The Paris Architect: A Novel (31 page)

Lucien turned down the avenue Gabriel, then left on the rue Boissy d’Anglas and walked at a leisurely pace for another fifteen minutes. The streets were just crowded enough so that Alain could go unnoticed. If Lucien had gone down an alley devoid of people, Alain thought, tailing him would’ve been much more difficult. Alain had gone through Lucien’s desk and files almost every night looking for sketches of hiding places for Jews, but had come up empty. After the blunder with the fireplace detail, Lucien had become very cautious. Alain had wanted to go to his uncle and tell him about the fake drain in the cottage that the Gestapo had burned down, but he realized he had no proof that Lucien had designed the hiding place. He had to catch Lucien in the act, so he had to find a building where another Jew was hiding. If there was no paper trail, then it meant following him. But so far the tails had led nowhere.

A red-hot hatred of Lucien burned within him. He could’ve brushed off what happened in the storage room and all the other slights, but he just couldn’t. Daydreams passed through his mind that had Lucien being carted off by the Gestapo, never to be seen again, and Alain inheriting the firm by default. The Germans needed the drawings for the factories and would—through his uncle’s influence—ask him to take over. As for the matter of hiding Jews, Alain had never had any particular hatred of Jews. He had grown up with Jews in his neighborhood in Saint-Germain, and they’d always been friendly to him. When he’d denounced Monsieur Valery, who had also been very nice to him, he was just doing it to gain favor with his uncle.

Lucien stopped and looked into another shop window but then did something that aroused Alain’s suspicions. While he was examining the men’s suit in the display, his head shifted to the right then to the left to see if he was being followed. It was definitely a cautious gesture. Alain had hidden behind a column that flanked the entry of a building when Lucien had paused. Now he waited before going back onto the sidewalk; he had to be sure Lucien would not turn around again. Alain was certain that Lucien was going to a hiding place. He was beside himself with delight. He had to be close behind Lucien when he entered the building so he could creep up the stairs and spy on him.

He followed for several more blocks until Lucien came to a nondescript café on the rue de Duras and sat down at an outdoor table. Alain was brimming with impatience as Lucien called the waiter over and ordered. He waited in a doorway of a milliner shop across the street, smoking a cigarette. It was good that the shop was closed, and no one would shoo him away from the entrance. After Lucien was served a glass of wine, he asked the waiter a question and was directed to the interior of the café. Lucien rose from his seat and went inside. Alain guessed that he had to go the bathroom, but after ten minutes had passed, he became impatient and worried. Another ten minutes passed, and Alain knew what had happened. He ran across the street but approached the café entrance slowly. He didn’t want to run into Lucien if he came out.

Alain peered into the darkness of the café and entered cautiously. He stayed to the right of the inner door, hiding behind the door frame. A waiter came up to him, and Alain asked where the bathroom was. The waiter snapped at him, telling him that he had to order something in order to use the facilities. Alain ignored him and walked swiftly to the rear of the café. He slowly opened the door to the men’s room, half expecting to face Lucien, but it was empty. He checked all the stalls, and the window above the sink was closed. Outside the bathroom, he saw a doorway that led to a supply room with a rear door. Alain cursed under his breath as he opened it and saw a tiny courtyard that connected to a passageway. He followed it out onto a street. Looking up and down the street, he found no sign of Lucien.

He leaned against the wall of a building and lit a cigarette. He was positive that Lucien had not seen him. He must have used the café as a precaution to give anyone the slip. If he’d been in Lucien’s shoes, he would’ve done the same thing. He smiled to himself as he thought about it; it was a pretty clever maneuver. Alain liked this game of cat and mouse and looked forward to another opportunity to tail Lucien. As he puffed away on his cigarette, he noticed that he was on the rue des Saussaies, right across the street from Gestapo headquarters where his uncle worked. It was an ornate limestone affair with iron balconies and tall windows. He knew its elegant facade belied what actually went on inside. His uncle had once mentioned how he got his “guests” to cooperate. Alain tossed his cigarette butt away and started home. He was in no hurry so he stopped to look in a secondhand bookstore window and saw a volume on
moderne
architecture that looked interesting, so he went inside.

***

Pierre watched Alain from a doorway across the street. When he left the bookstore twenty minutes later, the boy followed him back to his home. Several weeks ago, he’d noticed Alain rifling through some papers on Lucien’s desk at the office. At first, this didn’t seem unusual; after all, Alain was Lucien’s right-hand man who took care of every detail of the buildings. This happened a few more times, but Pierre thought nothing of it.

But one afternoon when Alain ordered him to buy some tracing paper from the stationers, he went out the door but then came back to get a sample of the paper he’d forgotten to take with him. Because Alain constantly screamed at him for the tiniest mistakes, Pierre let himself back in very quietly. Inside the vestibule of the office, he heard a metallic scratching sound. Alain was working his penknife in the lock of Lucien’s desk drawer. As Pierre watched, he unlocked the drawer and went through the papers very carefully. This seemed odd, and so Pierre kept an eye on Alain from then on.

One morning when Lucien was out, and Pierre was back in the storage closet straightening up, he overheard Alain on the telephone asking to talk to a German officer. This sent a bolt of panic up his spine. Did Alain know about his fake identity? He was such a mean boy, perfectly capable of betraying him and Lucien. He knew Alain hated Lucien; he cursed him all the time when Lucien wasn’t around. And Alain certainly hated Pierre’s guts—he told him that almost every day. Pierre knew that it had been too good to be true that he had found Lucien to take care of him and more importantly treat him like a son. It would all be snatched away from him in an instant, just as he was starting to feel safe in his new life. Why would he be so lucky to get a new home when all his family had been killed? His first thought when he heard Alain on the telephone was to run away, but he had nowhere to go. And he couldn’t go to Lucien because he really had no proof of Alain’s treachery. He decided to stay calm and keep watch on Alain.

But after secretly listening to a few more telephone conversations in the following weeks, Pierre figured out that Alain was talking to a relative, an uncle, of whom he was very fond. He realized that this had nothing to do with revealing
his
secret identity. Although he’d moved into Lucien’s apartment, he knew that Alain probably continued to go through Lucien’s papers after hours. One day, on his way back to the office after running an errand, he saw Lucien leave the office. Then he saw Alain come out and start walking about twenty meters behind him. He acted like he didn’t want Lucien to spot him. Out of curiosity, he followed Alain and discovered that he was following Lucien. The three of them meandered through the streets of Paris with Alain trailing Lucien, and Pierre trailing Alain. Two more times, including today’s excursion, he followed Alain when he left right after Lucien did. Pierre was certain that Lucien had some sort of secret life that he didn’t want anyone else to know about. He could see that Alain was determined to find out what it was, which meant Lucien was in danger. And that meant he was also in danger.

On his way back home, Pierre took a detour to look at Madame Charpointier’s old house. He had visited it twice before, always hiding in a doorway down the street so none of the neighbors would see him and betray him to the Germans. He never figured out who betrayed them. Staring at the attic window where he’d watched Madame Charpointier get shot on the sidewalk that terrible day made him sick to his stomach. The image of her dropping to the ground would never go away. She had been his protector, and Pierre had been powerless to save her. The shame of sitting there and letting it happen haunted him every day. Pierre vowed that would never be repeated. He had to be a man now; that’s what his father had told him at his bar mitzvah.

51

“He thinks he’s hiding under the floorboards, Paulus.”

“Maybe he’s in that chandelier up there.”

“Could be. Or he could be hiding in the cushion I’m sitting on.”

Captain Bruckner and Lieutenant Paulus lounged lazily in the plush armchairs of a townhouse on rue de Bassano, where they’d been ordered to go by Colonel Schlegal. Luckily for them, their superior was off in the countryside with his French mistress, so they could deal with this matter without him breathing down their necks. One of Schlegal’s informants told him that a Jew was in this apartment. They had decided to study the problem by relaxing in the luxurious salon first.

“You’re not going to have me tapping on the walls, are you?” asked Paulus.

“Hell no. That Schlegal has a screw loose,” said Bruckner. “I’m not going through the same shit we did at that cottage in Epinay. I still can’t believe that. I ruined a uniform tearing through that place.”

“You think that’s bad? I stepped on a goddamn nail.”

“No, we’re going to find our Hebrew in a more logical manner.”

“Seems a shame to tear apart such a beautiful flat,” said Paulus as he gestured at the walls of the palatial apartment. It had incredibly ornate paneling divided by beautiful floor-to-ceiling pilasters that were covered in gilt. The wood floors were parquet and of a rich golden color that glowed in the midday sun. The ceilings were domed, with huge paintings of angels carrying off nymphs into the heavens.

“You know what we could do?” Paulus said with a great smile. “We rip the place apart a bit, then we pick up a Jew in the street, kill him, and say we found the bastard here. How would Schlegal know the difference?”

“Paulus, you’ll make captain yet,” said Bruckner, who was genuinely impressed with his subordinate.

“We’ll just tell him he was hiding in the back of a closet behind one of those fake walls we found a few weeks ago. And when we were taking him downstairs, he tried to make a break for it, and we let him have it.”

“Sounds completely plausible to me,” replied Bruckner.

“Don’t worry, I’ll make it very convincing. I was an attorney before the war,” boasted Paulus.

“No kidding, you were an attorney? I didn’t know that.”

“Just out of law school in ’39.”

“So why are you working for a nut like Schlegal?”

“I thought I’d take a break from the law, get some action under my belt.”

“And you wound up chasing Jews in Paris,” replied Bruckner with a laugh.

“Yeah, but better here than in Russia.”

“That’s for damn sure.”

“So what do you say? Do we follow my plan and be able to sit down to a fine lunch by two o’clock?” asked Paulus. He, like most German officers, loved French food. Meals were the highlight of their day, and they planned their menus with the same great care they would take in devising a strategy for a battle.

“I say we do it. But finding a Jew straight off the street’s going to be damn hard. They never go out anymore.”

“You’ve got a point there. Maybe if we have a couple men each take a block and just keep a lookout, we’ll get lucky. Say twenty men for ten blocks. We’re bound to find someone.”

Bruckner walked over to the sofa and stretched out, placing his shiny black boots on the burgundy cushions. He gazed up at the ornate ceiling, blowing smoke rings at it. Paulus got up from the armchair and started to examine some objects on the fireplace mantle.

“What an exquisite porcelain piece,” exclaimed Paulus, holding up a figurine of a deer. It was painted in beautiful earth tones, and the detailing was so precise one could see the whites of the animal’s eyes. “Such incredible workmanship.”

Bruckner nodded at his subordinate, keeping his opinion to himself. He couldn’t stand dust-gathering doodads like that; his wife had a million of them.

“My wife will love this,” said Paulus. He pulled out a handkerchief to wrap up the figurine and stuffed it in the side pocket of his tunic. “It’s too fragile to mail, so when I go home next month I’ll surprise her with it.”

“Well, let’s get to it,” said Bruckner. “Like you said, we should rough the place up a bit. Go out and get Krueger, will you?”

Paulus opened the double doors to the hallway and found Sergeant Krueger and four of his men lounging idly on the steps of the grand center stair.

“Krueger, get off your ass and come in here,” ordered Paulus.

Krueger slowly rose from the stair along with a sallow-faced soldier named Wolfe.

“Krueger, you lazy bastard, I want you and your men to pull apart these rooms like you were looking for someone,” said Bruckner.

“Sir?”

“You heard me, stupid; go through the closets and turn over all the beds,” said Bruckner.

“Yes, sir. At once,” shouted a confused Krueger, who in turn screamed at the top of his lungs at the men in the hall to come in.

“Wait a minute,” interjected Paulus, “have him fire some bursts in the walls here, just for special effect. That’ll impress the hell out of Schlegal.”

“Damn good idea, my boy. Krueger, spray the walls in here.”

Krueger unslung his MP-40 submachine gun from his shoulder and, walking around the perimeter of the great salon, blasted away at close range at all four walls, splintering the wide wood pilasters, puncturing the molded plaster panels with holes, and shattering the large gold-framed mirrors.

“All right, that’s enough. Just go through the rest of the rooms and tear them up, and no shooting, do you understand, Krueger?” said Bruckner.

“Yes, sir.”

Paulus and Bruckner waited in the hall until Krueger and his men were finished. They passed the time chatting about visiting the Louvre, the cognac they’d had at dinner last night, and how much more buxom German women were than French girls. Krueger finally came out, and together, they all descended the stair.