Paris: The Novel (5 page)

Not daring to interrupt them, Thomas went quickly out of the atelier and entered the shed next door.

If Bartholdi had designed a magnificent statue, a huge problem still remained: how the devil to construct it? The original plan, suggested by the great French architect Viollet-le-Duc, had been to build the statue around a huge stone pillar. But then the great man had died without leaving further instructions, and no one knew what to do. Finally, a bridge builder had said he could construct a framework for the statue, and so he had been brought in as the project’s engineer.

The engineer had set about his task almost as if he were building another bridge. The statue was going to be hollow. Instead of a stone pillar, the central core would be a pylon of iron girders. The outer framework would be a huge skeleton of iron. And onto this skeleton the thin copper outer skin would be riveted. Spiral staircases inside would allow people to go up into the viewing platform in the statue’s diadem.

The engineer’s plans also allowed the statue to be constructed in several pieces at the same time. Liberty’s right hand held a great torch up to the sky; but in her left, she would clasp the tablets of the law, on which the date of the Declaration of Independence would be carved. This was the hand upon which Thomas and his crew were working.

There were two others working with him on the hand that day, both bearded, serious men in their forties. They greeted him politely, and one asked if his family was well.

It did not seem appropriate to say that his little brother had gone missing. Indeed, Thomas thought, it might bring bad luck. For if you said a thing, it might happen.

“They’re fine,” he said. For now, he’d concentrate on his work.

The hand was huge. A dozen men could have sat on the outstretched palm and fingers. The inner core was a sturdy framework of thick iron bars. But around this framework were wrapped dozens of long, thin metal strips, like so many straps. They were only two inches wide, lay quite close together, and exactly followed the contours of Bartholdi’s model, so that, when they were all attached, the resulting hand would look like a limb from some gigantic wicker man.

Fixing them in place was careful and patient labor. For over an hour, the three men worked quietly, speaking little. And they were not interrupted until the foreman’s morning visit.

He was still in the company of Monsieur Bartholdi. But they had been joined by a third figure.

Most of the engineering supervision at the workshops was done by the engineer’s junior partner. But today the engineer himself had come to pay a visit.

If Bartholdi was every inch an artist, the engineer also looked his part. Where Bartholdi’s face was long and poetic, it seemed that the god Vulcan had fashioned the head of the engineer in his forge and compressed it in a vice. Everything about the man was compact and tidy—his close-cropped hair and beard, his clothes, his movements—yet also full of energy. And his eyes, which bulged slightly, had a luminous quality that suggested that he, too, could dream.

For several minutes he and Bartholdi inspected the huge hand, tapping the thin bands of iron, measuring here and there, and eventually nodded with approval to the foreman and cheerfully announced: “Excellent, messieurs.” They were about to leave when the engineer turned to Thomas and remarked: “You are new here, aren’t you?”

“Yes, monsieur,” said Thomas.

“And what is your name?”

“Thomas Gascon, monsieur.”

“Gascon, eh? Your ancestors came from Gascony, no doubt?”

“I do not know, sir. I suppose so.”

“Gascony.” The engineer considered, then smiled. “The old Roman province of Aquitania. The warm south. The land of wine. Of brandy too: let us not forget Armagnac.”

“Or
The Three Musketeers
,” Bartholdi chimed in. “D’Artagnan was a Gascon.”

“Voilà. And what can we say of the character of your countrymen,
Monsieur Gascon?” the engineer continued playfully. “Aren’t they known for chivalry, and honor?”

“They’re supposed to boast a lot,” said the foreman, not to be left out.

“Are you boastful, Monsieur Gascon?” asked the engineer.

“I have nothing to boast about,” answered Thomas simply.

“Ah,” said the engineer. “Then perhaps I can help you. Why do you think we are constructing the statue in this particular way?”

“I suppose,” said Thomas, “so that it can be disassembled and taken across the Atlantic.” He knew that after the statue was completed here in the rue de Chazelles, its copper skin attached with temporary rivets, the whole thing could be taken down and reassembled again in New York.

“That is true,” said the engineer. “But there is another reason. The statue is going to stand beside the open waters of New York Harbor, exposed to the winds, which will catch it like a sail. If it is completely static, it will be under enormous stress. Temperature changes will also cause the metal to expand and contract. The copper skin could crack. So firstly, I have constructed the inside like a metal bridge, so that it can move, just enough to relieve the stress. And secondly, I have arranged that the plates of beaten copper that form the skin shall be riveted, each one separately, onto these metal strips—these ‘saddles’ as you ironworkers call them. The copper plates are attached to the framework, but not to each other. So each plate can slide, just a fraction, against its neighbor. In this way the skin will never crack. You will not see it with the eye, but all the time, the Statue of Liberty will move. This is good engineering. Do you understand?”

Thomas nodded.

“Good,” the engineer went on. “And now I can tell you why you may boast. Because of its engineering, and your careful work in putting it together, this statue of ours will last for centuries. Countless millions of people will see it. Quite certainly, my young friend, this will be the most famous construction that you, or I, will ever build. That is something we may boast about, don’t you think?”

“Yes, Monsieur Eiffel,” said Thomas.

Eiffel smiled at him. Bartholdi smiled at him. Even the foreman smiled, and Thomas Gascon felt very happy.

Just then he saw his sister Nicole standing by the doorway.

She was trying to catch his attention, yet was afraid to come in. She was going through that phase when her legs looked thin as stalks, and with her pale face and her large eyes, she seemed very vulnerable. If their
mother had sent her all the way here, it could only mean that Luc was lost. Or worse.

But what a moment to arrive. If she would just wait until the foreman and the visitors were gone. He saw her eyes pleading as he tried to ignore her.

But the foreman missed nothing. Seeing Thomas’s momentary distraction, he immediately turned and stared at Nicole.

“Who’s that?”

“My sister, sir.” It was no use lying.

“Why is she interrupting you?”

“My little brother vanished this morning, sir. I think he must be … I don’t know.”

The foreman was not pleased. Staring at Nicole, he motioned her to approach him.

“Well,” he said abruptly. “What is it?”

“My mother sent me to find Thomas, monsieur. My brother Luc is nowhere to be found. They are fetching the police.”

“Then they have no need of Thomas.” He motioned her to go away.

The little girl’s mouth fell open. Involuntarily, Thomas started to move toward her, then checked himself.

He couldn’t lose his job. The foreman might be harsh, but he was quite logical. Perhaps if the matter had been brought to him privately … But not with Monsieur Bartholdi and Monsieur Eiffel watching. He had to keep discipline.

If only Nicole would go now. Quickly. But she didn’t. Her face started to pucker. Was she going to cry? She turned to him.

“What shall I tell Mother?”

And he was just about to say, “You must go now, Nicole,” when the voice of Monsieur Eiffel interrupted.

“I think that, upon this occasion—and this occasion only—our young friend should go and find his brother. But tomorrow morning, Monsieur Gascon, we shall expect you here to complete this great work.” He turned to the foreman. “Would you agree?”

The foreman shrugged, but nodded.

“Go,” the foreman said to Thomas, who would have thanked him properly, except that his sister had already fled.

Seen from a distance, the hill of Montmartre hadn’t changed so much since Roman times. For centuries old vines had grown there, tended by local nuns in the Middle Ages, though the vineyards nowadays had either been built upon, or lapsed into waste ground. But one pleasant change had occurred. A number of wooden windmills had gathered near the summit, their lumbering sails turning in the wind, giving the hill a picturesque appearance.

Only drawing closer was it clear that Montmartre had become a bit of a mess. Too steep and inconvenient for Baron Haussmann to tame, it was still half rural. But in the places where Montmartre had tried to smarten itself, it seemed to have given up, its crooked streets and steep alleys breaking off unfinished, turning into trackways of wooden huts and cabins scattered, higgledy-piggledy, across the hillside.

In all this mess, no part was more disreputable than the shantytown just over the hill on its northwestern flank. The Maquis, they called it: the bush, the wilderness, or even skid row. The house in which the Gascons lived was one of the better ones: a simple frame covered with wooden boards and an upstairs balcony that made it look like a shanty version of a Swiss chalet. An outside staircase led to the upper floor that the family occupied.

“Where have you looked?” Thomas asked, as soon as he got there.

“Partout.”
Everywhere, said his mother. “The police came.” Her shrug indicated that she had no faith in them. Monsieur Gascon was sitting in the corner. The yoke he put across his shoulders to carry the water buckets lay on the floor beside him. He was staring at the floor in guilty silence. “You should go to work,” his wife said to him quietly.

“Let them do without their water,” he said defiantly, “until my son is found.” And Thomas guessed his father thought that little Luc was dead.

“Your aunt gave him a balloon yesterday afternoon, and sent him home,” his mother continued to Thomas, “but he never got here. None of the children at the school have seen him. One boy said he had, but then he changed his mind. If anyone knows anything, they’re not telling.”

“I’m going out to search,” said Thomas. “What color was the balloon?”

“Blue,” said his mother.

Once outside, Thomas paused. Could he find his brother? He told himself he could. There seemed little point in searching the Maquis again. Down the hill, the city outskirts spread northward to the suburb called
Saint-Denis. But so far as Thomas knew, his little brother never went out there. The small free school his mother made him attend, and most of the places Luc knew, lay up the hill. Thomas started to climb.

The Moulin de la Galette stood on the ridge just above the Maquis. It was one of a pair of windmills owned by an enterprising family who had set up a
guinguette
bar with a little dance floor there. People came out from the city to enjoy some cheap drink and rustic charm, and Luc haunted the place. He’d sing songs for the customers, who’d give him tips.

The barman was sweeping the floor.

“The police have been here already,” he said. “Luc never came last night.”

“He may have had a blue balloon.”

“No balloon.”

Thomas went along several streets after that, stopping here and there to ask if anyone remembered a boy with a balloon the day before. Nobody did. It was hard not to feel discouraged, but he pressed on. After half an hour of wandering about like this, he came out onto the great platform of ground overlooking the city where, behind a high wooden fence, they were building the huge basilica of Sacré Coeur.

Thomas had been seven years old during the German siege. He remembered the big cannon up on the hill, and the fighting over them, and the terrible shooting of Communards when the government troops arrived from Versailles. His father had been careful to stay out of trouble—or perhaps he was just too lazy—but like most workingmen, he had no liking for this vast, triumphant monument to Catholic order that the conservative new republic was placing on the hill to stare over the city. Thomas, however, had been fascinated: not by the church’s meaning, but by how the huge thing was built.