by Betsy Draine
“All those in favor?” asked Ray. “Any opposed? Motion carried.”
I wondered how they could possibly fit another name on the letterhead.
“I move to adjourn,” said Maggie, beaming in Thierry’s direction.
“Is there any other business before the committee?” asked Ray. His brow was moist, although it wasn’t noticeably warm in the room. No one stirred. “Then a motion to adjourn is in order. Those in favor?” A dull murmur rose from the gathered scholars.
As the room emptied, I glanced outside to check the weather and caught an unexpected movement out of the corner of my eye. I turned my head and looked out the east-facing windows to the Giacometti Sculpture Court, one of the museum’s highlights. I’d been looking at Giacometti’s spindly bronze figures all week, but not with this backdrop of silvery fog. His wraithlike Walking Man was fixed in midstride in the center of the court. Facing him stood six emaciated figures lined up in a row, arms at their sides as if at attention. They were called The Women of Venice, though they looked just like the man. The only way to tell women from men in Giacometti’s work is that the women are always motionless and the men are always walking.
Now, however, one of the women moved. Her feet came forward. Her head swung back. She was levitating. Or rather, she was upended by two workmen clothed in identical blue smocks. Three more blue men reached out to carry her corpse-like off the terrace. One had her by the shoulders, one cradled her head, two supported her at the waist, and another had her by the feet.
What is this—some kind of performance art? I wondered. I slipped out to the hall just in time to spot the workmen carrying the rigid woman down a staircase. They moved like pallbearers. The impression of a funeral was reinforced by the fact that at the bottom of the stairs a long wooden box stood open like a casket. With bowed heads, the men lowered the Woman of Venice into her coffin.
“What are you doing?” I asked one of the workmen.
“We’re sending her to Rome, for an exhibition.”
Now it made sense. But the image of the statue as a dead woman had rattled me. It brought back a picture of Isabelle laid out at the foot of the fountain. All at once I felt faint.
When I got back to our room, Toby looked up at me and said, “Hon, are you all right?”
I related my uncanny experience. “It looked like they were carrying a corpse.”
“Come here.” He put his arms around me. “Can I get you something? A glass of water?”
“Yes, thanks.”
Toby went to the sink and filled a glass for me. “What you need is a distraction. Maybe the perfume factory will be just the ticket.” Today the group was going to the Fragonard Museum in Grasse, followed by a visit to the perfume factory that also bears his name—the artist was a native son. Toby was right, I needed a distraction. And what could be better than shopping?
It was pouring when we set out. Rain sloshed off the roof of the van ahead of us, splashing across our windshield. The back road was slippery on the curves, but the vans managed to slither around the loops, hold the road on dips, and ascend with steady power. Still, we were relieved when we pulled into the parking lot at the height of the peak on which Grasse stands. Ray sensibly had scheduled the museum visit first. Any normal woman could spend many hours at a perfume factory. There’s much to learn and scores of scents to sample. Ray realized that if we started at the factory, we’d never leave in time to do justice to Fragonard’s paintings. So it was going to be Art first, Perfume later.
Ray advised that we stay in the van while he arranged entry to the museum. There was a rustle, as umbrellas were found and jackets were zipped, but the bustle stopped when the door was pulled open. Ray stood there, shivering and sheepish. “I’m sorry, folks. The museum’s closed. Renovations.”
Nobody spoke. What could we say? Shelley knew what to say. “Jesus, Ray! You took us to this godforsaken place without checking that it’s open?”
Ray clamped his lips together and turned his attention to the rest of the passengers. He cleared his throat and announced, “Okay. We’ll go straight to the perfume factory. Wait till I tell the other van.”
The change of venue was quickly executed, and since the factory gives tours all day, 365 days of the year, we were welcome—including Emmet. I was disappointed not to see the Fragonard paintings but excited by the prospect of my first tour of a factory, never mind one that offered perfume samples. I assumed that all the women would feel the same, even Sister Glenda. Klara, the chemist, would love it. I wasn’t sure about the men.
The Parfumerie Fragonard doesn’t look at all like a factory. From the street, you see a handsome three-storied building, painted sunflower yellow, and lightened by rows of high windows with light blue shutters. It looks more like a city mansion. Though the entryway at the back is a recent addition, much of the interior keeps the appearance of an old and noble house. Floor-to-ceiling windows in rooms large enough to dance in speak of eighteenth-century balls. Gold-framed mirrors invite elegant ladies to check their maquillage. Each of many tables, which in other days would have been laid for tea or lunch, displays a line of perfume, with its attendant lotions, soaps, colognes, and powders. The flower associated with a particular perfume is featured in an appropriate bouquet—modest for lily of the valley, lush for gardenia. I was eager to roam the display rooms, but we were told that this pleasure was reserved for the end of the tour, when we could also sample (and buy) the perfumes.
Two young women in identical black suits, high heels, and red lipstick were waiting in front of an elevator door beyond the display rooms. Each guide took six of us. Bowing ever so slightly, ours introduced herself as Ms. Lin, from Taiwan.
“How’d you get this job?” asked Shelley.
“My given name is Fang,” the young woman said. “It means ‘fragrant.’ From an early age, I was interested in perfumes. I was hired in the industry in Taiwan, and my company asked me to work at Fragonard for a year.”
“Were you trained in chemistry?” asked Klara.
“And in business. MIT,” replied Ms. Lin.
Ms. Lin’s passion for her field made for a lively tour. First, she taught us how to identify the natural ingredients of perfume. For that purpose, she brought us to a row of numbered boxes. She challenged us to sniff through the hole in the box and guess the ingredient inside. We had a list of possibilities: rose, lavender, lemon, peach, strawberry, cinnamon, coffee, and sandalwood. The winner would accurately match each box number with its ingredient. You’d be surprised how hard it is tell sandalwood from cinnamon (my downfall). Klara, with her chemical expertise, was done in seconds. Maggie and Shelley dithered and laughed and guessed out loud. Ms. Lin encouraged Ray and Daniel Didier to join in, but they stepped back, leaving the game to the women. Throughout the process, Emmet’s nose twitched with curiosity. He was on his best behavior, though—no jumping toward even the doggiest aromas.
After telling us about “the Nose,” the expert on fragrances who creates new perfumes, Ms. Lin escorted us to his work station and on to the laboratories of his assistants. Then I understood why dogs were allowed on the tour. The work areas were completely sealed off by double glass panes. Without fear of contamination by our presence, middle-aged women in floral-print aprons performed the tasks of manufacturing and testing. In one meticulously clean room, they emptied vials of pale liquid into glass pipes that swirled and bent, eventually splashing into steel vats. In other equally immaculate rooms, they poured gold fluids into amber bottles. In another room, a team of workers in hairnets boxed cream-colored ovals, soap for a powder room. Down the way, women molded pale pink soap into roses the size of a fist. The happiest room held hundreds of small yellow ducks. A Rubenesque girl sat bent over, painting orange beaks and big black eyes on the soap duckies.
Ms. Lin herded us back onto the elevator and escorted us to the display room, where she handed us over to a white-coated beauty who was to be our “sampling guide.” She was French, chic, and flirtatious. “You are
all our welcome guests,” she said, “and especially you, messieurs. The husbands don’t always participate in the sampling. I have something special for you.”
Didier interrupted. “Thank you, mademoiselle, but we are not the husbands. They are in the other half of our group.” He tilted his head toward the elevator, which was ejecting Sister Glenda and Angie, followed politely by the husbands (Hans, Ben, Toby) and the bachelors (Thierry and Jacques).
“Then we shall all go together.” She signaled to her colleague, who led us to the display area for men’s colognes. “Every man has his own scent,” our guide said. “A cologne must not mask it but deepen it. There is a cologne that suits your deepest nature.” She lingered over the last word. At that moment, every man, with the exception of Didier, was under her sway.
“Don’t be afraid to experiment,” she urged, looking straight at Didier. “I’m going to show you how to find your true scent.” Didier stepped back. Without even an “excuse me,” he turned and walked away.
Taking no notice that she’d lost a customer, the guide continued. “The first step is to determine which scent gives you initial pleasure.” She paused for effect. “So that you don’t become confused, you must follow the proper procedure.” She and her colleague handed each person a rectangular white packet, the size of a fat cigar, filled with long, slim paper sticks. Each stick had the name of a fragrance. “Don’t spray the cologne on yourself. Not to begin. Instead, spray the fragrance on the stick with its name. Give it a moment to set, and then sniff it. If you like the smell, put the stick on the little dish in front of you.” There were different-colored dishes up and down the counter, just ready for the men to get to work.
“Discard the ones that don’t please you.” She pointed to a chrome box with a slot in the top. “Then go back and retest the sticks in your dish, until you have narrowed down to two.” She looked around to see that we were listening and inclined to follow her instructions. I was distracted by the names of the men’s scents. Beau Gosse (Handsome Kid) was perfect for Maggie’s Thierry. Suivez-moi (Come Hither) fit Ray’s nighttime behavior. And I knew which one I wanted to describe Toby: Toujours Fidèle.
When I attended again to the voice of our sampling guide, she was saying, “You will then be at the point of decision. Spray a small amount of one of your two selections on your left wrist and the other on your right wrist. Do not inhale them until they have fully set. The product must blend with your essence, gentlemen. It will be worth the time to find the fragrance that projects . . . you.”
Her speech divided the men from the boys. Ray, Thierry, and Ben started their work at the counter. Toby eyed Hans de Groot and Jacques Godard, and they headed for the exit and the café next door.
It was now the ladies’ turn. We moved to the section of women’s perfumes, which was of course many times larger than the men’s. The discourse we were treated to was longer than the version for the men. The guide pointed out each fragrance by name and announced its base note and its minor notes. She then left us to ourselves, to go through her prescribed program. Most of us set to work, but Sister Glenda kept Angie on a rein. I saw her read through the list of perfumes. She stopped at the name “Miranda.”
“That’s interesting,” she said. “Three of the perfumes are named after women: Miranda, Émilie, and Sorenza. Why don’t they use the most appropriate name of all?”
“What’s that?” Angie replied.
“Magdalene. The French would say Madeleine. She’s the patron saint of women, fallen and otherwise. She’s also the patron saint of perfumers.” Glenda indicated the surroundings. “And hairdressers.” She pointed to Angie, who was a hairdresser before she entered the convent.
“Really? There’s a special saint for hairdressers?”
“And fallen women,” Glenda repeated. Angie looked at her shoes. Shelley was hard at work at her sampling process. Seeing that I was not, she grabbed my elbow. “Give me a hand,” she said. “I’m looking for something that will rekindle Ben’s you-know-what.” She had already put a stick on her red plate, and now she sprayed perfume from a fancy bottle onto her left wrist. She rubbed it in and raised her wrist to touch her nose. “Do you think this would work? It’s called Défi. That means ‘dare,’ doesn’t it? I dare you to try it.”
Never one to refuse a challenge, I looked through my sampling sticks and found the one marked Défi. Shelley handed me the bottle and I sprayed from it onto the stick. I sniffed. “That may be a bit much for me.”
“I don’t care if it’s too much for you. Is it enough for Ben? I’m not looking for subtle here.”
“It’s definitely not subtle.”
“Oh, come on, you can’t really tell until you spray it on your wrist and rub it in.”
I wasn’t keen on spending the day smelling like a streetwalker, but Shelley was hard to say no to. I held the atomizer poised to spray.
Just then, Emmet, who had been so good for so long, decided to bolt, heading for a dainty poodle at my side. She was the companion of the artfully coiffed woman next to me. Emmet brushed by me on such a tear that I tripped and lost my balance. I caught hold of the counter to steady myself, but the bottle of Défi fell to the floor, shattering into shards. Startled by the noise, Emmet did an about-face and returned to the puddle at my feet. He sniffed, looked up at me and sniffed again, and then started lapping up the spilled perfume. “Emmet,” I said, “that’s not for you!”
Maggie swept down to snatch at her dog. “Emmet, Emmet!” She pulled him by his collar to her side, hissing, “Heel!”
Meanwhile, the poodle had arrived to sample the spilled perfume as well. The little mince wasn’t about to let some Irish tramp get all the goods. Maggie and her French counterpart struggled with their respective pets. The little ones suddenly appeared docile. Then Emmet whimpered and rolled on his side. The poodle fell over, shivering. Simultaneously, they moaned softly. Emmet regurgitated some fluid. The poodle fell silent and stiff.
“Emmet!” cried Maggie. He pawed the air, but in another moment, he stiffened too. Sister Glenda put her arms around Angie.
Maggie looked up at me, stunned. “They’re dead,” she said.
Then Shelley collapsed.
It didn’t look like a faint. It looked worse.
I panicked. I wanted only to run away. Who would believe me? I had killed Vincent and would go to prison. And it was the painting that condemned me, proof that I was there. So I tried to hide everything, not thinking beyond the moment. I put the gun in my pocket and snatched the painting from the easel. I pulled it off its stretcher and rolled it up. Then I folded the easel and carried everything into the field and looked for the biggest haystack I could find. I swept the top of the hay off and put the easel and painting on the pile and covered them over. I went back for Vincent’s paint box. I hid that in another haystack and threw in the gun as well. Then I returned to where Vincent lay. He had not moved. Blood oozed from his shirt. I was sure he was dead.
How I spent the next few hours, I don’t remember. When I got home I said I was sick and refused supper. My mother sent me to bed, where I lay awake, thinking terrible thoughts about prison. I knew I must move those things hidden in the hay, or else they would be discovered. So in the middle of the night, when everyone in the house was asleep, I crept out and returned to the place where Vincent had fallen. But he wasn’t there! That meant someone had discovered the body. By morning, the whole town would know about Vincent’s death.
Fortunately, the haystacks had not been disturbed. I removed any evidence that could point to me if the police came to search the area. I broke up the easel and put the pieces, along with the pistol and paint box, into a canvas sack, and I carried it to the river, where, weighted with stones, it sank.
But the painting? I can’t adequately explain that even to myself. I think in the beginning I kept it to remind me of my sin. It accused me, and it seemed a sacrilege to discard it. Then, as the years went by and Vincent became famous, I knew it would be an act of v
andalism to destroy it. So I kept it hidden.
Imagine how I felt when I learned that Vincent had survived the night. He regained consciousness, so they said, and dragged himself back to the inn, where the police interviewed him. I expected to be arrested at any moment, but they never came. Had Vincent said nothing about me? It took two days for him to die, two days of suffering from that wound. The town was full of talk, but none of it about me.
11
THE LIEUTENANT’S VOICE was breaking up, but I could make out that Shelley was in the hospital in Grasse. “The doctor says . . . improving . . . to see her now.” It was raining again this morning, coming down hard, and the storm was interfering with reception. I walked my cell phone over to the window to see if I could get a stronger signal. It helped. “Fortunately, it seems she will recover.”
“Was it the perfume?” I asked.
“Evidently.”
“Do you know what was in it?”
“Not yet. I’ve ordered a full chemical analysis, but it will take at least twenty-four hours. Also an autopsy on the dogs for their stomach contents. But the preliminary blood work . . .” The line crackled, then cleared. “They found digitalis in Madame Bennett’s blood . . . a trace amount but in such small quantity that it shouldn’t have produced an adverse effect.”
It occurred to me that if Isabelle’s poisoner had tainted the wine of everyone at her table, tests might show that they all had traces of the drug in their systems. Shelley and her husband, Montoni and the Currys might all be carrying digitalis in their blood. Then I thought of a simpler explanation. “Maybe she was taking it by prescription.”
“We’ll soon find out. In any case, whatever made her ill was something else. I’ll know more tomorrow. Meanwhile Fragonard is treating the incident as a hostile act by a disgruntled employee. The newspapers in Grasse are reporting that story. The factory is in the midst of a labor dispute with their workers, and the management thinks that someone may have tampered with a bottle to frighten customers away. An act of industrial sabotage.” Something like that, I recalled, happened in the States. Someone put cyanide in batches of Tylenol capsules, and seven people died. The person who did it was never caught.
