The Paris Architect

Lucien admires the architecture of Manet’s apartment building, despite its classical features. As a “modernist,” he finds it difficult to find a project to make his name because most clients prefer traditional styles. He knows from personal experience that a successful architect needs connections and luck, not just talent.

Manet asks if Lucien likes a challenge and Lucien agrees, eager for the job. He is dumbfounded by Manet’s offer—12,000 francs— calling it “‘ludicrous’” (13). Manet responds, “‘Not if your life depended on it’” (13). The manufacturer asks about Lucien’s feelings toward Jewish people. Biting down his initial, anti-Semitic, response, Lucien answers, “They’re human beings like anyone else, I suppose’” (14). Manet becomes increasingly agitated as he talks about the horrors of Drancy, the nearest detention camp. From a business associate’s recommendation, Manet believes Lucien to be a true French patriot. As such, he believes he can be direct about the nature of the job: hiding a Jewish man from the Gestapo.

Lucien is shocked and wants nothing to do with the project. Even 12,000 francs would not entice him to commit the capital crime of Judenbegunstigung—aiding Jews. Moreover, he cannot understand why a man as successful as Manet would risk his life to protect Jewish people. Manet says it is his Christian duty, but Lucien is unmoved by religious motives, considering Christianity to be “a well-intentioned set of beliefs that never worked in real life” (17) and turns the job down. Manet persists, imploring Lucien to examine the apartment and consider the job for a few hours. As he leaves Lucien to his ruminations, Manet makes another shocking statement: he is planning a factory expansion and will need an architect.

Lucien is struck by nausea at the idea of being tortured and killed by the Gestapo over this job. However unscrupulous he may be about the manner in which he gains jobs, he is not willing to risk his own life for the sake of money or anything else. He has made that choice before.

Before the Occupation, Lucien was stationed on the Maginot Line, a collection of fortresses. When France surrendered, rather than waiting to be captured by the Germans, Lucien and other officers changed into civilian clothes, forged demobilization documents, and returned home: “Lucien hated the Germans with all his heart for what they did to his country. He cried the day of the surrender. But all that really mattered to him was that he and his wife were still alive” (21).

As Lucien considers Manet’s offer, he remembers how much he has to gain—not only the money but an expensive commission for building a factory. He thinks:

Granted, it was suicide to get involved in this. But … if it was done cleverly, maybe the Jew would never be discovered, no one would know of his involvement, and best of all, Lucien would make a huge amount of money plus get a big commission out of it (23).

Lucien walks through the apartment, trying to come up with an answer to the unique puzzle—how to hide a person in a way the Nazis would not suspect. After several failed ideas, Lucien notices two decorative, hollow columns and realizes he can put a secret door in one so that a man could hide within it. With this discovery, Lucien’s pride makes the decision for him: “He’d done it! It was such a brilliant, elegant, and ingenious solution. He’d fool those fucking Nazi bastards” (Page 26).

Lucien reconsiders the idea as he waits to meet with Manet at the Café du Monde: “The euphoria of tricking the Germans had worn off, and the reality of being murdered by the Gestapo for getting involved in this scheme returned. A thousand things could go wrong” (27). Still, his mind keeps returning to two ideas: that he is a coward and that he hates the Germans. Ultimately, he agrees to the job as a way to get back at the Germans. He’s confident in his design: “[G]iven the solution he’d invented, was there really that much risk? The Gestapo would search and search the apartment and never find the hiding place. That image pleased the hell out of him” (29).

Lucien voices a few concerns about the secrecy of the project, but Manet assures him on each count. After handing Lucien a book filled with the promised 12,000 francs, Manet explains his real reason for risking his life and the lives of others to protect a Jewish man: He was raised by a Jewish nanny. From Madame Ducrot, he received a mother’s love. Therefore, he honors her with this decision: “‘So you see, Monsieur Bernard, in a way, when I hide these people, I’m hiding Madame Ducrot’” (33).

Lucien is excited to share the news of his upcoming factory job with his wife, Celeste, and his mistress, Adele Bonneau. Adele is a beautiful fashion designer with expensive taste and a love of architecture, and Lucien thinks he probably should have married her in the first place. She shares in his excitement but soon ends the call to focus on her other lover—Colonel Helmut Schlegal of the Gestapo.

Lucien’s wife is less happy at the prospect of work when it comes at the price of working for the Germans, however indirectly. While Lucien rationalizes his building factories for German “war matériel,” Celeste calls him a collaborationist. In the wake of her anger and scorn, Lucien considers their crumbling marriage and what he believes to be the causes: her father’s abandonment, two miscarriages, and his unemployment due to the war. The couple has dipped into Celeste’s trust fund in order to stay afloat in the wake of the Occupation, so she resents Lucien for not providing for her and Lucien resents her resentment and feels shame. Now that he has finally found a means to provide for them, Lucien is frustrated by his wife’s scorn. After all, money meant food and “people in Paris were always hungry. Food was all they talked and thought about” (39).

Lucien is surprised to find two German officers—Colonel Max Lieber and Major Dieter Herzog of the Wehrmacht—at his meeting with Manet to go over the factory project. Major Herzog takes over the meeting until he invites Lucien to give his ideas. As the other men discuss the cost of building, Lucien suddenly remembers his secret, illegal mission and begins to sweat: “At this very moment, they both had their heads in the mouth of a lion. The realization made him nervous and prompted fierce perspiring” (46).

Once an aspiring architect himself, Major Herzog is eager to discuss modern architecture. Ultimately, Lucien reminds himself to hold his tongue about Hitler’s preferred architecture: “Herzog may have once been a modernist architect, but he was still a German officer. Lucien could still find himself in an internment camp” (47).

Lucien realizes that the price he pays for his involvement in thwarting the Germans is a constant state of paranoia. Still, he remains excited for the factory design. The timeframe for the designs—one week—and the payment for them—3,000 francs—leave much to be desired, but the important thing is the chance to make his mark.

At Manet’s insistence, Lucien returns to the apartment to review the completed project. Both columns have been completed per his designs with excellent craftsmanship. Even knowing the doors were there, it takes detailed scrutiny to see even the slightest indication of anything abnormal. Perfectly disguised and durable enough to withstand Manet’s charging shoulder tackles, the only fault the hiding places could have would come from the people within them. As Lucien leaves, his paranoia returns: “He wanted to break into a run but he remembered the dead Jew in his blue suit and slowed down to a walk” (54).

Manet shows Mendel Janusky to the apartment’s columns, where he will hide. Janusky is a wealthy businessman who spends his fortune “to buy freedom for his people” (55)—with his connections and a judicious use of bribes, Janusky has managed to help the persecuted Jews escape to Portugal, Turkey, and South America. But, Janusky has been so focused on helping others escape that he himself is now trapped in occupied France with the Gestapo searching for him day and night. The plan is for him to hide in the apartment for “at least a month” (58). Eventually, Manet hopes to smuggle him into Spain, then Portugal, and finally America. Manet warns Janusky of the Gestapo’s insistence on discovering his whereabouts. 

Lucien gives Adele a pearl necklace as they swan about the fanciest restaurant left in Paris. As much as he wants to escape into the fantasy of pre-occupation Paris, the realities of life find their way back in. Adele’s anti-Semitism is on display as she tells the story of a friend’s father being arrested for trying to hide a Jewish person in his attic. Adele feels nothing but disgust and scorn for the Jewish people and those that help them; she says, “‘Fools who take risks like that deserve to die’” (63). Despite her venom, Lucien feels only fear for his own life at the risk he takes. He gets distracted when Adele sees and introduces him to Bette Tullard, an equally beautiful woman who is Adele’s “‘indispensable right-hand man’” (64).

Solomon and Miriam Geiber find themselves with only one more night to stay in their current hiding place, a hole in a barn available at great expense. They are told they must leave at once, and the barn owner’s niece informs Solomon that she once worked for a man who might be able to help them.

At the next meeting about the factory, Col. Lieber irritates Lucien by dismissing his modern design. Major Herzog salvages the meeting by pointing out the practical reasoning behind the elements that Lieber finds unnecessary. To keep to the strict project deadline, the Germans offer their labor. Manet rejects the offer; both he and Lucien know that any laborers the Germans supply will be emaciated men from the internment camps.

Manet is frustrated with Col. Lieber’s insistence on an unreasonable deadline that can be met only with slave labor. When Lucien suggests that the Germans might relent as construction continues, Manet answers coldly, “‘Monsieur Bernard, it’s evident that you don’t know a damn thing about the Germans’” (74).

Unsettled by the conversation, Lucien is unprepared for Manet’s next statement: He wants Lucien to work on another project to hide a Jewish couple at an acquaintance’s country house. He also has a plant to be designed that is twice as large as the current project, complete with an airfield. As fearful as he is of the risk involved, Lucien is already mentally designing the new airport.