The Perfume Collector (11 page)

‘She doesn’t smell drunk.’

He rolled his eyes. ‘Don’t you know anything? Opium,’ he explained. ‘She’s been smoking opium.’

‘Oh.’ Eva stared in awe at the sleeping woman. An opium den. How dreadful, low and exciting.

‘We’re going to Morocco soon and it will only get worse.’

‘Morocco? What are you going to do there?’

‘We’re buying ingredients. They have, among other things, one of the finest jasmine harvests in all the world. Normally we buy them through a third party but I’m sure if we go there ourselves we’ll discover not only purer absolutes for a better price, but I have a feeling we’ll also stumble across some rare indigenous ingredients we haven’t encountered yet in Europe. And that’s what we’re looking for – a new palette, something truly original.’

Eva smiled to herself, gathering her duster from the dressing table.

‘Why are you sneering at me?’ he demanded.

‘I’m not sneering.’

‘Yes, you are.’

‘You always talk like you’re in charge,’ she pointed out.

‘Well, I do have influence. She values my opinion. She’s one of the world’s greatest perfumers and I am, after all, her only apprentice.’

‘So you keep saying – over and over again. Besides, I thought you were her secretary.’

‘I’m more than that. You see,’ he followed her into the bathroom, leaned against the doorway, ‘you can’t go to school to learn the art of the perfumer. You have to possess a natural, God-given talent and then the secrets of the profession must be passed on by a master. I have been an apprentice to Madame since I was nine.’

‘Nine? How old are you now?’

‘Eighteen.’

She snorted. ‘Are you a slow learner?’

‘It’s an art!’ He glared at her. ‘It takes years just to memorize the various ingredients. It isn’t just about mixing notes together but about developing a palette, a comprehension of scent and how it works. Do you have any idea of how difficult it is to create a fragrance that develops properly on the human skin and lasts?’

Eva folded her arms defensively across her chest. ‘So how did Madame know you had talent in the first place?’

‘I suppose she could just tell.’ This girl really asked the most presumptuous questions. ‘Actually, even when I was small I could dissect smells, take them apart and decipher their precise ingredients. There is a story that Madame discovered me one day standing in the neighbour’s garden, standing over a rosemary bush. Apparently I was so lost in concentration, I couldn’t hear my name being called. It was by far the nicest-smelling thing in the whole village,’ he recalled.

‘And your parents just gave you to her?’

‘No! Of course not!’ he snapped.

‘I’m only asking!’ she snapped back. ‘Did they pay her?’

‘They don’t have that kind of money. My parents came from Prussia. They’d escaped, during the Revolution, with nothing but what they could carry. My father was a cantor.’

‘A what?’

‘A cantor,’ he repeated, his cheeks colouring a little. ‘It’s a singer of religious songs in the Jewish temple.’

‘Oh.’ She’d never actually spoken to anyone Jewish.

‘It’s a sacred profession – a vocation really – that’s been passed down through generations,’ he continued. ‘I suppose they thought I might follow my father one day. But my parents couldn’t afford to keep all of us – my brothers and sisters are younger than me. And cantors don’t make much money. For a while I lived with some neighbours down the street. I suppose they were nice enough. Tailors. I used to press the garments, deliver orders and clean the work room to earn my keep.’

‘How old were you?’

‘I’m not sure . . . six or seven. And then Madame came along, looking for an assistant – someone she could train. Her offer was a rare opportunity.’

‘Still, it’s quite young.’ Eva’s voice softened. ‘Did you ever seen them again – your parents?’

He shook his head. ‘You must miss them.’

‘Oh, I don’t know. I never really think about it.’

Eva wasn’t fooled. ‘My mother died when I was born, back in Lille,’ she said. ‘My aunt and uncle brought me here. But they didn’t really want me. It’s funny, isn’t it? How you can miss someone you’ve never known.’

‘I suppose.’

Eva adjusted the tin bucket and mop on the side of her cart. ‘I sometimes wonder what it would’ve been like if my mother had lived. If she would’ve cared for me at all.’

Her words touched him.

He also wondered if his parents ever thought of him; if they’d found it easy to let him go. Even now, there was no contact between them. He’d never known if it was because they’d preferred it that way or because they’d been too ashamed to try. He preferred to believe the latter.

‘I guess it’s better not really knowing for certain,’ she added, with a wry smile. ‘This way I get to imagine what I want. And we must take our comfort where we can, don’t you think?’

He nodded.

He was reminded of the terror of leaving his parents, his village, even his brothers and sisters whose very existence guaranteed his expulsion from the family. And of the strange, dark figure of Madame Zed, who had taken his small hand firmly in her own and led him away to the station.

‘We have something in common,’ she informed him. They were sitting alone together in the cold, second-class compartment as the train pulled away.

He had tried not to speak; he was afraid of crying if he opened his mouth. But he managed to ask, ‘What’s that?’

‘We are both exiles,’ she said, fixing him with her steady black eyes.

And then, as the train wove through the countryside, she told him the story of how her family were arrested and executed one bright September afternoon at their estate outside St Petersburg, during the Red Terror. And how her old nurse, a devout woman with little care for her own life, had smuggled her out hidden in a hay wagon, wearing a kitchen maid’s clothing and clutching a knife hidden under her coat.

By the time she’d related the details of her journey from St Petersburg to Odessa, penniless and starving, of the unexpected kindness of the naval officers who gave her sanctuary on a British ship to Constantinople, and of her subsequent journey from Malta to Marseille, they were halfway to Paris. The lamps glowed softly in the compartment. It was warmer now; tea and cakes were served from a trolley and Madame had covered him with her own thick woollen travel blanket.

She looked out of the window, at the sun setting behind them, her long, sharp features outlined in shadow against the glass. ‘You will see. We will make our fortune, you and I, and no one, ever again, will be able to tell us where or how to live. Or die.’

Neither of them had ever spoken about their pasts again.

Now, Valmont watched as Eva gathered her cleaning supplies together.

She was an odd girl.

She reminded him of the fresh lemons she’d used for the cleaner but with less rosemary, more bergamot: abrasive, sharp edged but with unexpected softness too.

And without saying anything, he held the door open for her as she pushed her cart out into the hallway.

Paris, Spring, 1955

‘Well,’ Monsieur Tissot was trying to be philosophical, ‘that didn’t go perhaps as well as we might have liked.’

They had crossed the street to the embankment, near a little gravel playground. Small children were running between the trees, playing with a football. And they were recovering from what could only be classified as pure folly on his part.

‘Who was that woman?’ Grace was certain her heart would never slow back to normal. ‘She appeared out of nowhere!’

‘She must live above the shop. The owner perhaps? She certainly spoke as if she owned it.’

‘She knew Eva d’Orsey, that much is certain. Did you understand what else she was talking about? That business about men in a black car, breaking in?’

‘No. To be honest, she seems quite mad. Probably suffering from senility.’

‘Do you think?’ The old woman didn’t strike her as mad; she seemed more frightened than anything. And there was the way she’d reacted to the news of Eva d’Orsey’s death. It was more than just shock . . . what was it? Anger? Regret?

They continued to walk across the park, without any real purpose or destination, more to steady their nerves than anything else.

Monsieur Tissot turned the collar up on his suit jacket, pulling it tight against the wind. He was a grown man, a respected professional and yet he’d just spent the afternoon being chased out of a derelict building by a pensioner. This was hardly his finest hour. But he felt relaxed, even exhilarated. ‘I suppose we aren’t much good at playing detective.’

‘It was your idea,’ she reminded him. ‘Is that a hobby of yours – breaking and entering?’

‘Men are forced to resort to ridiculous displays of bravado in front of women.’

She stopped. ‘So, it’s my fault?’

She was standing with her arms crossed. Her hair had come loose from her chignon and the wind tossed it, so that it danced around her face. She was looking at him hard with those strange clear eyes.

‘Without question.’

‘Just for being female?’

There was a kind of magnificence to the way, even harried and disheveled, she refused to let him have the last word. Slipping his hands in his pockets, he gave a little shrug. ‘You’re not just a female, Madame Munroe. A man might do a great deal more to impress you.’

That seemed to startle her.

Feeling her cheeks suddenly flushing, Grace quickly turned away, carried on walking. ‘It was incredible though, wasn’t it?’ she said, changing the subject. ‘I cannot get over how many different kinds of perfumes there were. Do you think they were all created by a single person? Or that they’re some sort of collection?’

‘It’s impossible to say. Besides, I thought you hated perfume.’

‘I didn’t say I hated it. I’m just not fond of smelling like a florist’s stall.’

‘That’s right,’ he agreed with a smile. ‘No one wants to be too loud, do they?’

She turned on him. ‘You know, Monsieur Tissot, I do believe you’re making fun of me.’

‘Pardon me, madame.’ He gave a little mock bow. ‘But the English strike me as amusing. Things that smell loud, flavours that taste too much . . .’

‘Yes, well, I’m not simply representative of my country. I can assure you my . . . my eccentricities are entirely my own!’

‘It wasn’t my intention to offend,’ he said, more serious now.

She gave a little shake of her head, suddenly embarrassed. ‘I’m what is known as a queer duck back home.’

‘Really?’ He gave her a look. ‘A duck?’

‘A bit of an oddball,’ she tried to explain. ‘Never mind. It’s all right. I’m used to it.’

But he stopped anyway. ‘In what way an oddball?’

‘Oh, I don’t know.’ She looked out over the Seine, at the tourist boats floating across the choppy water. Instinctively, she reached again for the lighter in her pocket, slipping it round and round between her fingers. ‘I suppose I’ve always been a bit peculiar. I’m picky about things I’m not supposed to care about and lazy about the things that matter.’

‘And what are the things that matter?’

Grace was unused to confiding in men, especially one as provoking as Monsier Tissot. But for once he was quiet, looking at her with genuine interest. ‘Well,’ she thought a moment, ‘for example, I don’t care what I’m wearing or what I’m going to serve guests for supper but I become obsessed with working out the probability of the train being on time.’

‘And are your predictions accurate?’

‘More often than not.’

‘And why do these matters concern you?’

‘I’m not sure,’ she admitted. ‘I like figuring things out. Not dull things, like where to seat so-and-so at a dinner party but larger, more abstract things. Only to me, they don’t seem abstract. They seem very practical and relevant.’

‘In what way?’

‘Oh, I don’t know.’ It wasn’t a subject she’d ever discussed with anyone before. ‘Well, for example, I often wonder about the bombs in the war. Why does a bomb fall out of the sky and land right here, on this house, and on no other? My mother died during the Blitz, so I suppose I have a morbid curiosity. But you see, if you knew the weight and density of the bomb, how fast the plane was flying, it’s elevation, the direction and strength of the wind – it wouldn’t be a mystery; you could figure it out. Nothing would be random or accidental any more.’

‘And you don’t believe in chance, do you?’ he reminded her.

‘No, no I don’t.’

‘But then tell me, where exactly does that leave God in your equation?’

‘Where God has always been; somewhere between the weight of the bomb and the house.’

He laughed. ‘You’re not a duck, you’re an owl – an intellectual!’

‘Oh, I don’t know about that,’ she smiled shyly. And then, almost without thinking, she asked, ‘Do you believe in God?’

It had been drilled into her head since childhood that politics and religion were not suitable topics for polite conversation. But Grace found herself hungry to discuss real things; subjects that weighed on her in private but that she couldn’t speak about with Roger, Mallory or indeed, anyone else in her set.

He looked across at her, surprised. ‘Yes,’ he said after a moment. ‘I believe in a God I don’t understand and don’t necessarily agree with. The force between the plane and the bomb,’ he added.

They carried on walking.

After a while, Monsieur Tissot spoke. ‘I like that shop.’

‘Yes. I do too.’

‘I like the name. Did you see it?’

‘
Recherchez-moi
?’

Yes, but under that.
L’apothicaire des Sens
.’

‘The apothecary of . . .’

‘The senses.’

‘I see. Yes, it’s evocative, isn’t it?’

‘You English have a saying. “Come to your senses.”’ ‘Yes.’

‘What do you think it means?’

‘It means to be reasonable, sensible.’ She looked across at him. ‘Doesn’t it?’

‘Maybe.’ His eyes caught the afternoon light; flickering amber, flecked with green.

‘What else could it mean?’

‘Perhaps it’s an invitation. Maybe we need to literally come to our senses, to return to our sense of taste, touch, sight, smell, hearing and find sustenance in them, inspiration. Life is, after all, a sensual experience. Our senses have the power to truly transport us but also to ground us. Make us human.’

She stared at him in amazement. ‘I’m afraid, Monsieur Tissot, that you’re something of a philosopher – and a sensualist.’

Looking down, he kicked the gravel with his feet. ‘I can assure you, nothing could be further from the truth.’

‘Well, you’re a mass of contradictions. One minute you’re an analytical lawyer, the next you’re climbing through windows and advocating the complete overthrow of reason.’

‘Reason is entirely over-rated, unless, of course I’m the one doing the reasoning. And may I remind you, we went in through the door.’ He indicated a bench behind them. ‘Shall we?’

They sat down, side by side, facing outward onto a narrow strip of parkland.

‘It seems we’ve reached a dead end in our enquiries, Monsieur Tissot,’ Grace said, resting her elbows on her knees.

‘Perhaps. But there’s still the appointment at Lancelot et Delp. I’ll be very interested to find out more about those stocks.’

‘Yes, but what shall we do now?’

He should have pointed out to her that there was nothing else to do; that there were papers waiting to be signed in the office. But this English girl was interesting; he found himself waiting for her to speak again, to hear the workings of her mind. His own wit was put to the test with her, like a dog being run off in a park. And it felt good, to be stretched.

‘I think we should wait,’ he decided.

‘For what?’

‘I don’t know.’ Leaning back, he stretched out his long legs; taking in the spring clouds racing across the sky and the sweet sharpness of the late afternoon air. ‘But if you don’t know what to do, then it’s best to do nothing.’

‘Is that your professional advice?’

Turning his face towards the sun, he closed his eyes. ‘Absolutely.’

Easing back in her seat, Grace watched the children in the playground opposite, coats off, faces flushed, laughing hysterically with pleasure. They were so vividly alive, completely immersed in the game. She tried to recall a time when she’d been that way and realized she couldn’t remember when that had been. She’d lost the knack of forgetting herself. Instead she seemed to look down on herself throughout the day, scrutinizing, judging; finding herself wanting.

‘Madame Munroe . . .’

Grace glanced across at Monsieur Tissot; at his profile with the aquiline nose and full lips, at the dark fringe of his lashes. ‘Yes?’

Without opening his eyes, he said. ‘You do know what matters.’

‘Do I?’

‘One cannot underestimate the importance of a train being on time. Or leave to chance the space between the plane and the bomb.’

Grace smiled to herself. Closing her eyes, she turned her face to the sun too. ‘Yes, that’s what I thought.’