The Perfume Collector(53)

‘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.’