The Paris Architect

Adele’s affair with Schlegal reaches a new level when he gifts her with a hunting lodge—at least until the Reich decides what to do with it. As they celebrate their new country home, Schlegal notices something is off: the stairs beneath them are moving. He quickly finds the hiding place and realizes that the Jewish couple they were looking for had successfully hidden there during his raid.

He wonders how many other places he raided had Jewish people hiding under his nose. Adele suggests having Lucien “sniff around” to discover who might be creating such intelligent hiding places. As Schlegal considers how many times he might have overlooked hiding places, he grows frustrated: “He’d been bested by Jews, a subhuman species in his eyes, and his Aryan pride was wounded” (152).

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.