The Collector of Dying Breaths (10 page)

Chapter 12

THE PRESENT

FRIDAY, MARCH 14

PARIS, FRANCE

Back home, Jac returned her grandfather’s books to the shelves in the library. Filling in the empty spaces felt restorative, and when she was done, she surveyed the wall. Books always gave her solace. Especially these. There were some volumes dating back to the seventeenth century that she knew belonged in a national library. But she and Robbie both felt that even if it was selfish to keep them home, they wanted them here, the magnificent collection created by her great-grandfather and her grandfather complete.

Jac played a game she hadn’t since she was little, not taking any books out, just running fingers down the lines of books. Catching a word in a title here, another word there. As if she could absorb their knowledge by touch. She loved to feel the smooth leather and paper, the grooves where one ended and the next began, the incised letters on some of the more elaborate leather covers.

There were volumes on magic and alchemy and medicine since in so many cultures and eras scent was used for far more than perfume. There were books here that listed mysterious ingredients now extinct that supposedly had magical properties. Sometimes when she and Robbie were mixing up their new potions as kids, they would try some of the odd or curious ingredients in these books. Once she collected rainwater outside in the garden under the rosebushes because a book said that it would make a more fragrant eau de toilette base. Fascinated with the scientific aspect of scent, Robbie had tried cat urine after reading that in ancient Egypt it had been considered a sacred ingredient.

Once the books were restored, Jac took Robbie’s notes out of the box and put them on his desk. She wanted to read them . . . would read them . . . but not yet. There was company business she had to attend to first. Luc was waiting for her to sign some papers so they could begin the full integration of the two companies. As she scribbled her signature on contract after contract, her sense of well-being about the continuation of the House of L’Etoile grew.

She could have made a lot of money if she had sold her part ownership to a conglomerate, but the House of L’Etoile had been family-owned since 1774. She couldn’t be the one to bring an end to that long, long era. Now the company’s future was ensured for her lifetime and probably her cousins’ children’s lifetimes since among them they had six children, three of whom were already working in the business.

At five o’clock, Jac finished all the work that had been waiting for her. Shut the computer down and turned off the lights in the office. Before she left the workshop, she always sprayed scent. Now she lingered, searching the shelves, looking at the familiar bottles for the wonderful wisteria scent that Robbie had made her for her last birthday.

Wisteria was an impossible scent to bottle since the true essence of the flower couldn’t be extracted directly. Like lily of the valley and lilac, the fragile flowers crumbled when exposed to the heat of the effleurage process. Robbie had told her he’d worked on and off for two years trying different combinations of other ingredients, building a formula that would imitate the intoxicating scent.

And he’d done it.

Octavian, a friend of Jac’s who had a perfume blog, had once described the wisteria’s scent as peppery, sweet and green with a distinctive smoke-phenolic note. He’d said when the flowers are in full bloom they have a hint of burnt vanilla that gives the scent a sweet edge.

Robbie’s formula contained twenty-two different ingredients that combined and melded to create the perfume that he’d called Jac’s Dream.

And as she sprayed it on, she thought of her brother, smiled and felt the tears threaten. The ache was still fresh enough to throb.

Jac looked around. Robbie’s things were everywhere. His sweater on the back of the chair. A canister of his favorite tea by the electric kettle. The Zen singing bowl sitting on his desk. The Chinese calligraphy that he’d begun collecting in the last eighteen months—all of flowers—hung on the walls. She didn’t want the reminders to go away. Was glad for them. But they were a tease. She just wanted him to come back. Wanted more of those moments she’d had in the car and at the château when she’d felt him with her. She knew it would never be the way it was when he was alive. But she hoped some part of him could stay with her.

She opened the doors to the garden.

Robbie had added a great granite laughing Buddha in the courtyard and placed it so that every morning the sun shone on his grin. But the sun wasn’t out today. It was cloudy, chilly and damp.
Just as well, she thought. She wasn’t ready for spring. For the lovely colors of the flowers and hopeful blossoms. She wanted it to keep raining. For the dark to come early. For the evening sky to be dull. Robbie was gone. Her life shouldn’t have any color.

Through the garden, on the other side, she opened the matching French doors and entered the living quarters of the house. She walked through the formal rooms to the kitchen, where she found a bottle of Sancerre. She poured herself a glass and took it into the living room, turned on the stereo, and then sat down on one of the couches and opened the book she’d been reading for the last few days. Or trying to read. She’d get through only a few pages and then realize how little she’d actually absorbed. It wasn’t the book. She’d read other books by Gabriel García Márquez. And Robbie had told her that this one,
Love in the Time of Cholera
, was his favorite. But she couldn’t focus.

The music, jazz from the ’30s, wafted through the room, and she rode the waves of the melancholy moodiness. Robbie didn’t like jazz as much as she did. He loved opera, which she didn’t like at all. She couldn’t stand knowing there were words being sung that she didn’t understand. She wanted to know what every one of them meant.

Understanding what was going on around her mattered to Jac. She didn’t like the unexplained or unexplored. It was what made some of the issues in her life that much more complicated—like what had happened between her and Griffin. They’d begun a dance that had ended unexpectedly and for reasons that still confused her.

They’d met when she was a senior in high school. She’d smelled his scent before she saw him. A scent that reached out, pulled her in and promised stories. Its ingredients included lemon, honey and musk. Rich florals and animalic accords that blended together to create a particular fragrance that for her would always be associated with Griffin. With their time together. With wonder. With falling in love. With a cessation of loneliness. And then with anger and grief.

Long after they’d broken up, she still scanned tables at flea markets and auctions on eBay, buying up even half-empty bottles. In the recesses of the armoire in her bedroom, she had a cache of eight bottles of his signature scent. But even in sealed packaging, even in the dark, cologne evaporated. Like moments in life.

They’d seen each other all through college and graduate school. Then, just when they finally had the chance to live together, he left her. He’d said it was because he couldn’t bear that she would always be disappointed in him . . . that he wasn’t as smart or talented as she believed him to be and he’d never live up to her expectations.

He’d left when they were just past the budding stage of their love. His abrupt departure never gave it a chance to fully bloom and then decay—if that’s what was going to happen—of its own accord.

She’d survived, even though at times she was certain she wouldn’t. Even though one night she’d sat in the bathtub, staring at a razor blade and thinking about what would happen if she just . . .

Although she couldn’t forget him, and never let another man in the way she’d let Griffin in, she’d built up a solid satisfying life for herself. Until eighteen months ago when Griffin had come back in the midst of the worst crisis she’d ever faced and was there to help her save Robbie in Paris. And then—just like that—he was gone, and she was alone again.

But she’d still had her brother.

Jac picked up the phone and dialed a number in New York City. Malachai Samuels answered on the second ring, saying hello in his mellifluous voice. She pictured her mentor and friend in his office, surrounded by his antique card collections, books and objets d’art.

“Am I catching you between sessions?” she asked, knowing that Malachai saw patients during the afternoons.

“My next appointment isn’t for another half hour. How are you?” he asked in a concerned voice, and she felt cosseted. They could argue and had, but Malachai knew her better than anyone—even Robbie in many ways.

They spoke of his work and hers, and she told him about her business decision to bring her extended family into the House of L’Etoile and how it was working out.

“That all sounds wonderful, but it’s not why you called. Are you having a hard time in France on your own? Do you think you might be happier here in New York again?”

“I don’t know. Sometimes. But then the idea of leaving seems much worse.”

“That’s because you feel more connected to Robbie’s memories there. It’s where you spent your time with him. You were never here with him.”

She took a sip of the wine and listened to him offer advice in a smooth voice.

“Jac, take your time. It’s important to be where you feel closest to Robbie right now. And his soul is there, in Paris, in that house, in the workshop.”

“You mean that as a metaphor?”

“What? That his soul is in the house?”

“Yes.”

“No . . . I mean it literally . . . I believe that often when someone leaves so suddenly his or her soul remains for a while to ease the passage from grief to acceptance for those left behind.”

“That’s all?”

Malachai laughed. “Well, it’s a fairly large concept, but yes. Why?”

“Because . . . he didn’t tell you about . . . Did he tell you what he was working on before he died?”

“I hadn’t spoken to him for a few months, so no.”

That made sense. Robbie only knew the reincarnationist through Jac, and while the two men shared a very deep and abiding belief in past-life theory, they were not close the way Jac and Malachai were.

“What is this about, Jac?”

She took a breath and dove into the beginning of the story. “You do know a woman named Melinoe Cypros, don’t you?”

Malachai remained silent. Ever enigmatic. Revealing so little. But Jac thought she’d heard an intake of breath on the other end of the phone.

“She said she knew you.”

“You met her?” he asked.

“Yes. Because of Robbie. He’d been working for her right up to the time he died. She told me that she met Robbie through you. Is that true?”

In all the years Jac had known Malachai, and she had known him since she was fourteen, he had never revealed very much about his personal life. Oh, certainly there were anecdotes about childhood, or his years studying psychology at Oxford, or conversations about his likes and dislikes. She knew he was closest to his aunt, Beryl Talmage, who ran the Phoenix Foundation with him. And Jac understood that Malachai’s father was still alive at ninety-two and living in England and that they were estranged. But she didn’t know if he’d ever been married. If he lived with anyone. If there was someone, he was very discreet about her, for he never brought her to dinners or mentioned her. Malachai had been alone in his country home when she’d visited there eight months ago.

At the same time Malachai never seemed like the kind of man who was celibate. He was too much of a sensualist for that. So Jac had always assumed there were women here and there but that ultimately Malachai had chosen to live alone.

She’d gotten the sense from Melinoe that she and Malachai had been close. Perhaps even lovers. Was that true? She certainly seemed like someone he might be interested in. Both collectors, both eccentric. Both elegant and sophisticated. Both fascinated with the shadows and secrets that hid just beyond our reach.

“Yes, it’s true. I knew Melinoe. Why, Jac?”

And so Jac told him about the dying breaths project Robbie had been working on, that he’d intimated he thought she should complete.

“That collection was supposed to be mine,” Malachai said in a low voice.

Jac was startled by the vehemence and anger in the seven words.

“What do you mean, yours?”

Malachai sighed, as if he was loathe to talk about it.

“She was interested in reincarnation and came to New York to talk to me.”

“When was this?”

“Five and a half years ago.”

Very specific,
Jac thought. “And?”

There was silence on the other end. Jac wondered if Malachai was remembering or just not certain he wanted to continue.

“She was a highly knowledgeable amateur. As you know, since you’ve met her, she’s immensely wealthy. She began to contribute large sums to fund our archaeological projects and research. In fact she was invited to serve on the foundation’s board of directors . . . Melinoe was very much committed to aiding us to find memory tools that might enable people to access their past lives . . .” He trailed off.

Jac took another long sip of her wine while she waited for Malachai to resume. She pictured him at his desk, picking up one of his exquisite objets d’art, as he often did, and contemplating it. He had a collection of jeweled creatures arranged at the base of the Daffodil Tiffany lamp that sat to his left. His favorite was a jadeite frog with ruby eyes. She’d held it once, and it was cool to the touch and soothing.

“And you were close?” Jac asked, nudging him toward a revelation.

He ignored her question but continued speaking.

“About three years ago, I found out about a collection of very curious objects coming up for auction at Sotheby’s. According to the legends engraved on their silver coverings—the parts that could actually be deciphered—they were the property of Catherine de Medici’s perfumer and were his collection of last breaths—including the breaths of the queen’s husband, son and other members of her family. They had been found in a château in Barbizon. The first time in modern history that anything had ever surfaced that went back to the alchemical breath experiments that were done in the Renaissance.”