Free The Memory of Scent by Lisa Burkitt Page B

to Paris! You didn’t want the famous Saint Lazare Prison to be one of life’s mysteries?’
    I came to Paris to have an adventure, in part to escape. How feeble sounding is that? How stupid? I can’t even remember what calculated construct I gave to my mother by way of justification and reassurance. It wasn’t duplicitous, just outrageously optimistic. I began to miss home almost the minute I stepped off the train. I had wanted to re-invent myself, to be more strident and daring. It’s why I began to wear patchouli. Patchouli was free-spirited knee tremblers in back alleys. It was absinthe that burnt your throat on the way down and made you bang your glass on the table and let out a loud whoop. It was desire and recklessness. Patchouli was Paris. Lavender hinted at warm bread and plump maternal women. It spoke of well-behaved young ladies who blushed easily. It gave a nod to chaste couples stealing kisses under apple trees. It was a pleasant hug from a housekeeper.
    But I can feel the tiny hairs on my forearms bristling even now, when I think of how it transported me as that foul painter violated me. That sweet-smelling cravat that I was able to bury my nose in and think of butterflies, as if summer had brushed my lips. It had to be hers, because she moved in a floral symphony, her eyes so vivid they made me think of lily ponds. She looked soft and rounded and kind. The young laundry was able to point me to her home. I have no friends here yet. The girl remembered being given money by her. ‘I’m not ashamed to beg’, she kept saying … and I didn’t care. I just wanted to know where the bright-eyed girl lived. The girl thought she lived with her mother. Fleur. How appropriate a name.
    I pushed the door open when no one answered my knock. It was an impoverished home with little welcoming about it. I could see a small pile of linen with a sewing box resting on top of it. There on the table was a plate with some strong, almost rancid-smelling meat partially covered by a plate and some bread that was slightly mouldy. A shawl was draped over the back of one of the fireside chairs and two plump red cushions, the only thing of colour in the entire room, popped out from the jaded tapestry of the couch. I was afraid to loiter. I quietly stole out of the room again. Now that I think of it, that must be where I left my hat.
    The old woman at the front here is getting more agitated. She is rubbing her arms and legs vigorously and under these dim lights; it’s as if she is rubbing them raw. I am unable to continue sewing. Cécilia is leaning into me.
    ‘She thinks she has leprosy. This used to be a hospital for lepers, oh two hundred years ago. She’s convinced she caught it from something here.’
    The woman is now standing up and swaying. The sister is angrily climbing down from her stool. It’s a comicalmanoeuvre as she is short legged, so there is an unseemly pivot of the hips before she can manage to plant both feet on the ground. She is trying to settle the old woman with a stern tone and the air is bristling with anticipation. And there it is, in the flash of a second, the old woman lunging forward and placing her two hands, palms down, on the stove. She screams in agony and the smell of singed flesh clings to the air like gauze.
    She is hauled away, screaming and dragging her legs.
    ‘I don’t want to be shot. I don’t want to be shot.’
    I feel suddenly convulsed in shivers as if my heart will jump out of my chest and I am winded of breath. I feel Cécilia’s arm around my shoulder.
    ‘Hey there. She is only a mad bat.’
    ‘I didn’t do it, Cécilia. I shouldn’t be here.’ My words sputter between snatched breaths. She just nods.
    ‘None of us should. We’re survivors, struggling in the only way we know how, and they punish us for it. They should give us a medal.’
    * * *
    My name is being called – a strange, hollow echo reverberating off the bars. I can feel its vibrations as I press my cheek to