The Book of Lost Fragrances: A Novel of Suspense by M. J. Rose Read Free Book Online

say, you’re going to argue with me, aren’t you? Can’t you suspend your cynicism for just a little while? What if I have a solution here? What if we don’t have to divest any of our classics?”
    “Robbie, please. You have to sign the papers. It’s the only chance we have of saving the company, of keeping the store and the house in Paris, of going on.”
    He walked around the angel, resting his hand on the back of her wings as if consoling her—or giving himself ballast. Jac had once seen a photograph of Oscar Wilde taken when he was just twenty-eight years old, Robbie’s age now, wearing a fine velvet jacket and elegant shoes. A beautiful young man sitting on an opulent chair, surrounded by Persian rugs, holding a book, his head tilted and resting on his hand, looking out at the viewer with an expression of intimacy and promise.
    Her brother was looking at her like that now.
    “We owe the bank three million euros. We can’t mortgage the building on Rue de Saint-Pères. Our father already did that. We have to divest,” she said.
    “The House of L’Etoile belongs to us now. You and me. It’s lasted intact for almost two hundred and fifty years. We can’t break it apart. Just smell what I’ve been working on.”
    “You’ve spent the last six years in Grasse in a magical kingdom of lavender fields working on crystal vials of scent as if you lived a century ago. No matter how wonderful your new scents are, they won’t raise the kind of money we owe. We have to sell Rouge and Noir. We’ll still own over a dozen classics.”
    “Not without you even smelling what I’ve done, not without me trying to get orders and find a backer.”
    “We don’t have the time.”
    “I have a plan. Please just trust me. Give me the week. Someone is going to fall in love with what I’ve made. The time for these scents is right. The world is aligned with essences like these.”
    “You’re not being practical.”
    “You have no confidence.”
    “I’m a realist.”
    Robbie nodded toward the silent angel. “And that’s what she’s really mourning, Jac.”

Five
     
    NANJING, CHINA
9:55 P.M.
     
    The studio was empty when Xie returned. And he was thankful for the quiet. He arranged his tools in front of him and went back to work on the painting he’d started that afternoon. All of his consciousness was concentrated in his fingers. He quieted his mind and let go of the tormenting, doubting thoughts. Xie withdrew into the sweep of the movement. He lived on the edge of the line of ink that seeped into the paper. Soon he stopped thinking, stopped hearing the sounds coming in through the open window or down the hall and was aware only of the gentle whoosh the brush made as it danced across the white paper.
    The ancient art of calligraphy, unlike so many other traditions, had survived into the modern age, mostly because Mao Tse-tung had recognized that in a country with hundreds of different dialects, calligraphy—despite its elitist history—was an effective communications device worth adapting. The regime’s appropriation of calligraphy as a communications tool took it out of its original high-art status and moved it into the realm of the ordinary.
    Some artists imbued their work with rebellious overtones and opined with their brushes and inks. Xie didn’t. His paintings weren’t political expressions. He didn’t shout with his calligraphy. But he did whisper. And there were those outside of China who had heard.
    Xie’s style broke away from the traditional with his use of seals. Typically, these carved blocks contained the characters of the artist’s name and were used with red paint or cinnabar ink. He used the seals to add narrative to his work. Over the years, he’d cut hundreds of blocks, incising each with different illustrative elements: from naturalistic leaves, flowers, clouds and moons, to human forms, faces, hands, lips, eyes, arms and legs.
    The young calligrapher’s work was expressive, intricate and