Come, Tell Me How You Live: An Archaeological Memoir. Agatha Christie

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ last few frenzied words with my friend and secretary. Will she do all the things I have left undone, and upbraid suitably the Laundry and the Cleaners and give a good reference to the cook and send off those books I couldn’t pack, and get back my umbrella from Scotland Yard, and write appropriately to the clergy-man who has discovered forty-three grammatical errors in my last book, and go through the seed-list for the garden and cross off vegetable marrows and parsnips? Yes, she will do all those things, and if any crisis occurs in the Home or the Literary World she will cable me. It doesn’t matter, I say. She has a power of attorney. She can do anything she likes. She looks rather alarmed and says she shall be most careful. Another whistle! I say good-bye to my sister, and say wildly that I, too, feel I shall never see her again, and perhaps Rosalind will get appendicitis. Nonsense, says my sister; why should she? We climb into the Pullman, the train grunts and starts—we are OFF.

      For about forty-five seconds I feel terrible, and then as Victoria Station is left behind, exultation springs up once more. We have begun the lovely, exciting journey to Syria.

      There is something grand and stuck-up about a Pullman, though it is not nearly as comfortable as a corner of an ordinary first-class carriage. We always go by Pullman solely on account of Max’s suitcases, which an ordinary carriage would not tolerate. Having once had registered luggage go astray, Max takes no chances with his precious books.

      We arrive at Dover, to find the sea moderately calm. Nevertheless, I retire to the Salon des Dames, and lie and meditate with the pessimism always induced in me by the motion of the waves. But we are soon at Calais, and the French steward produces a large blue-bloused man to deal with my luggage. ‘Madame will find him in the Douane,’ he says.

      ‘What is his number?’ I ask. The steward is immediately reproachful.

       ‘Madame! Mais c’est le charpentier du bateau!’

      I become properly abashed—to reflect a few minutes later that that is not really an answer. Why, because he is the charpentier du bateau, does it make it any easier to pick him out from several hundred other blue-bloused men, all shouting: ‘Quatre-vingt treize?’ etc? His mere silence will not be sufficient identification. Moreover, does his being the charpentier du bateau enable him to pick out with unerring certainty one middle-aged Englishwoman from a whole crowd of middle-aged Englishwomen?

      At this point in my reflections Max joins me, and says he has a porter for my luggage. I explain that the charpentier du bateau has taken mine, and Max asks why I let him. All the luggage should go together. I agree, but plead that my intellect is always weakened by sea-crossings. Max says: ‘Oh, well; we shall collect it all in the Douane.’ And we proceed to that inferno of yelling porters and to the inevitable encounter with the only type of really unpleasant Frenchwoman that exists—the Customs House Female; a being devoid of charm, of chic, of any feminine grace. She prods, she peers, she says, ‘Pas de cigarettes?’ unbelievingly, and finally, with a reluctant grunt, she scrawls the mystic hieroglyphics in chalk on our baggage, and we pass through the barrier and out on to the platform, and so to the Simplon Orient Express and the journey across Europe.

      Many, many years ago, when going to the Riviera or to Paris, I used to be fascinated by the sight of the Orient Express at Calais and longed to be travelling by it. Now it has become an old familiar friend, but the thrill has never quite died down. I am going by it! I am in it! I am actually in the blue coach, with the simple legend outside: CALAIS–INSTANBUL. It is, undoubtedly, my favourite train. I like its tempo, which, starting Allegro con furore, swaying and rattling and hurling one from side to side in its mad haste to leave Calais and the Occident, gradually slows down in a rallentando as it proceeds eastwards till it becomes definitely legato.

      In the early morning of the next day I let the blind up, and watch the dim shapes of the mountains in Switzerland, then the descent into the plains of Italy, passing by lovely Stresa and its blue lake. Then, later, into the smart station that is all we see of Venice and out again, and along by the sea to Trieste and so into Yugoslavia. The pace gets slower and slower, the stops are longer, the station clocks display conflicting times. H.E.O. is succeeded by C.E. The names of the stations are written in exciting and improbable-looking letters. The engines are fat and comfortable-looking, and belch forth a particularly black and evil smoke. Bills in the dining-cars are written out in perplexing currencies and bottles of strange mineral water appear. A small Frenchman who sits opposite us at table studies his bill in silence for some minutes, then he raises his head and catches Max’s eye. His voice, charged with emotion, rises plaintively: ‘Le change des Wagons Lits, c’est incroyable!’ Across the aisle a dark man with a hooked nose demands to be told the amount of his bill in (a) francs, (b) lire, (c) dinars, (d) Turkish pounds, (e) dollars. When this has been done by the long-suffering restaurant attendant, the traveller calculates silently and, evidently a master financial brain, produces the currency most advantageous to his pocket. By this method, he explains to us, he has saved fivepence in English money!

      In the morning Turkish Customs officials appear on the train. They are leisurely, and deeply interested in our baggage. Why, they ask me, have I so many pairs of shoes? It is too many. But, I reply, I have no cigarettes, because I do not smoke, so why not a few more shoes? The douanier accepts the explanation. It appears to him reasonable. What, he asks, is the powder in this little tin?

      It is bug powder, I say; but find that this is not understood. He frowns and looks suspicious. He is obviously suspecting me of being a drug-smuggler. It is not powder for the teeth, he says accusingly, nor for the face; for what, then? Vivid pantomime by me! I scratch myself realistically, I catch the interloper. I sprinkle the woodwork. Ah, all is understood! He throws back his head and roars with laughter, repeating a Turkish word. It is for them, the powder! He repeats the joke to a colleague. They pass on, enjoying it very much. The Wagon Lit conductor now appears to coach us. They will come with our passports to demand how much money we have, ‘effectif, vous comprenez?’ I love the word effectif—it is so exactly descriptive of actual cash in hand. ‘You will have,’ the conductor proceeds, ‘exactly so much effectif!’ He names the sum. Max objects that we have more than that. ‘It does not matter. To say so will cause you embarrassments. You will say you have the letter of credit or the travellers’ cheques and of effectif so much.’ He adds in explanation: ‘They do not mind, you comprehend, what you have, but the answer must be en règle. You will say—so much.’

      Presently the gentleman in charge of the financial questions comes along. He writes down our answer before we actually say it. All is en règle. And now we are arriving at Stamboul, winding in and out through strange wooden slatted houses, with glimpses of heavy stone bastions and glimpses of sea at our right.

      A maddening city, Stamboul—since when you are in it you can never see it! Only when you have left the European side and are crossing the Bosphorus to the Asian coast do you really see Stamboul. Very beautiful it is this morning—a clear, shining pale morning, with no mist, and the mosques with their minarets standing up against the sky.

      ‘La Sainte Sophie, it is very fine,’ says a French gentleman.

      Everybody agrees, with the regrettable exception of myself. I, alas, have never admired Sainte Sophie! An unfortunate lapse of taste; but there it is. It has always seemed definitely to me the wrong size. Ashamed of my perverted ideas, I keep silent.

      Now into the waiting train at Haidar Pacha, and, when at last the train starts, breakfast—a breakfast for which one is by now quite ravenous! Then a lovely day’s journey along the winding coast of the Sea of Marmora, with islands dotted about looking dim and lovely. I think for the hundredth time that I should like to own one of those islands. Strange, the desire for an island of one’s own! Most people suffer from it sooner or later. It symbolizes in one’s mind liberty, solitude, freedom from all cares. СКАЧАТЬ