The Paris Architect: A Novel

“Monsieur Aubert, I bet your hands are probably your most valued possessions,” Schlegal said. “They do the beautiful woodwork everyone so admires, mm?”


Aubert, whose face was a bloody pulp, only moaned a bit.

“What would happen if you didn’t have your index fingers? Make it hard to cut wood, maybe?”

Voss snipped off Aubert’s entire right index finger as if it were the stem of a flower. It popped up in the air and landed on the floor. Blood gushed from his hand onto the floor as if it came from a garden hose. Aubert’s screams produced a nerve-rattling reverberation off the gray plaster walls.

Lischka grimaced. “We should pad these walls in here, to soak up the noise, don’t you think?”

Without any instruction, Voss snipped off the right middle finger, causing even greater screams of agony.

“Monsieur Aubert will probably want some souvenirs of his visit here,” Schlegal said.

“Of course, Colonel,” replied Voss as he picked up the severed digits from the floor. He scratched his head with one of them, producing torrents of laughter from everyone in the room, including Lischka. He then put both fingers in the side pocket of Aubert’s suit jacket and walked over to Schlegal.

“Let’s give Monsieur Aubert time to rest and think things over. We’ll meet again. After all, he has eight fingers left,” said Schlegal. He motioned to his officers. “Give him something to stop the bleeding. I don’t want him to die on us—and get all this blood cleaned off the floor.”

Lischka stood. “That was most impressive, Colonel,” he said, walking out of the room. “Carry on.”

Voss summoned two soldiers from the hallway, then yelled out, “Marie, you old bitch, get your mop and pail and get in here.”

The soldiers took Aubert by his arms and dragged him away like a sack of potatoes. A minute later, a haggard old woman in a wrinkled maroon dress shuffled in with a pail and knelt down to wipe up the blood with a rag. The officers watched in amusement.

“I’m truly sorry we made such a mess, Marie. It won’t happen again, I promise,” said Schlegal.

“You’re always saying that, Colonel, and always there’s a mess,” grumbled Marie.

“Marie, I didn’t realize you still had such a nice ass,” Voss said. “You must have been a hot number during the Franco-Prussian War.” The soldiers howled with laughter. Voss bent over and gave Marie a hard slap on her rear, but the old woman just squeezed out the blood from the wet rag in the pail and kept cleaning.

“Thank you, Lieutenant. I was quite a beauty in the old days. One day, I’ll tell you about the time I fucked Kaiser Wilhelm I. He gave me the Iron Cross First Class.”

“Marie, my love, if only you were twenty-five years younger, I’d take you right here, right now on the floor,” said Schlegal, tossing some franc pieces in the pail of bloody water.

After the room emptied out, Marie slowly got up off her arthritic knees and went over to a desk in the corner of the room and shuffled through some papers. She read one sheet very closely, then picked up her pail and walked out of the interrogation room.





55





As he was going over a detail on the blueprints with Labrune, Lucien realized something was wrong.