Jasmine. She had wound a white string of fresh blossoms into her hair and let it brush against the copper-brown nape of her neck. I lowered my head and smelt anise. Its sweet scent stirred a memory of two lovers draped around one another in hazy exhaustion. A decade before, beside Kandawgyi Lake I had seen them reading the future in each other’s palms, then watched a sandal slip off the girl’s tanned foot to reveal the pale brush of whiteness left by a thong. I took another breath, and the whiff of coffee came back to me. The unhurried widow had drunk it through a straw, perching on a tiny stool, balancing with tidy grace a brick’s height above the broken pavement. Her modest longyi was tucked and folded around her limbs. I inhaled again, and the trapped aromas recalled the taste of mohinga and caraway, a shock of fiery spices, the recollection of light morning laughter. In my mind I heard the gurgle of wood-pigeons and listened to the rustle of palm leaves in the breeze. I remembered water vendors’ plastic cups tap-tapping against their aluminium buckets like the clip-clop of horses’ hooves.
