Mrs Leidner explained that later. She said that Father Lavigny was only interested in ‘written documents’ – as she called them. They wrote everything on clay, these people, queer, heathenish-looking marks too, but quite sensible. There were even school tablets – the teacher’s lesson on one side and the pupil’s effort on the back of it. I confess that that did interest me rather – it seemed so human, if you know what I mean.
Father Lavigny walked round the work with me and showed me what were temples or palaces and what were private houses, and also a place which he said was an early Akkadian cemetery. He spoke in a funny jerky way, just throwing in a scrap of information and then reverting to other subjects.
He said: ‘It is strange that you have come here. Is Mrs Leidner really ill, then?’
‘Not exactly ill,’ I said cautiously.
He said: ‘She is an odd woman. A dangerous woman, I think.’
‘Now what do you mean by that?’ I said. ‘Dangerous? How dangerous?’
He shook his head thoughtfully.
‘I think she is ruthless,’ he said. ‘Yes, I think she could be absolutely ruthless.’
‘If you’ll excuse me,’ I said, ‘I think you’re talking nonsense.’
He shook his head.
‘You do not know women as I do,’ he said.
And that was a funny thing, I thought, for a monk to say. But of course I suppose he might have heard a lot of things in confession. But that rather puzzled me, because I wasn’t sure if monks heard confessions or if it was only priests. I supposed he was a monk with that long woollen robe – all sweeping up the dirt – and the rosary and all!
‘Yes, she could be ruthless,’ he said musingly. ‘I am quite sure of that. And yet – though she is so hard – like stone, like marble – yet she is afraid. What is she afraid of?’
That, I thought, is what we should all like to know!
At least it was possible that her husband did know, but I didn’t think anyone else did.
He fixed me with a sudden bright, dark eye.
‘It is odd here? You find it odd? Or quite natural?’
‘Not quite natural,’ I said, considering. ‘It’s comfortable enough as far as the arrangements go – but there isn’t quite a comfortable feeling.’
‘It makes me uncomfortable. I have the idea’ – he became suddenly a little more foreign – ‘that something prepares itself. Dr Leidner, too, he is not quite himself. Something is worrying him also.’
‘His wife’s health?’
‘That perhaps. But there is more. There is – how shall I say it – an uneasiness.’
And that was just it, there was an uneasiness.
We didn’t say any more just then, for Dr Leidner came towards us. He showed me a child’s grave that had just been uncovered. Rather pathetic it was – the little bones – and a pot or two and some little specks that Dr Leidner told me were a bead necklace.
It was the workmen that made me laugh. You never saw such a lot of scarecrows – all in long petticoats and rags, and their heads tied up as though they had toothache. And every now and then, as they went to and fro carrying away baskets of earth, they began to sing – at least I suppose it was meant to be singing – a queer sort of monotonous chant that went on and on over and over again. I noticed that most of their eyes were terrible – all covered with discharge, and one or two looked half blind. I was just thinking what a miserable lot they were when Dr Leidner said, ‘Rather a fine-looking lot of men, aren’t they?’ and I thought what a queer world it was and how two different people could see the same thing each of them the other way round. I haven’t put that very well, but you can guess what I mean.
After a bit Dr Leidner said he was going back to the house for a mid-morning cup of tea. So he and I walked back together and he told me things. When he explained, it was all quite different. I sort of saw it all – how it used to be – the streets and the houses, and he showed me ovens where they baked bread and said the Arabs used much the same kind of ovens nowadays.
We got back to the house and found Mrs Leidner had got up. She was looking better today, not so thin and worn. Tea came in almost at once and Dr Leidner told her what had turned up during the morning on the dig. Then he went back to work and Mrs Leidner asked me if I would like to see some of the finds they had made up to date. Of course I said ‘Yes,’ so she took me through into the antika-room. There was a lot of stuff lying about – mostly broken pots it seemed to me – or else ones that were all mended and stuck together. The whole lot might have been thrown away, I thought.
‘Dear, dear,’ I said, ‘it’s a pity they’re all so broken, isn’t it? Are they really worth keeping?’
Mrs Leidner smiled a little and she said: ‘You mustn’t let Eric hear you. Pots interest him more than anything else, and some of these are the oldest things we have – perhaps as much as seven thousand years old.’ And she explained how some of them came from a very deep cut on the mound down towards the bottom, and how, thousands of years ago, they had been broken and mended with bitumen, showing people prized their things just as much then as they do nowadays.
‘And now,’ she said, ‘we’ll show you something more exciting.’
And she took down a box from the shelf and showed me a beautiful gold dagger with dark-blue stones in the handle.
I exclaimed with pleasure.
Mrs Leidner laughed.
‘Yes, everybody likes gold! Except my husband.’
‘Why doesn’t Dr Leidner like it?’
‘Well, for one thing it comes expensive. You have to pay the workmen who find it the weight of the object in gold.’
‘Good gracious!’ I exclaimed. ‘But why?’
‘Oh, it’s a custom. For one thing it prevents them from stealing. You see, if they did steal, it wouldn’t be for the archaeological value but for the intrinsic value. They could melt it down. So we make it easy for them to be honest.’
She took down another tray and showed me a really beautiful gold drinking-cup with a design of rams’ heads on it.
Again I exclaimed.
‘Yes, it is beautiful, isn’t it? These came from a prince’s grave. We found other royal graves but most of them had been plundered. This cup is our best find. It is one of the most lovely ever found anywhere. Early Akkadian. Unique.’
Suddenly, with a frown, Mrs Leidner brought the cup up close to her eyes and scratched at it delicately with her nail.
‘How extraordinary! There’s actually wax on it. Someone must have been in here with a candle.’ She detached the little flake and replaced the cup in its place.
After that she showed me some queer little terra-cotta figurines – but most of them were just rude. Nasty minds those old people had, I say.
When we went back to the porch Mrs Mercado was sitting polishing her nails. She was holding them out in front of her admiring the effect. I thought myself that anything more hideous than that orange red could hardly have been imagined.
Mrs Leidner had brought with her from the antika-room a very delicate little saucer broken in several pieces, and this she now proceeded to join together. I watched her for a minute or two and then asked if I could help.
‘Oh, yes, there are plenty more.’ She fetched quite a supply of broken pottery and we set to work. I soon got into the hang of it and she praised my ability. I suppose most nurses are handy with their fingers.