Dad found a battered buzzer hanging by its wires and pressed it, and a few minutes later G was unlocking a small door cut into one of the giant iron doors and kissing us on the street.
“This looks like the end of the world,” Dad says now. “Like the set for some apocalypse movie.”
“It is the end of the world, my friend! The eighteenth-century world. This way!” G says, leading us inside a tall stone building. “Straight back to the stairs. Come, come, come!”
He hurtles ahead of us. The ground floor, which is just one cavernous room, is filled almost to the ceiling with boxes and crates. A narrow path runs down the middle of it. I’m careful not to bump anything as I walk along.
“This is all still uncataloged,” G says, patting a crate. “The second floor is more organized,” he adds.
“What is all this?” Dad asks.
“The bones of old Paris, my friend! Ghosts of the Revolution!”
Dad stops dead. “You’re kidding me. This is all yours? I thought you had a couple boxes of the stuff.”
G stops, too. “I had fourteen storage rooms, all stuffed to the rafters, and then this place came on the market a year ago and I knew immediately it would be perfect. So I bought it and moved the entire collection here. I have sponsors now, you know. Six French firms and two American. Two years—three at most—and we’ll break ground.”
“For what?” I ask, wondering what he can possibly be planning to do with all this stuff.
“For a museum, my girl! One dedicated entirely to the Revolution. Here in this old factory.”
“Here?” my father says skeptically, taking in the cracked windows, the rotting wood.
“But of course. Where else?”
“Central Paris, maybe? Where the tourists are?” I offer.
“No, no, no! It must be here in the St-Antoine!” G says. “This was the workers’ quarters, the very heart of the Revolution. From here came the rage, the blood, and the muscle that propelled the struggle. Danton argued in the Assembly, yes. Desmoulins shouted in the Palais-Royal. But when the politicians needed something done, upon whom did they call? Upon the furies of the St-Antoine! The factory workers, the butchers and fishwives and laundresses. The wretched, angry poor. And so it must be here, the museum. Here, where the people lived and struggled and died.”
This is how G talks. Always. Even when he’s not filming for the BBC.
Dad nudges him aside to get a better look at something behind him. “Is this what I think it is?” he says, lifting up the edge of a tarp.
“If you think it’s a guillotine, then yes,” G says, throwing the tarp back. “It was found just a few years ago in an old warehouse. I’m incredibly lucky to have acquired it. There are very few left from the eighteenth century. Look how efficient the design is—a bit of wood, an angled blade, that’s all. During the old regime, nobles sentenced to death were beheaded. Commoners were hanged, which could be a good deal more painful. The revolutionaries wished for equality in all things—even death. Beggar, blacksmith, marquis—no matter their rank, all enemies of the republic met the same end. One that was thought to be quick and humane. This particular example, it appears, was put to heavy use. You see?”
He points to the front of the machine. The wood underneath the place where the victim’s head was held is stained rusty brown. Looking at it, I wonder if the people whose heads this thing sliced off thought their deaths were quick and humane.
“At the height of the Terror, many hundreds were guillotined in Paris alone,” he says. “Many on mere accusation, without a proper trial. Blood ran in the gutters. Quite literally. The executions were a grand spectacle. Refreshments were sold. Spectators vied for the best vantage points, and—”
“Guillaume!” a voice calls from someplace above us. “Stop giving lectures and bring our guests upstairs. They are tired and hungry!”
It’s Lili, G’s wife. I recognize her voice.
“Right away, my love!” G shouts back.
We walk up to the second floor. G unearths things from crates and boxes as we go. He shows us revolutionary flags, a huge banner with The Rights of Man printed on it, and an ancient coat of arms with a red rose, pierced and dripping blood, at its center.
“This dates from the fifteenth century,” he says. “It’s the coat of arms for the counts of Auvergne. It hung in the family’s château until the Revolution, when the last count and his wife were guillotined for defending the king. ‘From the rose’s blood, lilies grow,’ the Latin says. You see? The rose drips its blood on the fleur-de-lis, the white lily, symbol of the kings of France. The powerful counts of Auvergne were always loyal to their kings, fighting for them, sometimes giving their lives for them.”
We climb up past the third floor—which is Lili’s studio—to the fourth, carried along by the smell of garlic, chicken, and a wood fire. Lili’s waiting for us on the landing. She kisses us, and as my father and G go inside, she kisses me again and hugs me tightly. I hug her back. She’s wearing two rumpled sweaters. Her black hair is gray with marble dust. She ushers us inside their home—a huge loft on the top floor of the old factory.
“I was so happy when Lewis called to say you’d be joining him!” she says. “He says you are going to work on a school project while you’re here. How exciting!”
“Yes, it is. Very exciting,” I lie.
She asks about my mother, and when I tell her what’s happened, her eyes well up. They were roommates at the Sorbonne, Lili and my mother. She took my mom to a party at G’s flat one night. My father was there. It’s how my parents met. I’ve known Lili and G my whole life.
“Oh, my poor Marianne,” she says now. She wipes her eyes on her sleeve and hugs me again. She smells of her cooking and the perfume Eau d’Hadrien. My mother wore it, too. She used to cook, like Lili. Our house smelled of garlic and thyme instead of sadness. Lili asks me how I’m doing and I tell her fine. She holds my face between her strong sculptor’s hands and says, “How are you really?”
“I’m fine, Lili. Really,” I say again, forcing a smile. I don’t want to go into it. I don’t want to start crying in her foyer. All the traveling’s made me tired and numb and I want to stay that way. It’s easier. I ask her where to put my jacket. She tells me to keep it on. The furnace is temperamental and the fireplace only does so much.
She says that dinner is still an hour away, and hands me a tray with glasses and a bottle of wine on it. I head over to my father and G, who are sitting a few yards from the big open kitchen at a long wooden table. I pour wine for them but they’re sorting through papers and photographs and don’t even look up.
“The trust will allow us only the tiniest piece for testing,” G is saying to my father. “Only the very tip. About a gram in total.”
“One gram for three labs?” my father says, looking concerned. “Brinkmann and Cassiman are okay with this?”
“They have to be. We get what we are given. No more.”
Dad didn’t tell me much about the work he’s doing. Just that G is involved with some kind of historical trust and that he asked him to come to Paris to do some DNA tests for them. Which is kind of overkill if you ask me. Like asking Stephen Hawking to explain how a pulley works.
G and Dad continue to talk work, so I check out the loft. As I look around, I have to pick my way past boxes and crates, marble busts, a stuffed monkey, a wax mannequin, a collection of muskets standing upright in an old barrel, and a huge clock face. I see a wreath made of hair, painted tea chests, shop signs, glass eyeballs, and a cardboard box tied with a ribbon. Last Letters of the Condemned, 1793 is written on it in old-fashioned script. I open the box and carefully lift a letter out. The paper is brittle. The handwriting is hard to read. So is the old French.
Farewell, my wife and children, forever and ever. Love my children, I beg you, tell them often what I was, love them for us both.… I end my days today….
I pick up another: My last linen is dirty, my stockings are rotting, my breeches are threadbar
e. I’m dying of hunger and boredom.… I shall not write to you anymore, the world is execrable. Farewell!
And a third: I do not know, my little friend, if it will be given to me to see you or to write to you again. Remember your mother.… Farewell, beloved child.… The time will come when you will be able to judge the effort that I am making at the moment not to be moved to tears at the memory of you. I press you to my heart. Farewell….
God, what a bummer. I can’t read any more so I put the letters back, close the box, and keep poking around. There’s a toy guillotine on the floor, complete with executioner, victim, and victim’s papier-mâché head staring up in shock from a tiny willow basket. A pair of blue silk shoes with jeweled buckles stands on a shelf. Banners of red, white, and blue, faded and torn, drape one wall. Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, they say, and Long Live the Republic. Men and women with powdered hair stare at me from gilt frames. There’s a painting of Louis XVI’s execution and a horrible cartoon of a man hanging from a lamppost, his feet kicking in the air. A Traitor Dances the Carmagnole, the caption reads. Old books are piled on tables and chairs. A skull grins from the top of a cabinet.
These things are not quiet. They’re restless. Looking at them, I can see the fishwives of Paris marching to Versailles, singing and spitting and yelling for bread. I can hear the crowd cheering at the king’s execution and the patter of blood dripping from his neck. I reach up and touch the edge of a tattered banner and wish I hadn’t. It feels dusty and dry, like ashes and old bones. It feels contagious.
I want to get away from this stuff but I can’t; it’s everywhere. I head back to the table, catch my foot on something, and stumble into a crate, whacking my knee. Nobody notices. Lili’s cooking. Dad and G are still talking work and wouldn’t notice if the roof fell in. I’m hopping around, rubbing my knee, and then I see what I tripped over—a long wooden case—the kind guitars come in.
There’s a swirly pattern on the surface, all leaves and vines, but pieces of the inlay are missing and the finish is dull and stained. A leather strap is wound around it. I bend down on my good knee and see that the case doesn’t close properly. The prong’s stuck down inside the bottom part of the lock.
I unbuckle the strap, ease the lid open, and catch my breath because I’m suddenly looking at the most beautiful guitar I’ve ever seen. It’s made of rosewood and spruce with an ebony fingerboard. The rosette and the purfling at the edges are inlaid with mother-of-pearl, ivory, and silver.
I touch it lightly. Run my fingers over the wood. Trace the edges. I strum the strings and two of them break.
“Ah! You found the guitar!” G says, looking up from his papers.
“I … I’m really sorry, G,” I stammer. “I shouldn’t have touched it.”
“Nonsense! It’s amazing, isn’t it?” he says, coming over. “It’s a Vinaccia. See the name inside the case? They were made in Italy in the late seventeen hundreds. They’re very rare. Very expensive, too. The lock is silver. It’s jammed, unfortunately. Louis XVI owned one of these. There’s a painting of him holding it.”
“Where’d you get it?”
“I bought it thirty years ago from a man who found it in the catacombs. A worker. There was a cave-in in one of the tunnels. It caused a lot of damage. The men who went in to clean the debris away and shore everything up found a small chamber. Its entrance had been hidden—blocked by layers of bones, actually—for quite some time. One of the men found the guitar lying under some skeletons. Headless ones. Which suggests the Terror. You would think the whole thing would be ruined—lying underground for over two centuries—but no. Perhaps the cool air preserved it. I paid a thousand francs for it. A good sum of money, especially then, but nowhere near what it’s worth. Play it, Andi.”
I shake my head, afraid that the whole thing will break or snap or crumble to dust if I touch it again.
“I can’t, G. It’s too fragile. It needs reconditioning. It needs an expert to—”
“Go ahead. Play it,” he says.
He wants to help me. I know he does. He probably thinks the guitar will be some kind of therapy. But I’m really bad at being helped.
“It’s okay,” I tell him. “Really. I mean, I brought a guitar with me. I don’t need this one.”
G comes over, lifts the guitar from its case, and hands it to me. “Perhaps it needs you,” he says.
I’m not ready for that. It catches me off guard. Usually the last thing anyone or anything needs is me.
“Yeah. Um … okay,” I say.
I lay the guitar back in its case, get my bag, then hurry back, feeling like Gollum with his Precious, scared that G will suddenly come to his senses and take it away from me. But he and my father are wrapped up in their papers again. I pull out my spare set of strings, and a Ziploc filled with guitar crap—nut sauce, cleaner, lube, a string winder, wax, polishing cloths. Then I get busy. The pegs are stiff. The frets are grimy. The wood is dull.
Lili brings another bottle of wine. She disappears into the kitchen. By the time she’s bringing out plates and cutlery—an hour later—the guitar is waxed and restrung. I tune it and when I’m finished, G says, “Play something for us.”
I look up at him, still uncertain.
“It survived the Revolution. It will survive you,” he says.
I can’t decide where to begin. Making music on an instrument like this feels like being with a boy who’s so hot, you have to kiss him everywhere all at once. I take a breath and start with “Come As You Are.” I jump back in time to Rameau. Then Bach. Then a couple of tunes by Gomez. And then I stop because I’m sweating and breathless and the sound of clapping startles me. Because I forgot. Forgot they were here. Forgot I was.
“Brava!” Lili shouts.
“Encore! Encore!” G says, clapping like a maniac.
Dad’s clapping, too. In big wide sweeps. Like someone’s making him. I put the guitar back in its case and join them at the table.
“You have an incredible talent,” Lili says. “Where will you continue your studies when you graduate?”
“Um, well … I’ve looked at Juilliard and the Manhattan School,” I say.
G flaps a hand. “Forget New York. Come to Paris. To the conservatory.”
I look at my father, who looks at his wineglass. “Yeah, maybe,” I say. “I’ve got no firm plans yet.”
Lili pours more wine. “Guillaume, the chicken comes soon. Clear those things away, please,” she says, nodding at the papers and photos.
“I’ll get them,” I say. I start to shuffle the stuff together, but the image in one of the photographs catches my eye. I pick it up. It’s some kind of glass jar. It’s old and egg-shaped and has a sun with a scrolly L etched on its side. There’s something in it. Something small and dark. I can’t take my eyes off it. “What is that?” I ask.
G looks at what I’m holding. “A moving sight, no?” he says. “It’s not often we may look upon the heart of a king.”
12
I didn’t hear him right. I can’t have.
A king’s heart? Kings have big hearts. Mighty hearts. How else can they fight wars and go on crusades? But this heart doesn’t look big. It looks small and sad.
“We don’t know it’s a king’s heart, G,” Dad says. “If we did, I wouldn’t be here. Its physical characteristics tell us it’s a human heart. Its size indicates that it belonged to a child. That’s all we know.”
“No mere child,” G says. “This is the heart of Louis-Charles, son of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette. The lost king of France.”
“You think,” Dad says.
“In my bones, I know,” G says.
“Your bones don’t count. The mother’s would, though, if we could get them,” Dad says.
“If?” I say. “You can’t?”
G shakes his head. “No. After her execution, Marie-Antoinette’s remains were thrown into a common grave. A servant later fished out what she thought might be the queen’s leg bones. They’re in a coffin at St-Denis, but�
�—G shrugs—“who knows.”
“So what will you use?” I ask.
“A few years ago, tests were run on strands of a lock of Marie-Antoinette’s hair that had been cut off before her death and preserved as a memento. The results were good and clean, so we’ll use them.”
“Guillaume, Lewis’s glass is empty. Pour him more wine,” Lili says, putting a basket of bread on the table.
G pours for himself and my father. He offers me a glass but I shake my head no.
“Where did the heart come from?” I ask him, still staring at the photograph. “I mean, how did it get in the jar?”
G looks at my father. “Have you not told her about it?”
“I did. Just now. I gave her the essentials. What we know to be true.”
“Which is what? That it’s a heart?”
“Yes.”
“Lewis, Lewis, Lewis,” G sighs. “Come, Andi. Sit,” he says, pulling out the chair next to him. “It’s a fascinating story. I will tell it to you.”
“G, I don’t think Andi wants to know—” my father starts to say.
“Yes, I do,” I say, annoyed that he’s speaking for me.
He gives me a pained look, then nods. “Fine,” he says. “But no stories, G. Give her the facts. Background and speculation are irrelevant.”
G leans back in his chair. “So my work and that of Aulard, Lefebvre, Schama, and Carlyle, and countless other historians … it’s all stories?” he says hotly. “The contemporary accounts? The letters and depositions, the prison records? Nothing but background and speculation?”
My father takes the photos from me. He moves them to the far end of the table. “A human heart isn’t made of stories,” he says.
“Every heart is made of stories,” G says.
“A heart is made of proteins built by amino acids, animated by electrical impulses.”
G snorts. “Your pretty, young girlfriend, Minna—you love her with all your heart, or some random combination of amino acids?”
Revolution Page 6