The Forty Days of Musa Dagh by Franz Werfel

Author:Franz Werfel [Werfel, Franz]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Tags: D
Publisher: David R. Godine, Publisher
Published: 2012-01-25T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 3

The Procession of Fire

THEIR PROFESSIONAL fortunes smiled on the wailing women, Nunik, Vartuk, Manushak.

Before they could wipe their faces clean with lettuce leaves, another engagement presented itself. It was one of an exactly opposite kind. If the woman’s labor was prolonged, as they had every reason to hope it might be, they could count on two full meals at least. And, in the very just supposition that any human event may occur at any time in a population of five thousand, they had brought all the essentials of their craft, wrapped in the crumpled folds of their garments–sevsamith, the black fennel seed, a little swallow dung, the tail hair of a chestnut horse, and more of the same medicaments.

Even before the earth of the Damlayik had closed over the last of the dead, Hovsannahs labor had begun. Only Iskuhi was with her in the tent, everyone else had gone to the burial. The girl’s handicap prevented her being of much use to her sister-in-law. There was no seat with a back to it against which the laboring mother could bear down. Cushions gave her no leverage, and the bed had only a low iron frame. Iskuhi sat with her back to Hovsannah, so that the tortured woman might press firmly against her body. But Iskuhi was too frail to hold out against Hovsannahs heavy thrusts; cling as fast as she might to the bed frame, she always slipped. Hovsannah let out a short scream. It came as a signal to Nunik. That wailer’s alert instinct had drawn her away from the burial. Her work was done, her surprisingly high fee had been clawed together. Nunik’s justification had not failed in its affect on the aggrieved. The coins of charity should not rust on the Damlayik, but rather give succor to the poor and wretched of their kind. But some of the more tepid contributors gave a nod and a wink at Nunik’s demonstration. According to legend, not only was Nunik of the half-eaten nose secretly a millionairess, so was the fat little Manushak. Not only did these wailing women have a buried treasure in the cemetery–paras, piasters, and other such coinage–but pots full of honest to goodness medjidjeh gold dollars, even thick bundles of Turkish pound notes. And because of this mysterious capital, veritable beggar battles broke out in the Yoghonoluk cemetery from time to time, which Ter Haigasun mediated mostly with threats, expelling the riffraff without mercy, along with life’s shameless greed, from the defiled resting place of the dead. Whenever this happened, these millionairesses lamented, in real millionaire style, that they were forced to tirelessly make money so as not to have nothing for their golden years–golden years of well-earned retirement for which, they seemed to have in mind, a phenomenally high number. And where the fat Manushak and that scold Vartuk were loyal to making naked profits, one had to admire a special calling in Nunik, one that served another mind beyond the one she had for business.

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