Page 82 of The Seven Sisters

‘No, which is, as you know, the style Landowski teaches and why I’m here in hisatelier. He saw it before he left this evening, and told me it was the best piece of work I’ve ever produced.’

‘Then I’m happy for you, Laurent,’ Bel replied.

‘Well, perhaps one day in the future, you will see it in an exhibition of my work and know that it is of you. And it will always remind you of me, and the beautiful interlude we spent together in Paris, once, long ago.’

‘Don’t! Please don’t!’ she moaned as her control left her and she placed her head in her hands. ‘I can’t bear it.’

‘Izabela, please don’t cry.’ He was by her side immediately, an arm around her shoulder, comforting her. ‘If I could change things, then I would, I swear. Remember, I’m free to love you; it’syouwho are not free to love me.’

‘I know,’ she said. ‘And tonight will be our last night together, for just as I left the apartment, Maria Georgiana told me the da Silva Costa family are throwing a dinner for me tomorrow night. The following day, I board the ship to return to Rio. Besides, you have finished with me now.’ Bel indicated her sculpture miserably.

‘Bel, I can assure you, I have only just begun.’

She buried her head back into his shoulder. ‘What can we do? What can be done?’

There was a pause before Laurent said, ‘Don’t go back to Brazil, Izabela. Stay in Paris with me.’

Bel drew in her breath, hardly believing the words she was hearing.

‘Listen,’ he said as he took her by the hand and dragged her over to the bench before sitting down next to her. ‘You know I can offer you nothing compared to what your rich fiancé can give you. I have only an attic room in Montparnasse, which is like ice in the winter and a furnace in the summer. And only these hands with which to change my circumstances. But I swear I could love you, Izabela, like no other man could.’

Bel, nestled against him, listened to his words as if they were drops of water pouring into her parched mouth. As she sat there with his arm around her, she glimpsed a future with him for the first time . . . and it was so tantalisingly perfect that, despite all he’d said, she knew she must blank out the image from her mind.

‘Laurent, you know that I cannot. It would destroy my parents; my marriage to Gustavo is the pinnacle of my father’s dreams, what he has spent his life working towards. How could I do this to him, and to my sweet mother?’

‘I understand that you can’t, but I need you to understand before you leave how much I want you too.’

‘I’m not like you.’ Bel shook her head. ‘Perhaps it’s because our worlds are so different, or more simply that you are a man and I am a woman. But in my country, family means everything.’

‘I respect that,’ he said. ‘Although it seems to me there is a point at which a person must stop thinking of others and think of themselves. Marrying a man you don’t love and being thrown into a life you don’t desire – in essence, sacrificing your own happiness – seems to me a step too far, even for the most devoted daughter.’

‘I have no choice,’ Bel replied despairingly.

‘I understand why you think that, but as you know, every human being has free will; it’s what differentiates us from the animals. And’ – Laurent paused as he thought about his next sentence – ‘what about your fiancé? You’ve told me he’s in love with you?’

‘Yes, I believe he is.’

‘So how will he cope with being married to a woman who can never have the same feelings for him? Will your indifference, the fact that he is aware that you’re marrying him out of duty, eventually eat into his soul?’

‘My mother says I will grow to love him, and I have to believe her.’

‘Well then.’ Laurent’s arm dropped from around her shoulder. ‘I must wish you luck and a happy life. I think we’re finished here.’ He stood up abruptly and moved away from her back into the main space of theatelier.

‘Please, Laurent, don’t be like this. These are the last few moments we will ever spend together,’ she begged him.

‘Izabela, I have said all I can. I have declared my love and my devotion to you. I have asked you not to return home, but to stay here with me.’ He shrugged sadly. ‘I can do no more. Forgive me if I can’t bear to hear you telling me that one day you may love your husband.’

Bel’s mind was a blur of powerful contradictions. Her heart was pounding and she felt physically sick. She watched Laurent placing the dust sheet over her sculpture, hiding her from view as one would place a cover over a beloved relative who had just passed from the world. Whether the gesture was symbolic or practical, Bel did not know or care, but it roused her from the bench and she walked towards him.

‘Laurent, please, you must give me time to think . . . I must think,’ she sobbed, as she put her fingers to her temples.

Laurent paused, seeming to waver for a second before he spoke. ‘I know you can’t come here to theatelieragain. But please, if it’s the last thing I ever ask of you, will you meet me tomorrow afternoon in Paris?’

‘Is there any point?’

‘I beg you, Izabela. Just tell me where and when.’

She looked into his eyes and knew she was powerless to resist. ‘By the south entrance to the park on Avenue de Marigny and Avenue Gabriel. Meet me there at three.’