Revolution (38 page)

70

B
ut it’s not.

As I reach the landing on the floor below, I see a child staring at me from a doorway. She bursts into tears.

“I thought you were my papa,” she says. “I wait and wait for him but he never comes. They took him away. I want him to come back.”

A woman appears. She pulls the child inside, looks me up and down, and scowls. I ask her if I can use her WC. She tells me to use the one in the yard like everyone else.

I wonder if this is maybe some kind of student housing with common bathrooms. And maybe everyone calls the bathrooms “the yard.” Maybe it’s a French thing. But no. I find the yard and it’s a yard—full of animals and stables and stable boys giving me weird looks. I find the toilet by its smell. It’s basically a hole in the ground, out behind a cow shed. I don’t want anything to do with it but I have no choice.

I finish and head for the street. I try to find some familiar landmarks but I don’t see any. I decide to head south to the Rue de Rivoli so I can orient myself and then walk east along the Rue du Faubourg St-Antoine.

Children are everywhere. Just like they were last night. Begging. Crying. Darting in and out of alleys like stray cats. I pass peddlers, horses, newsboys. I’m splashed by one carriage, nearly run down by another. I pause by the doorway of a butcher’s shop to get my bearings. Big mistake.

“Move!” a loud voice shouts behind me, and the next thing I know, I’m sprawled out in the muddy street, my bag and guitar next to me.

A man is staring down at me. He’s carrying a dead pig on his shoulder. Blood drips from its cut throat. “Out of my way, you ass!” he yells.

There are people nearby but no one helps me up. A few laugh at me or shake their heads. They’re wearing long dresses with aprons over them. Ragged pants and tunics. Coarse linen shirts. Stockings and breeches. They’re carrying baskets. Jugs. Loaves of bread. Their faces are wrinkled and pocked and warty. They have crooked teeth. Rotten teeth. No teeth at all. And in the bright light of morning, I see that it’s all real. There’s no makeup on their skin, no fake noses, or glued-on scars.

I stand up, covered with mud, and face the impossible—this lost world, this lost Paris, come back to life. And me standing right in the middle of it.

“Get the hell out of my way!”

I quickly turn around. It’s not the butcher this time but a wagon driver. I scramble for my things and stumble to the street’s edge. The wagon passes by. It has tall sides made of wooden poles lashed together. There are people inside of it. They gaze at me but don’t seem to see me. They are silent. Some are crying. And I realize what I’m looking at—a tumbrel, a wagon with a cage on the back. I’ve seen drawings of them. They were used to take people to the guillotine. Ragged boys run alongside it, taunting the prisoners. A small girl straggles after it, weeping.

“My God. Why doesn’t anyone help them?” I say.

A man passing by stops. “Help them?” he snarls. “They’re Jacobins! They’re finally getting what they deserve. Why help them? Unless you’re one of them.” He eyes me closely. “Perhaps you are and should join them.”

I back away from him. Away from the wagon. Away from the people, all staring at me. I walk at first, clutching my guitar to my chest, but when one of them moves toward me, I run, suddenly afraid. Down one street, and then another and then into an alleyway. After a few minutes, I stop to catch my breath.

I can still hear shouting but it’s not the people who were staring at me, it’s newsboys. They’re yelling about trials and executions. Bread prices. A riot. And fireworks. They’re yelling about the Green Man. The guard almost caught him, they shout. They injured him. He’s a wounded fox now, gone down a hidey-hole, but General Bonaparte will soon pull him out.

I start running again, hurrying away from their voices, my heart beating hard with fear. As if it wasn’t Alex they were yelling about. But me. As if I was the one they want.

71

I
smell coffee, sausages, fish, strawberries, and cheese. Onions in butter. Bacon. Lemons. Peppercorns. Briny oysters. Spinach. Apricots. The smells drift from houses. They waft out of cafés. They taunt me from carts and stalls and peddlers’ baskets.

I’m heading back to the Palais-Royal now because I don’t know where else to go. I have big problems. The biggest. I’m in the eighteenth century. It’s cold and rainy and dark. I’ve walked all over Paris looking for a way out of this and I’m exhausted. My clothes are soaked. I’m shivering. But all I can think about is food. Because I am hungry like I’ve never been in my life. I haven’t eaten for twenty-four hours. A handful of Qwells and a few bites of mystery bird with Amadé don’t count.

I tried to buy a nasty-looking loaf of bread earlier. I gave a baker’s girl two euros. She shook her head and handed them back. I begged her to take them. She called the baker. He looked me up and down, then told me he’d kick my English ass if I didn’t get out of his shop with my English money. I tried again at the market stalls I passed—with no luck.

I slept earlier, too. I curled up under a tree in the Bois de Boulogne. I’d decided that this was all a hallucination brought on by the mega-amounts of antidepressants I’ve been taking and that when it finally wore off, I’d be in my bed at G’s house. That didn’t happen. Then I told myself that it was a vision quest kind of thing cobbled together by my subconscious out of bits and pieces of things I’d seen recently—the catacombs, Malherbeau’s portrait, pictures of old Paris, the diary. I pinched myself. Slapped my face. But nothing changed. I’m still cold. Still wet. Still lost. Still hungry.

I thought I was hungry the day I went busking at Notre Dame. That was nothing compared to this. This is a killing hunger. A few more days of no food, a few nights of sleeping outside, and I’ll be dead. Tears spill down my cheeks as I walk. I’d be embarrassed but no one takes any notice of me. They’ve likely seen worse these past few years.

I get to the Palais-Royal and sit down on a bench outside the entrance. Someone else is already sitting there. An old man. His clothes are weird. They don’t look like the somber outfits I’ve seen in the streets. They’re gaudy and dirty. They look like he got them out of Louis XIV’s garbage can. His shoes are styling, though. They’re made of red leather.

He tells me his name is Jacques Chaussures. I tell him mine. He asks me what’s wrong. I laugh and ask him where he’d like me to start.

“With the worst thing,” he says.

“I’m hungry,” I say. “Really hungry.”

He reaches inside his coat and pulls out a crust of bread. He snaps it in two and gives me half. It’s dry and dirty but I don’t care. I wolf it down. And only remember to thank him after I’ve swallowed the last bite.

He points at my guitar. “Can you play it?”

I nod.

“Then do so. A good musician is never completely poor.”

“Um … where?”

He looks at me as if I’m stupid. “Right behind you.”

“The Palais? Oh, right! You mean busking? Yeah, I could do that. Totally. Hey, thanks, Jacques.”

I stand up and grab my stuff. If I can just get a few coins, I can get a loaf of bread. Maybe even some cheese to go with it.

“Wait,” Jacques says, pulling a dirty rag out of his pocket. “You’re bleeding.” He dabs at my forehead. “It’s an ugly wound. Does it not hurt?”

“Yeah. All the time,” I tell him.

I say goodbye and head into the Palais. It’s a scene. Even wilder than last night. As I walk into the courts, I almost get my hair burned off by a firebreather. There’s a woman up on a tightrope. She’s pushing a wheelbarrow with a small child inside it. I see a prostitute sitting in her customer’s lap. She can’t be more than fourteen. There’s a little blind boy begging piteously. There are dancing rats. A skinny monkey on a leash. Jugglers. A muzzled bear. Gamblers throwing dice. Little girls selling lemonade.

And there’s a head. On a table. At first I think it’s a fake, but it’s not. Flies are buzzing around it. People are jeering at it. Sticking cigars in its mouth. Giving it sips of wine. I hear somebody say that he was one of Fouquier-Tinville’s, a Jacobin. The same man says it will soon be Fouquier-Tinville himself sneezing into the sack and all of Paris will turn out for it.

I walk on. Away from the head. Then I take out my guitar, put my open case on the ground in front of me, and start to play. No one cares. I play Lully, Rameau, and Bach, but I might as well be invisible. People are taunting the head, trying to trip the jugglers, messing with the rats. My stomach twists painfully. I start to feel panic-stricken at the very real possibility of starving to death. I’ve got to get money. I’ve got to eat. I’ve got to get their attention.

A girl walks by hawking colorful sweets and a lightbulb goes off inside my head. I launch into a rousing acoustic version of “I Want Candy.” I bet that’ll get some attention. I’m playing the tune for all I’m worth, and singing, too. I’d stand on my head if I could.

And then, out of nowhere, a guy stumbles up to me, drunk. He has blond hair and a stubbly beard. He stands there for a minute, swaying and listening. Then he lurches forward and a plants a big tonguey one on me. He tastes like rotten fish.

“Back off!” I yelp, breaking free.

He staggers backward, laughing, and chucks a handful of coins at me.

“I always wanted to kiss a savage!” he says. “Where are you from? Africa? The Americas? I love your braids. Are you a Mohican? I never heard such wild music. Play for me, Pocahontas! Better yet,” he adds, leering, “come home with me. I’ll make it worth your while. My name’s Nicolas. Nicolas LeBeau. What’s yours, you darling little beast?”

I’m still wiping his kiss off my mouth when the little blind kid swoops in and starts picking up the coins.

“Hey! Those are mine!” I yell at him.

The kid tells me where I can go and keeps scooping up the coins. I bend over, trying to grab a few for myself. Wrong move. The drunk guy’s got friends. One of them grabs me from behind. I spin around to smack him but he catches my hand, jerks me toward him, and kisses me. The other one drops a coin down my pants then tries to get it back.

I swing my guitar, catching the first guy in the face with it. He grabs his nose and howls and the other one’s so busy laughing at him that he lets go of me. I pick up my case, slap it together, and run.

I keep going until I’m out of the courts and under the colonnade. I’m almost out of the Palais—I can see the tall white pillars of the entrance, and the street beyond it—when another man steps out of the darkness and grabs me. I try to scream, but he claps a hand over my mouth and pulls me into a doorway. I struggle and kick, trying to break free.

“Oof! That hurt! Stop it, you fool! It’s me, Fauvel!”

I freeze. I know that name. Fauvel is the man Alex bought fireworks from.

“Stop kicking and I’ll let you go,” he says.

I nod. He lets go of me and I spin around. We face each other in the gloom. My chest is heaving. I’m breathless from fighting and running.

“I must be quick,” he says. “I cannot be seen here.” He has a sack slung over his shoulder. He opens it, lifts out a bundle wrapped in newspaper and hands it to me. I open it. There are fireworks inside. Paper rockets. And wooden shafts.

I look from the rockets to him and then realize that he thinks I’m her—Alex.

“Two dozen. As agreed. I’ll want better payment next time,” he hisses at me. “It’s getting harder, you know. Harder to get black powder. Saltpeter, too. I have to pay a man to steal it from the military stores.” His eyes travel to the wound on my forehead. “You were injured a few nights ago, no? That’s what the papers say. Be careful. You are worth far more to me alive than dead. Bring me more jewels—good ones. And a handful of gold Louis. I have my eye on a very fine house. It belonged to a marquis.”

We hear footsteps approaching. “I’ve tarried too long,” Fauvel says. “I must go.”

As he finishes speaking, a newsboy walks by. He calls out the headlines and shouts that Bonaparte has upped the bounty on the Green Man to three hundred francs, dead or alive.

Fauvel’s eyes narrow. “Did I say a handful of gold Louis?” he says. “Make that a sackful.”

“Who is the Green Man? Who is the Green Man?” the newsboy shouts as he passes us. The words sound like a taunt.

“Who is the Green Man? Who is the Green Man?” The echo carries down the long arcade.

Fauvel chuckles. He raises his hand in the darkness and points. At me.

72

“P
lease, Amadé. Just for a night or two.”

“No.”

I’m sitting in his doorway. It’s late. I’m cold. I’ve been waiting here for hours. He’s just come home. He’s wearing a red ribbon around his neck and smells of wine.

“I’ll be quiet. I won’t break anything. I swear,” I tell him.

“Move.”

I get to my feet but I don’t get out of the way. “I have food. Lots of it. Enough for both of us,” I tell him. I open my bag and pull out a salami, a hunk of cheese, and a loaf of bread. I’ve already wolfed a turkey leg and a basket of strawberries. I bought the food with the coin one of the drunk guys dropped down my pants.

He pushes me aside. Puts his key in the lock.

“I’ll give you the salami. The whole thing,” I say.

“I don’t want it.”

The key turns. The door opens. I reach in my bag and dig around.

I offer him gum, a pen, my flashlight. I have to get inside. I have to sit by a fire.

“I don’t want anything of yours. I just want you to leave,” he says, going inside.

“I’m so cold,” I tell him. “I’m going to die if I don’t get warm.”

He starts to close the door. And then my hand, still in my bag, closes around my iPod.

“Wait!” I say, holding it out to him. “I’ll give you this. It’s a music box. Just like the one from the catacombs. Remember?”

His eyes widen. He reaches for it but I hold it away from him.

“All right, then,” he says, opening the door. “You can stay. But if you start shouting and throwing things again, you’re out for good.”

“Thank you,” I tell him. “You won’t even know I’m here. I swear.”

I give him the iPod, put the food on the table, then stash my bag and Fauvel’s bundle under the bed. I ask if I can borrow a shirt, then I get out of my wet clothes and hang them over the back of a chair to dry. I make a sandwich and a fire and then I sit down to eat. I don’t think I’ve ever been so profoundly grateful for anything in my life as I am for the warmth of the fire and the sandwich.

“Eat something,” I say to Amadé through a mouthful of food.

But he doesn’t want to eat. He’s messing with the iPod. Finally he hands it to me and says, “How do I wind this? Where is the key?”

“There’s no key,” I tell him. “Here, look.…” I show him what to press to turn it on. “You’ll need earbuds, too,” I say, getting up to pull a pair out of my jacket pocket. “Here you go. That’s the index; see it? What do you want to hear?”

My iPod is chockful. It’s a virtual history book of music because of Nathan and all his assignments. Amadé watches as I scroll from the As to the Bs.

“Beethoven?” he says. “The pianist? The one from Vienna?”

“Yep.”

“I’ve heard good things about him. They say he’s written some pretty pieces.”

“Yeah, one or two. Here, try this.”

I dial up
Eroica
, help him with the earbuds, then watch as he listens. His closes his eyes and his face, already beautiful, grows even more so. He smiles. Frowns. Nods. Gasps. He moves his graceful musician’s hands as if he’s conducting. After a few minutes, I see tears on his cheeks and I’m jealous of him. To hear that music for the first time—not in a movie or a car ad, broken up in bits and pieces, but complete, like Ludwig wanted you to—it must be amazing.

I finish my sandwich and put the leftover food up on the mantel so Hugo can’t get it. Then I crawl into Amadé’s bed. I’m so tired it hurts.

As I’m pulling the covers up, Amadé takes the earbuds out. He tries to speak but he can’t. He wipes his eyes, then says, “When did he write this?”

“He didn’t. Not yet. But he will. He’ll finish it in 1804 and dedicate it to Napoléon Bonaparte.”

“Bonaparte the soldier?” Amadé asks, looking shocked. “How do you know this?”

“Everyone knows it. It’s in every tenth-grade history book in America,” I mutter wearily.

“I don’t understand.”

“Yeah, I know you don’t. I don’t either,” I say. “Look, Amadé, I think something happened when I ran through the catacombs with you last night. I was in Paris—Paris of the twenty-first century. Now I’m in the eighteenth.”

Amadé gives me a look. “You drank too much. That’s what happened. Then you fell and hit your head.”

“No, it’s more than that. Something else happened. I don’t know what, but something.”

But he’s not listening to me. He’s back with Beethoven. I want to watch him, to enjoy his enjoyment, but my eyes are closing.

It dawns on me, as I’m lying here, that I’m hanging out with Amadé Malherbeau, the subject of my thesis, and that sources don’t get any more primary. If he’s still here tomorrow when I wake up—if
I’m
still here tomorrow when I wake up—I’ve got a million questions for him.

“No! It’s over,” he suddenly cries. He runs over, hands me the iPod. “More, please.”

I take his hand in mine, make him point his finger, and show him, again, how to dial and select. “Now you do it,” I say. “Choose something.”

He stabs at the dial. Hits Jane’s Addiction.
Ritual de lo Habitual
.

“Wait, Amadé, you skipped two whole centuries,” I say. “I wouldn’t do that.”

But it’s too late. The earbuds are in. He listens for a few seconds, then rips them out.

“Is this truly the music of the future?” he whispers, wide-eyed.

“Yes,” I say.

“Then the future is a very strange place.”

“It’s got nothing on the past,” I mumble.

Then, finally, I sleep.