Paris: The Novel

people and everyone says it’s because he’s Jewish. It’s absurd, yet everyone does it.”
    “But there’s a difference, surely,” Max had objected. “People aren’t saying that the Jews should be attacked.”
    “I believe you’re missing the point.”
    “Which is?”
    “As long as they don’t see it, Max, they don’t care. If a Jew is mistreated they think: Well, he probably asked for it. If a Jewish community were to say that women and children had been rounded up and shot, those same people will say: ‘These Jews are probably lying.’ They may think Hitler and his Nazis are extreme, but at the end of the day, they don’t want to know.”
    “And if he says he’ll conquer Europe?”
    “He’s against the communists. That’s his attraction to them. It’s the ancient principle: the enemy of my enemy is my friend. The bourgeoisie of Europe fear communist Russia. Hitler is a buffer between Russia and the West. They think he’s defending them.”
    “Until he attacks us.”
    “They don’t believe he will.”
    “Why—when he says he’s going to?”
    “Because they don’t want to. They can’t bear to think it. The memory of the Great War is so terrible that no one wants to believe it could ever happen again. So if Hitler prepares for war but says he wants peace, they tell themselves it must be true.” His father had shrugged. “The bourgeoisie will always choose comfort over reality.”

    Max reminded his father of that conversation now.
    “Stalin’s no bourgeois, Father. He sees Hitler for the threat he is. Look at what happened this spring. Hitler marched into the Rhineland. Admittedly the demilitarized zone, but he was still breaking the German treaty with the Allies after the last war. Nobody seemed to think it mattered, but the message is clear. Hitler can’t be trusted, and he means war. Stalin knows that to protect Russia from Hitler, he needs strong allies in the West. So for the time being, at least, Russia needs bourgeois friends. That’s why the party doesn’t want a revolution here. We need to reassure the bourgeoisie, here and in other countries.”
    “But if the workers form committees in every factory, we can push straight through to a Marxist state. Then Russia will have a true, Marxist regime in France as her ally, instead of a bunch of timorous bourgeois.”
    “I know, Father. That’s what Trotsky is saying. But he’s wrong. It’s too risky.”
    “Revolution is about taking risks.”
    “Yes. But Russia is the only Marxist state at present. We have to protect her.”
    “And we’re to betray the workers for this?”
    “Blum is offering them almost everything they want. It will completely transform employment conditions in France. That’s revolutionary.”
    “But it’s not revolution. They’re prepared to stay out on strike. Believe me, I know. They want complete change.”
    “Yes, but they can’t have revolution. Not yet. The union leaders are going to tell them to take the deal, and go back to work. All the Communist Party boys are being mobilized to back the union leaders up.”
    “I haven’t heard this.”
    “It’s only just been decided.”
    “Where? By whom? Why don’t I know?”
    It was time to break it to him.
    “They knew what you’d say, so they didn’t ask you.”
    “It seems that you knew about this,” his father said quietly.
    “I work for
L’Humanité
. That’s how I heard.”
    “You may find,” his father said coldly, “that some of the workers refuse to obey orders.”
    Max looked down at the floor, and said nothing. His father stared at him for a little while.
    “So what else haven’t you told me?” Jacques said at last.
    The unkindest cut of all. But it couldn’t be avoided. Max took a deep breath.
    “Blum has troops gathering outside the city.” Max paused. “I’m sure they won’t be needed. But just in case …”
    He saw his father’s head fall. The tall man’s body seemed to shrink.
    “Troops. Against our own people …”
    “It’s only a precaution.”
    Jacques Le Sourd did not speak for a little while. He stared up toward the domes of Sacré Coeur high on the hill above them, but whether he even saw the basilica’s pale form it was impossible to say.
    So it had come to this. Full circle. It seemed to Le Sourd that his entire life had suddenly become an illusion, an irony, an evaporation into the blue sky.
    At last he spoke.
    “Sixty-five years ago,” he said quietly, “in the Commune of Paris,