Page 75 of The Seven Sisters

Three hours later, in the car on the way home, Bel found she was exhausted. For what had felt like an eternity, she had sat on a chair, her hands on her knees, her fingers displayed exactly as Laurent had placed them.

Rather than feeling sensuous, she had felt like a maiden aunt, whose likeness was to be captured in sepia tones with a camera. Now her back ached from sitting upright for so long and her neck felt stiff. And if she’d dared to even twitch one of her fingers to move it to a more comfortable position, Laurent noticed. He would stand up from behind the chunk of stone he was working with, and move towards her to replace the hand exactly as he’d originally positioned it.

‘Izabela, wake up,querida. We’ve arrived at your apartment.’

She jumped, embarrassed that Margarida had caught her dozing.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, as she roused herself and the chauffeur opened the car door. ‘I didn’t realise it would be so tiring.’

‘It’s been a long, hard day for you, in all senses. Everything is new to you, and that in itself is exhausting. Are you up to coming to theateliertomorrow?’

‘Of course,’ said Bel staunchly as she climbed out of the car. ‘Goodnight, Margarida. See you at ten.’

That night, as she excused herself from the usual round of cards that ensued after dinner, and laid her head thankfully on the pillow, Bel decided Laurent’s suggestion of her earning her crust as an artist’s model would not be as easy an option as she’d first presumed.

23

For the next three weeks, Bel accompanied Margarida every morning to Landowski’satelierin Boulogne-Billancourt. On a couple of occasions, Heitor da Silva Costa came with them, hitching a lift with a new set of designs and drawings for his Christ.

‘Landowski is making yet another model for me as we try to refine it,’ he’d say, and then hurry out of the car the minute they arrived, in anticipation of seeing whether Landowski had completed the new version.

Landowski, issued with a further list of small alterations which required him to make a further model, would sit mumbling under his breath at his workbench.

‘That crazy Brazilian. How I wish I’d never agreed to be a part of his impossible dream.’

But it was said affectionately, and with implicit admiration for the scale of the project.

And slowly, Bel’s own project began to progress as her likeness took shape under the sensitive fingers of Laurent. She became adept at disappearing into her own imagination while she sat motionless. Most of her thoughts centred around Laurent, whom she watched constantly out of the corner of her eye, deep in concentration as he chipped away at the stone with a claw hammer and riffler.

One particularly hot July morning, Landowski’s hand fell on Laurent’s shoulder as he worked.

‘I have just returned from delivering my latest version of the Christ to Monsieur da Silva Costa’s office in Paris,’ Landowski growled. ‘And now, the mad Brazilian has asked me to make a four-metre scale model of it, which he wishes me to begin immediately. I will need your help, Brouilly, so no more playing with your sculpture of the beautiful lady. You have one more day to finish her.’

‘Yes, professor, of course,’ he answered, throwing Bel a look of resignation.

Bel tried not to show the utter despair she felt at his words. Then Landowski moved towards her and Bel felt his appraising eyes upon her.

‘So,’ he said eventually, ‘you can start by casting mademoiselle’s beautiful, long fingers. I will need a model to work from for Christ’s hands, and they must be as sensitive and as elegant as hers. They will embrace and protect all His children beneath Him and cannot be the calloused, clumsy hands of a man.’

‘Yes, professor,’ Laurent replied obediently.

Landowski took Bel’s hand and drew her up from the chair. He walked her over to the bench and placed her hand sideways upon its surface, so that her little finger rested against it. He then stretched her fingers out and closed them together, placing her thumb along the edge of her palm.

‘There, you will cast mademoiselle’s hands like this. You know how the model looks, Brouilly. Try to make it as close to that as you can. And also, cast Mademoiselle Margarida’s hands at the same time. She too has elegant fingers. I shall compare how they will look on our Christ.’

‘Of course,’ said Laurent. ‘But may we begin tomorrow morning? Mademoiselle Izabela must be weary after a long day sitting for me.’

‘If mademoiselle can bear it, I wish it to be done now. Then the casts will be dry by tomorrow morning and I will have something to work with. I’m sure you don’t mind, mademoiselle?’ Landowski glanced at her as if her reply was irrelevant anyway.

She shook her head. ‘I would be honoured, professor.’

*

‘Now,’ Laurent said, once he’d coated her hands in the white plaster of Paris paste. ‘You have to swear to me you will not move even a cuticle until this has set. Otherwise we will have to start all over again.’

Bel sat, trying to ignore an irritating itch on her left palm, and watched Laurent go through the same process with Margarida. When he’d finished with her too, he checked the clock and gently tapped the plaster that was setting around Bel’s hands.

‘Another fifteen minutes will do it,’ he said, and then he chuckled. ‘If only I had a camera to take a photograph of the two of you sitting there with your hands coated in white plaster. It is a strange sight indeed. Now, please excuse me while I leave you to find a drink of water. Don’t worry, mesdemoiselles, I shall be back eventually . . . before nightfall.’ He winked at them and walked in the direction of the kitchen.