Paris: The Novel

Division had just landed, eager to fight for France.
    But where would Patton and his Frenchmen go?
    One thing seemed almost certain. They wouldn’t be coming to Paris. It made no sense. Eisenhower wouldn’t want one of his armies to get bogged down in weeks, perhaps, of bloody street fighting. He would sweep across to the Rhine and beyond, and deal with Paris later.

    Meanwhile, for Schmid there was his regular duty to attend to.
    There were still huge stores of pictures in Paris that had not been sent back to Germany. But when it came to the confiscations for which Schmid was responsible, he had impressed his superiors very much. On his own initiative he had contrived to get everything crated and sent back into grateful hands in Berlin, and his zeal had been noticed.
    Apart from the drawings he had kept for himself, of course. Those he had sent through the mail to his sister to keep for him, together with a note saying that he had bought them in Paris. When he’d found Jacob’s pictures stored in Louise’s attic he’d done the same thing. That had been a rich personal haul.
    And now, on the morning of the nineteenth of August, he stood outsideL’Invitation au Voyage and supervised the last of the crates being loaded onto the truck that was to carry them away on their journey eastward.
    As the men closed the back of the truck, he signed their papers and the truck left. He watched it to the end of the street, until it turned the corner.
    Just then, from somewhere in the distance on his right, he heard a brief rattle of gunfire. Then silence. He wondered what it was.
    He turned. A few paces behind him, an old man was standing. Evidently, he’d been curious to watch the truck with its crates of pictures depart. There was a bag of provisions at his feet, and now the old fellow stooped to pick it up. Schmid was just about to walk past him when the old man pulled something out of the bag.
    There was a soft thudding sound. Schmid frowned. Something had hit him with huge force in the chest. He stared in surprise. His legs were giving way. The cobbles on the street were rushing at his face in the strangest manner.
    Thomas Gascon put the Welrod with its silencer to the back of Schmid’s head and pulled the trigger again. Then he turned. No one had seen him. As he started walking down the street, he heard the sound of more shots. Nearer this time.
    The Paris Rising had just begun.

    The Paris Rising of August 1944 was not unexpected. They had all been preparing for many months. Yet all the same, when it began, Max was taken by surprise—not by the barricades, and the snipers, and the bombings, or the general strike which paralyzed the city for several days. What astonished him was the numbers of Resistance men who had suddenly materialized.
    They were easy to distinguish. The uniform was simple. A black beret was all a sniper needed to show which side he was on. Some Max knew, loyal men who’d been helping the Resistance for a long time, and were only waiting for the moment to come out and fight. Many more had joined during the last twelve months. But large numbers, Max strongly suspected, seeing which way the wind was blowing, had hastily added themselves to the insurgency practically overnight.
    The Germans were not overwhelmed. They were still formidable. But they were confused.
    Soon the city was split into districts, some under German control, others controlled by the Resistance. The situation was fluid, chaotic. Sometimes the Germans were shooting Resistance men by firing squad only two streets away from an area under Resistance control.
    Max was engaged all over the city. His father was busy producing the broadsheets that would be distributed when the moment came—though Max found him cheerfully manning a barricade with the younger men in Belleville more than once. But each evening they met in company with several dozen other committed FTP men, communists and socialists, and reviewed the situation. The excitement was palpable. They were taking ground from the Germans all the time. Soon the Maquis would control the city.
    Only one development threatened to throw everything in doubt. The Maquis received an urgent message from General von Choltitz, the commander of the city himself.
    “The führer has given orders. If we have to evacuate, I’m to blow up the city.”
    Frantically, with the help of the neutral Sweden’s envoy in Paris, the Maquis negotiated with the general. At last the German commander made