The Paris Architect: A Novel

“Lucien, is that you?” Bette replied in an astonished voice.

“Yes, my sweet, it is me. Open up, I’ve had an accident. I need your feminine assistance.”

Instead of flinging open the door, embracing him, and welcoming him inside, there was a long silence.

He knocked again. “Bette, it’s me, Lucien; come on, I need your help! My suit got messed up just around the corner, and I need to clean it. I’ve got a meeting in an hour. Please open up.”

Another long silence ensued, and now Lucien was starting to imagine things. Like a lover in her bedroom hurriedly getting dressed and finding a place to hide. He banged on the door with his fist, and an old man next door opened his door and stuck his head out.

“What’s all this damn racket?” he demanded.

“Mind your own business.”

“Stop this noise this minute.”

“Shut up, you old fool.”

The old man slammed his door in indignation, and suddenly Bette flung open her door.

“Lucien, what the hell are you doing here? I told you I had people staying with me and you couldn’t come up,” Bette said. “You’re causing a scene.”

“Look at my suit,” Lucien said. “It’s a mess. I just need to clean it up. I thought you could rinse it out and maybe dry it off in front of your oven or something so the stain wouldn’t show.”

“I told you, you can’t come in.”

At first Lucien was dumbfounded by her response, then he quickly became angry and hurt. “What the hell is your problem, woman?”

Lucien didn’t wait for an answer and pushed past her into the foyer. He was taken aback by how splendid the apartment was. The flat was beautifully decorated in a moderne style, with quite expensive-looking furniture. Once his architect’s instantaneous appraisal was finished, he returned to being angry. Then he realized that she was acting this way because she had a lover in the apartment, which made him even angrier.

“All right, who are you sleeping with? Is he in the bedroom? Let’s meet him. I always like to meet your friends.” He started in one direction but realized the apartment had more than one bedroom. “And I thought all the men in the fashion business were fags,” he said scornfully.

He dashed headlong into one bedroom and looked under the bed, then behind the drapes and in a large armoire. Then he found another bedroom and proceeded to search it.

Bette followed him through the apartment. “Lucien, have you gone mad? Stop it. I’m telling you there’s no one here. For chrissake, stop,” Bette insisted, yanking on his arm. “Now get out of here.”

“Bullshit, I know he’s here. And where the hell are those mysterious relatives of yours?”

“I told you to get the hell out of here,” she yelled, now slapping him about the head in a fury.

Lucien resisted the strong urge to punch her in the face and kept searching. His anger was like a torrent of raging floodwater that pulled him helplessly along. He could do nothing to stop it. The sense of betrayal shattered him because he had been so happy with Bette. After all the terrible things that had happened to him—the Serraults’ deaths, Adele discovering the stair—she was like a miracle who had come into his life. His time with Bette meant he could forget these bad things for a while and just enjoy wonderful moments of pure pleasure. It wasn’t only Bette’s great beauty and sexuality that appealed to him, but her wit, sense of humor, and intelligence. It was clear to him that he was falling for her. That one could find love in such horrible times amazed and delighted him, making her betrayal all the more painful.

With Bette still beating him about the back, he came to a huge carved walnut chest at the foot of the bed and threw open the heavy lid. When her punches became faster and more furious, he knew he’d hit the jackpot.

“I believe I’ve found the buried treasure.”