THE PERFUMIST of PARIS by Alka Joshi - Spotlight & Excerpt

 

Paris, 1974. Radha is now living in Paris with her husband, Pierre, and their two daughters. She still grieves for the baby boy she gave up years ago, when she was only a child herself, but she loves being a mother to her daughters, and she’s finally found her passion—the treasure trove of scents.

She has an exciting and challenging position working for a master perfumer, helping to design completely new fragrances for clients and building her career one scent at a time. She only wishes Pierre could understand her need to work. She feels his frustration, but she can’t give up this thing that drives her.

Tasked with her first major project, Radha travels to India, where she enlists the help of her sister, Lakshmi, and the courtesans of Agra—women who use the power of fragrance to seduce, tease and entice. She’s on the cusp of a breakthrough when she finds out the son she never told her husband about is heading to Paris to find her—upending her carefully managed world and threatening to destroy a vulnerable marriage.

HERE'S AN EXCERPT of THE PERFUMIST of PARIS (MIRABooks)

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.

“Kaisa 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 classes. We had recently

moved from Jaipur to Shimla, and I was still getting used to our new home. I think Malik was the only

one of us who adjusted easily to the cooler temperatures and thinner air of the Himalayan mountains, but

I saw less of him now that he was busy with activities at his own school, Bishop Cotton.

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.

I knew that as long as I stayed in Kanta’s house, I would keep Niki from loving the woman who wanted

to nurture him and was capable of caring for him in the long run. Lakshmi saw it, too. But she left

the decision to me. So I made the only choice I could. I left him. And I tried my best to pretend he

never existed. If I could convince myself that the hours Ravi Singh and I spent rehearsing Shakespeare—

coiling our bodies around each other as Othello and Desdemona, devouring each other into exhaustion—

had been a dream, surely I could convince myself our baby had been a dream, too.

And it worked. On every day but the second of September.

Ever since I left Jaipur, Kanta has been sending envelopes so thick I know what they contain

without opening them: photos of Niki the baby, the toddler, the boy. I return each one, unopened,

safe in the knowledge that the past can’t touch me, can’t splice my heart, can’t leave me bleeding.

The last time I saw Jiji in Shimla, she showed me a similar envelope addressed to her. I recognized the

blue paper, Kanta’s elegant handwriting—letters like g and y looping gracefully—and shook my head.

“When you’re ready, we can look at the photos together,” Jiji said.

But I knew I never would.

Today, I’ll make it through Niki’s seventeenth birthday in a haze, as I always do. I know tomorrow

will be better. Tomorrow, I’ll be able to do what I couldn’t today. I’ll seal that memory of my firstborn

as tightly as if I were securing the lid of a steel tiffin for my lunch, making sure that not a drop of

the masala dal can escape.

ALKA'S WORDS

HOW I BECAME A WRITER

For decades, I wrote advertising commercials and marketing copy. It was my husband who urged me to try fiction. He encouraged me to take evening workshops, which I really enjoyed. When I enrolled in the MFA program in Creative Writing at the age of 51, my instructors were so generous with their praise that I began to feel like a semi-serious writer. It wasn’t until my literary agent notified me that MIRA Books, a division of Harper Collins, had sent a really good contract that I realized I’d become an author!

WHAT I'M WORKING ON NOW

I’ve just finished book #3, the last story in the trilogy. This one is about Radha, who is now 32 years old. She works as a perfumer in Paris. She’s married to a Parisian, has two little girls, and is on the cusp of designing her signature scent when an unwelcome visitor from book #1 shows up at her door. Will she acknowledge the acquaintance or pretend she’s never met him before? How will Lakshmi’s help be enlisted to resolve the betrayals and deceptions? I’m loving the research into how perfumes are made, imagining what Radha would concoct (she had such a talent for mixing henna paste and paints as a girl) and designing the lengths she’ll go to hide her past.

MY WRITING PROCESS

I don’t write full-time; I don’t see writing as a job that I have to perform for the same number of hours daily. Rather, I start with research and let characters play around in my imagination, composing multiple scenarios and various plot lines before committing them to the page. I write in the morning, afternoon or late at night when the mood strikes. I write for an hour or six hours, depending on how far my imagination is taking me that day. With four decades of work experience, I’m always able to meet the publisher’s deadlines.

https://alkajoshi.com