Revolution - Jennifer Donnelly [161]
He didn’t answer me right away. He was looking past me, looking at something outside my window. I followed his gaze and saw what it was—a towering statue of Danton.
“I don’t know, Andi,” he finally said. “In a way it never ended. In a way they’re all still here. Restless ghosts looking over our shoulders. They wanted the best possible things, some of them—liberty, equality, and fraternity for all. It was a nice dream. Too bad they didn’t pull it off. Too bad we haven’t.”
We heard a chorus of honking horns then. The cars in front of us had started to go. Virgil shifted into first. “Life’s all about the revolution, isn’t it?” he said. “The one inside, I mean.”
I look at him now, messing with Rémy. I like to do that, to look at him before he sees me looking at him. He’s wearing the usual—jeans and a hoodie. The sleeves are pushed up. I can see a bandage sticking out from under one.
There was trouble in his neighborhood a week ago. He was trying to get home after his shift. There was a fight on the street outside his building. He tried to stop it and was knifed. The attacker was aiming for his heart. Virgil blocked him with his arm. Barely. But barely was enough.
He turns then, and sees me, and his whole face breaks into a smile. For me. And my heart feels so full that it hurts. Full of love for this man I’ve found. And for the brother I lost. For the mother who came back. And the father who didn’t. Full of love for a girl I never knew and will always remember. A girl who gave me the key.
It goes on, this world, stupid and brutal.
But I do not.
I do not.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thank you to my editor, Krista Marino, and to Beverly Horowitz, Noreen Herits, Joan DeMayo, Chip Gibson, and all at Random House for believing in me and my story. I feel very fortunate to have had the support and encouragement of my large, boisterous, and wonderful RH family.
Thank you to Gabriel Byrne and Barry McGovern for kindly answering my questions on the actor’s art, and to Natalie Merchant and Anna Wayland for showing me the minor keys, the madness, and the music. Thank you to Thomas Hagen, whose beautiful paintings were the inspiration for Marianne’s still lifes.
Thank you to historian Christian Baulez, Dr. Hal Buch, novelist Valerie Martin, singer Sonia M’barek, and Lionel Morissée, baker at Poilâne, for their expertise, advice, and in Monsieur Morissée’s case, for bread so good it makes me cry.
Thank you to the young musicians at the Bard College Conservatory of Music Preparatory Division, and to their teachers, for the love and dedication you give to your music, and for the inspiration you’ve given me.
Thank you to Steve Malk for being my agent and my friend, and for telling me about the Decemberists.
Thank you to my parents, Wilfriede and Matt Donnelly, for giving me a love of books and history, and for not letting me throw the first draft of this book into the pond.
And thank you most of all to my Douglas and my Daisy, for your love, for always being there, and for giving me the key.
PERMISSIONS
Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following for permission to reprint previously published material:
Alfred Publishing Co., Inc.: Lyrics from “I Wanna Be Sedated,” words and music by Jeffrey Hyman, John Cummings, and Douglas Colvin, copyright © 1978 by WB Music Corp. and Taco Tunes, Inc. All rights administered by WB Music Corp. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission of Alfred Publishing Co., Inc.
Hal Leonard Corporation: Lyrics from “Asleep,” words and music by Johnny Marr and Steven Morrissey, copyright © 1986 by Marr Songs Ltd. and Bona Relations Ltd. All rights for Marr Songs Ltd. in the U.S. and Canada controlled and administered by Universal-Polygram International Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved; Lyrics from “Tupelo (Tupelo Blues),” words and music by John Lee Hooker, copyright © 1991 by Orpheum Music. International copyright secured. All rights reserved; Lyrics from “Viva La Vida,” words and music by Guy Berryman, Jon Buckland, Will Champion and Chris Martin, copyright © 2008 by Universal