Paris: The Novel

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