The Paris Architect: A Novel

As a bacteriologist, Juliette knew how important it was to keep clean from germs to protect Marie or Pierre (her baby was to be named after her heroine Madame Curie or her husband and, of course, grow up to be a scientist). Dauphin obliged by providing abundant amounts of soap and water so she could bathe. And as a man who was used to cleaning out lion and elephant excrement, he cheerfully dumped out Juliette’s slop bucket daily. The problem with the space was that a human could not stand upright in it. Juliette sat the whole day and was only able to walk around in the open cage at night.

One evening, after Dauphin brought her a meal and some clean clothes, Juliette asked him why he was putting his life in so much danger. His answer stunned her. “Oh, madame, you don’t know how good it makes me feel about myself to help a human in this time of evil.” The zookeeper, who probably had no more than a few years of schooling, had a far more profound sense of morality, Juliette realized, than many of the highly trained scientists she used to work with.

Sitting in her cage by herself, day after day, Juliette sometimes found her loneliness unbearable. She often placed her hand on her belly and talked about her happy childhood in Lyon to Marie or Pierre. Sometimes she sang her baby her favorite songs. During the day, by placing heavy canvas over the den opening, Juliette could burn candles, which enabled her to read and write. She tried to keep her mind occupied by pretending she was on a sabbatical where she could concentrate on theoretical work. On notebooks provided by the good Dauphin, she scribbled formulas and ideas then stared off into space thinking and thinking. She did some preliminary work that she hoped would one day be the basis of a research paper.

Just as Juliette was stretching out on the mattress to read a newspaper Dauphin had brought her earlier that evening, all the lights in the animal house came on. It startled Juliette, and she called out loudly, “Monsieur Dauphin,” then stopped because she remembered he had never turned on the lights. He had always used a lantern at night. She heard the drunken mutterings of a man in front of the cage. Then to her horror, the side of the canvas sheet was pulled back and moments later, a Wehrmacht soldier dragging a bottle of schnapps along the concrete floor crawled on his hands and knees through the opening.

Roaring like a lion, the soldier leered at Juliette. “What a pretty lioness—or are you a tigress? Roar!” Juliette slid off the mattress and backed into the corner of the den, but the soldier lunged forward and grabbed her right ankle, pulling her toward him. He fumbled open the fly buttons of his trousers and yanked Juliette beneath him and pushed her dress up. She could smell his stinking breath when, all of a sudden, he rolled off her. Above her she saw Dauphin with a shovel in his hands.

“He broke in by the side door.”

Juliette raised herself up on her elbows. “Are there any more?”

“No, it was just him, thank God. I’ll dump him into the gutter on the far side of the zoo, and his people will find him in the morning with a very bad headache.”

“But will he…?”

“No, madame, he won’t remember a thing.”

Juliette was shaking with fear, and Dauphin knelt down to hug her. She wrapped her arms around his neck.

“It’s not this one we have to worry about, madame,” said Dauphin, caressing her brown hair and patting her back. “Yesterday, I got official word that the Germans are transferring some animals from Berlin so they’ll need these cages. It won’t be safe for you here anymore.”

Juliette now felt more frightened than she’d been when the soldier had attacked her. She had absolutely nowhere to go.

“My God, what will I do?” she said, panic-stricken.

“My cousin says he knows a man who knows a man who can help you,” said Dauphin.





33





“I knew you’d show up.”

Lucien settled on the chaise lounge and reached out to accept the glass of cognac from Manet, then drained it in one gulp. It was almost nine o’clock in the morning when Lucien arrived at the little stone cottage—two floors with a dormered attic set off from a country road just on the outskirts of Paris, near Epinay-sur-Seine. He knew it wasn’t Manet’s country house, as it was way too modest and plain for a man of his stature.

“Ah, now that’s a nutritious breakfast,” said Lucien. “Now tell me, how did you know I’d be here today?”