Page 143 of Atlas: The Story of Pa Salt
I stared down at the page. I had provided Mr Kohler’s contact details to everyone from my past, from Monsieur Landowski to Ralph Mackenzie, in case Elle ever turned up on their doorstep. It has been one of the small joys in my life to occasionally receive updates from those who have meant so much to me over the years.
Monsieur Landowski had died in 1961. To my eternal shame, I had not attended his funeral, as I thought it would be the perfect location for Kreeg to ambush me. Knowing that I had a daughter in this world had galvanised my desire to stay firmly on it, and I had returned to a state of overt caution. Instead, when I received word from Marcel, I had wept alone for three days, and asked the stars to care for him in his new life.
As for Laurent Brouilly, I have not laid eyes on him since that fateful day in Paris when Elle and I were forced to flee.
I followed the address on Brouilly’s letter, and knocked on the door of his quaint town house on the quiet, cobbled avenue in Montparnasse. I heard a fumbling, and the door was opened by a young lady in a blue medical smock. She looked at me quizzically.
‘Hello, madame. Am I right in thinking that Monsieur Brouilly lives here?’
She smiled at me. ‘Yes, this is Professor Brouilly’s house. Is he expecting you?’
I thought for a moment. ‘Do you know, I’m not entirely sure. Could you let him know that his old friend Bo is here to see him?’
‘Of course.’ She put the door on the latch, and returned quickly. ‘He seemed very excited when I mentioned your name,Bo. Please come in.’ I entered Brouilly’s charming home, which was just as cluttered as his tiny apartment had been all those years ago. Strewn about the hallway were discarded canvases, dust sheets, half-finished sculptures... It was the den of a trueartiste.
‘He’s a little frail these days, Monsieur Bo, despite what he might tell you. Do go carefully with him.’ I nodded. ‘Just through here.’ The young girl gently opened a door to a living room populated by a mass of green plants. In amongst the foliage, a painfully thin and aged Laurent Brouilly was perched upon a large velvet sofa. In truth, he looked as though a small gust of wind from the open window might blow him onto the floor.
‘I can’t remember,’ he said. ‘Do you speak now?’ I opened my mouth, unsure of what to say. ‘I’m joking!’ cried Brouilly, cackling.
Relief flooded my body. ‘Hello, Laurent.’ I crossed the room to shake his hand, which felt light as a feather.
‘Regrettably, my grip is not as strong as it used to be,’ he said. ‘The sculpting went out of the window a few years ago. I paint, though. Please, have a seat.’ He indicated the unoccupied space on the sofa. ‘Do you still play the violin? Or the cello?’
‘Sometimes. I can manage about fifteen minutes before my arm begins to ache from an old injury.’
‘Ah, yes, Landowski mentioned it.’ He stared intently at me, and I was heartened to see that despite his thin grey hair and fragile body, his eyes had not changed one iota. ‘Thank you, Hélène,’ he said to the young girl at the door.
‘Just shout if you need me, Professor Brouilly.’ She left the room.
I raised my eyebrows at my old friend. ‘Professor, eh?’
‘I rose through the ranks to become Director of Sculpture at the Beaux-Arts, would you believe?’
‘Do you know, Laurent, I would.’ I paused before asking the difficult question. ‘You wrote in your letter that you would like to see me “one last time”. What on earth did you mean? How old are you? Sixty-one?’
‘Sixty-two now, Bo. But you are not blind. I am sick. The blasted doctors have told me that I will not recover. They cannot accurately predict how long I will last, but it will not be more than a few months.’
‘Laurent... I’m so sorry.’
He shrugged valiantly. ‘Cancer is still easier to accept than losing Bel all those years ago.’
I put a tender hand on his leg, and it distressed me to feel the bone. ‘Do you still think about her?’ I asked.
‘Every minute of every day,’ he replied nostalgically. ‘But...’ A smile played on his lips. ‘Despite it all, I have lived a blessed life. I will now tell you a story, which even you might find difficult to credit...’ He closed his eyes. ‘Many years ago, I had just finished teaching a class on Donatello. As I was packing my books, a student walked up to me. Bo, as soon as I laid eyes on her face, I knew... for it was like looking into a mirror. She introduced herself as Beatriz Aires-Cabral.’ Brouilly shook his head.
‘Aires-Cabral?’ I replied. ‘Wasn’t that Bel’s surname?’
He met my eye. ‘Precisely.’
I was in a state of disbelief. ‘My word.’
‘She asked if I remembered creating a sculpture of her mother for her father, Gustavo, which was shipped over to Brazil as a wedding present.’ He chortled. ‘If only she had known. Stood in front of me, in my classroom, was my own daughter.’
We sat in silence for a while, both choked. ‘I... don’t know what to say...’
‘Quite. She told me that her mother had died when shewas only eighteen months old. There was a yellow fever outbreak in Rio, and...’ His voice cracked and his eyes glazed over. ‘She was only twenty-one. After all that turmoil and tragedy, to die so young... Forgive me.’ A tear fell down Brouilly’s ashen cheek. ‘Anyway, I enquired about herfather, as she knew him. She told me that their relationship was difficult and that he had sunk deeper and deeper into the bottle as the years passed by. Gustavo forbade Beatriz from pursuing her artistic passions, but died himself when she was seventeen. She enrolled at the Beaux-Arts after his death, as she knew her mother had done before her.’
‘And she ended up in your class,’ I whispered. Brouilly and I stared at one another, before both breaking into smiles.
