Revolution - Jennifer Donnelly [71]
He sang the last verse with me. Well, mumbled it.
There is another world
There is a better world
Well, there must be
Well, there must be
And then he whispered, “Thank you,” and hung up. And I sat on the bench afterward. Eyes closed. Squeezing the phone. Thinking about what just happened. Thinking about what happened last night. Wishing I was with him. Lying beside him. Listening to him breathe. I don’t know what this is, if it’s even anything. But it better not be anything because he’s more than cool and more than hot. He’s something I’ve never known before. Something real and amazing. And I’m out of here in a few days.
So I tried my best to put him out of my head, but I was humming “Asleep” all the way to the library.
I look around now for the molemen pushing their trolleys but they must still all be underground, because they’re nowhere to be seen. It looks like it’s going to be a few minutes, so I take out the diary. I packed it this morning so I could read it at lunchtime, while the library’s closed.
I open it up, hoping. Even more than I was last night. Hoping that Alex survived. Hoping that Virgil calls me tonight. Hoping so hard that I scare myself.
5 May 1795
The guards have not caught me yet. They have not killed me. My wound has not turned septic. The pain abates. I may yet live to finish this account.
I was writing of Versailles before I was chased, and of the fishwives. We survived the attack, all of us.
At dawn General Hoche, a leader of the Paris guard—the very soldiers who had earlier marched upon the palace—received word of the mob’s attack and came to the king’s aid. Hoche and his men pushed the mob out of the palace. General Lafayette arrived and made peace by asking the king to step out on his balcony and address his people. This the king did, promising that he would indeed go to Paris, where he could be certain of the love of his good and faithful subjects.
Did I not tell you he was stupid?
Afterward, Louis-Charles and his family were hurried away and I was dismissed, swept aside like so much rubbish by the soldiers of the Paris guard. I tried to follow Louis-Charles but they would not let me.
I found myself pushed outside the king’s chamber, back into the Hall of Mirrors. There, a few servants—pale and dazed—collected the dead. Others hurried to and fro, packing dresses, shoes, linens, perfumes—everything the queen needed to travel. Still others wandered, lost. Please, madam, take me with you, a scullery girl begged, clutching the sleeve of a lady-in-waiting. I can cook and mind children. Please, madam!
Maids and chamberlains, fireboys and footmen, cooks and grooms and gardeners—all had been told to leave. They were no longer needed, for Versailles was no more. The king and queen would live in another palace now—the damp and crumbling Tuileries—under house arrest.
Outside, some of the mob were still singing, still shouting, and dancing. Liberty! a woman yelled. Liberty for all!
Liberty. The marchers had shouted it over and over again, all night long. They’d carried banners with the word writ large. Was this liberty? If so, I wanted no part of it. I was free now, yes. Free to pin silly cockades to my hat. Free to sing daft songs. Free to go back to Paris and starve.
On the palace steps, a man mopped up blood. Two more swept up pieces of glass. The jagged shards made an ugly music as they were dumped into a bucket.
I heard the tune and knew it—it was the sound of my dreams shattering.
35
“Miss? Here are your boxes.”
The voice startles me. I’m lost in the diary again. “What?” I say. Way too loudly.
The man holds a finger to his lips. “Here is the material you asked for,” he says, gesturing to the cart beside him. “Sign for it, please. There are five boxes in all. One for Amadé Malherbeau’s death certificate and will. Three of his sheet music. One containing personal papers.” He places the boxes on the table, then hands me a clipboard.