The Perfume Lover: A Personal Story of Scent

Bertrand frowns, clearly trying to figure out how this translates into olfactory terms. We’ve known each other for nearly five months now, we’ve talked for hours, but this is a new type of conversation and we need to adjust our languages.

‘You mean it’s too floral?’

Well, no, the scent needs to be floral because there are a lot of flowers in this story, with all the lilies spilling out of the float, I venture.

As Bertrand stifles a sigh, I realize I’ve just steered him in a new direction.

‘Would you rather go for a lily than an orange blossom?’

Instead of answering, I blurt out:

‘And there are tons of carnations too …’

Now I’ve done it again, haven’t I? But he nods patiently.

‘Right. Carnation. That’s very spicy. For the moment, I’m not very spicy. I’m indolic.’

Eugenols, the molecules that produce the clove-like smell of carnations, belong to the same chemical class as indoles and phenols, Bertrand explains. But they ‘vibrate’ in different ways: eugenols burn, while indole and yara-yara melt, ‘like tar in the sun’.

As soon as he mentions melting, I’m reminded of beeswax. During the Holy Week, little kids collect it from the penitents, who tilt their candles so that a few drops will fall on the children’s wax balls.

‘OK, we’ll put in beeswax … But all those things are very austere, you know? If that’s what I do for you, it’ll be as dark as the darkest night. You’ll barely be able to make out the gold. We’ve got to find the night lights.’

He’s right. This shouldn’t be austere. I’m in the arms of a boy who’s got a hand under my skirt. That’s what makes the meeting of incense and orange blossom so symbolic, this blend of the sacred and the erotic …

‘It’ll be tough to do something pleasant,’ says Bertrand, ‘because orange blossom and incense are two hard notes. If you want to make them prominent, you’re going for hard on top of hard.’

But the notes shouldn’t be a pretext, he adds, otherwise there’s no point. You can’t say you’re doing an orange blossom and incense fragrance then stick in a couple of drops just so you won’t be an outright fraud, like most perfume companies do nowadays.

I can’t help feeling a little smug. I’ve presented him with a challenge, and I’m starting to know him well enough to understand he thrives on challenges. So I try to help him the only way I know how, by telling him more about Holy Week, hoping that among my words he’ll find something that teases at his own memories, that translates into his own language; something that’ll make this scent as sensuous and seductive as Seville abandoning itself to the religious-pagan fiesta. The exhilaration of a city flowing from street to plaza to get a glimpse of the processions; the bar-hopping instead of the Stations of the Cross, the sea-salt aroma of the blond vino de manzanilla and the bittersweet herbal pungency of joints; the dizziness and flirting and laughter. The dark, thrumming beat of the drums, the solar jarring bursts of the brass bands, the beeswax coating the streets with a silky sheen, feet slipping as the crowd mills about. The darkened plaza where the float appears, blazing like the ocean liner in Fellini’s Amarcord, with the musty whiffs of derelict palaces seeping through shutter windows behind the wrought-iron grilles …

It’s a strange sensation. This man is so open, so willing to be enthralled, that I get the feeling he’s with me in the jostling crowd.

‘Fascinating. This isn’t my world at all, but it could’ve been. I must’ve lived this before, in another life, because it speaks to me so much.’

‘It’s as though I were trying to draw you into my memory.’

‘But I am there. Completely.’

9

Was that guy following me?

I tried walking faster but my strappy sandals made my steps wobbly and my 40s wraparound dress kept flapping open: I had to slow down to press it shut on my thighs. Paris is practically empty in August as Parisians migrate en masse to the beach, but there they were, the summer bachelors in their suits and ties, wife and children packed away, wandering out of their offices and picking up my trail. Appraising looks at a silhouette that was starting to shape up … Slowing down in front of shop windows when I looked over my shoulder … This was the first time I’d wandered off into Paris without my parents, and it felt as though the whole city was hounding me.

We’d finished paying off the house and the dollar was high, so we could afford our first European holiday. Being French-Canadians, our destination was never even discussed: it would be the old country. Paris, the very place I’d so aspired to come to a mere six years ago. But at seventeen, you didn’t do excited when you were trailing behind your parents, wishing you didn’t look as though you were with them. This was just a scouting expedition. I’d be back on my own some day. By then I might have figured out how to handle the attentions of the older males of the Parisian herd. Who did those guys think I was?

Sweat was rolling between my breasts. My stalker was still there, some guy idling away his lunch hour, probably enjoying my panic, his hunter’s instincts aroused. I ducked into a perfume shop – the touristic Avenue de l’Opéra hadn’t been hit by the annual holiday shut-down. A slight, dark woman with side-swept hair framing a heart-shaped face, her crimson lips a vivid contrast with the lapis lazuli of her drawstring-waist dress, gave me what I would later come to call ‘the Parisian bar-code gaze’: a jaded, swift, head-to-toe assessment of market value. She made me feel as though I’d crawled out of a trashcan.

‘May I help you, mademoiselle?’

I peered through the window. My stalker was leaning down to spy on me between the Christian Dior displays.

‘Actually, I came in because this man was following me … No, don’t look! Can I stay here for a while?’

I was beginning to amuse her. Slightly.

‘Stay as long as you want.’

I fussed with the lipsticks, jabbering about annoying Parisian men. Lapis Lazuli cocked her head on her shoulder.

‘And why does that bother you?’

‘I find it … insulting. As though they thought I was cheap.’

‘They’re just trying their luck. No harm done. Let me know if I can help you with anything.’

I turned my attention to the bottle display. Since Tigress, I’d managed to smuggle Shalimar talcum powder and a Coty Sweet Earth compact with three small pans of wax smelling of hyacinth, honeysuckle and ylang-ylang into the house. The latter’s scent stayed fairly close to the skin and I’d found I could risk it even in the vicinity of my father’s oversensitive nose. But the stuff on those shelves was better: a dive into the glossy pages of French magazines.

‘That’s a very pretty dress you’ve got there, mademoiselle. Did you find it at the flea market in Saint-Ouen?’

I’d been to Saint-Ouen, of course, though the dress came from a vintage clothing stall in downtown Montreal. Since I’d stumbled on it, my closet had become crowded with what my mother disgustedly called ‘old clothes’ – 40s crepe dresses, ruched silk blouses and nip-waisted, shoulder-padded satin jackets. Clearly, I was on to something if this elegant Parisian thought my dress was pretty …

I reached out my hand to a bottle shaped like a flattened drop, took off the cap and was on the verge of raising it to my nose when Lapis Lazuli snatched it, deftly dipped a blotter into it and waved it around in the air before handing it over.

‘Voilà, that’s how it’s done,’ she said in that dry, pedagogical voice Parisian women use when they’re handling clueless tourists. Her bronze-lacquered eyelids fluttered as she brushed me with another bar-code look, a little more slowly this time.

‘You’re lovely … so pulpeuse.’

It was the first time I’d heard that particular French word, a synonym for plump, perhaps, but one conjuring ripe-fleshed fruit rather than blubber. Lapis Lazuli had pronounced it as though she’d kissed the air twice. I wondered whether she was coming on to me. In fact, she was closing in for the kill.

‘You need a luscious, ample, floral scent to suit those naughty eyes of yours peeping under your fringe – no wonder men are following you around … This is First, by Van Cleef and Arpels. I’ve always thought jasmine was wonderful with pale olive skin like yours …’

Pearly bubbles popped inside my nose while I flailed about for my scant olfactory references.

‘This reminds me a little bit of … Rive Gauche, maybe?’

Lapis Lazuli nodded.

‘It’s in the same family, but it’s more opulent. It may be too ladylike for you though. How about Azzaro? It’s also got jasmine, and rose, and gardenia, but with a warm amber and sandalwood base. The little touch of plum gives it a lovely rounded feeling …’

I’d never heard anyone speak about fragrance that way. Apart from my dissections of ads with Sylvie to pick out the women we’d become if we sprayed on the potions, I’d never discussed fragrance at all. Of all the notes Lapis Lazuli had mentioned, only rose and plum came within the scope of my experience. But Azzaro did feel like a better fit than First. There was something tender about it, an earthiness seeping through the flowers.

I wandered over to a round bottle with a cap in the shape of twin stylized arums. This brand I knew better. In a bid to wean me off my ‘smelly old rags’ my mother had sewn me a flowered chiffon drop-waist dress by Chloé from a Vogue Paris Original pattern and I loved the way the drawstring neck slid off my shoulder when I loosened it after leaving the house.

‘Why yes! Chloé. Why didn’t I think of it myself?’

Smothered in an avalanche of white petals, I gasped, inhaled again, and let out a little delighted chuckle. This I could understand: FLOWERS.