The Paris Architect

Alain is irritated by Pierre’s presence and his own inability to connect it to the mysterious happenings he witnessed at the house where Lucien and Manet met. He is troubled most by Pierre’s intelligence, natural architectural ability, and unwillingness to take offense at criticism intended to hurt his feelings. He questions Pierre’s story about his father’s friendship with Lucien, but Pierre is prepared and answers every question thoroughly and consistently. Unable to find a fault in the story, Alain resolves to make the best of a bad situation by using Pierre as his servant.

Lucien and Manet discuss a new hiding place in a house of an acquaintance. Lucien asks Manet to tell Father Jacques that he will keep Pierre instead of risking the smuggling to Spain. Manet informs him that the priest is “‘probably dead by now’” (238), having been betrayed and picked up by the Gestapo along with the six children he was hiding. Lucien is immediately concerned, but Manet assures him that they have people inside the Gestapo who told him that Father Jacques gave up no information. As they discuss how Lucien considers Pierre to be the son he always wanted, Manet reminds him that other lives still need to be saved. Lucien’s answer is without hesitation: “‘I’m ready to help, monsieur’” (240).

Schlegal is furious that his team cannot find the Jewish people he is sure are hiding in the house he is raiding. He demands that they use hammers and crowbars to tear the house apart and look for another clever hiding place. Haunted by the idea that more hiding places are protecting Jewish people, he decides to burn the house down.

When the hidden Juliette smells smoke, she uses the escape tunnel underneath the kitchen’s drain. Once the smoke clears, the enraged Gestapo officer searches for bodies. He discovers the hideaway purely by luck—the fire had evaporated the water under the drain. Fortunately, Juliette already escaped and is following the backup plan that Manet gave her, assured that she and her baby will live.

Bette takes sadistic pleasure in asking Adele about her new lover, knowing she cannot admit he is a Gestapo officer. Personally, she is horrified that Adele would stoop to having sex with a German and enjoys the thought of Adele’s head being forcibly shaved, a recent punishment for French women who are found consorting with the Germans.

Lucien arrives, keen to take Adele for a drive in the country, but Adele claims she cannot go because of work. Knowing that Adele has plans with her German lover, Bette offers to take care of the arrangements to force Adele to make another excuse or admit to her plans. Adele insists that she must handle the fittings herself and suggests that Lucien take Bette for a drive instead—a suggestion that pleases both.

After taking the afternoon drive, Lucien and Bette sleep together. He is thrilled at the prospect of regular sex with a beautiful woman but knows he cannot meet with her at his apartment as long as Pierre is staying there. When she claims that they cannot use her apartment due to visiting relatives, he uses the same excuse. They agree to meet at a hotel and discuss the end of Lucien’s relationship with Adele and the beginning of his relationship with Bette.

Alain watches as the Jewish family he informed his uncle about is taken away by the Gestapo. His uncle rewards him with the man’s car because he is pleased to have a victory to report to Schlegal, who has been in a terrible mood. He explains to Alain that his anger stems from another Jewish person eluding them by using a hiding place in a drain. Curious, Alain drives to the cottage where he saw Manet and Lucien meet. He crawls into the hiding place and recognizes it as the sketch he found earlier. Alain is certain Lucien designed the new hiding places that upset his uncle’s superior, but he does not know why Lucien would “be stupid enough” to do so (261).

Lucien takes Pierre to the Bibliothèque Nationale to view the architecture. The two are enjoying conversations about architectural techniques when the Germans suddenly arrive. Relying on his knowledge of the library, Lucien shoves Pierre into a niche in the wall hidden by a column. As Pierre crouches out of sight, Lucien walks towards the SS officer to draw attention away from the hiding place. The officer ignores Lucien and arrests a professor. After the Germans leave, Lucien and Pierre have an emotional reunion. With a heavy heart, Lucien realizes that as much as he loves Pierre and does not want to be apart from him, France is not safe.

Schlegal and his assistant, Lieutenant Voss, torture Monsieur Laval for information on Janusky. Initially, he does not give up any information, but Voss begins torturing him with a soldering iron. After they use it on his face, chest, and genitals, Voss sticks the soldering iron into Laval’s eye, prompting him to give an address. Schlegal asks who was hiding Janusky, and Monsieur Laval says it was a “rich gentile.” Pleased, Schlegal asks whether the gentile hides Jews “in special secret hiding places” (268). 

With Herzog’s promotion to colonel, Colonel Lieber was recalled to Germany. Lucien and Herzog can work together easily, despite their differences and the increasing tension over the progress the Allies are making in the war. As excited as Lucien is to complete his new factory, the high from seeing his drawing come to life is ruined when the contractor calls him a “stinking traitor.” 

Lucien procures chicken for dinner and imagines Pierre’s excitement over it. Before he makes it home, however, he is surrounded and put into a car. Fearing imminent death at the Gestapo’s hands, Lucien soon realizes he was actually taken by the Resistance.

Lucien thinks poorly of them because of their predominately communist tendencies and the French lives taken as a reprisal for their efforts. The Resistance seems equally unimpressed with Lucien, saying he has done his job for the Nazis too well. He is warned that collaborators will be punished at the end of the war. They toss him out of the car outside his building, making him drop the chicken, and call him a traitor.

Alain considers himself quite the clever spy as he stalks Lucien, hoping the latter will lead him to damning evidence of his illicit designs. He believes he will get the necessary proof to have Lucien arrested and, by default, take over his business, complete with the war contracts.

Lucien manages to slip away from Alain at a café, but the latter is confident he will be able to catch his boss in the act soon. Unbeknownst to the young architect, Pierre is watching Alain as he watches Lucien. Pierre knows Alain secretly hates Lucien, and he has heard Alain’s phone conversations and seen him break into Lucien’s desk. However, without hard proof, he does not want to bring the issue to his new guardian. Pierre knows that Lucien has “some sort of secret life” (285) and that Alain is determined to discover it. He resolves that his new protector will not die as his last one did. Pierre was unable to protect Madame Charpointier, but he “vowed that it would never be repeated. He had to be a man now; that’s what his father had told him at his bar mitzvah” (285). 

Captain Bruckner and Lieutenant Paulus search the apartment Janusky is supposedly hiding in, but with Schlegal away, they are less committed to destroying fine homes in the search for impossible hiding places. Paulus suggests they find a Jewish man, kill him, put some bullets in the walls, and toss furniture around so they can convince Schlegal that they found him in the apartment. Bruckner agrees, suggesting they shoot the walls to make it look like they killed the to-be-determined victim as he tried to run. They leave to find a stand-in, and an hour later, Janusky exits his hiding spot in the column with a wound in his leg where a bullet has grazed him.

A passing car splashes Lucien’s suit, drenching it from the waist down. After realizing he is near Bette’s apartment and that he only has an hour before his meeting, he decides to drop by and ask her for help.

When he knocks on her door, instead of being greeted with a kiss and a plan for fixing his suit, she refuses him entry. He assumes she has another lover in her apartment and forces his way into the apartment and her bedroom, narrowly overcoming the urge to punch her in the face. He makes his way to a chest as she hits him and begs him to leave it alone. There, he finds two small children.

Realizing that her secret is the same as his own, he is overwhelmed by admiration for her. Lucien apologizes to the children for scaring them and introduces himself. Emile and Carole take to him quickly as Bette dries his suit in the oven. Reassured that he will protect her secret, Bette tells him everything. Lucien is more attracted to her than ever, but he tells her it was too easy to find the children. He quickly finds an appropriate hiding spot in the wall under the windowsill. They confirm the children can fit in the space, and Lucien makes a plan. When Bette muses that he came up with the solution quickly, Lucien tells her that he has “‘a bit of experience in these matters’” (297) and promises to come back after his meeting to tell her his secret.

Lucien meets with Manet in an apartment he has been to before. This time, he realizes it is right across the street from German headquarters. Manet informs Lucien that he will need a new hiding place right away. Worst of all, the man who usually does the work is currently being interrogated by the Nazis. Lucien is concerned that the man knows about the apartment. Manet assures him that the man will not crack, but Lucien is not so confident. He knows that if he is caught, he will be killed. Even so, he does not withdraw: “Although this suicidal situation scared him shitless, he had no intention of backing out. He wanted to do it” (301).

Kurt Lischka, the head of the Paris Gestapo, expresses frustration that Schlegal has been unable to locate Janusky, showing him a picture of the man with a large, emerald ring. He tells Schlegal that Heinrich Mueller, the head of the entire Gestapo, has taken a particular interest in finding Janusky and his money. If Mueller has to come to Paris to capture Janusky himself, Lischka—and by extension, Schlegal—will be in serious trouble. On the other hand, if Schlegal finds Janusky, he may be promoted to general.

Schlegal tells Lischka that he hopes to find Janusky within the next few days thanks to the man he was torturing. He believes Monsieur Aubert, the old cabinetmaker, or someone of similar skill has been building secret hiding places. Once the conspiracy is uncovered, Schlegal maintains he will be able to find Janusky.

Despite the beatings, the elderly man has not given up any information. Lieutenant Voss cuts off his fingers with wire cutters, then sadistically scratches his head with one before placing the dismembered digits in Aubert’s jacket pocket. After they drag the unconscious man away, they call in an elderly woman, Marie, to clean up the blood. They joke about how attractive she must have been 25 years earlier, even slapping her bottom as she cleans. After they leave, she goes through the papers on the desk, reading one page very closely.

Bette stops by the factory worksite. Her unexpected presence and beauty cause a stir, and Lucien proudly takes her to lunch. As they plan their afternoon, Bette considers the wide array of men she has dated, analyzing their behavior like an anthropologist. In general, she has found horses to have stronger character than men, but she is enamored with the strength of character Lucien has displayed by taking in Pierre. Lucien is thrilled to hear that not only has Bette seen some of his work but that she wants to spend the day looking at all his buildings.