They came to Baghdad - Agatha Christie [104]
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 anything of what was to come later from Germany. People who had traveled there were, I suppose, already realizing 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…
After the war, the Mallowans returned to Baghdad, where Agatha set up house:
With enormous pleasure we started off once more, after a lapse of ten years, to resume our work in the Middle East. No Orient Express this time, alas! It was no longer the cheapest way—indeed one could not take a through journey by it now. This time we flew—the beginning of that dull routine, travelling by air. But one could not ignore the time it saved. Still sadder, there were no more journeys across the desert by Nairn; you flew from London to Baghdad and that was that. In those early days one still spent a night here or there on the way, but it was the beginning of what one could see plainly was going to become a schedule of excessive boredom and expense without pleasure…
I have not yet mentioned our home in Baghdad. We had an old Turkish house on the west bank of the Tigris. It was thought a very curious taste on our part to be so fond of it, and not to want one of the modern boxes, but our Turkish house was cool and delightful, with its courtyard and the palm trees coming up to the balcony rail. Behind us were irrigated palm gardens, and a tiny squatter’s house, made of tutti (petrol tins). Children played there happily. The women came in and out and went down to the river to wash their pots and pans. The rich and the poor live cheek by jowl in Baghdad.
How enormously it has grown since I first saw it. Most of the modern architecture is very ugly, wholly unsuitable for the climate. It is copied from modern magazines—French, German, Italian. You no longer go down into a cool sirdab in the heat of the day; the windows are not small windows in the top of the walls, keeping you cool from the sunlight. Possibly their plumbing is better now—it could hardly be worse—but I doubt it…
I must mention the first visit we paid to Arpachiyah after an interval of fifteen years. We were recognized at once. The whole village came out. There were cries, shouts, greetings, welcome. ‘You remember me, Hawajah,’ said one man. ‘I was basket-boy when you left. Now I am twenty-four, I have a wife, I have a big son, grown-up son—I show you.’
They were astonished that Max could not remember every face and every name. They recalled the famous race that had passed into history. We were always meeting our friends of fifteen years before.
One day as I drove through Mosul in the lorry, the policeman directing traffic suddenly held it all up with his baton, and yelling out, ‘Mama! Mama!’ advanced upon the lorry, seizing me by the hand, and shaking it wildly.
‘What joy to see you, Mama! I am Ali! I am Ali the potboy—you remember me? Yes? Now I am policeman!’
And so, every time I drove into Mosul, there was Ali, and the moment he recognized us, all the traffic in the street was held up, we exchanged greetings, and then our lorry proceeded with full priority. How good it is to have these friends. Warm-hearted, simple, full of