‘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 the atelier tomorrow?’

‘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’s atelier in 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.