Forty Days of Musa Dagh (106 page)

 

 

His was the drowsy voice of a sleeper: "Yes, I think it's got as far as
that. . . ."

 

 

In Iskuhi's words there was an exhausted, yet defiant insistence on
her rights: "Well, you know what we promised . . . what
you
promised
me
. . . Gabriel . . . ?"

 

 

He returned from distances. "There may still be a long day in front of us."

 

 

She echoed his words in a deep breath, making a gift of them: "Still a
long day . . ." She clasped his arm with ever-increasing warmth.

 

 

"There's something I want you to do for me, Iskuhi. We've often talked
about it. . . . Juliette's far poorer and more unhappy than we are. . . ."

 

 

Her cheek bent away from his face. But Gabriel took her lame hand,
he kept stroking and kissing it. "If you love me, Iskuhi! . . . Juliette's
so inhumanly lonely . . . inhumanly lonely . . ."

 

 

"Juliette hates me. She can't bear the sight of me. I never want to see
her again."

 

 

His hand could feel the tension shaking her body. "If you love me, Iskuhi,
I ask you, please, to stay with Juliette. . . . You must leave the tents
at sunrise. . . . I shall feel easier. . . . She's nearly mad, and you're
well. . . . We shall see each other again . . . Iskuhi. . . ."

 

 

Her head sank forwards. She was crying without any sound.

 

 

He whispered: "I love you, Iskuhi. We'll be together."

 

 

After a long while she tried to get up. "I'm going now."

 

 

He held her fast. "Not yet, Iskuhi. Stop with me a little while now.
I need you. . . ."

 

 

Long silence. His tongue felt too heavy to move. The sharp, thudding
headache increased. Gabriel's light, winged skull changed into a gigantic
lead bullet. He sank back into himself as though another rifle-butt had
felled him. Sarkis Kilikian's eyes stared at him with apathetic gravity.
He shuddered. Where was the Russian lying? Had he given an order to move
the body? The events of these last hours seemed completely alien; they
had nothing to do with him: they were like some mad rumor. He relapsed
into vague and heavy broodings, in which he himself was the center point
of a headache which surged about him in waves. Then, when Gabriel started
up in terror, Iskuhi was already on her feet.

 

 

He felt in horror for his watch. "What time is it? . . . Jesus Christ!
. . . No, time . . . time! Why have you given me the rug? . . . Why,
you're shaking with cold. . . . You're right; better go now, Iskuhi. . . .
Go to Juliette. You've still got five, six hours in front of you. . . .
I'll send Avakian when it's time. . . . Good night, Iskuhi. . . . Please
take the rug. . . . I don't need it. . . ."

 

 

He held her in his arms again. But it felt as though she were struggling
to get loose, and had grown more disembodied and shadowy. So he promised
again: "This isn't good-bye. We'll be together . . ."

 

 

Some time after Iskuhi had left him, as he was about to stretch himself
out again, the sudden memory of her made his heart sick. She had scarcely
been able to move for weakness. Her legs and arms had been stiff with cold.
Her fragile body had scarcely seemed to be there at all. Was not she herself
ill and declining? And yet he had sent her away to look after Juliette.
Gabriel blamed himself. He had not even gone a stretch of the dark and
difficult way with Iskuhi. He hurried half up the slope and called:
"Iskuhi! Where are you? Wait for me!"

 

 

No answer. She was too far away to hear him.

 

 

 

 

Towards two that morning the fire had sunk down in the enclosure. At about
that time Gabriel waked Avakian. The student had thrown himself down beside
the howitzers and was so heavily asleep that Gabriel had to spend some
time shaking him. The character of a man may be tested by the way in which
he behaves when you wake him suddenly. Avakian, after a few movements
of protest, raised his head in drowsy confusion. But as soon as he felt
that this was Gabriel, he sprang to his feet and smiled a startled smile
into the dark.

 

 

Gabriel handed him a flask, in which there were still some dregs of cognac.
"Here, drink, Avakian. . . . Buck up! I need you now. We shan't have any
more time to talk."

 

 

They sat with their backs to the Town Enclosure, where, indistinctly,
they could watch the pickets of the new line. Some of these were now
carrying hooded lanterns. This maze of lights wound slowly back and
forth. The wind was as quiet as ever.

 

 

"I haven't slept -- not a second," admitted Gabriel. "I've had too much
to think about, in spite of this lump, which lets me know it's there,
right enough."

 

 

"Pity. You ought to have slept, Effendi."

 

 

"Why? Tomorrow's the day we've managed to put off so long. Yes, I wanted
to say to you, Avakian, that really we've largely got you to thank for
the fact that things have gone on as long as they have. We've worked
splendidly together. You're the most dependable person I know. Forgive
my stupid way of putting it. Of course you're more than just that."

 

 

This embarrassed Avakian. But Gabriel set a hand on his knee. "After all,
some time we had to speak frankly. . . . And what other time is there?"

 

 

"Those swine have destroyed everything," raged the student, mainly because
he was feeling embarrassed, but Bagradian waved away the past.

 

 

"No need to worry about that now. It had to come some day. And usually,
in this world, what you expect comes in the way you'd least expect it.
But it wasn't that I wanted to talk to you about. Listen! You know, Avakian,
before all this, I'd always the feeling that you were going to come through.
Why, I myself couldn't tell you. Probably it's sheer moonshine, but somehow
I have a vision of you, back in Paris, the devil only knows how you managed
to get there, or rather how you're going to manage it."

 

 

The tutor's pale and sloping forehead could be seen shimmering in the dark.
"That's pure nonsense, forgive me, Gabriel Bagradian. What happens to you
is bound to happen to me; there can be nothing else."

 

 

"Why not? I agree that, if you go by reason, there can't be anything else.
But let's be unreasonable for once, let's say that, somehow, you get away."

 

 

Gabriel stopped and stared intently into the dark, as though Avakian's
happy future was already fairly easily distinguishable. He took out his
pocketbook and put it down on the grass beside him. "I didn't want to keep
you here, I wanted to send you back to the north trenches. I feel easier
when you're with Nurhan. But all that really doesn't matter much. I've
something more important I want you to do for me, Avakian! Stay with the
women. I mean with my wife, and Mademoiselle Tomasian. It's part of the
good presentiment I have about you. Perhaps you bring luck. Do what you
can! But above all, see to it, please, that the tent gets cleared in time
before the sun's up. And see that Madame is carried down as carefully
as possible on to the shore. Find somebody else, not Kevork. I hate the
thought of his hands. Take Kristaphor and Missak."

 

 

Samuel Avakian protested. Tomorrow, in the last battle, he would be
more necessary than ever. They had still the most important questions
to settle. And so the conscientious adjutant began giving lists of the
duties awaiting him.

 

 

But his commandant impatiently refused to consider them. "No! No! We've made
all the preparations we can. You leave all that to me. I don't need you here
any longer. This ends your war service, Avakian. The other is a personal
request."

 

 

He handed over a sealed letter. "Here, friend, this is my will. You're
to keep it till Madame is well again, understand? I'm still, of course,
going by my ridiculous feeling that you'll come through. You see? And
then, here's a check on the Credit Lyonnais. I've no idea how much salary
I still owe you. . . . And, of course, you're perfectly right to consider
me mad. Placed as we are, such calculations are too ridiculous. I'm being
pedantic. It may be all the sheerest superstition. Let's say I'm making
magic. See? Just a little magic."

 

 

Bagradian sprang up with a laugh. The impression he gave was young and
dependable. "If I survive you, that nullifies both the will and the check
-- so look out!"

 

 

But his laugh sounded strained. Avakian kept the papers at arm's length
and began to protest again. And now Gabriel got impatient. "Go now, please.
I shall feel easier."

 

 

The last hours before sunrise dragged unbearably. Gabriel set his teeth
as he stared through the brightening dark. In the first twilight he trained
his guns on to the South Bastion. The dense early morning mists of this
windless day took long to clear. A red, angry sun burst into the sky.
Gabriel knelt as prescribed on the right of the first howitzer, and tugged
with fervor at the fuse tape. The cracking din, the wild kick of the gun
carriage, fire and smoke, the howling in the air, the crystal-hard seconds
before the distant impact of the shell, were like a deliverance. All the
unbearable tension in Gabriel's mind released itself in this piece of
gunnery. What reason had the prudent commander of the Damlayik for wasting
irreplaceable shells before the slightest sign of a Turkish attack? Was he
trying to wake, or scare, the enemy? Encourage his own? Did he hope his
shell would so devastate Turkish companies as to rob them of all their
courage to advance? None of all this! Gabriel had fired this first shot,
not for any tactical reason, but simply because to wait any longer was too
unbearable. It was a sheer cry, half for help, half of tragic jubilation,
that the night was past. And not only he -- all the exhausted men of the
line of rifles, bent double with cold, felt just as he did. The outposts
climbed the nearest hillock for a wider view. But as far as they could
overlook the uneven ground of this mountain plateau, the Damlayik lay
deserted. The Turks did not seem to have left their base yet, nor in the
north. But the answer came. It took a little time coming, and in this
breathing space Bagradian had leisure to fire two more shots. Then the
deep, the monstrous crack of a thunderbolt. No one knew what it was.
High over him a hiss of iron, which seemed to fill the entire mountain,
from Amanus to El Akra. The impact crashed down far in the distance.
Somewhere in the Orontes plain. This thunderbolt had risen off the sea.

 

 

 

 

That same night the communes had set up their unsheltered camp, pell-mell,
among rocks, on the crags, without any definite plan. Ter Haigasun had
given the mukhtars orders to bring Oskanian to him, dead or alive. The
priest's whole soul was engrossed with the one fiery longing to avenge
the outraged majesty of the law, this base betrayal of the community,
on the guilty parties.

 

 

But Teacher Hrand Oskanian was in hiding, not far from the Dish Terrace.
He was not alone. The neophytes of his cult of suicide had joined him.
On Musa Dagh there had not so far been one case of suicide. Even tonight
Oskanian only had four miserable converts. A man and three women. The man
was fifty, but looked like an old man. He was one of the silk-weavers
round Kheder Beg. Oskanian's teaching had found in Margoss Arzruni a
willing disciple. Of the women the eldest was a matron whose whole family
had died. The two others were still quite young. The child of one of
them had perished in her arms on the day before. The other, unmarried,
came of a well-to-do Yoghonoluk family and was known everywhere as a
lugubrious, rather scatter-brained person.

 

 

Oskanian, while the putsch was still in progress, had escaped and in
terror sought this refuge. But Margoss Arzruni, the prophet's apostle, had
tracked him down, and now brought the teacher these three faithful women,
all ready to make his words a reality. It is easier to kill oneself in
company. And the silk-weaver was one of those implacable apostles who will
not permit the prophet to go back one iota on his evangel. For many days,
that these sayings might come to fruition in his mind, he had visited
the Master in the South Bastion. The five sat close to one another,
sheltered by one of the great boulders which block up the way to the
Dish Terrace. They were freezing, and so huddled together. The apostle
of suicide was himself vaguely surprised that he, almost at the point
of carrying out the most solemn resolution of which a human being is
capable, should still be feeling a certain glow of pleasure at the
nestling proximity of a female. It did not trouble him, however, as he
let himself be catechized by the matron, who, full of trust, questioned
her teacher (since no doubt he had examined this side of the question)
as to possible results in the Beyond for those who begin eternity for
themselves.

 

 

"It's a great sin, Teacher, I'm sure. I only do it so as to see my folk
again, quickly again! But perhaps I shan't be allowed to see them again.
I may have to stay in hell for all eternity, because, you see, I know
it's a great sin."

 

 

Oskanian raised his pointed nose, which glimmered through the dark.
"You'll be giving back to nature what nature has given you."

 

 

This portentous saying seemed to afford Arzruni, the silk-weaver,
a diabolical satisfaction. He rubbed his hands together, crowing in a
weakly strident voice: "Well, old woman, hear what he says! Does that
satisfy you? Of course, if it's only your folk you're wanting to see
again, you can always wait for that till tomorrow. The Turks aren't
likely to overlook you, you know. No one'll want you for his harem. But
I'm not going to wait. I've had enough of it!"