The Paris Architect: A Novel (22 page)

Lucien knew he couldn’t be that way and just stand by; he had to continue what he’d been doing. When he asked himself why he was risking his life, the answer wasn’t the cash, the factories, or the sheer thrill of the challenge. He was risking his life because it was the right thing to do. He had to go beyond himself and help these people. His father was probably looking up at him from Hell (certainly not Heaven), laughing and cursing at him, but he didn’t care.

Finally Lucien swallowed hard and spoke. “What is the business at hand, monsieur?”

“An emergency refuge is needed,” Manet said. “My guest won’t be here long.”

“Let me take a look around,” said Lucien. “I’ll figure out something for you.”

“The guest you’ll be helping has offered twenty thousand francs for your services,” said Manet as he walked through the first floor with Lucien.

“No.”

“How much more do you want then?”

“Nothing. No more money.”

Manet stopped and looked Lucien straight in his eyes. “Have you become a patriot, monsieur?”

Lucien laughed. “Not quite, but I can’t take the money.”

Manet put his hand on Lucien’s shoulder in his signature grandfatherly gesture. “A most noble sentiment, Lucien, but an incredibly stupid one. Twenty thousand francs is nothing for saving a life. And remember the risk you’re taking. Please, my friend, take the money.”

Lucien was surprised that Manet had such a cold, practical side to him. He wasn’t the Christian with the heart of gold he’d thought he was.

“No, monsieur, I can’t.”

“I’ll hold on to the money for you, how about that?”

“Shall we take our usual stroll?”

They went up to the second floor and then to the attic and returned to the first floor via a service stair.

“Does this stair go down to the basement?” asked Lucien.

“Yes, I believe it does. That’s where the kitchen is located.”

Lucien led the way down, and they found themselves in a very spacious kitchen with an enormous oven against the wall and a huge butcher block table in the center of the space. Pots and pans hung from a rack attached to the ceiling. A door at the rear of the kitchen led out to a garden. Lucien walked slowly around the room, peering into storage closets and cabinets. He put his hands in the pockets of his trousers and paced back and forth along the stone floor.

“That space under the platform where the bathtub sits could work. We could fashion a removable panel, and he could easily squeeze in under there,” said Lucien, though he wasn’t convinced this was the best solution. He continued to pace, staring at the floor and trying to think of a better hiding place. For each possible place, he forced himself to think of a dozen ways it could be discovered, because he was scared he’d screw up again and get someone killed.

His pacing brought him to a large floor drain about sixty centimeters square set in the stone floor of the kitchen. He knelt down to examine it. He pulled the grating up and discovered a hole that was a meter and a half deep and lined with lead sheet. A pipe was connected at the bottom to carry off the water.

“Here,” said Lucien, pointing to the drain.

Manet stooped down to take a closer look.

“We’ll hide him in here. It’s big enough for him to fit in. He can pull up the entire grating, get in, then put it back in place. A shallow metal pan will be connected to the underside of the grating, and we’ll fill it with water so it’ll look completely natural.”

The old feeling of excitement returned, which surprised Lucien. He thought it had been driven out of him by the Serraults’ death. The ingenuity of this idea started him on another high. He felt good about himself again and was smiling from ear to ear.

“That’s brilliant, but what about the pipe down there?”

“We’ll have to disconnect it. The drain is only used if the kitchen floor floods, so we don’t need it.” Lucien now began to think of the inhabitants of the spaces as real, breathing human beings and considered their comfort. Before they were just cargo. Instead of putting the imaginary person in to try out the space, he inserted himself to gauge its comfort. The drain was wide enough to fit an adult, but because of its depth, he would have to stoop or sit at the bottom.

“Have your men dig down deep to give him a little more room under the pan. Put some wood planks on the floor and a cushion.”

“What about a tunnel out into the garden? As a backup,” asked Manet.

“That’s a lot of work, and the sides and top of it have to be supported to prevent a cave-in. It has to extend way out in the garden so he can get out undetected.” Lucien knew Manet wanted a contingency plan after the fireplace mishap. It was a good idea.

“I can get it done in time.”

Lucien stood up and stared at the drain, thinking of every possible way it could fail. After a few minutes, he grinned at Manet. “Let’s do it.”

Manet patted him on the back “I’m glad you’re still on our side. With men like you in the fight, we’re sure to win.”

“Win? I don’t know if I believe that anymore.”

“The Germans seemed invincible, but their luck has turned,” said Manet with a smile. “The British stopped them at El Alamein in July, and the Allies will probably invade North Africa soon. Rommel and his troops will be driven out because they have no petrol for their tanks. They can be the best soldiers in the world, but it won’t matter if they don’t have fuel.”

“From your lips to God’s ears. Isn’t that what the Jews say?”

***

As the two men went out the front door, Alain crouched lower behind the hedge inside the stone wall that formed the perimeter of the yard. He had been able to creep up to the first-floor windows but hadn’t been able to overhear anything. He’d seen them go into the basement and stay there for a long time. It had been too risky to peek into the windows, so he stayed where he was and waited until they came out. After shaking hands, both men got into their cars and left. Alain came out from behind the hedge and went to the rear of the house, where the basement level led to the yard. He peered through the windows and surveyed the kitchen very carefully, but nothing unusual caught his eye. But considering the time they’d spent there, he guessed the kitchen had been the focus of their attention.

It was all still a puzzle to Alain—the mysterious fireplace detail, now the trip to this out-of-the-way cottage. He was angry with himself for not being able to piece things together. He needed something more to make sense of it all. When he got back to his car, a dark green Peugeot that his cousin had lent him, Alain sat on the hood and smoked a cigarette, mulling over every detail he’d seen.

34

“At least he doesn’t look Jewish,” muttered Lucien.

Father Jacques chuckled and got up from his chair. “No, he doesn’t, and that makes our task a bit easier, but still, we always have to be careful. Every day children are betrayed to the Gestapo.”

Lucien continued to stare at the boy sitting in a chair at the table in his office. A large green rucksack with a cat’s head sticking out of the top was set next to him on the floor.

“He seems a well-mannered kid. How old is he again?”

“Twelve. Pierre is a good child. From a very scholarly family. His father was a chemistry professor at the University of Paris before the Germans banned Jews from holding teaching positions. His mother was also a scholar. They were rounded up and taken to Drancy and never heard from again. Probably sent east to work in the labor camps. It’s the same with all the Jews—deported, and the poor devils vanish from the face of the earth.”

“It’s just him?”

“His sister and brothers were betrayed last month and taken away by the Gestapo. And his benefactor, a seventy-year-old woman, was executed.”

Lucien turned and looked at the old priest. Father Jacques bit his lip as if he realized that he should have left out that last detail.

“And what makes you think I’d hide a Jew?” Lucien said.

“Monsieur Manet vouched for you.”

“He did, eh?”

“I know it’s a big decision. But you’d be surprised, Monsieur Lucien, how many gentiles have taken in children. Most Frenchmen don’t give a damn about deporting adult Jews, but the idea of the Germans rounding up children disgusts them.”

“Is that a fact?”

“It would just be a temporary situation until I can arrange passage across the Pyrenees and into Spain.”

“Just how temporary do you mean, Father?”

“A month at the most.”

“Christ, I thought you meant a couple of weeks. And I bet the cat comes with him.”

“It does indeed, monsieur. He loves that cat.”

“Who knows you brought him here?”

“Just Monsieur Manet.”

“So is Pierre Gau his fake name or his real name?” asked Lucien with considerable irritation.

“It is his new identity. He has all the papers to prove it—false identity papers and a false baptismal certificate.”

“And why can’t you keep him at your youth center in Montparnasse?”

“The French police are getting suspicious. Two weeks ago, they staged a sudden raid but found nothing. Out of respect, they didn’t ransack the house. But if the Gestapo comes, it’ll be a much different story. They’ll rip the place to pieces.”

“How the hell will I explain him being here? I have an employee, and from time to time, Germans visit the office.”

“Other families make up a story. He could be the son of a friend killed during the war, or a relative from the south who lost his family.”

“Who’s going to believe a load of bullshit like that?” replied Lucien, not caring that he cursed in front of a priest.

“You can say he’s a war orphan temporarily placed in your care by the Church. In a way, that is the truth. I’m sorry, but I wouldn’t have come to you unless you were my last hope. I’m desperate, monsieur.”

Lucien was annoyed that Manet was taking advantage of him. Maybe when he’d refused the money the last time, Manet felt that Lucien now qualified as a true Christian and would take such a risk. And it was a
big
risk. Working anonymously to hide Jews was one thing. There was a buffer that protected him. And it wouldn’t just be him in danger. If a Jew was found in an apartment house, every single soul who lived there would be arrested and deported, no questions asked. Last month, a woman in a building discovered a Jew was hiding in an apartment next door to hers, and she started screaming her head off up and down the corridors, warning the other tenants. They’d beaten down the door and turned the Jew in to the Gestapo. They didn’t want to die.

Lucien walked over to the boy to get a closer look. He was a good-looking kid with thick, dark brown hair and eyebrows and as scrawny as all the other famished children in Paris. For parents, that was the most heartbreaking thing about the Occupation—to see their kids go hungry. Mothers spent hours queuing and scrounging food for their kids. Pierre was now looking intently at Lucien’s old architectural magazines, stopping at certain photos to get a closer look. Lucien watched him for another minute or two as the boy paused to gaze at a picture of a department store.

“How do you do, Monsieur Pierre? My name is Lucien.”

The boy rose from his seat and shook his hand firmly. “Pierre Gau, monsieur.”

Good
manners
, Lucien immediately thought,
very
well
brought
up. You have to hand it to the Jews on that count. You never hear of bands of Jewish juvenile delinquents raising hell in Paris.

“I see that you’re interested in architecture.”

“How did they make the curve at the corner of this building, monsieur?” asked Pierre, pointing to a photo of a train station in the magazine.

“It’s done in concrete. You can make curves out of wooden forms, then pour in the concrete. You can make any shape you want.”

“Like this roof of an airplane hangar?” the boy asked, holding up another photo.

“Yes, concrete’s especially good for hangars,” Lucien said. “So what’s your cat’s name?”

“Misha.”

Lucien rubbed its head, and it started purring as if there were a little motor inside its throat. Lucien had loved cats as a boy. His family had always had one or two as pets. He’d liked getting up in the morning and finding them snuggled against him fast asleep. But after marrying Celeste, he’d discovered she was allergic to them so no more cats. It was nice to see a cat in the office; it gave the place a real homey touch.

“How did they fit such a big piece of glass here?” asked the boy, pointing to the front of an office building that had a store on the first floor.

“They made a beam of concrete above it and put the glass sheet in below.” The boy continued to flip through the magazines and said nothing more. This kid was beginning to grow on him.

Lucien continued to observe the boy. For a child who had had everything near and dear to him—mother, father, brothers, and sister—wiped out of his life, he seemed pretty tough and mature for his age. That was because this kid had had to grow up in a real hurry. Lucien wondered how he, as a twelve-year-old, would’ve reacted to such tragedy. Brave like this child, or a whimpering mess? Because Lucien imagined the latter, he admired the kid. This boy needed somebody to look after him.

He felt as if he was in one of those dumb-ass American movies he’d seen. A character would be in a quandary over what to do. A miniature angel wearing wings and a halo appeared on one shoulder telling him to do what’s right, and a devil with a pitchfork was on the other shoulder advising him not to. Sometimes the devil and the angel would argue with each other, and because of America’s morality code, the angel would win out even though the devil could easily kill the angel with his pitchfork. Pierre kept leafing through the magazines, and Lucien walked slowly back to Father Jacques.

The priest placed his hand on Lucien’s shoulder.

“Monsieur Manet knew I was desperate, and he said you are a good Christian.”

“A Christian? I don’t even want to tell you how long it’s been since I attended mass. You’d throw up.” Lucien would never admit to the priest that he was an atheist. In Catholic France, that was worse than admitting one was a rapist.