Revolution - Jennifer Donnelly [118]
As I watch them race around, I try to work up the courage to ask what I need to know.
“Dad?”
“Mmm-hmm?” he says, looping his tie into a knot.
“Is the heart his?”
“Yes,” he says.
No, I think. Please no.
“Are you sure?” I ask him.
Dad messes up the knot, swears, and starts over. “We—the two other geneticists and I—looked at the sample’s mitochondrial DNA … you know about mtDNA, right?” he says. “It’s inherited only from the mother and passes down the maternal line unchanged—making it easier to follow than DNA that might’ve come from either parent.”
“Yeah, I know that,” I say impatiently.
“Well, we compared the mtDNA from the heart to mtDNA taken from living relatives of Marie-Antoinette’s and it was an exact match. We also compared the heart’s information to the D-loop sequences of mtDNA taken from a strand of Marie-Antoinette’s hair and hair samples from two of her sisters. We looked at two hypervariable regions of the D-loop—HVR 1 and HVR 2—and found matches for HVR 1 in all three samples.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that the heart belonged to a child maternally related to the Habsburg family—that is, to Marie-Antoinette’s family.”
“That’s, like, your opinion?”
“That’s, like, scientific fact.”
“But Marie-Antoinette had several children. How do you know it didn’t belong to one of the others?”
G answers me. “Because the heart is too large to have belonged to Sophie-Béatrix, who died shortly before her first birthday,” he says. “It is too small to have belonged to Marie-Thérèse, who was eventually released from the Tower and who died in adulthood.”
“What about Louis-Joseph? Louis-Charles’ older brother? He died in childhood,” I say.
“He did, yes. But he died before the Revolution, and so was given a royal funeral. As tradition dictated, his heart was removed for embalming. It would have been cut open and stuffed with herbs. The heart we have here was not thus embalmed. It cannot be Louis-Joseph’s.”
My last hopes are flickering and dying like the flames on burned-out candles.
“What about cousins? Didn’t Marie-Antoinette have sisters? They probably had children, didn’t they? Couldn’t the heart have belonged to one of them?”
“There were Habsburg cousins, yes,” G says slowly, looking worried. I think he heard the desperation in my voice. “They were all royal children and they lived in foreign countries. The idea that somehow a heart from one of them was stolen, and preserved in the same way and smuggled into Paris, and that everyone involved in the different stages of the heart’s journey to St-Denis was lying … well, it’s simply impossible, Andi. Nothing in history even suggests—much less supports—such a thing occurring. The heart is that of Louis-Charles.”
“You’re sure, G … absolutely sure?”
“Yes, I am.”
“Dad?”
“As a scientist, I cannot—”
“Just pretend for a minute that you’re not, okay?” I say. We all hear the desperation in my voice. Only it’s hysteria now. And I can’t keep it down.
“That I’m not what?”
“A scientist. Pretend you’re a human being. Just this once.”
“Andi,” he says. “Is something wrong? What’s—”
“Are you sure?” I ask him.
He looks at me silently, understanding dawning in his eyes, then he answers me. “Based on the history alone, I would not be sure, no. As you and G both know. Based on overwhelming scientific evidence combined with history’s circumstantial evidence, I would say, yes, I believe this heart belonged to Louis-Charles. As a scientist—and a human being—that’s what I believe. I’m sorry, Andi. I think maybe you wanted a different answer.”
I feel hollowed out. Gutted. Totally empty.
“Dr. Alpers, Professor Lenôtre, if you would be so kind,” Bertrand says.
G grabs his briefcase and hurries out. Dad’s behind him. He turns back to me before he leaves and says, “I’ll be home after the press conference. Around seven or so. I’ll see you then. Maybe we can get some dinner.” The door slams. He’s gone.
I go get Alex’s diary. There’s one more page,