The Perfume Collector(42)

Madame shook her head. ‘That’s one meaning. But there’s another, from the Greek, hamartia, which translates, “to miss the mark”. That’s the meaning I prefer.’

‘To miss the mark,’ Eva repeated, committing it to memory.

‘Yes,’ Madame continued. ‘We try and fail, like archers who aim for the target but fall short of the mark.’ Eva watched as she removed the lace shawl. ‘When you are older and have swum out into the stream of life, you’ll see – there are no “good” people, little girl. We’re all trying and failing, trying too hard and failing too often. Remember that. We shouldn’t judge too harshly, in the end, the sins of others.’

‘No, madam. Of course not.’

Eva wasn’t sure she’d answered her question.

But the older woman sank down into the armchair, stretching her legs out on the ottoman. She took another drag of her cigarette. Her voice softened to almost a whisper. ‘Sometimes I think the only things we have in common with one another are our shortcomings’

Eva stood enthralled.

Exhaling a long stream of smoke, Madame closed her eyes and her head lolled to one side.

Eva waited for her to continue.

Madame’s hand relaxed.

The cigarette fell to the floor.

Eva rushed to put it out before it burned a hole in the carpet.

Then Madame began to snore, so loudly that Valmont came in.

‘Oh. It’s you,’ he said, jamming his hands sullenly into his pockets. ‘I should’ve known.’

Eva planted her hands on her hips. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

He ignored her question. ‘Jesus! She’s been to Chinatown again. Help me get her on to the bed,’ he ordered, lifting Madame up under her arms.

Begrudgingly, Eva grabbed her legs. ‘Goodness!’ she gasped. ‘She weighs a lot for someone so skinny!’

Together they hauled her onto the bed. Madame didn’t even so much as miss a beat in her snoring and rolled over heavily on to her side.

‘I’ve never heard anyone so loud.’

‘It is a bit much,’ Valmont admitted. ‘It goes right through the door at night. I sleep with about four pillows on my head. She’ll be passed out for the rest of the day now.’

‘She doesn’t smell drunk.’

He rolled his eyes. ‘Don’t you know anything? Opium,’ he explained. ‘She’s been smoking opium.’

‘Oh.’ Eva stared in awe at the sleeping woman. An opium den. How dreadful, low and exciting.

‘We’re going to Morocco soon and it will only get worse.’

‘Morocco? What are you going to do there?’

‘We’re buying ingredients. They have, among other things, one of the finest jasmine harvests in all the world. Normally we buy them through a third party but I’m sure if we go there ourselves we’ll discover not only purer absolutes for a better price, but I have a feeling we’ll also stumble across some rare indigenous ingredients we haven’t encountered yet in Europe. And that’s what we’re looking for – a new palette, something truly original.’

Eva smiled to herself, gathering her duster from the dressing table.

‘Why are you sneering at me?’ he demanded.

‘I’m not sneering.’

‘Yes, you are.’

‘You always talk like you’re in charge,’ she pointed out.

‘Well, I do have influence. She values my opinion. She’s one of the world’s greatest perfumers and I am, after all, her only apprentice.’

‘So you keep saying – over and over again. Besides, I thought you were her secretary.’

‘I’m more than that. You see,’ he followed her into the bathroom, leaned against the doorway, ‘you can’t go to school to learn the art of the perfumer. You have to possess a natural, God-given talent and then the secrets of the profession must be passed on by a master. I have been an apprentice to Madame since I was nine.’

‘Nine? How old are you now?’

‘Eighteen.’

She snorted. ‘Are you a slow learner?’

‘It’s an art!’ He glared at her. ‘It takes years just to memorize the various ingredients. It isn’t just about mixing notes together but about developing a palette, a comprehension of scent and how it works. Do you have any idea of how difficult it is to create a fragrance that develops properly on the human skin and lasts?’

Eva folded her arms defensively across her chest. ‘So how did Madame know you had talent in the first place?’

‘I suppose she could just tell.’ This girl really asked the most presumptuous questions. ‘Actually, even when I was small I could dissect smells, take them apart and decipher their precise ingredients. There is a story that Madame discovered me one day standing in the neighbour’s garden, standing over a rosemary bush. Apparently I was so lost in concentration, I couldn’t hear my name being called. It was by far the nicest-smelling thing in the whole village,’ he recalled.