The Paris Architect: A Novel

For the last two years in Paris, calling someone a collaborator was the worst insult you could hurl. Worse than saying their mother was a whore or they were a bastard. It was a serious charge that could mean death if the Resistance took it seriously. Men had been found outside Paris shot in the head. But the very worst kind of collaboration was a French woman sleeping with a German. They were called the horizontal collaborationists.

As Lucien was about to begin his rebuttal, the lights flickered then went out, engulfing the apartment in total darkness. He didn’t bother to go to the window to see if the lights were off in other buildings. Each month, the electrical service in Paris had grown more uncertain, sometimes blacking out the city for hours. Without a word of complaint, Celeste brought out three candlesticks from the cupboard to the right of the sink, lit them, and went back to skinning the rabbit. The yellowish candlelight cast a spooky quivering shadow of Celeste on the kitchen walls.

“Did you ever think that those factories might help France after the war?” asked Lucien.

“Next, you’ll be giving me that collaborationist rot—‘Let’s show we’re good losers, get back to work as usual, and work together with the Boche.’ Anyway, now that the Americans are in this mess, you’ll soon be seeing bombers by the hundreds over France. Your masterpiece will be in ashes.”

Lucien chomped down on a piece of very stale bread. He would be designing buildings for France that would be used after Germany’s defeat, which at the moment seemed far-fetched. But he honestly believed it would happen. The main thing was to manage to stay alive to see it.

“I’m seeing Manet this week about the project,” he said.

Celeste turned slowly to face Lucien, a bloody knife in her hands. An evil smile came over her face.

“I bet you’d ask me to sleep with a client for a commission, wouldn’t you?”

“I’d never do such a thing!” he shouted. “What a horrible thing to say.”

“But you’ll design for the Germans.”

“This is war, and I’ll do anything to keep us alive.”

“What about keeping your honor?”

Celeste threw the knife into the sink and walked out of the kitchen as the lights flickered back on.

***

Celeste went into the bedroom and sat in a big overstuffed armchair by the window. It was her favorite place in the apartment. She liked to read there or, in the afternoon, watch the children play in the courtyard below. The chair was soft and comfortable, unlike the furniture in the living room, which was of the modernist style Lucien loved so much. She found the “clean, simple modern lines” of the chairs and sofa uncomfortable and cold. It was Lucien who chose the furniture. A price a woman paid when she married an architect, she learned. Celeste had gone along with his selections because she’d loved him and she trusted his architect’s taste in things even though her tastes were far more traditional. Flower-patterned wallpaper and carpets with carved walnut furniture were more to her liking, like the things in the apartment where she grew up.

Celeste pulled out a scarf from the stainless steel dresser inlaid with ebony wood, which rested against the wall opposite the bed. She paused and looked down at the bottom drawer, at what had been resting under the scarf. Baby blankets, dozens of them, in bright colors. She ran her hand over the soft lamb’s wool then picked one up and held it to her cheek.





6





When an elderly porter led Lucien into Manet’s office at his factory in Chaville, Lucien was shocked to see German officers sitting in front of the old man’s ornate mahogany desk, smoking cigarettes and casually conversing with him. He had imagined a private meeting with Manet, in which he would learn the particulars of the project. Maybe a leisurely lunch afterward with a glass of real wine and roast duck. Manet would be paying, of course.

Manet beamed a great avuncular smile when he saw Lucien and immediately rose from his chair. The Germans sat where they were, puffing away without the least bit of curiosity for the late arrival. Lucien was two minutes early, but being familiar with German punctuality, he knew they had arrived at least ten minutes early.