Revolution (34 page)

60

I
t’s late and dark. The Eiffel Tower is lit up and so beautiful. I’m sitting on a bench by some trees in the Champ de Mars looking up at it. I’ve been here for hours. In the dark. In the cold. I tried to play my guitar, but couldn’t. I can’t find the music anymore. Can’t find that one note.

Now I’m listening to other people play. I can’t see them but I can hear them. They’re somewhere nearby. I hear a guitar, a mandolin, horns, a girl’s voice.

I’m tired. My head’s a bit hazy from all the Qwells I took. My feet ache. I’ve walked all the way here from G’s.

But that’s okay.

I don’t have much farther to go.

Only one step.

61

I
’m in line for the tower. It’s a good choice, a sure thing. It’s better than the river. People sometimes survive the river.

Around me, tourists are talking and laughing. Guys are hawking fake Rolexes, scarves, and key chains. The music I heard earlier sounds closer now. It’s raw and wild and beautiful. I look for the musicians, squinting into the darkness, but I can’t see them.

The line moves and I move with it. The music stops. After a few more minutes, I’m at the ticket window. I get my money out but the guard tells me I can’t go—not with my guitar. I’ve got to get rid of it if I want to go up, he says. I ask him where I can check it. He says this is not an airport, there’s no baggage check here. He motions me away from the window. The people behind me start grumbling. The man taking money tells me to step aside. A couple pushes past me.

And then I hear another voice: “Hey! Hey, Andi!”

I turn around. Virgil’s standing there. He’s breathless. Jules, and two more guys, and a girl, are standing at a distance, watching us.

“Hey.”

“Hey,” I say.

“Weren’t you supposed to fly home yesterday? What are you doing here? You a tourist tonight?”

I force a shaky smile and ignore the first two questions. “Yeah. I’m a tourist tonight. What are you doing here? Why aren’t you in your cab?”

“Monday night’s my night off,” he says.

“Miss, will you please step out of the line?” the guard says.

I do, feeling jittery and hassled.

“We just finished playing.”

“Was that you?” I ask. “You sounded good. I liked the horns.”

“Thanks. I wish the tourists thought so. They aren’t in a giving mood and we’re too cold to stay out here any longer. We’ve got a gig soon anyway. A paying one. At a party.” He nudges my foot with his own. “Come with us. We’ll pass the hat. Get even more money with another girl in the band.”

“Virgil! Come on!” one of his friends shouts.

“In a minute!” Virgil shouts back.

I don’t want to talk anymore. I want to go. Now.

“Take this for me, will you?” I say, handing him my guitar. “I can’t take it up with me and I don’t want to … to just leave it here.”

“I can’t. I have to go.”

“It’s okay. You don’t have to wait here. Just take it.”

“But how will I get it back to you?”

“I don’t know. Somehow.”

I’m looking off in the distance, not at him, but he gets in my face and makes me look at him. He’s not smiling now. “You’re not serious, are you?”

“Come on, man,” somebody says, tugging on Virgil’s sleeve.

They’ve all come over, Virgil’s friends. There’s more he wants to say to me—I can tell by the look on his face—but someone says “Who’s this?” so he makes the introductions. There’s Constantine, rumpled and thin, with big white teeth. Charon, who’s holding a trumpet. Khadija, the beautiful girl from Rémy’s. I already know Jules. I mumble a few hellos. The pain is eating me alive.

“You coming?” Charon says.

“In a minute,” Virgil says, still looking at me.

“That’s it!” the guard bellows. “We’re full. No more.”

I spin around. He’s closing the gate to the elevator.

“No! Wait!” I shout. I chuck the guitar at Virgil and run to the ticket window. I slap my money on the counter. “Please!”

“We are closed,” the ticket man says.

I look at my watch. “But it’s only eleven o’clock. The tower doesn’t close until eleven-forty-five. The sign says so.”

“The tower closes at eleven-forty-five, yes, but the last elevator goes up at eleven.”

“Please, just one more,” I say, pushing my money through to him.

He pushes it back. “I’m sorry,” he says.

I run to the gate, my money in my hand, and ask the guard to let me on. The guard holds his hand up like a traffic cop. He shuts the doors to the elevator.

“I’ve got to get on!” I shout. I’m pleading now. Begging. Holding out my money. Offering him more. The people in the elevator are staring at me. I start to cry.

“Don’t be ridiculous. The tower isn’t going anywhere. Come back tomorrow,” the guard says.

But I can’t wait until tomorrow. The pain is too much. It never gets better. It only gets worse. The guard hits a button and the elevator rises. I’m weeping now. Sobbing. I sink to my knees and bang my head against the gate.

“Stop it! Right now! Or I’ll call the police,” the guard warns.

I feel hands under my arms. Lifting me up. It’s Virgil. He gets me to my feet and walks me away from the gate. His friends are with him. Their eyes are large in their faces.

Constantine takes a brochure from the rack by the ticket window. He walks up to me, smiling uncertainly, and offers it. “The Louvre is also good,” he says. “Many, many artworks there.”

Charon says, “Sacré-Coeur is most excellently beautiful.”

Jules says, “You must visit the Place des Vosges.”

“Maybe you like the shopping?” Khadija says. “Go to Bon Marché. They have many jewelries there.”

I laugh. It comes out sounding sad and insane. “Thanks,” I say. “I’ll try those. Nice to meet you all. Sorry about the big fat scene.”

I start to walk off but Virgil grabs my arm. “No way. You’re coming with us. Let’s go,” he says. I can see the worry in his eyes.

I give him a lame smile. “It’s okay. Really. I’m better now. I just … I just had too much coffee.”

I try to walk off again but he won’t let go of my arm. “I can’t go with you because I’ve got a gig and I can’t cancel it. I need the money. They need the money,” he says, hooking his thumb at his friends. “So you’re coming with me.”

“No.”

He shakes his head. Swears at me. His beautiful eyes are filled with anger now. He leans in close and says, “Do you want me to pick you up and carry you? Because I will.”

I don’t say anything but I stop pulling away from him.

Constantine looks at me, then at Virgil. “We go now?” he asks uncertainly.

Virgil wipes my face with the sleeve of his hoodie. “Yeah, Tino,” he says. “We go.”

PURGATORY

More than a thousand at the gates I saw
Out of the Heavens rained down, who angrily
Were saying, “Who is this that without death
Goes through the kingdom of the people dead?
”

—D
ANTE

62

“S
o, where is this party, anyway?” Jules says as we head to the Métro.

“At the beach,” Virgil says.

Charon groans. Constantine swears.

“Yuck. Not that place,” Khadija says. “I hate it there.”

I don’t say anything at first. I can’t. I’m just stumbling along, wrung out. But then I remember Virgil telling me about the beach. He said it was some kind of party hangout. In the catacombs.

“But it closes at four in the afternoon. The sign said so,” I say. Tiredly. Stupidly.

“What closes at four?” Virgil says.

“The catacombs. I took a tour.”

“Yeah, I remember that,” he says. “That was the official tour. Tonight, you’re taking the unofficial one.”

“I don’t want to go in the sewer,” I say.

“Why? Worried you might catch something fatal?” he says, in an acid tone. “Don’t worry. We’re not going in that way.”

We come to a Métro station and take a train to the Denfert-Rochereau stop. Everyone gets off, crosses the platform, and walks down to the far end. I’m plodding behind them, still out of it, clutching my guitar case. We wait. Only for a few seconds. A train pulls in. I go to get on it but Virgil holds me back. The train pulls out again.

“You ready?” he asks me.

“Um, yeah, but the train just pulled out.”

The next thing I know, he and Tino and all the rest of them are jumping down on the tracks.

“Come on,” he says, reaching for me. “We’ve got four minutes.”

“Before what?”

“Before we’re track sauce.”

I hand him my guitar and jump down. I should be scared. This is dangerous. If I cared, I would be.

“I’ll carry the guitars. Stay close to me and stay away from that,” he says pointing at the electric rail. He starts running, slow and easy. He’s carrying both guitars, his and mine.

I follow him. I can hear the others ahead of us. I hear their feet slapping against the ground between the rails, splashing through the murky puddles.

“Virgil! There’s track work. They’ve got slabs down between the rails,” Jules shouts back.

“Keep going!” Virgil yells back.

“Where are we going?” I shout.

“There’s an archway up ahead. In the side of the tunnel. It’s the way in.”

I feel something then—a soft rush of warm, stale air against my face.

“Virgil!” Jules shouts.

“What?”

“Something’s coming.”

“Don’t be a girl, Jules.”

“He’s not—” Khadija says.

Jules cuts her off. “There’s a train! It’s a work train! I can see it!”

“Shut up, Jules!” Virgil yells. “Everyone! Shut up and run!”

He puts on a burst of speed. They all do. They’re streaking way ahead of me. Virgil yells at me to hurry. I run faster, trying to keep up. And then I see it. A glow. And it’s becoming stronger by the second. The ground is rumbling. The air is whirling.

And I’m scared.

Virgil is a silhouette in the glare of the headlights. He gets smaller and smaller and then he’s not there at all. And then he is again. His head pops out of the wall he just disappeared into. He doesn’t have the guitars anymore. He’s yelling at me. Reaching for me. I’m about twenty yards away from him now. The train’s about a hundred. But it’s going a lot faster. I can see it now. Perfectly clearly. I can see its headlights, its ugly metal face.

“Run, Andi, run!” Virgil yells. “Don’t look at the train. Look at me! Run! Run!”

I am running. Like I’ve never run in my life—arms pumping, legs pistoning into the ground. Garbage from the track is swirling all around me. Virgil is screaming. Jules and Charon are screaming. I’m screaming. The light is getting brighter. The train’s horn is blaring. Its brakes are screeching against the tracks.

“Don’t look at the train. Look at me! Run, goddamn you! Run!” Virgil shouts.

The train’s only a few yards away from me now. Fifty. Twenty. Ten. I’m almost there. Almost at the archway. But almost isn’t enough. I’m not going to make it. I’m going to die. Under the wheels of a Métro train.

And, suddenly, I don’t want to.

I put on a last desperate burst of speed. As I reach the archway, only a split second ahead of the train, Virgil lunges for me. His hands close on my jacket. He yanks me toward him, and my feet come off the ground and I’m airborne and screaming and hurtling through the archway. The train rushes by. I feel the displaced air slam into us and then I’m on the ground, lying on top of Virgil. He’s holding me tightly. He’s shouting at me. In French and English and Arabic. And then he grabs my face with both his hands and kisses me hard on the mouth.

And all I want to do for the rest of my life is kiss him back, right here, on the filthy ground, but I don’t. Because Khadija’s standing two feet away from us. Jules pulls me to my feet. Constantine pounds me on the back. Khadija puts her arms around me, which is really weird. I mean, her boyfriend just laid one on me. Everyone’s jumping up and down, screaming and laughing.

Except me. I’m too dazed to jump up and down. Not because I almost got flattened by a Métro train. Because Virgil kissed me.