Little Vances (short for Vanceslas) is only five years old. The two of us are sitting on the porch in the late afternoon. Suddenly he points to the tree that stands in front of the house: "Ça, c'est le parfum" - "That is perfume, over there."
"Comment ça?," I ask my little friend - "How so?"
"You take the leaves and crush and rub them on your skin and then you smell very nice," he explains.
We walk over to the tree. "Which leaves?," I ask. Vances points to some narrow, curly leaves that grow on the end of some of the lower branches and that look quite different from the tree's regular leaves - obviously they're some kind of blossom.
I pluck some of them and we return to the porch. "Will you show me how to make perfume with them?," I ask. Vances nods enthousiastically. He takes a couple of the petals and rubs them vigorously on his arm. Then he holds it up to my nose: "Smell!"
The leaves do leave a sweet, soapy scent on his skin.
Later on I ask his 'mami' Agnes what the the name of the tree is. "I don't know," she replies. "We just call it the perfume tree."
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