The Secret Ways of Perfume

by Cristina Caboni

  As he drove back into the city, taking every shortcut he knew and committing a considerable number of traffic offenses, Cail cleared his mind of any thoughts. He was almost in the Marais when the phone rang. He stopped the car and answered.

  “Cail, at last.”

  “Thank God.” When he heard Elena’s voice, Cail’s heartbeat returned to a normal rhythm. “I’m nearly home, darling. Are you all right? I’ll be with you in ten minutes.”

  “Um . . . that’s actually what I wanted to talk to you about. I’m not in Paris.”

  Cail thought he had misheard. “Say again? Tell me Monique is with you. It’s not wise to travel in your condition, Elena, you know that. The baby might be born early.”

  Another silence. Then Elena cleared her throat.

  “Cail, a couple of things happened. I’m in Florence.”

  It was like a punch in the face. Cail drew the phone away from his ear and held it there for a few seconds.

  “Are you there? Look, it all happened this morning. Monique’s leaving; she’s moving to New York. And Madame Binoche asked me to make the perfume again, remember? I told you about it. If I find Beatrice’s formula, I can correct it and adapt it to Notre-Dame. I’d have the money to pay back Monique, and then . . . you know, Cail, I really want to make this perfume.”

  Silence. Cail had never felt as alone as he did in that moment.

  “And you didn’t think to wait for me.” It wasn’t a question but a bitter observation.

  “There wasn’t time. I kept calling you, but I couldn’t get through.”

  “I dropped my phone. One of the guys at work ran over it with the tractor,” he said in a monotone voice.

  “Right,” Elena said. “Are you OK? You sound angry.”

  Cail took a breath and asked himself the same question. “In your opinion, how should I feel when I find out you’ve gone off like this? You had no qualms about making the decision on your own. You didn’t want my opinion because you knew I would have disagreed. You just didn’t care.”

  “Listen, we’ll talk about this properly when I get back. OK? I’ll explain everything,” replied Elena, who was beginning to lose her temper.

  “There’s nothing to explain. You’ve made no commitment to me. I haven’t got any rights. I’m not even the father of your child. And you’ve just reminded me of that.”

  Oh God. He really was angry, Elena thought.

  “That’s rubbish, Cail, as well you know. I’ll be back tomorrow and we’ll talk about it then.”

  But Cail didn’t think so. Suddenly he was faced with the reality of the situation they were in, and he could see it for what it really was, acknowledging everything with ruthless clarity. He gripped the phone in his hand, staring into the distance, at some indefinable point.

  “No, Elena, it’s too late for that. I . . . Take care of yourself.” He ended the call and sat holding his phone, his eyes fixed on the Seine flowing nearby, as dark and heavy as his soul.

  When Elena called back, Cail turned off his mobile. He had no desire to talk to her, nor to hear her voice. He couldn’t bear the feeling of having a door slammed in his face again. God, he hadn’t seen her for just a few hours and he already missed her like crazy. After a few minutes, he restarted the engine and screeched his way back into the flow of traffic.

  • • •

  The taxi dropped her right at the door of her grandmother’s house.

  “They say it’s good to walk in your condition, but you know, I actually think the less exertion, the better,” the driver told her, helping her with the suitcase. “Sure everything’s all right?”

  Not really. “Yes, thank you,” Elena lied politely, then she paid her fare, said goodbye to the taxi driver and closed the door behind her. There it was. The perfume of the house wrapped itself around her in a welcoming embrace. Elena went inside and collapsed onto the sofa. Silence. Everything there seemed to be sleeping, as though she’d arrived at night. She looked around and it felt as if she’d left the place just yesterday. The baby kicked and she put her hands over her face. A lifetime had passed since she’d left Florence: a whole lifetime.

  Elena stood up, looked for the main switch and turned on the lights. She had a lot to do and she didn’t want to waste a minute. She was upset that Cail had taken it so badly, desperate to see him again, to explain her reasons. Monique needed the money and Elena wanted to create this perfume. She felt compelled to do it. In fact, she needed to do it, end of story.

  First of all, the screen; then everything else, she thought. She crossed the hallway and went into the workshop. There it was. She walked over to the corner where it stood and turned on the lamp. A shiver ran down her spine. It was the same as the one in Lourmarin; there was no doubt. Even the frame seemed to be the same: simple, linear, almost as though it had been especially made to hold the screen. She imagined Beatrice leaning over the fabric, and it brought a lump to her throat.

  She looked and saw a lady on a horse: she was on a journey. Alone. The knight was a long way off, behind her, and next to him rode another lady, dressed in finery.

  “The wife,” Elena whispered. She kept following the design, but that was the motif for one whole side of the screen.

  “Where did you put it?” she mumbled, baffled.

  Then she went around the other side. A small deer and a forest. Trees, a stream, a necklace that could be gold, or . . . amber. Water, the moon. And a vial.

  Elena took out the notebook she had in her bag and went back to inspecting the screen from top to bottom. As she observed every detail, she tried to picture herself inside the scene. After all, she’d seen these places, and even though they’d changed over time, they were still essentially the same, weren’t they? The forest below the castle came to life in her mind. The air filled with perfumes; it had rained recently—a stream had formed and was gurgling over the stones. Elena heard the knights calling and looked up. The sky was blue and clear; hawks were flying overhead. They were celebrating the nobles’ wedding. Jubilant shouts and cheers echoed through the valley.

  Beatrice spurred on her horse. She’d waited until the last possible moment, before realizing there would be no place for her there: she didn’t want to feel how much joy there was at the wedding celebrations; she didn’t want to watch him kiss his wife. He’d given her an escort for the journey. And he’d broken her heart.

  A deer and three trees. Oak. They were oak trees. Beatrice had used animal musk and oak moss to make the perfume, and ambergris, all typical ingredients for that time. The symbolic necklace played on the double meaning of amber.

  Elena came back to reality, observing and searching—and eventually, she had a firm idea of what went into the perfume. She wrote down the formula and closed her eyes. It was so simple, so commonplace; that couldn’t be it, she thought. Her mind went back to the screen she’d seen in France. Lemon or hesperidium, she hadn’t quite worked that out yet. Then rose, iris, jasmine, wood, musk, amber. Water, oil. A path, a walk through a garden—it was all there.

  It wasn’t possible, she thought. This was a very simple formula that even Aurore could have figured out by herself if she had the right ingredients. At this point, the only thing that made Beatrice’s perfume special was the use of musk, an animal component that had since been banned on ethical grounds and replaced by synthetic molecules.

  Her mother was right to believe that this perfume could have had a certain importance in the 1600s, but not in their time. So why had all the Rossini women sought it out with such intensity?

  Even her grandmother, who was so rational and pragmatic, had dedicated her entire life to finding the Perfect Perfume. But however good it was—and it was—the formula Elena had in her hand didn’t have the power to ignite a woman’s love and passion; it had nothing that could influence her will.

  Elena could smell it in her mind: it was one of those things sh
e’d always been able to do, get an idea of the perfume simply from reading the formula. And she didn’t understand.

  She went down to the basement, notepad in hand, turned on the lights and entered the study. Now that she knew the ingredients, she wanted to try combining them.

  The essences were in a wooden box; she remembered it well. The last time she’d looked inside she’d had to throw out a fair few. But she hadn’t checked the musks, or the amber. She knelt on the floor and picked out a few of the metal bottles, but the moment she opened them, her hopes vanished. Rancid, off. All for the garbage. A sigh, a flash of anger. Her disappointment was huge. She had the formula and she couldn’t make it.

  She dragged herself into a chair while the baby kicked around. The Perfect Perfume handed down through whole generations of Rossinis was the story of an ill-fated love, reminding her of what was really weighing on her heart: Cail, his words, the disillusion, the pain in his voice when he said them. She hoped she hadn’t made a terrible mistake and ruined everything.

  • • •

  “Are you sure you don’t want to leave John with me? It won’t be any trouble to look after him.” Ben was watching Cail fill his rucksack and he didn’t know what to do.

  “I’m not sure how long I’ll be away, so it’s better if John comes with me.” Cail’s voice was hard; his face looked hollow.

  Ben was dying to ask what had happened.

  “Shit, Cail, you can’t just disappear like this. Elena doesn’t deserve that. Did you have a row? Right, so talk about it and make up. What can possibly have happened? There’s always a way to fix things.”

  Cail didn’t answer. He rarely did now. He fastened his rucksack, threw it over his back and walked out of the bedroom. “Lock the door,” he said.

  That was the only reply Ben was going to get.

  • • •

  Elena had woken up early that morning, and packed her suitcase with the diaries she planned to use to reproduce some vintage fragrances, as well as a few objects that would look good in Absolue, and a container full of amber that she had found. She had no idea whether she’d be able to use it, or whether she’d have to make do with an equivalent molecule, but she was bringing it with her anyway. She was sitting in the kitchen, like she had thousands of times in her childhood, holding a cup of tea in her hands. On the walls, in between the furniture, was a collection of china. They were plates her grandmother used only on special occasions.

  Memories came flooding back, carried along on the perfume of the house. It was a piece of her family history, that collection of china. Her grandmother used the crystal glasses and silver cutlery, too. One of the Rossini women had bought them. Another had ordered a set of Venetian glasses, complete with carafes and bottles. The plates, though, were French, from the end of the seventeenth century.

  Elena was surprised to find herself thinking that she would like to tell her child how each of her ancestors had contributed to this little legacy that told their story, about what they loved, their deeply rooted tradition, their taste for beautiful things. Because they really were beautiful, those plates. As was the furniture, the screen, the objects that, over the course of the centuries, had been collected and kept for whoever came along next.

  Family. The word stretched out in her mind and gathered force while she went on remembering. She’d never cared about those things before. So why did she feel like crying now?

  She dried her face, sighed and decided to stop trying to find any sense in her thoughts. She was tired and bitterly disappointed.

  “Beatrice’s perfume doesn’t exist,” she said aloud. “It’s just the projection of a desire—mine, my grandmother’s, and whoever came before her. The Perfect Perfume is nothing but a pile of hopes and illusions. We’re the ones who gave it that power; the ones who thought it was special.”

  She must stop talking to herself, and to objects. It was embarrassing. It was what people did when they didn’t have anyone else to talk to. Whereas she had the baby; she talked to it all the time, didn’t she? And besides, there were plenty of people around her. Maybe not right at that moment, but there were normally. Aurore, for example, was the person who listened to her most, and in some way reminded her of herself. They had so much in common.

  Just then, Elena remembered the perfume Eloise had bought for Aurore. She clasped her hands around the teacup, then she put it down and stood up. Quickly, she made her way to her grandmother’s room. There it was, the trunk, in its usual spot. She opened it and stared at the contents. A neat stack of diaries, documents, little bags filled with essences, photographs faded by time, and a few pieces of cheap jewelry. Elena frowned. This was where her grandmother had kept the perfume Susanna had made as a gift for Elena’s sixteenth birthday; she was sure she had, because she’d watched her put it in there.

  “I don’t want it. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with it! It will be foul. Actually, I bet it was Maurice who made it. He probably put a drop of poison in there, too,” Elena had yelled.

  Lucia had compressed her lips into a thin line and flared her nostrils. She was truly angry. “When someone offers you their hand, Elena, you’d do well to accept it. It’s called mercy, you know. Do you really think you won’t make mistakes in life? I’m sorry to disappoint you, my girl, but there is no such paragon of perfection, except in some people’s arrogant minds, and you’re not arrogant, are you?”

  Elena had obstinately refused to reply. She didn’t want that perfume—and she didn’t want her mother anymore either, she thought angrily.

  “One day you’ll understand that there are many, many things to take into account, little one.”

  “Throw it away. I don’t want her perfume. I don’t want anything from her,” Elena screamed in temper before she ran out of the room. But when she reached the door, she stopped, her heart in her mouth. What if her grandmother really did throw it away? She went back then, determined to pick up the package Susanna had sent her. But Lucia still had it in her hands, looking deeply sad. Elena followed her as she went upstairs to her bedroom and put it into her trunk, the one she kept locked.

  It had been so long since then, how could it possibly still be so painful to remember that scene? She hadn’t behaved well, Elena knew. She had been mean. It occurred to her that for all these years, she’d been hiding the shame for her own contemptuous gesture behind her anger toward Susanna. In the end, she’d made her mother the scapegoat for everything.

  The perfume had to be there, she thought. Now she did want it. She wanted to smell it.

  With her heart racing, she moved things around, all the letters and papers her grandmother had kept. Then she saw it.

  The box was exactly as it had been, back when she’d been given it, all those years ago. Taking a couple of deep breaths to gather her courage, Elena opened the box carefully. In the morning light, the glass bottle glinted in her hand. The liquid swayed; it was a soft, pastel pink. She loved that color. Could her mother have remembered? She was deeply moved at the thought.

  She would bring it with her, Elena decided. In spite of everything she didn’t feel up to opening it now, but she would take it to Paris.

  She went back into the hall and picked up her mobile phone. There was no need to check if Cail had called back. Elena knew he wouldn’t forgive her that easily.

  “There is no way you’re dumping me like this,” she said aloud.

  • • •

  Paris was bathed in light. The plane landed on time. Elena had done nothing but watch the bright, clear sky.

  She couldn’t wait to get to work. She had decided she was still going to compose the perfume, regardless of Beatrice’s formula. The perfumier’s organ was full of the essences she needed, and thanks to Monique, she also had a sizable collection of chemical substances. This time, she would make an exception. To compose the perfume of Notre-Dame she needed to use a lot of substances in orde
r to keep the formula as stable as possible. She couldn’t allow herself to slip into the vagaries of essences; the perfume had to be easy to reproduce.

  She would adapt, she told herself. After all, it wasn’t every day you got to compose the perfume of a novel. Geneviève would have her perfume, whatever it took.

  On her way home, she came to a decision: she would deal with one thing at a time. Most importantly, she had some unfinished business with a man.

  “Thank you,” she said to the taxi driver, as she paid the fare and went into Absolue.

  “Hi, Elena. I wasn’t expecting you this early. You should have let us know—Mom would have come to pick you up,” Aurore told her.

  “It’s better this way. So, is everything OK?”

  The girl nodded. “Yes, perfect. I’ve sold a couple of creams, a few soaps. Then a man came in, said he needs to talk to you about his wife for a customized perfume.”

  Elena stared at her blankly, then she remembered. “That must be Marc Leroy. Heavens, I thought he’d changed his mind.” She was glad he’d come back, very glad indeed. “Can you stay for the rest of the day? I’ve got a couple of things to do, so I still need you.”

  Aurore smiled. “You bet! I love it here. People look at you differently when you’re behind a counter.”

  “It’s all about perspective,” Elena told her, dragging the suitcase behind the wall Cail had built to separate Absolue from the part of the shop that led into Elena’s apartment.

  “See you later,” she called to Aurore and went out into the hallway. She climbed the stairs to Cail’s apartment and knocked.

  After a few minutes she decided to try the door, but it was locked. So she went back downstairs, out into the courtyard and headed for the building opposite. A minute later she was knocking at Ben’s door.

  “Hello,” she said when he opened the door.

  “Elena, what a nice surprise. Come in, please.”

  But she stayed in the doorway, concerned by the way Ben was looking at her. She was all too familiar with pity, and she could see it in Ben’s eyes now. Her heart started to beat unevenly.