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Paris: The Novel

Paris: The Novel

Titel: Paris: The Novel Kostenlos Bücher Online Lesen
Autoren: Edward Rutherfurd
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little packets of cocaine. She took them, satisfied herself that it was what she thought and handed the bag back to Bernadette.
    “Madame …,” the girl began, but Louise cut her off.
    “You know the rules. Get out.”
    “Madame?”
    “Don’t come here anymore. Tell your cousin we can’t use her either. Now get out.” She turned, opened the door and indicated the way out. The girl looked at Luc, expecting him to intercede.
    “But it’s not necessary, Louise …,” he began.
    “We always agreed,” she answered. “You can’t go back on it now.” She turned to the girl again. “Go,” she commanded. And this time Luc was silent.
    After the girl had gone, Louise turned to Luc. She was no longer angry, but she was sad.
    “How could you betray me?” she asked.
    “It’s not so important.”
    “It is to me. How many others were there? I need to know.”
    “Only Bernadette. She has been using cocaine for years. She’s not addicted. She’s all right.”
    “So you’ve lied to me for years.”
    “It’s only Bernadette.”
    “I can’t trust you, Luc.”
    “You can trust me.”
    “No.” She shook her head. “I can’t.” She sighed. “Don’t come here anymore, Luc. Don’t come near my girls.”
    “Don’t talk to me like that, Louise. You need me.”
    She paused. She didn’t need him at all, but she didn’t say it.
    “Whatever I owed you was paid long ago,” she said. “You have hurt me very much. I don’t wish to see you anymore.”
    “Just don’t forget to pay me,” he said quietly.
    “I’m not going to pay you anymore.”
    She saw his hand go toward his side. She remembered that he sometimes carried a stiletto. But his hand did not go farther, and she decided it was just an automatic reaction when he was crossed.
    “You pay me,” he said, “or you will regret it.” Then he left.
    Now, she thought, she had two new girls to find.

    After the rapid ending of the strikes in June, Max Le Sourd and his father had seen little of each other. Through the long summer and into the autumn, they had each gone about their business. Each Sunday afternoon, Max would look in at his parents’ apartment in Belleville. His mother would be there, but his father would always go out. In due course, Max supposed, he’d find his father there, but it hadn’t happened so far.
    For Max it was a painful time, not only because he felt the separation from his father, but because by the time that summer was over, it was beginning to look as if his father had been right.
    True, at first, the party strategy had seemed to be wise. The strikers had accepted the terms of the government’s settlement, and gone back to work. Even the employers had praised the parties and the unions for showing such responsibility. Moreover, the new working conditions were a huge improvement. “This is historic progress,” the unions could claim. They had won respect.
    But would it last? Within weeks, the employers started to whittle back the benefits the strike had won. As he looked forward, it was clear to Max that he would soon see more of the same.
    Outside France itself, the Spanish military and Catholic right had launched a massive counterattack on the leftist government in July. Spain was now in a state of civil war. Fascist Italy and Germany were sending support to the military. In France, Blum’s socialist government was dithering over what to do. Was Spain about to fall under a fascist regime?
    And in the month of August, the Nazi regime in Germany had staged the Olympic games with a magnificence that the whole world had watched and applauded. A token German athlete with a Jewish father had been allowed to take part. But while all the world’s press and thousands of visitors had only to look around them in Berlin to see what the Nazi regime was really like, the splendor and beauty of the games had overpowered their imaginations. As his father had perceived, they didn’t want to know. Hitler’s fascist regime had scored a huge propaganda success.
    So what had been achieved? Max asked himself. The answer: nothing. The Marxist cause had been betrayed, the chance of revolution lost, its enemies stronger than ever.
    He had been wrong. His father had been right. The question was, what could he do now?

    On the first Sunday of October, the fourth day of the month, Max went as usual to his parents’ apartment. His father was not there, so he talked to his mother as usual. But instead of leaving at the end of the

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