Revolution - Jennifer Donnelly [143]
“What?”
“Never mind.”
We keep walking. There’s no plastic in this world. No neon. No diesel fumes. No aluminum siding. No fluorescent lights. No loud tourists wearing T-shirts that say MY PARENTS GOT TO SEE THE KING GET HIS HEAD CUT OFF AND ALL I GOT WAS THIS LOUSY SHIRT.
We pass a woman who’s standing by a fountain, a cup in her hand. She’s wearing a black dress with a red, white, and blue ribbon pinned to it. She’s thin and sad. Two small, skinny children sit on the ground by her feet. The sight of them kills me.
“A war widow,” Amadé says.
I look back at her. I see her move. Hear her speak. She’s very much alive but I know I’m looking at a ghost. Two hundred years have gone by since she walked the streets of Paris. There’ve been wars and revolutions out the waz since then. So many people killed. And the ones left behind, the ones like her, always tell themselves that it was worth it, that something better will come from the mess and the death and the loss. I guess they have to. What else can they do?
“I wish I had some money. I would give her a few coins,” Amadé says.
“I wish I had some balls. I would tell her I’m sorry.”
“What do you mean?”
“Just what I said. I would give her an apology. From the future.”
“Why?”
“Because we’re still at it. You think the Revolution was bad news, you should check out World War One. That was supposed to be the war to end all wars. Didn’t turn out that way.”
“World War One?”
I try to explain it. And World War Two. But he can’t get past the tanks and airplanes.
We turn right onto the Rue d’Anjou. I take off my jacket and tie it around my waist. It’s sunny and warm and the guitar case is heavy on my back and I’m sweating like crazy. I haven’t had a bath. I’m greasy and smelly. But I’ve learned that stink soon reaches critical mass. You reach a certain degree of smelly, then level off.
We keep walking down a nameless street that’s so narrow, I can almost touch the houses on both sides. Amadé starts talking about the iPod again. He asks me why so many of the songs on it are in English. I tell him because English is the world’s most commonly spoken language. He refuses to believe it. He says there’s no way the world’s people would choose such an ugly language over French. Then he asks me about the man Led, surname Zeppelin, and what sort of instrument he used to make the sounds on “Immigrant Song.”
“An electric guitar,” I tell him. He gives me a puzzled look. “Do you know what electricity is?”
“Electricity,” he repeats, frowning. “I think I know this thing. The American ambassador invented it. Benjamin Franklin. Do you mean to say that Monsieur Zeppelin’s guitar is powered by lightning?”
“No, not by … actually, yeah,” I say, laughing. “That’s exactly what I mean.”
“This is a wondrous thing,” Amadé says.
“Yeah, it is,” I say, thinking how cool that is—Amadé liking Jimmy Page’s guitar-playing. Because two hundred–odd years from now, Jimmy Page tells Rolling Stone how much he likes Amadé Malherbeau’s.
“Ah! Look where we are. Almost there. Come, we must cross,” Amadé says, taking my arm. We turn left onto the Rue de la Corderie, dodging a carriage, two sedans, and countless piles of horse poop.
And then I see it—an ancient, ugly building, looming above the stone wall that surrounds it. A dark tower rising into the sky. The Temple prison.
As I stand there, staring up at it, this whole weird trip becomes real. History itself becomes real. It’s no longer an account. A chapter in a textbook. Pages in a diary. It’s real. He’s real. He’s in there. He’s suffering. Dying. Not in the past. But now. Right now. I feel like I can’t breathe.
“Amadé,” I say. “There’s a boy in there. Louis-Charles.”
Amadé’s a few steps ahead of me. “I know,” he says brusquely. “There’s nothing to be done.” He walks back to me and takes my arm, but I don’t move.
“He’s only a child, Amadé.”
“What he is, is a lost cause,” he says. “Come on.”
But I don’t. I won’t. I just stand there, looking up at the tower. I remember Alex