The Paris Architect: A Novel

Celeste was walking back from their balcony with a dead rabbit in her hand. It was impossible for anyone but a baby to live off the officially allowed rations set by the French government, so people had to be resourceful. Even well-to-do Parisians had taken to keeping a hutch of rabbits on their balconies to provide much-needed meat. Who knows what might have happened to cats, but they were spared when the government warned that they were unsafe to use in stews. No one ate their dogs, either, but many had to let them loose because they couldn’t feed them anymore. Pigeons and ducks had disappeared from the parks.

There was a shortage of everything. A Frenchman who insisted on an omelet made with at least a half-dozen eggs was hard-pressed to get one egg a month. Rationing had severely limited meat, milk, eggs, butter, cheese, potatoes, salt, and fish. Real coffee didn’t exist, so Celeste, like all Parisians, had experimented with acorns and dried apples, with little success. For some reason, carrots and roasted chestnuts were always plentiful so they made their way into every dish one could imagine. Adults had to survive on a measly 1,200 calories a day, with only 140 grams of cheese a month. People in Paris were always hungry. Food was all they thought and talked about.

Lucien’s wife, who had just clonked the poor animal on the head with a lead pipe, began to skin it at the sink. For a city girl, Celeste had picked up the skill pretty quickly. The way their marriage was disintegrating, Lucien had feared that she might use the pipe on him while he was asleep.

Sitting at the kitchen table, Lucien stared at his wife’s back as she worked on the rabbit. He’d been quite proud of himself for marrying such a pretty, intelligent girl from a good family. Most French girls didn’t go to college, but Celeste was trained as a mathematics teacher at the prestigious école Normale Supérieure. She gave up teaching at an elite private girls’ school when she married Lucien. After seven years of marriage, Celeste still had a shapely petite figure with a tiny waist. It was her unusual chestnut-colored hair that was so alluring, a beautiful rich reddish brown that contrasted so strikingly with her dark blue eyes. It was only natural that an architect should have an aesthetically pleasing spouse. She’d been an object of great pride when she accompanied him to parties.

Celeste looked the same now, but she had developed a grouchy disposition. In a way, he didn’t blame her. Her second miscarriage in 1939 had crushed her, filling her with shame and anger. Her unhappiness hung over both of them like a perpetual fog. To compound their discontent, her father, a wealthy wine merchant, had skipped off to Spain in 1941 without a word. An only child whose mother died when she was six, Celeste had never gotten over this despicable act of disloyalty. She had had great love and affection for her father and had believed that he would always be there for her.

Celeste had been overjoyed when Lucien had returned from the Maginot Line; she’d been scared to death that he would be killed, and she would be left all alone. But her joy had quickly dissipated. Because Lucien’s practice had dried up, they’d had to dip into her trust fund to survive. This she bitterly resented, and she let her husband know her feelings on that matter almost daily. Celeste felt a husband should support his wife, war or no war. Lucien was enraged by her attitude, because he’d been a good provider until the surrender. Ashamed that she had to support them, he too became angry and resentful.

And now he had a new commission, and she still couldn’t be happy.

“Would you rather that Manet and other Frenchmen have their businesses stolen away by the Germans?”

“That would be the honorable thing, if you ask me,” Celeste snapped back. “To produce one single bolt for those bastards is pure treason. You’ll see, when this is over, they’ll be cutting the throats of all the collaborationists.”