The Book of Lost Fragrances: A Novel of Suspense (46 page)

Greece
Perfume was central to ancient Greek culture, both in mythology and in real life. According to Homer, perfume was bestowed upon man by the gods of the Olympic pantheon, and it played a pivotal role in worship to win their favor. Incense and aromatic plants were burned by the oracle priestesses of Delphi and summoned visions that were interpreted as prescient (see hallucinogen). In ancient Greek civilization, perfumed oils and libations were applied to the skin of athletes, suggesting a consciousness of their therapeutic and healing properties. Perfume was used to commemorate life—to mark milestones such as births and marriages—and to memorialize a person in death. Bodies were anointed with perfume and wrapped in perfumed shrouds, which were believed to bring happiness in the afterlife.

catacombs
Under the city of Paris is another city. A necropolis known as the catacombs. This ossuary is comprised of more than 200 miles of subterranean tunnels located in what were once Roman-era limestone quarries. The tunnels and ancient chambers, which have never been fully mapped, hold the skeletonized remains of more than six million people who were moved there from aboveground cemeteries for sanitary reasons in the eighteenth century. The use of these quarries as a resting place was established in 1786 by the order of the Lieutenant General of Police, Louis Thiroux de Crosne and the Inspector General of Quarries, Charles Axel Guillaumot.

The catacombs run under seven distinct arrondissements, but only one mile under the fourteenth is open to visitors. This mile is the museum
Les Catacombes de Paris
, which is on the Left Bank. It can be accessed by traveling 130 steps down into the tunnels and climbing eighty-three steps back up to ground level.

Robespierre discarded the bodies of prostitutes in the catacombs of Paris in what are sometimes referred to as the “Crypts of Passion.” During the Second World War, both the Resistance and German SS troops had headquarters in the twisting mazes of tunnels but never found each other’s hiding places. The catacombs have been featured in many works of fiction, including
The Phantom of the Opera
and Victor Hugo’s
The Hunchback of Notre-Dame
.

Carefully arranged bones of some of the more than six million bodies reburied in the catacombs in Paris, France.

M. J. Rose on her visit to the catacombs. Paris, France 2010. This is the entrance before you get to the miles of skeletons.

cataphiles
People who illegally explore the miles of catacombs closed to the public. Cataphilia is practiced by spelunkers, some of whom are artists who use the tunnel walls as canvases or carve sculptures into the stone. Others stage plays in the catacombs. Some show movies on the chalk cemetery’s walls, and others engage in black magic or hazing type rituals. Some cataphiles bring wine and food on their midnight forays that they often cook in the twelfth- and thirteenth-century rooms. People have even used the quarries to grow mushrooms.

Chinese law on reincarnation
In 2007, fifty years after invading the small Himalayan country of Tibet, the Chinese government passed a law banning reincarnation of the Dalai Lama and other Buddhist monks without government permission. The Tibetan government claimed the law was aimed at wiping out its identity and culture, that indeed, China’s motive was to cut off the influence of the Dalai Lama, Tibet’s exiled spiritual and political leader. The Chinese claimed the law would institutionalize the management of reincarnation, but the prime minister of Tibet, the Venerable Samdhong Rinpoche Lobsang Tenzin, said the law was an attempt to end the major Tibetan Buddhist institution—the leadership roles of the Dalai Lama and the Panchen Lama.

Chypre
Chypre is an olfactive classification referring to perfumes featuring citrus top notes (usually including bergamot), floral middle notes (traditionally including jasmine and rose), and a base of oakmoss, musks, labdanum and patchouli.

Chypre
is the French word for the Greek island of Cyprus, also known as the Island of Venus. Cyprus is a rich source of labdanum and of the hesperidic (citrus) components found in chypre perfumes. Famous chypres include Guerlain’s Mitsouko, Chypre de Coty and Femme by Rochas.

Cleopatra’s fragrance factory
Cleopatra (69–30
BCE
), the last pharaoh of Ancient Egypt, was fascinated with—some say obsessed by—scent. Marc Anthony built her a fragrance factory that was erected in fields planted with now-extinct flora, including groves of balsam trees (important in the creation of perfume at the time) that he had confiscated from Herod.

In the 1980s a team of Italian and Israeli archaeologists believed they unearthed the factory at the south end of the Dead Sea, thirty kilometers from Ein Gedi. Residues of ancient perfumes along with seats where customers received beauty treatments were found there.

Another journal page: Egypt and her mythology play a big part in the main character’s life.

Cleopatra’s lost book of fragrance formulas
Cleopatra was said to have kept a recipe book for her perfumes, entitled
Cleopatra Gynaeciarum Libri
. The book has been described in writings by Dioscorides, Homer and Pliny the Elder. No known copy of the book exists today.

Djedi
1. A powerful ancient priest and magician referred to in the fourth story of the Westcar Papyrus texts from the twelfth dynasty of the ancient Egyptian Middle Kingdom. Djedi was said to have lived in the fourth dynasty, dying at 110 years old. It was said he could consume 500 loaves of bread, a side of beef and 100 jugs of beer each day. It is alleged he possessed the ability to reattach the severed heads of animals and bring them back to life and that he predicted the births of the future rulers of the fifth dynasty. 2. A perfume created by Jacques Guerlain in 1927. Launched on the heels of Howard Carter’s historic discovery of Tutankhamen’s tomb in 1922, Djedi paid homage to ancient Egyptian civilizations. Interestingly, Jacques Guerlain chose not to celebrate the opulence and splendor of the Golden Ages of Egypt in his olfactory interpretation, opting instead to memorialize the demise of the dynasties that were lost to the sands of time. Djedi’s aroma is a unique and compelling narrative of decomposition and disrepair. One of the most rare and sought-after perfumes from the revered House of Guerlain, it is still highly coveted and desired by collectors today.

enfleurage or cold enfleurage
A time-honored method of essential oil extraction, in which odorless animal fats are used to collect the fragrant compounds exuded by botanical matter. Traditionally, glass panes are smeared with fat, and then the delicate blossoms are layered over the fats. The perfume diffuses into the fat over several days, after which the spent flowers are replaced with fresh ones. The process is repeated until the fat is supersaturated with the floral scent. The fat is then soaked in ethyl alcohol to draw the fragrant molecules into the alcohol. The alcohol is later isolated and filtered to produce an absolute.

essential oil
A concentrated aromatic oil obtained from botanicals using either expression or distillation extraction methods. Expression or “cold pressing” is used to obtain citrus oils. This method involves piercing the peel so that the essential oil found in the tiny pouches over the skin can be released. The whole fruit is then pressed to isolate the juice and oils from the pulp. The essential oils rise to the surface of the juice and are separated and filtered through centrifugation. In distillation, raw plant matter is placed inside a distillation apparatus called an alembic, which itself is placed over water. The water is heated, and the steam produced rises through the botanical material, vaporizing the volatile compounds. This vapor travels through a coil and in doing so, cools to a liquid again. This liquid (the perfume oil) is collected in a receptacle as it leaves the coil. The high temperatures required to extract the oil can sometimes prove destructive for more delicate botanicals, in which case alternative extraction processes, such as enfleurage, are preferred.

factice
A perfume bottle, usually filled with colored water, that is chiefly used for display or promotional purposes. Factices are usually oversize replicas of the original perfume flacon.

flacon
A perfume bottle. Derived from a Middle French word for “bottle,” flacon has become a term used widely in the global vernacular to describe a receptacle for perfume, particularly one of exquisite beauty or craftsmanship.

For research (which wound up being a labor of love) Rose bought hundreds of perfumes. This is a collection of some her favorite inspirations including scents from Guerlain, Frederic Malle, Serge Lutens, Oliver Durbano, Van Cleef and Arpels, Sophia Grojsman, Joya, Jar Parfums, Jo Malone and more.

Grasse
A town in southeastern France that is considered to be the traditional and modern capital of perfume. Rose spent time there researching; the fictional perfumers at the heart of her novel have a home and factory there.

In the middle ages, Grasse was perhaps best known for its tanneries. “Grasse” itself is a French word meaning “fatty.” In the seventeenth century these tanneries began production of perfumed leather goods, catering to an increasing demand for scented gloves and accessories, which were popularized by Catherine de’ Medici. Grasse’s thriving perfume industry could be credited, in part, to its warm sheltered microclimate, which provided the ideal conditions for flower farming.