The Book of Lost Fragrances: A Novel of Suspense Read online

  “The last time I saw you, you were just six years old.” His Holiness smiled. “A very impetuous six, with the soul of a much more educated man than me.”

  “That’s not possible.”

  “I think it is.” The holy man’s smile was expansive. “Do you have something for me?”

  Xie nodded. Took the packet out of his pocket. “There was a woman at the gallery; she wanted me to give you this.”

  The Dalai Lama looked at it. “I’m so pleased both efforts proved a success.”

  “What is it?”

  “I think you already know. I can see it in your eyes.”

  “Something to help you remember?”

  “So it is said. You are remembering, aren’t you?”

  Xie, who now, for the first time in twenty years, didn’t have to hide what he knew and felt and saw, nodded. “Are you?”

  “No,” replied the Dalai Lama. “But that doesn’t worry me very much. One of us is remembering. You are. And you are enough.”

  Fifty-seven

  SATURDAY, 7:00 P.M.

  Jac hadn’t expected so many tubes and bandages. She gripped the door frame. Willed her knees to keep her standing. Forced herself to take in the worst of it.

  Behind her, Robbie gasped, “Oh, no!”

  The first thing that steadied her was the slight rise and fall of Griffin’s chest under the thin white sheet. The second was her brother’s hand in hers. Together they crossed the threshold and entered the hospital room.

  They each took a chair on either side of the bed and began their vigil.

  Griffin had taken the bullet Ani’s comrade had intended for Jac. It had gone into the fleshy part of his upper arm. He’d lost some blood, but the doctors had been able to remove the bullet without any trouble. The wound wasn’t life threatening.

  His fall had been.

  The gunshot’s impact had sent Griffin reeling. He’d cracked his skull against a bronze sculpture. The past six hours had been a nightmare of sketchy information, consultations with doctors, surgery to relieve some of the swelling in his brain, staples to hold his skull together, and, finally, a drug-induced coma.

  While Griffin was in the operating room, Inspector Marcher arrived at the hospital. Debriefed Robbie. Took his statement and Jac’s. He told them there’d be a formal inquiry, but Robbie was no longer suspected of murder. His actions had clearly been taken in self-defense. Ani Lodro, also known as Valentine Lee, and her companion, known as William Leclerc, were in custody. Along with the pseudo-journalist found dead six days before, François Lee, they’d been identified as members of the Chinese Mafia. Hired to keep the pottery from getting to the Dalai Lama.

  Jac and Robbie sat quietly. The lights in the room were low. Machines blinked red and green. Beeped and hummed. The medicinal odors filled the air. Clean. Crisp. Like the linens on the bed.

  “What do we do now?” Jac finally asked her brother.

  “We wait.”

  “I remember Griffin telling me about seeing the artifacts from King Tutankhamen’s tomb,” Jac said. “How monumental the sarcophagus was. How much gold had been used. How brightly it shone. Griffin said by the time he saw the actual mummy, he’d forgotten that the king was a real man.”

  The hydraulic hinge whooshed as the door opened. They both turned. Malachai came in, accompanied by a nurse who told them that only two visitors were allowed at a time. Robbie offered to get some coffee.

  Malachai didn’t sit. Not yet. He stood behind Jac and looked down at Griffin.

  “How is he?”

  “It’s too soon.”

  He shifted his gaze to her.

  “And how are you?”

  She shrugged.

  He pulled the chair around so he was sitting next to her instead of on the other side of the bed. “What happened in the museum?”

  For the next few minutes, she recounted the events that had occurred during that tense, life-changing half hour. While she spoke, they both watched the still figure on the narrow bed.

  Jac tried but couldn’t discern Griffin’s scent over the antiseptic smells. It was the first time since she’d met him fifteen years before that she couldn’t smell it.

  After all the fear, anxiety and terror of the past week, not being able to smell him was what broke her. She put her head in her hands. And sobbed.

  “How I wish I could do something to help you,” Malachai whispered as he put a tentative hand on her shoulder.

  For a moment, they stayed like that. She cried, and he tried to console her.

  Finally, she said: “Griffin always said I put too much pressure on him. That I thought he was better than he was. Except in the museum . . .”

  “What he did was very brave,” Malachai said.

  “But look at him. This is my fault.”

  “Your fault? I don’t understand.”

  Jac didn’t answer.

  “The scent affected you, didn’t it?”

  “What scent?”

  “Jac,” he reprimanded. “Coyness doesn’t become you. Griffin couldn’t smell anything on the pottery. Your brother could just sense it, but it didn’t do anything to him but give him a headache. You have the more sensitive nose. You could smell it, couldn’t you? It helped you remember other lives? All this time, what you thought were psychotic incidents were past-life memories.”

  “I don’t believe that.”

  “Even now?”

  “I have hallucinations that seem to be induced by olfactory triggers.”

  “Still so cynical.”

  She shrugged.

  “One day, you’ll outgrow that.” Malachai smiled.

  She picked up her head. Straightened her shoulders. This conversation wasn’t going to help. Not Griffin. Not her. “Let’s not do this, okay?”

  “I’ve worked with so many people who’ve had past-life memories. Some perceive them but never fully comprehend them—nevertheless, they learn from them. Grow from them.”

  “I know you want to believe that’s what’s been afflicting me, but you’re wrong.”

  Robbie came through the door holding a tray. “I waited till the nurse was looking the other way,” he said as he handed each of them a cup. “I saw one of Griffin’s doctors downstairs. He seemed optimistic.”

  Did Robbie sound as if he were trying to convince himself?

  “That’s wonderful,” Malachai said.

  Robbie walked around the bed and leaned against the windowsill. “This wouldn’t have happened if I’d just sold you the pottery,” he said to Malachai.

  “No one wishes that more than me. But sometimes things happen for a reason. These events played out this way for a purpose. Have either of you seen the news?”

  Jac and Robbie said they hadn’t.

  Malachai pulled out his cell phone, tapped a web address into it and then handed the device to Jac. She was looking down at the front page of the Herald Tribune international edition.

  “There are stories like this on every major news TV station and website. The young man who went off with the Dalai Lama isn’t just a Chinese art student named Xie Ping. He’s a Tibetan Panchen Lama who was kidnapped when he was six years old, taken to China and completely brainwashed. It’s quite a harrowing story. For the past twenty years, his family and the Buddhist community thought he was dead.”

  Jac clicked on the photograph of the artist standing next to the Dalai Lama and made it full screen. His Holiness was beaming. Xie looked like a lost soul who had finally found safe harbor. She handed her brother the phone.

  “The Panchen Lama and his story will bring a fresh wave of sympathy to the Tibetan cause,” Malachai said.

  Robbie nodded. Something in him, Jac thought, was finally at peace.

  “There’s a mention in the article about you,” Malachai said to Jac. He held out his hand for the phone, and she gave it back to him. He scrolled through the story, and when he found the part he was looking for, he read aloud.

  “‘Miss L’Etoile and her brother ex
hibited amazing bravery in getting a package to us,’ the Dalai Lama said in an interview after the incident. ‘In it are thirty-three shards of Egyptian pottery inscribed with hieroglyphics. A translation by Griffin North was enclosed. It explains the jar once held an ancient perfume that induced past-life memories. It’s a precious gift. We hope with all our hearts that the far more precious gift of someone’s life was not lost in the effort to get this treasure to us.’”

  Fifty-eight

  SUNDAY, MAY 29

  Jac, Malachai and Robbie had held vigil at the hospital all evening, but at midnight she insisted they both leave her and go home. Robbie hadn’t slept more than an hour or two at a time in the week he’d been in hiding, and he was falling asleep in the chair. Malachai’s driver was going to drop off Robbie. Then the reincarnationist was going back to his hotel. He was leaving in the morning.

  “If you need me, please, call,” he’d said to Jac as he pulled her toward him in an embrace. In all the years she’d known him, he’d kept his distance, at most touching her on the shoulder. “Anything at all,” he said as he let her go.

  She nodded.

  “Even if it’s just to talk about what—”

  “Thank you,” she interrupted. Jac didn’t want Malachai to bring up the hallucinations in front of Robbie. She wanted to forget about them. Wanted not to discuss them. With anyone. Not again.

  Once they left, she found herself alone with Griffin in his hospital room for the first time. All the lights were off. Only electronics illuminated the cubicle.

  The doctors had said it was important for Griffin to know someone was with him.

  “I never asked you what your favorite myth was,” she said now. “Isn’t that strange? Mine is Daedalus and Icarus. Would you like to hear me tell it?”

  Jac began the time-honored, age-old way. “Once upon a time . . .”

  But she was tired, too tired. It would be all right if she rested for a few minutes, wouldn’t it?

  She lay down her head on her crossed arms. Closed her eyes.

  A nurse woke her at six in the morning when she came in to take Griffin’s vitals.

  A half hour later, when his team of doctors arrived, Jac went downstairs. She bought a cup of coffee and took it outside. Leaning against the building, she sipped as slowly as she could, resisting rushing back to his room. She knew they wouldn’t let her in while they were examining him.

  After what seemed like fifteen minutes, she checked her watch. Only five minutes had elapsed. Watching the people come and go, she was able to tell who worked at the hospital even if they weren’t dressed in nurses’ or doctors’ uniforms. The staff’s faces didn’t tell a story. There were no vestiges of fear etched on their foreheads. No grief in their eyes. Their lips were not pursed in anxiety.

  When Jac went back upstairs, there was a new nurse on duty who stopped her from going in to see Griffin.

  “Is he all right?” Jac asked, looking toward the door.

  “He’s fine.” The nurse smiled. “I’m Helene by the way. I’ll be on duty until five. Are you Mr. North’s wife?”

  “No, not his wife, no. His cousin. I’m his cousin.”

  Robbie had been the one to lie to the hospital when he and Jac came in with the ambulance. If he hadn’t said they were relatives, they might not have been able to stay with Griffin. When she asked how he knew that, he smiled sadly and told her how many gay friends had been kept out of hospital rooms because blood trumped love.

  “Why are the doctors taking so long, then?”

  “Mr. North is out of the coma. They are doing some tests.”

  “Is there any brain damage?”

  “I’m not supposed to—”

  Jac grabbed the nurse’s hand. “I know you aren’t. And I won’t ever tell you did, but I’m going crazy. Please tell me, is he all right?”

  The nurse leaned in a little. Jac smelled lemon, verbena and something sweet mixed up with the medicinal smells. Helene’s heart-shaped lips slid into a smile. She wore bright-pink lipstick almost the color of bubblegum. That must have been what smelled so sweet.

  “I was in there for a lot of the tests,” Helene said. “It looks like he’s going to make a complete recovery.”

  Like a warm wind, relief wrapped around Jac. Cosseted her. She knew she was standing still, but she felt as if she were spinning. Before she realized it, she was sitting in a hard plastic chair, Helene beside her, holding out a paper cup.

  “Take sips,” the nurse said.

  “What happened?”

  “You got a little light-headed, I think.”

  Jac nodded. “Relieved. So relieved.”

  “I know, dear. I know. Now just rest here until the doctors are done. One of them will want to talk with you.”

  Helene started to walk away. Jac reached out and grabbed her hand. “You actually saw him awake?”

  The nurse nodded. “I did.”

  A half hour later, Griffin’s neurosurgeon reassured Jac that he was going to make a complete recovery and would probably be in the hospital for only another two days or so. “Mr. North is sleeping now,” he said. “He’ll probably sleep off and on most of the day. But you can go in.”

  All of the tubes except for one intravenous line were gone. Griffin was lying on his back, his mouth open slightly. His color was almost back to normal. The bandages across his upper shoulder had been changed. There was no blood seeping through. Just hours ago, there had been blood all over.

  Then she saw it was still in his hair. Dried dark brown coating the silver. It made her shiver.

  Jac stood beside his bed and looked down at him. Looked down at Griffin, the man who had so long ago brought her to life. And now had saved her life. It seemed too great a thing to even contemplate. Too complicated to comprehend.

  Leaning down, she kissed his forehead, hoping that her lips would wake him the way it happened in fairy tales. But he didn’t open his eyes. Didn’t shift in the bed. He didn’t react to her touch at all.

  She didn’t know how long she stood there, but at some point, the nurse with the bubblegum-pink lipstick came into the room.

  “You might want to go home for a while. He’s going to sleep now for most of the day. You can take a shower and get some rest.” Helene smiled. “Change your clothes. Come back later, perhaps at dinnertime? He might be more alert by then.”

  Jac looked down. There were splashes of blood on her shirt. On the scarf. On the top of her right shoe. She was wearing the same clothes she’d left the house in yesterday morning.

  Yes, she should go home. She started for the door. Reached it. Put her hand on the handle, but then couldn’t pull it. She listened for what he always said when they parted. All she heard was his steady breathing.

  Could she really leave him now? Leave him again? They had too long a history of leaving. From the time she first met him till he’d finally walked away from her that day in the park, they’d said good-bye so many times she could hear him in her memory now.

  Except Griffin never actually said good-bye. Instead he’d tilt his head to the right, a hint of a smile would lift the corners of his mouth, his voice would dip a little, slide into a lower register, and in a hoarse whisper he’d say, “Ciao.”

  The first time she heard it, she wondered if he was a little affected.

  “Ciao?” she’d asked.

  “In Italy, it’s what you say when someone arrives—not just when they leave. Isn’t that better? What could be good about us being separated? We can pretend that you just got here and we have the whole weekend ahead of us.”

  Jac turned, walked back, sat beside the bed, leaned over, and laid as much of her upper body beside his as she could. She closed her eyes. Gave in to a thought that she hadn’t allowed herself for more than fifteen years. She wanted to be with him.

  Jac could never get her mother back; she could smell her perfume and hear her voice. But that wasn’t real. It was a daughter’s desperation. But Griffin was real. How many people did she ha
ve to lose? How many times did she have to lose this one?

  At first, the touch of his fingers on her cheek was so natural that she didn’t realize what it meant. He was wiping away her tears. “You know you can drown in that much sadness,” he whispered.

  She opened her eyes and looked at him. No words came. There wasn’t anything to say. There was just this man whom she’d never stopped loving. And whom she couldn’t say good-bye to again. Ever.

  Fifty-nine

  9:30 A.M.

  At home, Jac took a shower and then tried to take a nap. But it was only ten in the morning. And she couldn’t stop her mind from reliving the past few terrible days.

  Barefoot, with her hair still wet, wearing the same terrycloth robe that she’d worn as a teenager, she left her bedroom. On her way to the kitchen, she stopped at her brother’s room. She wished he was awake, but his door was shut.

  Downstairs Jac made herself a cup of Etoile de Paris tea. Her grandfather once told her Mariage Frères created the blend just for him. But she never knew if that was true. As she watched the dried leaves tint the water green, Jac breathed in the scent. Vanilla wrapped around mint. And a flowery thread. She sniffed. Familiar but elusive. Peppery and sweet at the same time. Very green.

  Lotus.

  In those few seconds in the Orangerie, after she’d taken the pouch from Robbie, as she hurried to Xie Ping, she’d smelled the scents impregnated in the ancient pottery with a clarity that had eluded her in the catacombs. Even in the midst of the commotion, for those few moments, she’d recognized all of the individual essences.

  Frankincense and myrrh, blue lotus and almond oil, and—

  There was another, but now she couldn’t remember what it was. How could that be? She’d known it in the museum.

  What was it?

  Not sure why it mattered so much but determined to remember, she left the house, crossed the courtyard, and entered the workshop.

  The scent that Robbie called Fragrance of Comfort suffused the studio. No one had been in here for at least two days. Dark and provocative, the perfume of time long gone—of regret, of longing, maybe even of madness—had intensified.