The Paris Architect: A Novel (23 page)

Father Jacques’s smile disappeared and his grip tightened like a vise. “Listen, asshole. Is it yes or no? Will you do it or not? I haven’t got all day.”

Lucien was surprised to hear such words coming from a priest. But he then smiled. He liked that Father Jacques had balls. Lucien’s father had told him that priests were spineless eunuchs.

Lucien looked back at the boy and then down at the floor. The devil sitting on his shoulder—his father—would not win this one. To hell with him.

“A month, right?

Father Jacques’s fatherly smile returned, and he shook Lucien’s hand.

“I have a storage room in the back of the office, nothing fancy. I’ll say I’ve brought him on to be an apprentice. Maybe he’ll learn something if he’s such a smart Jew.”

“Remember, just say he’s a war orphan and that you knew his family,” advised Father Jacques.

“What about feeding him? That’s going to be a problem.”

“Don’t worry. His ration card is still valid,” said Father Jacques. “It’s a sin how the little ones go without food. Last week at the school, the children were asked to write an essay on what one wish they’d want a fairy to grant. A seven-year-old girl named Danielle just wrote, ‘Never ever be hungry.’”

“I don’t know a damn thing about kids, but I guess I’ll learn on the job. You know, we’ll both be tortured to death for this,” said Lucien with a smile. “We’ll ask ourselves why we did such a foolish thing.”

“I remember when Monsignor Theas, the archbishop of Montauban, issued a pastoral letter after the deportation of Jews began in ’42. It said that what Vichy and the Germans were doing was an affront to human dignity and a violation of the most sacred rights of the individual and the family. It’s not a foolish thing, monsieur.”

“So will doing this make up for all the Sunday masses I’ve missed since 1930?”

“Don’t push it, my son.”

35

“Lieutenant Voss, could you jog Monsieur Triolet’s memory?”

Voss was more than happy to oblige Colonel Schlegal, who was growing very irritated with Triolet. After an hour of pummeling his face and body, the frog bastard still wouldn’t cooperate. Voss had been ordered all the way out to a hunting lodge in Le Chesnay and wanted to get this over with and get back to Paris.

Schlegal motioned toward the secret stair, and Voss immediately knew what he meant. He yanked Triolet from the chair by his collar and dragged him to the foot of the stair. Captain Wolf, an officer who was standing nearby, also knew what was to be done. He lifted the very heavy hinged stair, Voss placed Triolet’s arm under the edge, then Wolf dropped the stair.

The cracking sound it made when it landed on the Frenchman’s arm reminded Schlegal of snapping chicken drumsticks during Sunday dinner when he was a kid. It always made his brothers laugh like crazy but caused his father to scream at him at the top of his lungs.

After the echo of Triolet’s scream faded, Schlegal walked over to him and gently kicked him in the ribs.

“Come, Monsieur Triolet, I’ve got a luncheon date with an extremely beautiful woman in an hour, can’t we wrap this matter up? You don’t want me to a keep a lady waiting. That wouldn’t be gentlemanly at all, would it?”

Triolet just groaned. For a second the Gestapo officers thought he was dying. But they were experts in this field and knew from vast experience how far to go before killing a guest of the Reich. They all looked at each other with exasperated expressions. Voss grabbed Triolet’s legs and turned him around so Wolf could drop the stair on his legs. This time, an incredibly ear-piercing scream came out of the little Frenchman with the elegant waxed mustache. Voss smiled from ear to ear; maybe they were finally making some progress with this stubborn fellow.

Schlegal kicked him again, but this time not so gently.

“Please don’t make me late for my engagement,” he said. “This young lady is especially dear to me. She’d be so disappointed in me. Come on, you French are experts in romance. You know that wouldn’t do.”

With a surprising burst of energy, Triolet tried to raise himself on his elbows but quickly collapsed, the side of his face smashing to the floor.

“Why don’t we try the neck region this time, Lieutenant Voss?” Schlegal said.

Wolf raised the stair and Voss grabbed his legs. Triolet roared in pain. His head was now positioned at the foot of the stair, and Wolf was waiting for the word to let go.

“At the count of three,” said Schlegal in a detached tone of voice. “One…two…”

“All right,” groaned Triolet.

“So, the question was…who do you think could build such a stair? Come on, monsieur, you’ve been a building contractor for forty years in Paris. You know everyone in the building trades. Give me a name.”

Triolet muttered something that Schlegal couldn’t make out.

“I didn’t hear that, Monsieur Triolet.”

“There’s a cabinetmaker in the eleventh arrondissement…who could do something like this.”

“His name please, monsieur.”

There was a long pause. Schlegal was used to this phase of interrogation. The pause of conscience. His guest was now debating whether to give in to stop the horrible pain or take the high-minded road and say nothing. When the threat of horrible physical pain confronted one’s moral conscience, it was Schlegal’s experience that pain always won out. With some, the pause was longer, but in the end, most talked if they knew something. Monsieur Triolet was ready to talk.

“His name is Louis Ledoyen.”

“Thank you. Now that wasn’t so hard, was it?” said Schlegal. “You have the honor of helping the Reich. No shame in that.”

Triolet mumbled something, then passed out from the pain. Voss gave him a kick, but he lay motionless. Schlegal looked down at the Frenchman.

“Take him back to the city and hold him until we track down this cabinetmaker. If it turns out he gave us a fake name, finish him,” said Schlegal. “Sooner or later, we’ll find out who’s behind this hiding place. When we do, gentlemen, I bet we’ll find many more of these ingenious devices.”

Voss went to the hallway and shouted orders at two waiting soldiers, who came in and dragged Triolet away.

“Wipe that blood off the floor,” ordered Schlegal. “This is someone’s home, you know. I don’t want to leave it a mess.”

Voss and Wolf escorted their superior down the grand staircase and out to his black staff car, parked in the circular drive. Schlegal had been preoccupied by the discovery of the stair, and he had ordered his staff to round up everyone connected to the Paris building industry. But each time, the Gestapo came up empty. Informants could tell them nothing, and the most ferocious torture produced no results. This was a very secret operation with only a handful of Frenchmen involved. He knew it didn’t involve the Resistance. None of his people on the inside knew anything about it. Schlegal had found plenty of Jews hiding throughout Paris, but not in such a tricky place. It still gnawed at him that the Jews had fooled him. What angered him even more was that gentiles must be helping them. When he got his hands on them, they would pay dearly.

A dark blue Renault was parked farther down the drive, and a short, barrel-chested man in his late fifties was leaning against it smoking a cigarette. Schlegal saw him and nodded, letting the man know it was all right to approach him.

“Any news, Messier?”

“Nothing yet, Colonel, but I’ll find out something.”

Messier was a gangster the Gestapo used to hunt down Jews for a bounty. With a gang of about twenty petty criminals, he had a unique knack for rooting out Jews and Resistance men in Paris and the surrounding suburbs, like a pig sniffing out truffles. It bothered Schlegal that he had to use such scum of the earth, but they were very effective, especially as informants. Messier had provided lots of valuable information that had led to many arrests. All they wanted in return was a cash bounty and the opportunity to loot the apartments and country houses of Jews and other enemies of the Reich.

Although Germany counted on the treasure of the Jews to enrich its war chest, it allowed men like Messier to share the wealth. Messier was said to have raided a house in the sixth arrondissement and stolen two million francs worth of jewels. Schlegal was surprised to find out that Messier was a former policeman who had been forced to resign because of extortion before the war. But it was his policeman’s instincts that made him so good, plus he employed other disgraced gendarmes to help him. This came in handy for Messier’s additional line of work—impersonating German policemen to rob people or extract bribes from people involved in the black market. The underground economy had blurred the lines between respectable and non-respectable Parisians, making it easy to use blackmail. Schlegal heard that Messier had even extorted money from a priest who was dealing in black-market butter. The Gestapo never asked questions unless it seemed as if they were getting cut out of the loot.

“Keep looking. Someone is building these hiding places all over Paris. Sooner or later, he’ll slip up,” said Schlegal. “And what about our friend Janusky? We’ve placed the
highest
priority on this man’s capture. It’s not only his fortune and that art collection everyone raves about, he’s a political enemy as well.”

“He’s one slippery Hebrew, I’ll give him that. He was at a place on the rue Saint-Hubert for a few weeks, then lit out in a hurry.”

“How do you know someone inside your outfit isn’t tipping him off? The garbage you use would sell out their grandmothers for a franc. This Jew’s rich as Croesus.”

Messier burst out laughing. “You’re absolutely right, Colonel; anyone can sell out anybody.”

“Just make sure you don’t sell me out.”

36

“And this will be your room. There’s an armoire over there in the corner, and this will be your own desk.”

Pierre sat down on the bed and ran his hand over the embroidered bedspread.

“I used to have a blue bedspread.”

Lucien was pleased that the boy was happy with his new room. He had had the spare room cleaned from top to bottom and had bought a secondhand rug for the wooden floor. Now that he was sure Celeste would not return (he had no idea where she went), it made sense that Pierre move into his apartment. It had been almost two weeks since Father Jacques brought the boy to his office, and making him live in the office seemed cruel—such a good kid deserved better than that.

Lucien had wanted this to be a special day for the boy, so on the way from the office to his new home, they’d gone to the cinema. A depressing German newsreel extolled the virtues of the Fatherland and showed pictures of its defeated subjects, all smiling and laughing, thoroughly happy to be slaves of the Nazis. It was such laughable propaganda that if Lucien had been by himself, he would’ve walked right out. But a cartoon followed the newsreel. Now that America was in the war, Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny had been banned from French theaters, so German cartoons filled the void. Even though it was German, the cartoon’s plot about a duck outsmarting a hunter was pretty funny. This surprised Lucien. The Germans he dealt with didn’t seem to have much of a sense of humor. At each act of cartoon violence, the audience convulsed with laughter. When Lucien looked to his right at Pierre’s profile in the dark of the theater, the light from the screen illuminated the boy’s face, and Lucien could see him laughing away. Lucien found himself quite pleased by this sight and kept looking over at the boy, completely ignoring the cartoon. During the feature, a second-rate French production about a bank robbery, Lucien continued to watch Pierre enjoying the film. Not once did the boy take his eyes off the screen.

After the cinema, they took a velo-taxi to Le Chat Roux, where they could get all the hot food they wanted—for a steep price, of course. But Lucien enjoyed himself immensely watching Pierre wolf down potatoes, rabbit, fresh bread, and an éclair.

Even though Pierre wouldn’t be staying long, a boy his age needed a room of his own. He remembered how important his room in the apartment on the rue de Passy had been to him when he was growing up. Lucien had craved privacy, and the room became his inner sanctum, a place all his own where he could escape. He’d shut the door to get away from his father and his brother’s unmerciful teasing. Lucien would sit for hours reading and drawing or listening to all the great programs and music on the radio, stuffing himself with the candy and treats he’d bought at the newsstands and cafés.

He’d open the tall windows and watch the world go by—the hundreds of people who walked the stone pavements every hour, the cars, of which he knew every make, and the loaded wagons pulled by tired old horses. He’d loved to stare into the windows of the apartments directly opposite his, hoping to spot some dramatic event, like a murder or a robbery or a woman undressing, but he never did. Important milestones in his life had taken place there: learning to smoke, losing his virginity. When he was sixteen and his family had left for a weekend trip to Poissy, he’d brought Anne Laffront to his room for his first affair. He could still remember every detail and how much fun they had had that summer, until she dumped him. All through architecture school, he lived there doing his projects and studying. Lucien wanted Pierre to have the same special attachment to his own room.

Lucien knew he couldn’t replace the father Pierre had lost, but he could give the boy at least the semblance of a real home. Besides, Lucien might enjoy the company, even though Pierre seemed to be a loner and rarely spoke.

“Now, let’s talk about food,” said Lucien who sat down next to Pierre. He wasn’t on such familiar terms with the boy yet that he could put his hand on his shoulder. “I can’t cook worth a damn.”

This was true. Now with Celeste gone, he had to make his own meals, and he was indeed a terrible cook. Lucien had also realized that he had to go out and buy the food, which meant standing in long queues with women, something that Celeste had always done. In Paris, the lines formed as early as 3:00 a.m. and snaked around the block from a shop, moving forward inch by inch. Often, when one’s turn finally came, the shelves were empty. He was so embarrassed to do this that he paid a woman on his street four francs an hour to queue up and shop for him.