The Paris Architect: A Novel

Manet laughed. He had known Mendel Janusky for almost twenty years, and he wasn’t a man who gave up easily. Janusky would never surrender to the Nazis, let alone let them have his vast fortune. Every sou of it went to buy freedom for his people, not just in France but throughout Europe. Beginning in the late ’30s, Janusky had set up a network of agents on the Continent to arrange transit papers and visas to help Jews escape, mainly to Portugal, Turkey, and South America, the easiest places to bribe officials. Money could buy freedom, and he was willing to spend as much as it took. Even as late as 1941, families were being saved by him. Manet knew he’d recently arranged to smuggle sixty Jews into Turkey, where they’d boarded a freighter bound for Venezuela. Warned by his friends that he must get out of France, he’d ignored their advice and now was trapped. The Gestapo was tightening the noose around him. Nonetheless, he told Manet he was determined to escape to continue his work. There were many more to help.

“That’s a joke. I’ll turn myself in before you ever do, Mendel.”

Janusky smiled. “You’re a good man, Manet. When most gentile businessmen turned their backs on the Jews, without hesitating you offered to help us, putting yourself and your entire family at great risk.”

“Any good Christian would do the same.”

“Now that’s a goddamn joke. You know, I never trusted gentiles. They would smile in your face and call you a dirty kike the minute your back was turned. They would do business with us, but forget about socializing. Did any gentile ever invite me for a weekend in the country except you? Not on your life. France might have been the first country in Europe to grant Jews civil rights, but it’s still a country of Jew haters. I was stupid enough to be fooled into thinking they’d finally accepted us.”

“I don’t believe that.”

“That’s because you’re a true Christian gentleman. But you’re a fool to think most men think like you.”

Manet was saddened to see the physical change in his friend. Once a tall, distinguished-looking man with piercing blue eyes and a vibrant personality, Janusky’s eyes now seemed dull and lifeless, and his face was haggard. His salt-and-pepper hair was completely white. Walking with a pronounced stoop back to the column, Janusky ran his fingers up and down its fluting, clearly enjoying the tactile pleasure of its smoothness.

“You know, I had a dream about my father last night,” Janusky said, almost absentmindedly. “That hasn’t happened in many years.”

“I remember your father. No man worked harder for his family. He rose from nothing.”

“Less than nothing. He escaped the pogroms in Russia in 1881. Gathered people’s old scrap metal eighteen hours a day and sold it for a tiny profit. A sou here, a sou there. Until he had the biggest scrap metal business in Paris. Then came the steel mill.”

“The best in all of France.”

“You know, after we made it, we thought we were above all the Jews that came later. But we didn’t count for much, Auguste. We were still immigrants, no better than Jews who arrived yesterday. When the Boche started rounding us up, foreign Jews went to Drancy first, no matter when they came to France or how well off they were.”

Manet remembered how he’d first met Janusky, when he was bidding on a contract to supply steel for Manet’s engines back in the ’20s. Each bidder had to show Manet his factory and prove he had the ability to fulfill the contract. Janusky personally took Manet through every part of the plant, explaining how up-to-date and efficient his equipment was. But what struck Manet was that Janusky seemed to know every one of the scores of workers he passed on the tour. Not just their names but personal information—asking them about a health problem a wife was having, how their child’s recital went, or did they catch any fish last weekend. He even gave one man a franc piece for his boy’s birthday, which he knew was coming up. All of his men perked up when he passed, as if they were glad to see him.

Manet considered himself a decent boss, but he knew little about his men. He’d ended up more impressed with Janusky’s relations with his workers than the factory itself. Janusky won the contract and from then on provided all the steel for Manet’s automobile engines and other parts. His colleagues had warned him against dealing with Jews because they were natural-born thieves, but Janusky had been the best and most reliable supplier he’d ever had. A man of honor.

“Mendel, you’ll stay here for at least a month. But then we’ll have to move you. It’s never safe to stay in one place.”

“I’ve been moved around like a chess piece,” he said with a laugh.

“When the time is right and all the financial arrangements have been made, I can get you into Spain, then Portugal,” said Manet.