Chapter 2.4 - Violet Perfume

 The next day it rained and since they didn’t have anything scheduled, Claire and her grandmother decided it was a good time to tackle the attic. The young woman hadn’t been up there since she was twelve, but she still remembered the warmth of the desiccated air trapped under the tin roof. The attic served as a drying room for the herbs and spices her grandfather grew in the garden. Its space was always heavy with their scents and its air was very still, so much so that the particles of dust which glittered in the bright spotlight of the glazed roof hatch looked frozen in time. On the warmest summer days its heat approached the intensity of an oven.

On this day it just felt warm and cozy, a place away from the world, wrapped in the sound of the rain. 

“Oh, dear! When did we manage to hoard all this stuff!” Grandmother commented some sort of excuse for the change of scenery. There were old pieces of furniture in the attic now, boxes filled with stuff, lamps, blankets, even a rug, and they were arranged in a fashion that didn’t look haphazard, almost as if somebody was living there. “Here’s the box with your stuff,” she pointed at a striped hat box, topped by a silk ribbon bow, which laid in a corner. “I’ll be sorting out these drawers, I can’t even remember what I put in them.”

She opened the top drawer and an intense violet fragrance filled the space. 

“Oops, I think I spilled it,” Grandmother chuckled, holding up a small vial of perfume, now only half full. “That’s too bad, they don’t make it anymore, I was wondering where it went.” The violet perfume lingered in the air, so thick one could almost taste it, releasing old memories of innocent childhood giggles, fragments of favorite songs Claire hadn’t heard in a long time, the sounds of the owls. The light shifted quickly as a cloud passed over the hatch and the entire attic got drenched in purple light. Distracted by this unexpected light show, Claire touched the silk bow on top of the hat box and it felt soft and cool under her fingers, like flower petals after the rain.

She had this sudden feeling that there was no such thing as time, at least not here, in this place that felt so far removed from the rest of the world it might as well have been in a different realm. The sounds, the scents, the colors, they didn’t belong to her time, or her grandmother’s, they didn’t belong to time at all. Claire briefly lifted her eyes from the hat box and looked at her grandmother, trying to figure out if the latter would think her weird for pondering such thoughts, but her grandmother’s attention was focused on the third drawer, which was filled with colorful ribbons and Christmas decorations, and which she tried to reorganize in a way that would allow it to close. 

Claire went back to sorting, admiring the beauty of the hat box in the process and wondering what kind of hat came in it and what it looked like. It must have been quite an elaborate piece of millinery, and quite expensive too, judging by the size and quality of its packaging. Curiosity got the better of her.

“Maman, do you still have the hat that came in this box?”

“How old do you think I am, child!” her grandmother protested, shocked. “This box has been in the attic since I was a child, I assume it belonged to my grandmother. And no, I didn’t ask her about the hat, I’m sorry. Now you made me wish I did.”

The scent of violets got stronger instead of dissipating, and to Claire’s surprise, most of it exuded from the box in question. She figured the old silk was prone to trap scents and was relieved it had chosen the violet perfume over the smell of mothballs. There were so many things in that box, school projects, old toys, her skates, her favorite lunch box, a wind chime decorated with fairies. She couldn’t bear to part with any of these things, which had now outlived their usefulness, not while being outside of time in this fragrant attic with the rain rapping on its roof. She suddenly remembered to ask.

“Where is Grandfather?”

“In the parlor, reading. Can’t you hear the music?” 

Old tunes were indeed rising from downstairs, blending their sounds with the violet fragrance into a completely different experience that words could not describe. Claire recalled that her grandfather liked to listen to music while he was reading, he said it helped him tune out the random noises. Claire’s nose sifted through the mixed fragrance of violets, rain and old wood and found just a hint of smoke underneath. Her grandfather’s four o clock cigarette. He never smoked it without the coffee. 

“There must be coffee,” Claire thought. “Why don’t I smell coffee?” The familiar fragrance arrived on command, allowing her a sigh of relief.

“Well,” Grandmother said, “I see you didn’t set anything aside anyway, we might as well join him for coffee, I didn’t even realize it was four already. It’s hard to tell time during these rainy days, isn’t it?”

“Maman,” Claire asked tentatively, “does someone come here often?”

“Where, to the attic?” her grandmother asked, genuinely surprised. “Your grandfather brings up his herbs and peppers to dry, but other than that…Why do you ask?”

“No reason,” Claire shrugged, reaching for the ladder.