The perfumist of paris, p.1
The Perfumist of Paris, page 1
Praise for The Perfumist of Paris
“[A] sensory reading experience… Complex, intelligent, and emotionally charged.”
—Sarah Penner, New York Times bestselling author of The Lost Apothecary
“An absolutely luscious and unforgettable read.”
—Meg Waite Clayton, New York Times bestselling author of The Postmistress of Paris
“The Perfumist of Paris blends sparkling scenes, new and well-loved characters, and fascinating insights into the scent industry to create a deeply satisfying story of a woman coming into her own.”
—Erica Bauermeister, New York Times bestselling author of The Scent Keeper
“Powerful and evocative as the attars from Radha’s perfume lab, evoking India and France with equal beauty, this is Alka Joshi’s best book yet!”
—Kate Quinn, New York Times bestselling author of The Diamond Eye
“Lush, insightful, captivating… The Perfumist of Paris has all the rich, satisfying elements of a meal overlooking the Seine.”
—Zibby Owens, author of Bookends: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Literature
“A lush, spell-binding story that feeds the senses and charms the soul.”
—Jennifer Rosner, award-winning author of The Yellow Bird Sings
“Alka Joshi once again weaves her glittering magic…heartrending, thrilling, and inspiring.”
—Lauren Belfer, New York Times bestselling author of Ashton Hall
and winner of the National Jewish Book Award
“An immersive, emotional cocktail of passion, turmoil, betrayal, love and the ties that bind.”
—Bisi Adjapon, author of The Teller of Secrets
ALKA JOSHI was born in India and raised in the US since the age of nine. She has a BA from Stanford University and an MFA from California College of the Arts. The Perfumist of Paris is her third novel.
AlkaJoshi.com
THE PERFUMIST OF PARIS
Alka Joshi
harpercollins.com.au/hq
For my brothers, Madhup and Piyush Joshi,
who persuaded me to go further
than I could have dreamed.
And for anyone who thinks they can’t:
You can.
Contents
CHARACTERS WHO APPEAR
PROLOGUE
PART ONE
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
PART TWO
CHAPTER 4
PART THREE
CHAPTER 5
PART FOUR
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
EPILOGUE
GLOSSARY OF TERMS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
CHICKPEA CURRY (CHOLE)
ROSE PETAL JAM (GULKAND)
A PERFUME PRIMER
THE MASTER PERFUMER
Smell is a potent wizard that transports you across
thousands of miles and all the years you have lived.
—Helen Keller
The beauty of fragrance is that it speaks to your heart and hopefully someone else’s.
—Elizabeth Taylor
Characters Who Appear
In Paris
Radha Fontaine: 32, mother of daughters Asha and Shanti; lab assistant at House of Yves, a boutique fragrance firm in Paris
Pierre Fontaine: 42, Radha’s husband; father of Asha and Shanti; architect working on the Pompidou Center in Paris
Florence Fontaine: 67, mother of Pierre; from a prosperous Parisian family; now serves on several boards and committees
Shanti Fontaine: 9, daughter of Radha and Pierre
Asha Fontaine: almost 7, daughter of Radha and Pierre
Mathilde: 32, Radha’s oldest friend from Auckland House School; single; from a wealthy Parisian family
Delphine Silberman: 60, master perfumer at House of Yves
Celeste: Delphine’s secretary
Michel LeGrand: senior lab assistant to Delphine at House of Yves
Ferdie (Ferdinand): lab assistant to Delphine at House of Yves
Yves du Bois: owner of House of Yves, a boutique fragrance firm
Agnes: Mathilde’s mother; former hippie who romped through India until dementia forced her to return to Paris
Antoine: deceased, father of Agnes/grandfather of Mathilde; former owner of an exclusive Paris parfumerie
In Agra
Hazi and Nasreen: 55 and 54, sisters and proprietors of a kotha, a renowned pleasure house
Mr. Metha: factory owner of an Indian attar factory
Hari Shastri: 51, Lakshmi’s ex-husband; at 17 he married Lakshmi but she deserted the marriage two years later; now Hari owns an incense factory in Agra
Binu: teenager, kitchen helper at Hazi and Nasreen’s House of Pleasure
In Jaipur
Kanta Agarwal: 45, wife of Manu Agarwal; adoptive mother of Niki, Radha’s natural-born son
Manu Agarwal: 45, husband of Kanta; adoptive father of Niki; director of facilities at Jaipur Palace
Niki Agarwal: 17, adopted son of Kanta and Manu; Radha’s natural-born son
Baju: an old family servant of Kanta and Manu
Sassuji: Kanta’s mother-in-law; when addressing a mother-in-law directly, a woman would call her by the respectful “Saasuji”
Munchi: old man from the small village of Ajar who taught Lakshmi how to draw and taught Radha how to mix paints
In Shimla
Lakshmi Kumar: 49, Radha’s older sister; director of the Lady Reading Healing Garden in Shimla; works part-time with her husband, Dr. Jay Kumar, at the Shimla Community Clinic
Malik: 27, used to assist Lakshmi with her henna business in Jaipur; now runs the Healing Garden in Shimla
Jay Kumar: 61, husband of Lakshmi; physician at Lady Bradley Hospital in Shimla; former Oxford chum of Samir Singh
Nimmi: 29, married to Malik; mother of Chullu and Rekha (from a previous marriage); lives in a joint family at Lakshmi and Jay’s house
Madho Singh: talking parakeet gifted to Malik 19 years ago by Jaipur’s Maharani Indira
In America
Parvati Singh: 54, wife of Samir Singh; mother of Ravi and Govind Singh; distant cousin of the Jaipur royal family; formerly a Jaipur society matron
Samir Singh: 61, husband of Parvati Singh and father of Ravi and Govind Singh; formerly a renowned Jaipur architect from a high-caste Rajput family; now runs a flourishing real estate business in Los Angeles
Ravi Singh: 36, son of Parvati and Samir Singh; married to Sheela Sharma; father of two daughters; works in the family real estate business in Los Angeles
Sheela Singh: 34, married to Ravi Singh; mother of two daughters; lives in Los Angeles in a joint family with her in-laws
Prologue
“Imagine running amid a field of lavender bushes with your friends. Playing hide-and-seek between rows of jasmine vines.” Antoine closed his eyes. “Your friend tickles your nose with a blade of grass and, just from its scent, you know it’s from the farm down the hill, not the one up the rise. Imagine plucking a vine-ripened tomato from your mother’s garden just to inhale its sharp aroma.” He sighed. “That’s what growing up in Grasse was like.”
I didn’t have to imagine. The delicate fragrance of the henna flower greeted me on my way to the village riverbank where I washed clothes. My mouth watered at the ripe melon scent of mangoes that Prem feasted on as his bulls ground wheat and corn into flour. And the moment before I offered my finest possession—the peepal leaf painting of Radha and Krishna that Munchi-ji had made for me—to Lord Ganesh, I breathed deeply of the sandalwood incense as I folded my hands to pray for good luck.
Like Antoine, my memories were rich with scent. And so were my secrets.
PART ONE
Europeans once traded gold for cloves grown in South India so they could spread the spice across their floors to absorb foot odor.
Paris
September 2, 1974
I pick up on the first ring; I know it’s going to be her. She always calls on his birthday. Not to remind me of the day he came into this world but to let me know I’m not alone in my remembrance.
“Jiji?” I keep my voice low. I don’t want to wake Pierre and the girls.
“Kaisi ho, choti behen?” my sister says. I hear the smile in her voice, and I respond with my own. It’s lovely to hear Lakshmi’s gentle Hindi here in my Paris apartment four thousand miles away. I’d always called her Jiji—big sister—but she hadn’t always called me choti behen. It was Malik who addressed me as little sister when I first met him in Jaipur eighteen years ago, and he wasn’t even related to Jiji and me by blood. He was simply her apprentice. My sister started calling me choti behen later, after everything in Jaipur turned topsy-turvy, forcing us to make a new home in Shimla.
Today, my sister will talk about everything except the reason she’s calling. It’s the only way she’s found to make sure I get out of bed on this particular date, to prevent me from spiraling into darkness every year on the second of September, the day my son, Niki, was born.
She started the tradition the first year I was separated from him, in 1957. I was just fourteen. Jiji arrived at my boarding school with a picnic, having arranged for the headmistress to excuse me from c
I was in history class when Jiji appeared at the door and beckoned me with a smile. As I stepped outside the room, she said, “It’s such a beautiful day, Radha. Shall we take a hike?” I looked down at my wool blazer and skirt, my stiff patent leather shoes, and wondered what had gotten into her. She laughed and told me I could change into the clothes I wore for nature camp, the one our athletics teacher scheduled every month. I’d woken with a heaviness in my chest, and I wanted to say no, but one look at her eager face told me I couldn’t deny her. She’d cooked my favorite foods for the picnic. Makki ki roti dripping with ghee. Palak paneer so creamy I always had to take a second helping. Vegetable korma. And chole, the garbanzo bean curry with plenty of fresh cilantro.
That day, we hiked Jakhu Hill. I told her how I hated math but loved my sweet old teacher. How my roommate, Mathilde, whistled in her sleep. Jiji told me that Madho Singh, Malik’s talking parakeet, was starting to learn Punjabi words. She’d begun taking him to the Community Clinic to amuse the patients while they waited to be seen by her and Dr. Jay. “The hill people have been teaching him the words they use to herd their sheep, and he’s using those same words now to corral patients in the waiting area!” She laughed, and it made me feel lighter. I’ve always loved her laugh; it’s like the temple bells that worshippers ring to receive blessings from Bhagwan.
When we reached the temple at the top of the trail, we stopped to eat and watched the monkeys frolicking in the trees. A few of the bolder macaques eyed our lunch from just a few feet away. As I started to tell her a story about the Shakespeare play we were rehearsing after school, I stopped abruptly, remembering the plays Ravi and I used to rehearse together, the prelude to our lovemaking. When I froze, she knew it was time to steer the conversation into less dangerous territory, and she smoothly transitioned to how many times she’d beat Dr. Jay at backgammon.
“I let Jay think he’s winning until he realizes he isn’t.” Lakshmi grinned.
I liked Dr. Kumar (Dr. Jay to Malik and me), the doctor who looked after me when I was pregnant with Niki here in Shimla. I’d been the first to notice that he couldn’t take his eyes off Lakshmi, but she’d dismissed it; she merely considered the two of them to be good friends. And here he and my sister have been married now for ten years! He’s been good for her—better than her ex-husband was. He taught her to ride horses. In the beginning, she was scared to be high off the ground (secretly, I think she was afraid of losing control), but now she can’t imagine her life without her favorite gelding, Chandra.
So lost am I in memories of the sharp scents of Shimla’s pines, the fresh hay Chandra enjoys, the fragrance of lime aftershave and antiseptic coming off Dr. Jay’s coat, that I don’t hear Lakshmi’s question. She asks again. My sister knows how to exercise infinite patience—she had to do it often enough with those society ladies in Jaipur whose bodies she spent hours decorating with henna paste.
I look at the clock on my living room wall. “Well, in another hour, I’ll get the girls up and make their breakfast.” I move to the balcony windows to draw back the drapes. It’s overcast today, but a little warmer than yesterday. Down below, a moped winds its way among parked cars on our street. An older gentleman, keys jingling in his palm, unlocks his shop door a few feet from the entrance to our apartment building. “The girls and I may walk a ways before we get on the Métro.”
“Won’t the nanny be taking them to school?”
Turning from the window, I explain to Jiji that we had to let our nanny go quite suddenly and the task of taking my daughters to the International School has fallen to me.
“What happened?”
It’s a good thing Jiji can’t see the color rise in my cheeks. It’s embarrassing to admit that Shanti, my nine-year-old daughter, struck her nanny on the arm, and Yasmin did what she would have done to one of her children back in Algeria: she slapped Shanti. Even as I say it, I feel pinpricks of guilt stab the tender skin just under my belly button. What kind of mother raises a child who attacks others? Have I not taught her right from wrong? Is it because I’m neglecting her, preferring the comfort of work to raising a girl who is presenting challenges I’m not sure I can handle? Isn’t that what Pierre has been insinuating? I can almost hear him say, “This is what happens when a mother puts her work before family.” I put a hand on my forehead. Oh, why did he fire Yasmin before talking to me? I didn’t even have a chance to understand what transpired, and now my husband expects me to find a replacement. Why am I the one who must find the solution to a problem I didn’t cause?
My sister asks how my work is going. This is safer ground. My discomfort gives way to excitement. “I’ve been working on a formula for Delphine that she thinks is going to be next season’s favorite fragrance. I’m on round three of the iteration. The way she just knows how to pull back on one ingredient and add barely a drop of another to make the fragrance a success is remarkable, Jiji.”
I can talk forever about fragrances. When I’m mixing a formula, hours can pass before I stop to look around, stretch my neck or step outside the lab for a glass of water and a chat with Celeste, Delphine’s secretary. It’s Celeste who often reminds me that it’s time for me to pick up the girls from school when I’m between nannies. And when I do have someone to look after the girls, Celeste casually asks what I’m serving for dinner, reminding me that I need to stop work and get home in time to feed them. On the days Pierre cooks, I’m only too happy to stay an extra hour before finishing work for the day. It’s peaceful in the lab. And quiet. And the scents—honey and clove and vetiver and jasmine and cedar and myrrh and gardenia and musk—are such comforting companions. They ask nothing of me except the freedom to envelop another world with their essence. My sister understands. She told me once that when she skated a reed dipped in henna paste across the palm, thigh or belly of a client to draw a Turkish fig or a boteh leaf or a sleeping baby, everything fell away—time, responsibilities, worries.
My daughter Asha’s birthday is coming up. She’s turning seven, but I know Jiji won’t bring it up. Today, my sister will refrain from any mention of birthdays, babies or pregnancies because she knows these subjects will inflame my bruised memories. Lakshmi knows how hard I’ve worked to block out the existence of my firstborn, the baby I had to give up for adoption. I’d barely finished grade eight when Jiji told me why my breasts were tender, why I felt vaguely nauseous. I wanted to share the good news with Ravi: we were going to have a baby! I’d been so sure he would marry me when he found out he was going to be a father. But before I could tell him, his parents whisked him away to England to finish high school. I haven’t laid eyes on him since. Did he know we’d had a son? Or that our baby’s name is Nikhil?
I wanted so much to keep my baby, but Jiji said I needed to finish school. At thirteen, I was too young to be a mother. What a relief it was when my sister’s closest friends, Kanta and Manu, agreed to raise the baby as their own and then offered to keep me as his nanny, his ayah. They had the means, the desire and an empty nursery. I could be with Niki all day, rock him, sing him to sleep, kiss his peppercorn toes, pretend he was all mine. It took me only four months to realize that I was doing more harm than good, hurting Kanta and Manu by wanting Niki to love only me.
When I was first separated from my son, I thought about him every hour of every day. The curl on one side of his head that refused to settle down. The way his belly button stuck out. How eagerly his fat fingers grasped the milk bottle I wasn’t supposed to give him. Having lost her own baby, Kanta was happy to feed Niki from her own breast. And that made me jealous—and furious. Why did she get to nurse my baby and pretend he was hers? I knew it was better for him to accept her as his new mother, but still. I hated her for it.
