But try as she might, as the ship moved further and further away from Laurent, her heart felt as heavy as the stone boulders that sat at the back of Landowski’s atelier.

‘Blessed Virgin,’ she prayed, as tears spilled down her face and onto her pillow. ‘Give me the strength to live without him, for at this very moment, I don’t know how I can bear it.’

Maia

June 2007

Full Moon

13; 49; 44

27

When I’d finished reading the last letter, I saw that it was past midnight. Izabela Bonifacio was on board the steamer, facing the return to a man she did not love and leaving Laurent Brouilly behind.

L a u . . .

With excitement coursing through my veins, I realised I now knew the origin of the first three letters on the back of the soapstone tile; Laurent, Bel’s secret love. And the sculpture of the woman on the chair in the garden of the Casa must surely be the very one that Bel had sat for during those heady days in Paris? Though how it had made its way across the sea to Brazil, I had no idea.

Tomorrow, I would not only reread the letters – I’d been so eager to discover the story I knew I hadn’t taken in the detail – but also look up Monsieur Laurent Brouilly on the internet. His name certainly rang a bell. But for now, exhausted, I removed my clothes, pulled the sheet around me and fell asleep with my hand still resting on my history.

I was awoken by a harsh jangling noise, and it took my dis-oriented senses a few seconds to compute that it was the telephone by the bed making the discordant sound. Reaching over to the side table, I put the receiver to my ear and muttered, ‘Hello?’

‘Maia, it’s Floriano. How are you feeling?’

‘I’m . . . better,’ I said, immediately feeling guilty for the lie I’d told him the night before.

‘Good. Are you up to meeting today? I have a lot to tell you.’

And I you, I thought, but didn’t say. ‘Of course I am.’

‘The weather is beautiful, so let’s take a walk along the beach. Shall I see you at eleven in the lobby downstairs?’

‘Yes, but please, Floriano, if you have other things to do, I—’

‘Maia, I’m a novelist, and any diversion that gives me an excuse not to sit down at my desk and write is always a welcome one. See you in an hour.’

Ordering breakfast from room service, I reread the first few letters in order to have them clearer in my mind. Then, seeing the time, took a fast shower and presented myself in the lobby promptly at eleven.

Floriano was already waiting for me, sitting reading a page from a bulging plastic wallet that sat on his lap.