“You’re late!” he says, a hand covering the phone. As he is looking up, his smile momentarily lifts travel fatigue from his features. Richard is already there and, as usual these days, he is on the phone. Hot and sweaty, I arrive at the terrace of the Flore. The students have blocked traffic on St.-Germain and prevented Richard’s car from reaching our apartment on the rue des Écoles. Les manifs are a routine feature of my Parisian neighborhood, and I usually enjoy their high-spirited revolutionary theater. But this is the Latin Quarter, and it is October, the season of student manifestations. As he shuttles between Washington, Kabul, and Islamabad, we have little time together minutes matter. I am merely crossing from the fifth into the sixth arrondissement. My husband has flown all night from Kabul on a military plane. I am determined to get to the Café de Flore before Richard does. Like a human snowplow, I surge against the flow of chanting, banner-waving students pouring into the boulevard St.-Germain.
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