The Secret Ways of Perfume

by Cristina Caboni

  “I don’t know . . .”

  Monique started to pace restlessly, trying to find the words that would make Elena believe her. Suddenly, everything she’d kept bottled up inside for years came pouring out.

  “Why don’t you get it?” she said passionately. “I’d give anything to be like you! But I don’t have your gift! I have to settle for my mediocrity. You can’t just throw away everything you know, Elena. I’ll say it again: I’d do anything to be like you!”

  Elena opened her eyes wide. “Come on, what are you on about? Are you blind? Have you seen me lately? Have you really forgotten that a couple of weeks ago you practically scraped me up off the floor and offered me a new life in Paris?” Suddenly, she was really angry.

  Monique hadn’t seen so much fight in Elena for so long that she was stunned. “That’s not the point. You needed a change of scene, of everything. You’d have done the same for me.”

  “Oh, I don’t believe it,” Elena retorted, rolling her eyes. Then she took Monique’s hand and held it between hers. “There are things I need to do for myself, on my own. I can’t let you fight all my battles. Do you understand, Monie?” she said softly.

  “I’m not trying to fight your battles.” Monique sighed. “Don’t get me wrong, Elena. Narcissus is a competitive place, and whatever you get there you’ll have to slave for. Even if Jacques does hire you, you’ll need to do whatever it takes to keep hold of that job.”

  The two friends looked at each other. Up until a month ago, Elena would never have considered a job in perfumery, and now she was discovering that this was what she truly wanted. Isn’t life funny? she thought.

  “If you let this opportunity slip away, you’ll be making a big mistake,” Monique pressed.

  It was true. They both knew it. Still, it wasn’t easy to admit. Too many emotions all at once, too many things to reassess.

  Monique decided to let it go, at least for the moment. They needed a break so they could both cool down a bit.

  “This place is terrible. Maman should just get rid of it,” she said, looking around.

  “I like it. I’ve noticed that the window and the door to the street have bars and a huge bolt—as if someone wanted to keep the whole world out.”

  Monique opened her mouth to respond, then changed her mind and went up into the kitchen.

  “Those perfumes you found in your grandmother’s study, did you bring them with you?” she asked, sitting down and running her fingers over a bunch of tulips Elena had bought at the market. “Incredible what a few flowers and a tablecloth can do for a place,” she murmured. The kitchen was still the same, but Elena had cleaned it from top to bottom and put out some ornaments she found in the closet.

  Elena sat down opposite her.

  “Yes. I brought Beatrice’s diary with me, too.”

  Monique’s eyes widened. “Really? Fantastic! You could make a fortune. Do you realize what it would mean to bring perfumes from hundreds of years ago back to life? You’d have a line that was one of a kind, absolutely authentic. Nobody would be able to compete with that.”

  “I’m not sure. People’s tastes were different then. A bit like perfumes from the sixties. Who would wear those today?”

  “Quite a few people,” Monique replied, still nosing around. “Chanel No 5 is from 1921.”

  “But that’s different,” Elena protested. “It was the first time aldehydes were used to enrich a perfume. It’s still a classic. Nobody could ever call it obsolete.”

  “And what about Shalimar or Mitsouko by Guerlain? You know better than I do how current they still are. At the end of the day, it’s up to you to modernize those compositions. Do you think it would be that difficult?”

  No, it wouldn’t. And Monique might be the one bringing it up now, but while she was still in Florence Elena had already started thinking about possible variations of perfumes created by the Rossinis. The idea of restarting the business no longer seemed so painful. She would have to adapt the perfumes, of course, and she had no idea how, or how much she’d need to transform them. It still wasn’t clear, but it was starting to look like a challenge.

  “The more special and difficult it is to reproduce a perfume, the more people want it. And they’d be willing to part with some serious cash,” Monique said.

  “You reckon? I don’t know,” Elena mumbled, deep in thought.

  “Well, I’m sure of it. And the diary is incredibly valuable, too—both historically and from a business point of view. It could solve all your problems.”

  It was true. Those formulas were invaluable; they were her heritage. All of a sudden, Elena’s mouth felt dry.

  “When we were together, Matteo wanted me to sell the house in Florence. But I never agreed to it.” She stopped and sat down. “I’ve got no intention of selling, Monie,” she said, looking her friend in the eye. “I don’t know why my life has suddenly turned upside down, or why what I wanted to do for years—get away from perfume, from the Rossinis and their obsessions—is now completely out of the question. I just know that’s how it is.”

  Monique paused to consider Elena’s words, then she nodded.

  “I think it’s normal to treasure your roots, your past. Look at my mother. She hated this place with a passion, and now she can’t bear to be separated from it. It can seem as if you don’t care about what you’ve got—you can even come to loathe it. But then something changes. In the end, life’s all about perspective.”

  In a woman as determined as Monique, the ability to stop and listen might have seemed like a contradiction. But Elena had always liked that aspect of her friend’s personality. Monie knew when to step back and give her friend the space she needed to express herself.

  “It’s even more complicated than that, I’m afraid,” Elena whispered. Then she stood up. “I haven’t even offered you anything. Shall I make you some tea?”

  Monique shook her head. “Sit down and finish talking.”

  Elena reluctantly did as she was told, but maybe talking would help her restore some kind of order to the chaos her mind had become.

  “I never wanted to be a perfumier, you know that,” she burst out after a little while, her bottom lip trembling. “Looking for the Rossinis’ wretched Perfect Perfume, perfume in general, it’s brought me nothing but pain. But now it seems as if that revulsion, that anger I had inside me, has just completely disappeared. Can you tell? It makes no sense—it makes me feel like someone who doesn’t know what they want!”

  Elena’s indignation was so heartfelt—and so completely unreasonable—that it brought a smile to Monique’s lips.

  “Come on—we’ve talked about this so many times in the past. It’s not the perfumes you have a problem with; it’s the perfumiers themselves: women who had empty lives and decided to fill the void with something they thought would make them rich and famous. They were wrong, not the perfume. You inherited their special gift, but not necessarily their curse.”

  Elena shook her head. “It’s not that simple. Do you know, the first thing I notice about someone when I meet them is their smell? And do you think it’s normal to cry over the harmony of a bouquet, or to get all worked up because you can’t identify every component of a mélange? To give each ingredient a color whatever it takes, to hear them talk to you through their essence? Monique, I think I am one of those crazy women.”

  “Of course you are, Elena. We’re all a bit mad, don’t you think? But remember, there aren’t many people who are as sensitive as you, who have your sense of smell. Even fewer who’ve had the privilege of being raised in the art of perfumery the way it used to be done: with your mind, with your heart and soul. So why don’t you try and just go with it? Listen to your feelings, without caring what other people think. Who are these people, anyway?”

  Indeed, who were these other people? Her grandmother, who’d loved her for the role she would one day fill. Her
mother, who’d abandoned her to live with a man who couldn’t stand her daughter. Matteo and his lies. She rubbed her eyes, as though she were trying to wipe away traces of tiredness, and after a moment’s silence, she met her friend’s gaze.

  “I had a dream about the shop,” she confided suddenly. “It was right here, downstairs. And it was beautiful—small and decorated in shades of cream and pale pink, with a wood-and-glass counter, a table for talking to people, a little sofa and some lamps.”

  Monique smiled. Never in a million years could she think this place was beautiful. Jasmine hadn’t told her much about her own childhood growing up here, but she got the feeling that her mother had been very unhappy, and that was enough for her.

  “So let’s take the first step toward making your dream come true, chérie,” she said, standing up and taking Elena by the hand.

  • • •

  It might not have been the Ritz, but no restaurant matched the heights of the one Jacques had booked. In every sense: the Jules Verne sat near the top of the Eiffel Tower.

  Arriving at the foot of the tower, Elena looked around, keen to take in every detail. She wanted to see everything, to smell everything. She inhaled gently, in small breaths, searching through the perfumes for details that had once been a source of pain and discomfort for her. It was a strange sensation, because she knew Paris, she’d been here as a little girl with her mother—only now it seemed different.

  “Good grief, Elena. I promise I’ll bring you to look at the view another time, but right now we need to get a move on.”

  “But how can you ignore all this?” she protested.

  Monique didn’t answer; she just took Elena’s hand and dragged her along behind. She wouldn’t let go, for fear that Elena might even decide to take the stairs. All those steps! Out of the question. She had no intention of meeting Jacques all hot and sweaty.

  It had taken Monique hours to calm herself down. She had dressed with care because she had every intention of stunning Jacques tonight. She wasn’t going to give him the slightest advantage. Maybe she did have a broken heart, but that was her problem and no one else’s—and he certainly didn’t need to know.

  When she saw Jacques, she pointed him out to Elena. “There he is, sitting at the table in the corner.” Elena spotted a smartly dressed man staring out at the view.

  “He’s very attractive.”

  “Some people say the same about snakes.”

  “Listen,” Elena said, trying not to grin, “it doesn’t look as if he booked for three. Maybe it’s best if I go.”

  “Don’t you dare move,” Monique threatened. “This all started in Florence with that perfume you chose for him. So, he got what he wanted, and now you’re going to get the job you deserve. It’s business, Elena; nothing more, nothing less.”

  Elena wasn’t sure that was the best line of argument, but she was curious to see how the situation played out—though she had an inkling that before the evening was over, Jacques would be regretting a few things. She noticed Monique had her fists clenched and was trembling with rage.

  “Are you still in love with him?” The question came out of Elena’s mouth before she had a chance to think about it. She wasn’t being nosy; she just wanted to understand. She herself no longer felt anything for Matteo, and she was quite amazed by that.

  Monique didn’t take her eyes off Jacques. “Yes, but I don’t want to be. It’s like a curse. I wish I wasn’t in love with him. I wish he’d disappear out of my life. And then, when I don’t see him, I wish he was there to hold me. And you thought you were the only crazy woman in the world? Welcome to the club, chérie. Let me do the talking, OK?”

  No, it wasn’t OK. “Absolutely not. If I’m staying, I need to speak for myself.” She didn’t say anything else; the determined look in her eyes convinced Monique to give her the space she needed. Elena was under pressure. She was pale, and the bags under her eyes told of sleepless nights. She was trying to find herself, and she was being forced to do it in stages.

  Monique sighed and nodded. “All right, but I’ll be right here with you, OK?”

  “Fine, but it’s me he’s dealing with.” That was important to Elena; it was imperative that she should be the one to talk to Jacques Montier. She’d been watching from the sidelines for too long, letting other people make her decisions. Maybe it was realizing how foolish that sort of attitude had been, or maybe it was the loneliness she’d been feeling for the past few weeks that had given her the strength to react; in any case, she’d decided to change, and that meant negotiating her own future by herself.

  At that moment, Jacques spotted them, stood up and came over.

  “Good evening, Monique. I imagine your friend must be Elena Rossini.”

  “Yes. I ‘came prepared,’ like you said,” Monique said tautly. “You did mean you were going to offer her a job when you left me that message, didn’t you?”

  Elena stifled her laughter with a cough. Monique was as direct as a bullet from a gun. To say she was furious with this man would be an understatement.

  In a fraction of a second longer than it should have taken, Jacques’s severe expression stretched into a smile.

  “Naturally. Pleased to meet you, mademoiselle. The perfume Monique brought back from Florence is very interesting. My compliments on your selection. We’ve decided to market it here.” He took her hand and held it in his for a moment.

  “Great,” Elena replied, slightly taken aback. She hadn’t expected such gallantry. This Jacques really knew what he was doing when it came to women.

  As he escorted them back to the table where a waiter had hurriedly set a third place, Elena started to understand why Monique was so caught up in their relationship. Jacques Montier radiated an impressive energy and self-confidence. A woman could feel protected by someone like that. Or oppressed.

  She instinctively pulled back, trying not to touch him, even when he very politely pulled out the chair to help her take her seat. Then she noticed it: the smell of his anger. It was bitter and well-hidden under the delicate aroma of oakwood, the base of the scent he was wearing. And there was something else—suspicion, maybe a hint of curiosity. It smelled like resin, sharp and balsamic. Elena wondered whether Monique could smell it, too, that strong, almost irritating odor. She followed his gaze and saw that it was fixed on her friend. The two of them still had a lot to talk about, she thought.

  “The perfume you chose is exactly what I was looking for, Mademoiselle Rossini,” Jacques continued, after he’d signaled for the menus to be brought over. “Do you have specific training, or was it just happy intuition?” He had his eyes fixed on her now and was studying her coldly.

  Elena forced herself to match his penetrating gaze. She had no intention of letting herself be intimidated. Her heart was pounding and the tension between Jacques and Monique seemed to crackle in the air.

  She cleared her throat and began to explain. “Intuition, no. That’s not it.”

  But before she could explain any further, Jacques started talking again. “The mixture is well-calibrated: a pleasant balance with no distracting flashes, yet the composition has some sparkling notes.” This time his tone was hard, his words chosen with care. “You need quite a specific understanding to choose a mélange like that. Let’s cut to the chase, mademoiselle. What skills do you have?”

  The question hung between them for a moment. That wasn’t what Jacques really wanted to know. In her head, Elena translated what he was actually asking: “Why on earth should I hire you in my company?” He hadn’t said it openly; he wouldn’t do that. But his tone of voice and the haughty look on his face spoke volumes. His style, she saw, was to alternate between politeness and a series of quite unkind remarks. And Elena suspected she wasn’t the adversary Jacques really wanted to beat.

  Behind him, the Paris night seemed to explode with colors, and Elena watched them while she decided wha
t to say. She was sorely tempted to stand up, tell him where to go, and leave. But she couldn’t do that. Giving up simply wasn’t an option. Monie had been as good as her word and was sitting there in silence, intently studying the china on the embroidered tablecloth.

  She didn’t need her help, Elena thought. She didn’t need anyone’s help. She turned her attention back to Jacques and nailed him with a glare.

  “I know every extraction technique, from the oldest to the most modern. I can make perfumes, creams and soaps, for people or for environments. And I didn’t just learn all this from books, but working with it. Separating, purifying, re-combining, fixing. Those skills aren’t common in modern perfumery, but I can carry out every single step because it’s what I’ve been doing since I was old enough to hold an alembic. That also means I have a perfect understanding of distillation and enfleurage techniques.”

  A glint in Jacques’s eye betrayed his interest. So this woman was saying she’d mastered the ancient art. Nothing special about that, really. They were things anyone with an understanding of perfumery could have listed. But if what she was saying was true, her skills could turn out to be useful.

  “Right. What can you tell me about Peau d’Espagne?”

  Elena licked her lips and replied, “A complex perfume, dating back to the sixteenth century. Neroli, rose, sandalwood, lavender, verbena, bergamot, cloves and cinnamon. Sometimes they used to add civet or musk. A fascinating mixture of smells, no basic brief, no specific personality, so many expensive fragrances all combined together.”

  Maybe it was the pride he sensed in these words that made up Jacques’s mind, or maybe it was Monique’s stiletto heel pressing into his ankle that elicited the burst of laughter that suddenly broke the tension between them.

  “Bravo! Just the answer I was looking for.” He was lying, and he was doing it for Monique. He’d made her sit next to him. The long tablecloth gave him a certain freedom to move. She sat motionless beside him while he touched her leg and ran his hand along the hem of her dress. And a bit farther. Then Monique picked up a full glass, a warning look in her eye. So he stopped—there would be another opportunity to get her back.