Page 103 of The Seven Sisters

Calling for some soup before the absinthe overwhelmed his brain cells and he fell off the bar stool, Laurent pondered for the thousandth time whether he should send the letter he’d written in his head every hour since she’d left. But of course, he knew that if he did, it might fall into the wrong hands and compromise her.

He tortured himself constantly about whether she was already married and all was lost. He wanted to ask Margarida, but she was no longer at theatelier, her two-month internship there now at an end. He’d heard on the Montparnasse grapevine that she and her mother had gone to Saint-Paul de Vence for the warmer weather.

‘Brouilly.’

He felt a hand on his shoulder and turned his bloodshot eyes towards the voice.

‘How are you?’

‘I’m well, Marius,’ he replied. ‘You?’

‘The same as always: poor, drunk and in need of a woman. But instead, you will have to do. Drink?’

Laurent watched as Marius pulled up a bar stool next to him. Just another unknown artist in Montparnasse getting through his life on cheap alcohol, sex and the dream of a glittering future. He thought of the body in his bed in the filthy attic and decided in favour of rolling out of the bar at dawn and sleeping where he fell in the street.

‘Yes,’ he agreed. ‘Another absinthe.’

*

That night was the start of a weekend during which Laurent drowned his sorrows. And of which, as he staggered bleary-eyed into Landowski’satelier, he had little recollection.

‘Look what the cat dragged in,’ remarked Landowski to the young boy, who sat on a stool, avidly watching the professor working.

‘Mon Dieu, professor, you’ve done so much already!’ Laurent stared at the enormous hand of Christ and could only believe Landowski had spent the past forty-eight hours working continuously on the structure.

‘Well, you have been away from us for five days, so someone had to continue the work. The boy and I were about to send out a search party to trawl the gutters of Montparnasse to find you,’ he added.

‘Are you saying it’s Wednesday?’ queried Laurent in shock.

‘Correct,’ said Landowski, turning his attention back to the vast white shape and taking a scalpel to the still wet plaster of Paris. ‘Now, I will shape the fingernails of Our Lord,’ he said, addressing the boy and pointedly ignoring Laurent.

When Laurent returned from the kitchen, having splashed his face with water and gulped down two glasses of it in an attempt to relieve his aching head, Landowski glanced at him.

‘As you can see, I’ve found myself a new assistant.’ He winked at the boy. ‘At leasthedoesn’t disappear for five days and arrive back still drunk from the night before.’

‘My apologies, professor, I—’

‘Enough! Understand I won’t tolerate any further behaviour such as this, Brouilly. I needed you to help me with this and you weren’t here. Now, before you dare to touch my Christ’s hands, you will go to my wife in the house and tell her I have ordered you to sleep off your hangover.’

‘Yes, professor.’

Red-faced, Laurent left theatelier, berating himself for allowing this to happen, and was put to bed by Landowski’s ever-understanding wife, Amélie.

He woke four hours later, took a cold shower and ate a bowl of soup that Amélie offered him, arriving back at theateliermuch restored.

‘That is better,’ nodded the professor, sweeping his eyes over Laurent. ‘Now you are fit to work.’

The giant hand now had an index finger, and the boy still sat where Laurent had last seen him on the stool, intently watching Landowski work.

‘So, we start now on the ring finger. There is the model I’m working from.’ Landowski pointed to one of the moulds Laurent had taken of Izabela’s and Margarida’s hands.

Walking towards it, Laurent asked, ‘Which set of hands did you choose in the end?’

‘I have no idea, for they were unnamed. And perhaps that is how it should be. After all, they are Christ’s hands and only His.’

Laurent studied the mould, looking for the telltale crack in the little finger that he’d glued carefully back together when he’d removed it from Mademoiselle Margarida’s hand. There was no such fissure.

With a jolt of pleasure, Laurent knew without doubt that Landowski had chosen Izabela’s hands to be those of the Rio Christ.