“El amor más fuerte, nunca fuese concebido en carne"
A proverb from Medieval al-Andalus, 1358 A.D.
The Booga club, in the ancient parts of Granada, Andalucía, was dense with gente. Jazz was flowing from the scene: Ghanaian, British, and South Korean musicians were jamming together. Smoke with coloured lights, people like shadows, and the tunes of jazz, all crowded the basement.
“Aleumdaun yeonpil hoeg-ui heuleum,” a Korean boy said, and pointed at my sketch. I looked at him, as if I had just woken up, and wondered where I was. I thanked him with a nod. Looking at my picture once again, I noticed you, as you resembled my drawing; it was the first time that you entered my imagination.
Years later, I saw the Booga drawing at my parents’ home, and I got closer. A guitar sprang out from the boy’s body, and he was you. Not far from him was a girl’s face: it must have been me. The instrument turned into a tower, and from its spire sprung the girl.
I travelled back to the Booga jam. That is how I returned; I bought a set of pencils and a pile of paper, and one day, I heard a scratch; you drew my name again many miles away.
I outlined the thriving soil beyond the desert of Almería. Another year had passed, and soon I formed a huge terrain, which was framed by mountains, and the valley belonging to your father. I would see your home at last; finally, my sketches brought me here.
The animals walked freely around the farmhouse and the yard, while your dad was working, incessantly, on the estate. Both of you were engaged with all the visitors, while I was a pair of extended eyes, a witness to what was going on – we watched the fresh vegetables as they grew.
Later, he, who were you, wanted me to keep up sketching. A large canvas had been prepared in an isolated room. This gift warmed up my fingers. I painted, with my compass turned towards the Booga club, and just as in Andalucía, the moon was shining, feeding the Almería pampas.
Again, it was a Sunday night, when the jam moved within our bodies. We entered it again, yet from two separate parts of the room. He, who indeed was you, lay in bed but with a distant gaze towards the jamming; while the moon was veiled in clouds, and I grew one with painted longing.
“Aninwula viela,” I heard as if through a mist of smoke and aroma from the paint; we were back in Booga club, as the time relapsed, and music drills were reaching climax. My hand sketched, but when I turned my eyes towards my hand, it suddenly looked mechanical. As I scanned the movements of my palm and fingers, the mood escaped, so I looked away.
In the same way, I turned away from him, who once was you. While now, my ears, my eyes, my touch; with all my senses I dived back into the smeared contours of a night: into the painting’s breath, beneath our bending torsos.
“Kehe kamhei kahi gaiha,” you once said in the middle of a street of Albaicín, and your fingers snapped in front of me. I woke up, though I wasn’t sleeping, and I remembered every contour in the Booga saying.
Story and illustration by Gabriella Cederström.