Paris: The Novel

the middle, just out of reach.
    “Now what do we do?” asked Michel.
    Thomas looked for an upright metal strut.
    “Get your leg around that, and one arm too,” he said. “Can you do that?” After a few moments of fumbling, Michel did it. “Now,” saidThomas, “with your free arm, grab hold of my leather belt, right in the middle of my backside. Got a good grip?”
    “I reckon so.”
    “I’m going to lean out over the shaft, so I need you to hold on.”
    “All right.”
    Thomas leaned out. Stretching the heavy cutters at arm’s length, he could just get the cutter blades around the first cable. He knew his arms would be aching soon, but he could make a start. Carefully, he clamped the cutters tight and started to work them, sawing and cutting at the cable. After a minute, he paused.
    “You all right, Michel?”
    “I need a rest.” Michel pulled on his belt, Thomas returned to the vertical, and he took a step back. Just then, a soft owl hoot from far below told them the policeman was coming.
    Five minutes later, they began again.
    “It’s funny,” Thomas remarked as he leaned out, “I was hanging just like this the first time I saw my wife. From a balcony on the Champs-Élysées.”
    “Eh?” said Michel.
    “Doesn’t matter,” said Thomas. “Just hold on.”
    He spent five minutes on the next cable. Rested a bit. Then the same on the third.
    “We’ll have to move around to the other side for me to reach the others,” he said.
    That took another five minutes. Far below, the scratching sounds ceased. Obviously Georges had done his work. But Thomas was determined to finish his self-appointed task up here. He was just about to start when another hoot from Jacquôt told him to wait.
    This time, when they were ready to start again, Michel had a question.
    “I’ve been thinking,” he said.
    “What?”
    “You know what you said about the two elevator cars balancing each other?”
    “Yes.”
    “So these cables we’re sawing at, they go right up to the top, over a drum, and down to the roof of the car on the other side.”
    “Right.”
    “So if you keep weakening the cables, they might give way, and if they do, then won’t the other car fall down?”
    “Go on.”
    “Well, if the other car falls all the way to the bottom and smashes, it’ll make a hell of a racket.”
    “Go on.”
    “People all around will be calling the police. We’ll get arrested.”
    “Could get shot, I reckon, if you’re right.”
    “Then this isn’t a good idea.”
    “At my age,” Thomas told him with a shrug, “I don’t care.”
    “But I’m not your age.”
    “I know. But I’m not worried, because I don’t care if you get shot either. Hold tight.” And Thomas leaned out again.
    “Salaud,”
said Michel.
    Fifteen minutes later, after Thomas had cut more than halfway through all the cables, while Michel watched in the greatest misery, they were back on the gangway again. They paused for a moment. Thomas pointed up to the platform high above them.
    “Can you make out the bottom of the elevator car hanging up there?”
    “I think so.”
    “Well, ever since the American Monsieur Otis invented this kind of elevator, nearly a century ago, they’ve had automatic brakes. They can’t fall.”
    “Oh.”
    The view from the gangway was truly wonderful. They could see all Paris bathed in the moonlight below. Thomas gazed up at the moon, gleaming against the backdrop of stars.
    “You know what?” he said. “If Hitler wants to go up this tower, he’s buggered.”
    Down on the second platform, they found Georges and his mate waiting patiently on top of the elevator car.
    “All ready,” said Thomas.
    They heard the cable cutters snap—once, twice … six times—and it was done. The elevator was disabled.
    The descent from the second platform took twenty minutes. Five of those were a welcome rest while the policeman passed underneath. As they climbed out onto firm ground and Jacquôt joined them, they all shook hands and decided to split up into three groups. Thomas andMichel proceeded together toward the river, taking the cable cutters with them. The bridge was empty. As they walked across, they tossed the wire cutters over the parapet and heard them make two soft splashes, like a pair of divers, in the waters of the Seine below.
    “Can I ask you something?” said Michel, when this was done.
    “Of course.”
    “You know up there you told me the elevator couldn’t fall because it had safety