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By Root 458 0

armbands of the Communards. They greeted each other warmly, and Lucien invited Gérard to visit the Île. The next day he learned that Gérard’s two children had died during a flu epidemic more than five years earlier, after which his wife had left. Lucien relayed some of what had happened to him over the same period, and for a while they sat in silence, which seemed to make the tragedies they had just described feel very far away. Succumbing to nostalgia and affection, Lucien reminisced about their former jobs at the St.-Germain and the years they had spent carousing around Paris, and remarked how strange it was to realize that he now was older than Gérard had been at the time. While Gérard was willing to indulge him in these memories, and even smiled a few times as he recalled certain details that Lucien had forgotten, he was less willing to romanticize this period of his past, explaining that it had been marked by a cynical disbelief in everything.

“You were so wise,” Lucien protested. “Everything you said about love was true.”

“Perhaps.” Gérard shrugged. “But while love was everything to you then—what were you, sixteen or seventeen?—it was already past for me.” He paused and considered Lucien with a grimace. “You’ve suffered—we both have—but let me play the elder again and say that if you can’t find something to believe in—and I’m not saying it has to be the communes, but hopefully it won’t be the monarchy, or even the republic—your life will be very long and tedious.”

ONE AFTERNOON IN March, Lucien noticed a pause in the shelling, followed by a series of triumphant cries and shouts. He ran outside and crossed the bridge to the Île de la Cité, where thousands had congregated, kissing and hugging, so that the city appeared to have been conquered by a bedraggled army of hobos. Looking out over the masses, Lucien realized that not a tricolored flag could be seen in a frothing sea of red: the city—just as Gérard had predicted—had been taken over by the radicals of the commune. Lucien found a spot in an alcove of one of the fountains at the Place St.-Michel from which he could watch and cheer. As far as revolutions went—and like every Frenchman, Lucien had been extensively schooled in both the concept and the reality—this one was not so bad. As night fell, lines of old women paraded past, sweeping brooms in time to a band of brass players, who in turn were followed by painters and sculptors who had fabricated a giant float out of old scrap metal and paper flowers. There were dancers and singers in sequin suits and laborers and factory workers, while prostitutes celebrated the new age by offering their services for this one night only at a 50 percent discount.

As the morning light crept into the eastern sky, Lucien remained asleep in the fountain, oblivious to the thud of soldiers—the French national army—marching through the city gates. He woke up to witness the soldiers advancing into the sleeping crowds, where they plunged bayonets into those at their feet and fired bullets that ripped off the heads of those who stood up groggily to protest. He watched helplessly until the wave passed, after which he crawled down from his hiding spot; as he edged along from doorway to doorway to make his way back to the Île, he continued to hear the harsh whisper of flames and gunshots, interspersed with screams and the shattering of glass, all of which—like the splintering crack of a human bone—did not need to be experienced to be recognized as grotesque sounds of war.

Near the river, he turned a corner just in time to see Gérard and several of his comrades trying to block the Pont d’Hiver against an advancing column. The soldiers took the bridge without engaging the communists so much as marching right over them. Lucien sprinted ahead, arriving just as the soldiers reached the other side, leaving Gérard wounded and gasping; blood seeped from all over his body. Lucien placed his hands under his old friend’s arms and as bullets flew dragged him out of harm’s way to a sheltered spot under a stone balustrade. His mind raced as he tried