Paris: The Novel

government men, an important building contractor, an Italian lighting engineer named Jacopozzi, and several others. He wondered why they had invited him. Perhaps because, these days, they thought of him as both a designer and a businessman. Whatever the reason, he was flattered that they trusted him.
    They gathered in the dining room of the apartment. It was a representative of the prime minister himself who opened the meeting.
    “Messieurs, we are here to consider a most important project, and I must ask you never to divulge what we are going to discuss.
    “Today we believe that Paris may face a new and terrible threat. It is a threat that London has already faced, and it is a threat that will only grow with time. I am speaking, naturally, of aerial bombing.” He paused for effect. “In the three years since this war began, many aspects of the military effort have altered; but the transformation of war in the air has been astounding. When we began, there were a few planes, mostly for reconnaissance, and if bombs were used, they were usually grenades or adapted shells dropped by hand by the pilots or copilots of those small open planes.
    “Now, however, the German Gotha bombers are large, they carry a payload of over two thousand pounds, and they can fly at over twenty thousand feet where it is hard, if not impossible, for our fighters to attack them.
    “I need not tell anyone here the supreme importance of Paris—its history, its art and its culture, for France and for the world. Paris must be protected. But we are not so far from the German lines. Fleets of Gotha bombers, making night raids, night after night, could do appalling damage—for let us remember that we are speaking not only of the explosions, but of the fires that may follow them. We can fire up into the sky. Our gallant fighters can go up to tackle the bombers, but all the evidence so far suggests that large bombing raids would be hard to stop. And so, if we cannot stop them, we must deceive them.”
    “Deceive them?” Marc was puzzled. So was everyone else, except the Italian Jacopozzi, who was grinning. And now it was the turn of another of the officials to unroll a large map of Paris on the dining table, and to address them.
    “Aviators at night cannot see much on the ground. If there is a little moonlight, however, they can usually catch the glimmer reflected on a river, and they often navigate by this means.” He took a pointer and indicated a point on the map. “Here you can see the River Seine. And I direct your attention to a place about three miles north of the city. As you see, the Seine here displays a series of curves which closely mimic those it makes as it passes through Paris. As you also see, much of the area here is open fields. It would be much better, therefore, if the German bombs fell up here rather than on the city. Our intention is to invite the Germans to do exactly that.”
    “Invite them?” Marc was confused.
    “Even so, Monsieur Blanchard, and in the simplest way possible. Paris will miraculously move.” He smiled while his audience waited. “Messieurs, we are going to institute a total blackout in Paris itself, and then we are going to build a second Paris, a fake Paris, just to the north.”
    “You’re going to build a fake city? The size of Paris?”
    “Big enough to be mistaken for Paris at twenty thousand feet, yes.” The man spread his hands. “I am speaking of a stage set, messieurs. A Potemkin village, but a thousand times larger than anything the Russians ever dreamed of.”
    “Made of what?”
    “Wood and painted canvas, mostly. And lights.” He indicated the Italian. “Thanks to Monsieur Jacopozzi, thousands of lights.”
    “You’re going to copy big buildings?”
    “Naturally. Buildings that the enemy will be looking for. Buildings that they can see. The Gare du Nord, for instance.”
    “And the Eiffel Tower?”
    “Yes. That should really fool them.”
    “I can precisely copy the lights of the Eiffel Tower,” Jacopozzi said enthusiastically. “You’ll never be able to tell the difference. They will see an illuminated city.”
    “You’re insane,” said Marc, shaking his head. “This would be the most daring theatrical deception in the history of war.”
    “Thank you,” the prime minister’s man said. “We thought that you might like it.”
    Marc laughed.
    “It’s daring. It has style,” he agreed. And then, after a little reflection, he paid the project the highest