The Perfume Collector

Paris, Spring, 1955

Pushing his wire glasses further back on his nose, the man behind the counter frowned, turning the card over to read the other side.

‘Where did you get this?’

Grace was reluctant to tell him the truth. ‘I found it. Quite by accident.’

She was standing inside the Guerlain boutique on 68 Champs-Élysées, speaking to master perfumer Jacob Androski, one of the assistants to the legendary Jacques Guerlain. Dressed in a white lab coat over his suit and tie, he’d been summoned from the workshop by one of the sales assistants to help her. He was examining the card that she’d found on the floor of the shop; the one she’d inadvertently put in her pocket.

‘You found it?’

His tone made her blush.

‘It was in an abandoned shop, a perfumer, on the Left Bank.’ She tried to answer without giving too many details. ‘I… had some business there… to see the property…’ She stopped herself, mid-lie. ‘The place was called Recherchez-moi. Do you know it?’

He looked at her strangely. ‘Of course. But it’s been closed ever since the war. Andre Valmont owned it.’

‘Valmont?’

‘Yes. Andre Valmont was a perfumer; one of the finest in all Paris.’ He turned the card over again.

Grace leaned closer, across the counter between them. ‘You see, I tried to translate it on my own but I couldn’t work it out. I’m afraid my French dictionary didn’t help much – even the words I could find I didn’t really understand in context. But I know it has to do with a perfume and some sort of a recipe…?’

‘It’s not a recipe, but a formula. It’s technical in nature – a correspondence between two professional perfumers. In fact, it’s a shopping list of really quite expensive perfume ingredients. See this,’ he pointed to the second line. ‘Oudh – that’s a very rich, intense oil taken from the heart of the aquiver tree. And there’s jonquil, also narcissus from Morocco. These are extremely rare and very difficult flowers to extract,’ he explained. ‘It requires an astonishing number of them to arrive at even a single gramme of absolute.’

‘Absolute?’

‘Yes. An absolute is the purest form of essential oil and therefore extremely costly,’ he explained. ‘In fact, it looks as though no expense was spared on these ingredients. Neroli from Tunisia, Bulgarian tuberose, vanilla from Madagascar. But here,’ he frowned, ‘these are very odd requests indeed.’

‘In what way odd?’

‘They want hair.’

Grace wondered if she’d heard him correctly. ‘Did you say hair?’

‘Yes,’ he translated. ‘“Am struggling to find any variety of hair that yields the warmth and depth you describe. Perhaps blonde will work. Though I believe you will be impressed with the accord of wet lambswool.”’

‘Wet lambswool?’

‘That’s what is says.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Grace was struggling to keep up, ‘but can you explain, what’s an accord?’

‘Of course,’ he smiled apologetically. ‘An accord is a mixture of two or more ingredients which produce a new scent, quite different from any of its individual parts. You see, a great perfume may include several fresh, new accords. They are like small scent compositions, inside a larger, more far-reaching canvas. The complexity and juxtaposition of the accords involved makes the difference between a truly revolutionary perfume and a merely pleasant-smelling scent.’

‘But why would anyone want hair in their perfume? Or wet lambswool?’

‘It’s not inconceivable. Not every smell in perfume is floral or pretty. In fact, a perfume would have very little staying power if that were true. Musk, for example, is extremely common. Almost every modern formulation has it in one form or another and yet it’s incredibly strong, gamey – an acidic, sexual scent that comes from the musk gland of a Himalayan deer. Civet from the civet cat smells like faecal material and pure oudh is unbelievable – it’s an infection of the aquiver tree in India. In response to the fungus the tree creates an incredible dense amber resin that smells of mould, sweet decaying wood, vivid green notes. Most people hate it when they first encounter it and yet it seeds itself in your imagination – becomes addictive. These darker notes are like a heart, pumping at the centre of a great fragrance.’

‘I had no idea.’

He leaned forward. ‘One of my favourite ingredients is ambergris. Have you ever heard of it? Do you know where it comes from?’

She shook her head.

‘It’s coughed up by the sperm whale when it devours cuttlefish. It’s a greenish, revolting mass that floats on the surface of the ocean, ripening in the sun and rain until it’s washed ashore. And yet, from these humble beginnings, develops the most indescribable scent. It literally expands on the skin – creates a vista in the senses.’

‘How extraordinary. But how were these ingredients discovered?’

‘God only knows! Perhaps one of the most instinctive things to do when you encounter something new is to pick it up and smell it. Though I don’t like to dwell on the discovery of the civet cat too long. You see, most people assume perfume is made only from crushed flower petals but nothing could be further from the truth. All these ingredients give weight, dimension and contrast. Without them, the result is shallow and one-dimensional. But,’ he held up the card again, ‘hair has a very subtle, elusive, earthy quality. Extremely difficult to capture.’

Grace looked at him closely. ‘Have you ever tried to capture it?’

‘Oh, yes. Many times,’ he admitted, a little self-consciously. ‘It’s one of the first things you notice, that you smell, during an embrace. The warmth of your lover’s hair.’

She felt her cheeks colour a little and looked away. ‘I hadn’t thought of it like that.’

He reread the card. ‘It appeared to be a specific request. The same with the lambswool.’ He paused. ‘As though someone was creating accords of an experience. Or a memory.’

Grace had never heard of such a thing. ‘Is that possible?’

‘Oh, yes.’ His face was quite serious. ‘Though not very common. It’s something of a connoisseur’s obsession.’ Lowering his voice, he indicated the beautifully dressed women who strolled in a leisurely manner from one counter to another around them, like rare, exquisite creatures, meant only for show. ‘Most customers want to smell like those they aspire to become, not who they were in the past. But perfumers are always attempting to capture scents that remind us of certain places, people, moments. It’s the great challenge, to capture not only a true scent but one that recalls entire experience.’

‘Can that even be done?’ It sounded more like alchemy than perfume.

‘Occasionally. Here,’ he gestured for her to follow him, ‘let me show you something.’

He led her behind the glass counter and into a private storeroom behind the main shop. Taking out a set of keys from his pocket, he unlocked a narrow door into a dark, cool room where he selected a bottle.

‘Close your eyes,’ he instructed, taking the lid off. Then he dabbed a drop of it on to her wrist.

Grace shut her eyes and inhaled.

Suddenly, she wasn’t indoors any more or even in Paris. But outside her parents’ home in rural Oxfordshire, on the low sloping hill facing the house. It was late afternoon, the sky heavy with thick white-grey clouds; the lights in the house windows glowing brightly, like flame. The air tasted of ice.

She opened her eyes, stared at him, her mind reaching to grasp at a certain feeling… a specific time and place. ‘I know that smell! But how do I know it?’

He grinned, delighted. ‘Snow.’

‘Snow! Of course.’ She pressed her wrist to her nose. ‘But how can you do that?’

‘It’s one of my own,’ he said proudly. ‘It’s taken me years to perfect it. You see, nothing is more immediate, more complete than the sense of smell. In an instant, it has the power to transport you. Your olfactory sense connects not to the memory itself, but to the emotion you felt when that memory was made. To recreate a scent memory is one of the most challenging, eloquent pursuits possible. It’s poetry, in its most immediate form.’

Grace looked at him with wonder. ‘I was a child, on the hill outside my parents’ house.’

He nodded. ‘Scent memory is incredibly personal, a very private experience. My own memory couldn’t be more different. Hungry, running across a frozen field. Dawn breaking.’ His expression shifted, he seemed to recede before her, slipping into another place. ‘Then the snow.’

Monsieur Androski replaced the lid.

Grace caught sight of the label: La Pologne, 1942.

Poland.

The winter after the invasion.

She watched as he replaced the bottle in the storeroom and locked the door.

They walked back out into the boutique, golden with light, soft-spoken sales assistants, the air thick with the hypnotic floral blends that Guerlain had become famous for.

He handed the card back to her. ‘Whatever she was working on, it was not meant to be an ordinary commercial perfume.’

‘She?’ Grace asked. ‘What makes you say “she”?’

He pointed to the signature at the bottom. ‘“M. Zed”. It can only be Madame Zed. Do you know who she was?’

‘I’m sorry. No.’

‘She was a very well-known perfumer in the early 1900s. Russian, I believe. There was a rumour that she was some sort of escaped aristocracy from the Russian Revolution. She became the house nose for Lanvin and created maybe fourteen or fifteen perfumes for them. And then suddenly, at the height of her success, she disappeared. Of course her most distinctive creation is world famous – Mon Péché.’

‘Mon Péché ?’

‘My Sin. Really, a very modern formula and unique for its time. Still one of my personal favourites. She completely withdrew from the perfume world after that. However, she did have an apprentice – a young man.’ He caught her eye. ‘Eventually he opened his own boutique near Saint-Germain.’

‘Andre Valmont?’ she guessed.

‘Exactly.’ He sighed. ‘I wonder what they were working on. I would have loved to have smelled it. Madame Zed had a very unique palate. Somewhat abrasive, challenging. But ultimately quite elegant. As for Valmont,’ he paused, searching for the right words, ‘he was nothing short of a genius. His library of accords and absolutes, the complexity and variation of his formulations, were nothing short of astounding.’

‘Did you know him?’

He shook his head. ‘Sadly, no. But I went to his shop once, shortly after my arrival in Paris. I shall never forget it. If Guerlain is a cathedral, Valmont’s shop was a pantheon, a pagan shrine to everything possible – nothing edited, nothing denied. Floor-to-ceiling shelves, glittering mirrors, lush fabrics. It was tiny, exclusive, terribly chic. There was a woman, perhaps the most extraordinary creature I’ve ever seen, who presided over the whole thing. You could not, for love nor money, get an appointment with Valmont himself. But this apparition would sit with you, talking, bringing down one bottle after another until you were drunk with scent!’

‘Why didn’t he open up again after the war?’

He face grew sombre. ‘Andre Valmont was Jewish. He did not survive the war, madame.’

‘Oh,’ she frowned.

‘He was not a conventional perfumer,’ he added. ‘And he died very young. Who knows what creations he might have made in another ten or twenty years? It’s a terrible loss to the profession.’

Grace held out her hand. ‘Thank you, for your considerable time and expertise.’

He shook her hand. ‘My pleasure, Madame Munroe. Let me know if you discover anything more. I am, and always will be, an admirer of his work.’

Grace headed out of the tranquillity of the boutique and on to the bustling pavement of the Champs-Élysées.

The sky was bright, the air balmy and mild.

She raised her wrist and inhaled.

And suddenly she was back in time again, on that late November afternoon, dense with mist and fog, standing on the ridge beyond the garden gate.

She could see her mother coming out of the house, waving eagerly to her to come in. And her father hurrying up the path that ran along the side of the house, head down, distracted. He was carrying something – notes – walking away. He wasn’t coming in to tea.

A sick, painful longing filled her entire chest.

That was one of the last times she ever saw him alive.