I stuck my hands in the bowl, quickly, because I remembered that the water might be too acidic to be safe. My hands tingled when I dried them, so maybe the water wasn’t safe, or maybe my senses were just too screwed-up to be of much use.
Apart from the table, the hall contained a single piece of furniture: the obligatory long and narrow table against the far wall with the customary decorative arrangement on it: a couple of simple rocks in a bowl on one side, and a vase with a single closed flower in the other.
I had learned to observe those signs that influential people put on display for visitors to indicate their mood. The rocks signified something uncultured, probably me. The closed flower was no bud but a flower that had finished. It could signify that the time for business was past,
