Revolution - Jennifer Donnelly [77]
The son is reading from a guidebook. He tells his family that the city cemeteries became seriously overcrowded by the late eighteenth century and that the decomposing bodies posed a major health threat. Disease bred in the graveyards and so did rats. The stench was terrible. Churchyard walls sometimes gave way, spilling bodies into the streets. Complaints by citizens increased until city officials decided to dig up all the graves and transfer their occupants to the empty limestone quarries under Paris.
The dead were piled in carts and rolled through the city in the middle of the night. The carts were draped in black and attended by priests, who chanted burial masses along the way.
The kid keeps talking. The line moves slowly. I take out Alex’s diary.
7 May 1795
I felt eyes upon me.
But whose? When I turned to look, no one was there.
It was nearly midnight. Fog drifted through the empty courts of the Palais-Royal. I’d been playing Voltaire to a straggling drunk but he’d abandoned my dramas for a work of friction read him by a thin whore under the colonnade.
The clock struck the hour. I bent down to pick up my cap, and the coins in it, when I saw it—a shining gold Louis amongst the dull and dirty sous. I looked about. The man who’d thrown it would be nearby, leering and beckoning. It had happened before. Players and whores are oft confused. But again, no one was there.
I thought of all the things it would buy, that coin—a dish of roast duckling, coffee, wool stockings, an ounce of cloves to chew. These thoughts should’ve warmed me. Instead, I shivered. I pocketed my earnings and hurried off, out of the Palais, into the streets.
I walked down St-Honoré for a bit, then turned onto Ste-Anne. The fog curled its pale fingers around the streetlamps, muting their glow. I passed the Jacobin Club, shuttered for the night, then turned onto Mill, a narrow street, no wider than an ox cart.
And that’s when I heard them. Footsteps. Behind me in the dark.
It was him—the one who’d thrown the Louis—wanting value for his money. I was sure of it. I spun around, ready to fight him off.
Who’s there? Who are you? I shouted.
There was no answer.
It’s that tosspot Benôit, a kitchen boy at the Foy, playing tricks, I told myself.
Benno?
Again, no answer. Only the footsteps. Measured. Unhurried. Confident of their quarry.
If not tonight, they said, tomorrow. If not tomorrow, soon.
Even then, he was watching me.
Weighing me.
Waiting.
Even then.
I feel a hand on my shoulder. “Shit!” I yelp, nearly dropping the diary.
It’s the kid. EverReady Jr. Looking like he’s never heard that word before.
“Sorry,” I say. “What?”
“He wants you,” he says, pointing to the street. “He’s been honking and waving.”
I look to where he’s pointing and see a beat-up blue Renault stopped at a light. A guy’s hanging out the driver’s side window, motioning me to the curb. It’s Virgil. Virgil with his warm coffee eyes and his beautiful face and his velvet voice. Jules is with him. I tell myself to be cool, but it’s hard when your heart’s hammering in 6/8 time.
“I’ll save your place,” the kid says. He’s probably like an Eagle Scout or something.
I head for the curb, but I’m still a few feet from the Renault when Virgil yells “Catch!” and then a clear plastic square comes whizzing through the air. I dive for it.
“What is it?” I ask him.
“The best rhymes you’ve ever heard.”
“Yours?” I say. Stupidly. Virgil rolls his eyes. Jules cracks up.
“How about my iPod?” I say.
“I left it home. Sorry. I’ll bring it by your place. I swear. You taking a tour of the catacombs?”
“Yeah.”
“Cool,” Virgil says.
Jules starts making spooky noises. The light changes. The cars start to move forward. All except for Virgil’s. Horns start honking.
“You coming to Rémy’s?” Jules shouts over the noise.
I shake my head. “My flight’s on Sunday,” I shout back.
“So cancel it!” he yells.
“I … I can