Revolution - Jennifer Donnelly [119]
Maybe she made it. She would have stopped setting off fireworks after he died. Stopped risking her life. Stopped running. Maybe the blood on the page is from an injury, that’s all. She was injured but survived, like she did once before. And somehow, she got out alive.
I open the diary for the last time and start to read.
59
1 June 1795
Why, sparrow?
It’s Orléans.
I open my eyes, but cannot see him. The pain in my side is blinding. I’m in the catacombs. Sitting against a wall in a puddle of my own blood. I’ve been shot by a guard.
Why did you do this? he asks me. They have killed you.
Because … because once…
I want to tell him. To write down the truth. While I still can. The truth of the revolution. Not the one they made in Paris in 1789. The one they made in me. But I cannot speak. The pain will not let me.
Orléans laughs softly. I can see him now. Blood and silk. Eyes as dark as midnight. He bends low to me. His breath smells like rain.
Because once, what? Once upon a time? Once upon a time kings fought dragons and kitchen girls danced in glass slippers. Because once upon a time, princes escaped from their dungeons.
No. Listen. Please, listen to me.…
He clucks his tongue. The fables have failed you. Once upon a time never was. There’s no kindly huntsman. No fairy godmother. There’s only the wolf. Grown so bold now, he strolls the streets of Paris picking his teeth with an infant’s rib. Nothing changes, sparrow. Can’t you see that? The world goes on, as stupid and brutal tomorrow as it was today.
And though I am shuddering with pain, and twisting with pain, and sobbing with pain, I laugh. Because I know now. I know the answer. I know the truth.
Oh, dead man, you are dead wrong, I tell him. Can’t you see? The world goes on, stupid and brutal, but I
And then the writing stops. It just stops.
And whatever she wanted to tell me isn’t there.
There’s no answer. No explanation. No truth. Nothing.
I don’t know if she lived or died. I don’t know the end of her story and I never will.
All I know is that a little boy died in Paris, long ago, alone in a dark, filthy cell. And another boy died on a street in Brooklyn, his small body bloodied and broken.
I touch my fingers to the stain. Blood always turns dark. On paper. Or clothing. Or asphalt. And then I close the diary.
I thought this was all for something. I thought there would be more in these pages than sadness and blood and death.
But there isn’t. And the despair that’s always there, rooted deep inside me, suddenly blooms into something so huge, so black and thick and suffocating, that I cannot breathe.
I stand up, put the diary back in the old guitar case, and leave the case unlocked on the dining room table, where G will be sure to see it. Then I get my things. My jacket and bag. My own guitar.
Turns out, I do know the end of the story.
Alex’s. And mine.
I’ve known it all along.
60
It’s late and dark. The Eiffel Tower is lit up and so beautiful. I’m sitting on a bench by some trees in the Champ de Mars looking up at it. I’ve been here for hours. In the dark. In the cold. I tried to play my guitar, but couldn’t. I can’t find the music anymore. Can’t find that one note.
Now I’m listening to other people play. I can’t see them but I can hear them. They’re somewhere nearby. I hear a guitar, a mandolin, horns, a girl’s voice.
I’m tired. My head’s a bit hazy from all the Qwells I took. My feet ache. I’ve walked all the way here from G’s.
But that’s okay.
I don’t have much farther to go.
Only one step.
61
I’m in line for the tower. It’s a good choice, a sure thing. It’s better than the river. People sometimes survive the river.
Around me, tourists are talking and laughing. Guys are hawking fake Rolexes, scarves, and key chains. The music I heard earlier sounds closer now. It’s raw and wild and beautiful. I look for the musicians, squinting into the darkness, but I can’t see them.
The line moves and I move with it. The music stops. After