‘May I sit down so I can enjoy her playing?’ Laurent asked Bel.
‘Of course,’ she replied, and Laurent joined her on the narrow seat, his hip pressed against hers as he squeezed in beside her on the banquette. Bel once again marvelled at the easy physical intimacy these people took for granted.
As the resonant opening chords of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue filled the café, its occupants quietened. Bel watched as Laurent surveyed the many glasses, most still sitting untouched on the table, chose one and clasped his lean, strong fingers around it.
Under the table, Laurent placed his other hand casually on his thigh as any man would. But as the minutes passed, he moved it so that it came to rest in the crevice that was formed where their thighs touched. Bel held her breath, half convinced that the touch must be accidental, but she was sure she could feel his fingers gently caressing her thigh through her dress . . .
Her entire body tingled, and the blood began to rush wildly through her veins as the music rose to its own climax.
‘Mademoiselle Margarida is truly gifted, is she not?’ Bel felt Laurent’s warm breath on her ear and she nodded dumbly in agreement.
‘I had no idea of her musical talent,’ she said as the room once again erupted in applause. ‘She seems to have so many different gifts.’ Her own voice sounded strange to her – muffled, as though she was swimming under water.
‘I’m a great believer that when one is born creative,’ commented Laurent, ‘it’s as if your soul is a sky filled with shooting stars; a globe that is constantly turning towards whichever muse captures your imagination. Many of the people in this room can not only draw and sculpt, but they can write poetry, encourage beautiful sounds out of instruments, make audiences weep with their acting skills and sing like the birds in the trees. Ah, mademoiselle.’ Laurent stood up and bowed in admiration as Margarida returned to their table. ‘You were a virtuoso.’
‘Monsieur, you are too kind,’ Margarida said modestly as she sat down.
‘And I believe we will be sharing an atelier soon. Professor Landowski tells me you are to take up an internship with us in the next few weeks.’
‘He has suggested it, but I wasn’t intending to tell anyone until it’s confirmed,’ said Margarida, signalling the waiter to bring her the bill. ‘I will be honoured if he will have me there.’
‘He thinks you show great ability. For a woman, that is,’ Laurent teased.
‘I will take that as a compliment.’ Margarida smiled at him as the bill arrived and she laid a few notes on top of it.
‘And perhaps if you are there in the studio, you could act as chaperone while I take time to sculpt Mademoiselle Izabela?’ suggested Laurent.
‘It may be possible to arrange, but we shall have to see,’ said Margarida, her eyes again darting between Laurent and Bel and the clock behind the bar. ‘We must take our leave. À bientôt. Monsieur Brouilly.’ She kissed him on both cheeks, as Bel too rose.
‘And Mademoiselle Izabela, it seems that fate has conspired to bring us together. I hope the next time it can be for longer.’ Laurent kissed her hand, shooting her a glance from under his lashes as he did so. Naive as she was, she instantly understood what his look contained.
Luckily, when Bel arrived back at the apartment, Maria Georgiana was taking her afternoon nap. Maria Elisa, however, was reading a book in the drawing room.
‘How was it?’ she asked as Bel came in.
‘It was wonderful!’ Bel threw herself down in a chair, exhausted from nervous excitement, but still elated from her encounter with Laurent.
‘Good. So, what did you learn?’
‘Oh, all about the tools needed for stone sculpting,’ she said airily, her alcohol-infused brain preventing her lips from moving in the way they usually did.
‘For six hours, you were learning about the tools needed for sculpting?’ questioned Maria Elisa, glancing at her suspiciously.
‘Yes, for most of it, and then we went for lunch and . . .’ Bel stood up abruptly. ‘I think the day has exhausted me. I will go and take a nap before dinner.’
‘Bel?’
‘Yes?’
‘Have you been drinking?’
‘No . . . well, only a glass of wine with lunch. After all, everyone in Paris does the same.’
Bel walked towards the door, vowing that in future she would refrain from whatever she was offered on the rustic tables of La Closerie des Lilas.
21
Apartment 4
48, Avenue de Marigny
Paris
France
27th June 1928
Dearest Pai and Mãe,
I can hardly believe that I have been away from Rio for four months; the time has flown by so fast. I am still loving the lessons I take with Margarida de Lopes Almeida at the Beaux-Arts school. Although I know I will never be a great artist like some of my classmates, my lessons have given me a far deeper appreciation of painting and sculpture and I feel this will benefit me greatly in my future life as Gustavo’s wife.
Summer has really arrived in Paris now, and the city has become even more alive with the turn of the season. I am beginning to feel like a true Parisienne!
I hope that some day you can both see for yourselves the magic I’m lucky enough to behold every day.
My dearest love to both of you,
Izabela
Bel folded the page neatly and placed it in the envelope to be posted. She sat back in the chair, wishing she could share with her parents her true feelings about the city she was growing to love, about the new freedoms she was enjoying and the people she was meeting. But she knew they would not understand. More than that, they would worry that they had made the wrong decision in allowing her to go.
The only person she felt she could truly confide in was Loen. Taking a sheet of paper, she penned a very different letter, pouring out her true emotions, telling her of Montparnasse and, of course, of Laurent Brouilly, the young assistant who wished to sculpt her . . .
Thanks to Margarida, Bel woke up with a wonderful sense of anticipation every morning. The classes she attended were indeed informative, but it was the lunches at La Closerie des Lilas afterwards that she looked forward to most.
Every day was different there, a feast for the creative senses, as artists, musicians and writers filled its tables. Only last week, she’d seen the author James Joyce sitting at a table outside drinking wine and poring over a huge stack of type-written pages.
‘I glanced over his shoulder,’ said Arnaud, a would-be writer acquaintance of Margarida’s, breathless with excitement. ‘The manuscript was entitled Finnegans Wake. It’s the book he’s been writing for six years!’
Even though Bel knew she should be content with the fact that she was brushing shoulders and breathing the same air as these luminaries each day, Margarida and she still spent most of their walk from the school to Montparnasse hatching fruitless plots to escape during the evening, which was the time when the Left Bank really came to life.
‘Of course it’s impossible, but I can dream,’ Bel would remark.
‘Well, I suppose we must count our blessings that we have freedom during the day at least,’ sighed Margarida.
Bel looked at her watch, realising that Margarida’s car would be here to collect her at any moment. Dressing in a navy blue gabardine sailor dress, which she’d taken to wearing as it was the plainest item of clothing she possessed, she combed her hair, added a dash of lipstick and shouted a goodbye from the hall as she closed the door behind her.
‘You’re well this morning?’ Margarida asked her as she climbed inside the car.
‘Yes, very well, thank you.’
‘Izabela, I’m afraid I have bad news for you. Professor Landowski has confirmed that he’s prepared to offer me an internship in his atelier in Boulogne-Billancourt. So I will no longer be attending classes at the Beaux-Arts.’
‘Congratulations, you must be thrilled.’ Bel did her best to raise a smile at her friend’s good fortune.
&
nbsp; ‘Yes, I’m delighted of course,’ said Margarida. ‘But I do understand that this puts you in a difficult position. I’m not sure that Senhora da Silva Costa will allow you to continue attending lessons at the school alone.’
‘She won’t. It’s as simple as that.’ Bel’s eyes filled with involuntary tears.
‘Bel, don’t despair.’ Margarida patted her hand comfortingly. ‘We will find a solution, I promise.’
Ironically, their tutor for the morning session was Landowski himself, whose rare lessons Bel was normally enthralled by, as he expanded his theory of simple lines and discussed the technical difficulty of achieving perfection. But today, Bel didn’t hear him.
The worst thing was that since the very first lunch at La Closerie des Lilas, over a month ago now, she hadn’t set eyes on Laurent Brouilly. When she’d asked Margarida as casually as she could where he was, she had said he was heavily employed assisting Landowski in producing the first prototype for Heitor’s Cristo.
‘I believe Monsieur Brouilly has been sleeping in the atelier every night. Senhor da Silva Costa is eager to be given something that he can begin to work with for his mathematical calculations.’
After the class, Landowski beckoned Margarida over.
‘So, mademoiselle, you will join us at my atelier next week?’
‘Yes, Professor Landowski, and I’m honoured to be given the opportunity.’
‘And I see you are with your compatriot, the girl with the beautiful hands,’ Landowski said, nodding at Bel. ‘Brouilly still talks of wishing to sculpt you. When this week is over and my first sculpture goes to your guardian, perhaps you can accompany Mademoiselle Lopes de Almeida to my atelier and Brouilly can have his wish? Your presence will be a prize for the long hours he has spent on the Cristo these past three weeks. It will be healthy for him to study a woman’s form, after looking so long at Our Lord.’
‘I’m sure Izabela would be delighted to do so,’ Margarida answered quickly for her. Landowski nodded at both of them and left the classroom.
‘So, you see, Izabela?’ Margarida crowed as they walked from the school and commenced their daily walk to Montparnasse. ‘God, or in fact the Cristo, seems to be on your side!’
‘Yes,’ agreed Bel, her heart lifting with renewed hope. ‘It seems He is.’
‘Bel, I have something I wish to talk to you about,’ said Maria Elisa suddenly that evening as they readied themselves for bed. ‘And I want to know your opinion.’
‘Yes, of course.’ Bel sat down, glad of a chance to be a sounding board for her friend, with whom she felt she had been spending far less time than she should. ‘What is it?’
‘I’ve decided that I’d like to begin training as a nurse.’
‘Why, that’s wonderful news,’ Bel said with a delighted smile.
‘Do you think so? I’m worried that Mãe may not agree. None of the women in our family have ever had a career before. But it’s something I’ve thought about for a long time, and I need to pluck up the courage to tell her.’ Maria Elisa bit her lip. ‘What do you think she will say?’
‘I hope she will say how proud she is that her daughter wishes to do something useful with her life. And I’m sure your father will be very happy with your decision.’
‘Well, I hope you’re right,’ said Maria Elisa fervently. ‘And I was thinking that while I’m in Paris, rather than waste my time here, I might volunteer at a hospital. There is one only a few minutes’ walk away from the apartment.’
Bel reached for Maria Elisa’s hands and squeezed them tightly. ‘You’re such a good person, Maria Elisa, always thinking of others. I think you have the perfect qualities to be a nurse. The world is changing for women, and there’s no reason why we shouldn’t make something of our lives.’
‘Well, since I have no thought of marriage at present, why not? Of course, Bel, it’s very different for you. When you sail home in six weeks’ time, you’ll become Gustavo’s wife, run his household, and soon after that you’ll be the mother of his children. But for me, I need some other purpose in my life. Thank you for your support. I’ll speak to Mãe tomorrow.’
Once they had climbed into bed and Maria Elisa had switched off the lamp, Bel lay there sleepless once again.
Six weeks. That was all she had left in Paris, before she returned to the life her friend had so succinctly described.
Try as she might to think positive thoughts about her future, not a single one came to mind.
Margarida had promised she would contact Bel once she had completed a few days in Landowski’s atelier to let her know when the professor deemed it suitable for Bel to join her. But so far there had been no word.
Yet again, Bel was confined to the apartment alone, as now it was Maria Elisa who was out every morning at nine, having gained the reluctant permission of her mother and secured a volunteer position at the nearby hospital. Maria Georgiana spent most of her morning attending to household tasks or writing letters.
‘It’s my mother’s birthday next month and I’d very much like to buy her something from Paris and send it to her. Would it be all right if I took a walk, senhora?’ she asked Maria Georgiana one morning at breakfast.
‘No, Izabela, I’m sure your parents would not approve of you gadding around Paris unaccompanied. And I have much to do today.’
‘Well then,’ said Heitor, overhearing, ‘why doesn’t Izabela accompany me as I walk down the Champs-Élysées to my office? Perhaps she can choose something at one of the galleries on her way? I’m sure she would come to no harm walking the few hundred metres back, my dear.’
‘As you wish,’ said Maria Georgiana with a sigh of irritation at being overruled.
‘The weather these days is what even a Brazilian would call warm,’ Heitor commented as the two of them set off from the apartment twenty minutes later and walked in the direction of the Champs-Élysées. ‘So, are you still enjoying Paris?’ he asked her.
‘I love it,’ Bel replied with feeling.
‘And I hear that you have been investigating the more, shall we say, Bohemian haunts of the city?’
Bel shot Heitor a guilty glance. ‘I . . .’
‘I saw your friend Margarida at Landowski’s atelier yesterday and overheard her chatting to his young assistant about your mutual lunches at La Closerie des Lilas.’
Bel quailed at his remark, but Heitor saw her expression and gave her a comforting pat on the arm. ‘Don’t worry, your secret is safe with me. And besides, Margarida is a very sensible young woman. She knows her way around Paris. She also asked me to tell you she will collect you tomorrow at ten o’clock on the way to the atelier. As you know, Monsieur Brouilly wishes to sculpt you. At least that will keep you out of trouble and we will all know where you are.’
Bel watched Heitor raise an eyebrow, but knew he was teasing her.
‘Thank you for relaying the news,’ she replied demurely, not wishing to express the full extent of her delight. She swiftly changed the subject. ‘Are you happy with Professor Landowski’s work on your Cristo?’
‘So far, I’m absolutely certain that I made the right decision and Landowski’s vision seems to be very much the same as mine. However, I have a long way to go before I can safely say we have the final design. And there are a number of problems that I’m pondering over at the moment. The first and major one being what material to clad our Cristo in. I have thought through so many options, but none of them sit well with me aesthetically or practically. Now, how about we try this arcade for a present for your mother? I bought Maria Georgiana a rather beautiful silk scarf from a boutique in here.’
The two of them turned into an elegant gallery and Heitor pointed to the boutique he had spoken of.
‘I shall wait for you here,’ he indicated as she went inside.
Bel picked out a soft peach scarf and a matching handkerchief that she knew would go well with her mother’s complexion. After paying for her purchases, she left the shop to find Heitor leaning over a small fountain that pl
ayed in the centre of the gallery. He was staring at the bottom of it intently.
She went to stand next to him, and, sensing her presence, he pointed to the mosaic tiles that decorated the bottom of the fountain.
‘What about that?’ he asked her.
‘Forgive me, senhor, but what do you mean?’
‘What about cladding the Cristo in mosaic? Then the outer shell will not be subject to cracking, as each tile will be individual. I would have to source which stone to use, something porous, hardwearing . . . yes, like the soapstone that is found in Minas Gerais, perhaps. It is a light colour and may work well. I must bring Senhor Levy here to see this immediately. He leaves for Rio tomorrow and we must make a decision.’
Bel looked at Heitor’s exhilarated expression and followed in his wake as he walked swiftly out of the gallery.
‘You are happy to make your way home from here alone, Izabela?’
‘Of course,’ she replied. Heitor nodded at her, then walked off at a brisk pace away from her.
22
‘Bienvenue, Mademoiselle Izabela.’ Laurent walked towards her and kissed her on both cheeks as she entered the atelier with Margarida. ‘First we shall brew some coffee together. And Mademoiselle Margarida,’ he said as she walked past them to don her smock, ‘the professor says that the left elbow of your sculpture needs work, but overall, it was a good attempt.’
‘Thank you,’ Margarida called back. ‘From the professor, that is a compliment indeed.’
‘Now, Izabela,’ said Laurent, ‘come with me and show me how you would brew coffee in your own country. Strong and dark, I’m sure,’ he said as he grabbed her hand and pulled her through to the tiny kitchen. Taking a brown paper bag from one of the shelves, he opened it and smelt its contents. ‘Brazilian beans freshly ground this morning from a shop I know in Montparnasse. I bought it especially to help relax you and remind you of home.’
Bel inhaled the aroma, and was sent flying over five thousand miles back across the seas.
The Seven Sisters Page 21