The Perfume Collector - Kathleen Tessaro

Kathleen Tessaro

THE PERFUME COLLECTOR

A Novel

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the following people: my agents Jonny Geller and Jennifer Joel, my editors Katie Espiner, Maya Ziv and Lorissa Sengara, as well as Cassie Browne, Jaime Frost, Louisa Joyner and Katherine Beitner. Im especially grateful for the notes and encouragement of Jo Rodgers, the support of my husband Gregory Liberi and the editorial comments of my friend and mentor, Jill Robinson.

Paris, Winter 1954

Eva dOrsey sat at the kitchen table, listening to the ticking clock, a copy of Le Figaro in front of her. This was the sound of time, moving away from her.

Taking another drag from a cigarette, she looked out of the window, into the cold misty morning. Paris was waking now, the grey dawn, streaked with orange, seeping slowly into a navy sky. Shed been up for hours, since four. Sleep had inched away from her these past years as the pain increased, shooting up along the left side of her body.

The doctor had given up on her months ago. His diagnosis: she was not a good patient; arrogant, refused to follow directions. The cirrhosis was spreading rapidly now, pitting her liver like a sponge. For him it was simple: she had to stop drinking.

Youre not even trying, hed reprimanded her at the last appointment.

She was buttoning her blouse, on top of the examination table. Im having difficulty sleeping.

Well, Im not surprised, he sighed. Your liver is completely inflamed.

She caught his eye. I need something to help me.

Shaking his head, he crossed to his desk; scribbled out a prescription. I shouldnt even give you these, you know. Take only one, theyre very strong, he warned, handing her the script.

Thank you.

Still, he couldnt resist one last try. Why dont you at least cut down on smoking?

Why indeed?

Exhaling, Eva stubbed the Gitanes cigarette out in the ashtray. They were common too strong. Unladylike. But that suited her. She could only taste strong flavours now. Cheap chocolate, coarse pâté, black coffee. What she ate didnt matter anyway; she had no appetite left.

There was something naïve, sweetly arrogant about the doctors assumption that everyone wanted to live forever.

Picking up a pen, she traced a ring of even circles along the border of the newspaper.

There were still a few more details to be arranged. Shed been to the lawyer weeks ago, a diligent, rather aloof young man. And shed left the box with the sour-faced concierge, Madame Assange, for safe keeping. But last night, when she couldnt sleep, another idea occurred to her. There was the passage, from London to Paris. The idea of an aeroplane intrigued her. It was extravagant and unnecessary. But there were a few things a person should experience in life; air travel was definitely one of them. She smiled to herself, imagining the approach to Paris, the miles of cold, blue sea and then the first sighting of the city.

She winced. Pain again, knife stabs, followed by numbness down the side of her body.

She thought about the bottle of cognac. She didnt want to drink during the day. After 6 p.m. was her new rule. At least thats what she planned. But her hands were shaking now; her stomach lurched.

No. She would run a bath. Dress. And go to 7.30 Mass at Eglise de la Madeleine. Of all the churches in Paris, this was her favourite. There, Mary Magdalene, that wayward, difficult daughter of the Church, ascended regally into heaven on the arms of angels all day, every day.

Mass was like grand opera, a magic show with the most expensive props in town. And faith, a sleight of hand trick, in which one was both the magician and the audience; the deceiver and the deceived. Still, who could resist a good magic trick?

Folding over the paper, Eva pushed out her chair and stood up.

She would wear her best navy suit, sit in the front pew with the faithful. Together theyd listen to the young priest, Father Paul, struggle to make sense of the scripture, try with all his considerable intellect to apply it to the present day. He didnt always succeed. He didnt know how to justify the inconsistencies; hadnt yet realized that they themselves were the mystery. Still, his mental adroitness pleased her, almost as much as it pleased him. Frequently he was reduced to searching through layers of various possible Hebrew translations for an unexpected verb form to finally shed light on some vast spiritual contradiction. But his heroism in trying wasnt lost on her. And she valued those who tried, especially those whose struggles were public and obvious.

Of course he didnt see it that way. Only a few years out of seminary, he imagined he was imparting spiritual sustenance and guidance to his flock. What he didnt understand was that his elderly parishioners, mostly women, were there for him, rather than the other way around. Father Paul was at the start of life. His glassy convictions needed protection. They waited patiently until he too, succumbed to the unbearable unevenness of Gods will, the sureness of his grace, the darkness of his mercy.

These thoughts calmed her. Her mind was off, whirring again on a familiar track: the paradoxes of faith and doubt. Like a worn piece of fabric, made soft by much handling, comforting to the touch.

Mass and then, yes, the travel agent.

Taking the ashtray to the sink, she emptied it, rinsed it out. Below, in the alleyway, something moved a looming shadow shifting, cutting. Black wings beating, wheeling as one, until they filled the entire wall opposite, blotting out the pale rays of the winter sun.

Suddenly another memory took hold. A breathless, stumbling terror; the smell of green fields and damp woodland and a massive flock of ravens, reeling across the open sky, wings glistening like ebony, beaks like razors crying, shrieking.

Eva grasped the counter, pressed her eyes closed. The ashtray dropped, clattering into the porcelain sink.

It shattered.

Damn!

Eva peered warily out the window, her heart still pounding. The shadow was gone. A flock of common city pigeons most likely.

Picking up the pieces, she lined them up on the counter top. It was an old, inexpensive object. But it reminded her of another time, when life was full of beginnings.

The clock ticked loudly.

She wavered only a moment.

Reaching for a glass, Eva took down the bottle of cheap cognac and poured with unsteady hands, gulping it down. Instantly the alcohol warmed her, radiating out through her limbs; taking the edge off.

That doctor understood nothing.

He didnt know what it was like to live between memory and regret with nothing to numb it.

Pouring another, Eva ran her finger over the rough edge of the broken porcelain.

She would glue it.

Bathe.

Wear her navy suit.

Tilting her head back, she took another swallow.

It didnt matter anymore if the cracks showed.

London, Spring 1955

Grace Munroe woke up with a start, gasping for breath.

Grace Munroe woke up with a start, gasping for breath.

Shed been running, stumbling, over uneven ground, in a thick, dense forest; searching, calling out. But the harder she ran the more impenetrable the woodland became. Vines grew, twisting beneath her feet, branches whipped against her face, arms and legs. And there was the panicky feeling that time was running out. She was chasing someone or something. But it was always just ahead, out of reach. Suddenly she lost her footing, tumbling head over heels into a deep, rocky ravine.

Heart pounding in her chest, Grace took a moment, blinking in the dusky half-light, to realize that she was in her own bedroom, lying on top of her bed.

It was a dream.

Only a dream.

Reaching across, she turned on the bedside lamp, falling back against the pillows. Her heart was still galloping, hands trembling. It was an old nightmare, from her childhood. She thought shed grown out of it. But now, after years, it was back.

How long had she been asleep anyway? She looked across at the alarm clock. Nearly 6.30. Damn.

Shed only meant to take fifteen minutes. But it had been nearly an hour.

Mallory would be here any minute and she still had to dress. Grace didnt want to go tonight, only shed promised her friend.

Going to the window overlooking Woburn Square below, Grace pulled back the heavy curtains.

It was late afternoon in April, the time of year when the daylight hours stretched eagerly towards summer and the early evening light was a delicate Wedgwood blue, gilded with the promise of future warmth. The plane trees lining the square bore the very beginnings of tender, bright green buds on their branches that in the summer would form a thick emerald canopy. Only now they were just twigs, shaking violently with each gust of icy wind.

The central garden had been dug and planted with produce during the war; its railings had been melted down and had yet to be restored. The buildings that survived in the area were blackened by smoke and pitted from shrapnel.

There was a sense of quickening in the air, the change of seasons, of hope tempered by the impending nightfall. Outside, the birds sang, green shoots of hyacinth and narcissus swayed in the wind. Warm in the sun, freezing in the shade, it was a season of extremes.

Grace had a fondness for the sharpness of this time of year; for the muted, shifting light that played tricks on her eyes. It was a time of mysterious, yet dramatic metamorphosis. One minute there was nothing but storms and rain; a moment later a field of daffodils appeared, exploding triumphantly into a fanfare of colour.

Grace pressed her fingertips against the cold glass of the window. This was not, as her husband Roger put it, their real house. He had more ambitious plans for something grander, closer to Belgravia. But Grace liked it here; being in the centre of Bloomsbury, close to London University and Kings College, it reminded her of Oxford, where shed lived with her uncle until only a few years ago. It was filled with activity; businesses and offices, and students rushing to class. In the street below, a current of office workers, wrapped in raincoats, heads bent against the wind, moved in a steady stream towards the Underground station after work.