Revolution - Jennifer Donnelly [23]
I shake my head, afraid that the whole thing will break or snap or crumble to dust if I touch it again.
“I can’t, G. It’s too fragile. It needs reconditioning. It needs an expert to—”
“Go ahead. Play it,” he says.
He wants to help me. I know he does. He probably thinks the guitar will be some kind of therapy. But I’m really bad at being helped.
“It’s okay,” I tell him. “Really. I mean, I brought a guitar with me. I don’t need this one.”
G comes over, lifts the guitar from its case, and hands it to me. “Perhaps it needs you,” he says.
I’m not ready for that. It catches me off guard. Usually the last thing anyone or anything needs is me.
“Yeah. Um … okay,” I say.
I lay the guitar back in its case, get my bag, then hurry back, feeling like Gollum with his Precious, scared that G will suddenly come to his senses and take it away from me. But he and my father are wrapped up in their papers again. I pull out my spare set of strings, and a Ziploc filled with guitar crap—nut sauce, cleaner, lube, a string winder, wax, polishing cloths. Then I get busy. The pegs are stiff. The frets are grimy. The wood is dull.
Lili brings another bottle of wine. She disappears into the kitchen. By the time she’s bringing out plates and cutlery—an hour later—the guitar is waxed and restrung. I tune it and when I’m finished, G says, “Play something for us.”
I look up at him, still uncertain.
“It survived the Revolution. It will survive you,” he says.
I can’t decide where to begin. Making music on an instrument like this feels like being with a boy who’s so hot, you have to kiss him everywhere all at once. I take a breath and start with “Come As You Are.” I jump back in time to Rameau. Then Bach. Then a couple of tunes by Gomez. And then I stop because I’m sweating and breathless and the sound of clapping startles me. Because I forgot. Forgot they were here. Forgot I was.
“Brava!” Lili shouts.
“Encore! Encore!” G says, clapping like a maniac.
Dad’s clapping, too. In big wide sweeps. Like someone’s making him. I put the guitar back in its case and join them at the table.
“You have an incredible talent,” Lili says. “Where will you continue your studies when you graduate?”
“Um, well … I’ve looked at Juilliard and the Manhattan School,” I say.
G flaps a hand. “Forget New York. Come to Paris. To the conservatory.”
I look at my father, who looks at his wineglass. “Yeah, maybe,” I say. “I’ve got no firm plans yet.”
Lili pours more wine. “Guillaume, the chicken comes soon. Clear those things away, please,” she says, nodding at the papers and photos.
“I’ll get them,” I say. I start to shuffle the stuff together, but the image in one of the photographs catches my eye. I pick it up. It’s some kind of glass jar. It’s old and egg-shaped and has a sun with a scrolly L etched on its side. There’s something in it. Something small and dark. I can’t take my eyes off it. “What is that?” I ask.
G looks at what I’m holding. “A moving sight, no?” he says. “It’s not often we may look upon the heart of a king.”
12
I didn’t hear him right. I can’t have.
A king’s heart? Kings have big hearts. Mighty hearts. How else can they fight wars and go on crusades? But this heart doesn’t look big. It looks small and sad.
“We don’t know it’s a king’s heart, G,” Dad says. “If we did, I wouldn’t be here. Its physical characteristics tell us it’s a human heart. Its size indicates that it belonged to a child. That’s all we know.”
“No mere child,” G says. “This is the heart of Louis-Charles, son of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette.