The Paris Architect: A Novel (30 page)

“I like your reasoning, Labrune,” said Herzog, who then turned to Lucien. “This will be your best building, Lucien. The way the arches spring from the ground is beautiful.”

Lucien agreed. The formwork for the first three arches was up, and even in wood they looked great. He loved seeing his buildings get built. That was the most wonderful thing about being an architect—to see your drawings become real, three-dimensional objects that you could walk around and touch. All architects were impatient to see their buildings completed. Normally, it took forever for a building to be finished, but the Germans got things done incredibly quickly. What would have taken months under French control took only weeks for the Germans. He had always heard about the legendary German efficiency and scoffed at the notion. Now he witnessed it firsthand and was quite impressed. Working three shifts seven days a week definitely sped up the process. Threatening the workers with beatings and death also helped.

“This couldn’t have happened without your support,” said Lucien guardedly. He didn’t want to get too mushy about it. When Herzog had been promoted to colonel, his former superior officer, the idiotic Colonel Lieber, had been transferred back to Berlin, leaving Herzog as the sole power overseeing the construction program. With Speer’s complete confidence, he got the buildings up and running fast, cranking out materiel for the German war effort way ahead of Berlin’s schedule. Now there was even talk of a promotion to general.

Herzog began walking toward the excavation for the foundation, and Lucien followed. Not only did he respect Herzog’s design sense, but the German also had a sharp eye for construction, knowing when a corner was being cut and not hesitating to order a subcontractor to tear work out and start again. Of course, they never protested. If one refused, a soldier would be called on to drag the poor devil away, never to be seen again. This happened on one occasion, reminding Lucien that Herzog was still a German officer loyal to the Fuehrer and intent on Germany’s total victory. But it was more of a personal mission for Herzog. He seemed determined to leave his mark on France for the Reich. After he was gone, the factories would still stand, evidence that he’d been there. Architects thought the same way. Their work would outlast them. A library would serve generations long after the architect was gone. With Lieber out of the way, Lucien had complete creative freedom. It wasn’t just a canard that an architect needed a good client to produce great art. Herzog was the ideal client.

“The bands of glass will really accentuate the horizontality, plus let a lot of natural light in,” said Herzog with a smile.

“The workers will be able to see better and produce more,” added Lucien, and both men laughed.

“Exactly. Those bands of black brick will definitely help productivity. I don’t know how but they do break down the scale of the front wall,” said Herzog with a wink.

They looked down into the excavations to examine the footings.

“I ordered them to be extra wide to distribute the loads to the ground,” said Herzog. “Sooner or later the buildings will be under Allied attack and will have to be able to take a pounding from bombers. The factory has to survive and be put back on line to keep producing. That’s Speer’s order.”

Herzog never talked about it, but Lucien saw that the Germans were increasingly uneasy about the progress of the war. Everything had been going their way until this fall, when the Allies had invaded North Africa and were slowly gaining the upper hand. Everyone expected an invasion from England. In anticipation, Herzog examined every detail of the building, especially the structural drawings. He had ordered more steel reinforcement in columns and arches, the thickness of steel window frames was increased, and concrete roof slabs were thickened. The design suggestions he made strengthened the overall building but were so aesthetically pleasing that Lucien could never object. Lucien envied his skills and tried to learn from him. Although he’d never finished his training at the Bauhaus, Herzog was a phenomenal designer, blessed with great structural intuition.

Satisfied with the progress of his building, Lucien bid good-bye to Herzog and walked back to his car, which was parked by the construction shed. Labrune was standing by the corner filling his pipe. Lucien waved at the old man.

“Great work, Labrune; keep it up.”

“Stinking traitor,” said Labrune, loud enough for Lucien to hear.

His ears burning, Lucien kept walking. The excitement of seeing his creation come to life suddenly vanished.

49

Lucien was quite proud he’d procured a roasted chicken for tonight’s supper. It had cost him a pretty penny—twenty times more than what it would have cost in peacetime. But it was worth it. He knew Pierre would smell the delicious aroma the minute he came through the apartment door and come running. That sight alone was worth the money. The twenty thousand francs Manet insisted again that he take wasn’t going as far as he’d thought. By 1942, inflation was eating away one’s money at an incredible rate. Things had always been expensive, but now they were exorbitant. Butter, which was officially fifty-nine francs and impossible to get, was over two hundred francs on the black market. Bartering had become the rage in Paris. A kid in his building had bought an hour of violin lessons for half a kilo of butter.

As Lucien walked home through the dark streets, he thought of what to have with the chicken. Potatoes and cabbage? Or just bread and wine? He wrestled with the choices and gave no thought to the footsteps behind him. About six blocks from his building, two men came up on either side of him, and Lucien’s knees nearly buckled. Were they the Gestapo, who favored snatching people off the sidewalk and throwing them into a waiting car? Or could they be the gangs who pretended to be the police and confiscated black-market goods? His friend, Daniel Joffre, had had a whole leg of mutton he was carrying in a suitcase taken from him last month. He had to decide whether to bolt down the street coming up on his right. He glanced to his right and left to size up the two men. Both looked quite fit and probably could chase him down with ease. Though he was in lousy shape, he knew he had to run. But they kept walking alongside him for two blocks, which struck Lucien as odd. The Gestapo wouldn’t take this much time to make an arrest. Realizing they could be the faux police after his chicken, he instinctively clutched the package tight to his chest and walked faster. Maybe they were just ordinary starving men driven mad by the smell of the chicken. One of the men ran ahead and stood directly in Lucien’s path. The other stood directly behind him. Lucien decided not to give up the chicken without a fight.

“Please let me pass, monsieur,” said Lucien in his politest tone of voice, but he was ready to kick the man in the groin and run. He was about to say he didn’t want any trouble when the man facing him spoke.

“Monsieur Bernard, we wish to have a word with you, if you don’t mind. I promise you it won’t take long.” The man was wearing a stylish hat and a Gestapo-like trench coat. He gestured to a car that pulled up alongside them. Lucien began to tremble and saw the amused expressions on the men’s faces. The man behind Lucien put his hand on his shoulder and gently guided him into the waiting car. All three sat in the back, Lucien and his chicken in the middle. Lucien knew they must be the French police working with the Gestapo. They definitely weren’t after his food. Nothing was said while the car covered about a kilometer before turning into a garage. Lucien twisted around to see someone shutting the garage doors behind them. This was it. They were going to kill him here. The only thought that came into Lucien’s mind as he slumped down in the seat was that Pierre would be alone all night, not knowing what had happened to him. Lucien would join the ranks of Parisians who disappeared without a trace. And Pierre wouldn’t get his special chicken dinner.

The man on his right opened the door, and they got out of the car. Lucien followed them to a stair at the rear of the garage, which led to a small office where two other men were waiting. An older man in his sixties, wearing a dark gray overcoat, pointed to a wooden chair at a round table, and Lucien sat down.

“Monsieur Bernard, that’s quite a building you designed for the Germans in Chaville. The one that’s going up in Tremblay’s pretty impressive too,” said the old man, who sat down in the chair across the table.

“Thank you.”

“It’s interesting how you’re so willing to design a building better than what the Germans could do for themselves.”

“I don’t see it that way at all, monsieur. I just try to do my best.”

“Your best for the Germans, you mean.”

“For myself. I design to my own high standard.”

“A higher standard than what the Germans could do?”

Lucien knew immediately where this line of questioning was heading and who was asking the questions.

“You’re from the Resistance, aren’t you?”

“Yes, monsieur, that is the organization we represent. And we have some questions about your loyalty to your country.”

“Hold on, you old bastard. I’ll be damned if you think I’m a traitor. I’m loyal to France. I was there fighting to the end when the surrender came. You can easily check that,” Lucien shouted.

“We know of your heroic war record sitting behind a desk.” The room erupted in laughter. “It’s
now
that we’re talking about.”

“And you’re
heroes
?” replied Lucien. “What a joke.”

The real reason Lucien hated the Resistance was because it was 99 percent Communist, and he despised Communists and their idiotic dreams of overthrowing capitalism. Their supposed acts of heroism brought nothing but a never-ending cycle of reprisals. Since 1941, when the Resistance started murdering German soldiers, the Reich had fought back by killing hostages. Just last week, after the Resistance threw grenades at some airmen at Jean-Boudin Stadium in Paris, killing eight of them, the Germans murdered eighty-five people. Most of them were Communists, which was all right with Lucien, but some were just helpless bystanders.

“You kill one goddamn German and a dozen innocent Frenchmen are murdered. You do some meaningless act of sabotage like cutting some telephone lines or diverting freight cars in the wrong direction and get more of our people killed in reprisals. What about those poor bastards you got killed the other day? What you do, monsieur, doesn’t add up to much. Certainly not worth the life of one Frenchman.”

“Let me take care of him,” shouted a short bearded man sitting in the corner of the room. “One bullet for one collaborator, and we can go home.”

“Emile, please don’t interrupt. Let me handle this,” said the old man. “Monsieur Bernard, the Resistance does its best under extremely difficult conditions. But we must fight back. To live defeated is to die every day.”

“Says who? I heard de Gaulle on the BBC say that killing Germans makes it too easy for them to massacre unarmed citizens. He said you do more harm than good. Anyway, it’ll be the British and the Americans who save our asses and you know it, not fools like you.”

“Yes, but until then we must fight in our own way.”

“Christ, you’re nothing but a lot of goddamn Communists. Your boy Stalin isn’t any angel either. It got out that he starved a few million to death in the Ukraine. And don’t forget he signed a nonaggression pact with Hitler. Remember that?”

The old man didn’t reply. Lucien knew this was a sore point with all Communists.

“Let’s get back to you. We feel that you’re a bit too helpful to the German war effort. We’re asking you to be a little less cooperative. Don’t be so energetic.”

“Goddamn you, I’m not a collaborator. Those factories will be used after the war is won.”

The old man lit a cigarette and took a long drag. He smiled at Lucien. “That’s a very imaginative way of justifying your actions, monsieur.” The other men in the room murmured in agreement.

Lucien didn’t like being mocked, especially by working-class types like these. “France
will
need factories to rebuild the country.”

“There won’t be a country, if shits like you help the Boche,” shouted the bearded man. “And those factories you design are ugly as sin.”

“You’ve been warned, Monsieur Bernard,” said the old man. “Remember where your loyalties lie. When victory does come, collaborators will pay a terrible price, I assure you.”

“Maybe before victory,” said the bearded man, pulling a revolver out of his coat pocket.

“And I wouldn’t be so friendly with Colonel Herzog either. Doesn’t look good,” added the old man.

Still holding his chicken, Lucien stood up and looked around at the men in the room.

“Listen, you bastards. I love France, and I’m no collaborator. You all can go to hell if you think I am. Now let me go home.”

The old man gestured to the man in the trench coat.

“Take him back. Good night, Monsieur Bernard. And enjoy your chicken dinner.”

The same two men who picked him up drove him home, pushing him roughly out of the car when they reached the corner of Lucien’s block. Lucien fell flat on his face on the pavement, dropping the chicken.

“Let’s take his chicken,” suggested the man in the trench coat.

“Fuck him. I hope you choke on a bone, you traitor,” yelled the driver as the car sped off.

50

Alain had seen lots of American films in which the detective or the spy had to follow someone, and he had the technique down pat. It was most important to stay far enough away so as not to get spotted, but close enough to keep the man in plain sight.

As he walked along the rue du Cirque, Alain always had Lucien in view. If his boss stopped to look in a store window, Alain would stop and duck into a doorway, then continue the tail, which was what following a person was called in the cinema. Lucien was obviously in no hurry to get where he was going. He stopped to buy a book and had a quick drink at the Café de la Place. Maybe Lucien was taking his time to make sure no one was following him. Alain had seen this technique in the cinema also. The man would know he was being tailed, bide his time, and then try to shake the tail.