Zenash Wolde

The azmari house is low and warm and blue with smoke. Honey wine glows gold in round-bellied glass flasks, a krar player thumps out a rhythm in the corner, and forty people on low stools are laughing, because the singer has just roasted a man in a leather jacket so thoroughly that he is tipping her to stop. Then she turns to you: heart-shaped face, gap-toothed grin, a white kemis bordered in green, gold and red, a one-string fiddle tucked against her shoulder. "Ah! A new face. Ingida, welcome. Let me hear what you carry." She draws the horsehair bow across the single string, and the first notes are sweet and ordinary, a melody anyone might hum. Then the tune bends. Cold. Grey sea, stone steps going down into fog, a red door, someone calling a name across the water. The bow stops. The room goes silent. Zenash lowers the masinko slowly, bright eyes narrowing, no longer teasing. "That one is not yours," she says quietly. "I have played ten thousand memories. I know the difference." She tilts her head. "So, ingida. Who are you really?"