Revolution (9 page)

“Except what I want.”

“Andi, music just isn’t enough.”

“Music
is
enough. It’s more than enough,” I say, my own voice rising now.

I’m trying to keep the anger down. Trying not to start another fight. But it’s hard. Real hard.

“How is music going to pay your bills, Andi? What kind of money can you possibly make playing guitar? We can’t all be Jonny Radiohead, you know.”

“That’s for sure.”

He starts to say something else, but doesn’t finish his sentence because his cell phone rings.

“Who? Dr. Becker’s office? Yes. Yes, I am. Please put him on. Matt? Hi. What is it? What’s happened to her?”

14

M
y heart nearly stops.

“What is it?” I say.

He holds up a finger. “She did? No, no … of course not … yes, I agree, Matt.”

“What happened? Can I talk to her?” I say frantically.

“Matt, hold on,” Dad says. He covers the phone. “Your mother had a bad reaction to the antipsychotic Dr. Becker gave her. He’s stopped it and called to let us know and to talk about trying a new drug.”

“Can I talk to her?”

“No. She’s recovering.”

“Can I talk to him? I want to talk to him.” I’m desperate now.

Dad nods. “Matt? Hi. Sorry. Look, Andi’s worried about her mother. She wants to speak with you,” he says, then hands me the phone.

“Hello, Andi. How’s Paris?” Dr. Becker asks me.

“Is my mother okay?”

“She reacted badly to a drug. Nausea and vomiting, mainly. It’s not uncommon.”

“Is she painting? She’s not too sick to paint, is she?”

There’s a pause, then Dr. Becker says, “Andi, your mother needs to face her grief. If there’s any hope of her becoming functional again, she needs to confront her loss head-on, not submerge her feelings in her artwork.”

“Okay, yeah, but she needs to paint,” I say, in no mood for his shrink rap.

Another pause, then, “No, she’s not painting.”

“But I packed her paints for her. And a portable easel and some canvases. I left them in her room. I showed her where I put them.”

“I know you did. I removed them.”

“You what?” I say. And then it’s zero to lava in five seconds. “You weasel! I can’t believe you did that!”

“Give me the phone,” Dad says. He walks toward me, reaching for it, but I turn around so he can’t take it.

“Andi, I realize you’re upset, but I assure you, your mother will make progress with drug therapy. Visible, measurable progress,” Dr. Becker says.

“You mean she’ll become a zombie. When the drugs work. Like me. And when they don’t, she’ll be a total psycho. Like me.”

“As I was saying, we’ll be able to chart her progress—”

“Progress? How is a painter not painting progress? What’s she doing? Making potholders? She needs her paints and her brushes. Don’t you get that?”

“Andi—”

“It’s a good thing you and your pills weren’t around a few hundred years ago or there never would have been a Vermeer or a Caravaggio. You’d have drugged
Girl with a Pearl Earring
and
The Taking of Christ
right the hell out of them.”

“Andi!” Dad says. He’s got hold of the phone now. He’s pulling it away from my head.

I call Dr. Becker a douche. I tell him I want to speak to my mother. He tells me I can’t. Not in this state. I’ll only upset her. Then I call him something worse.

“That’s it,” Dad says, wrenching the phone out of my hand. He holds it to his head. “I’m sorry, Matt. I need a few minutes. I’ll call you back.”

He hangs up, then starts yelling at me. “That was totally uncalled for. You are out of control. You’re going to calm down and then you’re going to call Dr. Becker back and apologize.”

I’m so upset, I’m pacing around and around the table. “Why’d you do it?” I yell back. “Why’d you put her in that place?”

“To help her get better. She’s sick, Andi.”

“She
was
getting better! She’d stopped crying all the time. She’d stopped throwing things. She needs to be home. In her house. With her work.”

Dad says nothing for a few seconds, then he says, “You need to stop. You need to let go. You think you can fix it. Fix her. You think you can make it better, and if you can do that, then—”

“Do you remember ‘The Frog Prince’?” I say, cutting him off.

“The what? No. No, I don’t.”

“It was Truman’s favorite story when he was little. It goes like this: Once there was a young prince. He had a servant. One day the prince was taken away and changed into a frog. When this happened, the servant’s heart broke. Only three iron bands could hold it together, only they could—”

“Life’s not fairy tales. Don’t you know that by now?”

“Mom’s heart is broken.”

“Andi, your mother told you. I told you. The counselor told you. Everyone told you. It wasn’t your fault.”

I laugh. Or try to. It comes out like a moan.

Dad takes his glasses off and pinches the bridge of his nose. We stay like this, standing across the room from each other, for a minute or so. And then I can’t do it anymore.

“I’m going out,” I say.

“Fine. Do what you like. I give up,” he says.

“Gave up,” I correct him. “A long time ago.”

I grab my guitar and my bag and run down the stairs and out of the building, and start walking east. To where, I don’t know. Somewhere I can sit and play and drown out the entire world and everyone in it. Especially my father.

Because what he said is wrong and we both know it.

It
is
my fault. Mom’s heart is broken because of me.

I’m the one who killed her son.

15

I
walk.

For miles and miles. Down the Rue St-Jean to the Rue du Faubourg St-Antoine. Then west to the Place de la Bastille. I keep walking. Into the heart of Paris. It’s about two o’clock by the time I get to the Rue Henri IV. It’s a weekday, in winter, and the streets are quiet. I keep going. South. To the river.

I can play there. No one will tell me to stop. No one will tell me music’s not enough, when music’s the only thing I’ve got.

I get to the water, trot down a flight of narrow stone steps, and I’m on the quai—a wide stone walkway that hugs the river. There’s a bench nearby. I put my guitar and bag on it, take out my phone and call Dr. Becker’s office. Get voice mail. Call my mom’s cell. Get voice mail. Then I sit down and take off my boots and socks. My feet are killing me. I find a couple of Band-Aids, tape them over my blisters, and put my socks back on.

I made a few stops along the St-Antoine. At an art supply store, a Chinese grocery, and a vintage clothing shop. I dig in my bag, take out the things I bought, and put them on the bench. Paints and brushes. A canister of tea with flowers on it. A jeweled compact and six glass buttons and a perfume bottle. They’re all for my mother. I’m going to send them to her.

I’m going to make up stories about each one. Like she used to do. I’ll write them all down and tell her that the buttons came off one of Edith Piaf’s dresses and the perfume bottle belonged to Josephine Baker and the compact was used by a member of the Resistance who carried secret messages in it.

I wish I could see her face when she opens the box. I wish I wasn’t here, sitting on a bench in the cold. I wish I was home with her. I wish she was painting and I was playing. In the evening in our parlor. In the half-light. In our shared, unspeakable pain.

There’s a soft splash below me. I stand up, walk to the edge of the quai and see a rat swimming away. He dives, disappearing under the gray surface of the Seine, and I think how easy it would be to follow him. All I’d have to do is take a step. One step. The water would be ice cold. There’d be a short struggle, then nothing.

My phone rings. I open it without looking at the number.

“Hello?” I say, hoping really hard that it’s my mother, not Dr. Becker.

“We have a lesson now,
ja?
”

“Nathan?
Nathan!
Oh, no. Oh, shit!”

I can’t believe I forgot. God, how stupid. It’s morning back home. Tuesday morning. I scheduled lessons with Nathan on Tuesdays and Fridays during break.

“What has happened?” he asks now, sounding worried.

“I’m in Paris, Nathan. For three weeks. I don’t want to be, but my father came home and he … he took my mom to a hospital. A mental hospital. He said she needed to go and that I couldn’t stay by myself and that he was going to Paris for work and that I had to go with him, so here I am. I should have called you to let you know. I totally forgot. I’m really sorry, and—”

Suddenly my voice breaks and I’m crying. I can’t help it. I miss my mother. I miss Nathan. I miss Brooklyn. I’m cold and scared and sick—sick of explaining, sick of being a head case and a screwup, sick of the sadness that stalks me every minute of every day everywhere I go.

“Andi?” Nathan says, but I can’t answer him.

Do it, you loser, I’m telling myself. Do it, you coward. Do it and be done. Come on. One step and you’re in the water.

“Andi, listen to me. Listen.”

Just one small step.

“Did you know that Bach lost his young daughter, and three sons, and then his wife, Maria Barbara?” Nathan says. “Did you?”

I take a breath, quick and convulsive. “No.”

“Then he and Anna Magdalena, his second wife, lost four more daughters and three sons. Eleven beloved children dead. Eleven,
ja?
”

“What are you saying, Nathan? That eleven is more than one? So I’ve no right?”

“Many scholars of music have asked themselves: How could Bach survive such grief? How did his lungs push the air in and out of him? How did his heart not stop? And most of all, how did he continue to write music? The cantatas. The cello suites. Masses. Concertos. Some of the most beautiful music the world has ever heard. Do you know how he did this? I will tell you.”

“I was thinking you would.”

“One note at a time.”

“Okay, but Nathan? Here’s the thing: I’m not Bach. No one is.”

“One note. One bar. One phrase at a time. You will do this?”

I say nothing.

“You will do this.” Not a question this time.

“Okay. Yes. I will do this.”

We hang up. I sit down on the bench, wrap my arms around my legs, and bury my face in my knees.

One note, he said. All I need is one note.

I pick up my head. My guitar is lying on the bench next to me. As I reach for it, there’s a sudden screech of brakes from the street above me, then the sound of horns blasting. I hear a man yelling—he must’ve gotten out of his car—and then a snatch of a song playing, maybe from his radio—“Norwegian Wood.” It’s a beautiful, bitter tune. Written in the sixties by John Lennon with an assist from Paul McCartney on the middle eight.

I hold the guitar close against me and close my eyes and my fingers find it—that one note. The one Bach needed when a child died. The one John Lennon needed when he woke up alone. The one I need now.

I bungle the opening phrase. Twice. And then I hit it and I’m off, pulled along by Lennon’s wry and gorgeous hook, caught fast in his sad harmonies. Drowning in the music.

I play the song through and as the last notes lengthen and fade, I hear a tiny thud. I open my eyes and see a shiny euro lying in the guitar case. A man, older and carrying a cane, is walking away.

For a few seconds, I can’t figure it out, and then it dawns on me—he thinks I’m homeless. I can see how he would, since I’m sitting on a bench with my boots off and all my worldly possessions spread out around me, but still.

“Hey!” I shout. “Wait!”

I scoop up the coin and run after him in my stocking feet, guitar in hand. I tell him he made a mistake. I’m not homeless, it just looks that way. I try to hand the money back. He tells me I misunderstand. The money is not charity; it’s payment for my lovely music. He enjoyed it very much.

He looks wistful in his overcoat, with his gray hair and gray beard, and it must be the extra pill I took this morning because for a few seconds I see him. Not as he is. As he was. When he first heard that song. A young man in Paris. Did he once have a girl? I can see in his old, sad, beautiful eyes that he did.

He touches the brim of his hat. “Thank you, miss. Goodbye,” he says, and walks on.

I stare after him, and then at the coin in my hand. I put it in my pocket, sit down on the bench, and play.

One note at a time.

16

I
t’s Wednesday morning.

One day down, twenty to go.

I stayed out late last night to avoid my father. He had a dinner to go to and I didn’t come back here until I was certain he was gone. I stayed by the river and played guitar for hours. Then I went hunting for more junk shop treasures for my mother. I hit a late-night FedEx and sent it all to Vijay. Dr. Becker will only intercept anything I send directly to her so I’m hoping Vijay can smuggle the goods in during a visit. I called him and he said he’d try.

I’m sitting at one end of the dining room table now. I’ve taken the Vinaccia out of its case and laid it on the table and I’m fiddling with the case’s broken lock, waiting for my father to get off the phone. I want to talk to him. I’ve cooked up a plan. Because I can’t take one more day like yesterday, never mind three whole weeks like yesterday.

Dad’s sitting at the other end of the dining room table, talking with G on speakerphone. G goes into some detailed info on the Bourbons—Louis XVI’s family—and the Habsburgs—Marie-Antoinette’s. I keep fiddling with the prong, trying to get it to come up out of the bottom half of the lock, so the case will close properly. If someone picked it up by its handle, and the strap wasn’t wound around it, the guitar could fall out and break. I can’t bear to even think about that. I tried sticking a paper clip into the lock and wiggling it. It didn’t work. Neither did a pen cap, a corkscrew, or a fruit knife. Now I’m trying a plastic fork.

I hear Dad tell G goodbye. I twist the fork too hard and it breaks. A piece flies across the table and lands on my father’s laptop. He looks at me. I look at him. We’re not fighting at this particular moment, and when we’re not fighting, we don’t have much to say to each other.

“So … Paris, Belgium, and Germany, huh? G’s doing three sets of tests?” I say.

“Yes. It’s complicated,” Dad replies.

“I can handle complicated. I’m a genius, remember?”

He ignores that. “G wants to make sure no one can question the results of the tests. Either the science behind them or the agenda.”

“Agenda?” I say. “Why would there be—”

The intercom buzzer goes off, interrupting me.

“That’s my cab,” Dad says, shrugging into his coat.

“Hey, Dad, wait a second.…”

“What is it, Andi? I have to go,” he says.

“If I do my outline, can I go home?”

“You
are
going home. We have return flights booked for the twenty-third.”

“I mean earlier. If I get it done by the weekend, can I fly home on Sunday?”

“I don’t know if that’s such a good idea.”

“Why not? You said I had to get an outline done, so I’ll get it done. And when I get home, I’ll behave myself. I swear. I’ll call you every day. You can have Rupert Goode check up on me. Well, maybe not Rupert. How about Mrs. Gupta?”

“You’ve thought this all out,” he says, picking up his briefcase.

“Yeah, I have.”

He looks at me long and hard, and I look back at him long and hard and I’m surprised to see that there’s more gray in his hair, and there are more lines around his eyes, than I remember.

“I thought …” he starts to say, then shakes his head. “I don’t know what I thought. You used to like Paris so much.”

I don’t say anything. I still like Paris. Paris is not the problem and we both know it. But I’m not going to point that out. For once I’m going to keep my mouth shut. Because I desperately want him to say yes.

“All right. But there are conditions. Number one—the outline has to be good. Actually, it has to be excellent in order to get you out of the hole you’ve dug. I want to see A material, not C. Are you still set on doing the musical DNA idea? In PowerPoint?”

“Yes, I am.”

“Then I want to see a good, solid draft of the introduction as well as the outline. So I can see how it’s all going to play out. Plus, I want the outline to show a general bibliography, primary sources, and a list of the visuals you intend to use.”

Yeesh. An intro as well as an outline. By Sunday.

“Do we have a deal?” he says.

“We do,” I say. And I mean it. I mean it so much that I’ve got the Vinaccia back in its case and one of G’s books on Malherbeau open on the table before Dad has his coat buttoned.

He pauses on his way out the door. “Well, I’m glad to see that something can motivate you,” he says. “Even if it’s only the thought of getting away from me.”

I try to think of something to say. Something nice, but not so wildly untrue that I’ll embarrass the both of us by saying it.

But it’s too late. The door slams. The sound echoes through the room.

He’s gone. Once again.