I see myself on the giant terrace of my house on the Amalfi Coast, walking back and forth, smelling strongly of perfume and enjoying the magnificent view. Cypress trees right and left. It’s an evening in August, and soon the sun will sink into the sea. I’m not wearing any clothes. Though I’m very shy, no one can see onto my terrace in any case. When the scent of my perfume is barely there, I walk over to my perfume dispenser and pour a bit more over my head. Then I begin pacing up and down my terrace again. Suddenly I notice that this perfume smells like peaches. I’m really happy about this discovery. I begin singing a song from Herman van Veen. I go inside, as I’m afraid of the insects that arrive in the early evening. The rooms of my house are almost empty. Only a collapsable desk is there, with small souvenirs arranged on top, trophies of my greatest sporting achievements: sailing, mountain climbing, skiing… and otherwise, just two books. One is the autobiography of Herman van Veen. The other is a white book, my own White Book, also an autobiography. I’ve just finished reading it again in a single night. It’s my personal copy, the one I take with me on world tours. I sit down at the desk on a collapsable stool and scribble a note: “Call Daniel Craig!” I want to win him over for the filming of my bestseller. He looks a little older than me, but we can fix that digitally in the post-production. And he’s gained some weight recently. He loves cookies. He eats cookies all day. Lots and lots of butter cookies.
A messenger enters the living room: “Herr Horzon, Maximillian Rödel from Berlin has arrived!”
“Very good, very good, let him in!” I call out, throwing on a robe.
“My dear sir!” I call out to Rödel.
“My dear sir!” Rödel replies.
“What brings you here?” I ask Rödel.
“As you know,” answers Rödel, “I am planning to release a perfume this fall.”
“This much I know,” I answer.
“And in order to market this perfume, I’m publishing a magazine for which I’d like to do an interview with you!”
“Of course, gladly.”
“Jolly good. I’ll turn on the dictaphone now.”
The Interview
Max Rödel: What is your first memory of scent?
Rafael Horzon: My mother, she used Opium from Yves Saint Laurent. Only when she went to the opera, however. Later, I got to know Yves Saint Laurent in Paris, by the way.
Max Rödel: How did that come about?
Rafael Horzon: He approached me at the Café de Flore. I was sitting alone; I was still very young. We became fast friends, played chess, smoked cigarettes…
Max Rödel: Were perfumes also in Yves Saint Laurent’s apartment?
Rafael Horzon: None, but this Duchamp bottle, Belle Haleine, which went on auction after Yves’ death.
Max Rödel: Not a trace of his own perfumes?
Rafael Horzon: Not a trace.
Max Rödel: How did his apartment smell?
Rafael Horzon: It smelled of cookies. Yves was obsessed with cookies, or, more precisely, Nutter Butters. He had distributed them throughout the apartment in big bowls because he loved the scent so much. In the last years, he survived almost exclusively on a diet of these cookies, in fact. And it had to be Nutter Butters; that was his true obsession. When he thought something was good, he didn’t say, “bon,” or “bien” but rather “Nutter Butters.”
Max Rödel: And how did he smell himself?
Rafael Horzon: Like cookies.
“Thank you very much, that will be enough!” said Rödel, turning off his dictaphone.
“And tell me,” said Horzon, smoking thoughtfully on his pipe, “what will you call your perfume?”
“Probably Rödel,” said Rödel.
“I like it a lot!” said Horzon.
“Perhaps also Prehistoric Sunset,” said Rödel.
“I like it even more!” said Horzon.
“Somehow really nice, right?” said Rödel. “Sounds more international…”
“Without a doubt,” said Horzon.
For a while, both men sat in silence next to each other, looking to the sea. The sun sank below the horizon turning the sky a yellow-orange-rose.
“Looks a little like these peach gummy bears from Haribo…” said Horzon.
“You’re right,” answered Rödel, “and that’s exactly how my perfume should smell too, by the way…”
The men sat in silence again for a long while, watching the extraordinarily beautiful sunset.
“How would it be,” said Horzon in the end, “if you were to paint sunsets for the marketing of your perfume?”
“On canvas?” asked Rödel.
“Yes, exactly, on canvas,” said Horzon, holding out his hands to mark out a section of the sky. “Imagine this section here, for example, if you were to paint it on canvas, 150 x 200 cm, it might look really good…”
Rödel put his hands out and squinted. Then he put his hands down again and looked to the sky, just as Horzon, deeply lost in thoughts.
Then night arrived.
END
Rafael Horzon