turning the conversation away from an awkward subject.
'Yes, indeed,' said Valentina Ilinichna, concerned. 'It's after two already...'
'He's been here for a long time,' Murat commented from the kitchen again. 'He's wandering round the yard with a broom ?I can see him through the window. He probably decided we'd ask him to cook the pilaf... '
Nodir walked across quickly to the door and called out:
'Afandi, what are you doing?'
'Sweeping the yard,' the fifth member of the Samarkand Watch replied, with a dignified air. To judge from his voice, not only had he been born three hundred years earlier, his body was far from young too.
Nodir turned back to us and shrugged apologetically. He called again:
'Afandi, come in - we have a guest!'
'I know we have a guest. That's why I'm sweeping!'
'Afandi, the guest is already in the house. Why are you cleaning outside?'
'Eh, Nodir! Don't you teach me how to receive guests! When the guest is still outside - everybody cleans and tidies the house. But if the guest is in the house, you have to clean outside!'
'Have it your own way, Afandi.' Nodir laughed. 'You know best, of course. But meanwhile we're going to eat grapes and drink cognac'
'Wait, Nodir!'Afandi replied agitatedly. 'It would be disrespectful to the guest not to dine at the same table with him!'
A moment later Afandi was standing in the doorway He looked absolutely ridiculous. A pair of trainers with the laces unfastened on his feet, a pair of blue jeans held up with a Soviet Army belt and a white nylon shirt with big broad buttons. Nylon is a durable material. The shirt was probably twenty or thirty years old. Afandi himself was a clean-shaven old man (the scraps of newspaper stuck to the cuts on his chin suggested that this cost him a serious effort) with a balding head. He was about sixty years old. He cast an approving glance at the table, leaned his broom against the door post and skipped briskly across to me.
'Hello, respected guest. May your Power increase like the fervour of a man undressing a woman! May it rise to the second level and even the first!'
'Afandi, our guest is a Higher Magician,?Valentina Ilinichna put in. 'Why do you wish him the second level?'
'Quiet, woman!' said Afandi, letting go of my hand and taking a seat at the table. 'Do you not see how quickly my wish has come true and even been exceeded?'
The members of the Watch laughed, but without the slightest malice. Afandi ?I scanned his aura and discovered that the old man was on the very lowest level of Power ?was regarded as the jester of the Samarkand Watch. But he was a well-loved jester: they would forgive him any foolish nonsense and never let him come to any harm.
'Thank you for the kind word, Father,' I said. 'Your wishes really do come true with remarkable speed.'
The old man nodded as he threw half a peach into his mouth with evident relish. His teeth were excellent ?he might not take much care of his appearance, but he obviously attached great importance to that particular part of his body
'They're all young whippersnappers here,' he muttered. 'I'm sure they haven't even welcomed you properly. What's your name, dear man?'
'Anton.'
'My name's Afandi. That means a sage,' said the old man, looking round sternly at the other members of the Watch. 'If it weren't for my wisdom, the powers of Darkness, may they wither in agony and burn in hell, would long ago have drunk their sweet little brains and chewed up their big stringy livers!'
Nodir and Timur chortled.
'I understand why our livers are stringy,' said Nodir, pouring the cognac. 'But why are our brains sweet?'
'Because wisdom is bitter, but foolishness and ignorance are sweet!' Afandi declared, washing down his peach with a glass of cognac. 'Hey! Hey, you fool, what do you think you're doing?'
'What?' said Timur, who was about follow his cognac with a few grapes. He looked at Afandi quizzically.
'You can't follow cognac with grapes!'
'Why?'
'It's the same thing as boiling a kid in its mother's milk!'
'Afandi, only Jews don't boil young goat meat in milk!'
'Do you?'
'No,' said Timur, abashed. 'Why use milk?
'Then don't follow cognac with grapes!'
'Afandi, I have only known you for three minutes, but I have already tasted so much wisdom that I shall be digesting it for an entire month,' I put in to attract the old man's attention. 'The wise Geser sent me to Samarkand. He asked me to find his old