Paris: The Novel

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 theirmother 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