The Secret Ways of Perfume

by Cristina Caboni

  “Remember this moment when it’s my turn and I make you want to strangle me,” Monie muttered to herself.

  A couple of minutes later, Elena emerged from the bathroom.

  “Wow! You look great!” From the bag she had brought with her, Monique produced a matching clutch and handed it to Elena.

  Just then, Cail joined them. He went over to Elena and spun her around. “You look wonderful,” he whispered, before kissing her on the lips.

  “If you two have quite finished smooching, it’s time we got going. And don’t think I’ve got any intention of playing gooseberry. I want to know all the details of what you found out.”

  In the taxi on the way to dinner, the couple gave Monique the low-down. The knight, most likely, was Charles I of Blanchefort. With the help of Beatrice’s perfume, Charles had acquired everything he ever wanted, from his bride to his valuable possessions—including the dukedom.

  “How could a simple perfume have so much power?” Monique wondered.

  “In general, in those days, perfumes masked bad smells,” Elena reminded them. “Poor hygiene was rife. Think of the difference a slight scent of roses, neroli, or citrus and iris would have made. The middle notes are quite clear, but there’s no indication of the base notes at all. Beatrice left the mixture to mature for three months—I think she used alcohol and water—and I’m afraid the final fixative is some kind of animal musk. I can’t come up with anything else that would explain the effect it had on the young lady of Lourmarin.”

  “Ambergris?” Monique suggested.

  “I don’t know . . . It could be. As soon as I get back to Florence, I want to take a good look at the screen—you know, the one in the workshop.”

  “You mean that’s where Beatrice wrote the formula?”

  Elena shrugged her shoulders. “I’m not sure, but there’s a good chance.”

  “God, this is huge! When are we leaving?” Monique asked. “Because, I mean—imagine if it’s true. An ancient perfume formula from the seventeenth century illustrated on a screen. It would be a massive hit, and I don’t mean the perfume, I mean the story.”

  Cail frowned. “After the baby’s born, we’ll all go together. OK? Look, we’re nearly there.” He pointed at the brightly lit area with people milling around on the pavement.

  There was no way of continuing the conversation right now; they got out of the taxi and went up to the doors. The Lido de Paris was busy that night; the show always drew a huge crowd of tourists. Monique had been there often. At the beginning of their relationship, Jacques had taken her there all the time. She loved the place—she really enjoyed the shows and the atmosphere. The dancers were quite extraordinary.

  While Monique went to collect the tickets, Cail had to go back and find Elena, who was still standing there, staring at everything like a little girl. If the outside of the building was luxurious and fascinating, the inside looked like a film set. Blue and gold were the dominant colors: a grand arcade led to the dining rooms.

  Cail helped Elena take off her coat and took it to the cloakroom. Monique was about to rejoin her friends, who had gone on ahead, when she accidentally bumped into someone.

  “Oops—sorry!” she said pleasantly.

  “Watch where you’re going, will you!” the woman snarled, smoothing out the wrinkles in her dress.

  Monique looked up and met the furious gaze of a very young, very pretty girl. “Actually, it’s you who should watch out for me. It’s not as if you have the right of way,” she replied frostily. Then she recognized the girl, and her heart skipped a beat.

  “What’s going on?”

  It was bound to happen sooner or later. That was all Monique could think as Jacques walked over to join his fiancée.

  “This clumsy idiot walked into me and made me drop my bag,” the girl whined. For a second, Monique toyed with the idea of raising her hand and teaching the little cow a lesson. Meanwhile, Jacques stood, frozen, between the two women.

  Monique was seething with rage. So many lies! “Unavoidable commitments relating to the management of the new Narcissus headquarters.” What a bastard. She would have liked to give each of them a slap.

  Jacques picked up the handbag from the floor and passed it to the girl, who continued to insult Monique. No greeting, not even a glance. When Monique realized he was pretending not to know her, she felt the blood drain out of her body, taking with it all the warmth, happiness and good humor she’d been feeling just seconds before.

  In the background, the tempo of the music had increased. Jacques’s fiancée was still whining and he was trying to stem the tide of words.

  Monique felt sick. Sickened by herself and by that silly little girl who thought she was Queen of the World. But wasn’t that how she felt about herself, too, when she and Jacques were together? Queen of a lie, an illusion; queen of a handful of dust that slipped through her fingers as soon as she opened her fist.

  Finally, Jacques looked at her. He was pale, his expression impenetrable. “We’re leaving,” he said tersely to the girl. “I’ve had enough of your tantrums.”

  Monique watched the couple until they disappeared from view. Then she looked for Elena and Cail. They were about fifteen feet away, standing quite still, watching. She noticed that they were holding hands, Cail towering over Elena, as if he wanted to protect her.

  That was the way it was supposed to be, Monique thought. And it wasn’t the knowledge that they’d witnessed the ugly encounter that made her decide to leave; it was the deep compassion on their faces. For a moment she saw things through their eyes, and she felt a profound shame.

  When Elena took a step forward, Monique shook her head and hastened out into the night, clutching a tiny handbag; at that moment it seemed as if it was all that remained of her life.

  • • •

  I’m not home, leave a message and I’ll call you back.

  Elena listened to Monique’s voice mail message for the umpteenth time and waited for the beep before saying, “Call me or I swear I’ll come over there. Actually, no—I’ll phone your mom and tell her everything. I mean it!”

  She put down the receiver, slamming it with more force than was really necessary. Aurore, who was arranging a pyramid of perfumed soaps, cast her a puzzled glance then quickly got back to work. Elena had decided to take the girl on for a few hours a week. Since that night at the Lido, Monique had all but disappeared, not answering the telephone other than to say she was OK. Those two syllables were all Elena could get out of her. She missed her friend desperately; she was worried about her and also felt very lonely without her.

  During the day, Cail was out at work. He’d moved some of his plants to a greenhouse outside the city, so they could grow in the best possible conditions. There wasn’t enough space left on the terrace in the Marais. The Bagatelle competition was coming up, and everything had to be perfect for it. In the evening, when he got home, he was so tired he often fell asleep on the sofa while they were talking. When he did so, Elena would cover him with a blanket before she went downstairs to bed. The baby was very active these days, kicking with an enthusiasm that sometimes made her feel quite uneasy.

  Damn! She nervously rearranged the objects on the counter, then put them back where they started. It was unfair of her to be angry with Monique and Cail, and she knew that. But she just couldn’t help it. She really was in a bad mood these days.

  Cail was making regular exhausting journeys just to come back and sleep in Paris. Elena was aware that he was only doing it to make sure she wasn’t on her own. But that didn’t mean that she missed him any the less. Sometimes, it felt as if both her friends had abandoned her. First Monique, now Cail. Work, work, work. And who was thinking about her? No one, that’s who!

  She knew it wasn’t true, of course. When her bad moods gave her a moment’s peace, Elena admitted to herself how lucky she was. But then all it took was one
glance at herself in the mirror, and she was full of despair again. Her back pain wasn’t letting up either and, what’s more, it was increasingly likely that if they didn’t widen the doorways soon, there was no way in hell she was going to get through them.

  That afternoon, Elena was completely exhausted. She’d had a long and tiring day. Aurore hadn’t said a word the whole time. On several occasions, she’d caught the girl staring longingly at the perfumier’s organ she kept in one corner of the shop. It was a gift from Cail, who’d found it in a terrible condition at a street market and restored it. At first, she’d struggled to find the right kind of tiny essence bottles to suit its nineteenth-century style, but eventually she had, and now this piece of furniture was among Absolue’s main attractions. It was what she showed the clients when she made customized perfumes. “Why not?” Elena decided. The next day, she would let the girl make her first whole perfume.

  She tried calling Monique again, and this time she left a furious message. She’d managed to find out from Jasmine that Monique had split up with Jacques, for good. Then, on one of their phone calls—more silence than talking—Monique had told her mother that she needed a change of scene. Elena was desperately worried. How was Monique going to get through this difficult period without her friends or her family?

  She wondered what might help, but nothing came to mind. Besides, she had something else to worry about: she couldn’t manage Absolue by herself, not now that the birth was so close and Cail was getting busier at work. She would have to close the shop—a terrifying thought.

  She sat on one of the shop sofas and put her head in her hands. Then she heard the bell ring and pulled herself together.

  “Is everything all right, dear?” Geneviève Binoche walked over to her with a big smile. Since the first time she’d come looking for her, the writer had become a regular visitor at the perfumery.

  “Yes, yes. Just a bit tired. How are you?”

  “I’m well,” the woman replied, settling herself down next to Elena. “I wanted to give you some good news.”

  “I could really do with some,” Elena told her.

  “Let’s see if this cheers you up. So . . . my editor likes the idea of the perfume of Notre-Dame, and wants to give me the money to get it made. I don’t need to tell you how incredible it would be to compose it on the day of the launch. Imagine the scene: you, my dear, picking out the essences one by one, and, while you measure them, telling the audience what inspired you. The grandeur of the cathedral; the cold calculation of people who give up love for wealth and power. It will be a resounding success, not to mention the good it will do for Absolue’s reputation.”

  “You’re asking me to make the perfume?” Elena inquired.

  “Of course! We’ve always talked about it as a possibility, and after the unfortunate incident with Narcissus I thought about scrapping the whole idea, but that would be a real shame. Elena, I have every confidence in you. I’m sure you can make this perfume.”

  Elena smiled at her. “It would be wonderful.” But her mind had already started to drift in another direction.

  It wasn’t the desire for success that made her thoughts turn to the formula for the Perfect Perfume. It was the similarity between what had happened to the characters in Victor Hugo’s famous novel and to her ancestor, Beatrice. Phoebus, the man Esmeralda loved, rejected her so he could marry the rich Fleur-de-Lys. Charles de Blanchefort did exactly the same thing to Beatrice.

  The Rossinis’ Perfect Perfume had returned to her life, Elena realized with a jolt. And who better than her ancestor to express the grief of an undervalued, discarded love that was unable to compete with a man’s desire for power and wealth? The Perfect Perfume could be the perfume of Notre-Dame!

  Beatrice had known from the start that there was no hope for her love. The knight who commissioned the perfume had already told her it was for his future wife: a rich noblewoman of high birth who was set to change his future. His relationship with Beatrice was just a bit of fun. Elena felt a lump in her throat—for Esmeralda, for Beatrice, and also for Monie. Centuries might have passed, but men and women were still making the same mistakes.

  She sighed and looked thoughtful, while Geneviève waited patiently, allowing her time to think things through. She had half the formula, Elena concluded, and she was willing to bet the rest was on the twin screen in Florence. She’d need to adapt the recipe to suit the cathedral, but it was doable.

  “How long do we have until your book launch?” she asked Geneviève.

  “It’s in September.”

  They were already approaching May. Beatrice had left the mixture to macerate for three months. The baby would be born at the beginning of June. June was also the time of the prize-giving for Cail’s rose, to which he had dedicated his body and soul.

  Elena went over it again and again, but even if there were three of her, there still wouldn’t be enough time. In the end she sadly shook her head. “I’m afraid it can’t be done.”

  Geneviève’s face fell. “That’s a real shame, my dear. I would have liked you to be the one to handle it all. It will be difficult to find someone else to make the perfume. It really meant a lot to me.”

  “We just don’t have enough time, that’s the problem,” Elena explained. “You see, the perfume needs to mature, and in order to compose it, I need to go back to Florence. At the moment I can’t leave Absolue. Could it wait a little bit longer?”

  Madame Binoche stood up, looking thoughtful. “I don’t know. I could try,” she said. “I’ll speak to my editor—she’s trying to speed things up.”

  Elena hoped some compromise could be arranged. Her desire to compose the perfume was growing stronger by the minute.

  “Think about it, my dear,” Geneviève went on. “There’s a very famous house lined up to buy it and distribute it. They’re talking about a lot of money, and naturally you would be named as the creator of the essence.”

  She would love to do it. Elena was sure Beatrice’s perfume would be perfect for Notre-Dame. But she had no idea how to fit it all in.

  “Thank you for understanding,” she said.

  Geneviève gave her a gentle hug and told her she’d call her for her final decision.

  • • •

  It was Cail who had first played her Ludovico Einaudi’s piano music. He put it on while they were looking at the stars. Elena liked to lie back in the rocking chair, wrapped in a blanket, while he tinkered with the telescope. These were moments of total relaxation; few words and real contemplation. And so many thoughts. “Nuvole Bianche”—“White Clouds”—was her favorite piece. Cail had given her some long compilations on CD, and she had started to put them on while she was working. It had become a habit now.

  “Don’t you get bored of it?” Aurore asked as the notes of the piano began almost unnoticed, rising in a crescendo to come back down and pick up the same swirling rhythm before subsiding again. This music was a background. For happy thoughts, sad thoughts, for people who had had enough of their problems, but more than anything, Elena thought, it was the perfect companion because they both liked it, she and Cail.

  “It helps me concentrate . . . It’s like a stream to rest my thoughts on; it softens the bumps. And besides, it’s soothing. When I was little and composing my first perfumes, I couldn’t control the essences—I was under their power. I saw them in the form of colors. I was afraid of them; I loved them. Whenever I smelled them, the emotions I felt were so intense they made me euphoric and upset at the same time. Music like this would have been a great help.”

  “That’s amazing!” Aurore was awed.

  Elena gave a half smile. “I didn’t think so at the time. Perfumes weren’t always something I wanted. For a long time I detested them. Then they became a necessity, a duty. It’s only recently that I rediscovered them for what they really are, and they became a source of joy and happiness again.”

>   Aurore didn’t understand. “How could you ever hate perfume?”

  “Good question. Maybe one day I’ll tell you. But for now, let’s get on. So, you’re not wearing perfume today, right?”

  “No, you told me not to.”

  “Good. Let’s move on. First thing: the essences . . . we’ve got those. They’re the ones in the aluminum bottles.” She pointed them out one by one, then she froze.

  The scene was like déjà vu. An image flashed into her mind, jostling its way through her memories. Herself as a little girl and her grandmother showing her the essences in exactly the same way, making the same gestures as she was now. Elena felt a deep sense of belonging and loss at the same time. Suddenly, she felt terribly alone. She desperately missed Lucia. She missed her grandmother’s presence, the way she handled everything—she even missed her silences.

  Then Elena came to her senses and realized that Aurore was asking her something. The image gradually faded: the Rossinis’ laboratory disappeared and became her bright workspace in the Marais once more. But Elena had learned something important in the last few moments: that, despite the acute sense of nostalgia she was feeling for her grandmother, there was no longer any sadness in her. She was celebrating Lucia Rossini with the gestures that had once belonged to her grandmother and were now hers, passing on the knowledge she’d learned, teaching someone who would also make good use of it one day.

  “Yes, yes, you told me that already. Then what? What comes next?”

  There was a clear impatience in Aurore’s voice. Elena almost wanted to laugh: the girl was as twitchy and eager as an athlete on the starting line. Setting aside her memories and feelings, Elena focused on the work they were about to do.

  “Dropper, mouillettes, cylinder to put our composition in, alcohol, paper filters. We’ve got everything we need. But today I thought we wouldn’t make just any perfume: this one will be your perfume.”

  “I don’t understand,” Aurore said quietly.

  Elena smiled. “This perfume will belong to you—it will be Aurore’s perfume. You’ll make it according to the process we use to create a perfume of the soul—or ‘a customized perfume,’ as the customers would have it.”