Mahmoud’s Family

II. The Examination

Having, in the course of his military career, served in the regiment on the frontier of the Caucasus, the Major had picked up a little Turkish. So they dispensed with an interpreter.

“I think we have met before?” he said to the prisoner. “You are Colonel Mahmoud Bey?”

The Turk lowered his head, and assumed an attitude of utter prostration.

“Perhaps there is a mistake, and I am taking you for some one else?” added the Major.

“I never lie!” said the prisoner, rising. “I escaped here from Kazanlik and have been recaptured by your soldiers. One cannot go far on foot!” he added, smiling sadly, “especially when one is, like myself, wounded in the head and the leg. And I have been again wounded in the shoulder.”

“You should know that according to the usages of war,” answered the Major, who attempted, but in vain, to speak in an official tone.

“It is superfluous to tell me that. The power is on your side. You are the victors; tell them to kill me. I knew perfectly well the risk I ran when last night I escaped from the house of the officer in whose charge I was. I have played, I have lost, and I must die.”

The Major, touched by the prisoner’s tone, began to speak to him more gently.

“Were you uncomfortable where you lodged?”

“No.”

“Did they treat you well?”

“The officer with whom I lodged is a very generous man. He obliged me to take his bed; he gave me food and drink; he treated me like a brother not like an enemy.”

“But were you afraid of being ill-treated in Russia?”

“No. I know that the Russians always treat their prisoners well.”

“In that case, why did you run away?”

“What is that to you? Here I am in your hands; do your duty. But be quick! be quick!”

Something very like a choked-down sob contracted the throat of the old Turk, and again his head sank.

“What did you hope to get by escaping? The Turks are retreating everywhere, famine reigns among you, and the population has fled. Would you not have done better to have waited? The war will soon be over, and you would have been able to go home to your own house.”

“Home to my own house? Where is that?”

“I don’t understand you.”

“Well, you soon will. I know how things are going on and have no illusions. An order has recently come from Constantinople telling people to emigrate to Asia Minor. Every one will go; my family with the rest. Where will they go? How am I to find them again? Bah! Don’t let us talk about it; it is useless. I did what I thought was my duty; do your own. No one escapes death. That which is to happen, will happen; it is written. No one lives beyond the limit fixed by destiny. What I did was certainly not for myself….”

The prisoner’s voice broke again, and he made a despairing gesture.

“You spoke of your family…. I also have a family,” said the Major with a pensive air.

“You are very lucky then to be alive, and to be able to go and meet them. You are not a prisoner.”

“It is for the sake of your family that I question you. You have children?”

The prisoner’s head sank still lower. There was silence.

“Have you many children?” added the Major.

“Four,” murmured Mahmoud Bey in a low voice.

“Are they grown up?”

“No, all little. The eldest of the little girls is just six.”

“Just the age of my rascal,” said the Major, as though speaking to himself.

“My girl will be very beautiful when she grows up,” said the prisoner in a livelier tone. “She has large eyes, which glow already. It is five months since I saw her; she wept much when I went away. My youngest is not yet a year old; he could not yet walk at the time of my departure. They all live down there just outside Adrianople. I had a house and vineyard … it is so pleasant there. I hoped to see them growing up under my eyes, the little brats. Then this war had to come. A curse on those who provoked it. God is just; He will punish those who have shed our blood and destroyed the happiness of our children.”

“Yes, what is the good of war?” exclaimed the Major. “What is the use of it? All my fortune is my officer’s pay. If I am killed to-morrow, what will become of my family?”

The examination of the prisoner had changed its character and become a conversation about families. The Major translated everything to the Colonel and the latter felt a keen sympathy with the prisoner’s misfortunes.

“Tell him, my friend, that if he really had love for his children, he would have quietly let himself be taken to Russia, instead of trying to escape at the risk of death. On his return, he could have taken up their education again. It would not have been a long interval, only some months.”

Mahmoud Bey replied sadly: “If our wives and kinsmen knew what the Russians really are, they would all have quietly remained at home, waiting our return. But no! In a few days from now the whole population will have fled, and soon as your soldiers arrive in sight of Adrianople, the town will be abandoned by the inhabitants. Only the Christians will remain.

“You asked me just now,” he continued with a sudden heat, “why I escaped from the generous officer in whose charge I was. Simply on account of my family. I wished to go and save my wife and children. You who talk to me about them, do you know what will become of them? I will tell you. My wife will be panic-struck and begin by abandoning the house, the kitchen-garden and everything. It will all become the prey of some Greek or Armenian. My wife will depart for Constantinople, taking the children with her. When she has arrived there, she will get no help from the Government, for where do you think there will be money enough to satisfy the needs of so many ruined families? There are more than a hundred thousand of them. Then they will be sent over to Asia Minor, to Scutari, where they will be forgotten. What will she do herself alone? There will be only one result. My daughters being beautiful and healthy, she will be able to sell them to harems, where the poor young things will forget the very name of their father. My boys will become slaves, while my daughters will be sold again some day to some rich old man of Aleppo or Damascus. As to my wife, her first grief once over, she also will go into some harem. And after a year, when I return, what shall I find? Nothing, neither house, nor family! I shall not even know where they are gone; people will not be able to give me any information. I shall have lost all that I possess, and my house will have changed its master.

“You asked why I escaped. Because I could not support the mental anguish which tortured me. I wept all the night, previous to taking flight; I knew I was exposing myself to the risk of death. But at such a time, to live or to die—is it not the same thing? If I had succeeded, I would have saved my children; I have not succeeded—well, I shall die. Kismet! It is not that death frightens me. Since the beginning of the war I have been exposed to it every day, and have been accustomed to face it without trembling. What dismays me is to know that my family are deserted, unhappy and dying of hunger—to know that they are quite near me and that I cannot fly to their help….”

The old Turk, burying his head in his hands, began to sob, to the great embarrassment of the officers. The Colonel leaped from his seat, and began to stride up and down the room. He made a gesture with his hand, as though he wished to brush away something which prevented him seeing distinctly; then he got angry with himself.

“The deuce!” he said, “I was nearly becoming a woman.” He looked at the Major, who as pale as himself, remained sitting at the table, on which his fingers were tracing strange designs.

“Yes, war is a dreadful thing,” he murmured.

The prisoner resumed his talk. “Before this war I had never left my house. I had seen all my children born and watched their growth every day. As they grew, their minds developed; no details escaped me; neither the moment when they recognized me for the first time, nor the moment when they began to stammer their first letters. I remember everything, everything—their little limbs when still weak … their mouths open like nestlings. Who will bring them their daily food now? Their mother? She is in danger herself. Only the other day….”

He could not finish; his strength failed him.

“Just as it is with us at home, my friend. The same thing exactly,” said the Colonel, pacing nervously up and down the room.

“What shall we do in the meantime? I think myself we might wait till to-morrow before sending him to the general. What do you say, Colonel?”

“Yes, yes, to-morrow will do.”

“Shall he stay with us for the present?”

“Yes, he can stay with us. I will tell Somione to make up a bed for him. Four children! What a story!”

“And if the general has him shot, Colonel?”

“Hm! yes…. It all depends on the mood he is in. One cannot talk about children with the general.”

“War is a horrible thing, Colonel. Is it not?”

“Yes, it is, if you want my opinion. But duty, you know, and the uniform and the military oath. I’d as soon they all went to the devil. Don’t let us think of it any more till to-morrow. It gives me a feeling of constriction at the heart. Ask him if he will take wine. We will have supper together.”