I felt sorry for her having to make her appearance like this, with my baggy grey trousers tucked into a pair of very old stockings ending in my tennis-shoes, about four sizes too big. She had swathed her hair in a big silk handkerchief, rather moth-eaten, but an old treasure which had outlasted me many dhobis.
I made her put on my poshtin, which came right down to her feet, and I think she was glad of the warmth. Then I offered her Wrexham’s valise to sit on, and sat down on one of the yakhdans. She looked a great deal better than the night before, though still a bit worn. I expect she was feeling the strain of all she’d been through.
Firoz appeared with a teapot, some chupattis, and a dish of salmon, the kind that grows in tins. As he put them down, he greeted Aryenis with, “Salaam, Miss Sahib. Ab achhe hain?” It was noticeable the way the men treated her from the very beginning as a person of consequence. I explained that he was asking if she was feeling better, and she smiled at him and thanked him in Greek. Doubtless Payindah had told him how brave she had been, and they were both her very devoted slaves ever afterwards.
I poured out some tea and helped her to some fish. I noticed that knife and spoon were familiar enough, but that the fork rather defeated her, and could see that she was watching carefully to see what I did with mine.
“Did you sleep last night, Harilek? You must have been cold out in the wind.”
“Pretty well, thanks. And you?”
“More than well, as I ought to have, since you have given me your tent and all your things. And this morning when the doctor brought me the clothes, he gave me the most wonderful mirror I have ever seen. I thought I was looking at a real person, not a mirror, when I looked in it. It was like the glass round the lamp, but I’ve never seen glass that you can see through before. Ours is thick and coloured, and we only make plates and beads of it.”
“What do you do for mirrors, then?”
“Metal. I’ve got two of bronze, but they are not nearly as good as your glass ones. Yours must be a wonderful country if three men travelling on a journey in the desert have all sorts of things like that with them.”
“Yes, I expect our things must seem strange to you, having been cut off from the big world so long.”