Agahta Christie: An autobiography

by Agatha Christie

  He got the workmen to bring him various bits of pottery from villages where they lived all within a radius of one to eight miles. On some mounds the pottery was mostly of late Ninevite 5 quality, and in addition to the painted variety there was another very beautiful type of incised pot, delicately worked. Then there was red ware, of an earlier period and grey ware, both plain and not painted.

  Evidently one or two of the small pimples which covered the country all the way up to the mountains, had been abandoned early, before there was any question of pottery being made on the wheel: and this fine early pottery was hand-made. There was in particular a very small mound called Arpachiyah–it was only about four miles east of the great circle of Nineveh. On this little pimple there was hardly any trace of anything later than the fine painted sherds of Ninevite 2. Apparently that was its last main period of occupation.

  Max was attracted by it. I egged him on, because I thought the pottery so beautiful that it would be tremendously exciting to find out something about it. It would be a gamble, said Max. It must be a very small village indeed and could hardly have been an important one, so it was doubtful what you would find. But still, the people who made that pottery must have lived there. Their occupation was perhaps primitive, but the pottery was not: it was of the finest quality. They could not have made it for the great city of Nineveh, nearby, like some local Swansea or Wedgwood, for Nineveh did not exist when they were moulding their clay. It would not exist for several thousand years to come. So what did they make it for? Sheer love of making something so beautiful?

  Naturally, C.T. thought Max was mistaken in attaching so much importance to the pre-historic days, and to all this ‘modern fuss’ about pottery. Historical records, he said, were the only things that mattered; man telling his own story, not in spoken words but in written ones. They were both right in a sense: C.T. because historical records were indeed uniquely revealing, and Max because to find out something new about the history of man one must use what he himself can tell you, in this case by what he made with his hands. And I was right too to notice that the pottery in this tiny hamlet was beautiful, and to mind about that. And I think I was right to be continually asking myself ‘Why?’ all the time, because to people like me, asking why is what makes life interesting.

  I enjoyed my first experience of living on a dig enormously. I had liked Mosul; I had become deeply attached to both C.T. and Barbara; I had completed the final demise of Lord Edgware, and had tracked down his murderer successfully. On a visit to C.T. and his wife I had read them the whole manuscript aloud, and they had been very appreciative. I think they were the only people to whom I ever did read a manuscript–except, that is, my own family.

  I could only half believe it, when, in February of the following year, Max and I were once again in Mosul, staying this time at the guest-house. Negotiations were under way for digging at our pimple of a mound, Arpachiyah; little Arpachiyah, that nobody as yet cared or knew about, but which was to become a name known throughout the archaeological world. Max had persuaded John Rose, who had been architect at Ur, to work with us. He was a friend of us both: a beautiful draughtsman, with a quiet way of talking, and a gentle humour that I found irresistible. John was undecided at first whether or not to join us: he did not want to return to Ur, certainly, but was doubtful whether to continue with archaeological work or return to the practice of architecture. However, as Max pointed out to him, it would not be a long expedition–two months at the most–and there probably wouldn’t be much to do.

  ‘In fact,’ he said persuasively, ‘you can consider it a holiday. Lovely time of year, lovely flowers, good climate–not dust-storms like at Ur–mountains and hills. You’ll enjoy it enormously. An absolute rest for you.’ John was convinced.

  ‘It’s a gamble, of course,’ said Max. It was an anxious time for him, because he was at the start of his career. He had taken upon himself to make this choice, and would stand or fall by its result.

  Everything started unpropitiously. To begin with, the weather was awful. The rain poured down; it was almost impossible to go anywhere by car; and it proved incredibly difficult to find out who owned the land on which we proposed to dig. Questions of land-ownership in the Middle East are always fraught with difficulty. If far enough away from cities, the land is under the jurisdiction of a sheikh, and you make your arrangements, financial and otherwise, with him; with some backing from the Government to lend you authority. All land scheduled as a tell–that is to say, which was occupied in antiquity–is the property of the Government, not the property of the land-owner. But I doubt if Arpachiyah, being such a small pimple on the surface of the ground, would have been so labelled, so we had to get in touch with the land owner.

  It seemed simple. A vast cheerful man came along, and assured us he was the owner. But the next day we heard that he was not–that a second cousin of his wife’s was the actual owner. The day after that we heard that the land was not in fact the property of the second cousin of the wife, and that several other people were involved. On the third day of incessant rain, when everyone had behaved in an extremely difficult manner, Max threw himself down on the bed with a great groan. ‘What do you think?’ he said. ‘There are nineteen owners.‘

  ‘Nineteen owners of that tiny bit of land?’ I said incredulously. ‘So it seems.’

  We got the whole tangle undone in the end. The real owner was found–she was a second cousin of somebody’s aunt’s husband’s cousin’s aunt, who, being quite incapable of doing any business on her own, had to be represented by her husband and several other relatives. With the help of the Mutassarif of Mosul, the Department of Antiquities in Baghdad; the British Consul, and a few other assistants, the whole thing was settled, and a contract of extreme severity drawn up. Terrible penalties were to be exacted on either side if anyone failed to keep to their agreement. What pleased the land-owner’s husband most was the insertion of a clause which stated that, if in any way our work of excavation was interfered with, or the contract was voided, he would have to pay £1000 down. He immediately went away and boasted of this to all his friends.

  ‘It is a matter of such importance,’ he said proudly, ‘that unless I give all the assistance in my power, and keep all the promises I have made on my wife’s behalf, I shall lose £1000.’

  Everybody was enormously impressed.

  ‘£1000,’ they said. ‘It is possible he will lose £1000! have you heard that? They can extract from him £1000 if anything goes wrong!’

  I should say that if any penalty of a financial nature had been demanded from the good man, about ten dinars would have been all that he could have produced.

  We rented a small house which was much like the one we had had with the C.T.’s. It was a little further from Mosul and nearer to Nineveh, but it had the same flat roof and a marble verandah, with Mosul marble windows of a slightly ecclesiastical nature, and marble sills on which pottery could be laid out. We had a cook and a house-boy; a large fierce dog to bark at the other dogs in the neighbourhood and anyone who approached the house–and in due course six puppies which belonged to the dog. We also had a small lorry and an Irishman called Gallagher as a driver. He had stayed behind here after the 1914 war, and had never taken himself home again.

  He was an extraordinary person, was Gallagher. He told us wonderful tales sometimes. He had a saga about his discovery of a sturgeon on the shores of the Caspian, and how he and a friend had managed to bring it, packed with ice, across the mountains and down into Iran to sell it for a large price. It was like listening to the Odyssey or the Aenead, with innumerable adventures that happened on the way.

  He gave us such useful information as the exact price of a man’s life. ‘Iraq is better than Iran,’ he said. ‘In Iran it costs you £7, cash down, to kill a man. In Iraq only £3.’

  Gallagher had still remembrances of his wartime-service and he always drilled the dogs in the most military fashion. The six puppies had their names called out one at a time, and came up
to the cook-house in order. Swiss Miss was Max’s favourite, and she was always called first. All the puppies were excessively ugly, but they had the charm that puppies have all the world over. They used to come along to the verandah after tea and we used to de-tick them with great attention. They were always just as full of ticks the next day, but we did our best for them.

  Gallagher also turned out to be an omnivorous reader. I used to have parcels of books sent out by my sister, every week–and I passed them on to him in due course. He read quickly, and seemed to have no preference whatsoever as to what he read: biographies, fiction, love stories, thrillers, scientific works, almost anything. He was like a starving man who would say that any kind of food is the same: you don’t mind what it is, you just want food. He wanted food for his mind.

  He once told us about his ‘Uncle Fred’, ‘A crocodile got him in Burma,’ he said sadly. ‘I didn’t know what to do about it really. However, we thought the best thing was to have the crocodile stuffed, so we did, and we got it sent home to his wife.’

  He spoke in a quiet matter-of-fact voice. At first I thought he was romancing, but finally I came to the conclusion that practically everything he told us was true. He was just the sort of man to whom extraordinary things happen.

  It was an anxious time for us. As yet there was nothing to show whether Max’s gamble was going to pay off. We uncovered only buildings of a poor and decrepit nature–not even really mud-brick: pisé walls, difficult to trace. There were charming sherds of pottery everywhere, and some lovely black obsidian knives with delicately knotched edges, but nothing as yet out of the ordinary in the way of finds.

  John and Max bolstered each other up, murmuring that it was too soon to tell, and that before Dr Jordan, the German Director of Antiquities in Baghdad, arrived, we would at any rate get all our levels nicely measured up and labelled, so that the whole thing would show that digging had been done properly and scientifically.

  And then, out of the blue, the great day came. Max rushed back to the house to fetch me from where I was busy, mending some of the pottery.

  ‘A wonderful find,’ he said. ‘We’ve found a burnt potter’s shop. You must come back with me. It’s the most wonderful sight you have ever seen.’

  And it was indeed; a crowning piece of luck. The potter’s shop was all there, under the soil. It had been abandoned when burnt, and the burning had preserved it. There were glorious dishes, vases, cups and plates, polychrome pottery, all shining in the sun–scarlet and black and orange–a magnificent sight.

  From then on, we were so frantically busy we didn’t know how to cope. Vessel after vessel came up. They were smashed by the fall of the roof–but they were there, and could nearly all be reconstructed. Some of them were slightly charred, but the walls had fallen on top of them and preserved them, and there for about six thousand years they had lain untouched. One enormous burnished dish, in a lovely deep red with a petalled rosette centre and beautiful designs all round it, very geometrical, was in 76 pieces. Every piece was there, and was reassembled, and it is now a wonderful sight to see in the museum where it lies. There was another bowl I loved, with an all-over pattern rather like a Union Jack; it was in deep, soft, tangerine.

  I was bursting with happiness. So was Max, and so, in his quieter way, was John. But, oh, how we worked, from then on until the end of the season!

  I had done some homework that autumn, trying to learn to draw to scale. I had gone to the local secondary school, and had instruction there from a charming little man, who could not believe that I knew as little as I did.

  ‘You don’t seem to have even heard of a right-angle,’ he said to me, disapprovingly. I admitted that that was true. I hadn’t.

  ‘It makes it hard to describe things,’ he said.

  However, I learnt to measure and calculate, and work out things to two thirds of the actual size, or whatever it had to be. Now the time had come when I had to put what I had learnt to the test. There was far too much to be done unless we all pulled our weight. I took, of course, two or three times as long as either of the others but John had to have some assistance, and I was able to provide it.

  Max had to be out on the dig all day, while John drew. He would stagger down to dinner at night, saying, ‘I think I’m going blind. My eyes feel queer, and I am so dizzy I can hardly walk. I have been drawing without ceasing at top speed since eight o’clock this morning.’

  ‘And we’ll all have to go on after dinner,’ said Max.

  ‘And you are the man who told me,’ said John accusingly, ‘you are the man who said that this was going to be a holiday!’

  To celebrate the end of the season we decided to organise a race for the men. This had never been done before. There were to be several splendid prizes and it was open to all the men to compete.

  There was a great deal of talk about it. To begin with, some of the grave, older men questioned whether they might not lose dignity by competing in such an event. Dignity was always very important. To compete with younger men, possibly beardless boys, was not the sort of thing that a dignified man, a man of substance, ought to do. However, they all came round to it in the end, and we arranged the details. The course was to be about three miles, and they would cross the Khosr River just beyond the mound of Nineveh. Rules were drawn up carefully. The main rule was that there were to be no fouls; nobody was to throw anybody down, do any bumping or boring, crossing, or any such thing. Although we hardly expected that such a rule would be respected, we hoped that the worst excesses would be avoided.

  The prizes were first, a cow and calf; second, a sheep; third, a goat. There were several smaller prizes–hens, sacks of flour, and from a hundred eggs down to ten. There was also, for everyone who completed the course, a handful of dates and as much halva as a man could hold clasped in his two hands. These prizes, I may say, cost us £10. Those were the days, no doubt about it.

  We called it the A.A.A.A.–the Arpachiyah Amateur Athletic Association. The river was in flood at the moment, and nobody could cross the bridge to attend, but the R.A.F. was invited to watch the race from the sky.

  The day came, and it was a memorable sight. The first thing that happened, of course, was that everyone made a concerted rush forward when the starting pistol went, and most of them fell flat on their faces into the Khosr. Others disentangled themselves from the swarming mass and ran on. The foul play was not too bad; nobody actually knocked anybody down There had been a great deal of betting on the race, but none of the favourites was even placed or looked like being placed. Three dark horses won–and the applause was terrific. First was a strong and athletic man; second–a most popular win–a very poor man, who always looked half-starved; and third was a young boy. That night there was immense rejoicing: the foremen danced, the men danced; and the man who had won the second prize of the sheep killed it immediately and feasted all his family and friends. It was a great day for the Arpachiyah Amateur Athletic Association.

  We departed to cries of good will: ‘God bless you!’, ‘You will come again’ ‘God is very merciful’ and so on. We then went to Baghdad, where all our finds were waiting in the Museum, and there Max and John Rose unpacked them and the division took place. It was by then May, and in Baghdad it was 108 in the shade. The heat did not suit John, and he looked terribly ill each day. I was fortunate in that I was not part of the packing squad. I could stay in the house.

  Times in Baghdad were gradually worsening politically and though we hoped to return next year, either to move on to another mound or to excavate Arpachiyah a little further, we were already doubtful whether it would be possible. After we left trouble arose over the shipping of the antiquities, and there was great difficulty in getting our cases out. Things were smoothed over at last, but it took many months, and for that reason it was declared inadvisable for us to come out and dig the following year. For some years practically no one excavated in Iraq any longer; everyone went to Syria. And so it was that the following year we too decided to choose a
suitable site in Syria.

  One last thing I remember which was like a portent of things to come. We had been having tea in Dr Jordan’s house in Baghdad. He was a good pianist, and was sitting that day playing us Beethoven. He had a fine head, and I thought, looking at him, what a splendid man he was. He had seemed always gentle and considerate. Then there was a mention by someone, quite casually, of Jews. His face changed; changed in an extraordinary way that I had never noticed on anyone’s face before.

  He said: ‘You do not understand. Our Jews are perhaps different from yours. They are a danger. They should be exterminated. Nothing else will really do but that.’

  I stared at him unbelievingly. He meant it. It was the first time I had come across any hint of what was to come later from Germany. People who had travelled there were, I suppose, already realising it at that time, but for ordinary people, in 1932 and 1933, there was a complete lack of fore-knowledge.

  On that day as we sat in Dr Jordan’s sitting-room and he played the piano, I saw my first Nazi–and I discovered later that his wife was an even fiercer Nazi than he was. They had a duty to perform there: not only to be Director of Antiquities or even to work for their country, but also to spy on their own German Ambassador. There are things in life that make one truly sad when one can make oneself believe them.