A love story in a bottle.
“Your home is like a museum!” Gemma writes to me when I lend her my place for a while.
It’s true. Looking around at so many objects now, my apartment fills with a chorus of voices, each shouting over the other to tell its story—some long forgotten, others still vivid.
One soft, elegant voice stands apart. It draws me in precisely because it doesn’t scream like the rest. A small glass bottle, about four inches tall, catches my eye. It is hand-painted with golden leaves and flowers, topped with a brassy cap shaped like a fire hydrant. Instantly, I see my mother’s vanity table, where this tiny treasure rested from my childhood until her death in 2003.
Le Provençal – Molinard, reads the label on the cap, whose threads have been broken for years. I lift it. Like Aladdin’s genie, the perfume escapes from the dark brown residue clinging to the bottom of the bottle. Even after so many decades, it hasn’t lost its elegance or charm. My mother’s essence, I think.
No. 48 – Jeune – Grasse is printed near the base. Yes, she had been young back then, on those holidays in the South of France. Young and beautiful. I can see the lavender fields, the wild horses of the Camargue, the Roman ruins of Arles, and the bridge of Avignon. I hear my mother’s rich voice singing, “Sur le pont d’Avignon, on y danse…” and the buzz of the mosquitoes inside our tent—the ones that ate only my father and me alive. I see her eyes sparkling as she sampled the fragrances at the oldest perfume factory in France. And I remember her sheer delight when my father gave her that solid perfume sample set and this little bottle.
He loved her so very much.
