Kathleen Tessaro - The Perfume Collector

‘Thank you, your lordship.’

‘Naturally, this event has meant that changes have to be made. Now is a time when my daughter needs the support of her family. This little experiment,’ he looked around at the modest drawing room, ‘in independence is over. She will be moving back to the main house with all possible speed.’

Eva swallowed. ‘I should be pleased to continue to serve them and you, sir, wherever they go.’

‘How accommodating. However, all my kitchen and cleaning staff requirements are already met. I’m sure you understand.’

He slid an envelope out from behind the blotter on the desk. ‘I think you will find my daughter has been extremely generous in both her severance and her letter of recommendation.’

He held the envelope out.

Eva stared at it.

‘I would be happy to work in any capacity. For example, I have looked after little Grace for some months now. I would be so… so very pleased to continue…’

The look on his face was a mixture of both irritation and disdain.

‘My granddaughter will, of course, have a proper nanny,’ he clarified pointedly. ‘A professional qualified to educate a young lady of her class.’ Rising, he held the envelope out again. ‘Arrangements have already been made. Your services are no longer required.’

Eva took the envelope. She could neither see nor hear clearly.

‘I can do anything, your lordship,’ her voice was just above a whisper, ‘anything, at all… I will work in the kitchens or laundry…’

‘Why?’ His expression changed. He came closer.

Eva looked up. ‘I’m sorry, sir?’

‘Why?’ he repeated. ‘You have money, references. Oxford has many opportunities. Why do want to stay here so badly?’

‘You… you misunderstand me, sir.’

‘Do I?’ His voice was icy. ‘Your eyes are a very unusual colour.

‘Sir?’

‘I’ve only seen eyes like that once before. They are almost exactly the same colour as Grace’s.’

Eva felt her body go rigid. She tried to say something but her mouth just opened, gaping soundlessly.

‘You’re not who you pretend to be, are you?’ His face hardened. ‘I always knew that some day there’d be trouble. I expected blackmail. But I didn’t expect anything like this.’

Again, Eva tried to swallow, her throat tightening like a fist, but made no reply.

‘If I were to ring the Home Office, I believe I should have no difficulty in verifying your true identity. What is it you call yourself? Celine? Do you realize the seriousness of traveling on forged papers? You could be arrested as a spy, or simply deported.’

‘I… I don’t know what you’re talking about, sir,’ she managed.

‘Don’t you? Would you care to bring your papers to me for examination?’

Tears stung the backs of her eyes; Eva bit her lower lip hard, to hold them back, and shook her head ‘no’.

‘I didn’t think so. You have two days to leave this country. After that, I shall notify the authorities. And please don’t misunderstand me, there are no lengths I won’t go to remove you if you defy me.’

He moved towards the window again, his back to her, watching Grace playing on the front lawn.

There was a movement just outside the drawing room door. Then the faint sound of footfall on the stairs.

‘I had a son once.’ He spat the words out, edged with bitterness and hatred. ‘He died too. Of drunkenness, debauchery and disease. The only decent thing he ever did was for his sister. Do you really think that I’m going to allow some cheap French tart to destroy my daughter’s last remaining happiness?’

‘Madame Munroe? Madame Munroe?’

Grace blinked, looking up into Madame Zed’s face.

Madame Zed got up, went into the kitchen and poured her a glass of water. Then she set it on the table next to her.

Grace stared at the glass. She could see it, but it was as if she couldn’t place its purpose.

‘What happened to her?’ she asked after a while. ‘She was dismissed. Do you remember that?’

Grace shook her head. ‘I remember vaguely being at my grandparents’ home. That we seemed to stay there forever. A woman named Mrs Press looked after me. She was older, with thick white hands. I used to think they were made of lard. My mother always told me my father died of a heart attack.’

‘Well, what else could she say?’

‘Yes,’ Grace agreed numbly.

Madame Zed passed her the final vial. Choses Perdus , she said. ‘It means “Lost things”. This is the accord Eva was obsessed with – the heart of the fragrance Hiver can’t reproduce.’

Grace took it, held it up.

Suddenly the gap in her senses closed. The air became tighter, more compressed. Her eyes filled with tears.

‘I have never been able to smell it.’ Madame sat forward. ‘Please, will you describe it to me?’

Grace nodded. ‘It’s the smell of wool, paperwhites, wood… and hair… my hair.’

The letter was delivered by Jacques Hiver’s driver, in the early afternoon.

It had been a quiet day. Eva had been dusting the shelves for the second time that week, taking the bottles down, carefully wiping each one with a damp cloth, when she saw the black Daimler crawling slowly up the street. It was surrounded by a crowd of neighbourhood children, running after it, shouting and banging against the windows. With strict petrol rationing, non-military vehicles were increasingly rare. Only the very rich or important could afford such a luxury. Eva watched as the driver shooed them away, before he came into the shop.

The note was a typically brief communication, just a location and a time scribbled in Jacques’s spidery, perpendicular handwriting. The only thing that set it apart from the other notes he regularly sent was that this time the location was a private address rather than a hotel.

Eva folded it back up, put it into the pocket of her skirt.

‘Who was that?’ Andre called from the back room. ‘A customer?’

‘No.’ Customers had been far and few between. ‘Nothing important.’

‘Oh. One of your admirers,’ he said.

They both knew the term ‘admirer’ wasn’t quite accurate. And they both refrained from saying so.

Ever since Eva had returned to Paris seven years ago, she and Andre had reached a kind of unspoken agreement. After her abrupt departure, he had struggled on without her, at first angry and hurt, then torn between regret and self-loathing. When, months later, he arrived one morning to find her standing, waiting on the front doorstep of the shop, he was overwhelmed with gratitude and relief.

But as he unlocked the door, he said only, ‘Are you back?’

‘Yes,’ she answered.

She walked in and, without another word, set about re-arranging the counter display.

He never asked her to explain and she never did.

Things were different now, expectations gone. Neither of them had the reserves for strong emotional gales. A respectful distance protected both of them. Kindnesses were rendered, trespasses ignored, narrow spaces negotiated in a state of amicable reserve.

Pushing back the thick velvet curtain that separated the shop from the storeroom, Eva leaned against the door frame. Andre was balanced on top of ladder, reaching for a sealed jar of ambergris tucked away on one of the high shelves. He was thin, very thin. Everyone in Paris had lost weight with the strict rations but often Andre was too distracted to eat even his modest share. He subsisted on a diet mostly of cigarettes, white bean stew and weak ‘coffee’ made from chicory and barley. With the decline in commissions, he channelled his considerable energies into the reorganization of his entire collection. Already he’d managed to categorize and cross-categorize his existing perfumes to a remarkable, almost pathological degree, creating occasionally bizarre, whimsical classifications, which he labelled underneath each vial. Eva knew he was simply trying to steady himself, to keep his mind from the looming shadow of the future.