Agahta Christie: An autobiography

by Agatha Christie

  ‘You will have difficulties,’ he said.

  ‘Yes,’ Max said, he expected there would be difficulties, but surely it was not impossible? There was no actual bar, was there, to crossing the frontier?

  ‘You have no diplomatic representation at present, I believe. You have no Consulates there.’

  Max said, no, he knew we had no consuls there, but he understood there was no prohibition on English people entering the country if they wanted to.

  ‘No, there is no prohibition at all. Of course, you would have to take money with you.’

  Naturally, Max said, he expected he would have to take money with him.

  ‘And no financial transaction that you can make with us will be legal,’ said the bank manager sadly.

  This startled me a little. Max, of course, was not new to Oriental ways of doing business, but I was. It seemed to me odd that in a bank a financial transaction could be both illegal and yet practised.

  ‘You see,’ explained the bank manager, ‘they alter the laws; they alter them the whole time. And anyway the laws contradict each other. One law says you shall not take out money in one particular form, but another law says that is the only form in which you can take it out–so what is one to do? One does what seems best on that particular day of the month. I tell you this,’ he added, ‘so that you may understand beforehand that though I can arrange a transaction, I can send out to the bazaar, I can get you the most suitable kind of money to take, it will all be illegal.’

  Max said that he quite understood that. The bank manager cheered up, and told us that he thought we would enjoy the journey very much. ‘Let me see now–you want to go down to the Caspian by car? Yes? That is a beautiful drive. You will go to Resht, and from Resht you will go by boat to Baku. It is a Russian boat. I know nothing about it, nothing whatsoever, but people go by it, yes.’

  His tone suggested that people who went by it disappeared into space, and nothing was known of what happened to them afterwards. ‘You will not only have to take money,’ he warned us, ‘you will have to take food. I do not know if there are any arrangements for getting food in Russia. At any rate there are no arrangements for buying food on the train from Baku to Batum–you must take everything with you.’

  We discussed hotel accommodation and other problems, and all seemed equally difficult.

  Presently another gentleman in a puce suit arrived. He was younger than Mr Ibrahim, and his name was Mr Mahomet. Mr Mahomet brought with him several more forms, which Max signed, and also demanded various small sums of money to purchase the necessary stamps. A messenger was summoned, and sent to the bazaar for currency.

  Mr Ibrahim then reappeared. He set out the amount of money we had asked for in a few notes of large denomination instead of the notes of small denomination we had requested.

  ‘Ah! but it is always very difficult,’ he said sadly. ‘Very difficult indeed. You see sometimes we have a lot of one denomination, and some days we have a lot of another. It is just your good fortune or your bad fortune what you get.’ We were obviously to accept our bad fortune in this case.

  The manager attempted to cheer us by sending for yet more coffee. Turning to us, he went on, ‘It is best that you take all the money you can to Russia in tomans. Tomans,’ he added, ‘are illegal in Persia, but they are the only things we can use here because they are the only things they will take in the bazaar.’

  He sent yet another myrmidon out into the bazaar to change large quantities of our newly-acquired money into tomans. Tomans turned out to be Maria Theresa dollars–pure silver and excessively heavy.

  ‘Your passport, it is in order?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It is valid for the Soviet Union?’ We said yes, it was valid for all countries in Europe including the Soviet Union.

  ‘Then that is all right. The visa, no doubt, will be easy. It is understood then? You must make your arrangements for a car–the hotel will do that for you–and you must take with you sufficient food for three or four days. The journey from Baku to Batum lasts several days.’

  Max said he would also like to break his journey at Tiflis.

  ‘Ah, for that you will have to inquire when you get your visa. I do not think it is possible.’

  That rather upset Max. However, he accepted it. We said goodbye and thanked the manager. Two hours and a half had passed.

  We went back to our hotel, where our diet was somewhat monotonous. Whatever we ordered, or whatever we asked for, the waiter would say: ‘There is very good caviare today–very good, very fresh.’ Eagerly we used to order caviare. It was amazingly cheap, and though we used to have enormous amounts of it, it always seemed to cost us only five shillings. We did, however, occasionally baulk at having it for breakfast–somehow one does not want caviare for breakfast.

  ‘What have you got for breakfast?’ I would ask.

  ‘Caviare–tres frais.‘

  ‘No, I don’t want caviare, I want something else. Eggs? Bacon?’ ‘There is nothing else. There is bread.’

  ‘Nothing else at all? What about eggs?’

  ‘Caviare, tres frais,’ said the waiter firmly.

  So we had a little caviare and a great deal of bread. The only other thing offered us for a meal at lunch except caviare was something called La Tourte, which was a large and excessively sweet kind of jam tart, heavy, but of pleasant flavour.

  We had to consult this waiter as to what food we should take into Russia with us. On the whole the waiter recommended caviare. We agreed to take two enormous tins of it. The waiter also suggested taking six cooked ducks. In addition we took bread, a tin of biscuits, pots of jam and a pound of tea–‘for the engine,’ the waiter explained. We did not quite see what the engine had to do with it. Perhaps it was usual to offer the engine-driver a present of tea? Anyway we took tea and coffee essence.

  After dinner that evening we fell into conversation with a young Frenchman and his wife. He was interested to hear of our proposed journey, and shook his head in horror. ‘C’est impossible! C’est impossible pour Madame. Ce bateau, k bateau de Resht a Baku, ce bateau russe, c’est infecte! Infecte, Madame!’ French is a wonderful language. He made the word infecte sound so depraved and filthy that I could hardly bear to contemplate the prospect.

  ‘You cannot take Madame there,’ the Frenchman insisted firmly. But Madame did not shrink.

  ‘I don’t suppose it’s nearly so infecte as he says,’ I remarked later to Max. ‘Anyway, we’ve got lots of bug powder and things like that.’

  So in due course we started, laden with quantities of tomans and given our credentials by the Russian consulate, who were quite adamant about not letting us get off at Tiflis. We hired a good car, and off we went.

  It was a lovely drive down to the Caspian. We climbed first up bare and rocky hills, and then as we came over the top and down the other side discovered ourselves in another world–finally arriving in soft warm weather and falling rain at Resht.

  We were ushered on to the infecte Russian boat feeling rather nervous. Everything was as different as could be from Persia and Iraq. First, the boat was scrupulously clean; as clean as a hospital, indeed rather like a hospital. Its little cabins had high iron beds, hard straw palliasses, clean coarse-cotton sheets, and a simple tin jug and basin. The crew of the boat were like robots; they seemed all to be six foot high, with fair hair and impassive faces. They treated us politely, but as though we were not really there. Max and I felt exactly like the suicide couple in the play, Outward Bound–the husband and wife who move about the boat like ghosts. Nobody spoke to us, looked at us, or paid the least attention to us.

  Presently, however, we saw that food was being served in the saloon. We went hopefully to the door and looked in. Nobody made any sign to us or appeared to see us. Finally, Max took his courage in both hands and asked if we could have some food. The demand was clearly not understood.

  Max tried French, Arabic, and such Persian as he knew, but with no effect. Finally he p
ointed his finger firmly down his throat in that age-old gesture which cannot fail to be recognised. Immediately the man pulled forward two seats at the table, we sat down, and the food was brought to us. It was quite good, though very plain, and it cost an incredible amount.

  Then we arrived at Baku. Here we were met by an Intourist agent. He was charming, full of information, and spoke French fluently. He thought, he said, that we might like to go to a performance of Faust at the Opera. This, however, I did not want to do. I felt I had not come all the way to Russia to see Faust performed. So he said he would arrange some other entertainment for us. Instead of Faust we were forced to go and look at various building sites and half-built blocks of flats.

  When getting off the boat, the procedure was simple. Six robot-like porters advanced in order of seniority. The charge, said the Intourist man, was one rouble for each piece. They advanced upon us, and each porter took one piece. An unlucky one had Max’s heavy suitcase full of books; the luckiest one had only an umbrella–but they both had to be paid the same.

  The hotel we went to was curious also. It was a relic of more luxurious days, I should imagine, and the furniture was grand but old-fashioned. It had been painted white, and was carved with roses and cherubs. For some reason it was all standing in the middle of the room, rather as though furniture movers had just pushed a wardrobe, a table, and a chest of drawers in and left them. Even the beds were not against the wall. These last were magnificently handsome in style, and most comfortable, but they had on them coarse cotton sheets, too small to cover the mattress.

  Max asked for hot water for shaving the next morning, but had not much luck. Hot water were the only words he knew in Russian–apart from the words for ‘please’ and ‘thank you’. The woman he asked shook her head vigorously and brought us along a large jug of cold water. Max used the word for hot several times hopefully, explaining, as he put his razor to his chin, what he needed it for. She shook her head and looked shocked and disapproving.

  ‘I think,’ I said, ‘that you are being a luxurious aristocrat by asking for hot water to shave in. You’d better stop.’

  Everything in Baku seemed like a Scottish Sunday. There was no pleasure in the streets; most of the shops were shut; the one or two that were open had long queues, and people were standing waiting patiently for unattractive articles.

  Our Intourist friend saw us off at the train. The queue for tickets was enormous. ‘I will just see about some reserved seats,’ he said, and moved away. We edged slowly forward in the queue.

  Suddenly someone patted us on the arm. It was a woman from the front of the queue. She was smiling broadly. In fact all these people seemed ready to smile if there was anything to smile at. They were kindliness itself. Then, with a good deal of pantomime, the woman urged us to step up to the top of the queue. We didn’t like to do this, and hung back, but the whole of the queue insisted. They patted us on the arm and on the shoulder, nodded and beckoned, and finally one man took us up by the arm and moved us forcibly forward, and the woman at the front stepped aside and bowed and smiled. We purchased our tickets at the Surchet.

  The Intourist man came back. ‘Ah, you are ready,’ he said.

  ‘These kind people gave us their places,’ said Max rather doubtfully. ‘I wish you would explain that we didn’t want to take them.’ but they always do that,’ said he. ‘In fact, they enjoy going to the back of the queue. It is a great occupation standing in a queue, you know. They like to make it as long as possible. They are always very polite to strangers.’

  They were indeed. They nodded and waved at us as we left for the train. The platform was erowded; we discovered later, however, that practically nobody was going by train except ourselves. They had just come to see the fun and enjoy their afternoon there. We finally got into our carriage. The Intourist man said goodbye to us and assured us that we would be met at Batum in three days’ time, and that everything would go well.

  ‘You have not a teapot with you, I see,’ he said. ‘But one of the women will doubtless lend you one.’

  I discovered what this meant when the train made its first stop after about two hours’ run. Then an old woman in our compartment patted me violently on the shoulder, showed me her teapot, and explained, with the help of a boy in the corner who spoke German, that the thing to do was to put a pinch of tea in your teapot and take it along to the engine where the driver would supply hot water. We had cups with us, and the woman assured us she would do the rest. She returned with two steaming cups of tea, and we unpacked our provisions. We offered some to our new friends and our journey was well on its way.

  Our food held out moderately well–that is to say we got through the ducks, fortunately before they went bad, and ate some bread which grew staler and staler. We had hoped to be able to buy bread on the way, but that did not seem to be possible. We had, of course, got down to the caviare as soon as possible. Our last day brought semi-starvation because we had nothing left but the wing of a duck and two pots of pineapple marmalade. There is something rather sickly in eating a whole pot of pineapple marmalade neat, but it assuaged the pangs of hunger.

  We arrived at Batum at midnight, in pouring rain. We had, of course, no hotel booking. We passed out of the station into the night with our baggage. No signs of anyone from Intourist to meet us. There was a droshky waiting, a dilapidated horse-cab rather like an old-fashioned Victoria. Obliging as always, the driver helped us to get in, and piled our baggage over and upon us. We then said we wanted a hotel. He nodded encouragingly, cracked his whip, and we set off at a ramshackle trot through the wet streets.

  Soon we came to a hotel, and the driver made signs for us to go in first. We soon saw why. As soon as we got inside we were told there were no rooms. We asked where else we should go, but the man merely shook his head uncomprehendingly. We went out and the driver started off once more. We went to about seven hotels; every one was full up.

  At the eighth Max said we would have to take sterner measures, we had got to find somewhere to sleep. On arrival we plonked ourselves down on the plush couch in the hall, and looked half-wittedly uncomprehending when we were told that there was no room. In the end, the receptionists and clerks threw up their hands and looked at us in despair. We continued to look uncomprehending, and to say at intervals in such languages as we thought might possibly be understood that we wanted a room for the night. Finally they left us. The driver came in, put our bags down by us, and went off, waving a cheerful farewell.

  ‘Don’t you think we have rather burnt our boats now?’ I asked dole-fully.

  ‘It’s the only hope,’ said Max. ‘Once we haven’t got any transport to take us away, and our luggage is here, I think they will do something about us.’

  Twenty minutes passed, and suddenly an angel of succour arrived in the form of a vast man over six foot high, with a terrific black moustache, wearing riding boots and looking exactly like a figure out of a Russian ballet. I gazed at him in admiration. He smiled at us, patted us on the shoulder in a friendly fashion, and beckoned us to follow him. He went up two flights of stairs to the top floor, then pushed up a trapdoor in the roof and hung a ladder to it. It seemed unconventional, but there was nothing for it; Max pulled me up after him, and we came out upon the roof. Still beckoning and smiling, our host led us across the roof on to the roof of the next house, and finally down through another trapdoor. We were shown into a large attic room, quite nicely furnished, with two beds in it. He patted the beds, pointed to us, disappeared, and shortly afterwards our luggage arrived. Luckily we had not much luggage with us by this time; it had been taken from us at Baku and we had been told by the Intourist man that we should find it waiting at Batum. We hoped that that would happen next day, in the meantime the only thing we wanted was bed and sleep.

  Next morning we wanted to find our way to the French boat which was sailing that day to Stamboul, and on which we had tickets booked. Though we tried to explain this to our host, he did not understand, and there appeared to
be nobody there who did. We went out and searched the streets ourselves. I never realised before how difficult it was to find the sea if you can get no view from any kind of hill. We walked one way, then another, then a third at intervals asking for things like ‘boat’ in as many languages as we knew–‘harbour’, ‘quay’: nobody understood French or German or English. In the end we managed to find our way back to the hotel.

  Max drew a picture of a boat on a piece of paper, and our host expressed immediate comprehension. He took us up to a sitting-room on the first floor, sat us down on a sofa, and explained in dumb show that we were to wait there. At the end of half an hour he reappeared with a very old man in a peaked blue cap who spoke to us in French. This ancient had apparently been a porter in a hotel in former days and still dealt with visitors. He expressed immediate readiness to lead us to our boat, and to carry our luggage there.

  First of all we had to reclaim the luggage which should have arrived from Baku. The old man took us straight to what was clearly a prison, and we were led into a heavily barred cell with our luggage, sitting demurely in the middle of it. The old man collected it, and led us off to the harbour. He grumbled the whole way, and we became rather nervous, as the last thing we wished to do was to criticise the government in a country where we had no consul to get us out of a mess.

  We tried to hush the old man down, but it was no good. ‘Ah, things are not what they used to be,’ he said. ‘Why, what do you think? Do you see this coat I have now? It is a good coat, yes, but does it belong to me?

  No, it belongs to the government. In the old days I had not one coat–I had four coats. Perhaps they were not as good as this coat, but they were my coats. Four coats–a winter coat, a summer coat, a rain-coat and a smart coat. Four coats I had!’

  Finally he lowered his voice slightly and said: ‘It is strictly forbidden to give any tips to the service here, so if you were thinking of giving me anything it would be as well to do it while we walk down this little street here.’ Such a plain hint could not be ignored, and as his services had been invaluable we hastily parted with a generous sum of money to him. He expressed approbation, grumbled about the government some more, and finally gestured proudly to the docks, where a smart Messageries Maritimes boat was waiting by the quay.