This Perfume Reeks of Déjà Vu

I squat on the shower tiles, blue and white, and zip open my wet makeup bag. A floral pungence wafts out and overwhelms; it blossoms in my nose, my head, my heart, like a sweet, throbbing migraine. I pluck my eyeshadow palette from the wet mess, and mourn the smudged and sparkling petals of burgundy; they too smell of manmade flowers. I dig precariously through the bag and find the culprit with an ouch; a broken perfume bottle pricks my finger like a thorn, and déjà vu smells of Gucci Flora. I pluck the pink shards from the bag like petals—he loves me, he loves me not—and plop them into an empty plastic bag. I can smell his T-shirt again, soaked in this floral perfume, I can smell his sweat again, I can smell the tobacco on his breath as his warm tongue finds mine.

I lie on the tiles and close my eyes, nursing my headache, feeding this fever dream. I’m not sure if I’m intoxicated by the scent or the memory. Sometimes I think I see him, but it’s just the way the light bends; it’s just another bearded man, another furrowed brow, another pair of eyes in a bustling crowd. He couldn’t be here anyway, not in France, so why do I still see him?

Romance. It’s a plastic corsage tied to the wrist with cheap ribbon, it’s a withering boutonnière, it’s a bouquet laid by a grave: it’s a sorry selection of contrite clichés. And what is this universal and timeless fascination with flowe—

Knock, knock.

I lie on the shower tiles, blue and white, and ignore the knocking. I see a pair of pink sandals and ten clumsily painted rose petals.

“T’as fini toi?”

She sighs a guttural, exaggerated sigh, and I can hear the mucous fill her head as though she’s about to cough up phlegm. Another knock, a resigned sigh, and the pink sandals depart with a squelch, smacking her soles all down the corridor. A piece of me, a shard of me, hopes she slips. My mind’s a little jagged sometimes, just a shard of this broken perfume bottle. I turn on my side and poke at the pink shards of glass. They still smell of chemicals. That’s all perfume is, really, unless alluding to Patrick Suskind: chemistry in a quaint bottle. Chemistry. Did we have any? He said we didn’t, not really. Just the broken bottle, then, the drenched T-shirt, the sweat, the tobacco tongue, the shards on the bathroom tiles.

God, this perfume reeks of déjà vu! and it blossoms in my nose, my head, my heart, like a sweet, throbbing migraine.

Do you think that maybe in some other dimension, some other time, that in some parallel universe, his T-shirt wasn’t drenched in my perfume and didn’t smell of sweat, that in some parallel universe his lips didn’t taste of tobacco? Or maybe we’re in a superposition of being both together and apart, like Schrödinger’s cat which is both alive and dead. But what’s the box in this analogy? and haven’t we already opened it? do we ever really open it? He bought me a box of chocolates last Valentine’s.

When I was a little girl, I performed in a play. One boy brought me chocolates and I tossed them off the stage; one boy gave me flowers, and I hurled them away; and one boy offered me his heart. I imagine you can guess how it ended.

Knock, knock.

I twist on the floor, and those dreadful pink toenails greet me beneath the cubicle door. There are multiple bathrooms in this hostel, and multiple cubicles in each, and yet she’s drawn to me like a bee to honey (or to Gucci Flora). Have you heard of the many-worlds theory? Maybe, in another world, she doesn’t knock; maybe, in another world, her nails are painted blue; maybe, in another world, I slit my wrists with a broken bottle of perfume.

Or maybe, in another world, the bottle didn’t break; not this time, nor the last. Maybe it’s a sign that it did break here, now, but what does it mean? These days I’ve been interpreting my dreams. I dreamt of the night he screamed so loud, he rattled loose all the screws in my head and left me unhinged. But in my dream, I wasn’t afraid for he was just a boy in an oversized T-shirt and muddy football boots. He said he’d never been any good at football, that he’d often fall and scrape his knees. I think that’s what happened to me, over and over, in our shared fever dream (only I lacked the muddy boots and drowned in muddied waters). He loved me, he loved me not, he loved me, he loved me no—

Knock, knock.

“Mais tu fais quoi là?”

Her toenails need trimming. And shaping. And repainting.

And her mouth needs shutting.

Sometimes I think I have no feelings because I’ve been so strong for so long, but then I catch a whiff of him on my perfume, I hear a song that sounds like déjà vu. Yesterday, Carla Bruni said he still loved me, and I swear my tears were enough to make that plastic corsage bloom.

I roll onto my knees as the knocks grow louder. They tell you to wear sandals in a public shower, but here I am tempting a fungal infection. I don’t care, I don’t care about anything anymore. I tie the plastic bag closed, but the smell of manmade flowers lingers, the smell of déjà vu, the smell of you that night (of him, I mean). I can still hear him scream; I can still smell his sweat, my perfume; I can still taste his tongue. He didn’t mean to knock the bottle from the vanity. It was an accident, I swear.

I unlock the cubicle door and meet the puckered face of Pink Toenails.

“T’es folle ou quoi?”

I ignore her hostility, and pray she steps on a shard of me: a pretty, pink shard. The floral pungence still lingers on my fingers, and this plastic bag smells of déjà vu. I cross the blue and white tiles, enter the corridor and head for my room. I still see him lift me onto the vanity and break my bottle of perfume. I still smell his sweat, still taste his tobacco tongue, still hear him yell that he didn’t mean it, over and over and over and over and over again. I could lie on the tiles and close my eyes, to nurse this headache, to feed this fever dream. I’m not sure if I’m intoxicated by the scent or the memory.