I’m seductive, sublime, redolent of pepper and hot desert wind, but common, like salt. I fill the room, a hot, dense fog. No one ignores me. Not everyone loves me, I get that, I’m an acquired taste, like dry wine that tastes of berries and loam. I’m a smokier sort, the kind of woman who enters a room dangling a cigarette from her fingers, eyes blackened with kohl, her voice a thick Turkish coffee. You imagine the Silk Road, dusty paths with caravans of camels. Actually, I traveled with the Spanish, fertile and amorous, spreading my love to all, taking root in rocks and soot. I’m polymorphous; I’ve gone as far as China. But you’ll find me, in the mole, masala, mutaki. I sneak up on you. I’m sly and overpowering. I’m the overtones of the marketplace, the residue of the hearth, the charred remains of game .
