Page 108 of The Seven Sisters

‘I checked, but there was no blood on the counterpane.’ He looked at her. ‘How can that be?’

‘My mother said that if there wasn’t, it would be because I rode so frequently at thefazendaas a child,’ she said, embarrassed by his blatant enquiry.

‘Ah. Then that, perhaps, explains it. But of course, you were a virgin?’

‘Gustavo, you insult me!’ Bel felt her anger rise.

‘Of course, of course.’ He patted the space on the mattress next to him. ‘Then come and join your husband in bed.’

Bel did as she was told, still smarting from his insinuation.

An arm went around her, pulling her towards him, and he reached to turn off the light. ‘I think we can agree that we are now well and truly married.’

‘Yes.’

‘I love you, Izabela. This is the happiest night of my life.’

‘And mine.’ She managed to dredge up the expected words, despite the unspoken protest that echoed from the depths of her soul.

And as Bel lay sleepless next to her husband of only a few hours, the cargo ship carrying the head and hands of theCristo, and Laurent Brouilly, docked at a pier on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro.

35

As Laurent woke from his first night on dry land in six weeks, he found himself and the sheets he lay in drenched with sweat. Even on the hottest days in Montparnasse, he’d never known anything like the intensity of the heat here in Rio.

Staggering over to the table where the maid had left him a flagon of water, he picked it up and gulped it down gratefully, feeling his thirst abate. Walking into the tiny bathroom next door, he ran the tap in the sink and put his head beneath it. Wrapping a towel around his nakedness, and feeling at least a little restored, Laurent padded back into the bedroom and went to draw open the shutters.

Last night, when he’d arrived at the hotel which Heitor had suggested he stay in while he found more permanent accommodation, it had been past midnight and too dark to see where he was. But as he’d lain on his bed, he’d heard the sound of the waves crashing onto the shore and had known he must be somewhere near the sea.

And this morning . . . what a sight greeted him! However far his gaze stretched, spread out beneath him on the other side of the road was the most magnificent beach he’d ever seen. Miles of pure white sand, deserted now as the hour was early, and waves that must be two metres high, rolling in relentlessly in a dramatic climax of white foamy spray.

Even the sight of it cooled his blood; Laurent had always loved swimming in the Mediterranean when his family had gone to their summer house near Saint-Raphaël, and he longed to run out of the hotel, over the road and into the water. But first he must ask whether the sea here was safe; for all he knew, it might contain sharks, or other man-eating fish. He’d been warned before he left Paris that one could never be too careful in the tropics.

Even the very smell of the air was new and exotic. Like many of his French compatriots, the fact that their home country provided them with every form of season – from the exhilarating snow-covered slopes of the Alps to the glorious south of the country with its beautiful scenery and climate – meant that Laurent had never been tempted to travel abroad before.

But now, standing here, he felt ashamed he could ever have thought that no other country had anything more to offer him.

He wanted to explore Rio, but before he did so, he had to meet Monsieur da Silva Costa’s construction manager, Heitor Levy, who had left him a note at the hotel saying he would collect him at eleven that morning. The head and hands of Christ had been taken off the ship yesterday before it docked in the main port, and had been placed on some open land close to the port, where Monsieur Levy owned a small farm. Laurent only hoped that the delicate pieces of the moulds had made the journey intact. He’d carried out a check on them four times a day down in the hold, and now he could only pray that they had survived the unloading.

He began to dress, noticing that his legs were covered in small, circular welts. Laurent scratched them and pulled on his trousers, knowing that some hungry Brazilian mosquito must have done its worst drinking his blood in the night.

Walking downstairs for breakfast, he entered the dining room and saw a feast of exotic fruits laid out on a long table for the guests. He had no idea what they were, but took a sample of each, determined to embrace this new culture; he also took a slice of some kind of delicious-smelling cake, still warm from the oven. A waitress served him some hot, strong coffee and he drank it in relief, feeling comforted that some things were the same here as at home.

At eleven o’clock, he made his way to the reception area, and saw a man standing beside the desk, checking his watch. Surmising correctly that it must be Monsieur Levy, he walked over and introduced himself.

‘Welcome to Rio, Senhor Brouilly. How was your passage?’ the man asked him in decent French.

‘Extremely comfortable, thank you. I learnt all manner of card games and lewd jokes from my fellow sailors,’ said Laurent with a smile.

‘Good. Now, my car is outside and we shall drive to myfazenda.’

As they drove through the streets of the city, Laurent was surprised to see how very modern it was. Landowski had obviously been teasing him when he said that the residents were all natives, running around the streets naked, throwing spears and eating babies, as this city seemed as civilised and western as many in France itself.

He did, however, find it strange to see the deeply tanned skin of the locals clad in carbon copies of his own country’s modern fashions. As they drove through the outskirts, Laurent saw a large slum town appear on his right.

‘We call it afavela,’ Levy said as he saw Laurent staring at it. ‘And sadly, it has far too many residents.’

Laurent thought of Paris, where the poor seemed almost invisible. Here, wealth and poverty seemed to have separated themselves totally from each other.