It suddenly dawned me that she collected the smell in these bottles or at least tried to capture it somehow. The girl turned her head and looked at me with piercing blue eyes. Her smile faded from her face like a beautiful rose which was cut off and put in a vase without water. She continued in a dreamy voice which was gradually turning into whisper:
„This scent reminds me of my childhood when I lived in a small village near Paris with my parents. We used to go to the forest after rain to pick mushrooms. We used to open the windows after rain, sit together by the fireplace and talk about everything. We used to go to the meadow after rain and wait for the rainbow to appear high in the sky. My parents died last autumn. I have nothing. I have nobody. This scent is the only memory of them that I have, the only reminder of those carefree days when I had a family, when I was loved. I sell petrichor so that people like me could forget their troubles and grief for at least fleeting seconds when they smell in this scent.“
I could not take my eyes off her. I felt her pain and hope with every single cell of my body but was not able to say a word. She got up, readjusted her dress, gave me one of her bottles, waved me good-bye and disappeared on the other side of the river bank. I was watching her go, her white feet stepping into puddles. When she was out of sight, I could long hear the rattling of the glass bottles with petrichor which she carried in a string bag.
It was getting dark, the summer sky cleared up and the red sun disappeared below the horizon. I set off to my apartment scarcely dragging my foot after the other like a baby who made his first steps and did not yet realize the whole mechanism of walking. As soon as I closed the door behind me I started working on her portrait without getting a wink of sleep for three long nights. It did not rain up until the end of summer. I walked almost every evening through the city in attempts to find her. In vain.
As the months went by, my pictures became successful and I made a name for myself, the memory of the acquaintance with Patrice was put in the back of my mind. I stopped searching for her. In spite of all, her shadow followed me day and night, she did not let me sink into despair when things did not go very well and it seemed as if the whole world turned against me. I always opened my windows after rain to let the sweet scent fill my room and my heart. Ten years raced by. After having read the article and realized that Patrice was dead, my being in this city lost any sense. This hope to see her again, to look in her blue eyes, to talk to her, to help her was buried somewhere at the bottom of the river.
I am standing at the window and for the last time sweeping the horizon of Paris, the city where the girl who sold petrichor lived, where every street reminds me of her hard life, where the river makes me want to lose my temper and scream at it for filling her lungs with dirt and blood, where the buildings have hidden her from me. I am turning my back to the window, taking the glass bottle down from the shelf, packing it in my suitcase. I am closing the door of my apartment and setting off to get a train which will bring me far away from the city of lost hope.
