lost in the brightness of the whole. Ter Haigasun saw with his
next glance that these were not trusted men from the nearer sectors,
but deserters from the South Bastion, those strangers to the valley of
Yoghonoluk, always kept on the farthest edge of the people, who luckily
scarcely ever came into camp, and never to Mass. Were they grown pious
suddenly? Ter Haigasun turned his head sharply to the government barrack
on his right. Where was the guard? Oh, yes, of course. Bagradian had
needed everyone, some reservists even, in the trenches. Turn back! it
flashed into his mind. Make some excuse! Put off this Mass! Send for
Bagradian! Call together the mukhtars! Take precautionary measures! But,
in spite of these reflections, he still kept on, in silent, hesitant
steps. There, close round the altar, stood the notables, the mukhtars
and their wives and daughters, those lines of grey, respected heads,
in the order in which they had always gathered, in church, in the valley.

 

 

As to Gabriel Bagradian, he had promised to be in time for this Mass,
but something must have made him unpunctual. As the lines of village
elders drew apart to make a lane for the procession, Ter Haigasun's
soul got its second warning. Between an unknown deserter and Sarkis
Kilikian, Hrand Oskanian stood, hemmed in like a man under arrest. Again
Ter Haigasun had the feeling that he must stop and sharply turn on the
exiled teacher. "What's all this? What have you to tell me, Teacher
Oskanian?" And again Ter Haigasun went on, scarcely lifting his eyes,
guided by some power, or powerlessness, which now, for the first time
on the Damlayik, sapped his strong will.

 

 

His foot on the first altar step, he remembered that he had forgotten
Nokhudian's letter, left it behind in the presbytery hut. This wrought
in him excessive confusion. The forgotten screed and these ill omens
shook him so that it lasted a sheer eternity before he climbed on up
to the tabernacle. The people behind seemed to sense acutely the wandering
thoughts and feebleness of their priest, since now children's howls,
restless shuffiings, importunate gossip, grew every instant more unabashed.
And into such hollow hearts as these the fervent spirit must seek to force
itself, which was to pray down God's miracle from the skies! Ter Haigasun
turned in agony. As he did so, Gabriel Bagradian came hurrying breathless
into the square and stood in the first row. For a second he felt relieved.
Behind his back the choir had begun the anthem. It was a short respite;
he closed his eyes. Tired, hollow voices rose to the sky:

 

 

"Thou Who extendest Thy creating arms to the stars,
Give our arms strength,
That they, held out, may reach unto Thee.

 

 

"By means of the crown of the brow, crown also the spirit,
Deck the senses with prayer,
With Aaron's blossoming, golden robe.

 

 

"We, as all the angels of God resplendent
Are panoplied, robed about in Love,
To serve the secret, the holiest."

 

 

The choir was silent. Ter Haigasun stared at the little silver ewer which
the deacon held for him. He dipped his fingers and kept them so long in
the water that at last the astonished deacon drew it away from him. Only
then did he half turn to the faithful, to make the sign of the cross
above them, three times. He turned back to the altar and raised his hands.

 

 

Ter Haigasun's being stood divided. One part of him, the celebrating priest,
went through the prescribed and ancient ritual of this exceptional service
of petition, scarcely delaying a response. The other part was in several
layers; it was an exhausted struggler, putting out his last ounce of
strength, so that the priest might still be able to do his office.
First and foremost this second Ter Haigasun carried on the struggle
against his body. It warned, with every word of the liturgy: "So far,
no further! Haven't you noticed that I've not a drop of blood left in
my head? Another minute, another two, and I may shame you, by collapsing
here at the altar." With only his body to contend against, the fight
could easily have been won. But far wilier enemies lurked behind it.
One of these was a juggler, perpetually shifting the sacred vessels here
and there, before the eyes of the priest. Suddenly the tall silver
candlesticks had become fixed bayonets. From the finely printed page of
the missal there leapt the names of the dead in the parish register,
crossed off with huge red pencil crosses, drawn over everything.
A gust of wind from time to time scampered through the leaves in the
leaf-screen, behind the altar, and these dead leaves, eddying past,
settled irreverently on the tabernacle, on the gospels stamped with
the golden cross. Ter Haigasun, the celebrant, reached the psalm. His
entirely separated voice was intoning:

 

 

"Judge me, O God, and plead my cause . . ."

 

 

The deacon sighed the response: "Against an ungodly nation:
O deliver me from the deceitful and unjust man."

 

 

"Why dost Thou cast me off? Why go I mourning because of the oppression
of the enemy?"

 

 

"Then will I go unto the altar of God, unto God my exceeding joy."

 

 

Whilst Ter Haigasun continued this long alternation of responses,
impeccably to the end, with the deacon, his eyes showed the other
Ter Haigasun intolerable sights. Those dead leaves, strewn over eveiything,
were not dead leaves, but dirt, dung, some kind of indescribable filth,
scattered about the altar by God's enemies, by criminals. No other
explanation was possible, since dirt cannot rain down from heaven.
Ter Haigasun stared at the missal to avoid this horrid sight of
desecration. But had not the people seen it too? And here he made his
first mistake in the text.

 

 

The deacon had sung: "My Almighty God, keep us, and forgive us Our sins."

 

 

Now the priest should have given his response. But the priest was silent.
The deacon turned wide-eyed to the choir. And, since still Ter Haigasun
did not raise his voice, he came a step towards him and whispered sharply:
"In the house of the most holy . . ."

 

 

The priest seemed to hear nothing. And now the deacon whispered in
desperation, half aloud: "In the house of the most holy, and in the
place . . ."

 

 

Ter Haigasun woke.

 

 

"In the house of the most holy and in the place of songs of praise;
in this dwelling of angels, this place of repentance of men, we prostrate
ourselves before the resplendent and glorious sign of this God, in reverence,
and pray . . ."

 

 

Ter Haigassin drew a deep breath. Under his miter sweat streamed down
his neck, stood out on his forehead. He dared not wipe it away. And
behind him there ascended the nasal voice of Asayan, the chief chorister:

 

 

"In this consecrated place of sacrifice, in this temple, we are gathered
together, for praise and prayer. . . ."

 

 

Asayan's voice rasped Ter Haigasun as never before. Christ help me! Ter
Haigasun stared in agony at the altar crucifix. The voice of one of the
beings who composed him warned: "Don't look away from it." But this very
warning made him look away, further out, to the high screen of beech leaves
which shut off the altar. Someone stood there leaning against the framework,
with folded arms, smoking a cigarette. Unheard-of insolence! Ter Haigasun
swallowed down this interjection. In the next instant this somebody had
ceased to be Sarkis Kilikian, whom he loathed, whom he had put in irons;
this somebody was, for the time being, nobody. The screen confronted him,
empty. But then the Russian came back, to turn into all possible kinds of
people -- once he even seemed to be Krikor -- till at last a priest in Mass
vestments stood there. And at first it seemed ridiculous to Ter Haigasun
that the robed priest should really be himself. Nor was it he, since
he
wore no soldier's lambskin kepi, but a miter embroidered with gold.

 

 

"Blessing and praise to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost -- "

 

 

He could get no further. Between him and the shape against the leaf-screen,
his own detached voice dinned in his ears: "Why do you stand about fooling
in broad daylight? What good is this Mass of petition?"

 

 

Ter Haigasun watched the ascending cloud of incense. But his own voice,
and the shape against the leaves, persisted: "What a devil this God of
yours must be, to ordain a year like this for His pious Armenians."

 

 

Ter Haigasun had begun the ritual vesper: "Almighty God, holy and eternal,
have mercy on us. Keep us from temptation and all its arrows."

 

 

And now the answer seemed not to come from Kilikian, but solely out of his
own heart: "You don't believe! You don't believe in any miracle! You know
quite well that, this time tomorrow, four and a half thousand Armenian
corpses will be lying all over the Damlayik."

 

 

The deacon gave Ter Haigasun the thurible, so that he might give incense
to the people. Intense, causeless thirst assailed him. Now no one was
leaning against the screen.

 

 

But the voice was as close as ever: "You'd like to kill me. Kill me,
if you have the pluck to do it."

 

 

The thurible crashed out of the priest's hand. That second produced an
entirely new Ter Haigasun. With barbarian shouts he snatched up one of
the heavy silver candlesticks and brandished it high. But to fell his
enemy he rushed, not on the shape before the leaf-screen, no, but into
the midst of his congregation.

 

 

 

 

Without this attack of delirium, brought on by hunger, there would probably
have been no "putsch." Even the deserters in the South Bastion were
Armenians, full of respect and fear for the altar. But the long-haired
thief had collected his troops round the government hut, ready to
storm. When the tumult rose, at the end of the altar square, he took
that for the signal. Ten of his people, with a view to producing the
necessary chaos, began firing in the air. The others bashed in the
doors, found the munition supplies, and in a few seconds had dragged
them out before the hut. What happened on the altar steps happened with
such dreamy quickness that neither Gabriel nor the mukhtars were quite
aware of the incident. Its dreamy quality was the essential thing,
and not the quickness, since perhaps it took a good two minutes. When
Ter Haigasun, brandishing his candlestick, had hurled himself into the
midst of his faithful, general confusion had set in. People had dashed
in all directions. Gabriel caught a glimpse of the priest, struggling
through the crowd to reach some deserters. He, too, had not known who
it was had invited the pack to this Mass and assembly. Ter Haigasun
seemed to be looking for a definite individual. In the next instant he
was surrounded, hemmed in by armed men. They wrenched his candlestick
away from him, pushed him about from one to another with loud cries, in
the end tore him to the ground. Then shots clattered down on the rear of
the crowd. People rushed apart with mad howls of terror. The yammering
mukhtars tried to run into shelter with their wives. Gabriel, with drawn
revolver, forced his way into the męlée to free Ter Haigasun. A deserter,
following close behind him, brought down his rifle-butt, with all his
strength, on Gabriel's skull. Gabriel collapsed. Had this crack on the
head smashed his sun helmet, it would have been all over with him. But
the rifle-butt did no more than drive the tough cork helmet far down on
his face, and the savagery of the stroke was mitigated. Gabriel fell
stunned, not really wounded. Others had meanwhile roped Ter Haigasun
with strong hemp cords to one of the corner posts of the altar-frame,
driven deep into the ground. The priest struggled with astonishing
vigor, but in silence. If he had had the knife, which as a rule he
carried in his cassock pocket, he would have finished off one rascal at
least. The mukhtars stood a long way off, quaking and moaning. They had
not even the strength to run for safety. And their wives and daughters,
with inhuman screechings, tugged them back. The crowd still understood
nothing. Half-crazed now by the crackling rifle-fire, it stampeded
forward to the altar. But since, as they came there, the front lines were
trying to get back, there arose an unholy vortex of terrified bodies,
yelping with fear and pain. Already some of the worst deserters, who
for months past had not touched a woman, were darting in from the outer
edge of it, like cuttlefish, to grip in their dirty claws here a woman
and there a girl. Another more sober group stormed the hut to plunder
the wretchedest poverty.