‘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.

The two girls looked at each other, their lips twitching to giggle at how ridiculous they both must look, but desperately refraining, knowing that any physical movement might reverberate through their hands.

‘Perhaps one day, we’ll look up at Corcovado and remember this moment,’ mused Margarida with a smile.

‘I certainly will do so,’ replied Bel wistfully.

It took only a few minutes of delicate and, as Bel thought afterwards, dangerous work for Laurent to make tiny slits along her hands with a sharp knife, then gently ease the cast away from her pre-greased fingers. When he had finished, he looked at the casts laid on the table in satisfaction. ‘Perfect,’ he said. ‘The professor will be pleased. How do you think your hands look in plaster?’ he asked her as he began the same process of removal on Margarida.

‘Not at all like mine,’ said Bel as she studied the white shapes. ‘May I now go and wash them?’

‘Yes. The soap and the scrubbing brush are beside the sink,’ he advised her.

When Bel returned, feeling better now she’d cleared the grease and plaster dust from her hands, Laurent was frowning at a finger which had broken off as he’d removed Margarida’s cast.