The Paris Architect: A Novel

He knew the Gestapo could be waiting for him in the apartment. He’d be tortured and killed, and he hadn’t even had the chance to enjoy all that money, having only spent 700 of the 12,000 franc fee on black market eggs and some real wine. At each landing, he felt like turning and running down the stairs, but he continued on. Lucien kept thinking of how fast the construction work had been done—in just a few days. It seemed impossible. Was it a trap?

He had completed the column drawings in a couple of hours then had set to work on the factory. It felt good to be designing again, and Lucien enjoyed every minute he worked on the building, drawing detail after detail, trying out different ideas for the facades. The building had wonderful skylights, which brought light into the center of the factory floor, and three two-story entries, where the workers would pass through each day. The last thing to do was a perspective drawing of the entire building, as if one were looking at it from an airplane. By Monday, the drawings would be complete, ready for Tuesday morning’s meeting. He couldn’t wait to present the drawings. Herzog would be impressed.

The Germans had only given him a week to complete the design drawings. If it had been any other client, he would have told them to go to hell. But since this was a client who could have him executed, he didn’t protest. He also didn’t protest the tiny fee—just 3,000 francs—he was getting for the design. What mattered most was the opportunity to design a good building; he couldn’t blow this.

Lucien lightly knocked on the door. He didn’t want to draw the attention of any neighbors. The door swung open, and Manet stood before him, looking very contented.

“Come in and see your handiwork, Lucien,” he said in a loud voice that made Lucien cringe.

He cast a nervous glance behind him and went into the apartment, following Manet into the salon. At first, Lucien was puzzled that everything looked the same as when he’d first visited the apartment almost a week ago. Then he realized that was a good thing. It seemed as though nothing had been touched. He walked toward the column, but stopped about three meters away to see whether he’d notice anything odd about the shaft. As he circled the column, he kept staring, but everything seemed perfectly normal to him. Moving a meter away, he still saw nothing. Then with his face five centimeters away, Lucien examined the shaft up and down to see if even the tiniest flaw would give the whole ruse away. He could barely see the joints hidden in the square edge of the fluting. He had designed quite a bit of custom cabinetry before the war and had seen work of great precision, but this was amazing. The joints were even less than razor-thin; they almost disappeared. It was the kind of precision one would see in the engineering of high-quality steel machine parts. As an added precaution, the door had been placed on the side of the column closest to the wall to avoid detection.

Lucien took the index and middle fingers of his right hand and sharply tapped the right side of the door about three meters from the floor. The very tall door popped open to reveal the hollow space of the column. He stepped inside and pulled the door shut with a brass handle. He stood in total darkness, looking about him. Lucien couldn’t see any light showing through the joints of the door. He stooped down and slowly stretched out his hand, finding a latch at the bottom of the door and fastening it. Running his hand along the door’s edge, he found another one a half a meter above it. He continued to do this until he’d fastened five latches.

“Monsieur Manet, I want you to pound on this door with all your might,” Lucien shouted.

Manet got a running start and threw his entire body against the door, repeating the motion two more times. With his hand on the door, Lucien felt that the door didn’t budge a millimeter. The column itself didn’t move at the base either. The workmen had done a good job of securely fastening it to the floor.

“A few more times,” said Lucien. Manet walked four meters from the column and charged at it like a bull. After the second time, he began to get winded and tired, but he did it two more times.