The Paris Architect: A Novel Part 11

"Where on earth did you get this place?"

"It belonged to a French n.o.bleman. He was hiding Jews here, but they escaped from us."

"That must have made you quite annoyed, my love," said Adele tauntingly.

"It most certainly did, so the Reich appropriated his home."

"And what happened to the n.o.bleman?"

"He's in Switzerland, so he'll never set foot in his ancestral home again."

"What an idiot, to give all this up for a bunch of Jews," said Adele.

"You'd be surprised, my love, at how many Frenchmen have risked their lives for them. I'm talking about men whose families go back hundreds of years."

Adele was uninterested in this revelation and turned her attention to the grand staircase.

"Let's see the rest of the place. I'll race you upstairs," said Adele, kicking off her shoes.

Schlegal followed her up the grand carved-wood staircase. She ran ahead, going from room to room, exclaiming with delight at every treasure she found.

Adele reappeared at the end of the corridor, leaning seductively against the jamb of a doorway.

"I believe I've discovered the master bedroom, Herr Colonel," she said, while she slowly unb.u.t.toned her white silk blouse, revealing the black bra.s.siere Schlegal so admired.

"Mm, allow me to verify this discovery," he replied.

Schlegal rubbed his body against Adele's as he pa.s.sed through the doorway. He threw his cap on the bed and took off his black tunic. When he turned around, he was extremely pleased to find Adele completely naked. She was quite proud that he'd once told her that no woman he'd ever known could undress so fast. He took off his uniform and gave her a long, slow kiss. Adele put her arms around Schlegal's neck, hoisting her legs around his waist. He held her aloft while walking around the bedroom, kissing her pa.s.sionately.

When he got to a flight of carpeted stairs that led to a small study, Schlegal lowered Adele against them and entered her. She had always enjoyed unusual sites for making love-a tour boat on the Seine, the top of Notre Dame-so she was very aroused at being taken on the stairs. Schlegal was also quite aroused and furiously pounded Adele. His feet were firmly planted on the floor to give him extra leverage. But something was wrong that he couldn't quite figure out. To Adele's great disappointment, Schlegal stopped in mid-thrust and looked down at the stairs.

"Did you feel these stairs move beneath us?" he said. "The staircase was moving in unison with us, going up and then down ever so slightly."

"No, my sweet; my mind was elsewhere. And I wish it were still elsewhere."

Schlegal gave Adele a powerful thrust. "The stairs are moving," he said. He pulled out of Adele, leaving her sprawled on the stairs.

"So what, for G.o.d's sake; get back in here!" shouted Adele.

"Get off the stairs," he barked, and Adele raised herself up and stood next to him.

Schlegal reached down, grabbed the edge of the bottom step, and pulled up on it. With great effort, he raised the entire staircase in one piece, revealing a mattress underneath it.

"What the h.e.l.l is this?" cried Adele. "Why would anyone put a mattress under a stair like this?"

Schlegal moved the heavy staircase up and down.

"It's hinged at the top, and there's a bolt on the inside of the bottom step," he said.

A smile came over Schlegal's face, and he dropped the stair with a heavy thud. He began to laugh uncontrollably.

"This is most clever," he said. "It was the hiding place for the Jews we were looking for. No wonder we couldn't find the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds. They were here all the time. And we thought they'd escaped out the back!"

"Then why are you so happy about all this?" asked Adele, who was beginning to s.h.i.+ver.

"I admire such ingenuity. I bet my men walked over them two or three times during the search." Schlegal sat down on the stairs.

"Did the Frenchman think of this?"

"A member of the aristocracy is too stupid to come up with something like this. It had to be someone clever and smart."

"My friend Lucien, he's an architect. Maybe he could sniff around. He can make some inquiries. Lucien knows tons of people in the building trades."

"Your modernist architect lover?"

"Former lover. The one who's doing many important buildings for the Reich."

Adele sat beside Schlegal and wrapped her arms around him and began nibbling his ear, but he pushed her away.

"The question is...is this a unique situation...or are there more of these secret hiding places? All those other apartments and buildings I've searched-were there Jews hiding right under my nose?"

Adele sighed. She walked over to the bed, pulled off the bedspread, and wrapped it around herself. She reached down, took a cigarette out of his tunic pocket, and lit it.

"Jews have lots of money, and they can bribe anyone. Everyone has their price, even if it means risking death, so there have to be more of these things all over Paris. You've made it impossible for the Jews to escape France, so they must be in hiding. I bet you they were right under your nose while you tore those places apart," Adele said with a laugh.

Adele was now lying on the bed with the bedspread over her. She saw her last comment had hit a nerve. Schlegal was now putting on his s.h.i.+rt, clearly angry and embarra.s.sed, and she watched him with great amus.e.m.e.nt. He'd been bested by Jews, a subhuman species in his eyes, and his Aryan pride was wounded. At least, they were the only ones who knew of his humiliation. He was about to b.u.t.ton his white s.h.i.+rt when she threw off the covers and parted her legs.

"Herr Colonel, I believe the Reich has some unfinished business here," Adele said in a soft little girl's voice.

Schlegal turned around to face her and laughed. He pulled off his s.h.i.+rt and dove onto the bed. They made love for hours, but through it all, Adele knew the Gestapo colonel's mind was somewhere else.

27.

Lucien had always hated Lieber for criticizing his work, but now he loathed the drunken German pig as he guided him through the dark empty streets. Drinking nonstop since 9:00 p.m., Lieber was completely plastered. The cafe had closed before midnight because of the curfew, so now, along with Herzog and Manet, he was trying to find Lieber another place to drink. Not another soul was on the streets. All the French had to be home and German enlisted men in their barracks, so now the streets belonged to German officers, who had no curfew. There was a complete silence in Paris that lasted from midnight to 6:00 a.m., broken only by the sound of the hobnailed boots of the German five-man patrols walking the streets or a single rifle shot or the spray of machine-gun fire in the distance. A car speeding by meant the Gestapo had picked up some unfortunate soul.

Normally, Lucien avoided Lieber at all costs, but tonight he'd been la.s.soed into a party by Herzog, who wouldn't take no for an answer because he too had been forced against his will to come. They'd been accompanied by three very drunk young French prost.i.tutes, each carrying a bottle of vintage wine. The girls were from a brothel reserved for German use only, one of seventeen in Paris. The Reich worried obsessively about s.e.x between the French and their soldiers because of VD, so it restricted s.e.x to these wh.o.r.es, who were kept clean as a whistle by constant medical checkups.

Lucien thought the three tarts were part of the wave of girls from the country who came to the city to escape the poverty brought on by the loss of their husbands and lovers. Celine, Jeanne, and Suzy (if those were their real names) all had a wholesome attractiveness quite different from the cheap, painted look of the usual Parisian streetwalker. He was impressed that they had cards that listed their services and prices in both French and German; their business cards were nicer than his. Their cackling and high-pitched laughter caused some residents on the street to switch on their lights and peer out from behind their curtains. Normally, the Germans were highly motorized, but tonight, for some reason, they were without a car, so the whole parade turned down rue de Rivoli. It was an unusually damp and cold night for September, and a light drizzle began.

"d.a.m.n it, Bernard, we have to get inside. The girls are freezing their t.i.ts off. And we can't have that. Find me a place, now," Lieber ordered. The girls shrieked in agreement, and one kissed Lieber's cheek.

Lucien could see that Herzog, who clearly wanted to be home in bed, was desperate. "What street is this, Lucien?" he asked testily.

"Rue de Rivoli," snapped Lucien, who, with Manet, was holding up Lieber's drunken body.

"Manet, don't you have an apartment on the rue du Renard?" asked Herzog. "That's the next left, isn't it?"

Manet suddenly dropped Lieber's arm, and the German slumped to the pavement, Lucien barely holding him up. Manet looked up and down the street, thunderstruck, as if just realizing where he was. The entire party fell silent, waiting for his response.

Manet then smiled. "How do you happen to know that, Major? Have you been spying on me?" he asked.

"The Wehrmacht thoroughly checks the backgrounds of all its contractors," bl.u.s.tered Lieber. "We have to be sure we're not dealing with a Jew or a Communist. You're not a Jew, are you?"

The girls shrieked with laughter at the question. Suzy planted a kiss on the cheek of the old man. "He doesn't look Jewish to me, Maxie," she said, stroking Manet's nose.

"Well, do you or don't you have an apartment on the rue du Renard?" demanded Lieber.

"Well...Let me see. Yes, this is rue de Rivoli and-"

"G.o.dd.a.m.n it, man, don't you know where one of your own properties is? He must have soooo many he can't keep track of them, poor boy."

The girls found Lieber's comment uproariously funny.

Manet shot a glance at Lucien, who now was also quite alert and completely panic-stricken.

"Well, speak up, sir," asked Lieber. "Which one is it?"

"It's...number 29," Manet whispered.

"You said 29, Monsieur Manet?" asked Herzog.

"Yes, follow me," said Manet. Lucien felt like running away down the street, but he kept his wits about him and held on to Lieber, dragging the dead weight across the street.

"The night is still young," Lieber shouted into the cold night air. "Ladies, don't drop any of that precious nectar, we'll need every ounce tonight."

The girls pressed the bottles to their bodies and laughed.

When they reached number 29, Manet told them he'd have to wake the concierge and to wait inside the foyer for him. After banging on the door for almost thirty seconds, a drowsy and angry old woman answered the door. She was about to let loose a torrent of obscenities when she saw it was the owner. Manet shoved his way in and closed the door behind him. Minutes pa.s.sed, and Lieber became upset.

"What the h.e.l.l is taking him so d.a.m.n long? All he had to do was get the key."

Lucien knew exactly why it was taking so long. Manet was calling the Jews upstairs to warn them. There was no way he could get up to the apartment before the rest of them. Manet finally appeared from behind the door with key in hand. "I'm sorry for keeping you so long. Madame Fournier had misplaced the key."

"You should fire the stupid b.i.t.c.h," Lieber said. "That's what I would have done."

Herzog rolled his eyes and guided the colonel toward the lift. Luckily, it was at the fourth floor so they had to wait for it to come down. Lucien was praying that Lieber would pa.s.s out, but the fool unfortunately seemed to be getting his second wind.

The group piled in the lift, and it struggled with the excessive load to make it to the fifth floor. Manet unlocked the door, and Lucien held his breath. But the apartment was dark and empty. Maybe no one had used it yet. While taking off his coat, he glanced at the back of the fireplace and couldn't tell if it had been moved. It looked perfectly normal. Lucien smiled to himself. This design definitely topped the stair hideaway at the hunting lodge.

"Ladies, let the drinking commence," said Lieber. "Manet, there must be gla.s.ses in so fine a flat. Get us some, will you?"

The apartment didn't look lived in at all. No trace of anyone. But when Manet returned from the kitchen with a tray of gla.s.s tumblers, Lucien saw an unmistakable look of fear in his eyes. The Jews were here.

The party made themselves at home on the expensive furniture, with Lieber stretching out on the sofa. Celine sat at the end with Lieber's feet on her knees and she stroked his boots, commenting on the fine quality of the leather. Herzog sat in an upholstered chair at the other end of the room and looked at Lieber with undisguised disgust. When Jeanne came over to sit on the arm of his chair, he waved her away, and she joined Lucien in his armchair. "Manet, there must be some music here," said Lieber.

"I'll try the radio, Colonel," said Manet, who walked over to a fine stand-alone set against a wall and switched it on. Pleasant dance music flooded the large apartment. The French radio station that spewed mostly German propaganda had shut down for the night, but one could always get music from Switzerland and England, even though it was against the rules to listen to overseas channels.

"Manet, your company is doing d.a.m.n fine work for the Reich. Together, we're going to produce a war machine that will supply our troops for years. Here's to you, monsieur," shouted Lieber, lifting his gla.s.s in the air toward Manet, who in turn raised his.

"And you, Herzog, you'll be a colonel by next year for your efforts for the Fatherland."

Herzog barely raised his gla.s.s in acknowledgment and resumed leafing through a book he'd gotten from the floor-to-ceiling bookcases. Sitting on the arm of Lucien's leather upholstered chair, Jeanne stretched out her long, slender legs across his lap and refilled her gla.s.s with wine.

"How do you like these, lover?" she said patting her thighs.

"Real beauties. Not many girls have silk stockings in Paris anymore," said Lucien.

"You just have to be special...and know the right people," she said, looking in Lieber's direction.

"And I bet you know the right people in your line of work."

Jeanne's raucous laughter hurt Lucien's ears. "The Maison de Chat only allows officers, none of those cheap b.a.s.t.a.r.d enlisted men. And they know how to treat a girl," she said, putting her gla.s.s to Lucien's lips. This was real honest-to-goodness wine, and he drained the gla.s.s in a gulp. He smiled up at her pretty, heart-shaped face. He didn't condemn her for cavorting with the Boche. Girls like her, who were excluded from respectable society in peacetime, exacted a kind of revenge by a.s.sociating with the enemy, who now held all the power. The women wanted to lord it over those who'd looked down at them before the war.

"Oooohh, someone's thirsty. Want some more?"

"Not just yet, love."

"So, what does a handsome man like you do for a living?" she asked, stroking Lucien's wavy brown hair. He knew she would soon be steering him to a bedroom for services rendered at a very steep price.

"I'm an architect."

"What's that?" Her question brought a bemused look from Herzog.

"I design buildings."

"Like an engineer?"

"Not exactly."

"Like an interior decorator?"

"Forget it, let me have some more wine." What did he expect, thought Lucien, if a respectable member of society didn't know what an architect did, why would a wh.o.r.e? Suzy, in the armchair across from Lieber, vigorously rubbed her hands together and gave him a pouty look.

"You're cold, my love," said Lieber. "Manet, it's d.a.m.n cold in here. You French don't know s.h.i.+t about central heating. In Germany, our homes are warm and toasty. It's colder than a witch's t.i.t in here."

"It's not that cold in here. It's only the end of September," protested Lucien.

"The building furnace hasn't been turned on yet," said Manet. "The radiators aren't working yet."

"Nonsense, there's some wood in the fireplace," said Lieber. "Light a fire so the girls can warm up."