Paris. 2013, Excerpt

Bangla Sangam in 1497 first sang it.

After humming six or seven notes for weeks she finally arrived at the magical refrain on her tiny plot of land, kilometers outside of Bangui beating the family shirts against a rock in the stream.

The long neck birds wading in the warm waters seemed to notice. The air above became aligned and the lapping waters waited.

Are there certain specific sequences of notes in music when played together at ideal tempos which are keys to a kingdom we cannot see, she thought. We are all artists then; her heart flowed with energy.

Bangla wept quietly through the nights after her husband barely noticed her song in the background. He appreciated music, loved her voice yet never noticed what she knew was an inspired song.

In any case, this is all history. From there, the song was taken by the river where the laundry was done and spread. Today, it’s an iconic folk song, varied out in dialects across Asia and its contexts, across hillsides over centuries, on top of the same 7 notes – the original of which were Banglas’.

Bangla wrote in her silence: there’s something in a new flavor, in a scent, in a mind, in a heart, in a moment, also residing on the other side of time. with powers that touch us, raising hairs on our arms and sending shivers in spasm down our spine. If I did know love, my soul would pulse out through my lower throat when I heard you are here.

She was talking only to a dream. There was no one she loved. Yet she knew what love would feel like just as she remembers holding yard flowers as a girl, or riding her fathers back and his long hair in her face, her brothers rough but loving play, her busy but present mother. Just as she remembers her neighbors and her God and the sound of the cats hair pushing against the house on cold nights.

Love is a thing girls seem to understand and boys seem to notice. Beyond that sort of love, loving, that’s a whole paradigm, an entire way of being in, and to, the world.

When Bangla met Sanji at the market at the age of 47 she returned to youth, running her hand through spices.

‘The only thing that can kill it is love’ were his first words. Meaning, too much caressing of the bright orange would distill and destroy the spice.

His forehead was very pointed, ashen and sunken around the eyes, but thick through the jaw and mouth, with tied back black hair flaring like a mane.

He hadn’t seen her yet. Following the tiny rough hand up the yellow sleeve, there was something in her fingers and her wrists that implored him. He was questioning his strict tone now.

Her eyes were fixed on his neck and hair, back and forth, back and forth. She too hadn’t seen his face which was blocked by giant bowls serving alms, ambient and spice.

She thought the sound of the falling spices from her hands back into the bowl could be heard across the market…