The Secret Ways of Perfume

by Cristina Caboni

  “Do you happen to know where Cail is?” she asked in a small voice. “He’s not answering his phone and he’s not at home.”

  Ben shot her a brief glance, then stepped back. “Come on, come in. Colette’s here, too. Sweetheart, can you join us? Elena’s here,” he called, turning around.

  “I’m here, won’t be a minute.” It seemed as if they were expecting her, Elena thought with another twinge of concern.

  “Thanks, but I can’t stay. Sorry if I’ve disturbed you. I’ll try looking for Cail later.”

  “Wait . . . he’s not there. He left.”

  Elena took a step back and shook her head. “What do you mean?” she asked in shock. “What about John? Is he with you?”

  Ben shook his head. “Cail took John with him. I’ve got no idea when he’ll be back.”

  Or if he ever will. The phrase hung in the air between them.

  “I’m really sorry, Elena. If there’s anything we can do . . .” Colette murmured.

  “It’s fine,” she replied, trying to sound cheery. “He probably forgot to tell me. I’m sure he’ll call soon to let me know where he is.”

  “Like you say, that’s bound to be it.”

  Elena forced a smile. “Yup.” She turned around and for a moment the world went black. She stumbled but recovered quickly. She’d handled worse, she thought dizzily; she could deal with this.

  “Are you all right?” Ben asked, running after her.

  “Perfect. Everything’s fine—I just tripped. Don’t worry.”

  As she crossed the courtyard on her way back home, she quite clearly heard Ben say a couple of swearwords. She was feeling rotten. Her head was full of cotton wool. Sounds were distorted, and the pain of grief reached all the way down to her stomach.

  She went slowly back into the apartment and dragged herself up the steps. Once she was upstairs, she went into the bathroom, took a long shower and then changed into clean clothes. She put on the white coat she wore when she was working, picked up the notepad and went into the laboratory, trying to ignore the images that were forming in her mind: Cail as he set up the distiller, Cail smiling at her, Cail kissing her.

  “Enough!” she chastised herself. She had a perfume to make. She had to try to concentrate; she had to learn to manage her own life, once and for all.

  Elena sat down in front of the essence droppers: this perfumier’s organ wasn’t wooden like the little one she had downstairs, the one Cail had given her. Monique had bought this one; it was modern, aluminum. But she still liked it. Actually, the only thing she had changed was the layout: the bottles of essences were arranged in fragrance families, the way Lucia had taught her, not alphabetically. Citruses, florals, fougères, chypres, boisés, orientals and lastly cuirs.

  She selected the essences she needed and, one by one, she put them on a tray. Then she started preparing herself to compose the perfume. It took several attempts, but in the end she managed to establish some order in the confusion of her thoughts and feelings. The world around her disappeared . . .

  She had to make two perfumes: Beatrice and Notre-Dame. Two very special perfumes. The first would form the basis for the second. She knew that was the right path to take. It had to be, because she was staking everything on this. Beatrice would give life to Notre-Dame.

  She set out the essences in front of her, looked at them, imagined them together, closed her eyes and composed her ancestor’s perfume in her mind. Then, and only when she was absolutely convinced of the result, she began. Carefully, she counted the drops of each essential oil: lemon, iris, jasmine, rose, amber, oak moss. She watched them slide across the surface of the tiny funnel and breathed in their aroma. Each step was important—it was critical, in fact. She recorded everything in her notebook, meticulously. Once the mixture was finished, she stopped, waited a moment for it to settle . . . then she sniffed.

  This was the perfume Beatrice had created for a lady centuries before. A perfume that, for her ancestor, had been both a beginning and an end.

  She wiped away a tear with the palm of her hand and then, holding her breath, she poured the perfume into a little bottle. She would have to let it rest for a few hours and then she could smell it again. At this point she stood up and left the laboratory, badly in need of a cup of tea.

  When she came back, she smelled the perfume again, checked the formula she’d written in her notebook and nodded in satisfaction. A whirlwind of emotions seized her: longing, passion, tenderness. Closing her eyes, she sat down and savored every single layer of the perfume, letting it slide over her skin and penetrate deep into her soul. It was meaningful, seductive, it stirred up deep emotions. But what she felt inside at this moment was longing—it was the pain of abandonment.

  Hours went by. Elena spent the whole time waiting until the perfume molecules had dissolved sufficiently to give her a hint of what the result would be. Her faith in her own abilities had taken a knock.

  She was confused—but the perfume was helping. One after another, the essences combined, even the synthetic ones that invigorated and brightened the mixture. She’d used them, in the end, because some of the ingredients Beatrice had employed no longer existed. She had had no choice—but she didn’t regret it: the perfume was good; it was more than good. This was Beatrice’s perfume. The one that had sealed the fate of the Rossini family. She gave it another sniff and it was like an explosion of flowers. Rose petals everywhere, a floral middle, laughter, playing by a fountain, in the sunshine, in a citrus grove, beneath a warm breeze and the heady tang of lemons. Then the evening: humid, dark, animal. Suddenly, captivating wood and a field of silver, under the pale moonlight. Jasmine, iris. Love, but not the sweet kind, no whispers, no heartfelt confessions. Then a sudden flicker, sensual, almost mesmerizing. A dense, heart-wrenching, painful story.

  Elena wiped away her tears again. She was exhausted; she didn’t have an ounce of energy left in her. But she had to carry on. She had to keep going. Beatrice’s perfume was her starting point, but she still had to find the mystique of Notre-Dame Cathedral, its magic, the centuries of history. That union would then give life to a new perfume: the perfume of Victor Hugo’s Notre-Dame de Paris.

  She placed one of the two vials containing her ancestor’s perfume in a locker, in the dark. In her mind, she could hear her grandmother’s words, recounting to her the steps she had to follow for this next creation. Starting from a base and then having to rediscover the path of the perfume wouldn’t be simple, but she could do it; she knew she could: she could feel it.

  Bracing herself, she transferred the contents of the second vial into a graduated cylinder and closed her eyes for a moment, searching her soul for the right direction to take. Then she added a drop of incense to the mixture. She gave it a sniff and kept going until she was suitably convinced. Then came vetiver, because she wanted water and humidity. Once she’d found it, she added another drop of myrrh.

  She worked tirelessly, almost feverishly, testing and then testing again. Finally, she stopped. She gave it another sniff and nodded. That was it, in her hands: she’d found it.

  When she went downstairs, the perfume of Notre-Dame de Paris was ready. She just had to leave it to rest. The process demanded that she would have to smell it again and correct it if needed. But she knew that wouldn’t be necessary.

  Aurore had gone. She’d closed the shop and left a note. It was the school holidays; she’d be back the following day. Elena stared at the scrap of paper, the neat handwriting with clear, definite letters, and that stylized flower instead of a period. She put it in her pocket, then she went over to the telephone.

  “Madame Binoche? It’s Elena Rossini. The Notre-Dame perfume is ready. Yes, thank you. Come whenever you like. I’ll show you the first sample, and from there we can start working on the final version.”

  She hung up, went back upstairs, lay down on the bed, still fully dressed, and immediately fe
ll into a deep sleep.

  Twenty-four

  NEROLI: marital love. Derived from orange blossom, this is the heavenly essence of flower petals.

  The fragrance of peace.

  Evokes positive feelings. Opens the way to love.

  If Elena had thought that Geneviève Binoche would stop coming to see her once she had her perfume, she was sorely mistaken. The writer had been utterly bewitched by it. She told Elena it was the perfect perfume—her Perfect Perfume. And she continued to visit regularly—and even though Elena didn’t feel much like going out, or talking, Geneviève hadn’t lost heart. That night she’d even taken Elena out shopping with her.

  The Lafayette department store was crowded, as usual, and had the most beautiful things on sale. Geneviève had decided that would be the first stop on their expedition.

  “I’ve never been shopping for baby clothes. I never had any children, and nor did Adeline. My brother died before he could become a father and my sister-in-law is one of those hard-to-please women. At least, that’s what she told me once when we had a heart-to-heart. I pointed out that she was still young and could start a new life. Adeline came back with the argument that she’d never find another man like Jasper. Isn’t that romantic?”

  Given that he died just a year after they were married, there wasn’t really anything romantic about it—but everyone sees things their own way, Elena thought. She knew that Madame Binoche was trying to be kind with her constant chatter, but she struggled to express her gratitude. It seemed like an entire lifetime since she got back from Florence, instead of just a couple of weeks. Cail had disappeared from her life and it was an effort to engage with anything anymore. She saw everything at a distance. The only thing that hadn’t changed was the instinctive attachment she felt to the baby. In fact, it was the baby who helped her get up in the morning and live from one moment to the next.

  “Thank you,” she said mechanically. “I suppose I should pack a hospital bag.”

  Dr. Rochelle had suggested she get everything ready, now that the pregnancy was in its final stages.

  “I was supposed to come shopping with Cail,” Elena whispered to Geneviève. She didn’t have the strength to go on with the conversation. She let it go, like she did every time it got too difficult to hold on to a thought.

  “But we ladies are so much more practical about these things, my dear.”

  Fortunately, Geneviève was blessed with formidable intuition and had immediately grasped the nettle: a day of intense shopping was exactly what was called for.

  They reached the department for newborns, and it was like walking into a candy store. Everything was in pastel colors, from the walls to the furniture. Dolls, toy trains, teddy bears in all shapes and sizes. And the scent of talc and vanilla. Madame Binoche started pointing out Babygros and outfits that would suit both boys and girls. Then she moved on to stronger colors and finally to pink and blue.

  “If you ask me, babies should be dressed in all the colors of the rainbow. It’s not fair that they get stuck with one color that defines them. It’s discrimination,” she announced, casting a critical eye over the whole themed display.

  Elena nodded from time to time. She was looking at the little outfits and putting the ones she liked best into the shopping cart. Jasmine had advised her not to buy too much—babies got bigger by the minute—but Elena didn’t want her child to go without anything. So the cart ended up brimming with baby products: socks with duck and pig noses on them; rompers in red, pink and light blue; tiny shirts; anything she liked the look of, she bought. She had no idea whether her baby was going to be a boy or a girl, but she decided to pick out some tiny little dresses, too.

  Money was no problem: the sum she’d been paid for the Notre-Dame perfume had more than covered Monique’s share in Absolue and given Elena a huge advance for her next project. Absolue wasn’t going to sell just perfumes of the soul, but a whole range that paid homage to the women in her family.

  “What do you think of this pram?” Geneviève asked.

  “I don’t know. It’s too dark.”

  “Don’t you like the color?”

  No, she didn’t like it. She wanted yellow for her little one, the color of the sun, or maybe even light blue like the sky.

  “I want something brighter, like a turquoise.”

  Geneviève looked around, then pointed a finger. “Over there. Aren’t they beautiful?”

  Slowly, Elena followed her. By this point she had to be careful getting around. If she made any sudden moves, the baby got anxious and started kicking. She’d see her child soon, and knowing that helped her to keep going without Cail.

  Elena was an expert in abandonment, but the chasm in the middle of her chest was something she’d never felt before. It was sheer emptiness. It was the essence of nothing. It only took a moment to get lost inside herself; that’s why she was keeping busy any way she could. So she didn’t have to think, so she didn’t get lost in the emptiness.

  The pram was a gift from Geneviève. Elena didn’t know what to say; they’d all been so kind to her that sometimes she felt like curling up in a corner and sobbing. She forced out a thank-you and a smile, and carried on.

  She had to keep reminding herself to breathe; that was important: one breath, then another. One step forward, then another.

  They moved on to choosing bedding, blankets, tiny pajamas. Then pacifiers, bonnets, bottles and nipples. They’d bought a huge amount and Elena started to worry about how they were going to transport it all, when the assistant handed her a business card.

  “You just have to give us a call, madame,” she said with a broad smile. “As soon as the baby’s born, we’ll make sure everything is delivered to you. Transport, assembly—we’ll take care of all that. You don’t need to worry about a thing.”

  Relief. Another thank-you. She seemed to have done nothing but thank people lately. They all expected her to be full of joy and smiles. She paid for the shopping and dragged herself through another day.

  She just had to be patient until the birth; the rest would take care of itself. The baby was the only thing that really mattered; and there was Absolue. Elena repeated that to herself several times a day, and sometimes it worked. Sometimes it was enough.

  During the day, she managed to handle everything quite well. Aurore rushed back from school to give her a hand, and Eloise stopped by whenever she could. So did Ben. Colette also came over regularly; she cooked lunch and dinner and separated individual portions into little containers to go in the freezer. All Elena had to do was pop one in the microwave and that was it. Her friends never left her on her own, not even for a moment.

  The next day, Elena received an invitation. Monsieur Lagose and Babette Dufour had just left. Things between them seemed to have settled down, but they were still bickering. It couldn’t be that bad, given the way they smiled at each other during their arguments. While she’d been pleased to see them together at first, now their happiness was another thing that made her eyes sting and brought a lump to her throat.

  “Here’s some post for you. It looks like an invitation,” Adeline said, looking at the thick ivory envelope. She’d called in to say hello and decided to stay.

  Elena looked up from the records she was updating and gave her a distracted look. “Could you open it?”

  “Of course,” Adeline said. “Did you enter a competition?”

  Elena frowned. “No, no competitions.”

  “But here it says you need to claim your prize.”

  “It must be a mistake,” Elena said, turning her attention back to the books.

  “It’s got the foundation’s logo on it: Paris-Bagatelle International New Rose Contest. I’ve heard about that. It’s a very important event, held in the most beautiful gardens in Paris. And it says the winner is the Floribunda Hélène.”

  Silence, confusion. Then: “Let me see,” Elen
a murmured, stretching out her hand. That was Cail’s contest, for the rose he’d created. She knew because they were supposed to go together.

  Adeline handed her the letter and Elena read it from start to finish, several times.

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

  “Are you sure? Is there someone you know who might have wanted to surprise you?”

  Yes, there was: Cail. But he’d made it clear he didn’t want to see her or speak to her. So it couldn’t be from him.

  “It’s for Saturday,” she said. “I’ve got nothing to wear.”

  What a stupid thing to worry about, she thought. Cail had sent her an invitation weeks after he’d practically disappeared out of her life, and the first thing she could think of was that she didn’t have anything to wear.

  “I know a wonderful shop. We can go as soon as Aurore gets here. What do you say?”

  Elena closed her fingers around the card. “I don’t know. I don’t think I’ll be going.”

  She put the invitation on the counter and went back to checking the books. Adeline didn’t say anything. She just gave her a gentle look from behind her half-moon glasses. Elena could feel the weight of that patient gaze on her. She tried to ignore her, then she decided to look up.

  “It’s Cail.” She paused. “But he won’t even answer my calls, so why would I go there?”

  “To give him a piece of your mind?”

  Oh yes, she would love to do that. There were one or two things she was dying to say to him. “It’s complicated.”

  “If it wasn’t, it wouldn’t be worth wasting your time for, would it?”

  “I kept him at a distance, you know, because of the baby. I wanted to be sure the three of us stood a chance. Because I’m not on my own, Adeline. I have a child. Or rather, I will have one very soon, and he or she will be part of my life forever. I would never give up my baby, ever, not for anyone.”