The Paris Architect

Lucien, Dieter, and Manet are strong-armed into accompanying Colonel Lieber on a drunken pub-crawl. Three women are along for the ride, provided by the local brothel catering exclusively to German officers. The group resents Lieber for forcing them out into the cold to look for another bar in the cold, and they realize Manet has an apartment nearby—the one in which he is currently hiding two Jewish people. With no other options, Lucien and Manet are forced to accompany the Germans to the apartment. Manet does his best to warn his guests, but his fear tells Lucien that they are present. They pile into the apartment and Lieber tells them to light a fire in the fireplace. 

Lucien and Manet are powerless to refuse Lieber’s demand, so Herzog lights the fire and they wait anxiously. Trapped behind the fireplace, Albert and Sophie Serrault share happy memories of their trip to Morocco before stuffing handkerchiefs in their mouths to muffle their coughs as smoke fills their hiding place. Lieber passes out from the alcohol, and Herzog takes him and the women away.

Lucien cannot believe his hiding place failed to protect the Serraults, who died from smoke inhalation—a bird’s nest was blocking the exhaust pipe. Horrified that this could have been avoided if only he had thought of the birds, Lucien is haunted by his culpability. Manet tries to comfort him, saying he had done his best and that it was Lieber who killed them, but Lucien is inconsolable. Even worse than his guilt, Lucien is tormented by the knowledge that the Serraults saved his and Manet’s lives—at the cost of their own—by putting handkerchiefs in their mouths and remaining quiet.

Lucien remembers Albert Serrault’s insistence that he was a righteous man. In a daze, he walks to the Seine river and vomits, awash in a mix of terrible emotions:

Throughout the night, his emotions swung wildly from unrelenting guilt to blind rage at the Germans. Even if the Jews were the worst of what people called them, they were human beings and shouldn’t end up like that. No one should end up like that (169).

Over the next week, Lucien is unable to ignore the image of the Serraults, dead, with handkerchiefs in their mouths. Gravely remorseful, he carries Albert’s handkerchief with him as a punishment.

Adele invites Lucien to her new hunting lodge, which he recognizes as the one for which he designed the secret staircase. Adele draws his attention to those very stairs, asking who he thinks might have made it. Lucien changes the subject, asking how she had found the stairs and acquired the lodge in the first place. She answers that a client is letting her use it, leading Lucien to suspect that her so-called client is really a lover in the Gestapo.

Lucien considers that the terror brought about by the Gestapo’s discovery at least serves as a distraction from his guilt. Now, the questions of whether the staircase can be traced to him and who might know of it haunt him.

Lucien’s factory is completed, filling him with deep pride, in no small part due to his new friend Herzog’s approval and praise. Herzog tells Lucien that a new munitions factory will be built soon, with Lucien as the likely candidate for the commission. Lucien is thrilled at the prospect of designing a massive complex so big it would be “like a city” (175).

Lieber’s minimal acknowledgement of their work rankles Lucien, but he ignores his hatred, which was expounded since the death of the Serraults. As Lieber praises Reich Minister Speer’s architecture, Herzog rolls his eyes outside of view, sharing a moment with Lucien. 

Lucien’s failing marriage breaks apart as Celeste not only refuses to visit his building but calls him a collaborator. She calls him an “architectural Mephistopheles” and accusing him of having “sold his soul to the devil in order to design (178). In a moment of outrage, Lucien blurts out that he is not a traitor because he has saved two French lives. When Celeste doubts his word, he explains that he saved the lives of two Jewish people by building hiding places.

Celeste is shocked and appalled that he would risk both of their lives “all for some stupid self-righteous notion about helping one’s fellow man” (179). Ultimately, she acknowledges that she knew he was getting his recent money from somewhere other than the Germans, but she argues that by playing both sides, he has assured his own death. She declares that she has no intention of suffering the consequences of his actions and decides to leave him. She also announces that she has met someone else. Lucien goes for a long walk; when he returns, Celeste is gone, and she has taken all her clothes with her.

Juliette, despite never meeting her Jewish grandmother, has been declared a Jewish person by the Reich. She was fired from her job as a scientist and now her husband, Gaspard, is leaving her to avoid being fired himself. Pregnant and evicted from her first hiding place, Juliette finds a temporary reprieve in an empty lion’s cage at the zoo. After narrowly avoiding rape by a German soldier, she learns that Germany is bringing in more zoo animals, which means she needs a new hiding place. Fortunately, the kindly zookeeper knows someone who knows someone who can help her.

Lucien meets with Manet to discuss another hiding place, still wracked with guilt by his part in the Serraults’ deaths. He warns Manet that the stairs were found, and Manet informs him that Adele does indeed have a lover in the Gestapo and that it would be in both their best interest if he stopped seeing her.

Lucien finds his guilt overpowering his attempts to tell Manet he will not design any more hiding places. Moreover, prompted by disgust for his countrymen who turned their backs on the Jewish people, Lucien decides to continue his work. He initially refuses the offered money, wanting to help out of moral rightness, but Manet chides him to be more practical and says that he will hold on to it until Lucien wants it.

Lucien now considers the humans in the hiding places as people, not cargo, and begins taking their comfort into account. He adjusts his plan to build a hiding spot under a drain in the kitchen, adding an exit strategy—a tunnel to the garden. Manet informs Lucien that the tides of the war are turning and the Germans may be defeated yet.

Meanwhile, Alain spies on Lucien and Manet, just far away enough to see them enter the basement, shake hands, and leave. He cannot hear anything discussed but remains committed to uncovering the mystery.

Lucien meets with Father Jacques, a priest who asks him to take in Pierre for a month while his travel to Spain is arranged. When Lucien expresses his concerns, the priest tells him that a surprising number of French citizens have been taking in Jewish children. Even with the fake documents, Lucien is worried about how he can explain a child in his life. More so, the risk is staggering—unlike his clandestine projects, there would be no buffer of anonymity between him and the boy. If discovered, his life would be forfeit, as would the lives of everyone in his apartment building.

Ultimately, Lucien cannot abandon Pierre. He decides to pass him off as his apprentice, though he tells the priest that they are doing a “foolish thing” that will lead to their untimely—and painful—deaths. The priest responds that righting a horrific “affront to human dignity” and “violation of the most sacred rights of the individual and the family” is not a “foolish thing” (202).

Schlegal beats a man for information on potential designers of the stairs, hoping to get a promising name so he can leave to see Adele. Schlegal sends his men to investigate and arrest cabinetmaker Louis Ledoyen. Schlegal’s frustration at his failure to find the designer of the hiding places is exacerbated because he believes Gentiles must be involved; he vows to make them pay. He instructs a local gangster to find out who had made the hiding spot—and to find Janusky.

Once certain that Celeste will not return, Lucien welcomes Pierre into his apartment. He is surprised to find himself enjoying the role of parent and commits himself to providing Pierre with as real a home as possible. Lucien asks painful questions about Pierre’s siblings, causing the child to break down in tears as he recounts the events that led him here. Lucien does his best to comfort the boy, cheering him up with a gift—the toy soldiers he coveted in the shop window—and inwardly vowing to make him laugh more often.

A newly promoted Herzog cheerfully guides Lucien to the Hotel Majestic, Paris’ base of operations for the German High Command. Lucien considers his surprisingly close friendship with Herzog and is surprised to learn that Albert Spier, the Reich’s Minister of Armaments and War Production, wants to meet him.

As they drive, they see Gestapo officers taking a Jewish couple away as the mother tries to comfort her crying toddler. Herzog goes out of his way to stare until they are out of sight. Uncomfortable, he says, “‘Can you believe the army of Bismarck is reduced to doing that? Makes me feel ashamed to be in uniform’” (218).

Once they arrive, Lucien is appalled by how intelligent and likeable he finds Speer—a man he knows is responsible for countless deaths. This internal struggle is made worse when Speer shares how much Hitler appreciates the beauty of Paris. Lucien is startled when Speer says he wants him to design a factory for torpedoes.

Bette interrupts Adele’s interlude with her Gestapo lover to collect her sketches for an upcoming fashion show. After attending to her business—and gleaning the occupation of the man in Adele’s bed from his uniform—Bette considers how lucky she is to be beautiful and picks up her usual chocolate order.

After arriving home, she gives the chocolate to the two young, Jewish children she had taken in just before the Gestapo raided their apartment and took their parents away. At the time, Bette felt overwhelmed by her new responsibility and considered being saddled with two young children to be the worst thing that had ever happened to her. However, Bette soon realized that it was actually “the best thing” (229).