Come, Tell Me How You Live

by Agatha Christie Mallowan

  We have found many interesting carved animal amulets, all of a fairly well-known type, but now suddenly some very curious figures begin to be produced. A small blackened bear, a lion’s head, and, finally, a queer primitive human figure. Max has had his suspicions of them, but the human figure is too much. We have got a forger at work.

  ‘And he’s quite a clever fellow, too,’ says Max, turning the bear round appreciatively. ‘Nice bit of work.’

  Detective work proceeds. The objects turn up in one corner of the dig and are usually found by one or other of two brothers. These men come from a village about ten kilometres away. One day, in quite another part of the dig, a suspicious-looking bitumen ‘spoon’ turns up. It has been ‘found’ by a man from the same village. Bakshish is given as usual and nothing is said.

  But on pay-day comes the big exposure! Max displays the exhibits, makes an impassioned speech of condemnation, denounces them as trickery, and publicly destroys them (though he has kept the bear as a curiosity). The men who have produced them are sacked, and depart quite cheerfully, though loudly proclaiming their innocence.

  The next day the men are chuckling on the dig.

  ‘The Khwaja knows,’ they say. ‘He is very learned in antiquities. You cannot deceive his eyes.’

  Max is sad, because he would like very much to know exactly how the forgeries were made. Their excellent workmanship arouses his approbation.

  One can make to oneself now a picture of Chagar as it must have been five to three thousand years ago. In the prehistoric times it must have been on a much-frequented caravan route, connecting Harran and Tell Halaf and on through the Jebel Sinjar into Iraq and the Tigris, and so to ancient Nineveh. It was one of a network of great trading centres.

  Sometimes one feels a personal touch – a potter who has set his mark on the base of his pot, a cache in a wall where there is a small pot full of gold earrings, the dowry, perhaps, of the daughter of the house. Then a personal touch nearer our own times – a metal counter, with the name Hans Krauwinkel of Nuremberg, struck in about A.D. 1600, and which lay in an Islamic grave, showing that there was contact between this obscure region and Europe at that time.

  In the age roughly perhaps five thousand years ago, there are some very lovely incised pots – to my mind real things of beauty – all made by hand.

  There are the Madonnas of that age, too – turbanned figures with big breasts, grotesque and primitive, yet representing, no doubt, help and consolation.

  There is also the fascinating development of the ‘bukranium’ motif on pottery, starting as a simple ox’s head, and becoming less naturalistic and more formal until it has gone so far that you would not recognize it at all if you did not know of the intervening steps. (In fact it is, I realize with dismay, exactly the simple pattern of a printed silk frock I sometimes wear! Oh, well, ‘bukranium’ has a good deal pleasanter sound than a ‘running lozenge’!)

  The day has come when the first spade is to be put into Tell Brak. It is quite a solemn moment.

  By the combined efforts of Serkis and Ali one or two rooms are in order. The waterman, the grand horse which is not an old woman, the cart, the barrels – all is in readiness.

  The Colonel and Bumps depart to Brak the night before to sleep there and be up on the mound at early dawn.

  Max and I arrive there about eight o’clock. The Colonel, alas, has spent a sadly disturbed night wrestling with bats! It seems that the tower-room is literally infested with bats – creatures which the Colonel holds in great aversion.

  Bumps reports that every time he awoke during the night the Colonel was barging about the room, lunging wildly at bats with a bath-towel.

  We stayed a little while watching the proceedings on the dig.

  The gloomy waterman came up to me and poured out a long tale of what seemed to be bitter woe. When Max came up, I asked him to find out what it was all about.

  It appeared that the waterman has a wife and ten children somewhere near Jerablus, and that his heart is distracted by absence from them. Could he have an advance of money and send for them to join him?

  I plead for a favourable reply. Max is a little dubious. A woman in the house, he says, will lead to trouble.

  On our way back to Chagar we meet large quantities of our workmen walking across country to the new dig.

  ‘El hamdu lillah!’ they cry. ‘Will there be work for us tomorrow?’

  ‘Yes, there will be work.’

  They praise God again and tramp on.

  We spend two uneventful days at home, and now it is our turn to do a session at Brak. Nothing of great moment has turned up there yet, but it promises well, and the houses, etc., are of the right period.

  A strong wind is blowing today from the south – the most detestable of winds. It makes you irritable and nervy. We set out, prepared for the worst, with gum-boots, mackintoshes, and even umbrellas. Serki’s assurances that he has mended the roof we do not take too seriously. Tonight will be, as Michel would say, a case of Sawi proba.

  The route to Brak is all across country with no track. We are halfway there when we overtake two workmen of ours trudging towards ‘the work’. Since we have room, Max stops Mary and offers them a lift, which causes great jubilation. Walking at their heels, with a small bit of frayed rope round its neck, is a dog.

  The men get in and Michel prepares to drive off. Max asks what about the dog? We will take their dog too. It is not their dog, they say. It just appeared suddenly out of the desert.

  We look more closely at the dog. Though of no known breed, it is clearly a European mixture! In shape it resembles a Skye terrier, with Dandy Dinmont colouring, and a definite touch of Cairn. It is immensely long, has brilliant amber eyes, and a rather common pale brown nose. It looks neither wretched nor sorry for itself nor timorous – most unlike the average dog of the East. Sitting down comfortably, it surveys us cheerfully, with a slight wag of the tail.

  Max says we will take it along with us, and orders Michel to pick it up and put it in.

  Michel flinches. ‘It will bite me,’ he says dubiously.

  ‘Yes, yes,’ say the two Arabs. ‘Assuredly it will have your meat! Better leave it here, Khwaja.’

  ‘Pick it up and put it in, you damned fool!’ says Max to Michel.

  Michel nerves himself and advances on the dog, which turns its head pleasantly towards him.

  Michel retreats rapidly. I lose patience, jump out, pick up the dog, and get back into Mary with it. Its ribs are sticking through the skin. We drive on to Brak, where the newcomer is handed over to Ferhid, with instructions that a large meal is to be given to her. We also debate a name, and decide on Miss Ostapenko (since I am just reading Tobit Transplated). Owing mainly to Bumps, however, Miss Ostapenko is never known as anything else but Hiyou. Hiyou turns out to be a dog of amazing character. Avid for life, she is absolutely intrepid, and shows no fear of anything or anyone. She is perfectly good-humoured and good-tempered, and absolutely determined at all times to do exactly as she likes. She obviously possesses the nine lives usually attributed to cats. If she is shut in, she manages somehow to get out. If shut out, she manages to get in – once by eating a two-foot hole in a mud-brick wall. She attends all meals, and is so insistent that you cannot withstand her. She does not beg – but demands.

  I feel convinced that someone took Hiyou out with a stone attached to her neck by a rope and tried to drown her, but that Hiyou, determined to enjoy life, bit through the rope, swam ashore, and started cheerfully across the desert, picking up the two men by her infallible instinct. In confirmation of my theory, Hiyou will come with us when summoned everywhere except down to the Jaghjagha. There she stands firm across the path, more or less shakes her head, and returns to the house. ‘No, thank you,’ she says, ‘I don’t like being drowned! Tedious!’

  The Colonel, we are glad to hear, has passed a better night. Serkis has ejected most of the bats in repairing the roof, and in addition the Colonel has rigged up a rather Heath Robinso
nian device, involving a large bowl of water, into which the bats eventually fall and are drowned. The mechanism, as explained to us by the Colonel, is very complicated, and the preparations of it somewhat cut short his hours of sleep.

  We go up to the mound and have lunch in a spot sheltered from the wind. Even then a large proportion of sand and dust is absorbed with every bite. Everybody is looking cheerful, and even the melancholy waterman displays a certain pride as he drives to and from the Jaghjagha, bringing up the men’s water. He drives it to the foot of the mound, and there donkeys take it up in water-jars. The whole thing has a Biblical aspect that is rather fascinating.

  When Fidos comes, we exchange farewells, the Colonel and Bumps depart in Mary for Chagar, and we take our two days’ duty at Brak.

  The tower-room looks quite attractive. There is matting on the floor and a couple of rugs. We have a jug and basin, a table, two chairs, two camp-beds, towels, sheets, blankets, and even books. The windows have been insecurely fastened up, and we retire to bed after a rather peculiar meal, served gloomily by Ferhid and cooked by Ali. It is mainly very liquid spinach, with minute islands in it, which we suspect are once again ‘Biftek’!

  We pass a good night. Only one bat materializes, and Max lures it out with a torch. We decide to tell the Colonel that his stories of hundreds of bats are a gross exaggeration and probably due to drink. At four-fifteen Max is called with tea and starts for the mound. I go to sleep again. At six tea is brought in for me. Max returns for breakfast at eight. The meal is served with a flourish – boiled eggs, tea, Arab bread, two pots of jam, and a tin of custard powder (!). A few minutes later a second course is brought in – scrambled eggs.

  Max murmurs: ‘Trop de zèle’, and fearing the imminent arrival of an omelette, sends word to the invisible Ali that what we have had will do nicely. Ferhid sighs and departs with the message. He returns, his forehead corrugated with perplexity and anxiety. We fear a major catastrophe – but no, he merely asks: ‘Will you require oranges sent up with your luncheon?’

  Bumps and the Colonel come over at midday. Bumps has a good deal of trouble with his topee owing to the howling wind. Michel arrives helpfully to apply Forca, but remembering last time, Bumps avoids him with dexterity.

  Our normal lunch is cold meat and salad, but Ali’s ambitious soul has soared to better things, and we eat slices of fried aubergine, tepid and only half-cooked, greasy cold fried potatoes, little discs of ‘biftek’ fried very hard, and a dish of salad complete with dressing applied to it many hours ago, so that the whole thing is an orgy of cold green grease!

  Max says he will be sorry to damp Ali’s well-meaning efforts, but he will have to curb his imagination.

  We find Abd es Salaam employing the lunch-hour by treating the men to a long moral harangue of a really nauseating character.

  ‘See how fortunate you are!’ he shouts, waving his arms. ‘Is not all done for you? Is not all thought taken for you? You are permitted to bring your food here, to eat it in the courtyard of the house! Immense wages are paid you – yes, whether you find anything or nothing that money is paid to you! What generosity, what nobility! And that is not all! In addition to these big wages, further money is paid to you for everything that you find! Like a father the Khwaja watches over you; he keeps you even from doing each other bodily harm! If you are ill with fever, he gives you medicine! If your bowels are shut, he gives you opening medicine of first-class power! How happy, how fortunate is your lot! And yet further generosity! Does he leave you to work thirsty? Does he make you provide your own water to drink? No! No, indeed! Though under no obligation, freely, in his great generosity, he brings water for you to the mound, all the way from the Jaghjagha! Water brought at vast expense in a cart drawn by a horse! Think of the expense, of the outlay! What wonderful good fortune is yours to be employed by such a man!’

  We steal away, and Max remarks thoughtfully that he wonders some of the workmen don’t murder Abd es Salaam. He would, he says, if he were one. Bumps says that, on the contrary, the workmen are just lapping it up. It is true. Nods and grunts of appreciation are heard; one man turns to another.

  ‘It is reasonable what he says. Water is brought for us. Yes, there is indeed generosity here. He is right. We are fortunate. He is a wise man, this Abd es Salaam.’

  Bumps says it beats him how they stick it. But I disagree. I remember with what avidity one lapped up really moral tales as a child! The Arab has something of that direct naïf approach to life. The sententious Abd es Salaam is preferred to the more modern and less sanctimonious Alawi. Moreover, Abd es Salaam is a great dancer, and in the evenings in the courtyard of the Brak house the men, led by old Abd es Salaam, dance long, intricate measures – or what is really more a pattern – sometimes until far into the night. How they can do it and be up on the mound again at five a.m. is a mystery. But then there is the mystery of how men from villages three, five and ten kilometres away can arrive exact to the minute at sunrise every day! They have no clocks or watches, and they must start at times varying from twenty minutes to over an hour before sunrise, but there they are. They are neither late nor early. Surprising to see them, too, at Fidos when work is over (half an hour before sunset), throw up their baskets, laugh, shoulder their picks, and run – yes, run gaily off on the ten-kilometre distance home again! Their only break has been half an hour for breakfast and an hour for lunch, and according to our standards they have always been under-nourished. It is true that they work in what may be called leisurely fashion, with only occasional spurts of frenzied digging or running when a wave of gaiety sweeps over them, but it is all really hard manual labour. The pickman, perhaps, has the best of it, for when he has loosened the surface of his area he sits down to enjoy a cigarette whilst the spademan fills the baskets. The basket-boys get no repose except what they snatch for themselves. But they are quite adroit at doing that, moving in slow motion to the dump, or taking a long while to search their baskets through.

  On the whole they are a wonderfully healthy lot. There is a good deal of eye soreness, and they are much preoccupied with constipation! There is, I believe, a good deal of tuberculosis nowadays, which has been brought to them by Western civilization. But their recuperative powers are marvellous. One man will cut open another’s head, leaving a horrible-looking wound. The man will ask us to treat it and bind it up, but looks amazed at a suggestion that he should knock off work and go home. ‘What, for this! It is hardly a headache!’ And within two or three days the whole place is healed up, in spite of the definitely unhygienic treatment which the man himself has doubtless applied to it as soon as he gets home.

  One man who had a large and painful boil on his leg was sent home by Max, since he obviously had a fever.

  ‘You shall be paid just the same as if you were here.’

  The man grunted and went off. But that afternoon Max suddenly caught sight of him working. ‘What are you doing here? I sent you home.’

  ‘I went home, Khwaja (eight kilometres). But when I got home it was dull. No conversation! Only the women. So I walked back. And see, it has been good, the swelling has broken!’

  Today we return to Chagar and the other two come to Brak. It feels great luxury to get back to our own house. On arrival we find that the Colonel has been busy pasting up notices everywhere, mostly of an insulting character! He has also tidied with such zest that we are quite unable to find anything we need. We meditate reprisals! Finally we cut out pictures of Mrs. Simpson from some old papers and pin them up in the Colonel’s room!

  There are a lot of photographs to be taken and developed, and, as it is a hot day, I emerge from my dark-room feeling exactly like a bit of wall fungus myself. The staff is kept busy supplying me with comparatively pure water. The grosser mud is first strained off, and it is finally strained through cotton wool into various buckets. By the time it is actually used for the negatives, only stray sand and dust from the air have got in, and the results are quite satisfactory. One of our workmen comes up to M
ax and asks for five days’ leave of absence.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I have to go to gaol!’

  Today has been memorable for a rescue. There was rain in the night, and this morning the ground was still soggy. About twelve o’clock a wild-looking horseman arrived, riding with the wildness and desperation of one who brings the good news from Aix to Ghent, etc. Actually he brings bad news. The Colonel and Bumps have set out to come to us and are bogged halfway. The horseman is sent back at once with two spades, and we fit out a rescue party in Poilu. Five men go with Serkis in charge. They take spades and extra boards and depart very gaily, singing!

  Max yells after them not to get bogged down themselves. Actually this is exactly what happens, but, fortunately, only a few hundred yards from where Mary is in distress. Her back-axle is buried in mud and her crew are very weary, having been trying to dig her out for five solid hours, and having been exasperated almost to madness by Michel’s well-meant exhortations and commands, all uttered in his usual high, whining falsetto, and consisting mainly of ‘Forca!’ as he breaks the third jack in succession! With the assistance of the toughs (selected for their heftiness), and under the more able direction of Serkis, Mary consents to come out of the mud, which she does very suddenly, coating everybody from head to foot and leaving a yawning hole behind her, christened by the Colonel ‘Mary’s Grave’.