The Memory of Smells

PETER NOTICED THE SCENT of lavender first and looked up from cleaning the meat slicer. The young woman peered into his glass case. Under her loose dress, her pregnant belly was noticeably bigger than the last time she came into the shop.

“Please, Mr. Whitacre,” she said. “I’d like two of those lovely white chicken cutlets today.” She pronounced the Ws like soft Vs. The sound of it reminded him of his wife.

Peter Whitacre had brought a German speaking wife back home to England after the great war.

Early in the spring of 1917, he had been pulled from the front-line trenches in Belgium to work at the triage center officially known as the Casualty Clearing Station. Some officer had decided a butcher would fare better amidst the carnage of body parts. He had been wrong, of course.

Peter was assigned to clean up the surgical tent whenever it was not filled with intense doctors and screaming patients. Gathering up the severed limbs, the buckets of blood and bone fragments, sorting the bloody sheets from the cotton wads saturated with human fluids, wiping down the surgical table, and sluicing the duckboards with buckets of muddy water―these things he could manage. The smells were what turned his stomach. The rank odor of sweat mixed with the metallic smell of blood. The putrid stink of gangrene oozing from wounds. The foulness of loosened guts, urine, and vomit. The pungent, acrid smoke from burning flesh that rose from the incinerator where discarded limbs were burned.

In the evenings, his stomach sour, Peter could not bear to enter the mess tent. While others ate, he walked into the surrounding countryside. He breathed in the cooling evening air. The aromas of pine and forest loam calmed his stomach, allowing him to sleep. For weeks, he ate only the morning porridge and gulped down countless tin mugs of watery coffee.

One afternoon, when the field hospital was quiet between battles, Peter found an abandoned bicycle at the edge of camp and commandeered it. He peddled along a dirt road between uncultivated fields. Amidst the weeds and grass, bright red poppies nodded in a gentle breeze. A line of trees marched in the distance, promising a stream or irrigation ditch. When he arrived at the trees, he leaned the bicycle against a wooden fence. He heard the gurgle of water below and followed the sound. At the bottom of the gulley, he stepped into sunshine.

Before him a stream curved around a boulder and formed a sandy-bottomed pool. The water sparkled like diamonds and the wet, woodsy smell of moss filled his nostrils. On the bank, a young girl lay, one arm under her head as a pillow, the other holding her bunched skirts above her knees to expose her legs to the warmth of the sun. Her face was turned toward him, her eyes closed as if in sleep, and a jumble of dark curls spread over her arm. Peter realized he was staring and he cleared his throat. The girl startled and pushed her skirts down. She jumped to her feet, her blue eyes wide with fear, but she didn’t run.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you,” Peter said. The girl continued to look frightened. Peter spoke no French, but he knew a little German, taught to him by his paternal grandmother who had come to England to work as a cook’s assistant. At the kitchen door of the estate of her wealthy employers, she met the local butcher and never returned to her homeland. Peter cast back into his childhood memories and found the words he hoped would work. “Es tut mir leid,” he mumbled. “Nicht verletzt. I won’t hurt you.” He held his hands open, away from his body, and smiled.

The girl’s stance relaxed, though her eyes remained wary. “Du solltest dich nicht anschleichen. Du hast mir Angst gemacht,” she said.

This was way beyond Peter’s rudimentary German. “Es tut mir leid, I’m sorry,” he repeated. He hunkered down on his heels some distance from where she stood and tried to appear unthreatening. He trailed his fingers in the cool water and gazed into the depths of the pool. A small swarm of minnow darted about in the shadow of a rock. He pointed at them. “Fisch. kleiner Fisch.”

“Englisch?” she asked.

Peter nodded. “English.” He pointed to his chest. “Peter.”

Finally, a small smile. She laid her open palm on her breast. “Nadine.” Her voice was soft, and the sound caressed his inner ear.

That was how it started.

The second time he saw her, she was picking late summer berries from the brambles along the road. He allowed the bicycle to coast as he passed her and called out, “Guten Tag, Fräulein.” She turned and lifted her hand in greeting. He swerved, almost going into a ditch before he could stop the forward momentum of the bicycle.

Nadine walked toward him and held out her basket. “Probieren Sie doch mal eine Beere.” She motioned with stained fingers toward her mouth. “Please. You taste,” she said hesitantly. Her lips were purple with berry juice.

From that moment, Peter’s heart was hers.

Born and raised in Belgium, Nadine spoke French as well as German, and with Peter’s help she quickly learned enough English words for their needs. By fall, they were meeting most evenings. Nadine delighted in riding pillion on the back of the bicycle. Her curls blowing in the wind, she clung to Peter with one arm and flung the other out in abandon. As darkness enveloped the countryside, they found a quiet spot where they could cuddle―talking and kissing, until kissing was not enough. The mossy bank by the pool, the place they first met, was also where they first made love. In November, they married in the village church and later that month, when Peter was mustered out of the Army, they returned to England as husband and wife.

The country town in Surrey where Peter had been raised seemed too provincial for a man who had seen Europe. He grew tired of the gossiping old ladies and their snubs caused by Nadine’s German accent. The young couple were still newlyweds when they moved to London. In the polyglot neighborhoods of the big city, they blended in.

With the help of his parents and a war loan from the bank, Peter opened his butcher shop in a pleasant part of East Chelsea. They lived upstairs over the shop and together they were happy.

Sometimes the smell of blood from the carcasses and the crunch of bone as he sawed through a haunch of beef bothered Peter. It brought visions of his war work at the medical station to the backs of his eyelids. At the end of the day, he could not stand his own apron covered in red smears.

Nadine sensed his discomfort. Each night, she scrubbed the chopping block and the counters and wiped down the meat case front and back until the glass became invisible. She laundered his aprons, rubbing them vigorously against the washboard, beating the stains into submission. She made sure there was always a stack of spotless aprons in the back room, ready for Peter to change into whenever his bloody apron threatened to unnerve him. Each morning, when he went downstairs to open for business, the shop exuded the lingering smells of bleach and vinegar. Gradually, his flashbacks ceased to trouble him.

The smells Nadine created upstairs were homier―the aromas of cinnamon cake and stews seasoned with rosemary and garlic wafted from the kitchen. The comforting scents of mint and lavender clung to their bedding and surrounded their nighttime kisses. Later there was the sweet smell of baby talcum and milk. Then the family smells of burnt toast, damp mittens, and little boy farts. As their son grew, the scent of his sandalwood pomade lingered in the bathroom, and the fragrances of rose and jasmine from his girlfriend’s perfume clung to his shirts. Too soon after their son left for university, the odors of illness pervaded the rooms―medicines, rubbing alcohol, and lingering sickness. And then Nadine was gone. They only had twenty years together. It was not enough.

Peter drew a deep breath and forced his mind back to the present. He wrapped up the chicken cutlets for his pregnant customer. Her accent had reminded him of Nadine. He had heard her hissing Vs before. “Do you like bratwurst?” he asked as he rang up her purchase.

The young woman looked at him in surprise. Then she lifted her chin. “Yes! Of course. But I haven’t tasted them for years.”

“I’ve just made a batch,” he said. “My wife’s recipe. I make them for myself, not to sell . . . I’d be pleased to give you a couple.” He went to the back room, brought out two thick sausages, wrapped them in paper, and handed the package across the counter. “My gift,” he said.

The woman’s smile lit up her eyes. “Brilliant! Thanks ever so much.” She reached up to offer him her hand. “I’m Edith,” she said. “And you are definitely my favorite butcher!”

After she left, Peter turned the sign on the door and pulled down the shade. He returned to the back of the shop and picked up the bowl where four plump bratwursts remained. He stared at the glistening sausages and allowed his mind to drift back to a day when he was still a young man ― his business new, his wife by his side. He could almost smell the bleach as Nadine scrubbed the chopping block while he stood at the meat grinder feeding scraps of pork and pork fat into the machine with the wooden pusher. Sausages were a popular item for his customers’ leisurely weekend breakfasts.

Nadine came up behind him and wrapped her arms around his waist. “I don’t care for your English sausages . . . too bland. Too much bread-crumb filler.”

He turned and playfully swatted her away. “What would you have me make?”

“In Belgium, we favored the French Boudin Blanc made with veal, chicken, and cream. A bit dear for sausage. But my favorite is the German Bratwurst we used to eat when we went on holiday to visit my aunt in Frankfurt.”

“My customers like what they’re used to,” Peter said. “You know the British won’t want something la-de-da French . . . and certainly not Boche food.”

Nadine touched his chin. “What about us?” Her voice was like silk. The clean soap scent of her skin engulfed him, and her lips brushed his neck. “Come, darling. I’ll show you my aunt’s secret recipe. You’re not afraid of European food, are you?”

Peter reached behind her and cradled her rounded bottom in his broad hands. “Not at all, sweetheart,” he whispered.

This time, it was Nadine who swatted his hands away. “Later, husband. Now we will make sausage. I must get spices from my kitchen. You continue grinding. Please, add a few meatier chunks if you can spare them. And no breadcrumbs until I return to measure them myself!”

Moments later she returned with a basket of spice jars. One after another she added brown and gold powders to the mix of ground meat. Pepper, ginger, marjoram, dry mustard, cardamom, coriander, mace, and, at the very end, a sprinkling of crushed caraway seeds. Peter had no idea his wife had so many different seasonings in her cupboard. The butcher shop smelled like a Moroccan bazar. Later that evening, their kitchen was redolent with the rich aroma of sizzling pork and spices.

Peter shook the memory away and slowly climbed the stairs. He set the bowl of sausage on the table and wiped his eyes. He lifted Nadine’s favorite iron skillet from its hook, set it on the fire to heat, and put two sausages in the pan. As they began to sizzle, the aroma of German Bratwurst filled the room, and Peter felt his wife by his side.