Revolution - Jennifer Donnelly [135]
“Where—is—the—toilet?” I say. Through gritted teeth.
He reaches under the table and pulls out a chamber pot. And I lose it. Completely. I grab it out of his hands and throw it on the floor, smashing it to pieces.
“Stop it! Stop it right now!” I shout at him, feeling as if I’m losing my mind.
Amadé looks at the mess on the floor. He stands up and puts his guitar down. “I helped you,” he says, furious. “I fed you. Gave you coffee. Let you sleep in my bed. And this is how you repay me? Get out. Get out of my house.”
“Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”
But I don’t get to finish my sentence. He grabs my jacket, bag, and guitar, opens the door, and dumps them on the landing. Then he stands by the door, glaring at me.
I leave and he slams the door after me. I sit down on the landing and put my head in my hands. It’s cold out here. I’m hungry. I should get going but I don’t. I’m afraid to. Afraid to stand up and walk out of this building. Afraid that if I do, the eighteenth-century world will somehow become real.
But I can’t sit here forever. I’ll pee my pants. I stand up and walk down the stairs.
It’ll be okay, I tell myself. It’ll all be okay.
70
But it’s not.
As I reach the landing on the floor below, I see a child staring at me from a doorway. She bursts into tears.
“I thought you were my papa,” she says. “I wait and wait for him but he never comes. They took him away. I want him to come back.”
A woman appears. She pulls the child inside, looks me up and down, and scowls. I ask her if I can use her WC. She tells me to use the one in the yard like everyone else.
I wonder if this is maybe some kind of student housing with common bathrooms. And maybe everyone calls the bathrooms “the yard.” Maybe it’s a French thing. But no. I find the yard and it’s a yard—full of animals and stables and stable boys giving me weird looks. I find the toilet by its smell. It’s basically a hole in the ground, out behind a cow shed. I don’t want anything to do with it but I have no choice.
I finish and head for the street. I try to find some familiar landmarks but I don’t see any. I decide to head south to the Rue de Rivoli so I can orient myself and then walk east along the Rue du Faubourg St-Antoine.
Children are everywhere. Just like they were last night. Begging. Crying. Darting in and out of alleys like stray cats. I pass peddlers, horses, newsboys. I’m splashed by one carriage, nearly run down by another. I pause by the doorway of a butcher’s shop to get my bearings. Big mistake.
“Move!” a loud voice shouts behind me, and the next thing I know, I’m sprawled out in the muddy street, my bag and guitar next to me.
A man is staring down at me. He’s carrying a dead pig on his shoulder. Blood drips from its cut throat. “Out of my way, you ass!” he yells.
There are people nearby but no one helps me up. A few laugh at me or shake their heads. They’re wearing long dresses with aprons over them. Ragged pants and tunics. Coarse linen shirts. Stockings and breeches. They’re carrying baskets. Jugs. Loaves of bread. Their faces are wrinkled and pocked and warty. They have crooked teeth. Rotten teeth. No teeth at all. And in the bright light of morning, I see that it’s all real. There’s no makeup on their skin, no fake noses, or glued-on scars.
I stand up, covered with mud, and face the impossible—this lost world, this lost Paris, come back to life. And me standing right in the middle of it.
“Get the hell out of my way!”
I quickly turn around. It’s not the butcher this time but a wagon driver. I scramble for my things and stumble to the street’s edge. The wagon passes by. It has tall sides made of wooden poles lashed together. There are people inside of it. They gaze at me but don’t seem to see me. They are silent. Some are crying. And I realize what I’m looking at—a tumbrel, a wagon with a cage on the back. I’ve seen drawings of them. They were used to take people to the guillotine. Ragged boys run alongside it, taunting the prisoners. A small girl straggles after it,