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him and then thought better of it. The meaning of the message sank in. Aha! She was going to get right on the job!
    I hurried off. I took a bath. I went into my costume department and found a cloth to wind into a turban and also a caftan to wear.
    Finally I went out. Melahat and Karagoz and the two small boys had been doing things to the salon. I was glad now I had let Karagoz buy all those new rugs. The servants had set up a little raised dais with cushions on it. They indicated I was to sit there. There was a pile of pillows in the middle of the floor, some distance from and lower than where I was to sit.
    Karagoz, apparently on instructions, turned the lights very low. Two oil lamps were set up to drift a soft yellow-orange flame light through the room.
    The staff stole away.
    I sat on the dais, cross-legged, and waited for Utanc.
Chapter 5
    In about twenty minutes, the salon door cracked open slightly. I was aware that an eye was at the slit. But I knew how shy, modest and bashful she must be and I was afraid to frighten her with sudden movements so I sat still.
    The door opened a trifle wider. Like a shadow, she slid through it. She halted. The yellow-orange flame light reached her.
    She was dressed in baggy pantaloons and a very tight vest that hid her breasts but left her throat and belly bare. She wore no slippers and her toenails were bright scarlet. She had a band of flowers around her raven-black hair. She was veiled!
    But her eyes, slightly slanted, very large, were fixed on me in what might be fear.
    She had one hand up under her veil and I could see that one fingertip must be gripped bashfully between her teeth.
    I beckoned for her to come on in.
    She very nearly fled.
    I stopped my motion. A minute went by. Gradually, she seemed to gather courage and came fully into the room. In her left hand she bore a couple of musical instruments.
    Timidly, she approached the pillows in the center of the room. I could see her better. Her skin was a tawny color. I could not see her face because of the veil but her eyes, downcast and flicking up only occasionally, were beautiful.
    She put down one instrument—I saw that it was about eighteen inches in diameter, a sort of tambourine.
    Gracefully she sank, cross-legged, on a pillow. She put the other instrument in her lap. I recognized it as a cura irizva, a long-necked sort of lute with three strings and frets.
    "O Master," she whispered, and I could barely hear her, "with your permission and at your command, I will sing."
    I waved my hand in a lordly fashion. "Sing!" I commanded.
    She flinched and I realized I had spoken too loudly.
    Her eyes were downcast. She tuned the cura irizva. Then she began to play without singing. BEAUTIFUL! Traditional Turkish music is very oriental and it ends on indefinite upbeats and usually I don't like it. But such was the dexterity of her hands and so expert her rendition that the whole place seemed transported into a dream world. What an accomplished musician!
    The last chord died away. I was afraid to applaud. She was now looking at me so shyly under her eyebrows that I was sure she thought she had been too bold.
    Then she whispered, "There are no recording devices in this place, are there?"
    It startled me. And then I realized why she was asking. The primitive Turks have a superstition that if you record their voices, they will lose them. It proved beyond doubt she was just a Kara Rum desert wanderer, a wild thing.
    I said, "No, no. Of course not."
    But she got up, her movements poetry itself, and went around the room looking behind things just to be sure. She came back and sat down. She picked up her cura irizva. "I did not feel bold enough to sing," she whispered, "but I will sing now."
    She struck several chords and then she sang:
    She rose like the moon into heaven's embrace.
    She opened her mouth of the dew to taste.
    And then came the sun!
    She retreated in haste!
    All scorched with the rays of your burning!
    I was entranced! Her voice