The Paris Architect: A Novel

A look of panic came over the man’s face, and he turned and sprinted down the corridor to the stairs. Lucien slowly closed the door and leaned against it. He gazed down at the olive and crimson rug in the foyer, his mind a complete blank. Suddenly, he felt a warm sensation about his thighs and crotch. Lucien let out a great sigh. He hadn’t pissed himself in thirty years.

Incredibly tired and emotionally drained, Lucien shuffled straight to the liquor cabinet in the living room and pulled out a glass tumbler and a decanter of cognac. He stared at the glass, then tossed it onto the sofa and drank straight from the decanter.

When he fell back asleep, he dreamed he’d designed a secret hiding place for Manet. It was a box with a lid sitting in the middle of a room. When a button on the front was pushed, the lid opened, and Lucien’s father popped out like a jack-in-the box. He was dressed like one of those orthodox rabbis with a prayer shawl and a yarmulke, and he was laughing hysterically at his son.





13





“Good, then I can pick you up around eight. Oh no, nothing fancy, just a small private dinner party. Yes, yes, your blue-gray evening dress will be quite appropriate. You’ll be the toast of the evening, my Adele. But now you must excuse me; it’s been a very busy day, and I have to get back to work. I’ve got a visitor waiting here who’s been very patient. Good-bye, my love.”

Schlegal smiled as he put down the receiver. The thought of arriving at the party tonight with Adele on his arm made him quite happy. Every man on the general’s staff would be jealous of him, and that’s exactly the reaction he wanted. He considered himself very lucky to associate with a woman of Adele’s status. Most of the French women Germans came into daily contact with were working-class types—waitresses, shopgirls, and chambermaids, as well as the cooks and laundresses who worked in the homes of Germans.

Even though the high command frowned upon Germans having intimate relations with French women except with registered whores, German soldiers always slept with these working-class French women. Sex became the common language of the Occupation. Still, there were rules. Germans weren’t permitted to walk arm in arm with a French woman in public or to take her back to the barracks. A German soldier of any rank would rarely get the chance to sleep with a respectable bourgeois French woman, most of whom would die before having sex with a German. That was why Schlegal considered his finding Adele a miracle.

Schlegal had been sitting on top of a large wooden desk and now swiveled around to face the opposite direction. Stretching out his legs, he clicked the heels of his shiny black boots, then crossed his arms. In front of him sat an elderly man in a wooden chair with his arms tied behind him. The old man’s head drooped, and drool dripped from the corner of his mouth.

“Let’s see. Where were we? Ah, yes. I asked you to tell me the whereabouts of Mendel Janusky, and you said you had no idea. Then I said you were a filthy lying pig, and if you didn’t tell me, I would teach you a very hard lesson. But you’re in luck, Monsieur Deligny. Because I’m going out with one of the most beautiful women in Paris tonight, I’m in a very charitable mood. So, I’ll give you one more chance. Where is Janusky? You do know who he is, don’t you? Let me refresh your memory. Janusky is a gentleman of the Hebrew persuasion and very, very rich. Maybe the richest man in Paris. The former owner of the Madelin Steel Works. Where you had been an executive since 1932.”

Schlegal held a glossy black-and-white photo in front of Deligny’s face. It was a formal portrait of an imposing-looking man in his sixties, dressed in a suit, standing next to a table. His right hand, which had a very large and ornate ring on it, was resting on a book on the table.

“Do you recognize him, monsieur?”