The Secret Ways of Perfume (25 page)

“I suppose that's how it goes,” the woman replied, thoughtful. “Now, tell me, do you have any candles?”

“Yes, of course.” Elena showed her a few options. The candles were very stylish, in simple, sophisticated packaging. They were square or round, in colors as bold as the perfumes they gave off. The fragrances were floral, full-bodied, or spicy, and always enchanting.

“I really like this one.”

“The base is jasmine: sensual, heady. In aromatherapy it helps people break down barriers, to be open to life and feelings. Have another sniff: doesn't it make you think of a hot summer's night?”

“Yes, you're absolutely right.”

It was true. A hot summer's night, on Cail's terrace, under a sky full of stars . . .

S
COTCH BROOM:
courage. As rich as the color of its flowers, it is fresh and heady, with exciting floral notes.

The fragrance announces the spring, the transition from old to new.

Helps us not to lose heart.

“A
re you Elena Rossini?” A direct question, no hello, no pause for thought. The new arrival didn't even stop to look around. Elena pulled her head out of Beatrice's diary and looked over toward the door, where a blue-haired girl with a long dress and a child's features underneath heavy makeup was staring brazenly back at her.

A few moments earlier Elena had been in another era, in another world—Beatrice's world. Her heart was still racing, her throat was tight, and a thread of desperation ran through her thoughts. But they weren't her thoughts; she'd just borrowed them: they belonged to Beatrice.

She stood up, set down the diary and went over to the girl. “Yes, that's me. You must be Aurore. Come in, please.”

She couldn't be mistaken. Eloise had warned her that her daughter would be stopping by that afternoon, and that she was quite a character. Very thin, dyed hair, lip-piercing, a wool jacket over a white lace
dress, and a pair of shiny boots. She'd been playing with perfumes again: this time she'd used lavender—unusual and attractive. There was lily and carnation, too. Then the fragrance changed suddenly, becoming dusty, almost sickly. Then out jumped the sandalwood. There was something else that was uniquely hers: a slight aroma of orange flower that lingered on her skin, no doubt as the result of her latest experiment. Elena would have put money on it.

Calling her a character was certainly an understatement. If the girl was trying to stand out, she'd succeeded; there was no question of that.

“My mom told me you're going to teach me how to make perfume.” The girl stood stock-still in the doorway, her face tense and her eyes suspicious.

“Right. To start with,” Elena replied, “I'll explain the basics of natural perfumery, then you'll be able to decide what to do next. Whether you want to study more, or drop it altogether. Perfumery is not a simple path; it requires both discipline and sacrifice.”

Aurore narrowed her eyes. “I know perfectly well what that means. You're judging me on my appearance.”

“Your appearance is the only thing you've shown me so far.”

“I knew it,” Aurore grumbled.

Elena knew she needed to make things clear. Apparently the girl used her appearance as a mask to hide behind; that could serve as cause or effect, as required. Elena had done something similar herself in her time, even if it was the other way around. Elena didn't like being the center of attention. “Invisible” was the word. If no one can see you, no one can blame you.

“I haven't judged you. I would have said the same thing even if you'd turned up dressed in pink and wearing angel wings,” she explained. “The perfumes I create are composed of natural essences extracted using procedures that require meticulous attention, with
timings and calculations that have to be respected. Even the slightest drop will change the perfume. You have to count, calibrate, keep everything in your head. You have to know that certain substances will mask more subtle ones, that others will enhance them. You have to study hard. Perfumery can be dull—deathly dull, even. Like anything it has a technical side and a creative one. You can't have one without the other, so you decide, Aurore. This is my half-day break; I've got no intention of wasting it.”

Elena said what she had to say, then went back to her seat. Ignoring Aurore took great determination. But the girl didn't need kindness and Elena wasn't about to offer her any. She could give her something else: she could make her want to achieve something.

The truth was, she hoped Aurore would accept her conditions. This girl had really got to her. There was a deep vulnerability behind all the apparent aggression. And she'd bet that, for Aurore, perfume was a way of communicating—her language.

“And if I study? Let's say I follow all these rules, will you teach me?”

The desire was all there, in that fearful request, with none of the arrogance she'd been hiding behind before. Of course, the word “rules” came out of her mouth like a curse, but it could have been worse, Elena thought, relieved.

“I will. At least, I will if you listen to me.”

Aurore came farther into the shop. Soft, timid steps, almost tiptoeing. Everything about this girl was a contradiction. The look in her eye, her appearance, her clothes. But most of all, her perfume.

Just then, Monique came in. She'd got back from her trip the night before. Elena suspected she'd come straight from Jacques's place, but she hadn't asked any questions and Monique had remained tight-lipped. They'd only talked about their Christmas presents. Elena was dying to know what Cail had promised Monique in order to get her
to help him, and then to keep her mouth shut. “Nothing,” she said. “It was just that he really wanted it to be a surprise for you. That man really knows how to win over a woman.” And the pain she saw glistening in Monique's eyes made Elena regret her curiosity.

“Good afternoon,” Monique said, turning her attention to Aurore.

That day, Monique was wearing an elegant, classic minidress in emerald green chiffon. She'd straightened her jet-black hair so that it fell to her waist like a cascade of silk. Aurore was gaping at her. Monique often had that effect on people, Elena thought with a smile.

“Sorry I'm late, darling. Everything all right?” Monique went on.

“Yes, I've left you a couple of notes. There are some deliveries to sort out. This is Aurore; she's keen on perfume.”

Monique knew exactly who the girl was, and she was very happy about the idea of perfume lessons.

“Hello, Aurore. Nice to meet you. Elena tells me you want to learn the art of composition. I can't wait to smell some of your creations. I think it's going to be . . . interesting,” she said, looking the girl's eccentric outfit up and down.

Elena smiled. “She can smell one of them right now, can't she, Aurore?” The girl nodded. Finally, her face lost its sullen expression and relaxed. Monique blinked. Oh God! That eye-watering reek was coming from this strange girl?

“Erm, I'm sure a few lessons will sort out the problems with balancing fragrances,” she replied, taking a couple of steps back. “You'll start with those—right?” she addressed Elena meaningfully.

“Come on, Aurore,” Elena said, smiling. “The laboratory is upstairs.”

In reality, they were going to have their first lesson in the kitchen. It was much cozier and she didn't want to put her new pupil off. She placed the kettle on the stove. “Would you like a tea?”

“Yes, please.” Aurore was perched on the edge of a chair, stiff as a board, her back straight and a serious look on her face. She was desperately tense.

“See these herbs?” Elena said, pointing to a bundle of myrtle branches she'd just received from a farmer in Sardinia, who also supplied her with rock rose and wild rosemary. “If you distill them, you get a liquid that is part water and part oil. Most essences are obtained this way. You need thousands of leaves for just a few milliliters of product.”

“And that's how you make your perfumes? With herbs?”

Pleased that the girl was sounding more relaxed, Elena shook her head. “No, that's just the start: that process gives you a perfumed liquid composed of water and oil. The water you get from the distillation is called hydrolat, and the oil is the essence, or essential oil. To make perfume, you use the oil.” She paused—creating the essences was an important concept, and she wanted Aurore to really grasp it. “However, there are other fragranced substances. They're obtained by other extraction methods, but they have the same name: essence, substance or fragrant matter. So, to summarize, essences are a fundamental element of perfume. They're obtained from flowers, leaves, musk, wood, roots, fruit, bark, vegetable or animal resins, or by chemical synthesis. In short, they can be natural or synthetic. Essences—or fragrant substances, or matter—are mixed together and then diluted in an inert medium that supports them. It could be alcohol or another oil. The result of this process is the perfume itself.”

Aurore stared at her wide-eyed for a moment, then she bit her lip and looked away. “I use perfumes that are already made,” she said quietly.

“Yes, so I noticed,” Elena replied. “But what you need to bear in mind is that what you're doing cancels out the message the perfumier wanted to give, and it doesn't create a new one. Your perfume won't
say anything; it will simply be a mixture of all these smells that don't know where to go.”

“It almost seems as if perfume is telling you something.”

“Exactly. Perfume is the most immediate language that exists, and the most widely understood.”

“I'd never thought of it like that.”

Elena poured the tea.

“But how do you decide which essences to put in a perfume?”

“A perfumier understands smells, remembers them and knows which substances can mask or enhance the essences. They select on the basis of that knowledge, and their own intuition.” She fetched the chocolate cookies Jasmine had sent her, put them out on a plate and offered them to the girl. Aurore, however, seemed immersed in deep reflection.

It was always like that, Elena thought. People thought perfume was simple, and they were usually quite baffled when they learned that there was a whole world behind it. Perfume isn't just something beautiful one puts on as an accessory: it has far-reaching implications.

“You see, Aurore, perfume is something we recognize ourselves in, something we feel contains our dreams, aspirations, memories, or just a real sense of well-being, or even—and why not?—an instinctive dislike. It's something that comes from a much deeper balance of objectivity and subjectivity. Which means you might absolutely love one thing, and other smells might make you feel alarmed, anxious or disgusted.”

“That's amazing. I mean, it's such a complex subject.” Aurore sipped her tea without taking her eyes off the red tablecloth. Then she turned her attention back to Elena. “But where do I start when I make one? I don't understand.”

Elena bit into a cookie. “Let's try to start with the basics, OK? We'll get there one step at a time.”

Aurore nodded.

“Perfumes can be divided into seven fragrance families: hesperidia or citrus; floral;
fougère
, meaning fern;
chypre
, meaning Cyprus;
boisé
, meaning woody; amber or oriental; and
cuirs
, meaning leather. When you're creating a perfume, you need to bear the seven families in mind.”

“But how do you know which elements you can mix and which you can't?” Aurore wanted to know.

“You could start with ones that belong to the same family—that's why it's essential you know the classifications. It's a bit like mixing colors. When you put two together you get a range of shades, don't you? You create a new color. If you use pastels, you'll get a pale shade, and the same way with bold colors: you'll get strong hues. The same thing happens with perfumes, but instead of seeing, you smell.”

“Wow!” Aurore said.

“You also need to bear in mind another very important thing. Perfume is always a path, an idea. People who make perfume get called ‘noses,' because they can tell the difference between the essences—that's three thousand different smells—and blend them to make a perfume come alive. Every single one is created according to an established framework: straightaway you'll smell the top notes, then the middle, and lastly the base notes. This system, called the olfactory pyramid, is a perfume's identity card. That means, if you wanted to know what was in, for example . . .” She stopped to think. For a moment she considered giving Aurore a reference to an artistic perfume, but she doubted the girl would know it. They were niche products, after all. So she fell back on something universal. A famous perfume. The important thing at this point was that the girl understood the concept she was explaining to her. “Let's say For Her by Narciso Rodriguez: straightaway, you smell orange flower and osmanthus, then vanilla, and lastly woody scents, and musk, which
acts to stabilize and fix the other fragrances. These are the basic ideas. We'll go over them each time, we'll have a general discussion, then look at a specific theme. If there's anything you don't understand, stop me.”

But Aurore seemed hypnotized; she was hanging on Elena's every word. The hour flew by. When they said goodbye, the girl was smiling. “And then we're going to make a perfume? But I'm not a nose,” she said, her voice tinged with disappointment.

“We don't know that yet, and besides, anyone can make a perfume. The results obviously vary according to the extent of your knowledge, skills, technique and intuition. But that doesn't mean someone can't come up with some extraordinary, crazy, or successful composition just by mixing together the essences that fascinate them.” That was about as likely as winning the lottery, but Elena didn't say so. There was no point bursting the girl's bubble. She would give Aurore a basis to work from, and the rest was up to her. There was always the chance that the girl could have a natural “nose” and the mental predisposition for perfumery. The fact that she loved perfumes enough to play around with them was already a good sign. “We'll make a perfume. Or rather, you'll make it.” She gave Aurore an encouraging smile, which the girl timidly returned.