The Perfumist of Paris, page 9
“You’re the one who told me you wanted children. Remember? You wanted to be a mother.”
“I did. I do. I am a mother. That hasn’t changed.”
He looks at me, incredulous. “How often in the last year have you picked them up from school? How often do you go into work on a weekend? You take on more work than Delphine gives you! You do Michel’s and Ferdinand’s work, too, when they’re on vacation.”
He’s right. But what does that have to do with how well I mother my daughters? I rub my forehead and beg Bhagwan for patience because what I really want to do right now is scream. This is all so unfair! Why is there one set of rules for Pierre and another set of rules for me? I need to calm down.
“Chérie, I want to be as good at my job as you are at yours. You know that takes extra time, extra effort. I hire nannies to help when I’m overloaded. The girls are doing fine—”
“The girls are not doing fine.” Pierre’s whisper is loud enough to wake the girls. He points a finger at their closed bedroom door. “Shanti is lashing out at other children and getting rid of nannies as fast as you hire them. You don’t seem to notice what’s going on in your own family.”
“She’s going through something. We talked.” I think back to the conversation with the girls about the color of our skin. Shanti wasn’t being difficult, as Pierre and I had thought; she was merely being protective of me, of us as a family. We will always stand out because we’re different from other French families.
I soften my tone. “It won’t always be like this, Pierre. There will come a time when I won’t have to work so hard to prove myself.”
“That’s not going to be the end of it. You’ll spend more and more energy getting to the next level and the level after that. Like an Américaine!”
The French have always pitied the Americans for their long work hours and minimal vacations.
I grit my teeth. The anger that has been raging inside me threatens to boil over. “What would be wrong with that, Pierre? Aren’t you moving up the ladder, too? If I start making more, we can take more family vacations abroad. The girls can go to colleges in another country if they want.”
My husband glares at me. I’ve gone too far. It’s as if I’m saying I don’t trust him to provide for our family. But that’s not what I mean. I close my eyes. I can feel myself losing the thread of the argument. Weren’t we talking about my first-ever business trip? Why is that not a cause for celebration? Why do I have to defend the pride I feel in my work, in me, in my ability to also provide for my family?
Pierre jabs the coffee table with a finger. “I don’t want them to go to another country or even to another city. I went to boarding school when I was eight. I don’t want that for my own children. I want a full-time mother for them—a normal life.” He finishes off his wine and refills his glass. “I want you home more.”
“What’s the purpose of keeping me at home idle while they’re at school?” Although I’m not shouting, my voice oozes contempt.
“You can work part-time.”
“Part-time? What I do isn’t a part-time job. It’s a career! And I’m good at it. I’m lucky enough to have found something I’m passionate about and want to keep doing. And keep getting better at. It doesn’t make me any less a mother or a wife.” I know my anger isn’t helping. My control on this conversation is slipping away from me, but I don’t know how to wrest it back in my favor. “What is wrong with you sharing the responsibility when it’s my turn to go on a business trip?”
“I do plenty to help out, Radha. I cook several times a week.”
“And I work. And cook. And clean and do the laundry. I hire the nannies and supervise them. I make sure the girls do their homework. And get them signed up for school and other activities. I make sure the bills are paid on time and the concierge gets a Christmas bonus. And take the girls to the doctor. And plan what to do on the weekends.”
Pierre throws up his hands. “You make it sound like a competition, Radha.”
That’s what it feels like, Pierre, I think, my head pounding. I want to tell him that women have moved on in other parts of the world. The best-selling perfume on the market right now is Charlie. It’s American. It’s about confident women on the go, wearing pantsuits, going to work in an office, carrying briefcases. And perhaps even pinching a man’s fesse instead of the other way around. But if I bring up perfume or America, he’ll roll his eyes.
This is the point in our discussions about my work where I usually stop. It’s as if Pierre doesn’t want to understand. He’s not even trying. What good would it do to press my point? Instead, I stand up and collect my wineglass. “I’ll call your mother and see if she can take them while I’m gone. It’s only a few days and she’s closer to their school anyway. I’m not leaving until Tuesday. I’ll be home Friday night. She’ll be delighted and you won’t have to leave work early to pick them up.”
After that, my next call will be to Lakshmi, to let her know I’m going to Agra, after all, as she had originally suggested. And to ask if she will come with me and introduce me to the courtesans and the secrets of the scents that keep their patrons coming back for more.
* * *
The girls have a half day of school on Saturdays, so I accompany them on the Métro and decide to work a few hours before school lets out. The House of Yves is only a twenty-minute walk from their school on Avenue Victor-Hugo. I’ve been neglecting the other formulas I need to compound for Delphine; creating Olympia’s fragrance isn’t my only responsibility. And I’d rather stay out of Pierre’s way for a while. Last night, he came to bed long after I did. When I reached for him, he was on the farthest edge of his side of the bed. This morning, I found the empty wine bottle on the coffee table. I hadn’t even finished my first glass.
The trees lining both sides of Avenue Victor-Hugo have lost most of their leaves, but it’s still a pleasant walk past the cafés, shops and elegant Haussmann buildings. Despite the cold, Parisians are lining up for their fresh baguettes. The butcher is also doing a brisk business. Paris has more pigeons than I’ve ever seen in India, and they’re milling about the sidewalks, looking for a stray morsel. An old woman in a plaid coat is wheeling her shopping cart while her terrier strolls patiently beside her. He pauses every time she stops to gaze at a shop window. She shakes her head when she sees a pair of shoes on display. Curious, I stop, too. The shoes are red patent leather platform boots with three-inch Lucite heels. Inside each heel is a live goldfish swimming in water. Picturing Ferdie on the dance floor in those shoes, I bark out a laugh. The woman turns to me, smiles and says, “Exactement.” Still smiling, I wish her a good day and move on.
The lab is freezing when I arrive. The heat has been off since last night. The door to the lab is unlocked and through the glass wall I can see that the door to the refrigeration room is open and the lights are on. That’s odd.
“Michel? Ferdie?”
Celeste pokes her head out the door.
“Celeste? What are you doing?”
Her nose and cheeks are pink from being in the refrigeration room where we keep raw materials that will spoil if they’re exposed to higher temperatures. “Delphine told me the bottles are not in order. I just didn’t have time to finish yesterday, and we have a big group coming in on Monday for the Rivanche project so I won’t have time to do it then either. Alors...” She disappears in the room and just as quickly pops out. “Why are you here on a Saturday?”
“Work I have to tidy up before I leave.”
“Oh, Radha! We’re all so excited you’re going.”
I raise an eyebrow. “Even Michel?”
“You know Michel! One never knows what he’s thinking. Will you please bring back one of those beautiful Indian scarves?”
She’s talking about one of those tie-dyed ones Jiji always told me to stay away from, just as she advised me to avoid saris with sewn-on mirrors. “Tacky,” she’d say. “Stick to embroidery—by hand, not machine.” But Celeste looks so happy just now and it might go a long way toward brightening her wardrobe.
“Avec plaisir, Celeste.”
* * *
When the girls and I get back to the apartment, I finally reach Florence on the phone. She can barely contain her delight as she agrees to take the girls while I’m gone. Tomorrow, Sunday, I’ll pack their school uniforms and clothes. Do their shoes need to be polished? Anything need ironing? I put clothes in the washer and hang up the damp ones on the line in the building’s atrium. It’s winter, so it will take longer for them to dry. Pierre will have to take them off the line while I’m gone. At the moment, he’s at the open-air market with the girls, picking up vegetables for tonight’s dinner.
The phone rings. It’s Mathilde.
“Maman fell down a flight of stairs today.”
“Oh, no!” I lean against the washing machine. “What happened?”
“Nothing is broken. My concierge found her at the bottom of the staircase. She was dazed but not hurt. She kept saying she had to go home. When she was told she lived in the building with me and that she was home, she got very angry at the concierge for lying to her. Oh, Radha, I don’t know how much more of this I can take.”
Usually full of verve and laughter, Mathilde sounds as if she’s about to cry. I wish there was something I could do to ease her burden. Even when she’s breaking up with a mec who showed potential, she’s never this dispirited.
“Where is she now?” I ask.
“Sleeping. She sleeps a lot these days, but also wakes up abruptly at all hours and goes wandering.”
“Can you get help for tonight? And go do something fun?” I ask.
“Can you join me? We could go see Emmanuelle—it just started showing yesterday.”
“I wish I could, Mathilde, but I’m getting the girls ready to stay with Florence for a few days during the week, and I have so much to do before I leave.” I tell her about my work trip to India. I would invite Mathilde, but with her mother’s dementia, it would be impossible for her to leave on such short notice.
“Of course.” Mathilde is disappointed. And, I sense, a little annoyed. I hear her lighting a cigarette. I wait. “Everything was so much simpler when we were girls, wasn’t it?” she says.
In my mind, I exhale the long stream of smoke along with her, recalling our nights in the Nun’s graveyard.
“Remember that time we met Agnes in Goa, Radha?”
I can picture Mathilde twirling and untwirling the coiled telephone cord, a sly smile on her face at the memory.
“She was with that crazy guru who drank his own urine, so she tried to get us to do it, too. We refused and hid until she stopped pestering us.”
I chuckle. When Mathilde’s mother latched on to something, she held on tight. “All those gurus. What was Agnes searching for, do you think?”
“Who knows?” Mathilde sounds exasperated. “All I know is that I’m stuck mothering a woman who couldn’t be bothered to mother me. Ever since I can remember, she would leave me at Grand-père Antoine’s or une amie folle or at some boarding school. What kind of mother does that? And I’m supposed to take care of her now that she needs me?”
I realize it was different for me when I boarded at Auckland. Lakshmi and Jay were nearby. My sister visited often or I went to their house on weekends, often bringing Mathilde with me. My sister felt that I had been isolated enough as a child in Ajar and would enjoy dormitory living. I needed the camaraderie and social etiquette that came from close quarters with other students. Mathilde, who had been at Auckland longer, took me in hand. She told me who was Queen Bee and whom to stay away from. She was a natural at field hockey and tennis. I was not. But she would make sure I’d be assigned to her team, which stopped the more competitive girls from complaining about my mediocre performance.
Mathilde took care of me, of herself, and now she’s having to take care of Agnes. It doesn’t seem fair.
“Mathilde, why did you adopt me at school?”
“Somebody had to. You looked so sad and lost, ma puce. I remember thinking something awful must have happened to you, but I didn’t want to pry.” She takes a moment with her cigarette.
In that pause I could have told her what I’ve never shared with her. Ravi, my pregnancy, Niki. The shame, sadness, the loss. When I met Mathilde, I was still smarting from Ravi’s abandonment, from having to give up Niki. I’d been foolish. I’d been a dupe. I’d been a stooge. How could I admit all that to a girl I’d just met? Especially one so savvy. Now, seventeen years later, it’s too late to confess that I’ve kept the most significant secret of my life from my best friend. I say nothing.
Mathilde sighs. “You were the only girl who had no mother, Radha. I didn’t feel I had one either. Not a real one anyway. And who knows who my father was—Agnes never did. I think you and I adopted each other.”
We’re quiet for a little while, listening to each other breathe, Mathilde smoking quietly.
I think of her mother and how she was never still for a moment. In her current state, she sits for hours, staring off into space, worrying her fingers and then taking flight suddenly, like an agitated bird who has no idea where she’s going. “Do you think Agnes ever found peace?”
Mathilde doesn’t answer right away.
“Do any of us?” is her reply before she rings off.
* * *
In India, everyone—mother, father, aunts, uncles, cousins, even neighbors—piles into a car, sitting on each other’s laps or on top of the luggage to accompany their loved one to the airport. In Paris, we call a taxi. Early Tuesday morning, Pierre brings my luggage down the stairs and waits with me at the entrance of our building for the taxi. I make sure he has the name and phone number of where I am staying in Agra, in case of emergency. And remind him to take the laundry off the line. Then the cab pulls up, and as the driver puts my bag in the back, Pierre leans in and kisses me goodbye.
The girls have been with Florence since last night, Monday, when she came to get them and their luggage in her Peugeot. It will be the first time I’ve been away from them for so long. When they were climbing into her car, I had a desperate urge to pull them out, press them to my breast and not let go. Instead, I leaned my head through the window to plant a dozen kisses on their cheeks as they waved goodbye to Pierre and me.
It was quiet in the house without our daughters. When we came upstairs, Pierre settled in the living room with his records and a book. I went into our bedroom to finish packing for my flight the next morning. We hadn’t made up since Friday night. Instead, we’d concentrated on the girls over the weekend, taking them to Luxembourg Gardens, stopping for Nutella crepes along the way and a movie with Catherine Deneuve, Peau d’ne.
When I was just about to shut my suitcase, Pierre came into the bedroom. He stood in the middle of the room, looking at me, until I raised my eyes to his. I could hear the soothing notes of Nat King Cole’s “You Made Me Love You” wafting from the living room. Pierre walked toward me then, took my hand and put his left arm around my waist. His touch sent a jolt through me. He smelled good, familiar, comfortable. We danced in a slow circle in our bedroom until the song ended and another began. I could feel the strong, steady rhythm of his heartbeat against my ear.
He pressed his cheek against my forehead. “My mother smothered me when I was little. She wouldn’t let me breathe. So I asked Grand-mère if she would send me to boarding school.” He paused as we moved against each other. “I want our daughters to know good mothering, Radha. I don’t want them to fly away from home sooner than they need to, the way I couldn’t wait to get away from my house.”
His words loosened something inside me. I could imagine him as a young boy—in knickers and school tie—carrying a small suitcase into the boys’ dormitory. How scared he must have been! He’d never told me that it was his choice to go to boarding school. Florence had made it sound as if it was what all boys of his class did. I let my body soften, melt into his.
He released me and went to his nightstand. From the drawer, he removed Notre-Dame de Paris, the book he’d spent hours reading to me before the girls were born. I don’t think we’d taken it out of that drawer for years. Just seeing it made me remember our first days together. I couldn’t help but smile.
Pierre placed the book on top of the folded clothes in my suitcase. Then he clicked the suitcase shut and lifted it off the bed. He was apologizing without saying the words. Perhaps it’s the best he could do.
He came and stood in front of me, locking his eyes with mine. I was still in my work clothes: black tights, red turtleneck and black wool skirt. He placed his hands on my behind, squeezed, then unzipped my skirt from the back. It fell to the floor. My breath quickened. My mouth opened and my eyes fell to his lips, wanting to taste them. But he moved his head away. He pulled my tights down to my thighs and tested my wetness with a finger. Satisfied, he slid his hands under my sweater and pushed my bra up over my breasts, rubbing my nipples with his thumbs. He was breathing as heavily as I was, but still he wouldn’t kiss me. I flung off his hands so I could remove the tights myself. Then I slid across the bed on my back, knees up, to show him how ready I was. He groaned, unzipped his trousers and slipped inside me. The girls weren’t here. I didn’t care if Georges or Madame Blanchet heard us. All I wanted in that moment was Pierre, his taste, his smell, the feel of his hands. Him.
Yet, as much as I wanted to come, I couldn’t. Afterward, I lay on my side, wide awake.
PART TWO
In 400 BC, the Kama Sutra encouraged wives to create the perfect ambience for love by growing roses and perfuming their houses with them.
Agra
