Singing in the Wilderness Read Online Free PDF

waiter had gone. ‘I thought they had been dispossessed of their lands, first in Armenia itself, and then in Turkey. They haven’t any homeland of their own now, have they?’
    ‘I don’t think so,’ Stephanie replied. ‘But they have their own church and their own customs. They’re very much a distinct people still. Shah Abbas brought them to Isfahan from Julfa, which is now in the Soviet Union. They live across the river in a suburb called New Julfa, safe from persecution. The Persians have always been tolerant of other people. You remember it was Cyrus who allowed the Jews to return to the Holy Land from Babylon? And the Armenians have certainly returned the hospitality they received then and now. They are some of the best craftsmen around—and some of the most astute businessmen!’
    Cas smiled slowly. ‘You like it here, don’t you?’ he said.
    ‘Yes, I do.’ She didn’t try to explain the passionate liking she had for Isfahan. It had come as a surprise to her when, after she and her father had more or less settled into the apartment the company had hired for them, she had found herself feeling more at home in this foreign city than she ever had in her parents’ home in Surrey. ‘Perhaps what they say is right,’ she said shyly. ‘Perhaps that’s the meaning of the world that we find here. Beautiful buildings, paintings, tree-lined streets, and a pride in living, are better values than our technology gives us. It would be a pity if it were all to change now.’
    ‘ Don’t you approve of better communications?’ he asked her.
    ‘In their place. I don’t think they should be confused with civilisation—to me they’re quite different!’
    His eyes narrowed as he watched her closely. ‘You think we can have one without the other?’
    She was unused to having her ideas taken seriously and for one blank, rather frightening moment she wondered exactly what she did think about it.
    ‘No,’ she said at last. ‘One has to have technology before one can have any civilisation that’s worthy of the name, but technology is the servant and has to remain so if the all-important human dimension of life is to be kept. As soon as it becomes the master, mankind loses something of itself.’
    ‘Like your mother’s computed music?’ he suggested.
    She was glad he had understood her meaning so quickly. ‘It’s only my personal opinion,’ she said. ‘I don’t expect you to agree with me, though. Technology must mean a lot to you.’
    ‘A lot, but not everything.’
    He changed the subject when their food came, amused by the careful way she tasted the dish she had chosen and smiling at her pleased expression when she found she liked it.
    ‘What are you thinking about now ? ’ he asked her.
    ‘I was tasting to see what’s in it,’ she confessed. ‘It would be nice to be able to make it myself. I like trying new, exotic dishes.’ She sat back, defeated. ‘It’s too complicated to distinguish all the ingredients,’ she said, disappointed. ‘Bother!’
    ‘Does it mean so much to you?’ Cas teased her.
    ‘I suppose it does. I find it interesting, like you do digital coding or something like that. I enjoy cooking.’
    Cas flicked his fingers to the waiter and pointed to his plate. ‘Find out from the chef how he made this, will you,’ he ordered him. ‘Miss Black wants to know. Oh, and tell him that we find it delicious, s o delicious we want to be able to make it for ourselves.’
    A little pink, Stephanie cast him a reproving look, but the waiter was all smiles as he hurried away on his mission. When he came back, he was carrying a piece of paper in his hand with the recipe written in both Persian and English which he handed to Stephanie with a triumphant flourish.
    ‘The chef, he says you must put all these things in for the sauce to be correct,’ he told her. ‘Chicken, shortening, tomato sauce, onion, walnuts, cinnamon, lemon juice and, most important of all, the pomegranate juice and the