Paris: The Novel

nobody cared. They had a very jolly time harvesting the grapes each autumn, and celebrating in the usual manner.
    Even the Maquis was becoming somewhat respectable. Well, insofar as that was possible when some of the old families still resided there.
    As he passed an open window, Thomas heard the unmistakable sound of Édith Piaf’s voice singing, and he smiled. He’d seen her perform in a nightclub once—a tiny, sparrowlike girl, who sang with the accents of the street. He knew she’d made one or two records before the war. But if she wanted to make a living now, she’d have to sing for the Germans.
    Well, he thought, the voice of the streets was going to fight back.
    He found the collection of shabby little tenements that housed the extended Dalou family, and asked for Bertrand.
    He still had a mop of greasy hair, but he walked with difficulty. He’d put his back out years ago, and never recovered. Thomas nodded to him.
    “You know who I am?” he asked.
    “I know. What do you want?”
    “I need help.”
    “Go screw yourself.”
    “I’m going to kick Hitler in the balls.”
    “Go and do it then. I hope he cuts yours off.”
    Thomas produced a bottle of brandy he’d taken from the bar.
    “Let’s talk,” he said.

    “You really think it’s possible?” Bertrand said, ten minutes later.
    “I know the tower like the back of my hand,” Thomas replied. “As for the elevators, I understand how they work. Give me a little time and I can disable them all.”
    “It’s the shortest night of the year.”
    “There’s enough time. But I need help.”
    “What about your own family?”
    “My son’s missing a leg. As for Luc … He thinks it’s a bad idea.”
    “He’s a rat.” Bertrand Dalou shrugged. “Why come to me?”
    “I need a tough son of a bitch. You came into my mind.”
    This answer seemed to please Dalou.
    “I’m no good since my back gave out. But I’ve a couple of grandsons.”He turned and called out: “Jacquôt! Michel! Come here.” And a moment later two swarthy and disreputable-looking young men appeared. “You’re going out tonight,” he commanded them.

    There were five of them in the end. Michel had a friend called Georges, a small, wiry man who was a steeplejack. That was helpful. Georges had brought his mate.
    “We’re going to need a couple of big cable cutters,” Thomas had told them. “The biggest we can get.” A supplier called Gautier, at the bottom of the hill, had them, he explained, but Gautier closed at lunchtime on Saturdays, and he hadn’t been able to get in.
    An hour later, Michel and Jacquôt had returned with the very cable cutters he needed. He didn’t ask how they got them.
    They decided to approach separately and rendezvous beneath the tower at midnight. There were thin, high clouds in the night sky that obscured some of the stars, but it was only two days since the full moon, and they had all the light they needed. The great tower was deserted. A solitary policeman patrolled under it from time to time, before descending to the quays along the river and making his slow round again.
    While he was out of sight, they climbed over the barrier and into the stairwell. Thomas needed a little help from Michel and Jacquôt, but he was pleased to find that he could manage pretty well.
    The first task was to place a lookout. Since Jacquôt wasn’t sure about his head for heights, Georges the steeplejack took him up to a vantage point about sixty feet up, from which he had a good view in both directions. His signal was a low call like an owl’s hoot.
    In the tower’s early years, there had been elevator systems in all four of its legs, but the elevators, operated by huge hydraulic pumps below, were just in the east and west legs now. It took only a few minutes for the men to climb up and get out onto the tracks above the car in the western leg. Six stout wire cables ran up there. They had to be careful as the greased tracks were slippery. The cables, grouped three and three, were easy enough to see in the moonlight, as they ran up the great, curving tracks, passing guiding sheaves here and there, until they disappeared into the soaring tunnel of girders in the sky.
    “The pump below powers it,” Thomas whispered. “These metal cable ropes go from the pump all the way up to the big block, which is like agreat wheel, about four hundred feet up there, above the second platform, then down to the car, which gets lifted. So, cut through the cables and