I'm sitting in a café in Rome and order the number sixteen because it's very expensive and I remember having ordered and liked something similar before. The waiter brings an orange liquid, places it on the table and stands in wait, bobbing up and down on his knees. "I don't give a shit," I say to him in my mind and bend over the cylindrical plastic container, no bigger than a butterfly by the way and incredibly narrow, to suck in the aerosols rising from it. Citrusy, says the waiter, snatches the ridiculously small container from me in a predictably nimble movement and holds a spacesuit out to me. "Get in there, then we'll continue."
The backdrops of the busy piazza are pushed aside and a parched steppe landscape takes shape. The sun is burning, cicadas are chirping. A slightly fizzy oxygen, which I know from
Sultan Vetiver and
Grenadille d'Afrique, is let into my helmet as I torpedo over dry woodland. It's wonderfully cool in my spacesuit.
"Is that petitgrain?" I ask without expecting an answer. "It's furry on the tongue."
"You can smell the surroundings through the filter in your helmet," I hear over the intercom.
I look around me. Trees, bushes, wildflowers.
"Move towards it with your nose."
Not far from me, a fir tree, making itself as narrow as possible, points to the sky. Slightly ethereal, cistus resinous, gnarled and dry, I think as I brush the needles with my gloves and stir up earthy dust. "You have chosen an inhospitable area for your proud, lush greenery."
After some time wandering through this rustic landscape, I enter a small grove, in the center a large tree bearing chestnuts. The waiter from the beginning crawls out of a bush, opens a fruit lying on the ground and shows me the strange-looking red and black nut.
"You know nutmeg from home, but you know nothing about the plant, the production process of the spice, the hallucinatory effect, nothing at all. You probably always buy those pre-packaged sachets and sprinkle some into your mashed potatoes. We put a pinch of it in the liquid from before, just a little bit really, we wanted the contrast with the oil, the resin, the effervescence, it's a bit too much, I know, very dry, dusty almost, yes, we wanted it that way. It's a humorless, rustic creation. The landscape, life out here, it's not dolce vita, but it's calm, not hectic, in harmony with nature, for a thousand years. It will always be like this here. It's a hard, beautiful life. We have made a point of that. Simplicity, restraint, do you understand?" He pats me on the shoulder and a caraway-fresh drop of sweat rolls down his forehead from his nose.
"I understand, yes. You did a good job. I like that too. I'm not a snob, I'm all for nature and stuff. Parfum d'Empire does the same thing with their Orange Cracker, much more soapy, maybe not as clearly structured as yours. Do you know that one?"
With a mischievous look of feigned indignation, the waiter swings around one hundred and eighty degrees and strolls off without a word.
Quite overwhelmed by his little speech, I look after him for a while.
"What's your name anyway?" I call out hurriedly.
"A-ZZA-RRROOOOO!" he calls back in a cheerful singsong.
Azzaro pour Homme Eau de Toilette, I think. The old cube. I knew there was tradition involved.
I stalk along the shimmering silhouette of Azzaro, the oxygen cools down in a pleasantly eucalyptic way and takes on a Guerlainesque feel. I rub here and there over the woods and shrubs as I boldly imagine a life in this finely crafted, somewhat serious scented area.
"I don't mean to be rude, but is there anything else to see or smell here? Azzaro?"
A voice announces over the intercom: "You can stay here as long as you like, the oxygen will last for a few hours. You will also notice that the impressions you have gained so far will merge into a velvety whole and become more elegant. I advise you to persevere. When you leave the steppe, please take your spacesuit to the checkout, where you will receive a small vial as a gift and your bill. Arrivederci."
Vetiver
Cypress
Nutmeg
Sandalwood
