Come, Tell Me How You Live

by Agatha Christie Mallowan

  A Yezidi workman comes and complains that he is faint for want of water. He cannot work unless he has water to drink.

  ‘But there is water here – why do you not drink?’

  ‘I cannot drink that water. It comes from the well, and this morning the Sheikh’s son dropped lettuce into the well.’

  The Yezidis, by their religion, must never mention lettuce or touch anything contaminated by it, for they believe Shaitan resided in it.

  Max says: ‘Now, I think that lies have been told to you. For this very morning I saw the Sheikh’s son in Kamichlie, and he told me he had been there two days. This has been said to you to deceive you.’

  The Riot Act is then read to the assembled workmen. No one is to tell lies to or to persecute the Yezidi workmen. ‘On this dig all are to be brothers.’

  A Mohammedan with a merry eye steps forward.

  ‘You follow Christ, Khwaja, and we follow Mohammed, but both of us are the enemies of Shaitan [the devil]. Therefore it is our duty to persecute those who believe that Shaitan shall be restored and who worship him.’

  ‘Then to do your duty in future will cost you five francs a time!’ says Max.

  For some days after this we get no more Yezidi complaints.

  The Yezidis are a curious and singularly gentle people, and their worship of Shaitan (Satan) is more in the nature of a propitiation. Moreover, they believe that this world has been placed in the charge of Shaitan by God – and to the age of Shaitan there will succeed the age of Jesus, whom they recognize as a Prophet, but one not yet come to power. Shaitan’s name must never be mentioned, nor any word that sounds like it.

  Their holy shrine, Sheikh ‘Adi, is situated in the Kurdish hills near Mosul, and we visited it when we were digging near there. There can be, I think, no spot in the world so beautiful or so peaceful. You wind up far into the hills through oak trees and pomegranites, following a mountain stream. The air is fresh and clear and pure. You must go on foot or by horse for the last few miles of the way. Human nature is said to be so pure in these parts that the Christian women can bathe naked in the streams.

  And then, suddenly, you come to the white spires of the Shrine. All is calm and gentle and peaceful there. There are trees, a courtyard, running water. Gentle-faced custodians bring you refreshments and you sit in perfect peace, sipping tea. In the Inner Court is the entrance to the Temple, on the right of which is carved a great black serpent. The snake is sacred, since the Yezidis believe that the Ark of Noah was grounded on the Jebel Sinjar and that a hole was made in it. The serpent formed itself into a coil and stopped up the hole so that the Ark could proceed.

  Presently we removed our shoes and were taken into the Temple, carefully stepping over the threshold, since it is forbidden to step on a threshold. It is also forbidden to show the soles of the feet, a slightly difficult feat when one is sitting cross-legged on the ground.

  The interior is dark and cool and there is trickling water, the sacred Spring, which is said to communicate with Mecca. In this Temple the Image of the Peacock is brought at festival times. A peacock was chosen as the representative of Shaitan, some say because it was the word most different from the Forbidden name. At any rate, it is Lucifer, Son of the Morning, who is the Peacock Angel of the Yezidi faith.

  We came out again and sat in the cool silence and peace of the court. Both of us felt loath to return from this mountain sanctuary to the turmoil of the world….

  Sheikh ’Adi is a place I shall never forget – nor shall I forget the utter peace and satisfaction that possessed my spirit there….

  The head of the Yezidis, the Mir, came once to our dig in Iraq. A tall, sad-faced man dressed all in black. He is the Pope as well as the Chief, though local tradition had it that this particular Mir was entirely ‘run’ by his aunt, the Khatún of the Shrine of Sheikh ’Adi and his mother, a handsome ambitious woman, who was said to keep her son under drugs so that she could wield authority.

  On a trip through the Jebel Sinjar, we paid a visit to the Yezidi Sheikh of the Sinjar, Hâmo Shero, a very old man, said to be ninety years of age. During the war of 1914 – 18 hundreds of Armenian refugees fled from the Turks, and were given shelter in the Sinjar and their lives saved.

  Another furious dissension breaks out over the day of rest. The day after pay-day is always a holiday. The Mohammedans claim that since there are more Mohammedans than Christians on the dig, Friday should be chosen as the day of rest. The Armenians refuse, in any case, to work on a Sunday, and say that as it is a Christian dig, Sunday should be the holiday.

  We decree that the holiday shall always be a Tuesday, which, so far as we know, is the feast-day of no particular religion.

  In the evenings the foremen come to the house, drink coffee with us, and report on the difficulties or problems that arise.

  Old Abd es Salaam is particularly eloquent this evening. His voice rises in a long impassioned monologue. I cannot get the hang of it, though I listen attentively. It is, however, so very dramatic that my curiosity is aroused. When Abd es Salaam pauses for breath, I ask Max what it is all about.

  Max replies in one brief word: ‘Constipation.’

  Sensing my interest, Abd es Salaam turns towards me, and pours out further rhetorical details of his condition.

  Max says: ‘He’s had Eno’s, Beecham’s, vegetable laxatives, and Castor Oil. He’s telling you exactly how each one has made him feel, and how none of them has brought about the desired result.’

  Clearly, the French doctor’s horse medicine is indicated.

  Max administers a terrific dose! Abd es Salaam goes hopefully away, and we all pray for a happy result!

  I am now quite busy. In addition to repairing pottery, there is the photography – a ‘dark room’ has been allotted to me. It somewhat resembles the ‘Little Ease’ of medieval times.

  In it, one can neither sit nor stand! Crawling in on all fours, I develop plates, kneeling with bent head. I come out practically asphyxiated with heat and unable to stand upright, and take a good deal of pleasure in detailing my sufferings, though the audience is somewhat inattentive – their entire interest is in the negatives, not in the operator.

  Max occasionally remembers to say warmly and tactfully: ‘I think you’re wonderful, dear,’ in a slightly abstracted manner.

  Our house is finished. From the summit of the mound it has a holy appearance, with its great dome rising up white against the sun-baked ground. Inside, it is very pleasant. The dome gives a feeling of spaciousness and it is cool. The two rooms on one side are, first, the antika-room, and beyond it Max’s and my bedroom. On the other side is the drawing-office, and beyond a bedroom shared by B. and Mac. We shall only be here for a week or two this year. Harvest is already come, and the men leave the work every day to go and reap. The flowers are gone, vanished overnight, for the Beduin have come down from the hills, their brown tents are all round, and their cattle at pasturage eat as they go slowly south.

  We shall return next year – return to our home, for this domed house in the middle of nowhere already feels like home.

  The Sheikh in his snowy robes tours round it appreciatively, his merry little eyes sparkling. This is to be his inheritance eventually, and already he feels an added prestige.

  It will be good to see England again. Good to see friends and green grass and tall trees. But it will be good, too, to return next year.

  Mac is doing a sketch. It is a sketch of the mound – a highly formalized view, but one which I admire very much.

  There are no human beings to be seen; just curving lines and patterns. I realize that Mac is not only an architect. He is an artist. I ask him to design a jacket for my new book.

  B. comes in, and complains that all the chairs are packed – there is nothing to sit on.

  ‘What do you want to sit down for?’ asks Max. ‘There’s a lot of work to be done.’

  He goes out, and B. says reproachfully to me:

  ‘What an energetic man your husband is!’
/>
  I wonder who would believe this if they had only seen Max asleep on a summer afternoon in England….

  I begin to think of Devon, of red rocks and blue sea…. It is lovely to be going home – my daughter, the dog, bowls of Devonshire cream, apples, bathing…. I draw a sigh of ecstasy.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Journey’s End

  OUR FINDS have been encouraging, and we are to continue digging for another season.

  This year we shall be a different team.

  Mac is with another dig in Palestine, but hopes to come to us for the last few weeks of the season.

  So we shall have a different architect. There will also be an extra member of the staff – the Colonel. Max hopes to combine a certain amount of digging at Tell Brak with the Chagar dig, and the Colonel can be in charge at one dig whilst Max is at the other.

  Max, the Colonel and our new architect travel out together, and I am to follow a couple of weeks later.

  About a fortnight before they start, our architect rings up and asks for Max, who is out. He sounds worried. I ask if it is anything I can do.

  He says: ‘Well, it’s just about the journey. I’m at Cook’s trying to book my sleeper to the place Max told me, and Cook’s say there just isn’t any such place.’

  I reassure him.

  ‘They often say that. Nobody ever goes to the sort of places we do, and so, naturally, they haven’t heard of them.’

  ‘They seem to think that what I really mean is Mosul.’

  ‘Well,’ I assure him, ‘you don’t.’

  A light dawns on me. ‘Did you ask for Kamichlie or Nisibin?’

  ‘Kamichlie! Isn’t that the name of the place?’

  ‘It’s the name of the place, but the station is Nisibin – it’s on the Turkish side of the frontier. Kamichlie is the Syrian town.’

  ‘That explains it. Max didn’t say there was anything else I ought to take, did he?’

  ‘I don’t think so. You’ve got plenty of pencils, haven’t you?’

  ‘Pencils?’ The voice sounds surprised. ‘Of course.’

  ‘You will need plenty of pencils,’ I say.

  Without fully realizing the sinister significance of this, he rings off.

  My progress to Stamboul is peaceful, and I get my quota of shoes safely past the Turkish Customs!

  At Haidar Pacha I find I am to share a compartment with a large-sized Turkish lady. She has already six suitcases, two peculiar-shaped baskets, some striped bags, and various parcels of provisions. By the time I have added my two suitcases and a hat-box there is simply no room to put our legs anywhere!

  Seeing the large lady off is another slimmer and more lively lady. She addresses me in French, and we converse amiably. I am going to Alep? Ah, her cousin not so far! Do I speak German? Her cousin speaks a little German.

  No, alas, I speak no German! And no Turkish? And no Turkish!

  How unfortunate! Her cousin speaks no French! What, then, are we to do? How shall we be able to converse?

  It seems, I say, that we shall not be able to converse.

  ‘A thousand pities,’ says the lively cousin. ‘It would have been interesting for both of you. But, before the train goes, let us say all we can. You are married – yes?’ I admit that I am married. ‘And children? You have many children, no doubt? My cousin has four children only – but,’ adds the cousin proudly – ‘three of them are boys!’ I feel that for English prestige I cannot admit to being perfectly contented with one daughter. I add a couple of sons with shameless mendacity.

  ‘Excellent!’ says the cousin, beaming. ‘Now, as to miscarriages? How many miscarriages have you had? My cousin has had five – two at three months, two at five months, and one premature stillborn child at seven months.’ I am just hesitating whether to invent a miscarriage to enhance the friendly feeling when mercifully a whistle blows, and the lively cousin leaps out of the carriage and along the corridor. ‘You must tell each other all the details by signs,’ she screams.

  The prospect is alarming, but we get along very well by means of nods, becks, and smiles. My companion offers me generous portions of her immense supplies of highly spiced food, and I bring her back an apple from the dining-car by way of polite rejoinder.

  After the unpacking of the food baskets, there is even less room for our feet, and the smell of food and musk is almost overpowering!

  When night comes, my travelling companion makes sure that the window is tightly closed. I retire to the upper berth, and wait till gentle and rhythmical snores proceed from the lower bunk.

  Very stealthily I slip down and surreptitiously let down the window a fraction. I retire aloft again undiscovered.

  Great pantomime of surprise in the morning when the window is discovered to be open. With multitudinous gestures the Turkish lady tries to assure me that it is not her fault. She thought she had closed it. I assure her by gesture that I do not blame her for a moment. It is, I infer, one of those things that happen.

  When we reach the Turkish lady’s station she parts from me with great politeness. We smile, nod, bow, and express regret that the language bar has prevented us from really getting down to an exchange of the essential facts of life.

  At lunch-time I sit opposite a kindly old American lady. She looks out reflectively at women working in the fields.

  ‘Poor souls!’ she sighs out. ‘I wonder if they realize that they are free!’

  ‘Free?’ I am slightly at a loss.

  ‘Why, certainly; they don’t wear the veil any longer. Mustapha Kemal has done away with all that. They’re free now.’

  I look thoughtfully at the labouring women. It does not seem to me that the point would have any significance for them. Their day is a ceaseless round of toil, and I doubt very much if they have ever enjoyed the luxury of veiling their faces. None of our local workmen’s wives does.

  I do not, however, argue the point.

  The American lady calls the attendant and demands a glass of hot water. ‘Je vais prendre,’ she says, ‘des remèdes.’

  The man looks blank. Would she like coffee, he says, or tea? With difficulty we make him understand that it is plain hot water that is required.

  ‘You’ll take some salts with me?’ says my new friend matily, as one who suggests a cocktail together. I thank her, but say I don’t care for salts. ‘But they’re good for you,’ she urges. I have great difficulty in avoiding having my system drastically purged.

  I retire to my carriage, and wonder how Abd es Salaam’s constipation is getting on this year!

  I break the journey at Alep, since there are some things Max wants me to get there. Since I have a day to spare before the next train to Nisibin, I agree to make one of a party going to motor out to Kalat Siman.

  The party turns out to be a mining engineer and a very elderly and almost totally deaf clergyman. The clergyman, for some reason, takes it into his head that the mining engineer, whom I have never seen before in my life, is my husband.

  ‘Your husband speaks Arabic very well, my dear,’ he remarks, patting my hand benignly as we return from our expedition.

  I yell rather confusedly:

  ‘He does, but he isn’t…’

  ‘Oh, yes, he is,’ says the clergyman reprovingly. ‘He is a very fine Arabic scholar.’

  ‘He isn’t my husband,’ I shout.

  ‘Your wife doesn’t speak Arabic at all, I gather,’ says the clergyman, turning to the engineer, who turns brick red.

  ‘She isn’t…’ he begins loudly.

  ‘No,’ says the clergyman, ‘I thought she wasn’t proficient in Arabic.’ He smiles. ‘You must teach her.’

  In unison we both shout:

  ‘We aren’t married!’

  The clergyman’s expression changes. He looks severe and disapproving.

  ‘Why not?’ he demands.

  The mining engineer says helplessly to me: ‘I give it up.’

  We both laugh, and the clergyman’s face relaxes.

  ‘I see
,’ he says, ‘you’ve been having your little joke with me.’

  The car draws up by the hotel, and he gets cautiously out, unwinding a long muffler from his white whiskers. He turns and smiles on us beneficently.

  ‘Bless you both,’ he says. ‘I hope you have a long and happy life together!’

  Triumphal arrival at Nisibin! As usual, the train halts so that there is a sheer drop of five feet between the step and a surface of sharp, loose stones! A kindly fellow-passenger leaps down and clears the stones, enabling me to jump without turning my ankle. In the distance I see Max approaching, and our chauffeur, Michel. I remember Michel’s three Words of Power: Forca, the applying of brute strength (usually with disastrous results); Sawi proba; and Economia, the general principle of Economy, which has led before now to break-down in the desert without petrol.

  Before we all meet, a uniformed Turk says: ‘Passport’ sternly to me, takes it away, and leaps back upon the train.

  Greetings then take place. I shake the leathery hand of Michel, who says ‘Bon jour. How do you do?’ And then adds in Arabic a ‘God-be-praised’ for my safe arrival. Various underlings seize suitcases which the Wagon Lit conductor has been hurling out of the windows. I mention my passport. It and the uniformed Turk have completely disappeared.

  Blue Mary – our lorry – is waiting faithfully. Michel opens the back door, and a familiar sight meets the eyes. Several hens, uncomfortably tied together, tins of benzine and heaps of sacking that eventually turn out to be human beings. My luggage is stowed on top of the hens, and the humans and Michel depart to seek my passport. Fearing that Michel may apply Forca and create an international complication, Max goes after him. After twenty minutes or so they return triumphant.

  We start off – creak, lurch, rattle, bound in and out of potholes. We pass from Turkey into Syria. Five minutes later we are in that rising township of Kamichlie.