“Whooee!” exclaimed V'lu as she watched first Seattle and then Paris go from broad daylight to supernatural darkness in a matter of seconds. “Whooee! That done beats hurricane drops all to pieces.”
“I see it as an omen,” said Madame Devalier.
“Say whut?”
“An omen. A sign. Paris is eclipsed, New Orleans basks in light. The perfumes of Devalier have always been as good as any in France, and now they are going to be better. Parfumerie Devalier is going to prosper, and Paris — proud, arrogant, pompous Paris — is going to play second fiddle.” Madame touched the avalanche of her bosom with her fan, nodded three times, and smiled.
V'lu giggled. “Seattle, too, ma'am.”
“What about Seattle?”
“Seattle e-clipsed, too. So we don't have to worry none 'bout Seattle.”
“I wasn't worried in the least about Seattle. Why would I worry about Seattle, of all places?”
V'lu hesitated before replying. The young woman and the old woman stared at each other, fanning relentlessly. “She in Seattle, ma'am. Last anybody heard.”
“So? What difference does it make where 'she' is? Not that I don't have feelings for her, but her whereabouts has nothing to do with our business.”
Again V'lu hesitated. Her brown eyes opened as wide as the mouths of baby birds. “She got dee bottle,” V'lu said.
“The bottle! Bah! Poof! You and that bottle. Forget that bottle, it means nothing. Rien. Even if it had value, what on earth could she do with it?” Madame's fan whirred like a sewing machine. Her fan seemed to generate static electricity. A halo of heat lightning formed around it. “Even if that bottle is all you say it is, we don't need it. We have right here in this shop the most fabulous boof of jasmine the human nose has ever tasted—”
“Bingo Pajama!”
“I beg your pardon. Is that more vulgar slang from your vulgar generation?”
“Bingo Pajama, ma'am. That he name. He be back from dee island nex week wif mo' flowers.”
“And we haven't tamed the last batch yet! Tangerine seems to work okay as the top note. It aerates rather quickly, but it rides the jasmine and doesn't sink completely into it. With a middle note of the vigor of that Bingo Pajama jasmine — my Lord in heaven, girl, is that actually his name? — what we need is a base note with a floor of iron. It can't just sit there, though, it has to rise up subtly and unite the tangerine somehow with that bodacious jasmine theme. A very special base note is what you and I must find.” Madame Devalier's fan fluttered wildly, and V'lu fanned hard to keep up with her.
“But let us not put the barn door before the horse.”
“Ma'am?”
“We require a unique base note, and we will find one, if I have to turn my trick bag inside out to find it. Remember, I came up with hurricane drops long after the darkies said the recipe had been lost forever. Right?”
“You right.”
“First, however, we have a problem with overcook. It's not rank, but it's rank enough. We are shooting the moon on this boof, cher; we have got the raw product to make half of France whistle Dixie, and we are not going to blow it because we are too poor to pump or flash. So you know how we are going to handle it? Papa's fat!”
The good Madame was up to her bouffant in the backwater of boof biz. She had selected jasmine as the theme note of her comeback scent knowing that it was a blue-chip ingredient, a botanical platinum, a tried and tested floral champion whose performance in perfumery was rivaled only by the rose, yet knowing equally well that, like any prima donna, there were conditions under which it would refuse to sing. Jasmine (known in extreme cases as Jasminum officinale) simply will not tolerate the heat involved in steam distillation. Even boiling water is enough to murder the aroma principal of its flowers. Jasmine oil has to be extracted, not distilled, and efficient and effective extraction is not quite as easy as tying a loose tooth to a knob.
One begins by gently percolating fresh petals in a solvent — purified hexane, to be precise. That was what Madame and V'lu did to Bingo Pajama's flowers, with fine results. But then the solvent has to be removed. No woman of grace wishes to dab about her body with industrial hexane, however pure. If the Parfumerie Devalier had owned a flash evaporator or a vacuum pump, the hexane stink would have been off that jasmine oil faster than a Japanese commuter off the bullet train. Alas, the little shop on Royal Street could no more afford that kind of equipment than a Third World spider could afford designer webs and flies cordon bleu. Thus, Lily and V'lu steeped their extract in a vat of below-boil water, forced it through a filter tube, distilled it with alcohol, and hoped for the best.
When Lily Devalier maneuvered her midget submarine of a nose along dockside of the concentration crock, oh! a nocturnal warmth enveloped her brain, washing her in star waters, translucent cherub sperms, and the midnight blue syrups that tropical moths lick. The devouring delicacy of this jasmine swept her away, but she was not so smitten that she failed to detect a slight overcooked sensation and a faint, lingering off-note of solvent. It was then and there that she decided to resort to enfleurage, the old process, the method her Papa had used. In enfleurage, petals are laid out on trays of fat, where they are allowed to remain until the fat has absorbed most of the fragrance. When the flowers are exhausted, fresh ones are substituted. In time, the fat becomes saturated with the floral aromatic, which may then be sponged off the fat with baths of alcohol. It's all done by hand, and it's painstaking and slow; far, far too slow for the corporations of Paris and New York, but it would produce a truly superior oil, an essence worthy of the naked night creature that the Jamaican had captured for her, and worthy, too, of the rare base note that Madame had sworn to find to support it.
“It will be hard work, but we are going to go Papa's fat. Are you with me?”
“You right.”
“Pardon?”
“Ah wif you, ma'am. All dee way.”
The fan of Madame Devalier suddenly paused, as if her swollen, braceleted wrist had imagined it had heard the quitting whistle, then, poorer of some hopes but freer of some illusions, it resumed its hammering. “Let us have a bowl of gazpacho, cher. Then we shall nap for a couple of hours. By ten, it should be cool enough to resume our work in the lab.”
“Ah sure wish you git dee upstairs air-conkditioned.”
“Why, V'lu, a hardy plantation girl like you, you know you don't require air conditioning to sleep.”
“Ah not talking 'bout no sleep, ma'am. Ah be talking 'bout vegables. Vegables flying in through dee winda and landing on mah bed.”
“Oh, poof! Just some buck trying to attract your attention and not suave enough to send roses. Probably that crazy Jamaican.”
“Oh, no, ma'am. Bingo Pajama smell nice.”
“What do you mean, cher?”
“Nebber mind. Ah be dishing up dee cold soup now.”
“Merci. Thank you. Let us dine down here in the shop, it might be less oppressive.”
Hips swaying like mandolins on a gypsy wagon wall, V'lu climbed the narrow stairs, leaving her employer to fend off with her fan the lewd breath of Louisiana, as she awaited the seven o'clock news and yet another ominous view of the blacking out of Paris.