It is a beautiful autumn day. My last day in Paris. I am looking out of the window of my small apartment with a view over the Seine River. My luggage is packed, a train ticket lays upon the dining table near the polished copper ash-tray and a fresh morning newspaper. Today is the first day since weeks when the sun has shown its yellow face through the clouds and thus has given a colour to the generally black and white picture of the city. Yet I am not able to enjoy perhaps the last sunny days before the beginning of the winter’s merciless reign. Mere fragments of a small article on the last page of the newspaper keep running through my mind in a wild swirl piercing my heart.<\/p>\n
The authorities have found a body of a red-haired young woman floating in the river. According to the local citizens, the girl had been often seen sitting by one or another bridge on rainy days clutching some empty glass bottles with cork. When it stopped raining, she would open the bottles, wait for a few minutes, cork them up again and vanish in the narrow streets of the city. Her identity was unknown. The police suggests that two days ago when it was heavily raining, she got blown away by the strong wind into the river, whereupon she drowned.<\/p>\n
The river has become a watery grave for so many people that one usually flicks through the newspaper without paying attention to the names or descriptions of the deceased. Yet some unknown force has made me read the last page this morning as if the words have stepped out of the paper, sat in front of me and kept loudly slurping coffee until they irritated me so much that I have finally taken a note of their presence and cast a glance at the article. Red-haired young woman\u2026 glass bottles with cork\u2026 A dim memory stirred in my mind. Suddenly my coffee tasted salty. I knew her. I barely knew her. I painted her once. She was the reason why I have been living in Paris for so many years and why I am leaving it today. The girl who sells petrichor is dead.<\/p>\n
I met her on the very first day of my arrival in Paris in summer. I was attracted to this place like any other man of art in a search of abiding inspiration, striking success and promising future. As soon as the train from Marseille arrived at the station, I \u2013 a nineteen-year-old spindling young man wearing black cotton trousers, a white linen shirt with paint splatters, a brown waistcoat and a flat cap \u2013 stepped out on the platform in the thrill of anticipation of the days to come. I rushed through the city bumping up against passers-by and clutching a crumbled up piece of paper with my new address on. I burned with desire to find my accommodation, a small apartment under the roof, and then set out on search of inspiration. When I came in I promptly removed the contents of my suitcase, took an easel, a canvas, an old paintbrush, a palette, some paint with and set off for Montmartre. Having heard from my father that many artists exercised their talent there I wished to see them with my own eyes.<\/p>\n
I did not meet any soul on my way up. The narrow streets were shining wet, the air was fresh, the sky was overcast. It had been recently pouring. The rain herded people into the warmth of their houses like a shepherd his sheep. I turned around the corner and stopped aghast at the sight of a living creature. It was a young woman in a blue summer dress which barely covered her knees. She stood under the roof of a porch, barefoot, empty glass bottles with cork in her hands. One glimpse was enough to remember her red hair and big blue almond-shaped eyes for the rest of my life. She did not notice me at once so I had a few moments to absorb her image in my memory and marvel at her innocence, hopefulness and slight melancholy in her gaze. She excited my curiosity. I saw magnificent pictures of her being formed before my inner eye as if I looked into a kaleidoscope rotating it and seeing at every turn various colours and patterns. Awakening from this contemplation I decided to talk to the girl. I approached her and asked her name. She answered vividly and without any amazement at seeing a person on the deserted street:<\/p>\n
\u201ePatrice. And yours?\u201c<\/p>\n
\u201eI am Victor. If I may ask, what do you need these bottles for?\u201c<\/p>\n
The girl suddenly smiled and her eyes twinkled with joy:<\/p>\n
\u201eI am selling petrichor.\u201c<\/p>\n
I thought at first that I did not catch the word. Yet on my request to repeat it again I realized that I had never heard this word before and could not even closely imagine what it meant. Patrice saw my perplexed face, laughed cheerfully and asked me to follow her. We went down through the cobble-stoned paths, moved away from the white church on a hill and came nearer to the Seine river. She did not breathe a word during our descent. I was following her like a lamb to the slaughter. When we reached the river she showed me a bridge and encouraged me to sit nearby. I was enjoying the view of the old majestic buildings, the languid course of the river, the noisy sound of seagulls when the girl began to tell her story:<\/p>\n
\u201eI come here often. Mostly on rainy days though. Have you ever noticed this wonderful sweet fresh scent of the air after rain?\u201c<\/p>\n
\u201eI guess so. Why?\u201c<\/p>\n
She was looking in the distance, the clouds reflecting in her eyes.<\/p>\n
\u201eWell, this is what I sell. Petrichor. The smell after rain.\u201c
\n<\/p>\n
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:<\/p>\n
\u201eThis 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.\u201c<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Girl who Sold Petrichor<\/strong>
\nIt is a beautiful autumn day. My last day in Paris. I am looking out of the window of my small apartment with a view over the Seine River. My luggage is packed, a train ticket lays upon the dining table near the polished copper ash-tray and a fresh morning newspaper. Today is the first day since weeks when the sun has shown its yellow face through the clouds and thus has given a colour to the generally black and white picture of the city.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1823,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-324","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fiction"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue21\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue21\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue21\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue21\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue21\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=324"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue21\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2110,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue21\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324\/revisions\/2110"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue21\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1823"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue21\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue21\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue21\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}