The Secret Ways of Perfume (19 page)

“You really were a terrible child.” Cail laughed, but soon his happiness turned into bitter reflection. He understood the young Elena's anger, how overwhelmingly powerless you feel at that age. Cail himself often used to get angry, especially when his father, Angus McLean, would disappear. His mother, Elizabeth, stayed on her own with him and his little sister to look after the business. Somewhere deep inside, he could still hear his mother's stifled sobs. He'd even tried to ruin his own father's work: one of their best roses was actually the result of his attempt to sabotage a seed.

“Your roots are in that house, Elena,” he said now. “It's normal for you to feel attached to it.”

She shrugged. “It would be normal, if I hadn't hated every minute I spent there.”

Cail looked into the distance. “Hate is a very complicated emotion.
We hate the things we intensely desire but can't have. We hate what we don't understand, things that seem too different. Hate and love are too close; their edges get blurred—they don't have clear boundaries.”

Elena stared at him. “I'd never thought about it like that.”

“Why did you hate that house?”

“My mother left me there. She told me it was for my own good, that I'd be better off with my grandmother. They were excuses—she just wanted to get rid of me. The truth was, Maurice hated me and she wanted to start a new life without another man's kid under her feet.”

“Your grandmother . . . she never hurt you?” His voice was low and serious, his eyes solemn.

Elena shook her head. “My grandmother loved me very much, albeit in her own way. You know she used to come into my room at night? She'd wait for me to fall asleep, then come in and sit by my bed. After a few minutes, she'd get up, give me a kiss and go back downstairs. That's the only affection she ever showed me. During the day, though, she talked to me as if I was an adult. She had no time for mistakes, but she respected me.”

The feeling came back with the memories, little incidents that popped into her mind like lost objects she thought had disappeared without a trace. She'd forgotten how much her grandmother's respect had mattered to her.

“Whenever I said something—especially if it was something to do with perfume—she'd stop, put down whatever she was doing and listen to me. She wanted me to go beyond the concept of perfume, beyond the fragrance itself. She wanted me to look for the perfume in my mind, to find it in my heart. She said perfume was the way, the path to a deeper understanding, an understanding of the soul. She insisted that words, images, sounds and even taste could be misleading, but never smell: ‘It transcends everything else.'”

She paused; in her mind she could still hear Lucia Rossini's exact
words. They were as vivid now as they were then, deeply engraved on her memory.

“
The smell, the perfume, enters you, because you invite it in with your breath, then it follows its own path. You can't decide whether you're going to like it or not, because it travels in another dimension. It's not a matter of logic or reason. It will take you over, demanding the absolute truth. You'll love it, or it will disgust you. But nothing in your life will be as genuine as that first emotion. Because that response comes from your soul.
”

Cail stroked her hand. “What else?”

Elena turned to him. “In the shop she followed rituals that were generations old. She wouldn't even hear of changing our techniques or instruments. For her, there was only what she'd learned; nothing else. She was obsessed. Like my mother, like Beatrice. Like all those women.”

“Your mother . . . is that why she left? Your grandmother wouldn't let her run the business?”

Elena sighed. She didn't like talking about the past. Yet, as she told all this to Cail, the bitter taste of her lonely childhood began to fade. She welcomed that sensation with a hint of surprise. She could bear it now. It was as though by drawing it out, showing it to someone, it had lost its intensity.

Elena focused. She wanted to be clear, to get it right.

“No. My mother wasn't interested in that kind of perfumery; she didn't believe in it. She wanted to travel, see the world. My mother loved anything modern. According to her, the future of perfumery was chemistry, synthesis. She said Beatrice's perfume would be good for nothing nowadays. Too antiquated, too different. My grandmother, on the other hand, thought the exact opposite. For her, Beatrice's Perfect Perfume was special: it was the concentration of ideas, sensations and emotions from previous generations, the things that reside in our family memory and are passed down together with
genetic heritage. A sort of olfactory code. Beatrice's perfume would always be relevant, she believed, because it was the human soul. It was love, hope, generosity, value, trust—all the good the human race knew and had produced.”

“Utopia?”

Elena shook her head again. “It's not impossible, you know. It's true that perfume is subjective, but a fire smells of heat, comfort, danger, action, and it's the same for everyone. Just like rain means hope and the future. For some people, it can also represent anguish, but it's always synonymous with abundance. Then there's the smell of the sea, wheat, wood . . . I could go on for hours. Smells, whether good or bad, are processed by the brain instinctively, before the conscious mind is aware. And smells trigger a reaction that comes from the most ancient part of our soul.”

“And what do
you
think?”

Elena shrugged. “I just know it was perfume that took them away from me. Both of them.”

Cail hugged her, hoping he could banish the grief her whispered words revealed. He wanted to ask her about Susanna—he had a feeling she was the key to the worst of Elena's pain. But he sensed she was too upset to talk about that right now. So he searched deep inside himself for the right words, and he found them in what they shared, that mixture of love and hate that he'd felt toward his father when he was a boy, and had grown out of in later life.

“Maybe it's even more complicated than that,” he said gently. “From what you've told me, from what you've become and from what you're doing, perfume could be the thing that brings you together.”

The thing that brings you together.
Instinctively, Elena flinched at those words. Then, while Cail told her about how crossbreeding roses was the only thing he had in common with his father, she considered what he had said from all angles, the way you approach a potentially
dangerous stretch of water, one you have to cross at any cost to reach the other side. Eventually, she realized it was true. However determined she was to believe otherwise, perfume
was
probably the one thing she had in common with her mother and grandmother.

At that moment, she thought of something Monique had once said—that it was Susanna and Lucia's obsession, the influence perfume had over their lives, that led Elena to reject perfume. That was why she'd pushed it out of her own life. But perfume was a part of her. Slowly, patiently, and in spite of her efforts, it had found its way back to her and drawn her in.

“What if
I
neglect my baby, too?” she said in anguish. “What if
I
abandon it for this foolish obsession? What if
I
don't have time?”

There, he'd finally got her to say it, Cail thought. At last Elena had revealed what was really tormenting her.

“You could deal with it head-on, without stalling.” Like you do with everything else, Cail thought.

Elena scowled. “What do you mean?”

“Open your own shop, make your own perfumes, look for the lost formula. But make sure you're in control. It's all right there in front of you. Choose. Make it your own choice.”

Elena heaved another sigh. “One day, maybe. Now, I need to think about the baby.”

“What's stopping you doing both?” Cail wanted to know.

Well, what was stopping her? “I don't know. I'm not sure.”

“Have faith in yourself.”

“It's not just that. It costs a lot to open a shop. And you need a sponsor, someone to introduce you to the right people, to get you into distribution channels, and that's not even the biggest obstacle.”

Secretly amused, Cail asked, “And what would that be?”

Elena looked him in the eye. “Do you know how it works? How you go about making a perfume?”

Cail shook his head. “Only when it comes to roses, but I don't think that counts.”

Elena snuggled into his arms and rested her chin on his chest. “It starts with an idea. It could be an event, a dream, a walk . . . You see, a perfume is like a story; it's a way of communicating—although it's more subtle, more immediate. Once you've established the brief—that's what it's called—you can choose the essences. I feel them all: they turn into colors, emotions; they overwhelm me, possess me. I can't stop thinking about the perfume until it's finished.”

Silence.

“It's amazing,” Cail said quietly, “the things you say, who you are, the passion you put into your work—that's not an obstacle, that's a real gift. You're a very special woman.”

He spoke from the heart, and every word expressed his admiration, respect and consideration. This was the moment Elena really began to fall in love with him.

•   •   •

Paris glittered like
magic in November. By now, Elena was used to the tall houses with their sloping roofs and skylights that caught the sun's rays, reflecting them onto passersby. She knew the parks and local markets. She walked around with Cail, exploring ice rinks, museums with paintings, furniture and jewelry—and one very special place that housed all the perfumes in the world.

The Osmothèque museum, located in the heart of Versailles, was an archive of more than 1,800 fragrances, some of them otherwise extinct, others that hailed the end of an olfactory era and the start of a new one. Cail had smelled Hungarian Queen, from 1815, used by Napoleon Bonaparte, and he liked it. Elena had introduced him to Coty's Chypre, then they discovered the sensual Mitsouko, created in 1919 by Jacques Guerlain, and the more recent Shalimar. Based on an iris and vanilla blend called Guerlinade, this perfume evoked the
famous Shalimar Gardens, an Indian prince's homage to the memory of his beloved. It was incredible to think a perfume like that could be the result of an accident: a small vial of vanilla was accidentally poured into a bottle of Jicky and the result formed the base for Shalimar.

The museum was also home to Chanel No 5, created in 1921. On their tour, they chanced upon Joy by Jean Patou, created by Henri Alméras. It was, in its day, one of the most expensive perfumes in absolute form: it needed in excess of ten thousand jasmine flowers and three hundred roses to make just thirty milliliters of fragrance. Launched after the war, it became a symbol of luxury and revenge.

Alongside these famous perfumes, there were also some ancient fragrances: the “Regal Perfume” created in first-century Rome, Queen of Hungary's Water from the fourth century, and scents made from recipes handed down by Pliny the Elder. In 1927 Madame Lanvin, from the perfume house of the same name, gave her daughter, Marguerite, a delicate floral perfume with classic top notes: neroli, peach, a heart of rose, jasmine, lily-of-the-valley, ylang-ylang, and finally sandalwood, vanilla, tuberose and vetiver. The perfume was a gift for the girl's thirteenth birthday, an elaborate composition prepared by two of the great names of that time: André Fraysse and Paul Vacher. The girl named it Arpège. On the apple-shaped bottle was the house logo: the image of a woman dancing with a little girl.

What surprised Elena more, though, was that the list of perfumiers' names included Giulia Rossini, one of her relatives. Her ancestor had been an expert perfumier, one of the best—and of her prolific repertoire, the Osmothèque had kept Enchanted Garden, a perfume Elena knew well, and which Lucia had often cited as a point of reference. It was a delicate fragrance, but at the same time very confident. There was orange flower, angelica and tuberose; then rosewood, cedar, myrtle, and finally amber. Knowing that it had been created by a Rossini, seeing it there alongside the most important fragrances in the history
of perfume, filled Elena with happiness and pride. The affinity that she felt when she recognized it had given her a warm glow. She was one of them, a Rossini. Enchanted Garden, as it was first released: it was marvelous. Smelling it, imagining the feelings, the emotions that led her ancestor to create that fragrance was a real highlight of her day.

T
HYME:
clarity. Energizing, invigorating.

The fragrance dispels confusion and opens the mind to logic.

Deciphers the uncertainty of dreams. Restores mental stability.

S
ince she had started taking her vitamins, Elena had been feeling better; even the sickness had passed. Her pregnancy had turned into something that filled her with wonder and fear in equal measure. She would start talking to the baby, then stop and listen, almost as though she expected a response. It was still too early to feel it move—the doctor had told her that wouldn't happen until the fifth month—but Elena didn't care; she knew her child could hear her. Talking to the baby had become vital to her. Susanna had never talked to her much, and that always saddened her. She was going to be different, Elena vowed: she would tell her child everything.

She started out with short phrases, then moved on to whole conversations and real secrets. At last, Elena had someone to confide in.

“Who were you talking to?” Cail asked one morning, as he came into the apartment.

“The baby, of course.”

He stared at her and then, without saying a word, went over to give her a hug. He liked touching her, holding her close to him, keeping her safe. It was something he couldn't understand, this attachment: but he had a bad feeling about it.
Look at the past
, he reminded himself bitterly; it was best to bear that in mind.

The pain was still there. If he thought about it, if he looked for it, he could find it—and with it, memories of the young love that had come to a tragic end. He shouldn't be throwing himself into a complicated relationship, and with Elena things would certainly be complicated. He'd even thought about leaving. But he couldn't; it was a matter of honor. And Elena needed someone to take her out, someone to make her laugh.

He asked her to go and get ready, trying to restore a bit of normality, create some distance. He took her to the flower-market to pick up the rosehips that were waiting for him, the ones that would produce the seeds for his new plants.

Elena loved the market, the flowers, the perfumes, and the respect everyone had for Cail. All apart from the woman who served them, who was apparently called Liliane. She was constantly smiling and flirting. Elena hadn't warmed to her at all.

Everything in Elena's life seemed to be going well now. Even at Narcissus things had improved. Philippe had never properly apologized for his appalling behavior, but he'd kept his distance and let Claudine deal with her. Fortunately, shortly after that nasty little episode, Philippe had to go away for a while. Montier wanted to open a branch in London and he needed Philippe to handle the logistics and find suitable premises.

•   •   •

It was almost
closing time when Adeline Binoche came into the shop, followed by a woman in her fifties with very short red hair and an intense expression. She reminded Elena of summer: bright and
golden. A hint of bergamot, freshly dried hay lying in the sun, and wildflowers.

“Do you remember my sister-in-law?” Adeline asked with her usual friendly smile. “I told you about her the last time I came in.”

“Of course, madame. Geneviève, isn't it?” Thank goodness the woman had an unusual name, Elena thought with a hint of relief. She had no memory for people's names, perhaps because she could remember their perfume perfectly.

Adeline Binoche, for example, smelled of vanilla, with middle notes of rose and oak moss. Composed, sharp and lively. The fragrance suited her, Elena thought. Clean and clear, no compromises. Just as direct as that look of hers.

“Geneviève Binoche,” the woman said, holding out her hand. “I've heard a lot about you. May I call you Elena?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Great,” said Geneviève. She was sophisticated, elegant, and she had a very frank, straightforward manner. “I hope you'll be able to help me. I need a perfume—the perfume of Notre-Dame.”

Elena felt a quiver of a laugh in the back of her throat, but she forced herself to contain it. If Claudine managed to stay serious when faced with similarly absurd requests, it must be possible.

“In the metaphorical sense, you mean?”

Geneviève shook her head. “No, literary. I need to smell something that will inspire me, give me a sign. I'm writing a book about Victor Hugo's
Notre-Dame de Paris—The Hunchback of Notre-Dame
—and I want it to be different from anything that has come before. Hugo wrote a wonderful work that brought together the sacred and the profane . . . Good and bad, beauty and ugliness. I want a perfume that does all of that. That is as big and solid as Notre-Dame, that has the cathedral's purity, together with Esmeralda's innocence and sensual
vitality. I need something that can evoke Phoebus's cruelty, Frollo's madness and, most of all, Quasimodo's unique, all-consuming love.”

Everything went silent for a moment. It was the concept of life itself, Elena thought. Life in the most profound sense of the word.

“I'm wondering what could come out of a combination of perfume and literature,” Geneviève continued. “The story stirs the imagination, and that means also stirring your sense of sight, sound and touch. Music, melody, that's all very well, but what if we could turn these concepts into a smell? In reality, Notre-Dame has its own perfume: incense, candles, antiquity, that nice musty smell of centuries gone by, the glaze that millions of breaths have put on the statues. The perfume would bring together all the senses to create a three-dimensional impression.”

Something similar had been tried before. Perfumes had been inspired by paintings. Laura Tonatto, the famous Italian perfumier, had come up with the idea when she saw Artemisia Gentileschi's
Aurora
, and then decided to create the fragrance evoked by Caravaggio's
Lute Player
. It was a great way to draw the viewer into the masterpiece. Make them smell it as well as see it. Elena had liked Tonatto's idea so much that a visit to the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, where one version of the Caravaggio is kept, had gone straight to the top of her to-do list. After all, it's quite natural to imagine the perfume of a painting, and inevitable when you see it. But the perfume of
Notre-Dame de Paris
 . . . now, that was such a complicated concept, so profound that it was everything and nothing all at once.

“Tell me what you're thinking of, exactly.”

And Geneviève did. In immense detail, she described how the perfume she had in mind should show the path through different stages of life, feelings and emotions. How it should represent the complexity of the human soul.

“You realize this would take me a long time to develop.”

Geneviève nodded. “Of course. To be honest, I'm not even expecting it to be a finished perfume. It could just be a selection of essences for me to smell and draw inspiration from. But if you could create a whole perfume, that would be amazing. Of course, money isn't a problem.”

“So, let's see. Give me a few days to think about it. How about we meet again next Monday?”

“That sounds like a great idea. Thank you. Here are my details.” She handed Elena a blue business card. “Speak to you soon, I hope. This means a lot to me.” She smiled. As Geneviève and Adeline walked toward the exit, deep in animated conversation, Elena overheard Adeline say, “What did I tell you? If there's any way to find that perfume, Elena will do it.”

If only it were that simple, she thought.

That night, if she wasn't too tired, she'd take another look at the diary. Lately she'd done nothing else. Maybe somewhere in those ancient pages she'd find a clue, a sign to follow. If she was honest, she'd never cared that much about Beatrice's famous perfume. She'd always heard about it, of course, but to her it was just a legend. She'd never really thought about it; and it was probably about time she did.

She recommended a violet-scented cream to a customer, then went to find Claudine. She'd never seen the woman laugh, and maybe Madame Binoche's request would be the thing that cracked her blank expression. She was keen to find out.

The perfume of Notre-Dame, no less . . .

As she walked down the corridor, she started to think about the idea seriously. The middle and base notes would need to come from the novel. Incense, of course, wood and wax. The more volatile notes, though—the top notes that hit you straightaway, they could
correspond to what Geneviève thought of as purity, carnal instinct. White flowers, perhaps. Because yes, this perfume began with an objective vision, but obviously, the woman's feelings had to come into it, too. In the end it was a subjective concept. And that meant they would have to work together.

“I've just been commissioned to make a perfume,” she told Claudine when she went into her office, knocking politely first.

“Tell me everything.”

Elena recounted Geneviève Binoche's proposal and Claudine's smile did make a brief appearance, but was gone just as quickly, and replaced by a look of greed.

“And you're telling me she'll pay whatever price we ask?”

Elena shrugged. “That's what she said.”

“Can you do it?”

Elena had been waiting for that question. Somewhere inside, she could feel her enthusiasm stirring. Yes, she could do it, but much more importantly, she wanted to do it.

“I can give it a go,” she said. Better to err on the side of caution, she thought, although the truth was she wanted to get straight to work; she was both fascinated and tempted by the idea.

Sitting at her desk, Claudine raised her hand and gestured toward the seat in front of her. “Sit down. We need to have a serious think about this. We could do it as a simple personalization.”

Elena shook her head. “No. If I'm going to do it, I need to work from the text. I can't use a ready-made mélange and correct it. I need to find the right essences; only then will I be able to come up with a formula to prepare. Then I'll change all the possible variants, according to the customer's requests.”

Claudine stared at her. “How long will it take you?”

Elena felt a flicker of happiness. Claudine was going to give her the
go-ahead to make the perfume. She couldn't wait to tell Cail. A major perfume, the perfume of Notre-Dame, no less!

“At least two months, probably three.”

As Claudine counted the days on a desk diary, Elena cleared her throat.

“Yes?” The woman's voice turned cold; Claudine's rapid mood swings always made Elena feel uneasy. She should have been used to them by now, and yet they always took her by surprise.

“What if Monsieur Montier wants to take care of this perfume himself?” Elena asked.

Claudine pursed her lips. “He's too busy at the moment. But I'll let him know. For now, just get on with the project yourself. As soon as you're ready we'll start preparing the mélanges.”

Elena stood up. “Very well.”

She'd got as far as the door when Claudine called her back.

“I expect the utmost discretion from you. If this project comes off, there's a lot to be gained—both financially and in terms of reputation. The perfume of
Notre-Dame de Paris
: you realize what that could mean for us? And for you, too. Philippe will really have to eat his words, my dear.”

Elena looked away. “Of course,” she said.

Deep in thought, she closed the door behind her and went back to work. In spite of Claudine's assurances, she couldn't shake off the feeling that something wasn't quite right; and her unease was in no small part due to the expression on her colleague's face. There was something shifty about that look . . . Whatever it was, it gave her the shivers.

•   •   •

Cail had to
knock twice before Elena decided to open the door.

“Hi, are you all right?” he asked, studying her face.

“Why do you keep knocking when you've got keys?” Elena said irritably.

“Those are for emergencies.”

“Just another way of keeping your distance,” Elena muttered. She was in a bad mood, and trying to decipher passages from Beatrice's diary hadn't made her feel any better.

They had never discussed the need to keep their relationship within precise boundaries, but they were both trying to stick to some sort of unspoken agreement they believed was best for everyone. Every once in a while, though, Elena forgot. And he found it difficult to keep his distance when he wanted her so much. Every time he touched her he had to force himself to stop and take a step back.

He went over to her and kissed her on the lips. “Not feeling great?”

She made a face, then said more gently, “You smell good. I could sprinkle you with oil and distill your perfume like Grenouille, the character in Süskind's novel. I'd make a fortune, and I wouldn't have to torment myself with this diary ever again. Nostradamus made himself perfectly clear by comparison,” she joked bitterly.