The Secret Ways of Perfume

by Cristina Caboni

  • • •

  It had been raining all day. Elena was walking around the shop, looking at everything, moving bottles, rearranging a display, often caressing her bump. She was starting to feel the weight of the baby. Now and again she’d cast a nervous glance at the window. Monique was pacing from one side of the room to the other, while Cail was chatting to Ben. That night, Colette, Ben’s girlfriend, was there, too. Everything was ready: champagne, glasses, canapés. There should be a lot of guests and a few journalists. This was the big event. This was Absolue’s opening night.

  “At least it’s stopped.” Monique had gone over to the window, lifted the curtain, and was scrutinizing the sky. She let out a deep sigh and went back over to Elena. “It is what you wanted, isn’t it?”

  “For it to stop raining?”

  “No, I mean Absolue.”

  When Elena looked puzzled, Monique went on: “I wouldn’t want to have forced your hand. You don’t seem very happy.”

  Elena looked pretty in a black silk maternity dress, her hair plaited. But her eyes showed she was nervous. “Sometimes I’m so happy I think I could burst. It’s almost scary,” she confided to Monique. “And sometimes I’m paralyzed by fear. The doctor told me that mood swings are normal during pregnancy, but I don’t know whether it’s that, or just realizing that I’ve been given another chance. This has to work at all costs, because there is no alternative. Before, life used to just wash over me. Absolue is the line between what I was before and what I’m going to become. And it’s a warning: it reminds me of the things I should never, ever do again.”

  Monique understood only too well. “Going with the flow sometimes seems like the only thing you can do. Then one day you wake up and you realize everything’s been decided—but not by you. Convenience comes at a very high price. It’s like staying with a man who doesn’t respect you, someone you’ll never be able to build a life with.” She paused and looked very sad. “If he can show you heaven, you think it doesn’t matter, that you don’t need to build anything together to be happy. Then the next morning, you look in the mirror and you find a new wrinkle. You start asking yourself questions. You sit by the phone, holding your breath, waiting for a call that never comes.” Her voice had dropped to a whisper. “Bit by bit, he takes all the space you give him, while you yourself disappear. Of course, you still have your work, your family—and I suppose that’s enough for some people. I admire you, you know—you’re different.”

  “Really?” Elena asked. “You’re going to have to explain that one to me.”

  “I’ve always admired the way you can find incredible combinations—fragrances that capture you with their magic. I wanted that for myself.” Monique held up a hand. “Don’t interrupt me, please. I think I even hated you for it, sometimes. Not in the true sense of the word, don’t get me wrong,” she added quickly. “You’ve overcome the limitations that were put on you, like the breakup. You’ve even kept the baby. You’re living. You’re dealing with it all.”

  “I didn’t make that choice; you know that. I had plans, then things went in a different direction. The point is, there was nothing I could do but find a new path . . . which actually turned out to be the old one.” Elena rolled her eyes. “Wow, I’m even confusing myself.” She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and smiled. “But I like the spin you put on the truth, Monie. You’ve always been good at making me feel better.”

  Monique had that look of deep sadness in her eyes again. Elena feigned a happiness she didn’t feel; her friend’s words had dismayed her.

  “Thank you for the flowers,” she said, changing the subject by referring to the bouquets of dried roses Monique had managed to have sent from Grasse. She’d put them in the middle of one of the tables, and apart from perfuming the entire room, they were extremely pretty to look at. The tiny buds that still had their original colors gave off a seductive fragrance.

  “Are you ready? Is it opening time?” Monique asked.

  “Yes, I’m ready.”

  A deep breath and Monique opened the door that led directly onto the street. Cail had turned on the spotlight to illuminate the sign. Everything was ready. For a long while, absolutely nothing happened; there was total silence, all eyes focused on the door.

  “How about a toast? You can’t have an opening without a toast,” Ben said, breaking the tension. He pulled a bottle of champagne from a small portable fridge, popped the cork and filled the glasses.

  “Mmm, that’s good,” Monique said, drinking to Absolue’s success.

  “So it should be!” Ben launched into a detailed explanation of the origins of the wine produced by his friend in northern France. But Elena soon lost the thread of the conversation. She was incredibly anxious—but she’d never felt so alive.

  And then the first guests started to arrive. One, two, five. All of a sudden, the shop was full. Monique was standing by the entrance. Cail was behind the counter. Elena went over to the other table. There were lots of industry faces, invited by Monique. All people who worked with perfume: models, technicians, PR consultants. Then Cail’s colleagues arrived, and Ben’s and Colette’s.

  Elena’s heart was racing. She had a chat with a journalist, set up some interviews, answered some dull questions, and some bizarre ones. And then she made her first sale.

  “Hello. Do you really make customized perfumes?” asked a man in his mid-thirties. He had a kind face, thin, with bulging eyes.

  Customized? It was a strange way of putting it, but it was right, Elena thought. “We prefer to call them perfumes of the soul.”

  “Really—why’s that? I mean, does the soul have a perfume?” But before Elena could respond he’d turned around. “And these?” he asked, pointing at a pyramid of colored packages.

  “They’re scented waters, obtained by distilling herbs and flowers. Did you have something in mind, or do you want to have a look around?”

  “No idea. I’m no good at buying presents. But this time . . . You see, my wife and I have been going through a rough patch. I’m working two jobs and by the time I get home I’m dead tired. She does nothing but complain. She says I’m neglecting her.” A dejected look darkened his smile. “It’s true, you know. I am neglecting her. So when I saw the ad for your perfumery I thought that maybe I could get her something special. So, you would put her name on it, is that right?”

  He was a customer; her first customer. Elena decided she was going to give him what he wanted, whatever it took. She smiled warmly, trying to put him at ease, because he almost seemed more nervous than she did. He’d done nothing but shuffle from one foot to the other, looking around, running his finger along the tabletop. His anxiety was apparent from the way his gaze darted from side to side, and it was contagious.

  “Yes, that’s one of the things we do. Tell me a bit about your wife. What’s her favorite flower? What perfume does she usually use?”

  “I don’t know . . . Is that important?”

  Elena took a deep breath; she knew she could do it. She would just start from the beginning and take this fellow through the process step by step. “Why do you want your wife to have a special perfume, Monsieur . . . ?” she asked, putting out her hand.

  “Leroy, Marc Leroy.”

  “I’m Elena Rossini. Pleased to meet you.” She shook his hand and he seemed to relax. “You were telling me about your wife. If I understand, you want a special perfume . . .”

  “Yes. So she knows I think about her. It’s something only she would wear, she and no one else.”

  Elena nodded. “It would be unique—just like her, right?”

  “Yes, yes. Unique.”

  “Let’s go back to flowers. Do you remember any she particularly likes?” Difficult question. A vacant look came over the man’s face again, then suddenly it lit up.

  “Roses. She really likes white roses.”

  Thank God, thought Elena. She ha
d plenty of different kinds of rosewaters, from centifolia to Bulgarian roses.

  “Does your wife have a favorite color?”

  “Green,” Marc answered, buoyed by having remembered. Elena had something prepared, with citrus and fresh notes of mint, that could work even though it was a simple scented water. “Come this way, and I’ll show you something I think might be just right for her. It’s not a perfume. That takes time, at least a month, and if I’m right, you want something you can take home today.”

  “Yes, straightaway,” he said enthusiastically.

  “I thought so. Here, tell me whether you like the smell of this.” Elena prepared a mouillette and held it out to the man. He inhaled slowly, then closed his eyes and did so again.

  “I like it. It’s delicate, but it smells really good. I’ll take it,” he said.

  Elena prepared the wrapping, and under the ribbon she slid a card trimmed with the Absolue colors and logo.

  “Could you write ‘Marie Leroy’?”

  She did as the customer asked and, once it was wrapped, she sprinkled it with a few drops of vanilla.

  “And what do we do about the perfume?” Marc asked.

  “Have a little talk with your wife. Ask her anything that comes into your head, because it takes a lot of answers to make a personalized perfume. You have to like it, too, but the person who’s going to wear it has to feel that it belongs to them,” Elena explained. “Don’t limit it to objects. Get her to tell you about her dreams, her ambitions, her most secret desires, and then come back.”

  “Secret desires.” He repeated this solemnly. Of everything Elena had said, it seemed only these two words had made an impact. Apparently he knew nothing of his wife’s most secret desires. But Elena would bet he was about to fill in some gaps . . .

  • • •

  Perfume was the way; following it meant finding your own path. Always.

  Who said that people disappear when they die? It doesn’t work like that; there are moments when their presence is so sharp, so powerful. Elena found herself in the middle of one of those moments. Her grandmother’s words were no longer just a distant echo. She’d never truly understood what they meant until then.

  As she watched her first customer leaving the shop weighed down with thoughts and the little bag in his hands, Elena caught Cail’s eye. Her heart gave a flutter in her chest, as it did whenever he looked at her like that. She wanted him desperately, she wanted to run over and embrace him—but he turned away and a moment later she got back to work, serving another customer.

  Eighteen

  GERANIUM: intensity. Resembles the perfume of a rose without its subtlety.

  The fragrance symbolizes beauty, posture and humility.

  The ultimate feminine flower.

  It was a success. The next day the customers came back, even if it was only to have another look around the shop. Elena welcomed, explained and remembered. That was perhaps what she did most, remember: words, moments, whole scenes from her life. It was as though they’d always been there, waiting until she decided to admit them, to lift the veil of the past.

  She started to make perfumes. First in her head, recalling the smell of the individual essences and putting them together, one at a time, imagining what they would be like combined. In those moments she worked feverishly, letting herself be carried along by the feelings these fragrances evoked. Each smell was like a word, but with no language barriers. Perfume has always been the most subtle, immediate and effective means of communication.

  Elena composed the perfume in her mind, starting with the top notes, then adding the middle, and finally the base notes. Before she started the physical creation, the perfume was already made inside her. But the really important thing was knowing she was happy at last. Every time she used the first essence, breathed in its fragrance, she felt a surge of joy, a deep sense of well-being flowing through her. In those moments, she experienced a sense of completeness, as if she had finally rediscovered a part of herself that had been lost.

  She prepared all kinds of fragrances. Perfumes that recalled everything from passionate nights to fresh mountain walks, or the hot, flower-filled gardens of Southern Italy. Rock rose, lemon, mint, and then rose, sandalwood, iris, violet, musk, moving from fruity to more intense, almost hypnotic notes.

  She let her hand be guided by her emotions, or the story she wanted to tell. And that made her think about Notre-Dame and Madame Binoche’s perfume. She was sorry she’d had to give up that project. Words could never express how she felt when she walked into the cathedral—or rather, they could only ever express part of the feeling, whereas perfume could go straight to the consciousness, to its very source.

  Unlike words, smells have no ambiguity. Smell is our overriding sense; it lurks in the dark recesses of our primordial soul and responds to a series of olfactory archetypes with which we are born: it is pure emotion.

  Elena mulled it over, and in the end decided she would make the phone call she’d had in mind for a while. Late one evening, she called. Geneviève answered quickly.

  “Madame Binoche?”

  “Yes.”

  “Hello, this is Elena Rossini.”

  “Finally! I was starting to give up hope of ever hearing from you again. How are you? They told me you’d left Narcissus.”

  “Yes, that’s right. Look, I wanted to talk to you about the Notre-Dame perfume.” Elena broke off, racking her brain for the right words. “I had prepared a version along the lines of your original idea, and I was planning to show it to you before I finished it, since there were a few things I wasn’t sure about. But the situation is . . . well, rather complicated now. I’m not sure how they decided to proceed at Narcissus, but perhaps you could ask them to let you smell some suggestions.” She paused again. It was a difficult conversation. She’d made a commitment and she hadn’t seen it through. The fact that it wasn’t her fault was just a technicality.

  “I don’t think I will. Actually, to tell you the truth, I’ve already made it clear to Monsieur Montier that I’m not interested in the perfume he offered me. I don’t even want to smell it,” Madame Binoche said forcefully. “You know, my dear, you just get a feeling about these sorts of things. At least, I do. I need to see the face of the person I’m dealing with. I need to be able to trust them. I’m a very instinctive person. This work, the book about Notre-Dame, is enormously important to me. I’d like to be able to crown it with the perfume. It would make the perfect launch. The thing is, I wanted you to be the one to do it.” She gave a sigh. “Never mind, this is probably the way it was meant to be. How are you, anyway? Are you all right?”

  “Yes, under the circumstances,” Elena replied. “I’ve opened an artisan perfumery called Absolue, and so far there seems to be quite a lot of interest—well, certainly a lot of curiosity.”

  “Could I come and see you?” Geneviève asked. “I’d like to have a bit of a chat. I’m not sure I understand what the difference is between branded perfumes and the ones you make. Aren’t they made the same way?”

  “Not quite. First, in brand industry, compositions are generally synthetic, whereas in artisan production they’re almost always based on essential oils. So really, even the basics are quite different. Then the customer, the person who’s going to wear it, isn’t just some average, standardized figure, but a very specific individual with particular requirements. This all needs a great deal of consideration, because the perfume is being created for them—and it represents everything they dream of and identify with. A bit like the conversation we had about Notre-Dame.”

  “Extraordinary,” Geneviève remarked.

  “It is. Please do come and see me,” Elena said. “We can talk in more depth. I’ll show you my notes—maybe they’ll be of some help to you, even if I’m right in thinking the first draft of the book is already done. The perfumery is in the Marais, rue du Parc-Royal.”

&nb
sp; “Oh, great! The Marais is a wonderful area. I’ll talk to Adeline, and we’ll both come. I’m really glad you rang me. I knew I wasn’t wrong about you.”

  “I’ll look forward to it,” Elena said, as a comforting warmth rose up through her chest. “Give my regards to your sister-in-law. See you soon.”

  • • •

  Christmas Eve was a frenzy. Cail had to stay in the shop and help Elena. Even Ben was drafted in. Monique had had to leave again and would be away in Russia for the whole holiday period. Elena was hoping this trip with Le Notre’s staff would help her friend work out how she felt about Jacques. Monique was growing ever more difficult and demoralized. The shop had become the only safe place to meet and talk to her.

  In the end, they had to order in artisanal perfumes made by other perfumiers. The ones Elena had made wouldn’t be ready for a few months. Absolue wasn’t going to get by on talcs, creams and soaps, so they’d decided to sell products made elsewhere but still of the highest quality. The bouquets were simple, all designed around seasons and moods. And the customers loved them. The important thing was that every fragrance was made using natural substances. The trendy perfume world full of glitz, glamour and synthetic products was extraordinary in many ways, but it wasn’t for Elena Rossini. She was sure of that now.

  “Are you ready?”

  Elena had just closed the perfumery and was sitting on one of the sofas. “Yes. More than ready.”

  Cail helped her put on her heavy coat. “It’s getting too small for you,” he noted.

  “I need to buy something else. Nothing fits me anymore,” Elena acknowledged, stroking the swell of her belly.

  Going outside was like walking into a block of ice.

  “This cold is ridiculous.” She shivered.

  Cail put an arm around her and pulled her toward him. “It’ll pass, you’ll see.”

  “How do you do it? I mean, look at you! You’re wearing a jacket—open, by the way—and what’s under there? A sweater? What kind of wool is it made of to keep you that warm?” She was indignant.