It was July, and hot. The cherries were heavy on the trees, ripe for picking, and invisible. Each fruit was hidden by leafs, and only the top-most were eaten by crows. Emanating from the trees was a heavy smell, between rot and growth, one that set the nose in a curl one moment and delighted in the other.

A woman was there, set on gathering that smell. Bark, leafs, fruit, sticks, earth and insects were gathered into her sideways bag. Heavy she was, with that russian good-natured face and waddle.

"Babushka", I said, "It's a fine morning to gather cherries, but I've never seen someone gather dirt! What matter of mixture are you connocting?"

"Oh, wouldn't I know. Tree bark and cherry, earwigs, some dirt, whatever takes my fancy. You ever perfumed?"

"Didn't think so, ha! you'd be suprised what kind of things go into the witch-pot, there. Much better an earwig than gold, or didn't you know gold has no smell?"

My memory flashed to my own perfume bottle. Gold flakes it had.

"Well, it's pretty, I'll give you that, but never you mind! You ever smelled a object which was decadent, but elegant, while giving the sense of a rich cheese cake? I tried butter, of course, and fresh banana bread, but I cannot find this smell. I would want that prim holding a lady has, knowing her family is falling in standard, forced, herself, to participate in gradual degeneracy in order to keep the little holding she has, yet still keeping elegant. You smell any of that?"

The description sounded quite vulgar, and the materials I had to propose were risque. I stalled for time with a thinking noise, but babushka' was having none of it.

"You dirty thing! not that low, not that low. More a grand pianist limiting his play so the judges would be satisified. Back in the day he would have scoffed, but he has four kids, now, see? That's why the earwigs and dirt. Death, I hope, will give the restraint, but it's this rot that I cannot fix. If the pianist is rotten, he's too far gone! His heart still beats, even in restraints. Where he once a lion, prowling his music in which way he pleases, he now understands consequences, and rescinds himself! Opening to an other direction, to the full possibility, to the mundane, the grey, like a..."

And with that she looked at me, amazement itself, and before I could evade grabbed my head for a quick one - two kiss.


"A lotus! and mud, but western, made from priest's ash and pearl's essence. Do you see?"

I could not be further from comprehension.

"Oh bum! Am I the only clear nose in the world? Never you mind. Butter milk and vanilla to silk the transition, one dead earwig to stop shallow-sniffers in their tracks, and the finale - what would you like to find, young man, in this woman's smell? You've smelled mud and death, but are intrigued by the soft butter and vanilla. And very gently your soul will tell you of the lotus, the lady hiding behind the shackles of her station, and, the future she promises. But when that lotus opens, what will you find? What is the final reward?"

I blinked and said the first thing that came to mind "Gold?"

Babushka laughed uproariously "Yes! Gold! Because by that point, you'll have to marry her!"