Come, Tell Me How You Live

by Agatha Christie Mallowan

  Finally, regretfully, the women resume their veils and take their leave. I return, a nervous wreck, to the living-room.

  I ask Max whether he thinks the Sheikh will take her to hospital somewhere and Max says probably not.

  Today Michel goes into Kamichlie with the washing, and a long list of shopping to be done, Michel cannot read or write, but he never forgets an item, and can recall its exact price. He is scrupulously honest, which offsets his many annoying qualities. I myself would list the latter in the following order:

  His high whining voice.

  His tendency to beat tutti under one’s window.

  His hopeful attempts to murder Moslems on the road.

  His argumentative powers.

  A lot of photography today, and I am introduced to my ‘dark room’. This is undoubtedly a great improvement on the ‘Little Ease’ at Amuda. I can stand upright, and it has a table and a chair.

  But as it is a recent addition, having been added a few days before my arrival, the mud-brick is still damp. Strange fungi grow on the walls, and when one is immured in it on a hot day, one comes out partially asphyxiated!

  Max has given the little boy who sits outside and washes the pottery a bar of chocolate, and tonight the little boy waylays him.

  ‘Tell me, I pray you, Khwaja, the name of that sweetmeat? So delicious is it that I no longer care for the sweets of the Bazaar. I must purchase this new sweetmeat, even if its price should be a mejidi!’

  I say to Max that he must feel as though he has created a drug addict. Clearly, chocolate is habit-forming.

  Not, Max remarks, like an old man to whom he once offered a piece of chocolate last year. The old man thanked him courteously and folded it away in his robe. The officious Michel asked if he were not going to eat it. ‘It is good,’ said Michel. The old man replied simply: It is new. It might be dangerous!’

  Today is our day off, and we go over to Brak to make arrangements there. The mound itself is about a mile from Jaghjagha, and the first question to be solved is the water problem. We have had a local well-digger at work, but the water by the mound has proved too brackish for drinking. It will have, therefore, to be brought up from the river – hence the Circassian, the cart, and the water-barrels (and the horse that is not an old woman). We shall also need a watchman to live on the excavations.

  For ourselves, we are renting a house in the Armenian village by the river. Most of the houses are deserted there. The settlement began with a considerable expenditure of money, but, so far as one can judge, without the necessary putting of first things first. The houses (miserable mud-brick hovels though they would probably appear to the Western eye!) were actually over-ambitious, bigger and more elaborate than was needful, whereas the water-wheel on which the irrigation and the whole success of the settlement depended was scamped, since there was not enough money left to build it really well. The settlement was started on a kind of communal basis. Tools, animals, ploughs, etc., were provided, and were to be paid off by the community out of their profits. What actually happened, however, was that one after another tired of life in the wilds, and wished to return to a city, and departed, taking his tools and implements with him. Result: these had continually to be replaced, and the people who remained and worked became, much to their bewilderment, more and more in debt. The water-wheel finally failed to function and the settlement relapsed into a mere village – and a somewhat disgruntled village at that. The derelict house that we are renting is quite imposing, with a wall round a courtyard, and actually a two-storey ‘tower’ on one side. Facing the tower on the other side is a line of rooms, each opening on to the courtyard. Serkis, the carpenter, is busy now repairing the woodwork of doors and windows, so that a few of the rooms will be habitable to camp in.

  Michel is dispatched to collect the new watchman for the mound from a village a couple of miles away, together with a tent.

  Serkis reports that the tower-room is the one in the best order. We go up some steps, across a small flat roof, and then into two rooms. We agree that the inner room shall have a couple of camp-beds in it, and that the outer one will do for meals, etc. There are some hinged wooden boards to swing-to across the windows, but Serkis will fit some glass.

  Michel now returns, and reports that the watchman he has been sent to transport to the mound has three wives, eight children, many sacks of flour and rice, and a good deal of livestock. Impossible to transport them all in the lorry. What shall he do?

  He departs again with three Syrian pounds and instructions to bring what he can, and the surplus can hire themselves passages on donkeys.

  The Circassian appears suddenly, driving the water-cart. He is singing and shaking a large whip. The cart is painted a bright blue and yellow, the water-barrels are blue, the Circassian has high boots and gay wrappings. The whole thing looks more like the Russian ballet than ever. The Circassian descends, cracks his whip and continues to sing, swaying on his feet. He is clearly very drunk!

  Another of Michel’s swans!

  The Circassian is sacked, and one Abdul Hassan, a serious, melancholy man, who says he understands horses, is appointed in his stead.

  We start home, and run out of petrol two miles from Chagar. Max turns on Michel with fury and curses him.

  Michel raises his hands to heaven and lets out a wail of injured innocence.

  It is entirely in our interests that he has acted. He has wished to utilize the very last drop of petrol.

  ‘You fool! Haven’t I told you always to fill up and carry a spare can?’

  ‘There would have been no room for a spare can, and, besides, it might have been stolen.’

  ‘And why didn’t you fill up the tank?’

  ‘I wished to see just how far the car would go on what we had.’

  ‘Idiot!’

  Michel says appeasingly: ‘Sawi proba,’ which rouses Max to a howl of fury. We all feel inclined to apply Forca to Michel, as he continues to look virtuous – an innocent man unjustly blamed!

  Max restrains himself, but says that he sees why Armenians are massacred!

  We arrive home at last, to be greeted by Ferhid, stating he wishes to ‘retire’, as he and Ali never stop quarrelling!

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Chagar and Brak

  THERE ARE PENALTIES attached to greatness. Of our two house-boys, Subri is incontestably the better. He is intelligent, quick, adaptable, and always gay. His general appearance of ferocity and the immense knife, carefully sharpened, which he keeps under his pillow at night are mere irrelevances! So is the fact that whenever he requests leave of absence it is to visit some relation who is incarcerated at Damascus or elsewhere for murder! The murders, Subri explains seriously, have all been necessary. It has been a matter of honour or family prestige. This is borne out, he says, by the fact that none of their sentences is a long one.

  Subri, then, is by far the more desirable servant; but Mansur, by right of seniority of service, is the head boy. Mansur, though fulfilling Max’s dictum that he is too stupid to be anything but honest, is nevertheless, to put it bluntly, a pain in the neck!

  And Mansur, since he is the head boy, attends to the needs of Max and myself, whilst the Colonel and Bumps, supposedly inferior in rank, have the services of the intelligent, merry Subri.

  Sometimes, in the very early morning, a feeling of loathing comes over me for Mansur! He enters the room after knocking about six times, being in doubt as to whether the repeated ‘Come in’ can really be meant for him. He stands inside, breathing laboriously, and holding, precariously balanced, two cups of strong tea.

  Slowly, breathing stertorously, and shuffling his feet, he advances across the floor and puts down one cup on the chair beside my bed, slopping most of it into the saucer as he does so. With him comes a strong aroma, at best of onions, at worst of garlic. Neither of these is really appreciated at five a.m.

  The spilling of the tea fills Mansur with despair. He stares down at the cup and saucer, shaking his head, and poking
at it doubtfully with a finger and thumb.

  In a ferocious half-awakened voice I say: ‘Leave it!’

  Mansur starts, breathes hard, and shuffles across the room to Max, where he repeats the performance.

  He then turns his attention to the washstand. He picks up the enamel basin, carries it cautiously to the door, and empties it outside. He returns with it, pours about an inch of water in, and goes over it laboriously with one finger. This process takes about ten minutes. He then sighs, goes out, returns with a kerosene tin of hot water, puts it down and slowly shuffles out, shutting the door in such a way that it immediately comes open again!

  I then drink off the cold tea, rise, clean the basin myself, throw out the water, latch the door properly, and start the day.

  After breakfast, Mansur addresses himself to the task of ‘doing the bedroom’. His first procedure, after slopping a good deal of water about in the neighbourhood of the washstand, is to dust very carefully and methodically. This is not bad as a performance, but it occupies an immense amount of time.

  Satisfied with the first stage of housework, Mansur goes out, fetches a native broom, returns with it, and begins to sweep furiously. Having raised a terrific dust, so that the air is unbreathable, Mansur makes the beds – either in such a way that your feet are immediately exposed when you get in, or else by his second method, which involves half the length of the bedclothes being tucked under the mattress, the top half reaching only to one’s waist. I pass over such minor idiosyncrasies as laying the sheets and blankets in alternate layers and putting both pillow-cases on one pillow. These flights of fancy only occur on clean linen days.

  Finally nodding his head in approval, Mansur staggers out of the room, exhausted by nervous strain and hard work. He takes himself and his duties very seriously, and is intensely conscientious. This attitude of his has made a deep impression on the rest of the staff, and Dimitri, the cook, says quite seriously to Max: ‘Subri is most willing and industrious, but he has not, of course, the knowledge and experience of Mansur, who is trained in all the ways of the Khwajas!’ Not to subvert discipline, Max perforce makes sounds of agreement, but both he and I look yearningly at Subri as he cheerfully shakes and folds the Colonel’s clothes.

  I once officiously tried to instil into Mansur my own ideas of the routine of housework, but it was a mistaken move. I merely confused him and roused all his native obstinacy.

  ‘The ideas of the Khatún are not practical,’ he said sadly to Max. ‘She demands that I put tea leaves on the floor. But tea leaves are put in a teapot for drinking. And how can I dust the rooms after sweeping? I take the dust from the tables and let it fall on the ground, and then I sweep it from the ground. That is only reasonable.’

  Mansur is very strong upon what is reasonable. A demand of the Colonel’s for jam to add to his leben (sour milk) brought the immediate reproof from Mansur: ‘No, it is not necessary!’

  Some vestiges of military tradition cling around Mansur. His answer to a summons is the immediate reply: ‘Présent!’ And he announces lunch and dinner with the simple formula: ‘La Soupe!’

  The time of day when Mansur is really in his element is the hour of the bath, just before dinner. Here Mansur presides, and does not have to do anything himself. Under his commanding eye, Ferhid and Ali bring large kerosene tins of boiling water and others of cold water (mostly mud) from the kitchen and set out the baths – which are large, round copper affairs, like immense preserving-pans. Later, still under Mansur’s supervision, Ferhid and Ali stagger out with the copper pans and empty them, usually immediately outside the front door, so that if you go out unwarily after dinner you slide on liquid mud and fall headlong.

  Ali, since his promotion to postboy and the acquisition of the bicycle, is getting a soul above menial chores. To the worried Ferhid is allotted the endless plucking of fowls and the ritualistic washing up of meals, which involves an immense quantity of soap and hardly any water.

  On the rare occasions when I step into the kitchen to ‘show’ Dimitri the preparation of some European dish, the highest standards of hygiene and general purity are at once insisted upon.

  If I pick up a perfectly clean-looking bowl, it is at once taken from me and handed to Ferhid.

  ‘Ferhid, clean this for the Khatún to use.’

  Ferhid seizes the bowl, smears the interior of it painstakingly with yellow soap, applies a brisk polish to the soapy surface, and returns it to me. I have an inner misgiving that a soufflé flavoured heavily with soap will not really be nice, but stifle it, and force myself to proceed.

  The whole thing is most shattering to the nerves. To begin with, the temperature of the kitchen is usually about ninety-nine degrees F., and to keep it even as cool as that there is only a tiny aperture to admit light, so that the whole effect is a sweltering gloom. Added to that is the disorganizing effect of the complete confidence and reverence expressed in every face surrounding me. There are a good many faces, for in addition to Dimitri, the slave Ferhid, and the haughty Ali, there have also come in to watch the proceedings Subri, Mansur, Serkis the carpenter, the waterman, and any odd workmen who may be doing a job on the house. The kitchen is small, the crowd is large. They close round me with admiring and reverent eyes, watching my every action. I begin to get nervous, and feel that everything is sure to go wrong. I drop an egg on the floor and break it. So complete is the confidence reposed in me that for quite a minute everyone takes this to be part of the ritual!

  I proceed, getting hotter and hotter and more and more unhinged. The pans are different from any I have ever known, the egg-whisk has an unexpectedly detachable handle, everything I use is a curious shape or size…. I pull myself together, and resolve desperately that, whatever the result may be, I shall pretend that it is what I have intended!

  Actually the results fluctuate. Lemon curd is a great success; shortbread is so uneatable that we secretly bury it; a vanilla soufflé, for a wonder, goes right; whereas Chicken Maryland (owing, as I realize later, to the extreme freshness and incredible age of the chickens) is so tough that one cannot get one’s teeth through it!

  I can say, however, that I know by now what to impart and what to leave well alone. No dish that needs to be eaten as soon as it is cooked should ever be attempted in the East. Omelettes, soufflés, chip potatoes, will inevitably be made a good hour beforehand and placed in the oven to mature, and no amount of remonstrance will avail. Anything, on the other hand, however elaborate, that requires long preparation beforehand and which can be kept waiting will turn out successfully. Soufflés and omelettes were regretfully erased from Dimitri’s list. On the other hand, no chef could turn out regularly, day after day, a more perfect mayonnaise.

  One other point may be mentioned in the culinary line. This is the dish known familiarly to us as ‘biftek’. Again and again the announcement of this delicacy arouses hopes in us, hopes doomed each time to disappointment when a platter containing some frizzled-up little bits of gristly meat is placed before us.

  ‘It doesn’t,’ the Colonel would say sadly, ‘even taste like beef.’

  And that, of course, is the real explanation – there never is any beef.

  The butcher’s shop is represented by a very simple proceeding. From time to time Michel departs with the lorry to a neighbouring village or tribe. He returns, flings open the back of Mary, and out fall eight sheep!

  These sheep are dispatched one at a time as needed, strict orders being given on my account that they should not be slaughtered exactly in front of the living-room windows! I also object to seeing Ferhid advancing upon the chickens, a long, sharp knife in hand.

  This squeamishness of the Khatún’s is treated indulgently by the staff as another Western peculiarity.

  Once, when we were digging near Mosul, our old foreman came to Max in great excitement.

  ‘You must take your Khatún to Mosul tomorrow. There is a great event. There is to be a hanging – a woman! Your Khatún will enjoy it very much! She must on no ac
count miss it!’

  My indifference, and, indeed, repugnance, to this treat stupefied him.

  ‘But it is a woman,’ he insisted. ‘Very seldom do we have the hanging of a woman. It is a Kurdish woman who has poisoned three husbands! Surely – surely the Khatún would not like to miss that!’

  My firm refusal to attend lowered me in his eyes a good deal. He left us sadly, to enjoy the hanging by himself.

  Even in other ways unexpected squeamishness overtakes one. Though indifferent to the fate of chickens and turkeys (unpleasant gobbling creatures), we once bought a nice fat goose. Unfortunately, it turned out to be a companionable goose. It had clearly lived in its village as one of the family. On the very first evening it tried determinedly to share Max’s bath. It was always pushing open a door and putting a beak in, in a hopeful ‘I’m lonely’ fashion. As the days passed we got desperate. Nobody could bring themselves to order the goose to be killed.

  Eventually the cook took it upon himself. The goose was duly served up, richly stuffed in native fashion, and certainly looking and smelling delicious. Alas, none of us enjoyed a morsel! It was the most depressed meal we ever ate.

  Bumps disgraces himself here one day when Dimitri serves up proudly a lamb – head, paws, and all. Bumps takes one look at it and rushes headlong from the room.

  But to return to the problem of ‘biftek’. After a sheep has been slaughtered and dismembered it is served in the following order: the shoulder, or some such portion, stuffed with spices and rice and all sewn up (Dimitri’s grand dish); then the legs; then a platter of what used to be called in the last war ‘edible offal’; then a kind of stew with rice; and finally, the last rejected inglorious portions of the sheep, unworthy of inclusion in the better dishes, determinedly fried for a long period until well reduced in size and completely leathery in consistency – the dish known as ‘biftek’! Work on the mound has been proceeding satisfactorily – the entire lower half has turned out to be prehistoric. We have been digging on one portion of the mound a ‘deep cut’ from the top to virgin soil. This has given us fifteen layers of successive occupations. Of these the lower ten are prehistoric. After 1500 B.C. the mound was abandoned, presumably because denudation had set in and the levels were no longer good. There are, as always, some Roman and Islamic graves which are purely intrusive. We always call them Roman to the men to spare any Moslem susceptibilities, but the men themselves are an irreverent lot. ‘It is your grandfather we are digging up, Abdul!’ ‘No, it is yours, Daoud!’ They laugh and joke freely.