The Paris Architect: A Novel (19 page)

“Monsieur, madame, we’re here,” Manet shouted.

“Please hold on; we’ll have you out in just a second,” said Lucien.

With great difficulty, Lucien and Manet pulled out the two limp bodies by their legs—a very tiny woman in her seventies and an old man Lucien recognized as the Jew he had met in the apartment. Both were dead. To his horror, Lucien saw that both had handkerchiefs stuffed in their mouths. Manet stood motionless above the bodies, but Lucien was dumbstruck at the terrible sight.

“Christ, this can’t be,” Lucien insisted. “Look, this pipe at the bottom here sucked out any smoke directly to the outside.”

Imbedded in the lower half of the back wall of the hiding place was a sheet metal sleeve six centimeters in diameter.

“I’m telling you, the natural draft sucked out the smoke. Hot air will always travel in the direction of cold air. Look.” Lucien stuck his arm into the sleeve but ran into something hard and rough.

“What the hell?” Lucien kept hitting the mass with his fist. Manet pulled Lucien’s arm out, took out his cigarette lighter, and peered inside.

“It’s a bird’s nest. It’s completely blocking the opening,” Manet said.

Lucien looked and, to his astonishment, saw a tight ball of twigs and shreds of cloth mixed with mud clogging the far end of the sleeve. It reminded him of gray papier-mâché.

“A fuckin’ bird’s nest,” said Lucien. “I didn’t even think of that when I put in the sleeve. If I’d just thought to put in a little piece of wire mesh at the end…Christ, I’m such an idiot. I killed them. All because of a goddamn bird’s nest.”

Lucien staggered out from the fireplace opening and stretched his arms out to brace himself against the mantle.

“I should have thought of that. Goddamn it, I should have thought of that.”

He turned his head to look down at the dead couple. Suddenly, he collapsed to his knees next to the old lady. Without thinking, he reached out and caressed her soft white hair. Even in old age, she was still uncommonly pretty. He pulled the handkerchief out of her mouth and began to stroke her cheek. Lucien continued to do this for almost two minutes before Manet put his hand on his shoulder, but he did not seem to notice. Manet shook him roughly, and Lucien finally stopped.

“I must make a call to take care of this,” said Manet.

Lucien began to sob, his body shaking. “Christ, what have I done?”

“It was Lieber who killed them, Lucien.”

“No,” said Lucien, looking up at Manet. “I killed them.”

“Please don’t do this to yourself. It was a cruel accident. God’s will.”

“Fuck God,” Lucien shouted as he pulled the handkerchief from the old man’s mouth and held it with both his hands.

“Come, Lucien, you have to get out of here,” Manet said. “I’ll take care of it. Please go home.”

“What were their names?”

“I don’t know if that’s the best—”

“Goddamn it, what were their names?”

“Albert and Sophie Serrault.”

“Who were they? Were they friends of yours?” Lucien shouted. “Tell me, goddamn it.”

“Yes, I knew them. He came from Nimes as a kid to start his own construction firm.”

“And?”

“The usual story with these people. He works like a dog and becomes a success. At the turn of the century, he was smart enough to realize that reinforced concrete was the new thing, so he specialized in that and made a fortune.”

“France was the world leader in reinforced concrete, did you know that?” asked Lucien with pride in his voice.

“I heard he was a war hero. Could’ve sat out the Great War, but he fought and was decorated for gallantry many times. Foch and Clemenceau personally pinned medals on him.”

“He told me he was in the war.”

Manet was puzzled. “You met this man? When?”

“When I came back to take some measurements. He was in the apartment. Told me he should’ve left France. He didn’t believe what would happen to him.”

“All the old couples, they get their children out, but they wind up staying. It’s like they’re tired of running. It makes sense in a way; these people have been running for two thousand years.”

“Look how pretty she still is. You can tell how beautiful she once was.” Lucien started to sob and bent down to kiss her cheek. Manet made no effort to stop him. “I bet they were married a long time. Happily married.”

“It’s time to leave, Lucien,” said Manet, gently placing his hand under Lucien’s right arm to bring him to his feet.

“They saved our lives, you know that? If Lieber had discovered them, you and I would be on our way to Drancy. That is, if we hadn’t been executed first,” said Lucien, looking straight into Manet’s eyes.

“Yes, I know that only too well.”

“Serrault told me an odd thing. He said I was a righteous man for what I was doing. I told him that was nonsense.”

Manet looked down at Serrault’s body and smiled.

“He was a shrewd judge of character.”

Lucien was in a trance as Manet ushered him to the door. When he found himself outside in the cool night air, he couldn’t remember going down the lift. It was well after the curfew and the streets were completely empty. Lucien leaned against the base of the building and looked up and down the rue du Renard for German patrols. He heard no sounds of marching Germans in the distance, so he began walking blindly down the rue du Renard until he came to the quai de Gesvres and almost tumbled down the steps to the Seine. Both the quai and the river were deserted. He knelt by the edge of the Seine and threw up, then sat against the quai wall in the shadows, staring into space. Throughout the night, his emotions swung wildly from unrelenting guilt to blind rage at the Germans. Even if the Jews were the worst of what people called them, they were human beings and shouldn’t end up like that. No one should die like that. A German patrol of five men with machine guns slung over their shoulders passed only five meters away from Lucien, never noticing him against the wall. He stayed there until daybreak, clutching the handkerchief he’d taken from Serrault’s mouth. Instead of tossing it in the Seine, he kept it in the side pocket of his suit jacket and walked home.

***

For the next week, Lucien could think of nothing but the dead faces of the Serraults, with the handkerchiefs in their mouths. Nothing he did would purge the image from his mind. No hour passed when he did not think of them. His remorse was unending. The couple even invaded his dreams. Every night, the Serraults joined other images from his life to form a surreal film that ran in his mind. In one dream, he was back in his childhood bedroom where he kept his trunk at the foot of the bed, and when he opened it up the Serraults were inside, at the bottom, eating at a dining room table like little doll figures, with hundreds of tiny birds flying around them. He shouted at them, but they ignored him. In another dream, he was in a car he didn’t recognize. The Serraults were driving through a landscape that resembled North Africa with him, his father, and Celeste, who was holding a dead rabbit in the backseat. Throughout the ride, his father was screaming something in his ear.

Lucien would toss and turn violently, waking up in a cold sweat, then get up and pace throughout his apartment in the middle of the night, chain smoking away. Even his architecture, which was his whole world, seemed unimportant to him, and he didn’t go near his drawing board. He pushed all the work onto Alain and rarely set foot in the office. He couldn’t bear being at home so he spent his days walking the streets or sitting by the Seine. Going to the cinema was of no use; he could never keep his mind on the film. And he hadn’t had the courage to face Manet since that terrible night. He took the handkerchief with him everywhere and touched it whenever the image of the Serraults came to mind, as if he were rubbing salt in a wound to punish himself for his hubris.

29

The old stone cottage with the dilapidated barn next to it looked very familiar to Lucien as he steered the Citroën down the winding road. So did the little inn coming up on the right. Lucien knew he’d been this way before but couldn’t remember when. It was hard to think with Adele talking nonstop. She hadn’t shut up since they’d left Paris. As he’d predicted, she was thrilled to see the car outside her window. In just seconds, she was downstairs and in the passenger’s seat, giving him directions where to go. Lucien had planned a romantic afternoon in Saint-Denis, but Adele insisted on going southwest of Paris in the opposite direction. All she would reveal was that she had a new weekend retreat to show him. With a navigator’s instincts, she issued directions as they roared down the country roads.

“Make a right here, my love,” she ordered. “About five more minutes. You’re going to be quite impressed with your little Adele’s new house.”

Lucien didn’t catch the last remark because his attention was focused on the rundown feed store on his left. Where had he seen it before?

“The house came completely furnished with everything, including sheets, if you can believe it. I’ve already had a party there. It was incredible,” gushed Adele.

“And you didn’t invite me?” Lucien asked, genuinely disappointed.

Adele instantly realized her faux pas and backpedaled. “Oh, they were just fashion people. Total bores, my love. You’ll be coming out quite often—you’ll see. And it’ll be for a party of
two
,” she said, rubbing her hand on the inside of Lucien’s thigh.

Lucien was quite aroused by this gesture of affection. He was now glad that he’d worked his way out of his depression and had called Adele up to surprise her with his new car. It would do him good to get out and have some fun and sex. Lucien’s good mood vanished when he looked up and saw a grand stone and wrought-iron gate just ahead. Sheer panic gripped him, as if someone were throttling him by the neck.

“Here we are!” Adele exclaimed. “Isn’t it magnificent? I bet you thought it was going to be some puny little cottage. Now be honest, didn’t you think so?”

Lucien stopped the car just past the gate and stared in disbelief at the house before him. This was the hunting lodge in Le Chesnay—with his secret staircase. It all made sense now. No wonder so many things looked so familiar. He
had
been this way before. Twice in the middle of the night, but he still remembered some landmarks along the way. His first instinct was to turn the car around and speed off. A voice in his brain shouted, “Don’t panic, don’t panic,” and another kept saying, “Run like hell.”

Forcing a smile on his face, he turned to Adele. “It’s magnificent, my sweet.”

To Adele, Lucien’s expression of utter disbelief meant abject admiration, and she was beside herself with pride and joy. Bouncing up and down in her seat, she gave him a hug.

“Let’s go, I want to show you the inside.”

“Of course…” Lucien replied weakly. Adele yanked him out of the car by the sleeve of his suit jacket and led him toward the great house and pushed him through the front door, which was unlocked.

“So what do you think?”

“It’s just…incredible,” replied Lucien, wondering if anything worse could happen to top this catastrophe.

Taking him by the hand, Adele led Lucien through the first floor and then the second, showing him every room he’d seen before. She saved the master bedroom until last.

“And this, my pet, is where we’ll take a slight detour,” said Adele, shifting her eyes toward the great bed. “But before the afternoon’s festivities commence, let me show you something quite peculiar that I discovered—quite by chance.”

Lucien had tried with all his might to avoid looking at the little staircase to the study. Now, to his horror, Adele grabbed his hand and dragged him toward it. He resisted like a child being led to the sink to get his mouth washed out with soap.

“Lift up on the first step and see what happens,” said Adele.

Lucien stared at the staircase, silently asking himself why life kept singling him out for such punishment like this. First, the fireplace disaster a few weeks ago, which had devastated him, now this. He stooped down and did what Adele asked. With great effort, he lifted the stair up to reveal the mattress.

“What do you make of all this?” Adele said. “I thought you might know of somebody who could’ve built something like this.”

Lucien let the stair come down with a crash, giving Adele a start.

“Why are you so curious…about this?”

Adele paused for a second or two. “I just thought it was an ingenious hiding place and was impressed by it, that’s all.”

“It is…quite clever, but I can’t imagine who built it. Maybe it’s been here since the house was built. Or maybe it was put here during the Revolution.”

“I don’t think so. The hinges and bolt are quite modern, see for yourself.”

“And how did you happen to discover this thing?” Lucien asked.

“A servant was cleaning the carpet and found it.”

“I see,” said Lucien, then walked over to the bed and sat down.

“And how did you come to possess this modest little cottage? It seems a bit out of your price range.”

Adele unbuttoned the side of her black skirt, let it drop to the floor, and pulled off her beige sweater.

“Silly man. One of my clients acquired it and is letting me use it for the rest of the year—completely rent-free. Wasn’t that gracious of him?”

“Must be a very special client to be so generous. Do I know him?”

“Oh goodness, no. Just one of those old fools in the clothing business.”

Knowing the brief history of this house, Lucien had a suspicion that her client wore a gray-green uniform. He knew he probably wasn’t Adele’s only lover. She was greedy and opportunistic, willing to use anyone to get ahead. He was intrigued by that mercenary side of her. But if she was literally in the enemy’s bed, she was not only a traitor, but also a direct danger to him.

She took off her brassiere, then pushed Lucien down on the bed. Lucien couldn’t help looking at the stair the whole time they were making love. But in an odd way, he thought, maybe this was a good thing. This cruel coincidence actually took his mind off the Serraults. It was a case of one horrible thing replacing another. At least he wouldn’t think of them every waking hour of the day. Now he’d be forced to face his worst nightmare: could the secret stair be traced back to him? Who else knew about it?