“I think — I suspect your family prospered because of a man named Giovanni, who went to America. Is that it?”
“That’s only a part of it. There was payment before for a great service done for the American lady. We had lost her name after all these years; it is a great joy to discover it again, and to speak to one of her family.”
“It’s lovely to be here,” Joletta said with a smile. “I’ve been reading about Giovanni and his mother, Maria, and I’m glad to know that everything turned out well for those who came after them.”
The older woman looked at Joletta a long instant before she gave a sharp, decisive nod. “There is another thing.”
She took a purse from her arm and opened it. From inside she drew out something that flashed gold and brilliant sparkling light in the sun. It was a necklace.
“This belongs by right to you, I think. It’s been hidden away for years by the women of my family. I know it was the property of the American lady who was here, but how we came to own it, I’m not sure. There has always been such secrecy about it that I fear it may have been stolen. Or if not that, then taken for safekeeping by my great-grandmother Maria, who was housekeeper at the time, but for some reason never returned. I would like to give it to you now.”
Joletta took the heavy necklace in her hand. The clasp, she saw at once, was broken. It could not have been worn since the evening in the village garden when it had been torn from Violet’s neck during her struggle with her attacker. Had Maria picked it up after that terrible night, then forgotten it? Or had it been given to her? There was no way to know.
It was still beautiful, a little dingy with age and clogged with lint from some cloth it had been kept wrapped up in, but remarkably unchanged from the description of it in the journal. The diamonds encrusting the gold bands surrounding the perfume bottle caught tiny blazes of light and reflected them into Joletta’s face. She blinked a little as she stared down at the huge amethyst, and at the design of a bird with spread wings etched into the side of the jewel. It really was exquisite, almost like a piece by Fabergé.
She turned the piece slightly. The edges of the small design on the side caught the sunlight. The etched bird sprang into relief.
She should know the design. It was familiar, and yet—
She did know it.
Thinking back over history lessons half-forgotten, bits and pieces studied during graduate work, she saw, quite suddenly, why Violet had not been able to record who Allain had been in her journal. She saw, too, why he had died.
Tears stung her eyes and pressed into the back of her nose in abrupt, unexpected grief for Violet and the man she had loved and the inescapable fate that had been theirs.
“Are you all right, signorina?” the other woman asked in soft-voiced concern.
“Yes, I think so,” Joletta said. She managed a smile, though she could not quite meet the eyes of Signora Perrino. She wished that she could tell someone what she knew. Not just someone, but someone who was as interested in Violet and Allain as she was, someone who knew their story. She wanted to tell Rone, wanted to hear what he would say and what he thought about it.
There was a small amount of gold-colored liquid in the bottle.
With fingers that trembled, Joletta tried the top. It was stuck, frozen by time and age and ancient perfume crystals. She tightened her grip, afraid to force it and risk damaging the bottle, and yet overwhelmed by a need to inhale whatever vestige of fragrance remained.
The top came free in her hand.
She lifted the bottle, breathing in gently, drawing the scented air deep into the back of her nose.
Roses, that was the top note. Orange blossoms. Musk. Amber. Narcissus. Vanilla orchid. Violets.
Soft, warm, flowing, familiar yet exotic in their combination, the scents merged in the forefront of her mind.
She was amazed at the freshness of it. By all rights the perfume should have changed, should have lost its true fragrance with time and evaporation. That it had not was due, surely, to the fact that all the ingredients must have been pure and natural, instead of the volatile synthetic chemical compounds used so often in modern perfumes, and also because the necklace had been kept hidden away in some dark place all these years.
It was a lovely scent, beautifully made, evocative in a haunting fashion.
But it was not Le Jardin de Cour.
She inhaled again. No. It was not the perfume they were looking for.
Roses — orange blossoms — musk — amber — narcissus — orchid — violets.
There was no vetiver. There was no jasmine, no lilac.
A slow, wry smile curved Joletta’s mouth. Of course. How foolish they had all been.
She saw it.
The truth about the formula. And where it was to be found.
It had been there all along, but she had not recognized it because she had been expecting the impossible, a miracle in total disregard for the quirky twists and personal predilections of human nature, and in defiance of everything she had been taught about the evolution of perfumes.
She also saw something else.
A sound left her that was a laugh and a gasp of pain at the same time. The tears in her eyes overflowed, though she smiled through them with a shake of her head.
“Are you sure you’re all right?” Signora Perrino said, her voice anxious.
“I’m fine,” Joletta said. “Really. I just — thought of something.” Her grasp tightened for an instant on the necklace, then she held it out toward Signora Perrino. “It was kind of you to show me this, but it doesn’t belong to me. I think it’s likely that it was earned, or else given in return for a great favor.”
The older woman took the heavy piece of jewelry in her hand. “You’re certain, signorina?”
“Yes,” Joletta said, “quite certain.”
The perfume shop was still open when Joletta arrived. It appeared to be fairly busy even this late in the evening, nearly closing time; there were customers browsing at the counters and the saleswoman at the cash register was ringing up perfume for a pair of women with the stamp of tourists. The place was bright and cheerful, and the smell of a dozen different fragrances wafted from the open door of the back mixing room to welcome her.
Joletta had meant to be at the shop earlier, but after the long flight routed through New York and Atlanta with delays in both places, she had been so tired that she had fallen into bed at her apartment and slept the clock around. By the time she had dragged herself up again, found something to eat, unpacked her suitcase, and searched out something to wear, the day was half over. Several hours at the university library doing research into the Crimean War and Russian history had taken care of the rest of the afternoon.
Now she only waved a greeting as she passed through the shop and the mixing room, then out to the courtyard. It seemed forever since she had been there. Nothing looked quite the same; it was as if it had changed subtly, though she knew it was she who had changed.
It also seemed forever since she had begun to guess at Violet’s secrets. She couldn’t wait to see if she was right.
She had been so sure, and so excited, that she hadn’t finished the tour. After talking to Signora Perrino, she had gone straight back to the hotel. She had packed her suitcase, left a message for the tour director, and taken a taxi to the airport.
She had intended to leave a message for Rone also, telling him, briefly, what she had discovered. The man at the hotel desk told her it was not possible; he had checked out early that morning. He had left no forwarding address, but had mentioned in passing that he was on his way home.
Home to New York.
Joletta had been stunned to find him already gone. She had given him no reason to think that she was interested in his leaving; still, she would have expected him to say good-bye. She could only suppose he had finally decided she didn’t need him.
She should be glad. It made no sense that she felt stymied and let down, and even depressed.
Joletta glan
ced at the courtyard garden as she passed through it. That, too, looked different, vaguely Italian now, with its columned arcade, its fountain and grapevine-covered arbor of stone, and the sweet olive in the corner where no true olive could tolerate the dampness. She shook her head a little as she climbed the outside stairs. Letting herself into the salon, she put down her shoulder bag and passed through into Mimi’s bedroom.
She knew exactly what she wanted, thought she remembered where to find it. Going directly to Mimi’s memory chest, she set the outer doors wide, then pulled open the top drawer on the left, turning over the contents. It was in the bottom where she had seen it for years, a packet of tintypes and glass negatives and faded photographs.
Joletta took the packet to the bed and untied the stringy ivory-colored ribbon that held them. With delicate care, she sifted through them until she found the one she wanted. She took it out, holding it to the light.
Taken at some time in the late 1870s or early 1880s, judging from the style of the clothing, it was a stiff photograph showing the front of the perfume shop. In it was Violet Fossier standing near the door with a female shop assistant on her right, both of them with their hair in pompadours and wearing shirtwaist blouses buttoned to the throat and bustled skirts that swept the ground. On Violet’s other side was a man, while just beyond him could be seen the sign for the pharmacy that had stood next door to the perfume shop until the proprietor’s death just before World War I, only a few months before Violet herself had died. On the sign in small letters was a name:
GIOVANNI REDAELLI, PROPRIETOR.
The man who stood next to Violet was half-turned from the camera, as if he did not particularly care to have his likeness taken. Broad of shoulder and well proportioned, he was handsome in the fashion of another age, with side-whiskers and a fine mustache. He wore a dark suit and carried a cane in his gloved hand, and on his head was a low-crowned hat with a wide brim that shaded his eyes. In avoiding the camera lens, he had turned to look at Violet. Even with his partially concealed expression, the grainy print of the photograph, and the yellowing of the years, the look on his face was near adoration.
Violet herself stared at the camera with clear eyes and only a hint of a smile on her mouth. She had aged since the miniature was done, but she was still a beautiful woman in a serene, self-contained style. Though she was giving her attention to the photographer and the moment, it was plain she was also aware of the man who stood next to her. She gave the impression that as soon as the time passed when movement would not blur the photograph, she would turn and speak to the man so near her, perhaps even place her hand in the bend of his arm and walk away at his side.
Joletta gave a low, satisfied laugh.
With the photograph still in one hand, she returned to the chest and took out the heavy velvet-and-brassbound journal from the drawer where she had hidden it before she went to Europe. She carried both of them to the French windows that gave out onto the upper gallery overlooking the courtyard. Opening the doors for the added light, she turned through the journal to a page just past the middle of the book, to a small pen-and-ink drawing of the head and shoulders of a man. She held the two images up together for comparison.
Yes.
They were the same.
She sighed and moved slowly to seat herself in a wicker chair on the gallery. Letting the book and photograph drop into her lap, she stared out over the courtyard. Somewhere inside her, tension she had not known she was carrying seemed to ease.
How long she sat there, she had no idea. When next she noticed the time, the light of evening was fading away and there was no sound from the shop below. The evening wind off Lake Pontchartrain was stirring the leaves of the sweet olive below, sending its fragrance in drifting clouds to where she sat.
Her gaze was resting on a gate in the wall of the courtyard, a gate that had always been there. It led into the courtyard of the building next door, the building that was today a part of some bachelor lawyer’s pied-à-terre, but which in other years had belonged to the owner of the pharmacy.
How many people, she wondered, had known about that gate in the past? How many had gossiped about the woman with the invalid husband who had tried to kill himself, the woman on such close terms with the good-looking Italian pharmacist whose shop was next door?
A pharmacist in those days was required only to have some knowledge of the concoction of pills and elixirs and mouthwashes, the money to buy ingredients, and the integrity not to adulterate the products he mixed together. The man in the photograph had appeared prosperous. Joletta did not doubt that he had been respected in the city, or that conjecture about him had been rampant among the female members of the community. That no whisper of ancient scandal had echoed down through the years to Violet’s descendants was a tribute to his discretion and, perhaps, his devotion.
What must it be like, Joletta wondered, to be loved in that way, by a man who would risk everything, sacrifice everything, to be with you?
She would rather not think about it.
Joletta got to her feet and moved back into the salon. Leaving the photograph lying on a side table but carrying the journal, she went back downstairs and into the rear workroom, where the perfume was mixed and bottled.
Beyond the doorway that led into the shop, everything was quiet. The shop was closed and locked for the day. That was good, the way she wanted it.
She placed the journal on the long counter that ran down the center of the room. Taking a glass beaker and a series of pipettes from a shelf, she set them beside it. She used a couple of the smaller account books from under the counter to hold the pages of the small brassbound book open to the first entry that had one of Violet’s small sketches at the top of the page.
It was really very simple, the code Violet had used to mark the formula for her perfume. It was in the drawings and the dates. Violet had made a lot of sketches, but most of them were on blank pages or in the margins. The ones that meant something were those placed at the dated headings of pages. The flowers and small animal figures she had drawn indicated the oil essence to be used. The numbers for that particular month and day gave the proportion of the oil shown to the whole.
Joletta studied the page a moment, then moved to the shelves holding the brown bottles filled with precious oils. Walking along it, following the labels with the tips of her fingers, she began to pick and choose.
With the bottles lined up in front of her, each corresponding to a journal page, Joletta picked up a pipette and began.
Within moments, the scents began to rise around her. She hardly noticed them individually, so great was her concentration. The combined effluences had a rightness that satisfied her, rather like a baker smelling the yeast of his rising dough and knowing the bread is proceeding according to the recipe.
She worked with care and exactness, adding just so many drops of each oil and not a lingering droplet more to the beaker, reaching for the next one, and the next, in their proper order. She took pains, just as she had been taught by Mimi, was careful not to plop the oils in any old way, not to shake or joggle the mixture so the scents were bruised. She treated the oils with respect, and even with love.
She was in her element, she realized, as she watched the pale green, light yellow, and golden orange-red drops meld and blend together and smelled their mingling essences. Always before, she had been watched over by Mimi as she mixed perfume; this was the first time she had undertaken to create something on her own. It made a difference in the way she felt, the way she thought of it.
She loved the way the glass jars and vials and other equipment felt in her hands, the weight and smoothness of them. She enjoyed the sense of experimentation and creative power that working with them gave her. The uniqueness of her task pleased her, the fact that she was making a formulation that had not scented the air, perhaps, in over a hundred years. She felt like a sorceress concocting some mystical imitation of life, one that required only a warm body to work its power, to become real for a few fl
eeting hours.
She knew what she wanted. She was going to make perfume.
She was going to create new and different fragrances, just as Mimi had done, and Violet, and all the other Fossier women who had gone before. It was in her blood, but most of all it was in her heart.
At last she had completed the measuring. Gently, she stirred in the pure alcohol that would make the oils volatile so they could become airborne and more available to the olfactory sense. She waited a moment, then applied the perfume to a piece of clean white paper. She let the molecules set, then inhaled the fragrance.
She had done it. She had re-created Violet’s perfume exactly, the perfume that had been in the necklace.
Regardless, it still wasn’t Le Jardin de Cour. It was similar, very similar, but not quite right.
She had known it could not be.
To be sure beyond a doubt, she put a drop of the perfume on her wrist and let it settle, then brought her wrist to her nose.
No, definitely not.
She heard the scrape of a footfall on the stone floor. She began to turn, jerking around so quickly that the glass pipette she was still holding struck the beaker of perfume. The beaker tipped over. Perfume splashed in a wide sweep over the counter, spreading like water, its exotic oils gleaming with a rich sheen in the light from overhead.
The fragrance exploded on the air, overpowering, almost sickening in its strength, even before the voice sounded in the still room.
“I thought the perfume was supposed to be lost,” Natalie said. “I should have known you were lying.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Joletta snapped. She reached to snatch up the journal. Its thick pages had become saturated with perfume for a fourth of their width. The odor would be permanent, ineradicable.
Wildest Dreams (The Contemporary Collection) Page 38