The Perfume Collector

New York, 1927

Almost every night there was some sort of party at the Hotel. Many started in the bar then worked their way up into the rooms. But often there were simply outbreaks of dancing and drunkenness which flared up, taking over whole floors without warning like a kind of impromptu orgy. Doors would be propped open, and guests who formerly hadn’t even been on nodding terms gathered in hallways, collecting in doorways, laughing and shouting, music and smoke filling the air. Illegal liquor appeared, bottles were passed; more ice and glasses were in constant demand. Within the hour, cars pulled up outside, from the opposite end of town or the suburbs, laden with fresh recruits; girls piled on each other’s laps, shrieking with delight and young men wearing evening jackets, as if they’d been permanently on call for just such an occasion. Racing past the doorman, they followed the noise like bloodhounds tracking a scent, fearful of missing ‘the best bits’.

The chorus girls were famous for these ongoing revelries; interrupted only briefly by bouts of sobriety and the occasional comatose slumber. The entire cast of the Follies seemed to be condemned to the Sisyphean fate of forever reeling from room to room, floor to floor, searching for the next cocktail, the next dance partner, the next eruption of intensity. The following morning, or more often late in the afternoon, survivors could be found wandering bleary-eyed round the corridors and lobby; girls without shoes and missing their handbags, men clutching car keys, with only the vaguest memory of where they might have parked, politely enquiring as to where they were before heading off again.

Cleaning up after these affairs was far less glamorous. It wasn’t unusual to discover that someone had relieved themselves on the balcony, in a potted palm or an ice bucket; stray stockings and missing undergarments were wound about bedposts, jammed into dumb waiters and stuffed between sofa cushions; pools of vomit attracted flies and cockroaches and, along with blood and lipstick, required intense bouts of scrubbing to remove from the carpet. Almost once a week a body would turn up somewhere, sometimes quite dead looking, but usually in a state of extreme intoxication; a person no one knew or remembered, who was eventually carted off by the police to the local hospital.

At the same time, movie and Broadway stars were apt to manifest like sudden, dazzling apparitions. Douglas Fairbanks, Will Rogers, John Gilbert and W. C. Fields frequently charmed young women in the bar, while Ruth Etting, Marion Davies and Fanny Brice could be glimpsed, wrapped in furs, gliding through the lobby before disappearing into chauffeur-driven cars.

The air itself crackled with undercurrents of possibility. Fame, intoxication, sudden sexual encounters – both welcome and unwelcome – simply materialized, as unstoppable and unpredictable as the weather.

And in the summer time, it only got worse.

‘Mr Waxman has tried to commit suicide again,’ Sis sighed, when they were folding linens one stifling Tuesday morning.

‘What do you mean, again?’

‘He does it every once in a while. Gets too drunk, starts hollering and then goes out on the ledge and stands around a while. He’s gonna have to leave. They already asked him to leave once but they’re gonna have to get the police to do it this time.’

‘Why does he do it?’

‘Question is, why doesn’t he do it? I mean, if you’re gonna jump, jump! It’s all this in-and-out business that’s so upsetting. He’s meant to be writing some movie or something and every once in a while he just has to get out there and make a fuss. “There’s nothing to live for! This is it! There is no God! Nothing can save you!” Last year everyone panicked. This year they just let him go on and after a while he climbed back in and ran himself a bath.’

‘Doesn’t he know suicide is a sin?’

‘So’s standing around on a ledge upsetting everyone. Besides, Mr Waxman’s a Jew. They can do what they like.’

‘Who knows.’ Eva rearranged a row of fresh sheets. ‘Maybe he has a point.’

Sis glared at her. It was far too hot already, making everyone more irritable. ‘What’s wrong with you?’

‘I don’t know. I’m just saying …’

‘Oh, honestly!’ Sis shook out a bath towel with an imperious snap. ‘God has better things to do than float Mr Waxman down from the eleventh floor. And I’m not gonna let some crazy man dictate to me about the nature of the divine.’ Then she stopped. ‘Hey, heathen, where’d you get those shoes?’

‘Do you like them?’ Eva showcased the sophisticated t-bar design with a twirling dance move. They were only slightly too big around the heel.

‘Sure. But where’d you get them?’

‘Gino gave them to me. Said his sister outgrew them.’

‘You mean Pots and Pans?’

Eva nodded. Gino was a dish washer in the kitchen.

Sis put her hands on her hips. ‘And he gave you shoes? What’s his sister doing with a pair of shoes like that anyhow?’

‘I don’t know,’ Eva shrugged. Why was Sis making such a thing of it? ‘I thought it was nice of him.’

‘Humm,’ Sis frowned.

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘Nobody ever gives anything away for free.’

‘You’re a cynic.’

‘And you’re too young to be wearing high-heeled shoes. He has designs on you.’

Eva wrinkled her nose. ‘He’s an old man! Besides, they’re hardly worn.’

Sis moved the stack of towels Eva had just arranged to the opposite side of the cupboard. ‘Old or not, he’s a man. Give ’em back or you’ll find yourself living in a two-room apartment in Brooklyn with his entire family.’

‘No, I won’t.’

‘Honey, to my knowledge, he doesn’t even have a sister.’

Eva’s heart sank. ‘He doesn’t?’

Sis shook her head. ‘Say they don’t fit you and give ’em back. Say your aunt is going to get you a new pair. You can’t be too careful.’ Sis turned out the light and closed the linen closet door. ‘Mr Waxman’s not the only crazy person around here.’

Eva looked wistfully down at her feet. They’d been without a doubt the most exciting thing she’d ever worn in her life. Then she thought of Pots and Pans; his balding head and the way the spit gathered in the side of his mouth, forming a little pocket of foam when he spoke. ‘I guess you’re right.’

‘Of course I am.’ Sis headed down the hallway. ‘And whatever you do, don’t talk to Mr Lambert in 313.’

‘Why not?’ Eva ran to catch up with her, which was more difficult than she thought in the new red shoes.

‘He’s a Dangerous Man. You know Otto, from reception?’

‘The one with the red moustache?’

‘That’s the one. He has it on good authority that Mr Lambert is a communist. Do you know what that is?’

‘Not really.’

Sis turned on her. ‘Oh, they’re just the worst! For example, they believe in common property. Do you know what that means? What I have would belong to you too and vice versa. Isn’t that barbaric?’

Eva thought about Sis’s bolt of Irish lace. ‘I guess so.’

‘Otto says he believes in blacks marrying whites, white people not marrying at all, everyone living in communes and the entire overthrow of democracy.’

Eva tried to imagine a black man marrying a white woman. What colour would their children be?

‘And real communists, the ones in Russia, have no religion at all. It’s outlawed. There’s not a church for thousands of miles!’

‘What do they do on Sunday mornings?’

‘Nothing. No God, no heaven, no hell. I mean, that’s just asking for trouble.’ She sighed deeply. ‘He’s a Fallen Man, my friend. Forsaken. He only stays here because they won’t let him back into the Continental on account of the oyster incident.’

Eva’s eyes widened. ‘What’s the oyster incident?’

‘Believe me,’ Sis waggled a finger in Eva’s face, ‘you don’t want to know! But I’ll tell you this, the young lady involved was very offended.’

They’d reached the end of the corridor, where the service trolleys were kept.

‘You may have to clean his room,’ Sis continued, ‘but don’t talk to him. And don’t let him tell you about any of his ideas.’

‘OK.’ Eva pulled out her cart and adjusted her cap again, which kept falling down about her ears.

A jumper in room 1129 and an Enemy of the State in 313.

She was definitely going to need extra towels.

For the first week, Eva hardly saw Mr Lambert. Then one day she noticed him locking his room, heading down the hallway.

He was distracted; head down, in a hurry. He looked like any other middle-aged man; of average height, not fat or too slim, brown hair. His gait was awkward, as if one leg faltered, but it appeared not to bother him.

She stared hard.

He didn’t look fallen. Or did he?

‘Good morning, Mr Lambert.’

She didn’t know quite why she did it. And she said it softly, under her breath.

He hadn’t heard her.

So she said it again, a little louder.

‘Good morning, Mr Lambert.’

(Sis was going to kill her.)

Stopping, he turned and looked straight at her. He didn’t have the eager enthusiasm of an American but seemed to weigh up whether he would speak or not.

‘Good morning.’ His voice was low and cultured and he tipped his hat, ever so slightly, before heading down the hallway again.

Eva watched, terrified and thrilled, as he turned the corner.

He had eyes so blue they were almost navy and a thin dark moustache just like John Gilbert. Sis had neglected to mention he was handsome.

Eva let herself into his room.

There was that particular stillness which pervades after a flurry of activity; a palpable sense of energy settling. She walked into the bathroom; the air was still damp and humid, smelling of soap, warm flesh and aftershave.

Picking up the wet towels from the floor, she washed the dark hairs from the drain, wiped everything down, arranged his shaving kit and toothbrush at right angles on either side of the sink. Eva collected his laundry, retrieved stray socks from under the armchairs, and smoothed the rumpled sheets of his bed where he’d lain only twenty minutes before, propped up on one arm, reading the morning newspaper and drinking coffee. Was it her imagination or were they still almost warm?

She felt a closeness to him she didn’t feel for any of the other guests. A proximity that mimicked intimacy.

There were extra glasses in his room, one smeared in lipstick marks, a cheap waxy shade of bright pink. What kind of man wanted to look at that on a girl’s face?

Eva put the glasses in her cart and took out fresh ones. But as she dusted and hoovered, she spotted nothing more damning – no strange leaflets with slogans calling for the overthrow of Western civilisation, no foreign newspapers or telegrams in other languages; not even the odd book in Russian.

Eva opened the window to let air in and turned round. The room was clean.

Still, she lingered just a bit longer than she needed to.

According to Sis, men were both stupid and dangerous, in much the same way that poison ivy is one of God’s worst ideas and all too easy to catch. But there was clearly a world of difference between Pots and Pans’s high-heeled shoes and the refined corruptions of Mr Lambert.

Fallen women were common; all you had to do was have sex before you were married to qualify. But for a man to fall required much more – a deliberate turning away from God, a conscious decision. Such decisions were rare. Religious sloppiness was easy. Rejection required moral and intellectual convictions.

For this reason, along with the way he tipped his hat and the unnatural blueness of his eyes, Eva decided that Mr Lambert was worthy of respect.

Paris, Spring, 1955

There was a chill in the air as they got out of Monsieur Tissot’s tiny red Citroën and walked across the park in the centre of the Place des Vosges, the oldest residential square in Paris. It was a vast, elegant enterprise, a triumph of early civic planning with an aesthetic unity rarely seen in a public structure. Imposing brick buildings bordered the central park on all sides, built over galleries which housed shops and restaurants.

Grace surveyed the symmetrically arranged park with its formal fountains, rows of thick, boxy yew trees and neat gravel paths. ‘This is very posh.’

‘Very posh indeed. It was first built in the early 1600s.’

‘I had no idea it would be so grand. It must be expensive.’

‘I believe the apartment was a gift.’

‘From whom?’

‘I understand that it’s been in the Hiver family for years.’

‘Is that usual?’ It struck Grace as particularly brazen to have the two worlds so closely intertwined. ‘I mean, to give a mistress a family property?’

‘The rich make their own rules.’

‘It isn’t at all what I was expecting.’ She bit her lower lip uncertainly.

Monsieur Tissot looked across at her. ‘Were you hoping for a garret?’

‘I don’t know … I suppose so.’

‘We don’t have to go in, if you’d rather not.’

‘I know.’ Pushing her hands deeper into her coat pockets, Grace slipped her fingers round her father’s old lighter for comfort. ‘But I want to.’

Monsieur Tissot led her through the galleries and into a narrow passageway with a wrought-iron gate. Pushing it open, they walked into a courtyard beyond, a kind of rectangular-shaped, cobblestone space with a small fountain in the middle. Ivy wound, reaching its long tendrils, thick and deep green, up the side of the building, which was classical in proportions, the red brick augmented by ivory stone. Large French windows, leading to balconies, looked out on to the courtyard from the first and second floors. Above, shutters covered the windows on the higher floors. The flagstone steps, with their curving wrought-iron handrail, were worn away in the centre from centuries of use. And the front door was stripped oak, two massive arched panels with gleaming brass knobs.

‘I’ll talk to the concierge. She has a set of keys.’ Monsieur Tissot walked round to a side passage and knocked on the concierge’s door. Grace waited, standing a little apart, out of sight. After a few minutes, he returned.

‘We’re in luck. The apartment is empty. It was cleared a few days ago. I explained that you were Madame d’Orsey’s heir and she was very obliging.’

He unlocked the outer door and Grace followed him in through the front entrance. A high spiral staircase wound above them.

A gust of wind sent a few dry leaves spinning round their feet. Grace pulled her coat around her. She had the uncomfortable feeling of trespassing. But it was too late now; her feet were already in motion, following Monsieur Tissot up to the first floor. He unlocked the door, swung it open.

‘After you.’

‘Thank you.’ Grace pulled her shoulders back, trying to appear more confident than she felt. ‘But I think I’d like to go in alone, if that’s all right with you.’

‘Certainly. I’ll be downstairs if you need me.’

Grace waited until he’d gone. Then, taking a deep breath, she walked inside.

Her heels clicked on the smooth surface of the parquet floor in the entranceway, echoing throughout the empty flat. It led into a large, formal drawing room, with three sets of French windows opening on to a balcony overlooking the square below. It was an enormous room, easily thirty-five feet in length, with high ceilings and detailed moulding. The sheer scale of it was breathtaking. An imposing black marble mantelpiece dominated; above, a glass chandelier sparkled. Grace could make out, from the faded markings on the toile wallpaper, the outlines where clusters of paintings had hung; the shadows where chair backs and tables had once stood against the walls.

No, this wasn’t what she’d imagined at all. Perhaps not a garret but something much more modest in size, discreet. But this was a vast reception room, capable of entertaining on a grand scale. It seemed not just extravagant but somehow audacious to keep a mistress in such opulent style.

She moved into the room beyond.

Here was the bedroom, smaller, yet still luxurious in its proportions. As soon as she entered, the smell of perfume hit her. Not flowery or whimsical but sophisticated, strong. Like a hand reaching out across the impossible distance to pierce the veil that separated them, it pressed hard against her solar plexus, stopping her in her tracks. It had a metallic sharpness, almost intrusive in its originality.

The hairs on the back of Grace’s neck rose. This woman was real, not some soft, benevolent, fairy godmother from a children’s story. Grace was on her territory now.

A carved double wooden bed frame stood in the centre of the room. It was a lit bateau style frame, with an intricate inlaid-wood design on the headboard, the only piece of furniture left in the whole apartment.

Grace looked up.

The ceiling was painted a very pale blue, illuminated with an inner golden light. It mimicked, very cleverly, the delicate shades of a summer’s sky.

This is where Madame d’Orsey entertained her lover, practised her art.

The thought sent a chill through Grace’s spine. She couldn’t help but think of Vanessa; her ghost seemed to drift soundlessly through these rooms, self-possessed, unapologetic, padding across the wooden floor in bare feet and pearls.

Love was an art, a game teased out and manipulated by skilled players.

A game Grace didn’t know how to play.

Turning away, she peered into the bathroom, with its roll-top bath and mysterious, low bidet. The cabinets were open and empty; the plumbing reassuringly noisy, the cistern tank of the toilet filling and refilling again and again.

She went through to the kitchen.

It was tiny. The smallest, most ordinary room in the whole apartment, with a green Formica counter top and a deep, square butler’s sink. There was a simple built-in table with benches against one wall, with an ashtray and a morning paper on it.

Grace sat down. This room was dark, warm and womblike, the ceiling low. A cheap plastic clock ticked above the oven. The newspaper, Le Figaro, had been refolded after it had been read. She turned it over, looking at the date. It was more than a month old. Along the bottom of the page was a series of even circles, drawn in pen – the idle doodles of an otherwise engaged mind.

She traced her finger lightly across the rim of the ashtray. It was an inexpensive design, reminiscent of the styles of the 1920s; a simple square in heavy pottery china. It had been broken and then glued back together. But it wasn’t the kind of object that seemed worth saving. She turned it over. Just visible in the lower right-hand corner was the faded inscription, Riker’s Drug Store, New York City.

The other rooms felt unreal, like part of a stage set. But this room was intimate, quiet. The mysterious Madame d’Orsey had sat here, listening to the ticking clock, the dull hum of the refrigerator; smoking, reading the paper. A middle-aged woman, a woman whose face, as Monsieur Tissot had put it, was changed by pain.

Grace stared at the broken ashtray.

Le droit de choisir.

The phrase repeated itself again and again in her mind.

No one had ever advocated her independence before. The entire success of her marriage, her whole career as a woman, depended largely upon her cheerful, uncomplicated dependence, first on her family and then on her husband. But now this stranger was challenging her; asking her to make choices, take responsibility.

Why?

It supposed an intimacy; expectations. But Grace didn’t even know her, let alone approve of Eva d’Orsey.

Opening her handbag she took out a crumpled pack of Chesterfields and lit one.

Pretty girls didn’t lead independent lives; didn’t Eva d’Orsey know that? Their triumphs were measured in the swiftness with which they moved from one pair of waiting arms to another. It was the less fortunate girls – the ‘sensible’ and ‘clever’ ones – who had to face the world on their own. (When she was young, if the word ‘intelligent’ was used when describing a girl, it was always a criticism; nothing signalled more completely the hopelessness of their future situation than the label of ‘clever’.)

Exhaling slowly, Grace watched the smoke gather just above her head.

And yet their handicap bought them freedom – just the sort of liberty and responsibility this unknown woman was demanding of her now.

Leaning her chin in her palm, Grace opened the newspaper.

If she were truly the beneficiary, why did it feel as if Madame d’Orsey were taking something away from her rather than giving it?

Turning the pages, she tried to string together the few words she recognized. There was a sale at the Galeries Lafayette, with the promise of a new season of architecturally engineered girdles and brassieres outlined in bold drawings … a photograph of some sort of sporting disaster involving a young man and a racing car … obituaries … classified ads … here was something circled in black pen …

Avis de saisie vente de boutique, 23 Rue Christine, Saint-Germain, Paris.

Boutique … that meant shop, didn’t it? Avais de saisie vente … Her French wasn’t good enough to make out the rest.

Grace stared out of the window above the sink, at the shadow of the sun creeping across the wall opposite.

The little kitchen was soothing, familiar in its domesticity. The clock ticked; here the city felt removed.

I don’t know what I’m doing, she thought, pulling the cracked ashtray closer, taking another drag. I’m completely out of my depth.

Le droit de choisir.

But the right to choose what?

Grace wasn’t used to making choices on her own; wasn’t certain she liked it. How would she know if she’d made the right ones?

Sighing, she flicked a bit of ash off the end of her cigarette.

There was a knock at the door.

Grace started, hurrying to stub out her cigarette in the ashtray.

‘Monsieur Tissot? Monsieur Tissot, is that you?’ She stood up.

There was no reply.

‘Hello?’

Again, another knock.

Grace went into the front hallway. Listened. If she did nothing, maybe they’d go away.

But they didn’t; the knocking continued.

Grace opened the door. ‘Oh, hello!’ She smiled in relief.

A young girl was standing on the landing, holding a cardboard box. She was maybe thirteen or fourteen, with even brown plaits and a serious face.

‘May I help you?’

‘Bonjour, madame. Parlez-vous français?’ she asked, pronouncing each word with exaggerated clarity.

‘Ah, well, oui … un peu … mais je ne parle pas très bien …’

‘I speak some English.’ (Obviously the answer to the girl’s question was ‘no’.) ‘The man downstairs said you were, ah, the heir? Is this true?’

‘Ah, yes. I suppose I am.’

‘Yes, um, my mother, she wanted you to have this.’ The girl handed her the box.

‘I’m sorry, who is your mother?’

‘Pardon.’ The girl was looking down at her shoes. ‘She is the concierge, Madame Assange. She says this is for you.’

‘Really?’

‘You’re English, yes?’

‘Yes.’

‘And this is you, yes?’ She pointed to the top of the box.

Scrawled across one corner was her name: Grace Munroe.

Grace felt her skin go cold. It was written in the same, strong slanted hand she’d seen on the paper in Monsieur Tissot’s office. ‘Yes.’ She nodded. ‘That’s me.’

Grace opened the lid.

Inside was a collection of half a dozen small china figurines, wrapped in newspaper; delicate frolicking shepherdesses with white faces and flowered gowns, the kind of inexpensive, sentimental bric-a-brac she abhorred.

‘Madame d’Orsey gave them to Maman for you, to keep safe. She didn’t want Monsieur Migret to have them.’

‘Who is Monsieur Migret?’

‘Monsieur Migret owns … ah … l’antiquaire … Il vend … he sells les bibelots … um … les deuxième main …’ the girl pointed to her hand.

‘A second-hand shop?’ Grace guessed. (She’d always been good at charades.)

‘Yes,’ the girl nodded. ‘Second-hand. He clears the house when someone dies.’

‘And he cleared this apartment?’

‘Yes.’ The girl turned to go.

‘Wait,’ Grace stopped her. ‘This Monsieur Migret, do you know where his business is?’

‘He has a shop … um … on Rue Saint-Claude.’

‘Rue Saint-Claude,’ Grace repeated, committing it to memory. ‘Is that close?’

‘A few streets away.’

‘Thank you.’ Grace another took a step forward. ‘Do you think, perhaps, I could meet your mother? I would like to thank her and to speak to her, about Madame d’Orsey.’

The girl hesitated, her face suddenly guarded. ‘My mother does not speak English, madame.’

‘Yes, but maybe you could help me,’ Grace suggested, with a smile. ‘You could sit between us. Or Monsieur Tissot, the man you met downstairs, he would help.’

The girl’s brow furrowed. ‘She does not like gossip.’

‘But this wouldn’t be gossip. I just have a few questions about what Madame d’Orsey was like.’

‘Yes, well …’ The girl inched away from the door. ‘I will let her know. She is very busy though.’

She started back down the steps.

‘Did you know her?’ Grace called after her.

The girl turned. ‘Madame d’Orsey?’

‘Yes.’

She thought a moment. ‘She gave me a doll once for my birthday. I was five. It was very pretty – with blonde curls made from real hair and a china face. The nicest one I have ever owned.’

‘So she was a friend of the family?’

The girl looked at her blankly. ‘Oh no, madame. My mother would not let me keep it.’

‘Why not?’

The girl shifted. ‘You will have to ask her, madame.’

Grace watched as she slipped into the shadows of the hallway and down the stairs. Far below, she heard urgent, muted voices, speaking in French. Then a door closed and there was silence.