Nobody who ever met Oliver Hoare could be objective about him, and I, who had the good fortune to know him, will not even try: he was among the most charming, beguiling, handsome men I ever met. And the stories—my God!—those stories. You could be sitting at his table in Provence, plied with Burgundy after admirable Burgundy, and Oliver’s dark eyes would begin to gleam with the lingering promise of there hangs a tale …
Then, from the lips of one of the legendary Islamic-art dealers of the last century, who happened also to be roommates with Bruce Chatwin, such stories as ought to belong in a modern Arabian Nights would pour out: involving motorboats racing down the Bosporus from which smuggled medieval Korans were thrown overboard, opium-laden orgies in caravanserais in pre-revolutionary Iran, and mornings of white heat, in which Princess Ashraf, the sister of the last Shah, or the Shahbanu herself, made casual appearances.
