The Paris Architect: A Novel

“It’s a little more complicated than that. Our instructions direct us to disrupt German war production.”


“So have the workers mess up the manufacturing process. A little distortion in the milling or the cutting of a piece of materiel will do the trick. And the Boche will never know until they actually fire a shell or shoot a pistol. It’s foolproof. That’s the best advice I can give you, so will you let me out?”

“That’s not exactly what we have in mind, Monsieur. We’re planning something a bit more drastic.”

“So what can you do?”

“We’ll blow up a factory. The Allies aren’t in a position to bomb war production in France yet, so we’ll do it.”

Lucien burst out laughing. What a bunch of self-deluded fools. Every action they carried out, no matter how small, meant reprisals by the Germans. A munitions train gets diverted in the wrong direction, causing an hour’s delay, and twenty innocent Frenchmen are shot.

“You’re raving mad. You know how many people will be shot for something like that? At least a thousand,” shouted Lucien.

The old man gazed out the window. “Yes, there’s a price to be paid for every act of resistance, but in the end it will be worth it.”

“For chrissakes, you’re not going to give me that line about living defeated is dying every day.”

“Still, we must obey orders and do everything we can to fight the Germans. Even though the Allies won in North Africa, the Boche can still win this war. It’s far from over. Do you want France to become a province of Germany? Do you always want to be under their thumb?”

“The Americans are in this now. Sooner or later they’ll come marching in and win this thing,” said Lucien. “You’ll see, just like in 1918.”

“You may be right. In fact, I hope you are. But I still have my orders.”

“How the hell will you blow up a factory? They work twenty-four hours a day; you’ll kill all those people. How do you set the explosives with people in there?”

“We plan to blow up the factory in Tremblay that’s under construction.”

A shock jolted through Lucien’s entire body, as though he were being electrocuted. He was completely dazed.

“But that’s my factory,” said Lucien after he calmed down.

The man in the front passenger seat laughed.

“Armand, did you hear this shit? It’s his factory.”

“You can’t blow that up.”

“And why is that, monsieur?”

“Because I designed it…that’s why.”

The three men in the car all began laughing and shaking their heads. Lucien felt as if someone was asking him to kill his child. Like that story about God asking Abraham to sacrifice Isaac. But unlike Abraham, he wasn’t about to do it. Abraham, he always thought, was a shit to even consider such a thing.

“You don’t understand how hard I worked on it, detailing every inch, or how many sketches I did. It’s the best design I’ve ever done in my life.”

“Armand, remember you asked me what I wanted for my birthday? Forget about those sausages. As my present, I want you to let me shoot this goddamn traitor,” said the passenger.

“Calm down, Remy. No one is going to kill anyone,” ordered the old man. “Monsieur Bernard, it’s not your factory. It’s the Germans’ factory. A factory that produces objects that kill Frenchmen and our allies.”

Lucien at that moment had a very hard time accepting Armand’s reasoning on the matter. The image of the detailed pencil rendering of the finished building kept running through his mind. In peacetime it would’ve won an award, maybe even have gotten international recognition.

“Did you know that many people have died because of your architectural masterpiece in Chaville, Monsieur Bernard?”

“No…I didn’t,” answered a shaken Lucien.

“I want to show you something you may find interesting.”

The old man handed Lucien a stack of snapshots. He had a hard time making out the images in the darkness of the car.