Revolution - Jennifer Donnelly [146]
“My father was called a monarchist, a traitor to the Revolution. A few days after the king’s death,” he says, “my family’s property was confiscated. The revolutionaries took everything. Lands and buildings that had been granted to my ancestors by Henry I in the eleventh century. My father and mother were jailed. I went to my father the night before his trial. He told me where he’d buried some gold coins. And then he told me that no matter what I might hear at the trial, I had his love always. In this world and the next. ‘Live, beloved son.’ Those were his last true words to me.”
Amadé pauses here and stares into the fire. A bit of time goes by before he starts talking again. “As the son of a traitor, I should have been tried myself and probably would have been, but in the middle of his own trial my father suddenly stood up and denounced the Jacobin officials conducting the trial, the Revolution, all of it. Then he turned to me. He called me a filthy Robespierrist and a traitor to the king. He said I was no longer his son. He called me liar and bastard.
“I was shocked. I argued with him. Shouted at him. All in front of the Jacobin judges, the entire tribunal. Which was exactly what he intended. His words had been lies, every one, but those lies saved my life. I was never charged with anything, never tried. After my father’s trial, the chief prosecutor, a greasy Jacobin with dirty boots and black teeth, moved into our house. A house where kings had stayed. Where writers and painters and musicians—the finest of their day—had stayed …”
His words trail off.
“And your parents?” I ask. “What happened to them?”
“They were guillotined. In the village square like common criminals. I was forced to watch.”
“Oh, Amadé,” I whisper.
His eyes are wet with tears now. “I left Auvergne for Paris. Changed my name. It used to be Charles-Antoine. I dug up the gold my father spoke of before I went. It kept me for a while. I knew how to play and compose, so I wrote pieces for the theater. Light, silly things, yet without them I would have starved. But I find I can no longer write them. I can write nothing at all. I try, but pretty melodies sicken me now. My heart, my soul, all of me grieves. For my parents, for our lost life, for this country—” His voice cracks. He covers his face.
My heart is breaking for him. I reach across the table and try to take his hand, but it’s knotted into a fist and he won’t open it. So I get my guitar instead and start to play. I play Bach’s Suite no. 1.
After a few minutes, he picks up his guitar and joins me. The sadness is so deep, and words have failed us, but the music … the music speaks. I stumble a few times, as I always do on this piece. Amadé stops playing. He wipes the tears from his cheeks, then shows me how he fingers the notes. I follow him. It works.
We finish Bach. I play “Rain Song” for him next because I know he likes Jimmy Page’s guitar. He listens once. The next time, he can almost follow me, and after playing it through two more times, he’s got it. He plays brilliantly. I totally suck next to him.
I do “Bron-Y-Aur,” the nonstomp version. “Ten Years Gone,” “Over the Hills and Far Away,” “Stairway,” and “Hey Hey What Can I Do?”
We stop a lot. So I can tap out a beat for him or repeat a riff. So he can tweak my grip or show me how to unmuddy a tricky chord. We play for hours. Zepp and more besides. Sad songs in minor chords. Until it gets dark, and then after. We light candles. Forget to eat.
And later, much later, when we finish, he takes my face in his hands and kisses my cheeks.
“Be careful,” he says. “You cannot right the wrongs of this wretched world. My father tried and look what happened to him. Do not take such chances as you did at the prison today. Do not set off your fireworks again.”
“But Amadé—”
“Do not deny it. I’ve guessed who you are. Pray, my friend, that Bonaparte does not.”
And then, tired and hurting, he goes to bed. I play on a bit longer, knowing that the sounds will help him keep out the bad thoughts, the hard memories. When I finally hear him breathing