by Harold Lamb
He had his first surprise when Daoud introduced him to the head of the expedition. A stocky woman with wide, impassive eyes and hair the hue of bleached fire confronted him. Dr. Anna, they called her, and she might have been no older than Michal—although with her clipped hair and heavy military overcoat she looked a world apart from Michal. She spoke English as if she were reading it out of a textbook.
"Is it that no representatives of the Soviet Union have been here before, Mr. Ide?" she asked. And again, "Is it that the ancient city of Kurdistan has ruins up there?"
When Jacob answered yes to both questions, Dr. Anna caught the hand of the only soldier in the group—a good-natured athlete with a full set of gold teeth and three ribbons on his shoulder, with the insignia of a major. Omelko, as he was named, was a Ukrainian from Kiev, now on leave.
A shadow of a man with a clipped beard, who tried to hold himself straight when spoken to, followed them about, and gave his name as Professor Vorontzev, mineralogist. He spoke excellent French—so excellent that he must have spent some time with Frenchmen. Daoud was impressed by him.
A fourth, Svetlov, coughed constantly and held his head to one side. The others of the mission seemed to be mechanics and teamsters.
When Dr. Anna had finished asking her rhetorical questions, Jacob invited her to visit the summit, explaining that the ascent was not dangerous if taken slowly on a dry day.
"You permit?" she asked curiously.
"I invite you, Dr. Anna."
When they left, the members of the mission walked to the entrance in the barbed wire and shook hands carefully, as if on parade.
Jacob felt that the Russians had been both puzzled and uncertain. It was odd that a woman should be chief of a mission of some size, and a young woman at that.
"I don't think," Daoud added, "she has been out of the Soviet frontier before. They are beyond their frontier here, you know. She has handled nothing older than Scythian gold or Varangian grave objects."
"She's a redhead, and that kind gets around."
Daoud shook his head.
Sitting by the bell tower, his hands empty of a rifle for once, Sergeant Daniel rose at their coming. For a few paces he walked with them to the stair, then he spoke.
"David Khalid, they have no passports."
He did not say the Russians, and he kept his deep voice low. Daoud did not look surprised. Jacob reflected that if the mission had crossed into Iraq territory without passports, three things were certain: they had not requested permission of the Baghdad Government to visit Araman, and so, probably, the British Intelligence knew nothing of their arrival here; also, since they carried no papers of identification, it would be difficult to prove afterward who they had been or why they had come. For that matter he himself had no valid civilian passport. No one at Araman had a passport, except Daoud and Michal.
"David Khalid," went on Daniel, "will you hurry and go to Baghdad? I will show you a way. You should report them."
Hesitating, Daoud shook his head and muttered something in Kurdish. Evidently he did not intend to go. Patiently the veteran sergeant turned to the American.
"Captain Ide, tell me. Will the United States Government send ships to take us Assyrians to America?"
Timidly he put his scarred hand on Jacob's arm. "We are only thirty thousand, Captain Ide. We are Christians. Two wars we have fought for the Allies. Some land is all we need. Still," he added hopefully, "we would like to be in the mountains in America."
While Jacob was trying to think of an answer that would be the truth and not too painful to the old man, Daoud spoke up irritably.
"Daniel Toghrak, the Americans do not know that you Assyrians are alive. What does it matter to them if you are alive or dead?" Without change of expression, the peasant who had become a soldier stood aside. Carefully he eyed the broken stones at his feet. Then patiently he followed after the two, planting his feet methodically on each step but making no effort to catch up with them. Instinct stronger than reason told him that in a few days these two might be gone—the archaeologist to his office in Baghdad, secure under British protection, the American to Washington where every family had untold wealth. The family of Sergeant Daniel had no land to cultivate. So he followed, thinking how help might be had in the face of dangers he no longer understood.
Under the battered lion's head Michal waited, while the light faded and the cold struck into her. Sitting there, where she could see only the top steps, she restrained herself from jumping up at every sound to look down the ascent.
When she heard the steady scrape of nailed shoes and sighted Jacob's wide shoulders, swaying as he climbed, she felt faint inside and sat very still, so as not to seem to be so frantically worried about him. And the first thing he noticed was her dress!
"Why, you've changed already, Michal. This is no weather for the blue dress."
She smiled and spoke first to Daoud carefully. "What were the Russians like, Daoud?"
"Stupid." He laughed, cheerful again after the long climb.
"Friendly," corrected Jacob.
"Really friendly, Jacob?" Her slippered feet moved gaily into the snow.
"A bit shy. But they're real people, Michal. They'll be coming visiting someday."
Michal felt like singing. The strangers, then, would make no new complication in Araman.
Behind them Sergeant Daniel plodded across the plaza toward Vasstan's house.
Not until they had finished supper and Michal had curled up on the divan did she tell Jacob about hearing the distant artillery fire. "No one else heard it, Michal."
"I don't care. I did."
He glanced at her still profile. "If you did, it must have been far off, across the Iranian frontier."
Lifting her head, she said quickly, "Let's not think about it."
"All right. Let's think about you, returning triumphantly to civilization and swatting flies on Shepheard's veranda while generals and ambassadors admire you."
"No, Jacob." Her slight shoulders moved restlessly. "Please take me away somewhere on the sloop you told me about." Anxiously she looked up at him. "The one you sailed on the river when you were tired."
"Waiting for the phantom ship to come over the mountains?"
"Yes."
When she lay motionless, touching him, he thought of the waterfall in Mr. Parabat's garden, and his arm tightened around her.
After his talk with Daniel that night, Vasstan bestirred himself and went down alone to the new encampment. He came back in an ironical mood and was pleased to poke fun at Jacob.
"What did you observe, Captain Ide? A redhead and a radio. That down there is a traveling show—what you call a circus. A circus with sideshows. I have the ability to count up to more than one. Two, a dispensary giving anti-typhus injections to tribesmen. Three, a member of the new Soviet-Kurdish Cultural Institute, to educate tribesmen. For free, as you missionary Americans say. Four, good interpreters, who speak Sulaimani Kurdish, Turkish, and Armenian. Five, a plan for distributing the land of the tribal aghas and begs who are feudal landholders among the deserving tribal peasantry."
Producing a crumpled pamphlet, he waved it before Jacob's eyes. "What is it?"
"Something in Arabic script."
"Aber, in the Kurdish language. A declaration of the leaders of the new Democratic party of Kurdistan, asserting the ancient Kurdish right to the land, minerals, and oil. Your Russian circus men brought the printing press."
"Any harm in it?"
"How can there be harm in a circus? Now, your redheaded chef de mission. I count and arrive at a total of one emotional woman, who bites the ear of the younger, egocentric Cossack officer. I count on the other hand seventeen rifles—Mausers, German-made, or Brno, most of them having numbers of German divisions captured at Stalingrad. What does the American Military Intelligence think of that? That means the rifles were given out of military stores to the honest circus people here."
"Anything else?"
The German reflected. "Ah,
the costumes. You have noticed that Russian uniforms are worn only by these mountain people; the Russians themselves are all honest civilians."
"Like us, Vasstan." Jacob considered the German. "I still think the Soviet mission is a scratch outfit—just what it seems to be."
"You are still in kindergarten. Few they may be, but behind them is the prestige of the Red Army."
"That's true enough. Granting all that, what do you think they are here for?"
Vasstan took several seconds to think about that. "If you are wise, Captain Ide, you will not try to find out."
Jacob thought: his information is accurate, but he has pointed it up to throw a scare into me. That means he doesn't want me to be too friendly with the Soviet personnel. That, in turn, may mean he's angling to be on good terms with them himself. Also, by this kindly warning he's keeping a drag on my good will.
"Just exactly what do you want me to do for you?" he asked.
"I?" The bloodshot eyes opened too wide and then closed in appreciation. "Excellent! You are no longer in kindergarten, Captain Ide."
Jacob waited.
"I lay my cards on the table." Vasstan spread out his plump hands. "These Russians will know my name and can get my dossier. Who does not know Vasstan? As a German agent, I will be suspect; as a thorn in the rump of the British Lion, I can be useful. You understand?"
"You want me to testify that you are no other than the lifelong, undefeated Vasstan, arch foe of Winston Churchill and all the English reactionaries ?"
"Exactly. Alone, without followers——"
"But unconquered."
"Do you agree?"
Jacob thought about it. "I agree. Now what does your Russian circus really think of us?"
"Of you two Americans?" The German's quick mind came to full attention. "They have envy of you. I predict you will have no trouble with them."
That's clever, Jacob reasoned. Now that everything's so fine, I need not worry. I wonder what happened to the Assyrians?
"I hope not," he said sincerely.
After that Vasstan spent most of the daylight hours down in the encampment, leaving Matejko to his own devices. For some reason the Polish officer avoided Michal's house. Only occasionally she saw him wandering around the ramparts.
"Don't you feel well, Jan?" she asked once, falling into step with him.
Although he assured her he felt quite well, he did not brighten as usual when she spoke to him.
"My only sickness," he explained at last, "is shared by many Poles—at least those who served with General Anders."
Out of this somber mood she could not stir him. And it affected her strongly. Perhaps it touched her, too, because her presence had no visible effect on him now. When she pressed him to come in to supper, he refused.
"My sickness is contaminating. Colonel Vasstan is aware of that."
"That's nonsense!" she cried.
It was nonsense that he could harm her by being with her in Araman. Matejko only muttered an excuse and kissed her hand. Jacob noticed that he had taken to wearing the revolver sheath hooked on to his belt again.
"It's not good for him to be entirely alone," Michal worried.
The next day the Soviet mission appeared in a group at the summit, led by Vasstan. They seemed to be indefatigable in examining everything on the summit. Particularly, they lingered over the rock carving and the symbols—the Cossack taking measurements while Dr. Anna copied zealously into her worn notebook. While they did this, Vorontzev warmed himself at the altar fire.
At sight of them Matejko strolled off into the woods.
After giving them a clear field for most of the day, Jacob and Michal went out to greet them, finding Dr. Anna flushed with concentration over the bronze globe of the sky. Unbelievingly, she stared at Michal's delicate silk scarf and slippers. Standing sturdily, grasping her book, as a peasant stands, she remained silent, fingering the coarse black shawl over her own head.
"Zdorovo," smiled Omelko, with appreciation.
"He says," Dr. Anna interpreted mechanically, "it is wonderful here."
Vasstan explained that Dr. Anna had done the work of three men already in that day; that in Tiflis she had been named udarnik—"A human spark plug!" he enunciated.
Unmistakably Dr. Anna flushed with pleasure, brushing back the hair from her eyes. Curiously she glanced at Michal. "It is my first opportunity to do interesting work here. But you have already copied and photographed all inscriptions for your American university?"
When Michal invited them into her house, they excused themselves because it was late and they had to make the descent to their quarters. Again took place the parade of handshaking. Vasstan, who had escorted them to the gate, came back with an odd look in his eye.
"Already, Jacob," he announced, "your mystery of Araman is solved. Dr. Anna says it is Armenian."
"This place?"
"Ethnologically, she said it was Armenian, like the bell tower which she has been studying below."
Jacob laughed. "Better not let Daoud hear her say that. He'd blow his top."
With deep enjoyment, Vasstan nodded. "But why not Armenian? Armenians live around here. Almost we can see their Mount Ararat."
"Because this happens to be Kurdistan, which is the land of the Kurds. The Armenoids came in later, and they didn't stay."
Closing one eye, the German surveyed the makeshift flag still hanging on its pole. "I predict that if the University of Tiflis—and hence Moscow—believes this to be the situ of ancient Armenia, our spark plug will find that to be incontrovertible fact. Ancient Armenia it will be."
"I don't believe it," Michal retorted. "And I like Dr. Anna. She seems so eager—it's like a woman's love for a child."
Then and there Michal declared that she would have the Russian woman to tea where they could let their hair down and Daoud could argue to his heart's content.
"A love feast." Vasstan shrugged. "And will you invite Colonel Jan Matejko?"
"If he would only come."
The weather changed when the wind changed. The storms ceased and the midwinter thaw set in, shrouding the summit in mist. Through this mist the sun came in long shafts that changed color through the vapor strata. At times the summit became a haze of gold, hung between shifting cloud masses.
Only Dr. Anna and Omelko appeared out of this curtain of mist occasionally, she to work painstakingly while he sat by, to smoke cigarettes and take photographs with a good German camera as she directed him. For no visible reason, violent arguments flared up between them, and afterward they would sit hand in hand eating the bread they had brought up with them. From somewhere Anna had produced a striped silk scarf which she wore loosely around her throat like Michal.
"They are very human," Michal assured Jacob, "but she works as if every minute was too precious to be lost. It tires me just to watch her."
"That's because it takes her a quarter of an hour to get done what would take you only a minute."
"And what can I do, Jacob?"
She felt tired because she had taken cold during the thaw. Feeling the dry heat of a temperature, she kept indoors, lingering in bed as long as she could without attracting Jacob's attention.
Only Matejko seemed to be aware that she was sick. Once, to her surprise, he brought the big Cossack to the door, to offer her a cigarette. It was strange to see two officers with sidearms standing there inside the curtain, smoking.
"He is Ukrainian," Matejko explained, "Five years ago he was dodging German shells along the Dnieper, as I was in the Tatras. We get along."
He seemed to want her to understand that.
"There! You see, Jan," she exclaimed.
"Zdorovo!" ejaculated the major, listening to the wind tower. "That was six years ago," said Matejko carefully. "Now, it is different. His city of Kiev will be built again; my Tatra Mountains—they are not there." He hesitated, then said quickly in his fluent French, "Remember now that always you must be a simple American, the wife of Captain Ide."
; Michal smiled, feeling odd because the swarthy Cossack did not understand a word of what they were saying. "Should I be that?"
"Always, madame. You will not know who is the member of the secret police in this mission—whether the man Svetlov or a camion driver. Never mention that your friends were British, or diplomats, or that you had a Finnish grandfather."
"Then I'll have only a Scottish grandmother."
When the two men walked away together, she noticed how Matejko shambled, while the Cossack, untouched by moodiness, moved lazily. And she wondered if she and Matejko were not alike in seeing ghosts where no spectral shapes really were. No, she thought, it's more than that. It's like becoming a marionette pulled by an invisible string. Not even a marionette, because they dance and play tricks together very happily even if they're made to do it. The human beings on Araman couldn't sing and dance together because suspicion had crept in among them. Not suspicion of one another, but suspicion of what might happen because of events outside Araman.
As always, she told Jacob what disturbed her mind, sitting at his knee when he came in.
"Matejko can't forget the past, Michal," he explained after thinking about it. "God knows he has reason not to forget it. But you've put it behind you, and you should."
She felt better, until she remembered Matejko's wife who had died apart from him in some unknown place. A marionette made to labor. "Then I'm not seeing any fetches, or hearing my ancestral voices prophesying war?" she asked doubtfully.
"I'm not too sure about the ancestral voices. You do get ideas." In his methodical fashion, Jacob was comparing all the different persons caught by the winter at Araman. "As long as Vasstan doesn't try any sleight of hand, there shouldn't be a quarrel in our midst now."
"Vasstan! I'm quarreling now, even if you don't know it. You wouldn't know it, Jacob, you are so gentle." She sighed, her head light on his knee. "I don't think you could hate even your deadliest enemy. I suppose if you could, you'd be cruel and demanding like most other men."