Come, Tell Me How You Live

by Agatha Christie Mallowan

  Today we take the main track from Hasetshe northwest to Kamichlie – another French military post, and the frontier town between Syria and Turkey. The track runs about midway between the Habur and the Jaghjagha for some distance, and finally rejoins the Jaghjagha at Kamichlie.

  Since to examine all the Tells on the way and return to Hasetshe that night would be impossible, we decide to stay the night in Kamichlie and return the following day.

  Opinions as to accommodation vary. According to the French Lieutenant, the so-called Hotel at Kamichlie is impossible, but impossible! ‘C’est infecte, Madame!’ According to Hamoudi and Aristide it is a fine hotel, quite European, with beds! Indeed, quite first-class!

  Stifling an inner conviction that the French Lieutenant will be proved right, we set off.

  The weather has cleared again after two days of drizzling rain. It is to be hoped that bad weather will not really set in before December. There are two deep wadis between Hasetshe and Kamichlie, and if they fill with water the road will be cut for some days. There is only a little water in them to-day, and we switchback down and up again without much difficulty – that is to say, we in Aristide’s taxi do so. Abdullah, as is his invariable custom, sweeps down in top gear, and endeavours to come up the other side in the same. He then tries to change down into second while the car is at a standstill. The engine protests and stops, and Abdullah glides gently back to the bottom of the wadi, his back wheels in mud and water. We all get out and make our contribution to the situation.

  Max curses Abdullah for a damned fool, and why can’t he do as he has been told a hundred times? Hamoudi upbraids him for lack of speed: ‘Faster, faster! You showed too much caution. Give the car no time to reflect. It would not then have refused.’ Aristide cries gaily: ‘Inshallah, we shall be out of here in ten minutes!’ Mac breaks his silence to utter one of his usual depressing statements. ‘About the worst place he could get stuck. Look at the angle! We shan’t get out of that for a long time.’ Abdullah raises his hands to heaven and utters a shrill vindication of his methods. ‘With such a fine car as this we might easily have sailed up in third, and then there would have been no need to change down at all, and in that way petrol would have been saved! I do everything in order to please you!’

  The chorus of lamentations gives way to practical proceedings. The boards, pickaxes, and other equipment always carried for these predicaments are unshipped. Max pushes Abdullah aside and takes his place at Mary’s wheel; the boards are placed in position; Mac, Hamoudi, Aristide and Abdullah take their places ready to shove. Since Khatúns toil not in the East (an excellent idea!), I take my stand upon the bank, prepared to utter cries of encouragement and helpful advice. Max starts the engine and revs it up; clouds of blue smoke arise from the exhaust, practically asphyxiating the shovers; Max puts the car into gear and eases out the clutch; there is a terrific roar; wheels spin; the blue haze grows; out of it are heard shrill cries that Allah is excessively merciful, Mary advances a couple of feet, the clamour increases, Allah is very merciful….

  Alas, Allah is not merciful enough! The wheels lose grip and Mary sinks back. Renewed disposal of boards, renewed efforts, shouting, fountains of mud, and blue fumes. Very nearly this time!

  Just a little more power is needed. The tow-rope is attached to Mary’s nose and fastened to the back of the taxi. Aristide takes his place at the taxi’s wheel. Everyone gets into position. Aristide displays too much zeal and lets in the clutch too soon. The tow-rope snaps. Fresh start. I am given the post of synchronizer. When I signal with the handkerchief, Aristide is to start.

  Once more the manoeuvres begin. Hamoudi, Abdullah and Mac prepare to shove, the two former uttering encouraging cries to the car well beforehand. Once again Max starts off. Once more fountains of mud and water arise mingled with blue smoke; the engine pants and races; the wheels start moving; I drop the handkerchief; Aristide utters a wild high scream, crosses himself, shouts Allah Kerim, and crashes in his gear. Slowly, groaning, Mary quavers forward; the tow-rope tightens; she hesitates; her back wheels spin; Max zigzags wildly; she recovers, and zigzagging to and fro up the steep bank, up she comes!

  Two figures, completely drowned in mud, rush up after her, yelling happily. A third figure, also mud-stained, walks up soberly – the imperturbable Mac. He shows no sign of either discomposure or exultation.

  I look at my watch and say: ‘A quarter of an hour. Not too bad.’ Mac replies calmly: ‘The next wadi will probably be worse.’

  Decidedly Mac is not human!

  We proceed. Hamoudi enlivens the road with snatches of song. He and Max are having a gay time together in front. Mac and I sit in silence behind. I am by this time reduced to gibbering idiocy when I attempt conversation. Mac bears with my idiotic remarks patiently and politely as always, according them a deliberate attention they do not deserve, and replies to them with one or other of his formulas: ‘Indeed?’ or gently and reprovingly, ‘Surely that is not so?’

  Presently we arrive at the second wadi. We halt; Max takes Abdullah’s place in Mary. Aristide goes through first without mishap. Max follows, going down in second and changing to first as he starts up out of the water. Mary arrives, lurching triumphantly.

  ‘You see?’ says Max to Abdullah.

  Abdullah puts on his most camel-like expression.

  ‘She would have done it this time in third,’ he says. ‘You did not need to change.’

  Max tells him again that he is a damned fool, and adds that at any rate he is to do as he is told in future. Abdullah replies cheerfully that he always does everything for the best.

  Max abandons the argument and we proceed.

  Tells are plentiful. I begin to wonder whether the moment has not come to resume my anti-clockwise progress round them.

  We arrive at a Tell named Chagar Bazar. Dogs and children rush out from the small cluster of houses. Presently a striking figure is seen in flowing white robes and a brilliant green turban. It is the local Sheikh. He greets us with the utmost bonhomie. Max disappears with him into the largest mud house. After a pause of some moments the Sheikh reappears and yells: ‘Engineer! Where is the engineer?’ Hamoudi explains that this summons is intended for Mac. Mac goes forward.

  ‘Ha,’ cries the Sheikh, ‘here is leben!’ He produces a bowl of the local sour milk. ‘How do you like your leben, engineer, thick or thin?’ Mac, who is very fond of leben, nods towards the water-jug the Sheikh is holding. I see Max endeavouring to negative the suggestion. Too late; the water is added to the leben, and Mac drinks it off with something like relish.

  ‘I tried to warn you,’ says Max later. ‘That water was practically thin black mud!’

  The finds on Chagar Bazar are good…. There is a village, wells, other villages adjacent, and a kindly disposed, though no doubt rapacious, Sheikh. It is put down as a possible, and we go on.

  A few detours over marshy ground to reach certain Tells near the Jaghjagha at the end of the day delay us, and it is quite late when we arrive at last at Kamichlie.

  With the utmost enthusiasm Aristide pulls up the car with a jerk before the first-class Hotel.

  ‘See,’ he says, ‘is it not handsome? It is built of stone!’

  We forbear to say that the inside of hotels is more important than the outside. Anyway, here is the Hotel, and whatever it is like, it has to do.

  We enter, climb up a long dingy stair, and arrive in a restaurant with marble-topped tables, where there is a thick smell of paraffin, garlic and smoke.

  Max enters into negotiations with the Proprietor.

  Certainly this is a Hotel. It is a Hotel with beds – real beds! He flings open the door of a room, in which four people, already asleep on beds, prove the truth of his words. There are two unoccupied beds in the room.

  ‘There you are,’ he says; ‘and this animal here’ – he kicks the nearest sleeper – ‘can be turned out! He is only my horseboy.’

  Max makes the unreasonable request that we would like a room to oursel
ves. The Proprietor is doubtful. That, he says, will be enormously expensive.

  Max says recklessly that he does not mind if it is expensive. How expensive, he asks, will it be?

  The Proprietor hesitates, scratches his ear, sizes up our appearance (which, owing to mud, is not very plutocratic), and finally hazards the opinion that it will cost at least a pound for the four of us.

  To his stupefaction Max agrees without bargaining.

  Immediately all is activity and enthusiasm. Sleepers are aroused, servants are called. We sit down at one of the marble tables and order the best meal the house can provide.

  Hamoudi charges himself with the supervision of the sleeping accommodation. He returns some quarter of an hour later all smiles. One room is to be at the disposal of Max and myself. He and Mac will share the other. Also, ‘and for the good of your reputation’, as he puts it, he has agreed to an additional charge of five francs for clean sheets!

  The food comes; it is greasy, but hot and savoury. We eat heartily, and without more ado retire and fall on to the clean-sheeted beds. As I fall asleep, the possible question of ‘bugs’ just stirs in my mind. Max gives it as his opinion that we are safe from bugs. This place is only recently built and the beds are new ones of iron.

  The fumes of smoke, garlic and paraffin seep in through the restaurant next door, and there is the high chatter of Arab voices. But nothing can keep us from sleep. We sleep.

  We awake, unbitten. It is later than we thought. Once again we have a full day before us. Max throws open the bedroom door and blenches slightly. The restaurant is full of the dispossessed sleepers from the two bedrooms. They lie about among the tables – there are at least a score of them. The atmosphere is very thick. Tea and eggs are brought to us, and we set off once more. Hamoudi says sadly to Max that he has talked long and earnestly to the Khwaja Macartney last night, but alas, not even now, after two months, does the Khwaja Mac understand a word of Arabic!

  Max asks Mac how he is getting on with Van Ess’s spoken Arabic. Mac replies that he seems to have mislaid it.

  After doing some shopping in Kamichlie, we take the road for Amuda. This is an important road – almost, one might say, a real road instead of a track. It runs parallel with the railway line, on the other side of which is Turkey.

  Its surface is appalling – continual ruts and holes. We are all shaken to bits, but there is no doubt that one sees life on it. We pass several cars, and both Abdullah and Aristide have to be severely cursed for indulging in the native driver’s favourite sport of trying to run down, or, at any rate, severely frighten, parties of donkeys and camels in the charge of old women and boys.

  ‘Is not this track wide enough for you to pass right at the other side?’ demands Max.

  Abdullah turns to him excitedly.

  ‘Am I not driving a lorry? Am I not to choose the best surface? These miserable Beduin must get out of my way, they and their wretched donkeys!’

  Aristide glides softly up behind an overladen donkey, with a man and woman trudging beside it, and lets out a terrific blast of his horn. The donkey stampedes, the woman screams and rushes after it, the man shakes his fist. Aristide roars with laughter.

  He in turn is cursed, but remains, as usual, serenely unrepentant.

  Amuda is mainly an Armenian town, and not, may it be said, at all an attractive one. The flies there are out of all proportion, the small boys have the worst manners yet seen, everyone seems bored and yet truculent. On the whole it compares unfavourably with Kamichlie. We buy meat of a doubtful character from which flies rise in a swarm, some rather tired vegetables, and some very good freshly made bread.

  Hamoudi goes off to make various inquiries. He returns as our purchases are completed, and directs us to a side road in which is a gate leading into a courtyard.

  Here we are greeted by an Armenian priest – very courteous and knowing a little French. Waving his hand round the courtyard and the building at one side of it, he says that this is his house.

  Yes, he would be prepared to rent it to us next spring if the ‘arrangements’ were satisfactory. Yes, he could clear out one room, and let us have it for storing things quite soon.

  Negotiations having thus been set under way, we start off for Hasetshe. There is a direct track from Amuda joining the Kamichlie road at Tell Chagar Bazar. We examine a few Tells on the way, and arrive back at our camp without incident but extremely tired.

  Max asks Mac if he has suffered inconvenience from the Sheikh’s filthy water. Mac replies that he has never felt better.

  ‘I told you Mac was a find,’ says Max later when we are rolled up in our flea-bags. ‘First-class stomach! Nothing upsets him. Can eat any amount of grease and muck. And practically never opens his mouth.’

  ‘That,’ I say, ‘may be all right for you! You and Hamoudi never stop roaring with laughter and talking. But what about me?’

  ‘I can’t understand why you don’t get on with him better. Do you try?’

  ‘I’m always trying. He just snubs me.’

  Max seems to find this amusing, and chuckles a good deal.

  Today sees our arrival at Amuda – our new centre of activity. Mary and the taxi are parked in the Armenian priest’s courtyard. A room in the house has been cleared and is at our disposal, but Hamoudi, after examination of it, recommends sleeping in the tents still! We set them up with difficulty, for there is a strong wind blowing, and it is beginning to rain. It looks as though there will be no excursions tomorrow. Twenty-four hours’ rain in these parts effectually paralyses traffic. It is fortunate that we have got a room where we can spend the day, go over our finds to date, and where Max can write his report of the proceedings to date.

  Mac and I unload and arrange things in the room – folding-table, deck-chairs, lamps, etc. The others go off into the town to make necessary purchases.

  Outside, the wind rises and the rain begins to beat down. There are broken panes in the windows and it is very cold. I look longingly at the petrol lamp.

  ‘I wish Abdullah would come back,’ I say, ‘and we could get the heater going.’

  For Abdullah, devoid apparently of any intelligence, a shocking driver, and mentally deficient in almost every respect, is nevertheless undisputed lord of those temperamental things – petrol lamps. He, and he alone, can deal with their intricacies.

  Mac goes over to the heater and looks at it.

  The scientific principle, he says, is quite simple. Would I like him to light it?

  I say I would, and hand him a box of matches.

  Mac proceeds to the task with quiet confidence. The methylated is ignited, and so on and so forth. His hands are deft and skilful, and he clearly knows what he is doing.

  Time passes…. the lamp does not light. Mac starts all over again with the methylated….

  After another five minutes he murmurs, more to himself than me:

  ‘The principle is clear enough –’

  I steal a glance at him when another five minutes have gone by. He is getting warm. He also is looking not nearly so superior. Scientific principle or no scientific principle, the petrol lamp is holding out on him. He lies on the floor and wrestles with the thing. Presently he begins to swear….

  A feeling that is almost affection sweeps over me. After all, our Mac is human. He is defeated by a petrol lamp!

  Half an hour later Max and Abdullah return. Mac is scarlet in the face and the petrol lamp is unlit.

  ‘Ah, let me do that, Khwaja!’ says Abdullah. He seizes the methylated, the matches. In two minutes the petrol lamp is flaring away, although I feel tolerably certain that Abdullah has completely ignored any scientific principle there may be….

  ‘Well!’ says Mac, inarticulate as usual, but conveying a good deal in that one word.

  Later that night the wind rises to a gale, the rain is lashing down. Aristide runs in to say he thinks the tents are coming down. We all rush out in the rain. It dawns on me that I am now going to see the seamy side of le camping.
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br />   Valiantly Max and Mac and Aristide struggle with the big tent. Mac clings to the pole.

  Suddenly there is a snap, the pole breaks, Mac goes down headlong into thick slimy mud.

  He struggles up, completely unrecognizable. His voice rises in completely natural tones:

  ‘D—and—the—thing,’ yells Mac at last, becoming wholly human.

  From that night onward Mac is one of us!

  The bad weather passes, but for a day the tracks are too wet for motoring. We venture out cautiously to Tells near at hand. A possibility is Tell Hamdun – a large Tell not far from Amuda and set right on the frontier, the railway actually passing through a portion of it, so that a slice of it is in Turkey.

  We are here one morning, and have brought a couple of men with us to cut a trench in the side of the Tell. The place where they are digging is cold, and I go round to the opposite side of the Tell out of the wind. The days are definitely autumnal now, and I sit on the side of the Tell huddled down in my coat.

  Suddenly, out of nowhere, as usual, a horseman comes cantering up the mound. He reins his horse and shouts to me, addressing me fluently in Arabic. I understand nothing beyond the greeting, which I return politely, and say that the Khwaja is the other side of the mound. He looks puzzled, asks me another question, then suddenly throws back his head and roars with laughter.

  ‘Ah, it is a Khatún!’ he cries. ‘What a mistake! It is a Khatún to whom I speak!’ and he canters round to the other side of the mound, intensely amused at the solecism he has committed in not having recognized a female at first sight!

  The best days are over. Now often there are overcast skies. We have finished examining Tells. The moment has come to decide where the spades are to go in next spring.

  Three Tells compete for the honour of our attention – Tell Hamdun, which is geographically in an interesting sector; our first selection, Tell Chagar Bazar; and a third, Tell Mozan. This is much the largest of the three, and a lot depends on whether there will be much Roman deposit to dig through.