Page 57 of The Seven Sisters
‘Adeus, my sweet mother and father. Keep safe, and God bless you both.’
*
Bel enjoyed the voyage, with its endless stream of entertainments for the well-heeled guests. Maria Elisa and she whiled the hours away swimming in the pool – a pleasure far sweeter because it had always been denied to her in Rio – and playing croquet on the artificial grass on the upper deck. The two girls giggled over the admiring glances of the many young men aboard as they entered the dining room every evening.
As an engaged girl, Bel’s large ring afforded protection from overly affectionate males emboldened by wine as they danced to the ship’s band after dinner. But Maria Elisa enjoyed a number of innocent flirtations, which Bel supported and lived through vicariously.
During the voyage, she came to know Maria Elisa’s family far better than she ever would have done in Rio, thrown together upon the ocean as they were. Maria Elisa’s two younger brothers, Carlos and Paulo, were fourteen and sixteen respectively, at the awkward stage between childhood and adulthood, with rough growth beginning to sprout on their chins. They rarely plucked up the courage to speak to Bel. Maria Elisa’s mother, Maria Georgiana, was an intelligent, sharp-eyed woman, who Bel soon learnt was prone to sudden bursts of anger if something didn’t suit her. She spent much of the day playing bridge in the elegant salon, while her husband rarely surfaced from his cabin.
‘What does your father do in there all day?’ questioned Bel of Maria Elisa one evening as they were nearing the Cape Verde islands off the coast of Africa, where the boat was docking for a few hours to pick up supplies.
‘He is working on hisCristo, of course,’ Maria Elisa had answered. ‘Mãe says she has lost the love of her husband to Our Lord, a person he has so often said he doesn’t believe in! Ironic, isn’t it?’
One afternoon, Bel knocked on the door of what she had thought was Maria Elisa’s cabin. Receiving no reply, she opened the door and called out for her. She immediately realised that she’d made a mistake, as a surprised Heitor da Silva Costa looked up at her from a desk covered with sheets of complex architectural calculations. Not only had they taken over the desk, but the bed and the floor too.
‘Senhorita Izabela, good afternoon. How can I help you?’
‘I’m so sorry to disturb you, senhor. I was looking for Maria Elisa and I have simply come to the wrong cabin.’
‘Please, don’t worry. I myself become confused trying to find my way around. All the doors look the same,’ said Heitor with a comforting smile. ‘As to my daughter, you can try her cabin next door, but she could be anywhere on this ship – I confess to not keeping track of her whereabouts.’ He gestured towards the desk. ‘I have been distracted by other things.’
‘May I . . . may I see your drawings?’
‘You are interested?’ Heitor’s pale eyes lit up with pleasure.
‘Why yes! Everyone in Rio says it is a miracle that this statue will be built on top of such a high mountain.’
‘They are right. And as theCristocannot perform it Himself, I must.’ He smiled wearily. ‘Here,’ he beckoned her. ‘I will show you how I believe it can happen.’
Heitor indicated a chair for her to pull over, and for the next hour showed her how he would build a structure strong enough to support his Christ. ‘Iron girders, and a new innovation from Europe called reinforced concrete will fill His innards. You see, Bel, theCristois not a statue, He is simply a building dressed as a human being. He must withstand the harsh winds that circle around Him, the rain that will pound on His head. Not to mention the bolts of lightning that His Father in heaven sends down to us mortals here on earth to remind us of His power.’
Bel sat there in awe. Listening to the poetic yet detailed way Heitor spoke of his project was a pleasure and she felt honoured to be trusted with the information.
‘And now, when I reach Europe, I must find the sculptor who can breathe life into my outer vision of Him. The engineering of building His insides will not matter to a public who will only ever see His outer packaging.’ He looked up at her thoughtfully. ‘I think, senhorita, that is very common in life too. Do you not agree?’
‘Yes,’ Bel replied tentatively, having never thought of it before. ‘I suppose I do.’
‘For example,’ he elaborated, ‘you are a beautiful young woman, but do I know the soul inside you that fires you? And the answer is, of course, that no, I do not. So, I must find the right sculptor for the job, and return to Rio with the face, body and hands that His onlookers desire.’
*
That night, Bel climbed into bed feeling a little uncomfortable. Even though Heitor was old enough to be her father, she was embarrassed to admit she had developed a crush on Senhor da Silva Costa.
18
Six weeks after the steamer had left Rio, it docked gracefully at Le Havre. The da Silva Costa party duly boarded the train to Paris, where a car was waiting at the station to transfer them to an elegant apartment on the Avenue de Marigny just off the Champs-Élysées. The plan was to base the family there, near the office Heitor had rented in which to work and to meet the many experts he wished to consult with to finalise the structure of his Christ.
When he travelled to Italy and Germany to speak to two of the most renowned European sculptors of the day, the plan was for his family to travel with him.
But for the next week, Bel knew she could soak up Paris. After dinner that first night, she pulled up the sash window of the high-ceilinged room she shared with Maria Elisa and peered out, breathing in the new and very foreign smell, and shivering slightly in the cool evening air. It was early spring, which in Rio meant temperatures in the high seventies. Here in Paris, she surmised that it was barely in the fifties.
On the street below, she watched the Parisian women drifting along the pavement of the gracious boulevard, arm in arm with their beaux. They were all elegantly clad in the new, almost boyish fashion inspired by the house of Chanel, which featured simple, unstructured lines and knee-length skirts that were a world away from the formal corseted gowns Bel was used to.
She sighed and pulled her luxuriant hair out of its topknot, wondering if she might dare to have it cut in the new short bobbed style. Her father, of course, would almost certainly disown her – he was always saying that her hair was her crowning glory. But here she was, thousands of miles away, and out of his grasp for the first time in her life.
A jolt of excitement shot through her and she craned her neck to the left where she could just see the twinkling lights of the Seine, the great river that flowed through Paris, and the Left Bank beyond. She had heard much talk of the Bohemian group of artists that populated the streets around Montmartre and Montparnasse; the models who were prepared to be painted naked by Picasso, and the poet Jean Cocteau, whose outrageous lifestyle, reputedly fuelled by opium, had even reached the gossip columns of Rio.
She knew from her art history lessons that the Left Bank had originally been the haunt of artists such as Degas, Cézanne and Monet. But these days, a new and far more daring set led by the Surrealists had taken over. Writers such as F. Scott Fitzgerald and his beautiful wife, Zelda, had been photographed at La Closerie des Lilas drinking absinthe with their famous Bohemian friends. From what she understood, the whole set ran fast and wild, drinking all day and dancing all night.
