Declare

gesture that took in the boy with the bag of donkey dung, and two women in blue robes who were hurrying past on the opposite side of the twilit street, as well as Hale; “Siamand Khan invites you all to sup with him!”
    Hale had had enough experience of Bedu greetings to recognize these as formalities rather than challenges. “I am well, thank you, Howkar Zeid,” he told the man. He looked over his shoulder and saw the boy and the two women bowing and murmuring as they continued on their ways, and he guessed that the broadcast invitation had been a formality too, routinely declined. He was wondering whether he was expected to decline the invitation as well, when the old man took his elbow and led him in through the gate. Already Hale could smell roasted mutton and coffee, and again he was reminded of the Arab tribes.
    The Khan’s house was a two-story structure, a wooden frame-work filled in with alternating sections of mud brick and rough stone; the windows were dimly lamplit squares of cloth set back in rectangles of stone coping.
    Hale took off his shoes, and then was led in his stocking feet through a shadowy hallway to a broad stone-walled room that was brightly lit by a paraffin lamp hung on a chain from a ceiling beam. The dirt floor was almost entirely covered with expensive-looking red-and-purple rugs, and Hale’s host stood up from a European upholstered chair and strode forward across the floor.
    Howkar Zeid was pouring coffee into tiny cups at an ornate black table in the corner, but Hale was looking warily at his host.
    The Khan was dressed in a dark Western business suit and a knitted cap, with an orange silk scarf around his neck instead of a necktie; and Hale thought that even dressed this way he would have alarmed pedestrians in London or Paris, for the haggard brown face behind the white moustache was ferocious even in cheerful greeting, and the man moved on the balls of his feet with his big hands out to the sides, as if ready at any moment to spring into violent action.
    Siamand Khan shook Hale’s hand like an American, strongly and vigorously.
    “My friend!” exclaimed the Khan in English as he released Hale’s hand. His voice was a gravelly tenor. “Thank you for what you bring us!” He took a cup of coffee from Howkar Zeid and handed it to Hale with a bow.
    Theodora had mentioned having sent a gift of rifles on ahead. “You’re welcome,” Hale said, bowing himself as he took the tiny cup.
    “This is a radio!” the man observed, pointing at Hale’s valise. Two moustached men in vests like Hale’s and caps like the Khan’s had stepped into the room from an interior doorway.
    “Yes.” Hale wondered if the man wanted it; and he supposed he could have it, once a helicopter had safely arrived in the level field Theodora had described on the village’s north slope.
    “You will need it, not. From the roof we can see Agri Dag and the Russian border—the Turks have set up torches along the border, poles as tall as three men, wrapped in dry grass, each with a bottle of fuel in a box at the base. My men are out below the mountain and along the border now, on horseback, and when the Russians arrive at the mountain my men will light all the Turks’ torches, the whole length of the border.” He laughed merrily.
    Hale recalled that Agri Dag was the Turkish name of Mount Ararat. “The radio will summon me—or the arrival of a helicopter, here, will!—to go to the mountain,” said Hale, “ before the Russians arrive.” He took a sip of the coffee—it was very good, hot and strong and thick with grounds, and the smells of cardamom and onions from some farther room were reminding him that he hadn’t eaten more than a sandwich today. “They won’t be starting for a day or so yet.”
    “Russians don’t know what they think themselves, so how can you know? I have spoons, and forks. You will dine with me?”
    “I—yes, I would be honored.”
    “The honey is not such as to make you ill, of course,” said the Khan, stepping back. The two men behind him now carried out into the center of the room a round copper tray barely big enough for the dozen earthenware platters on it. They crouched to set it down on the carpeted dirt floor, and then Hale followed the Khan’s example and sat down cross-legged on the floor on the opposite side of the tray, on which he saw mutton kebabs and roasted quail and spinach and bowls of yogurt. And he did see a jar of honey.
    “I’m sure the