Forty Days of Musa Dagh (3 page)

 

 

But, in that moment, Gabriel knew for certain that today would bring
him a decision. On Sundays the post arrived from Antioch -- not only
newspapers and letters, but government orders from the Kaimakam to
commoners and subjects.

 

 

Gabriel Bagradian was thinking solely of his family. The position was
complicated. What was to happen to Juliette and Stephan while he was
serving? Gabriel was delighted with Juliette's leniency. But not all her
indulgence prevented the fact that his wife and son, if they stayed on
alone here, would be cut off from the rest of the world.

 

 

The ilex grove was behind Bagradian before he had reached any further
clarity on this point. The stampedout path led northwards, losing itself
on the mountain in a tangle of arbutus and wild rhododendron. This part of
Musa Dagh was called the Damlayik by the hill-folk. The two peaks to the
south rose to about eight hundred metres. The Damlayik did not reach any
considerable height. These two peaks formed the last ridges of the central
mass, which then, unexpectedly without regular gradations, fell sheer,
as though broken off sharp, in huge stony cliffs, into the plain of the
Orontes. Here in the north, where the wanderer was beginning to feel his
way, the Damlayik was lower. Then it fell in a saddle-notch. This was the
narrowest part of the whole mountainside along the coast -- the waist of
Musa Dagh. The plateau at the summit narrowed down to a few hundred yards,
and the confusion of rocks on this steeply jutting side was thrust far
out. Gabriel believed he knew every bush and rock. Of all the pictures of
his childhood this place had imprinted itself most vividly. The same wide
umbrella-pines forming a grove. The same creeping gorse, which struggles
over the stony ground. Ivy and other clinging plants embrace a circle
of white stones, which, like the giant members of a senate of nature,
break off their deliberations the instant an intruder's step is heard.
A departing tribe of swallows twitters in the midst of the quiet.
Excitement ripples the greenish, land-locked sea of air. As of leaping
trout. The sudden spread and beat of wings is like the flicker of many
eyelids.

 

 

Gabriel lay down in a grassy place, joining his hands behind his head.
Twice already he had climbed Musa Dagh in search of these pines, these
blocks of stone, but had lost his way. So they don't really exist,
had been his thought. Now he closed tired eyes. When a human being
comes back to any former place of contemplation and inner life, those
spirits which he, the returned, once cherished and left there return
and eagerly possess him. The ghosts of Bagradian's childhood rushed upon
him, as though for twenty-three years they had waited faithfully under
pines and rocks, in this charming wilderness, for him to return. They
are warlike ghosts. The mad dreams of every Armenian boy. (Could they
be otherwise?) . . . Abdul Hamid, the blood-stained Sultan, had issued
a ferman against Christians. The hounds of the Prophet, Turks, Kurds,
Circassians, rally to the green banners, to burn and plunder, to massacre
Armenian folk. But they had reckoned without Gabriel Bagradian. He
assembles his own. He leads them into the mountains. With indescribable
valor he fights off this overwhelming power and beats it back.

 

 

Gabriel could not shake off these childish fantasies. He, the Parisian,
Juliette's husband, the savant, the officer minded to do his duty as a
Turkish subject, and who knew the realities of modern warfare, was also,
simultaneously, a boy who with primitive blood-hate flung himself on
the arch-enemy of his race. The dream of every Armenian boy. To be sure
it only lasted an instant. But Gabriel marvelled and smiled ironically
before falling asleep.

 

 

 

 

Bagradian started up with a certain fear. Someone had watched him closely
as he slept. Apparently he had been asleep some time. He looked up, into
the quietly glowing eyes of Stephan his son. Some distinctly unpleasant,
even if vague, sensation invaded him. It is not for a son to come upon his
father as he sleeps. Some profound law of custom had been violated. His
voice was rather sharp as he asked: "What are you doing here? Where's
Monsieur Avakian?"

 

 

Now Stephan, too, seemed embarrassed at having found his father asleep.
He did not quite know what to do with his hands. His full lips opened.
He was wearing schoolboy clothes, a Norfolk jacket, short stockings,
a wide collar out over the coat. He tugged at his jacket as he answered:
"Maman said I could go for a walk by myself. This is Monsieur Avakian's
free day. We don't do any work on Sundays."

 

 

"We're not in France now, but in Syria, Stephan," his father somewhat
ominously explained. "Next time you mustn't come straying about the
hills alone."

 

 

Stephan eyed his father eagerly, as though in addition to this mild
scolding he were expecting more important directions. But Gabriel said
no more. An absurd embarrassment had possession of him. He felt as though
this were the first time he had ever been alone with his son. He had not
taken very much notice of him since their arrival here in Yoghonoluk
and had usually only seen him at meals. True that in Paris or in the
holidays in Switzerland he had often taken Stephan for walks. But is one
ever alone in Paris? In Montreux, or Chamonix? In any case the limpid
air of Musa Dagh contained a releasing element which seemed to bring
them close together, in a proximity neither had ever known. Gabriel went
onwards like a guide, familiar with all the important landmarks. Stephan
came after, Still expectantly silent.

 

 

Father and son in the East! Their relationship can scarcely be compared
with the superficial contact of European parents and children. Whoso
sees his father sees God. For that father is the last link in a long,
unbroken chain of ancestors, binding all men to Adam, and hence to the
origin of creation. And yet whoso sees his son sees God. For this son is
the next link, binding humans to the Last Judgment the end of all things,
the consummation. Must not so holy a relationship be timid and sparing
of words?

 

 

This father, as beseemed him, gave a serious turn to the
conversation. "What subjects is Monsieur Avakian teaching you now?"

 

 

"We started reading Greek a little while ago, Father. And we do physics,
history, and geography."

 

 

Bagradian raised his head. Stephan had said it in Armenian. But had he
asked his question in Armenian? Usually they spoke French to one another.
His son's Armenian words stirred the father strangely. He was conscious
that in Stephan he had far more often seen a French than an Armenian boy.

 

 

"Geography?" he repeated. "And what continent are you on now?"

 

 

"Asia Minor and Syria," Stephan rather zealously announced.

 

 

Gabriel nodded approval as though it was the best thing he could have said.
Then, still a little absent-minded he tried to round off their talk
pedagogically: "Think you could draw a map of Musa Dagh?"

 

 

Stephan was pleased at so much paternal confidence. "Oh, yes, Dad.
In your room there's one of Uncle Avetis's maps, you know. Antioch and
the coast. You've only got to enlarge the scale and put in all that they
leave out."

 

 

Quite right. For an instant Gabriel rejoiced in Stephan's intelligence.
But then his thoughts strayed back to marching-orders, perhaps already
on their way, or perhaps still buried on a Turkish office desk in Aleppo,
in Istanbul even. A silent digression.

 

 

Stephan's expectant soul awaited another remark. This is Dad's country.
He longed to be told stories of Dad's childhood, that secret time, of
which they had so seldom told him anything. His father seemed to make
for a definite point. And already they were near that peculiar terrace
he had in mind. It extended, jutting straight out from the mountain,
into a void. A mighty arm of rock upheld it on spread fingers, like
a dish. It is a flat spur of granite strewn with stones, so wide that
two houses could have been built on it. Sea storms, to be sure, which
have here free play, scarcely tolerate a few shrubs on this rock, and
a clump of Mexican grass, tough as leather. This overhanging, freely
jutting terrace springs so far out that any suicide who had plunged to
destruction from its edge into salt water, twelve hundred feet beneath,
could have vanished unwounded by any rock. Young Stephan tried, of course,
to run to the edge. His father pulled him sharply back and held his hand
clasped very tight. His free right hand pointed out the four quarters
of the globe.

 

 

"There to the north we could see the Gulf of Alexandretta if Ras el-Khanzir,
the Swine cape, weren't in the way. And south there's the mouth of the
Orontes, but the mountain takes a curve. . . ."

 

 

Stephan attentively followed the movements of his father's forefinger as
it traced its half-circle of ruffled sea. But what he asked had nothing
to do with the geography of Musa Dagh. "Dad -- will you really go to
the war?"

 

 

Gabriel did not even notice that he was still keeping tight hold of
Stephan's hand. "Yes. I expect my orders any day."

 

 

"Have you got to?"

 

 

"Must, Stephan. All Turkish reserve officers are being called up.

 

 

"But we aren't Turks. And why didn't they call you up at once?"

 

 

"They say the artillery hasn't enough big guns at present. When the new
batteries are set up, they'll be calling all the reservist officers."

 

 

"And where'll they send you?"

 

 

"I belong to the fourth army, in Syria and Palestine."

 

 

It consoled Bagradian to think that he might be sent for a certain time to
Aleppo, Damascus, or Jerusalem. Perhaps there would be a chance of taking
Juliette and Stephan. Stephan seemed to divine these fatherly cares.

 

 

"And what about us, Dad?"

 

 

"That's just it. . . ."

 

 

The boy fervently interrupted: "Leave us here, Dad -- please leave us here.
Maman likes our house as much as I do." Stephan was trying to pacify his
father as to Maman's feelings here in a foreign country. His delicate
alertness was well aware of the two opposing currents in their marriage.

 

 

But Bagradian reflected. "It would be best if I tried to send you both
to Switzerland, via Istanbul. But unluckily that's also in the war zone.

 

 

Stephan clenched his fists across his heart. "No -- not to Switzerland.
Do let's stay, Dad!"

 

 

Gabriel looked at the pleading eyes of his son in some astonishment.
Mysterious! That this boy, who never had known his father's home, should
feel, none the less, so deeply bound to it. The emotion had lived in him,
this affinity with the mountain of the Bagradians; Stephan, born in Paris,
had inherited it with his very blood. He put his arm round the boy's
shoulder, but only said: "We'll see.

 

 

When they got back to the flat plateau of the Damlayik, morning sounds
from Yoghonoluk assailed them. It did not take more than another hour
to reach the valley. They had to hurry to be in time for at least the
second half of mass.

 

 

In Azir, the silkworm village, the Bagradians only met a few people,
who passed them with morning greetings: "Bari luis" -- "Good light."
The inhabitants of Azir usually went to church in Yoghonoluk. In front
of many houses there were tables with wide boards laid out on them.
The silkworms' eggs were spread upon these boards, whitish masses hatching
in the sun. Stephan learned from his father that old Avetis had been the son
of a silk-spinner and had begun his career very early, at fifteen, by going
to Baghdad to buy spawn.

 

 

Midway to Yoghonoluk the old gendarme, Ali Nassif, passed them. That worthy
saptieh was one of the ten Turks who for many years had lived among the
Armenians in these villages in peace and amity with them. Besides himself,
the only Turks worth mentioning here were the five gendarmes at his orders,
composing his gendarmerie post. They were often changed, but he remained,
as firm as Musa Dagh itself. The only other representative of Ottoman
authority was the deformed postman, who lived here with his family and
on Wednesdays and Sundays brought the post in from Antioch.

 

 

Today Ali Nassif looked worried. This scrubby functionary of the Sublime
Porte seemed to be in a very great hurry. His pock-marked face glistened
with perspiration under his Turkish cap. His martial cavalry sword kept
clattering against his bowed legs. Usually the sight of Bagradian Effendi
was enough to make him turn a reverent face; today he only saluted stiffly,
though even his salute had a worried look. This change of manner struck
Gabriel so, that for some minutes he stood looking after him.

 

 

A few stragglers were still hastening over the square before the church
of Yoghonoluk -- the late-comers who lived a long way off. Women in gaily
patterned head-scarves and puffed-out coats. Men wearing the shalwar,
in baggy trousers, and over these the entari, a kind of gaberdine. Their
faces all looked serious and withdrawn. This sun had akeady the power
of summer in it; the chalk-white houses glittered harshly. Most were
single-storied and freshly daubed: Ter Haigasun's presbytery, the
doctor's house, the apothecary, the big council-house, owned by the
chief of Yoghonoluk's notables, that rich mukhtar Thomas Kebussyan.
The Church of the Ever-Increasing Angelic Powers was built on a wide
pediment. Unbalustered steps led up to its portals. Avetis Bagradian,
its donor, had copied on a smaller scale a certain famous national
edifice in the Caucasus. The voices of the choir, singing mass, flowed
out through its open doorways. Away, beyond the dense congregation,
the altar, pale with lit tapers, shone in the gloom. The gold cross
gleamed on the back of Ter Haigasun's red vestment.