The Perfumer of Grasse – Part 1: A Scent Like Him

The laboratory was at the top of a narrow stone staircase in the old town of Grasse, above a shop that sold lavender soap to tourists. The windows were open to the hills. Outside, the air smelled of jasmine, sun-warmed pine and the faint, sweet rot of ripe figs.

Margaux had worked here for eight years. She could identify forty notes blindfolded, and she had never once been asked to make a scent for a specific person.

"A man called Idris Bennani has booked you," said her assistant, Paul, handing her a sealed letter. "He says he'll pay double if you agree to meet him in person."

"Why does he want to meet me?"

"He says he's been looking for a particular scent for twenty years," said Paul. "And he thinks you're the only one who can make it."

Margaux opened the letter. Inside was a single sheet of heavy cream paper, and a note in neat black handwriting.

I remember a summer afternoon in a field of lavender, and a woman's laugh. I've never been able to find the smell of it again. Would you try?

She read it twice. Then, without quite knowing why, she put the letter in her pocket.

The meeting was in the garden of a stone villa on the hill above town, where roses climbed the walls and the view swept over the whole valley. Idris was already waiting, sitting at a low iron table, reading a book with a cracked spine.

He was tall, lean and quiet, with grey at his temples and dark, thoughtful eyes. He stood when he saw her, and didn't hold out his hand.

"Margaux," he said. "You came."

"You asked nicely," she said.

"I asked honestly," said Idris. "There's a difference."

She sat down opposite him. He poured her a glass of cold water and set it on the table, a careful, unhurried gesture.

"Tell me about the lavender field," said Margaux.

He was quiet for a long moment. "It was in Provence, years ago. I was twenty-two, on my first holiday after university. I'd gone to see the fields, and there was a woman in a straw hat, laughing at her friend who had fallen into a ditch." He smiled faintly. "I never learned her name. I only remember the laugh, and the smell of lavender and warm earth on her skin."

"And you want me to recreate that."

"I want to smell it again," said Idris, very simply. "Just once. I've been carrying it for twenty years. It's heavy."

Margaux looked at him for a long time. She saw the careful, guarded tenderness in his face, and something loosened in her chest.

"I'll try," she said. "But I'll need to know everything. The weather, the time of day, what you were wearing, what you felt."

"Then we'll need more than one afternoon," said Idris.

"Yes," said Margaux. "We will."

She took out her notebook. Her hand was steady, but her heart had begun to thud in a slow, insistent rhythm she hadn't felt in years.

"Green?" asked Idris, quietly, looking at her over the rim of the glass.

Margaux smiled, slow and curious. "Very green," she said. "Now tell me about the wind."