Forty Days of Musa Dagh (83 page)

 

 

The peasant drew up and told his feverish passenger to get down. Stephan,
with an effort, came to himself and crept out of the cart. Not far off
he saw a bare little hill, surrounded with walls of fortifications,
and white, domino houses at the foot of it.

 

 

The Turkoman thrust at this picture with his whip. "Habib en Nedjhar,
the citadel. Antakiya! You must hide yourself better now, boy!"

 

 

And in fact, two hundred paces further, the jolting track opened out on
to the district highroad of Hammam, also reconditioned by Jemal Pasha.
The new road was full of unexpected traffic.

 

 

The Turkoman pushed apart his bundles of reeds; this left a deep cavity
in the cart. "You crawl in there, son! I'll take you on through the town,
and then a bit further along, past the iron bridge. But no further than
that! There now, get in and lie still!"

 

 

Stephan stretched himself out. The peasant covered him very skilfully,
so that he got enough air, and was not too burdened with the load. There,
in this grave, all thoughts were obliterated. He lay, no more than a lump
of indifferent heaviness, bereft of courage, without fear. They were
trundling now, on the broad highway, pleasant and smooth. Noisy voices
all round them. Stephan in his coffin heard them indifferently. They
trundled on, jolting, it appeared, over cobblestones. Suddenly, with a
startling jerk, they stopped. Men were approaching, standing round the
cart. Saptiehs, no doubt -- police or soldiers. Their voices reached
Stephan vaguely, and yet loud, as though through a speaking trumpet.

 

 

"Where are you going, peasant?"

 

 

"In to the town. To market. Where else should I go?"'

 

 

"Got your papers all right? Hand over! What are you carrying?"

 

 

"Goods for market. Reeds for the binders, and a couple of okas of licorice
. . ."

 

 

"No contraband? You know the new law? Grain, maize, potatoes, rice, oil,
to be given up to the authorities."

 

 

"I've already delivered my maize in Hammam."

 

 

Hands were already hastily turning over the top layers. Stephan could
feel them doing it -- bereft of courage, and of fear. Now the tired little
horse was going on again. They drove through a tunnel of noisy voices,
at walking pace. Less and less light seeped through to Stephan. It was
dark when they got held up the second time. But the Turkoman did not
stop. A high, chiding voice pursued them.

 

 

"What new habits are these? Next time you'll drive by daylight. Understand?
Will you clodhoppers never realize we're at war?"

 

 

The hoofs were rattling over the wide, square paving-stones of the
Crusaders' bridge, called "the iron bridge" for some forgotten reason.
Beyond the bridge the Turkoman took the load off his feverish passenger.
Now Stephan could again lie wrapped in his blanket, upon bundles of reeds.

 

 

The old man was delighted. "Cheer up, son! The worst's behind you!
Allah means well by you. So I'll take you on, a little way further,
as far as Mengulye, where I can stable and spend the night with a friend
of mine."

 

 

Though Stephan's hold on life was now so relaxed, his relief at this
was still sufficient to plunge him at once into leaden sleep. Again
the Turkoman urged his poor jade to a trotting pace, to arrive as soon
as possible with his protégé in the village of Mengulye -- from which,
however, a good ten-mile walk lay ahead of Stephan to get him back to
the place where the road branches into the valley of seven villages.
But the simple mind of this Turkoman peasant was not endowed with nearly
enough prescience to foresee the intricate ways of Armenian fate,
Stephan was roused by the glare of acetylene lamps, hooded lanterns,
bobbing up and down above his face. Uniforms were bending over him,
moustaches, lambskin kepis. The cart was in the midst of a camp of one of
the companies sent by the Wali from the town of Killis to the Kaimakam of
Antakiya as reinforcement. The soldiers' tents stood in two lines along
the road. Only the officers had taken up their quarters in Mengulye. The
Turkoman stood peaceably by his cart. He was striking at his little horse,
perhaps to cover his own fears.

 

 

One of the onbashis cross-questioned: "Where are you going? Who's the boy
here? Is he your son?"

 

 

The peasant shook his head reflectively. "No! No! He's no son of mine."

 

 

He tried to gain time to form a good thought. The onbashi bellowed at him
not to stand there, saying nothing!

 

 

Luckily, having attended its various markets, the old man knew the names
of most of the villages in the district. So now he sighed, rolling his
head about: "We're going to Seris, to Seris, over there at the foot of
the mountain. . . ."

 

 

He sang it like an innocent litany. The onbashi turned a sharp beam
on Stephan.

 

 

The Turkoman's voice began to whine: "Yes, you take a look at the child.
I've got to get him back to Seris, to his own folk,"

 

 

Meanwhile corporals and privates had begun to swarm around the cart.
But the old man seemed suddenly full of excitement. "Oh, don't go too
near! Don't go too near! Be careful!"

 

 

And indeed this warning startled the onbashi. He stared at the peasant,
whose finger pointed at Stephan's face.

 

 

"Can't you see for yourself the child's got a fever on him, and doesn't
know where he is? Keep off, you over there, if you don't want the sickness
to get you, too. The hekim has sent the lad away from Antakiya. . . .
And now this worthy Turkoman appalled even the onbashi with his use
of the words "spotted typhus." In these days, in Syria, not even the
words "plague" and "cholera" had such power-evoking terror as "spotted
typhus." The soldiers darted off at once, and even the grim, resolute
onbashi stepped back. But now this excellent man from Ain el Beda pulled
out his papers, demanding scrutiny, waving them close under the very
nose of this sergeant, who, with a curse, renounced his office.

 

 

In ten seconds the road was clear again in front of them. The Turkoman,
beside himself with pride and satisfaction at his own success, left his
exhausted pony to its devices and walked, chuckling, beside Stephan. "You
see, my boy, how well Allah means by you. Didn't he mean well by sending
you to me? Be thankful you found me. Be thankful! For now I shall have
to go half an hour further with you, to sleep somewhere else."

 

 

Stephan's last terror had so paralyzed him that he scarcely heard what
his friend was saying. And when later the Turkoman waked him, he could
not stir. The old man took him up in his arms, like a child, and set him
down on the road which leads along the bed of the Orontes, into Suedia.

 

 

"There's not a soul about here, boy. If you hurry, you can be back in
the mountain before it's light. Allah does more for you than he does
for most of us."

 

 

The peasant gave Stephan some more of his cheese, a flat loaf and his
water flask, which he had had refilled in Antakiya. Then he seemed also
to be giving him counsel and advice, some heartening words, as he bade
Godspeed. It ended with the wish of peace, "Selam alek." But Stephan
could hear none of all this, since a loud roaring was in his ears, and
his head was swimming. He could only see how the light turban and whitish
beard moved rhythmically, and now both turban and beard permeated the
darkness, with ever more beneficent light. How Stephan Bagradian longed
for that mild sheen, the source of all light and consolation, as the
stumbling clatter of hoofs became remote. The vanishing cart hung out
no lantern. The moon had not yet risen from over the steep gullies of
the Amanus.

 

 

 

 

Ter Haigasun had sent down a message -- probably his first since he had
held jurisdiction over these parishes -- to the graveyard dwellers in all
the villages. Nunik and her sisters were to set out through the country
round Musa Dagh, after news of the lost Stephan Bagradian. Should they
succeed in getting any important information, or even, perhaps, bringing
back the fugitive, a great reward was to be theirs. They would be given
their own camp beside the Town Enclosure. It was a stroke of genius
in Ter Haigasun to have offered such a high reward. Gabriel Bagradian
was the most important man on the Damlayik. The whole future would
depend on the state of mind and body of the leader. All that could
be done must be attempted to prevent Gabriel's inward strength --
Juliette had delivered the first blow against it -- from sustaining
irreparable damage from Stephan's fate. This reward seemed immense to
these dregs of the villages. And yet Nunik had scarcely a hope that they
would gain it. Since the last great Armenian victory, things had been
getting cruelly difficult for the people left behind in the valley. The
müdir had issued an order, posted up in all the villages, by which it
was the duty of every Mussulman to arrest any Armenian he encountered --
no matter who. Blind, sick, mad, crippled, an old man or a child, it was
all the same. This significant order was designed to render impossible all
espionage on behalf of the mountain camp. It had not been pasted up two
days on the walls of the church, and already the graveyard population,
which originally, in the seven villages, might have been reckoned at
close on seventy people, had shrunk to forty. Those who had survived
were therefore forced, if they wanted to go on living a little longer,
to find some really close and effective hiding place. And, Christ be
praised, they had found it! Only the bravest and strongest, like Nunik,
the eternally wandering, ventured forth between midnight and daybreak,
in search of food -- at the risk of destruction -- to poach a lamb or
a she-goat. Stephan's way home led past this sanctuary.

 

 

About a mile outside the village Ain Yerab, the ruins of ancient Antioch
cluster together into what becomes a veritable town. This town is surmounted
by the pilasters and vast broken arches of a Roman viaduct. The road,
which, so far, has been an easy one, here narrows down to a vague track,
which leads on, alorg the bed of the river, deeply channelled into the
rocks, through the stony waste, which once was a human habitation.
At places the way is strewn with square-hewn stones, fragments of columns,
fallen capitals, which almost block it. Stephan, dazed with fever as he
was, went stumbling on, tripping up again and again on blocks of stone,
getting himself entangled in creepers, skinning his knees, falling flat,
dragging himself up, stumbling forwards. From his right, concealed in the
farthest ruins, firelight kept flickering faintly from time to time. Had
Stephan been Haik, he would have sensed, even without the firelight, from
miles off, the presence of these miserable beggars, whose very misery
made them his allies. His sure feet would have carried him straight to
them. But where might Haik be at this hour? Thirty paces off the side of
the path he followed there was safety waiting for Stephan, with even a
lighted bonfire to help him look for it. Nunik, Wartuk, Manushak, would
have been able to hide Stephan safely, nursed him for a day and a night,
and then, by the sure ways of their experience, brought him back to the
Damlayik, to claim the great reward. But this town boy was afraid of
fire. He felt himself being pursued as he rushed on up the steepening
road. He came to the top, and drank a swig of flat, lukewarm water out
of his flask. Musa Dagh was before him. Here in the moonlight the thick,
black smoke-swaths which eddied up off the center of the mountain could
plainly be seen. The flames seemed to have died down, since now there
was no longer a wind to fan them. Now and again a burning coal would
glow and vanish.

 

 

Even then fate gave young Bagradian one more chance. Nunik had sensed
something. Leaving her little fire, she had caught a glimpse of a scurrying
shape, which could not have been the shadow of a man. There were a few
waifs and strays among the beggar-folk. One of those children, a little
boy of not more than eight, was sent out to find who the shadow was. But
when Stephan heard a patter and scurry behind him, he did not turn round,
but went racing onwards, like a mad horse. He used every ounce of his
strength in his desperate run. Noises kept hammering in his ears. Was
his father calling him? Was it Haik hissing: "Quick march"? He ran,
not as though a child were after him, but the whole infantry company
whose clutches he had escaped that night. Here these aqueduct ruins
ceased abruptly, the road broadened out. The first dark ridges towered
over the road. Stephan ran for dear life. A malicious panic drove him
down the first side valley, which he mistook for his own, of the seven
villages. His flight was giving him such wings that it felt as though he
were actually hovering high over the stone-strewn heath as he ran. Stephan
turned into the valley, without knowing that he was yelling with all his
might. But he did not get far. He tripped over the first real obstacle,
a tree trunk flung across his way; and then lay still.

 

 

 

 

When he came to himself, the day was upon him in misty twilight. Stephan
firmly believed that it was still the day before yesterday, the very
same hour at which he had come out of the swamp El Amk -- he and Haik --
into pleasant hill-country, to the Turkoman's house. He had forgotten
all that had happened since, or could only remember it as a dream. His
diseased sense of time was reinforced by the fact that there was a house
in front of him, though to be sure not a white limestone house, but a
wrinkled clay hut, an ugly one at that, without any windows. But out
of this house, too, there came a man, in a turban, with a grey beard,
perhaps not the Turkoman guardian angel, but at least an old man. And
lo! -- this old man too snuffled the wind, looked up at the sky, turned
to the four quarters of the hemisphere, spread out a little carpet,
squatted, and began to pray, with many bobbings and duckings.