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said, “Ceylon. China. India.”
    “How exotic,” said the French ambassador. “He travels to those places and actually returns as well.”
    “It sounds fascinating,” said the Russian woman. “Did you always know that was what you would do?”
    “It’s work,” the young man answered, ignoring her interruption. “One cannot buy tea without tasting it in the place where the blend was made.” He said blend as though the word itself contained all its magic.
    His voice was soft and pleasant, neither deep nor hoarse, a voice that moved Lila from where she was standing and brought her near.
    An Englishman was teasing him. “We brought tea to the West,” he said. “Until then, only Asians drank it, albeit quite a number of Asians. Still, only Asians.”
    “You English did indeed bring tea to the West,” said the young man, “but you have no real idea how to drink it.”
    “Oh ho!” said another Englishman. “Would the gentleman be bringing British hegemony into question?”
    “Not at all,” said the young man. The conversation perked up; he had succeeded in blowing some fresh air into the staid diplomat prattle, and had done so in impeccable English.
    A Belgian man said, “He’s quite right. What tidings can one expect from a nation that adds milk to its tea?”
    The Russian said, “In Russia we drink tea to keep warm, and, for your information, we were drinking it three hundred years ago—long before the English.”
    The young man seemed amused at the bonfire he had lit and had the confidence to enjoy the conflagration. His smile broadened, revealing strong, beautifully white teeth.
    The Frenchman said, “ Allez-y , Monsieur Riani. Show them what you know.”

    She heard his name.
    At that moment, she felt as though she had heard the name sometime in the past, though she had never met him, or had seen those eyes and those laugh lines—a feeling of déjà vu. He was charming, but he did not slather his charm around in great quantities. He merely drizzled it. In order to demonstrate the way in which the English drink tea, he passed his champagne glass to the Frenchman.
    In a refined pantomime, he lifted a cup of tea to his lips with a severe, utterly British expression on his face. “This is how the English hold the cup,” he said. “By the handle. And then you place it, with a cold slap of ceramic, on the saucer. You drink it tight-lipped, full of self-importance, while you nibble biscuits that only God knows what they have to do with tea.”
    The Englishmen were dumbstruck.
    “The Chinese, on the other hand,” continued Mr. Riani, exploiting his momentum, “hold the mug between their palms. They embrace it. They feel its heat, aware of its temperature, tasting its special flavor. There is something sensuous and simple in this method. And something distant and cold in the British way.”
    “Well, that’s a rather tendentious approach, don’t you think?” asked one of the Englishmen.
    “But precise,” said the tea man before the Englishmen had a chance to recover. “The Chinese are very exacting with their infusions. They have a pouring ceremony and examine the tea’s color. It’s a tradition going back a thousand years or more. And the English? You drink it with sugar and milk and cucumber sandwiches. Why, you don’t even grow it yourselves; the Indians and the Kenyans do it for you.”
    The French ambassador’s wife applauded. “Such a sensual description,” she raved.
    The other women in the circle gazed at him as well, and smiled. They were his captives now; he would likely retain their attention even if he began counting the number of mortars in the Swiss army.
    “We brought coffee to the West as well,” boasted one of the Englishmen.
    “That’s not exactly true,” said the tea man. “The first café in England was opened in the seventeenth century by an immigrant from Lebanon.”
    “An Arab?” asked one of the women, surprised.
    “A Jew,” said the tea man with a