Thirty-three Swoons

by Martha Cooley

  Jordan steps into the box and settles into the awaiting space. Sitting upright next to the woman, he tenderly places his palm on her thigh for a moment, then stares up at me. He is still holding the crystal bowl with its erect spoon.

  He points at my mortar. Time for administration, he says. But first the chocolate pudding.

  He ladles the bowl’s contents into his mouth so rapidly I can’t imagine how he’s had time to swallow. Then he extends one hand toward me, beckoning me closer.

  Ready? I ask.

  He nods, and the sudden change in his expression—it’s now utterly gentle—astonishes me. Removing the spoon from Jordan’s bowl, I dip it into the mortar. Jordan opens his mouth; I feed him slowly, using the spoon’s rim to catch small dribbles. The potion must taste dreadful, but Jordan’s expression never changes. He is gazing at me blissfully, gratefully. Neither of us speaks until he has swallowed his last spoonful. Then he lies down, closing one of his hands over the wrist of the woman lying next to him.

  Now, he says to me quietly. Close it.

  Can I get in, too? I ask.

  He shakes his head, a tender negative. No room, he says.

  As I begin closing the lid of the box, I hear his voice again, very low. I hover over the two of them, Jordan and the woman, straining to hear.

  Enfin,Camilla, he is murmuring to her as the lid drops. At last.

  THE LITTLE clown Danny had affixed to my window remained on my mind as I closed my shop on Tuesday afternoon and took a walk up to Eve’s old garden store in Chelsea. I hadn’t visited since we’d sold it and was curious to see if it was as attractive as it had been under Eve’s management.

  En route I passed a kitchen supply store. Its windows were nicely dressed. Blue-and-white checked tablecloths had been hung as backdrops for a display of kitchen implements—everything from whisks and workbowls to soufflé dishes. Among them was a small mortar and pestle.

  Noticing it, I paused and stared, and something in my mind dislodged like a piece of fruit falling from a tree. Jordan, in a dream (had it been only last night?), the two of us mixing a concoction in a lab, then getting into some kind of boat . . . The scenes blurred as soon as they arose. I could remember nothing clearly except for a bowl of chocolate pudding, the thought of which launched a bright flare of anxiety.

  I couldn’t shake the notion that I’d somehow journeyed to the site of my parents’ deaths. Hadn’t there been a box, coffinlike, into which Jordan had climbed? And hadn’t my mother been in that box, veiled, her features indiscernible? I saw the slow, tender shake of Jordan’s head as he refused to let me join the two of them. Then I let the dream go.

  A FEW blocks later I found myself in front of Eve’s shop. Its storefront window now sported an uninspired sign—CHELSEA GARDEN SUPPLIES—in place of Eve’s THE MAD GARDENER. The banality of the new sign irritated me, and I couldn’t make myself enter the store.

  Eve had taken her shop’s name from The Mad Gardener’s Song, a tale in verse by Lewis Carroll about the hallucinations of a crazy horticulturalist. When Jordan was sick, he’d read that funny tale aloud to Danny, who’d loved the delightful black-and-white drawings. Standing outside my father’s study one morning, I’d heard their two voices (Jordan’s low and weak, Danny’s high and strong) reciting the lines in unison. Jordan had explained to her that the Mad Gardener lived in a country called England, whose capital was London. He’d then described St. James’s Park—his favorite spot, he’d said, in that city. Years earlier, he told Danny, he’d taken a memorable walk in the park, a long stroll on a damp June morning during which the air had turned the most beautiful pearly-gray color he’d ever seen.

  Overhearing Jordan, I’d convinced myself it was a good thing he was telling six-year-old Danny such stories. Having made myself think this, I’d turned away, finding the thought too painful to maintain. Here was my father, talking freely with a little girl he barely knew. . . . When I was Danny’s age, Jordan hadn’t ever recounted to me anything remotely as tranquil as the tale he’d told her. In the past I’d heard about, there’d been no peaceful early-morning strolls. There’d been perfume and Paris; work and the unacknowledged presence of my mother.

  FOR ALL Jordan’s travels, France was the country he knew best. Paris was nearly as familiar to him as New York, and equally as important professionally.

  He made his first trip to Grasse, the flower-growing region in France where some of the world’s best perfumes have originated, in 1929. One of the few American chemists of his generation to visit Grasse regularly, he got to know it well. Back then, before World War II, Grasse led the industry. During the war the region was cut off from clients and suppliers, and by 1950 large foreign investors had already started moving in.

  When I was a little girl, Jordan told me that scientists were kicking the flowers out of the picture. I didn’t understand what he was saying, and imagined a group of men in heavy boots, stomping on roses. What he’d meant, of course, was that natural aromatics—the industry’s name for the stunningly scented flowers and herbs that grow so abundantly in Grasse—were soon to be eclipsed by the cloned cells with which chemists could now make artificial flower oils. As far as perfume was concerned, the French Riviera would never be the same.

  “With perfume, everything comes back to natural ingredients,” Jordan said to me once. He was praising his French colleague Edmond Roudnitska, the parfumeur who developed Femme and Diorama, for refusing to jump on the bandwagon of synthetics. “Roudnitska keeps telling these corporate guys, yes, you can use amyl salicylate to mimic certain fern or floral notes—it’s cheaper. But if you substitute too many synthetics, you’ll end up with average perfume for average noses. Like a plastic fern plant. That’s where things are headed.”

  There aren’t many truly gifted “noses,” olfactory artists. This helps account for the mystique of good perfume. To meld and balance scents, a nose has to discern the subtlest of differences among thousands of smells, as well as among ever-so-slightly-varied batches of the same elements. For all but the best perfumists, this is extremely difficult to do. If, say, the night-blooming jasmine in Grasse reaches its peak earlier than a manufacturer has anticipated, the perfumist must be able to identify jasmine from elsewhere—a crop that, when substituted for the original, will ensure a consistent personality for the perfume being produced. Mistakes are costly.

  MY FATHER enjoyed a long, internationally active career in fragrance. Although his official retirement took place when he was sixty-five, he continued to play an advisory role in several companies, both American and French, which had employed him over the years. He didn’t stop working until he was seventy-four. Younger biochemists were frequently impressed to learn that Jordan Archer had been in the business long enough to have worked for Coty before World War II.

  Shortly before he retired for good, Jordan helped design a glass device resembling a fortune-teller’s crystal ball, which he dubbed “the smell trap.” Its purpose was to capture floral aromas so they could be transported over long distances. Jordan’s colleagues knew of his artistry but hadn’t realized just what a fine scientist he’d always been. The smell trap was a memorable finale for his career.

  Yet my father never became a top-level corporate man. He must have communicated to his managers what I’d learned about him when I was a child: Jordan was a solo player. And although he earned a good living, he wasn’t a big consumer. The only things of real value in his apartment were several works by the German artist Max Beckmann, which Jordan had acquired during his first trip to Paris, in 1925. That year, Galerie Druet, a showcase for emerging artists, held a show of contemporary painters; viewing it, Jordan sensed that Beckmann, already popular, would become a major talent. He bought an oil painting and several sketches—one of which was a study for Beckmann’s famous portrait of an actor in circus acrobat attire, a thin man who looks Mephistophelean. I’ve had several generous offers for this sketch, which hangs in my shop, but I’ll never part with it.

  JORDAN S
TAYED with Coty for over twenty years. He knew the key players in the major French firms and was on a first-name basis with the much-revered Henri Almeras, who had worked for Poiret at Parfums de Rosine. I imagine my father must have been a popular guest at Parisian dinner parties: smart, suave, and amusing in his spare, understated way.

  It was in 1928, while he was in Paris on an assignment for Coty, that he met my mother, a young American expatriate. They didn’t marry until 1949, though—a few months before her death, after which Jordan resigned from Coty and returned with me to New York. There he took a job with Jean Patou.

  This change of employers had no noticeable effect on his traveling, which remained frequent. During my elementary school years, my father made a great many trips to Patou’s headquarters in Paris as well as to Grasse. I used to pester him to take me with him to France so I could see my birthplace, but Jordan always refused, brooking no arguments. His absences made me panicky. On days when he was preparing to leave, I would try to barricade the apartment’s front door, and Dan or Sarah would have to restrain me. I still remember my rage at all three adults; it flits over me from time to time, a shadow feeling, shapeless yet palpable.

  Jordan switched employers again when I was in high school, this time basing himself permanently in New York. He still traveled, but he seldom went anywhere except France for business. The rest of his trips were for his own pleasure, and he always took them alone. I stayed home with my uncle and aunt. They put up with Jordan’s shirking of his paternal duties because they were dependent on him financially.

  IN THE family apartment, Jordan sometimes stayed up all night. He’d sit in a chair in the living room, his feet on the floor, his forearms and hands on the chair’s armrests: a formal pose, as if for a photographer. His eyes were open, I assume, though I can’t swear to this. I also assume he was ruminating, remembering, regretting. I can only guess at the mix.

  I discovered this nocturnal habit of my father’s because I was wakened occasionally by nightmares. Now and then, I’d get up around three in the morning, unable to speak a word, my lips pasted shut. My bad dreams weren’t of monsters or other dangers but of speechlessness. I’d scramble out of bed, and gradually, as I stood inhaling and exhaling noisily through my nose, my panic would abate and I’d be able to open my mouth. Then, gulping air down my throat, breathing but still not able to talk, I’d make my way slowly down the dark hallway toward the living room, hands outstretched at either side, checking for the walls.

  The living room had a green-and-cream rug whose fanciful Art Nouveau pattern enchanted me. I loved to sit cross-legged on it, tracing its stylized vines beneath the tips of my forefingers. At night, if a bad dream roused me, I’d go to the living room and curl up on the rug, pretending it was my hammock, imagining myself safely bowered in a canopy of vines. Slowly my body would uncoil and I’d fall back asleep. Early in the morning, hearing my uncle open and close his bathroom door, I’d get up and pad quietly back down the hall to my room so no one would know where I’d been.

  Jordan knew, though. Sometimes as I lay on the living room floor waiting for the room’s serene darkness to rescue me, I’d hear a low-voiced question: You all right, Cam? The first time this happened, I was completely startled. I told my father I was fine, just couldn’t sleep. You’ll get there, Jordan murmured, and we both stayed put, he in his chair, me on the rug.

  After that initial shock, I was prepared to find him in the living room, whether he spoke or not. His dimly silhouetted form no longer startled me, nor did his presence prevent me from falling asleep. I knew he’d be gone when I awoke. A blanket would cover me, the sole evidence I hadn’t dreamt him.

  WHEN I was three, I was told by Jordan that my mother had become sick in Paris and had to stay there after I was born. Once I became old enough to grasp the notion of death, the story was emended: Camilla had actually died in Paris, which was why she hadn’t returned to New York to live with us.

  I remember groping to understand this revision. My mother was no longer in an apartment in Paris, stricken and weak, like Sleeping Beauty under a spell. She was several feet underground, wearing a nice dress.

  It was sixteen-year-old Eve, not Jordan, who told me the full truth about Camilla’s death. This revelation took place in the bathroom. Having clumsily knocked my toothbrush off the side of the sink and into the wastebasket, I’d decided to use Eve’s, and she’d caught me in midact. My unauthorized usage of her toothbrush angered her, and she hissed something to the effect that I was the real reason my mother wasn’t alive. Camilla hadn’t gotten sick—that was a fib. It was childbirth that had done her in.

  Those were Eve’s words: “done her in.” She must have heard that expression in some gangster movie. I didn’t know what the phrase meant, but it sounded final. After rapidly piecing together the little I’d heard about the delivery of babies, I came to a disturbing conclusion.

  You mean, I asked, my mother died pushing me out?

  Yep, said Eve.

  After a moment of stunned silence, I dropped Eve’s toothbrush on the floor. Her eyes went wide with disbelief, imagining I’d done it on purpose. She called me a little witch then, and I didn’t defend myself, because I knew she had to be right: I was the reason my mother had died. I began crying, and Eve pulled me into a brusque hug.

  I’m sorry, Cammie, really sorry, she said, rubbing my back vigorously. Then she hustled me down the hall and into my room, away from the kitchen, where Sarah and Dan were having an after-dinner coffee. Jordan was in France.

  Eve tucked me into bed. Sitting next to me, she ran her index finger lightly over my eyebrows. The sensation of her fingertip repeatedly stroking my brows from inside to outside reassured me.

  Listen, she said. You had to find out sooner or later that Camilla wasn’t just hanging around in Paris. You understand? It’s not such a big deal.

  She gave my shoulder a little shake, and I nodded affirmatively. I actually did feel better. Camilla remained a pale beauty lying in a lovely coffin. Nothing about this vision would require alteration.

  Plus, said Eve, I’m like your mother now! Aren’t I?

  I thought Sarah was like my mother, I said.

  Eve made a dismissive gesture. Sarah’s my father’s wife, that’s all. She’s not like either of our mothers! It’s much better if you think of me as Camilla. I look like her, don’t I?

  She did. I’d often noticed that the one photo of Camilla in the family apartment—a portrait taken during my mother’s final year of high school—revealed a strong resemblance to Eve.

  But I thought you were like my sister, I said.

  Well, I’m that, too! But mostly I’m like your mother.

  This pleased me enormously, and surprised me, too. It made me feel I was special to her, and except for Jordan, there was no one but Eve for whom I wanted to be special.

  Good, I finally managed to say.

  I’ll tell your father you know what happened to Camilla, Eve said. That way, you and he won’t have to talk about it. Okay?

  Okay, I said, nodding.

  Eve must have done exactly what she said she would do. Or so I concluded. Twenty-five years passed before my father and I spoke directly about my mother’s death.

  I RETURNED home from my nonvisit to Eve’s store and hopped in the shower, in need of a cooldown after my brisk walk to Chelsea and back. I’d just finished toweling off when my buzzer rang.

  There stood the Paramour, holding a present: a blue box tied with a bold orange satin ribbon. From it spilled a collection of new playthings, the most outlandish of which was a black lace-up corset trimmed in velvet. Everything was just the right size, I could tell.

  Nick grinned like a boy in a firehouse. “Equipment,” he said.

  “You’ve outdone yourself,” I replied. I motioned him to follow me into my bedroom, where he undressed while watching me outfit myself in my new gear. Then he proceeded, in his usual languorous, attentive, and well-paced manner, to strip me of each of my just-receive
d gifts while administering others. I returned the favor, our bodies a fine entanglement.

  When we were done, I turned on my side to face him. He began idly running one of his large, coarse-skinned thumbs across my forehead. “What’s news?” he asked.

  “Not much,” I answered. “Except for the fact that Danny seems to be losing it.”

  “Losing it?” Nick had met Danny once or twice. I’d never introduced him to Eve, though she’d asked to meet him. I hadn’t wanted to watch her perform a seduction, as I’d assumed she would, nor had I wished to see Nick succumb, as I’d suspected he might.

  “You mean Danny’s not going to work, not eating, something like that?” Nick added.

  “No, she’s functioning all right. It’s just that she’s decided she wants to find out more about her father. She never knew him—he died when she was a few years old.”

  Though varied, Nick’s facial expressions were easy to interpret. He gave me one of his “So?” looks.

  I filled him in on Danny’s plan. I’d agreed to go to Ithaca only because I didn’t want Danny to feel abandoned, I said.

  At this, Nick propped himself up on one elbow. “But you have to go with her if she wants you to,” he stated. “You’re all she’s got. There aren’t any other relatives, right? You’re basically her mother now.”

  I sat up. “That’s not true,” I said, hearing, as soon as I’d spoken, the tightness in my voice. “The fact that Eve’s dead doesn’t change a thing in that department.”

  Nick raised one eyebrow. “Be realistic, Cam. The girl’s what, twenty-five? And she has no parents, no siblings, no aunts or uncles or cousins. Only you, right?”

  “And my ex,” I said. I walked to my closet, pulled out my robe and moccasins, and put them on briskly. “Danny’s close to Sam and his family. She babysits for his kids fairly often.”