The Paris Architect: A Novel

by Charles Belfoure

  “I’ll give you your own key so you can come and go as you please—but remember, I don’t want you ever to be caught in the street after curfew. We’ll both be in deep trouble if that happens. You understand that, don’t you? And it’s Lucien, not Monsieur Bernard.”

  “Yes, monsieur…Lucien, I’m very careful about that. I’ve never been out at night,” said Pierre.

  Misha had already taken a shine to the room by jumping onto the bed and curling up in a ball against the pillow.

  “You see, Misha likes his new room,” said Lucien, which made Pierre smile. The boy reached over and rubbed the cat under his chin. Lucien was beginning to like playing the part of father. Even though Pierre was a Jew and could get him (and everyone else in the apartment building) tortured and killed, he was the kind of son Lucien would’ve loved to have—intelligent, polite, and thoughtful.

  “So, do you like your room, Pierre?”

  “It’s very nice, just as nice as the one in my old home, on the rue Oudinot.”

  Lucien had been careful not to ask Pierre any questions about his past, especially in the office, where Alain was always hovering about. He really didn’t want to know. But now in the privacy of his home, he did. At least a little bit.

  “So…when did you last see your parents?”

  “Just before the roundup in May,” said Pierre in a barely audible voice.

  Lucien had to lean toward him to catch what he was saying.

  “I hear you had brothers and a sister?” asked Lucien, knowing he was venturing into sensitive territory, but he pressed on.

  “They’re gone. I don’t know where, but I guess they’re dead too. It happened when the Germans shot Madame Charpointier.”

  “She took care of you after your parents were taken?’

  “Yes, that’s when we made up the story about being Christians. My father arranged it even before they took him away. We had to learn prayers like the Hail Mary and the Our Father and even go to mass to understand how it worked. He made us really practice hard because he wanted us to be safe, but it didn’t work.”

  “How did the Germans find out?”

  “I never found out. I think someone betrayed us.”

  “And how did you escape?”

  Pierre remained silent, and Lucien now felt foolish for forcing a twelve-year-old to relive such terrible memories. He was about to change the subject when the boy started talking.

  “They didn’t find me. I was up in the attic, and they never came up there. I don’t know why, but they didn’t. I was up there when I saw Madame shot.”

  “You saw her killed?” exclaimed Lucien.

  “I looked out the attic window and saw them shoot her. She was arguing with the Germans as they put Jean-Claude, Philippe, and Isabelle in the car. I was saved because I was smoking.”

  “Smoking?”

  “I’d sneak up to the attic to smoke. That’s what I was doing when they came to get us and I heard all this…”

  To Lucien’s surprise, Pierre suddenly broke down crying. After a few seconds, Lucien hesitantly put his arm around the boy and gently pulled him close.

  “I shouldn’t have been up there,” Pierre cried. “I shouldn’t have been up there.”

  Lucien ran his hand through Pierre’s hair and patted his back. When Pierre pulled away, Lucien saw that he was ashamed of crying. The boy didn’t need unnecessary shame on top of everything else. Lucien walked over to get a package from the dining room table and handed it to Pierre.

  “I thought you should have a homecoming gift, Pierre.”

  The boy wiped his eyes with the sleeve of his sweater and eagerly unwrapped the package. He smiled when he found the set of Roman soldiers he’d seen in the store window on the rue du Roi-de-Sicile.

  37

  “And where are we going so damn early in the morning?” said Lucien, who was annoyed at Herzog for rousting him out of bed at seven in the morning.

  Herzog laughed. “To the Hotel Majestic, and I promise you a very large cup of café au lait as soon as we get there.”

  Lucien stiffened with fear. The Hotel Majestic was the headquarters of the German High Command in Paris. He had heard of people entering the palatial hotel and never being seen again. Looking down at the door handle of the German staff car, Lucien had a sudden urge to grab it, open the door, and leap out of the speeding Mercedes, but he stayed put. Herzog, who was next to him smoking a cigarette, was in a jolly mood, enjoying the ride through the sun-drenched streets of the city, pointing out buildings he especially liked. Lucien knew that the German loved Paris and would wander through the city for hours, admiring even the most commonplace sight. A street sweeper, an old woman selling lace in a market stall—they all fascinated him.

  “Are all Germans this cheerful at 7:00 a.m.?”

  “Hausen, are you cheerful so early in the morning?” Herzog asked his driver with great glee.

  “Hell, no, Major,” growled Hausen, who stepped on the accelerator and raced down the avenue.

  “Hausen is hung over. He was out late last night entertaining one of his many hussies, weren’t you, Corporal?”

  “I’m going to get me a hussy, and I ain’t going to be fussy,” sang Hausen in a cracked voice. “That’s my motto, Major.”

  “I bet you still haven’t made it to Notre Dame, Hausen.”

  “Not yet, but I’ll get there, I promise.”

  “I’m trying with little success to educate the corporal here. But he has been to every whorehouse in the city,” said Herzog, nudging Lucien with his elbow.

  “So why are you so damn cheerful this morning? Have you acquired another Dürer etching?”

  “Maybe you’d be in a cheerful mood if you were going to be promoted for meritorious achievement to the Reich.”

  “Really? Well, congratulations.”

  Lucien was genuinely happy for Herzog. A few months earlier, he would’ve felt ashamed and embarrassed for feeling this way about a German, but as his friendship and admiration for the engineer grew, he no longer minded. It was just his gray-green Wehrmacht uniform that was different, and Herzog only wore that when he was on duty. At other times, when Lucien visited him in his apartment, he dressed like a million other Frenchmen relaxing on their day off.

  He and the German could slip effortlessly into a discussion about art, architecture, women, the news of Paris, or any topic except the events of the war. Lucien suspected Herzog never talked about it because he didn’t want to offend him, and Lucien never raised the subject either. Over the years, Lucien had let his friends drift away until he had only a handful of professional acquaintances left, and since the defeat, even they had scattered. But he had never really had a close friend in his life. He looked forward to his meetings with Herzog, who often invited Lucien to his place. Lucien assumed Herzog understood that Lucien couldn’t invite him to his apartment because Celeste didn’t want the enemy in her home. When she left him, he didn’t tell Herzog. Partly because he was ashamed, but mainly because Pierre was living there now.

  “Still awfully early in the morning to be getting a promotion. You Teutons are all so efficient; is it to make sure you get the maximum use of every hour of the day?”

  “I’m not, but Herr Albert Speer is, and when the Fuehrer’s personal architect calls, I come at any hour.”

  “Speer himself is going to be there?”

  “The Reich’s minister of armaments and war production himself, in all his glory.”

  “I forgot that he’s the minister of armaments.”

  “When the first minister, Fritz Todt, died in that plane crash in February, the Fuehrer chose him to run the show, and he made a very, very wise choice. One of his very few wise choices. Speer’s a brilliant man.”

  “But as a designer, you think he’s quite retrograde,” said Lucien, with a sly smile.

  Herzog grinned and scratched his head. He tried to evade the question but couldn’t.

  “I remember how impressed I was with his Nuremburg parad
e grounds back in ’34. The buildings were all knockoffs of Greek architecture, but he used antiaircraft searchlights to create a kind of cathedral of light. There were 150 of them, all pointing straight up into the night sky. It was so breathtaking. Something like two hundred thousand people were there, surrounded by these towers of light.”

  “You were there?”

  “I saw it at the cinema. Triumph of the Will, by that woman director, Leni Riefenstahl, showed the whole thing.”

  “Didn’t he design the stadium in Berlin where they held the 1936 Olympics?”

  “No, Werner March did that. Speer did Hitler’s Reich Chancellery. It’s got a hall that’s twice as long as the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles. I’ve been there.”

  “Did you take a taxi to get from one end to the other?”

  “I should have. It felt like I was walking across Russia. Of course, there was his new capital, Welthauptstadt Germania, with a domed building that was going to be seventeen times larger than St. Peter’s.”

  Lucien roared with laughter.

  “And there was supposed to be an arch so goddamned big that the Arc de Triomphe could’ve fit inside its opening. Good thing the war came, and it didn’t get built. Speer and the Fuehrer had a little problem with scale.”

  “Christ, that’s for sure,” said Lucien.

  “But the Fuehrer loves his classical architecture. In fact, he wanted all his buildings built of granite so a thousand years from now there would be these impressive ruins, like the Acropolis in Athens. So people would remember the Reich as they did ancient Rome.”

  “You’ve got to hand it to Speer, though, he’s got the ultimate client.”

  “He was in the right place at the right time. Goebbels had hired him to renovate his Propaganda Ministry, so he recommended Speer to the Fuehrer. The two hit it off immediately—became soul mates. He basically had carte blanche as a designer. You do know the Fuehrer once wanted to be an architect?”

  “Yes, I knew that.”

  “Maybe he felt that he didn’t have the talent to be a painter, so he settled for being an architect, which didn’t require as much talent,” replied Herzog, grinning.

  “It’ll be a cold day in hell when a painter can do all the things an architect can do!” Lucien said. “Those lucky bastards can hide away in a garret and paint whatever they please.”

  Herzog couldn’t suppress his smile.

  “When you meet Reich Minister Speer, you can tell him yourself what jerks painters are. I’m sure he’ll agree with you.”

  “I’m going up with you?” Lucien was startled.

  “Why of course. I didn’t tell you that our minister of armaments has heard of your talent and the buildings you’ve designed? He wants to meet you.”

  Hausen sped down the empty streets. He turned onto a narrow street where up ahead on the left a black Mercedes was parked. Two men, obviously plainclothes Gestapo officers in their fedoras and long top coats, were coming out of a building, escorting a man and a woman wearing yellow felt stars. The woman was trying to comfort the crying toddler she was holding.

  “Slow down, Hausen.”

  Herzog rolled down his window and craned his neck to look as they passed by then twisted his body around to look out the back window. He stayed there until the car was out of sight.

  Herzog looked down at his lap and absentmindedly fiddled with his gray kid gloves.

  “Can you believe the army of Bismarck is reduced to doing that?” he muttered. “Makes me feel ashamed to be in uniform.”

  The German’s jovial mood had vanished, and the rest of the ride continued in silence.

  When they pulled up in front of the Majestic, Herzog took Lucien by the arm and led him through the grand entrance of the hotel. Inside the lobby, he growled a few words to a lieutenant, who immediately led them both to an elevator flanked by two well-armed soldiers.

  At the sixth floor, Lucien and Herzog were escorted to a set of double doors, which the officer opened without knocking. He announced the visitors and slipped away. A tall, imposing man with heavy, dark eyebrows came out from a room with his hand extended.

  “Colonel Herzog, it’s a pleasure to see you again.”

  Herzog bowed his head, clicked his heels, and shook his hand. “Reich Minister Speer, I’m honored to see you. May I introduce Lucien Bernard, an architect whom the Reich has employed?”

  “And with very good results. I saw your factory in Chaville yesterday, a most interesting and robust structure.”

  “You’re most kind, Reich Minister,” replied Lucien.

  “A wonderfully functional piece of work as all utilitarian architecture should be. Those concrete arches are quite beautiful.”

  Lucien smiled and nodded a silent thank you to Speer.

  They followed Speer into a suite of spacious rooms. Lucien, who had never been in the Majestic, was in awe of the opulent surroundings. Rolls of maps and drawings were scattered on tables and the sofas.

  “Have a seat, gentlemen. I have coffee and croissants ready for you,” said Speer, snapping his fingers. A soldier servant materialized out of nowhere.

  Lucien looked at Speer closely as the Reich Minister sipped his coffee and chatted with Herzog about what factories were most critical for armaments production in 1943 and how much they would cost. Speer didn’t look evil at all. He was an architect, a respectable-looking, professional man like himself. A man of great intelligence and charm who was responsible for the implementation of the death and destruction of tens of thousands of people in the past six months. He was a cold-blooded murderer, but he didn’t personally use a gun or a knife. Instead, he ordered others to use the weapons he planned and produced. And to what end? The pure evil of dominating other nations merely because the Nazis deemed them inferior?

  Lucien wondered why such an upstanding man like Speer would serve a madman like Hitler. Were there others like him? As intelligent and capable? If so, Germany would win the war. Lucien began to feel nauseous and wanted to get out of there.

  Speer rose to signal the meeting was over.

  “Monsieur Bernard is a most creative man. He takes his architecture very seriously,” said Herzog, gesturing toward Lucien.

  “We all do, Colonel,” replied Speer. “It is the most difficult of all the creative arts.”

  “Far more difficult than the painter’s craft, I think,” said Herzog.

  “Much more difficult than painting,” exclaimed Speer. “No comparison.”

  Herzog had a hard time holding back a smile.

  “Colonel, I want to congratulate you on your fine work in France. The facilities you have built are producing a great deal of war matériel for the Reich. We have plans for more plants, and I know you will continue to demonstrate your superior skills and planning. The Fuehrer is counting on you.”

  “I’m honored to serve the Fuehrer, Reich Minister.”

  “Did you tell Monsieur Bernard about the Fresnes facility?”

  “No, Reich Minister, I was waiting for final confirmation of the plan.”

  “Well, now you have it. This is a most important building for the Reich,” said Speer. “It will produce torpedoes for our U-boat fleet. This must be especially strong to withstand an Allied attack. They’ll do everything humanly possible to take it out. It’s absolutely critical to strengthen our submarine fleet. It must continue to destroy American ships. The Americans work day and night to produce armaments on a scale Germany can never approach. It seems never-ending.”

  Lucien looked down at the rug.

  “All Germans know the fine job you’re doing, Reich Minister,” said Herzog in a voice that seemed quite sincere to Lucien.

  “The politics, the Gauleiters, the party—you would think they would all work together to bring total victory to Germany. But they fight me and each other tooth and nail. Even the Fuehrer can’t help me,” said Speer in a tired voice. “The silliest things can hinder production. Like Germany’s view of women. In all other countries, women work in facto
ries making armaments, but not in Germany. Most women aren’t allowed to work in factories; it’s an affront to womanhood,” he said in disgust. “We have a new automatic assault weapon ready to go, but we can’t produce nearly enough of them, so the army still has to use a bolt-action rifle like it used in the first war.”

  “Thank you for meeting with me, Reich Minister. I will double my efforts, I can assure you,” said Herzog, shaking Speer’s hand.

  “I know you will. Good luck, my boy.”

  Lucien extended his hand.

  “Monsieur Bernard, I envy you. You’re a designer—I’m reduced to being a bureaucrat nowadays.”

  “It’s been a pleasure, Reich Minister.”

  “You’re very fortunate to live in such a wonderful city, monsieur. You know, the Fuehrer once said, ‘I’m ready to flatten Leningrad and Moscow without losing any peace of mind, but it would have pained me greatly if I’d had to destroy Paris.’”

  Speer walked them to the door of the suite. “The Fuehrer was never interested in any of the cities he defeated except for Paris. I was with him and his sculptor, Arno Breker, when he visited for a few hours in June 1940. We went to the Eiffel Tower and Napoleon’s Tomb,” said Speer with a smile. “He thought Vienna was the more beautiful city, but I don’t agree.”

  After opening the door for them, he placed his hand on Lucien’s shoulder.

  “You know, I once did a plan that would redesign Berlin with a five-kilometer-long avenue as a new axis, similar to your Champs-Élysées.”

  38

  Adele was just seconds from reaching an orgasm when she heard a loud knocking at the door of her flat.

  “Who the hell is that?” yelled Schlegal. With Adele astride him, he was also quite excited.

  “Keep going, keep going, just ignore it. Don’t stop, damn it,” Adele pleaded. But the knocking became louder and faster. Adele felt Schlegal deflate beneath her.

  “Goddamn it, I told you I only had half an hour before I had to get back,” said Schlegal, who grabbed Adele’s arm and tossed her off the bed as if she were a rag doll.