The Paris Architect: A Novel

by Charles Belfoure

  The old man said nothing.

  “I guess it’s time for your lesson.”

  Schlegal picked up a small square box with a lever attached to it and examined it closely.

  “When I was a little boy in Leipzig, I had a box like this to run my electric train set. I was mad about model trains then, spent hours playing with them. If I remember right, it had a lever just like this to switch on the electric current, and if I turned the lever to the right…”

  An ear-piercing scream rang out that seemed to reverberate for a full minute off the white plaster walls of the office. Schlegal’s eyes followed the wires from the box, which ran along the wooden floor, and up to the crotch of the old man, who was slumped over as if someone had punched him in the stomach.

  “Heinz,” said Schlegal, “are you sure there’s enough juice coming from this box?”

  “Why yes, Colonel,” said a flustered Captain Bruckner, who was sitting on a wooden chair in the corner of the room next to two other officers, Captain Wolf and Lieutenant Voss. “Please, try again. But this time, keep the lever all the way to the right.”

  Another scream commenced, and it continued for quite a long time. Schlegal didn’t look at his guest but just stared at the box during the screaming. The old man’s upper body had jolted upright against the back of the wooden chair to which he was tied. When his cries began to produce a ringing in the Gestapo colonel’s ears, Schlegal turned the lever to the left, and there was an abrupt silence.

  “Where will I find Mendel Janusky, Monsieur Deligny?”

  The question was met with silence.

  “I’m sorry, I missed that,” said Schlegal, who then quickly turned the lever to the right and back to the left to produce a short sharp scream.

  “Still didn’t hear you.” A turn of the lever and another short scream.

  The Gestapo colonel then amused himself by producing a whole series of screams of different lengths and pitches in an effort to create a kind of melody, which greatly entertained his staff officers.

  “Did that sound at all like Lili Marlene?” Schlegal asked his staff.

  Bruckner, Voss, and Wolf laughed hysterically and shook their heads.

  “Too bad. Let me ask you one more time, Monsieur Deligny, where is Mendel Janusky?”

  The old man’s full head of long white hair was drenched with sweat and hung down over his eyes. He lifted his head up a little to look at Schlegal, who now walked right up to him holding the box, his fingers on the lever.

  The Gestapo officer had interrogated many a man since he’d arrived at 11 rue des Saussaies in 1941. Torture revealed a lot about a man’s character or moral fiber, he believed, whether he was French, German, Jew, or gentile. When he’d first started doing this type of work, he’d expected to come across men who wouldn’t crack, even under the most barbarous conditions, but that rarely happened. He wanted to meet some really brave men, but to his disappointment, they always broke down and talked. So he knew what was going to happen next.

  With great difficulty, the old man took a deep breath, and in a low, almost inaudible voice, said, “Rue de Tournon, at Gattier’s, the wine merchant.”

  “Now that wasn’t so hard, was it?” said Schlegal. He tossed the box on his desk. He nodded to Bruckner, who immediately left the room.

  “My goodness, what time is it? Lunchtime already?” asked Schlegal, glancing at his wristwatch. “I’m starving. Gentlemen, will you join me for lunch at the Café Daunou?”

  His officers exchanged smiles and picked up their gloves and caps. They knew their boss was in a good mood and would be paying. As the three Germans made for the door, Schlegal stopped and reached over for the box on the desk, turning the lever all the way to the right. “I hope you’ll excuse us, Monsieur Deligny,” he said in a very solicitous tone. “We’ll be back in an hour or two to continue our conversation.”

  The screaming could still be heard as they reached the street four flights below.

  14

  “I fixed you a real cup of tea.”

  Celeste was surprised to see Lucien in the kitchen first thing in the morning. He proudly handed Celeste a cup with a saucer. She remembered her husband telling her that on a trip to England, he’d found out that you never just give someone a cup of tea; it always has to be on a saucer. She smiled at the gesture.

  “Real tea?” said Celeste. “Not brewed from catnip leaves?”

  “Taste it.”

  “Good God. It is real tea,” she said, holding the first sip in her mouth, relishing the taste. In wartime, Celeste had learned how to be thankful for the smallest pleasures in life. The finest champagne wouldn’t have tasted better.

  For some time now, Lucien had been bringing home hard-to-get food like cheese, butter, and coffee. She knew it was from the black market but didn’t ask any questions. The other thing she learned during the Occupation was that law-abiding citizens now turned a blind eye to the breaking of the law. She could see that Lucien was very proud to provide these things.

  “Thank you, it’s delicious.”

  “Now, I must be off. Lots of work to be done at the office,” said Lucien cheerfully. He gave her a quick kiss on the forehead and grabbed his suit jacket from the back of the stainless steel kitchen chair. “What’s on your schedule today?”

  “Nothing much. I heard there’s toilet paper at a shop on rue de Bretagne. I’ll try my luck.” Shopping during the Occupation meant women standing in long lines to try to buy the bare essentials.

  “If they run out, I’ll see if I can get my hands on some. See you tonight.”

  Celeste sipped her tea and stared at the gleaming white porcelain and stainless steel kitchen cabinets. Though she would’ve preferred wood cupboards, at least these were easy to clean. She placed her cup in the sink and went to the vestibule to get her hat, black felt with a pointy Robin Hood brim and white feather. She was glad she and Lucien had the same taste in women’s fashion.

  It was a cool summer morning, and Celeste enjoyed the breeze on her face as she walked along the boulevard de Sébastopol. The Germans had drained the life out of Paris, but at least they couldn’t change its weather, she thought. She continued down to the Pont Notre-Dame and across the Seine. Looking at her wristwatch, she turned east and walked to Notre Dame. There were far more German tourist soldiers than Frenchmen and pigeons in front of the cathedral. Three Wehrmacht officers with cameras stopped snapping away and looked at her as she passed them. They murmured their approval to each other and smiled, but she ignored them. Inside the church were even more German soldiers walking along the aisles, gazing up at the great vaulted ceiling and the tall stained-glass windows. Some were kneeling in pews, praying, which surprised Celeste. She assumed that such people didn’t believe in any kind of God.

  Celeste sat in a pew but didn’t pray. She never attended church on Sundays anymore but still liked the contemplative feel of the place. It was a good place to think and reflect, a tiny oasis of comfort in a disappointing life. What was the use of praying for happiness anyway? It hadn’t done her any good. She had been punished with the loss of her child then the abandonment by her father. She couldn’t take any more heartbreak. And her marriage had slipped away. Celeste had once truly loved Lucien, but for some reason, that love slowly evaporated like water in a bowl. It was once full, and now there was just a tiny puddle left at its bottom. No one had tipped the bowl over; it just simply vanished over time.

  Celeste walked out of the cathedral and across the Petit Pont to the Left Bank. Just before the boulevard Saint-Germain, she turned onto rue Dante and went into an apartment house. On the second-floor landing, she rang the bell of a unit.

  The door opened, and a tall middle-aged man with wire-rim glasses faced her.

  “Madame Bernard, so wonderful to see you. We’re ready for you. This way, please.”

  “Thank you, Monsieur Richet.”

  At the dining room table sat a ten-year-old girl with freckled cheeks and brilliant blond hair in long
pigtails. She stood up and curtseyed to Celeste.

  “All right, Sandrine, what is your math assignment for this week? Still fractions?” said Celeste, taking off her hat and sitting down next to the girl.

  “Yes, Madame, but I still can’t quite add wholes and fractions.”

  “You’ll see, my love, in one hour, you’ll be doing it with the snap of your fingers, like magic,” said Celeste, kissing the girl on her cheek.

  When the lesson was over, Richet came back into the dining room.

  “I can’t thank you enough for your help these past months. Sandrine’s old tutor simply disappeared.”

  “Many, many people in Paris have disappeared,” said Celeste.

  “Thank you, Madame Bernard, for my lesson,” said Sandrine with a curtsey.

  “Practice those fraction exercises, and you’ll see how well you do on the next exam.”

  Richet stood behind his daughter, wrapped his arms around her, and kissed her on the top of her head.

  “Sandrine, why don’t you go to the park for a while,” said Richet.

  15

  “Monsieur, I told you that I wouldn’t be part of this anymore.”

  Manet, who was sitting on a plush red velvet sofa, smiled at Lucien, who was pacing back and forth in front of the enormous fireplace in the hunting lodge in Le Chesnay.

  “All I’m asking for is a little advice.”

  “Advice like that can get me killed. And you, as well.”

  “Just take a look around and tell me what you think. I’m betting a man with your creative talents could think of another ingenious idea.”

  Lucien knew the old man was just buttering him up, and it was working. As he gazed around the house, his eyes lit up when he saw that there were far more possibilities here than in the apartment. The building was typical of the great hunting lodges built in the seventeenth century for the nobility. Hidden in a dense forest on a piece of land probably a kilometer square, the house, with its steep slate roof and corner towers, was a good out-of-the-way place to hole up from the Gestapo. Properties like these were kept in the family, passed down through the generations. It must have at least thirty rooms, with a kitchen that was bigger than his own apartment.

  Manet walked over to Lucien. Putting his hand on Lucien’s shoulder in a grandfatherly manner, he half-whispered, as though there were other people in the room.

  “The two guests of this house would be quite grateful for your help—fifteen thousand francs is how grateful they’d be. And I’d be quite grateful.”

  Lucien’s heartbeat raced. The first twelve thousand francs were going fast. There were just too many nice things on the black market. Cheese, eggs, butter, real wine, meat, and even chocolate were all available—for an astronomical amount of money. Most of the black market goods, Lucien discovered, came from the rural areas in northern France. The hicks out in the countryside now had the last laugh; they ate much better than city dwellers, and they sold their produce on the black market for fifty times the normal price. City people with kinfolk in the country were lucky; they were permitted to get family parcels of food through the mail. The Germans made things even worse with their plundering. The official exchange rate between the franc and the mark made them instantly rich, and soldiers descended on Paris like locusts devouring crops. First, they swallowed up luxury goods like perfume, then staples like wine and tobacco. When their tour of duty ended, German officers would board trains with dozens of suitcases filled with their booty. Yes, the fifteen thousand francs, thought Lucien, would come in very handy.

  “My guests told me about a property of theirs that looks over the Côte d’Azur,” Manet said. “A wonderful place to put a house after the war. With lots of glass and maybe a wide balcony that stretches across the whole back. The view is incredible. And the sea is an indescribable shade of blue. You should see it.”

  “The Côte d’Azur?” said Lucien. “Well yes, I’d like to see that. But I would need transit papers to travel south.”

  “No problem, I can arrange it.”

  “Really?

  Manet threaded his arm through Lucien’s and started to guide him gently through the house. Thirty rooms was a lot of ground to cover in an afternoon. They started in the attic and worked their way down, slowly moving from room to room. The floor-to-ceiling paneled walls with high baseboards were a possibility; here, the walls were thick enough to fit a body. Still, Lucien wanted to keep looking. The enormous entrance hall contained a beautiful wood staircase with a thick carved railing. The staircase started from a huge wood-paneled newel post. It reminded Lucien of the base of the statue of Mercury in the rue de Galilée apartment. The top could be hinged, and two people could pull it shut by a strap, but it was too tight for two adults. Lucien gazed up at the ceiling and saw that it was supported by huge exposed wood beams. He immediately knew the second-floor structure could be used.

  On top of the main beams was overlaid a series of smaller ones at right angles on which thick plank flooring was attached with pegging. These beams were about thirty centimeters deep, which told Lucien a person could lie down on his back within them. The plank flooring could be removed and hinged to create a trap door of sorts. To prevent a person from falling through the plaster ceiling between the main beams, some board reinforcing would have to be installed. During a search, though, Gestapo boots would be running on top of the guests just a couple of centimeters from their faces. As he’d realized at the rue de Galilée, the cleverest design wouldn’t work if Manet’s guests panicked and cried out. This seemed too risky.

  He discovered a window seat in an oriel window on the second floor at the rear of the house that was deep enough and wide enough to work as a hiding place. As he walked through the house, considering more options, the excitement was building up within him again. He found himself enjoying the challenge of outwitting the Germans, realizing it was a more powerful lure than the fifteen thousand francs. He could see crazed Germans tearing through the house in a hopeless effort to find their quarry. But all the time, the Jews would be right under their noses. Then finally, a Gestapo officer would give the order to leave, saying the Jews weren’t there. Thinking about this had the effect of a handful of amphetamines, and Lucien quickened his pace through the rooms, forcing poor Manet to struggle to keep up with him.

  “Why not the back of a closet?” asked Manet as they entered the master bedroom.

  “That’s the first place they’d look,” said Lucien impatiently.

  He stopped and saw how tired Manet was. Lucien wasn’t ready to make his final decision and needed to continue looking.

  “Please, monsieur. Go downstairs and wait for me. Let me help you.”

  “I’m fine. Let’s keep going.”

  Lucien held Manet’s elbow as they mounted a short flight of steps that led to a small study. As he put his foot on the first step, it slipped and Lucien fell forward, bashing his knee into the steps.

  “Goddamn it!” he cried, clutching his knee in pain.

  Manet stooped to help him up.

  “Let me be, I’m all right,” said Lucien.

  Manet sat on the steps to rest.

  “Why did they put the steps here?” asked Manet.

  “It’s just to give the floor a level change and provide more headroom for the library that’s right below us.”

  “I see. It’s to separate the study from the bedroom here.”

  “Yes, just four steps,” said Lucien. “It’s a nice detail. I would’ve done the same thing.”

  As he massaged his kneecap, he gazed at the steps.

  “Hold on, I’ll be right back.” Lucien hobbled downstairs, leaving Manet sitting there with a puzzled look.

  Two minutes later, he came back quite excited, with only a trace of a limp.

  “It’ll work. It’ll work!” He was exultant. “They can hide under these stairs.”

  “How would they get under there?”

  “Simple. I’ll hinge the steps at the top. They’ll lift the
m open, slip in, and drop them back down. There’ll be a latch on the inside so no one could lift it up. I’ll keep the carpet runner in place, and it’ll hide the joint where it opens up.” Both ends of the steps ran into walls so there were no sides; they seemed to melt into the interior of the bedroom. The Germans would probably never notice them. He knew from the fine workmanship on the rue Galilée job that Manet’s people could make the stair hinges undetectable. The existing steps would be carefully dismantled then reassembled onto a wooden frame with hinges along its top. The same runner that matched the carpet would cover the steps. Lucien was exultant over his design, brimming with pride as if he’d just won the Prix de Rome. Delighted with his own ingenuity, he experienced the same sense of exhilaration that had swept over him at the rue Galilée.

  “That’s brilliant, my boy. But what would they lie on?”

  “On a thin mattress. And there’s just enough room for two people to lie side by side.”

  “I knew you’d do it,” said Manet, clapping Lucien on his back. “I’ll need a drawing as quickly as possible.”

  “Of course, monsieur, right away.”

  “My guests will be quite pleased to hear the news. They’ll—”

  “Stop. I don’t want to know a damn thing.”

  “Yes, Monsieur Bernard, I apologize. It’s the excitement of the moment.”

  “And one more thing.”

  “Yes, monsieur?”

  “This is absolutely the last job I’m doing.”

  “Absolutely,” replied Manet.

  16

  Adele wasn’t joking when she said she wouldn’t forgive Lucien for missing her fashion show. Nothing in the world was more important to her. That was one of the things he liked most about her. She was as intent on success in her career as he was in his. Even more so, it seemed.

  Lucien arrived at her showroom on rue du Colisée twenty minutes to one and stood in the rear. This was the best spot to see any movie stars in attendance. Adele’s shows always attracted celebrities; they never failed to come. They loved Adele. Lucien also loved to feast his eyes on Adele’s fashion models. So many beautiful women in one place at one time. But this afternoon, Lucien was especially interested in seeing one particular woman—Bette Tullard. Since they met that first evening near Le Chat Roux, he couldn’t get the image of that beautiful face out of his mind. Sometimes when he was drawing in his office, he’d begin to daydream about her. He knew she would be here, because without Bette, there would be no show.