Revolution - Jennifer Donnelly [144]
She died trying to help Louis-Charles. She died here. In Paris. In June of 1795. And now I’m here. In Paris. In June of 1795. Standing where she stood. Standing in her place. I put the guitar case down on the street, open it, and take my instrument out.
“Are you mad?” Amadé hisses.
I take a few steps back from the wall, wanting my sound to rise, to not get eaten up by the ugly stones. I’m not even thinking about the dodgy E string now. I don’t feel crazy anymore. Whacked out. Or comatose. In fact, I feel totally sane.
I start to play. I play “Hard Sun,” trying to hit those opening chords hard and perfect. I start to sing, channeling Eddie Vedder, wanting my voice to be strong and loud, wanting the sound to rise.
“Stop this! We have to get out of here!” Amadé shouts fearfully, tugging on my arm.
I shake him off and keep playing. Harder. Louder. I cut a finger. I can feel my blood on the strings. I hear shouting. It’s coming from the prison gates. Amadé swears at me. He walks away. A man approaches me. He has a uniform on and he’s carrying a rifle. He came out of nowhere.
“Move on!” he shouts at me.
“Please, sir. Ignore him,” Amadé says, running back. “He’s not right. He hit his head and ever since, he—”
“Stop playing!” the guard shouts.
But I don’t stop.
“Did you hear me?”
And still I don’t stop. He raises his rifle then and hits me in the face with the butt. Lights go off in my head. I fall to my knees.
“Stop. Now. Or I will shoot you dead,” the man says to me.
I look up at him. “Where did you come from?” I ask him.
He raises his rifle again, presses the barrel to my forehead. I feel blood running down my cheek. Pictures flash before my eyes. Pictures of monks on fire. Of bodies in a pit. Of napalmed children running down a dirt road. I push the barrel away and get to my feet. I hold my guitar with one hand and wipe the blood off my face with the other.
“A decent man. Just doing your job,” I say to him. “You were always here. And you always will be.”
76
The same chords. Over and over. Never progressing.
Amadé’s sitting at one end of the table. I’m at the other end trying to get him to talk to me.
“You want me to say I’m sorry? I’m not sorry. I’d do it again.”
He doesn’t reply.
I left the Temple after the guard hit me. I got new strings, then went to the Palais and played. My drunken friend was there. He called me Pocahontas again. Said he liked the blood on my face, that it made me look even wilder. I told him I’d gotten splattered when I scalped the last idiot who tried to grope me. I told him I’d scalp him, too, if he put his hands on me again.
He’d pressed his hand to his heart, told me he loved me, and threw money in my guitar case. And this time I snatched it up before the blind kid did. I bought food, and a bone for Hugo, and half a pound of coffee. It cost the earth but I knew I wasn’t getting back into Amadé’s rooms without it.
“He’s a child, Amadé. Alone and dying,” I tell him now.
“Say one more word about it and I’ll throw you out.”
“Go ahead. I’ll take my coffee with me.”
He glares at me.
“He’s cold and hungry. Suffering in the dark.”
“That’s not so. He’s well looked after.”
“He’s sick and he’s in pain and he’s been that way for years, Amadé. For years”
“How do you know this?”
“Books. Dozens of them will be written on the Revolution. Hundreds. Two centuries after it happened people will still be trying to understand it.”
“The Revolution is past. It’s done with. Over.”
I start laughing. “It’s never over. You had a king. In another year or two you’re going to get another one.”
“What happens?”
“I told you. Bonaparte takes over. Has himself crowned emperor. Which is exactly what you all fought to get rid of. He wages war on the world. Screws everything up. Big-time.”
“I meant to the boy.”
I look away.
“If you know so much, tell me what happens to him.”
“He dies,” I say quietly.
Amadé snorts.