It was the first time that he had smelled the perfume of orange trees in flower, he came from a climate too cold for them, but it seemed as though the perfume that he inhaled was only the trace of some other larger, sweeter flower, hidden in the past. Even when his nose was so close to the flower that it almost touched it, the perfume remained elusive.
Like certain jazz records, he thought, where notes are omitted or blued, turning the melody bitter-sweet from the knowledge that it is unable to reach the listener.
It's intoxicating, this perfume, he thought. He could feel an intensification of each emotion that passed. "Do you like it?" asked Gioia. She had taken him to Ivrea, to see the old factory and the wild orange blossom.
He turned towards her voice and felt a long, high, electric note. He turned back to smell the flower again, in confusion, to find words that it was permissible to say. "Yes, it's very sweet," he said, hesitating, afraid of losing his balance, "like music coming from another room".
"I used to walk here, often", said Gioia. He indicated the flower and said "You try it, it seems, it seems to be elsewhere. It smells of elsewhere." She breathed it in with half-closed eyes, her face inches away from his. In another room a muted trumpet was playing. "Elsewhere", she said.
The perfume was too sad. He walked away from the flowers and looked at the sky. A golden band above the horizon was turning pale. A sudden cold breeze brought a gust of perfume.
They stopped on the way back to buy orange water-ice for dinner.
Paolo, her fiancé, had also brought something for dinner; he arrived back at the house with a large beribboned parcel. The name of the cake shop was written on the paper in ornamental caligraphics, inside a pale gold shield. Pasticcheria Novecento, Twentieth Century Cakes.
"What did you do this afternoon?" asked Paolo. "We saw the wild orange flowers", he said. "They smelled so, sweet. I'd never.."
Paolo followed his glance towards Gioia, and said, perplexed, "what is it?" "The perfume, I don't know how to explain, do you know Miles Davis' music?"
"I have a Miles Davis CD", said Gioia. She put it on the stereo. He ate orange water-ice and listened.
Elsewhere, a flower as big as a century was fading. Soft petals were falling like musical caresses, this one, this one, this one, and this one.