The Paris Architect: A Novel

But then she felt a small movement within her, then another. Juliette ran her hand all over her bare belly. What the hell was she thinking of? There’s a scientist inside me, thought Juliette, who’ll need my help and guidance. Her joy in giving the kid its first microscope. Seeing her child graduate with honors. And forty-some years from now, she could be in Stockholm to see Marie or Pierre win a Nobel Prize. There were so many good things to come. She smiled and decided that she’d be damned if she’d give herself and her child up to these bastards. Juliette had no intention of dying.

Then Juliette realized that all the noise around her had suddenly ceased. She raised her head and stared at the bottom of the drain pan as if she could see through it into the kitchen. The silence continued for fifteen minutes, and it seemed the Germans had given up. She’d still wait an hour before getting out of the hiding place as Manet had told her. Then in an instant, her nose detected the ever-so-faint smell of smoke. Quickly, the smell became stronger. Immediately, she contorted her body to go head first into the tunnel opening at the bottom of the hiding place. Only a half meter square, Juliette and her rucksack barely fit in it. Trying to keep her belly off the damp dirt floor, she squirmed and clawed in total darkness like a crazed mole through the twenty meters of tunnel. An incredible energy propelled her through the tunnel like a shot. The black earth caked her clothes and hands. She worried that any second the tunnel would cave in on her, burying her alive; she’d be just minutes from safety when everything came down on her. But as she crawled along, she saw that it was a well-built passage with planks supporting its sides and ceiling. She smiled when she literally saw the light at the end of the tunnel, but as she got closer, she wondered if the Germans were waiting for her. Would the hail of bullets kill her outright, or would she suffer a slow, agonizing death?

***

In the morning, smoke still rose from the ruins as Schlegal’s men poked through the debris. When Schlegal arrived two hours later, Bruckner reported that no bodies had been discovered. Schlegal immediately ordered the men away and walked through the wreckage by himself. He half expected to find a charred body but found nothing. Where the kitchen had once stood, he lit a cigarette. He blew the match out and tossed it into what looked like a floor drain. Schlegal realized there was something odd about the drain. Under the grating was a very shallow, empty metal pan. He tossed his cigarette away, knelt down, and pulled off the grating, which was fastened to the pan. There was a dark empty space below. He threw aside the grating, took off his cap, and stuck his head into the hole. He struck a match and held it down the hole. He saw a tunnel. He pulled himself up, smiling. The pan must have been filled with water all the time the soldiers were searching the house. They’d never bothered with it because it looked like an ordinary old floor drain. The water had evaporated during the fire, exposing the pan. Schlegal suspected the tunnel extended far into the garden, its terminus hidden by the dense covering of flowers. The Jew had escaped while they were in the house.

Schlegal lit a cigarette and walked slowly back to his car.

“This is one very smart bastard,” he said with a smile.

***

Three kilometers away on a high ridge, Juliette could see the wisp of gray smoke still rising slowly above the forest. There had been no one waiting for her at the end of the tunnel, and in the twilight, she had run through the dense forest, tripping and falling on her face dozens of times. She’d looked back to see an orange and yellow pillar of fire lighting up the forest for hundreds of meters around. Exhausted, she’d squeezed under a fallen tree trunk to rest when she was far enough from the house to feel safe. Juliette had laid her head down on the cool green moss under the rotting trunk and slept right through the night.

Manet had instructed Juliette on a backup plan if she was discovered, and now she must follow it to the letter. She picked up her rucksack, looked down at her belly, and gave it a pat, then walked slowly away. Juliette wasn’t at all frightened. She knew they were going to live.





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