By Sempad Shahnazarian

Chapter Three (Continued)

 “Where is the egg?” asked Sempad.

  “I put it back where it belonged,” answered Petros calmly. “You know, even that little baby eaglet, from his half broken shell was trying to pick at me. I couldn’t take it.”

  The eagle did not charge anymore. He knew his home was safe now.

  “Weren’t you afraid when the eagle charged?” asked one of the boys.

  “Afraid?  I was terrified but I had made up my mind not to give in.”

  “Did you look down into the abyss from where the nest was?”

  “Momentarily, I guess. It made me shiver!” answered Petros.

  “Why didn’t you bring the eaglet and the two eggs with you? asked Sempad.

  “It would have been a low-down act on my part after having witnessed such a valiant fight by the eagle for the defense of his home and children. I just couldn’t do it. I couldn’t lower myself enough to do it.”

  After some trivial talk, while collecting some mushrooms and some greens, Petros assumed a serious air and said calmly: “I am afraid you misunderstand me when I am always emphasizing the need of having some weapons at our disposal. It is not for the purpose of stealing, robbing or killing people. It is only to protect our lives and property...our home. I deeply believe in the wisdom and justice of the Ten Commandments. I never allow myself to go against them. When I sarcastically mention how our Vartabeds always go around with Bibles in their hands, I am merely trying to show that the Bible is helpless when it is attacked by a wolf. In the face of a bloodthirsty man its mere presence is worth nothing.

  Every Armenian home should have a Mauser hanging behind its door. The government has armed its people, the Turks, but it has denied the same to the Armenians. That is the reason why we have an underground movement cautioning our people against the impending danger.”

  Then changing the topic, he said: “Would you like to go down to the valley or to the forest?”

  “To the forest! To the forest!” they cried out in unison.

  Being the first days of Autumn, the trees were already bare, and one could easily spot fruit trees for some distance.

  Sempad and Karekin stopped in front of a chestnut tree, nearly stepping on fresh bear feces.

  “He must be around here,” cried Karekin, at the same time looking all around.

 They looked up into the tree. They saw the bear going from one branch to another picking chestnuts and enjoying himself.

  While they were watching the scene frightened, ready to run at the first sign of his coming down, they heard Petros yelling: “Help! Help!”

  Nobody took it seriously so they kept watching the bear and his dexterity in helping himself to the nuts, when they heard Petros’ voice again, calling for help.

  “Hey, he isn’t joking!” cried Karekin, and ran toward the direction of the voice, with Sempad following him.

  When they got there, they were astounded by the scene. Petros stood there with his face all blood-stained, a bloody dagger in his hand, and a bear lying on the ground, in a puddle of blood convulsing.

  “What’s this!” they exclaimed.

  Raising his dagger in the air and breathing very hard, Petros said: “This and the advice of my uncle took care of him.” Then he went on telling them how many times his uncle had fought bears in the Sassoun Mountains.

  “My uncle used to tell me,” he said, “if I ever get attacked by a bear, all I had to do was just grab his testicles and twist them fiercely, and then use the knife. 

If it’s a female, and you are not properly equipped, and not stronger than the bear, you are doomed. I was fortunate that it was a male, and that I had a knife.”

  He then went on describing the terrible convulsions when he had a tight grip of his testicles, twisting them fiercely and finally plunging the dagger into his heart.

  They all listened to him entranced.

 “What are you going to do with the carcass?” asked one of the boys.

“We will take it to the Monastery, and let the cook take care of it,” said Petros. It was a real pleasure for them all to hold it by its legs and drag it over the dead leaves of the forest and then on the rocky slope up to the Monastery.

  When the monks and the shepherds saw the procession coming in they were amazed. They just threw the carcass at the kitchen door, on the cobbled floor and went upstairs to the dormitory.

  “Stay with us tonight Petros!” the boys begged.

   All night the wind howled fiercely and the windows rattled on their hinges. Lightning flashes lighted up the dormitory, and thunder shook the building violently. The boys stirred in their beds and shivered. Petros was wide-awake and deep into his recollections. He always liked to listen to the thunder and glance at lightning.  His imagination had carried him away to his home town.

  He could not sleep. He got up, put on his clothes and shoes and waited for a moment, listening.

  Strange sensations ran through his spine. The dormitory was brilliant again with a flash of lightning and a rumble was heard from far...far away.

  He looked outside where the Cathedral stood with its steeples engulfed in the clouds.

  He saw Garabed Vartabed, with a lantern in his hand leading a procession of monks into the Cathedral.

  “Strange,” murmured Petros. “What’s happening?”

  A blind monk, by the name of Khatcho came out of his cell exclaiming: “Light! Light! Holy Ghost! Look at the belfry. It looks like the moon.”

  Petros awakened the boys and hurried to the terrace to join the spectators. Dark clouds rolled over the steeples. The wind stirred them like ocean waves. Lightning kept knifing the night with its fiery blades. The rain whipped the air with its heavy sheets of water, and the cross on the top of the belfry stood in the storm gleaming like the moon.

  Soon the boys came wrapped up in blankets. They were all spellbound at the sight, saying: “Look at the cross, it looks like the moon...No!  It looks like a halo...Is it really the Holy Ghost or just a shaft of light? Of course it is the Holy Ghost, only in the form of light...He came down from Heaven to visit the relics of Saint John the Baptist.”

 Some crossed themselves with the deepest faith and devotion murmuring bits of psalms they had learned. Others just looked intently, enjoying the mystery of the night.

  Exclamations and comments continued, and the Vartabeds inside the Cathedral were having special ceremonies and rites, singing and praying at the Sepulcher of Saint John. The storm continued and the cross on the belfry shone like a flaming halo, thrust in the clouds.

 Suddenly, an underground rumble shook the surrounding hills and from innumerable cracks in the ground lights began to shine like stars in Heaven.

   “Is this a fragment of the sky which has fallen on our soil, or are these lights the lost souls of our ancestors visiting Sourp Garabed Monastery?” 

   Petros was silently watching the infuriated night and listening to various comments. In the darkness, a smile curled the corners of his mouth and his heart was filled with the strangest and warmest sensations.

  “Yes!  The spirit of the giants always appears on stormy nights.”

  “What do you think of this mysterious phenomenon, Petros?” asked Sempad.

  “If it is true that souls are immortal, then those lights were none other than the souls of our ancestors who came to visit Sourp Garabed as pilgrims.”

  “Do you believe in that?”

  Petros kept looking at the glorious sight in silence, buried in his meditations.

  The thunder and lightning kept on for half an hour together with the light on the cross and sparkles on the mountainside.

  The storm gradually subsided with the winds breaking down the black clouds to grayish shreds, showing here and there portions of the starlit sky with the halo and the sparks gone.

  Spring arrived with all its glories. The sky was clear. The trees were blooming. The grass, with its most vivid green, smiled at the boys; and mushrooms, some of them the size of medium-sized umbrellas, sprouted on decayed plants, here and there, adding a special beauty to the already beautiful sight.

  The boys would build a fire right on the spot, put the mushrooms upside down over the embers with salt on them, waiting till it dissolved and sizzled, giving out a most appetizing aroma. They would then devour them like a pack of hungry wolves.

   For a most delicious broiled steak, they would also hunt for land turtles.

  They were just children ranging in age from ten to fifteen years. They needed food and clothing, but the Turks had robbed the Monastery of everything.

  During the summer months, cream was dried in wicker trays below the windows of the dormitory. The boys would look at them hypnotized and would lick their lips. They could not have any of it. All of it had to be taken to the Turkish officials as gifts, to win their friendly attitude toward the Monastery.

  In the last days of Autumn, when it would start to snow, dozens of skins full of melted butter would be laid outside to freeze so they could send them to the Mayor or the Governor as a bribe, with no benefit whatsoever.

  Christmas was celebrated in a special manner for the boys. After the morning church service, in the company of their teacher Kazrig, they would all go to the kitchen, a huge cavern-like structure. Opposite the entrance, a fire roared in the fireplace. Next to it was an enormous oven with a wide-open mouth displaying golden loaves of wheat bread, filling the air with a heavenly bouquet.

  On one side, one could see two big copper kettles boiling. One of them contained some kind of soup, and the other bathing water. Close by against the wall, stood a large tub made of volcanic rock with spring water flowing in it.  Petros stood by, in his shirt sleeves, roaring: “Get in line boys! Take your clothes off!”

  They obeyed the order right away. Petros would then lift them up, put them into the bathtub filled with warm water. With a chunk of soap made out of the bear fat, he would rub their bodies with it and rinse them as well as he could.  They were then put on the floor that was covered with hay. A moment later they would run over to the oven where their teacher would give them each a flat loaf of bread, which was steaming from the oven.

  This would be their last bath until the snow began melting, in the springtime. Spring, when the streams would swell and roar in the gullies, where they would have a wonderful time bathing in the snow water, and running naked on the rocky slopes like wild animals.

  A week after Christmas, Karekin became sick. There was no doctor, therefore no medical attention. They didn’t know what to do. He had a high fever for four days and his lungs wheezed very badly. He moaned endlessly, and the boys kept trembling with fear all night long.

   At daybreak on the fourth day he became delirious. They were all laying on their cots, silently...looking at the ceiling...waiting...

    They seemed to hear the footsteps of Death in the dormitory with a shiver, when suddenly, a long and rasping sigh came from Karekin’s throat and he began to sing, in a barely audible voice Hayastan, Armenia.

  Tears came to their eyes, and a whisper ran from one end of the dormitory to the other...he is...singing...his...last...song...

  He sang for awhile and stopped. A rasping breath blasted...it repeated itself louder and louder. He struggled to change his position on the cot. He finally succeeded in lying down on his back, looking at the ceiling with glassy eyes.

  He seemed to be resting. A ray of hope flickered. They looked at one another with tearful smiles, when all of a sudden, something stirred in him. His legs stiffened, his midsection convulsed, and his whole body shook.  Then the rasping sound got louder and louder in his throat until a harsh sigh burst out of his chest and he stopped breathing.

  With the back of his hand, Sempad wiped the tears from his face and a tearful hum filled the dormitory.

  Karekin had died. His soul had left his material garb as a formless mass of mist and was floating in the air, tenderly touching the tear-covered faces of the boys. Then a wind blew from the depths of the endless space, and the misty existence was torn to pieces...his imagination, like a daring meteorite, darted uncontrollably here and there...his reason, cold and immovable, looked constantly into the inexorable laws of the Universe...his thoughts glittering like a woven structure of impressions...his heart like a flower of a symphonic prelude...and his faith, like a beautiful mirage of dubious reality crumbling to pieces...

  Although torn into misty shreds, the immaterial Karekin floated in space as an inseparable totality with the mountains and plains and rivers of his Fatherland and continued to sing Hayastan.

  The following day, on returning from the cemetery, the Vartabeds were whispering among one another, with mysterious looks on their faces.

  “The Miller has quit his job.”

  “Why?” asked Petros.

 “He couldn’t stand it anymore. He says he is afraid. He hears voices from the underground. He sees mysterious shadows moving around at night.” “Poor Kevo!” muttered Petros. “He must be suffering from some sort of mental disorder.

  “He doesn’t seem to be,” objected Garabed Vartabed. “He seems to be acting normal. He insists that he keeps hearing voices at night speaking a strange language. Can we find someone to take his place?”

   That very night, in his solitary cell, Petros made up his mind to take the Miller’s job.
 

  With some hesitation Vartan Vartabed consented and thus Petros immediately moved into the mill with his flute and Russian Mauser and officially became the Miller of Sourp Garabed Monastery.