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felt like the dish he was about to eat for supper.
    ‘
Selamın Aleyküm
,’ I said.
    ‘
Aleyküm Selam
,’ he replied.
    He said no more, and I was unsure if I should bow to him or pay him
bahşiş
or simply walk past.
    ‘Let me introduce the Vali, His Excellency, the Governor of Trebizond,’ a voice said. The foreign-looking man removed his hat. ‘Sorry … I should introduce myself. Paul Trowbridge.’
    Like Riggs, he was tall and thin, his linen suit looking a little the worse for wear and hanging in creases at his elbows and knees. He towered over Hetty and patted Thomas on the cheek.
    ‘You’re welcome to Trebizond. The Vali was anxious to meet you.’
    The great man said something to Trowbridge in a dialect I didn’t understand, and left. It all seemed a great to-do about nothing, but Paul assured us it was otherwise. ‘It’s a mark of honour. Of respect. The Vali doesn’t usually meet foreigners at the quayside.’
    ‘Does he always behave oddly?’ I asked. ‘Staring like that?’
    ‘Only when he likes you.’
    Paul laughed at my expression and told me a rumour had spread that I had some skill as a dentist. ‘He wants you to pay him a visit. Our esteemed Vali has very bad teeth.’
    It took an age for the luggage to be unloaded and repacked onto the mules, so while we were waiting Paul suggested we eat at the local hotel. It was surprisinglygood, run by two French brothers from Bayonne. Over dinner Paul told us a little about himself. After qualifying as a doctor, he decided to travel through Europe, spending time in most of the major cities, before moving on to Athens and then Constantinople. Elias Riggs was his only contact, so he stayed with him in the city and worked there for a couple of years.
    ‘Not as a missionary,’ he said. ‘I never believed in all that “my God is better than your God” nonsense.’
    He apologised then, and said he hoped we didn’t think his views were offensive, but, in fact, I found myself liking Paul Trowbridge more and more. It was Riggs who offered Paul the position in Trebizond when a friend of his, Dr Fred Sheppard, died of typhus, and the authorities were looking for somebody to replace him.
    ‘How many years are you here?’ Hetty asked.
    ‘Too many,’ he said. ‘I’ve stopped counting. My parents are dead, and I have only one brother in England, so I rarely go back. This is home really. I hope you’ll come to feel about it as I do.’
    I assured him that we would give it our all, and I meant it. During the long trek across Europe I did have doubts about my decision to come to Turkey. From a career point of view, leaving the medical hierarchy was disastrous. Certain people, Hetty’s mother to name but one, thought that from all points of view it was disastrous, but Paul Trowbridge convinced me otherwise. By the time the food and wine arrived, I was congratulating myself on having made the right move.
    Before we had finished the meal, Hetty had told Paul a little about what we’d been doing in New York, and I could see they had hit it off immediately. She was charmed by his old-fashioned manners, and he was clearly taken with her unflappability and good humour. I should have taken against him since he is everything I am not: tall, handsome and charming, but it is impossible to dislike Paul Trowbridge. He is amiable, easy company, and we might have been there yet, had the time had not come to leave for Mushar.
    The last part of the journey proved to be the most difficult. Paul had warned usabout the army of flies in the mountain pass into the village, but nothing prepared us for them. We had brought wide-brimmed hats with netting and a floppy bonnet for the baby, but they were useless against the onslaught that descended as we rode in single file through the pass. As soon as we hit the treeline, they appeared, and no amount of swatting or netting kept them away. I spent the journey batting at the cloud above my head, and noticed that few of the little