The Perfume Collector

Paris, Winter 1954

Eva d’Orsey 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. She’d 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.

‘You’re not even trying,’ he’d reprimanded her at the last appointment.

She was buttoning her blouse, on top of the examination table. ‘I’m having difficulty sleeping.’

‘Well, I’m 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 shouldn’t even give you these, you know. Take only one, they’re very strong,’ he warned, handing her the script.

‘Thank you.’

Still, he couldn’t resist one last try. ‘Why don’t 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 didn’t matter anyway; she had no appetite left.

There was something naïve, sweetly arrogant about the doctor’s 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. She’d been to the lawyer weeks ago, a diligent, rather aloof young man. And she’d left the box with the sour-faced concierge, Madame Assange, for safe keeping. But last night, when she couldn’t 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 didn’t want to drink during the day. After 6 p.m. was her new rule. At least that’s 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 they’d 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 didn’t always succeed. He didn’t know how to justify the inconsistencies; hadn’t 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 wasn’t lost on her. And she valued those who tried, especially those whose struggles were public and obvious.

Of course he didn’t 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 didn’t 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 God’s 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 didn’t 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 didn’t matter anymore if the cracks showed.