Revolution

by Jennifer Donnelly

  Dad flushes. He blusters. Because his pretty—and pregnant—new girlfriend is twenty-five years old. “There’s nothing random about amino acids,” he says huffily, “and love—or any emotion—as much as we want to glorify it, is merely a series of chemical reactions.”

  G laughs. He nudges me. “That is exactly why I recruited him!” he says. “Because the man has not one shred of fancy in him. He is exact and impartial and the world knows it.”

  “What nonsense, Guillaume,” Lili says, putting a casserole dish on the table. “You recruited him because he is a famous Nobel Prize-winning scientist and all the papers will take his picture and there is nothing you love more than publicity.”

  “I need publicity, my dear. There is a difference.”

  “And I need to get the dinner on the table. Perhaps you would care to help me?” Lili says, with an edge to her voice.

  “I’ll help you,” Dad says, following her into the kitchen.

  “Is it true, G? Dad’s involved in this for a publicity angle?” I ask. It doesn’t sound like my father. He’s famous but he doesn’t care. All that matters to him, all that’s ever mattered to him, is the work.

  “Yes, it’s true,” G says. “But it’s my publicity angle, not his. The museum will include a permanent exhibition on the story behind the heart and the process of testing it. Your father knows how much the museum means to me. That’s why he agreed to lend his name to this project. With his participation, we are certain of generating huge interest. From the newspapers, television, and the Internet. And interest brings money.”

  “So what’s the story? You still haven’t told me.”

  “No, I haven’t,” G says. “What you have to understand about the French Revolution, Andi, is this: though it was powerful enough to topple a centuries-old monarchy, it was also extremely fragile. Always under attack. And those who led the rebellion, those who fervently believed human beings deserved something better than the tyranny of kings, tried to defend it. Often quite ruthlessly.”

  “Um, G?” I cut in. “I meant the story about the heart. I pretty much know the history part.”

  G raises an eyebrow. “Do you?”

  “Yeah. I studied the French Revolution in school. And the American, Russian, Chinese, and Cuban revolutions. Revolutions are really big at St. Anselm’s. I mean, even the preschoolers wear Che hats.”

  G laughs. “So tell me, then,” he says. “What do you know?”

  “Well, um … France was bankrupt, the workers were starving, the aristocracy was pissed off, yada yada. So the three estates—representatives from the commons, the clergy, and the nobility—banded together, called themselves the National Assembly, and overthrew the king. Austria, England, and Spain didn’t like that, so they attacked France. Some of the French didn’t like it either, so civil war broke out. Maximilien Robespierre took advantage of all the chaos to consolidate power. Then he sparked up the Terror and guillotined his enemies, which was pretty much everybody, including more moderate revolutionaries who tried to stop him—like Georges Danton and Camille Desmoulins. When the rest of the Assembly finally woke up to the fact that he was a psychopath, they guillotined him. A new government was formed, the Directory, but it didn’t last long. Napoléon Bonaparte made a power grab and declared himself emperor. And then it was kind of back to square one for France. So, yeah, that’s it. In a nutshell.”

  “In a nutshell?” G says, wincing. “A nutshell? This is the French Revolution! There is no nutshell!”

  G hates shortcuts. He hates synopses, sound bites, and short attention spans and blames them all on America. His book on the Rev is eleven hundred pages long.

  “Come on, G, tell me about the heart,” I say. It’s so wrong, that tiny heart in a glass urn. I want to know how it got there.

  “Very well,” he sighs. “We take up the story in 1793. The monarchy has fallen. War is raging. France has declared itself a republic and the royal family has been imprisoned in Paris, in an ancient stone fortress called the Temple. The king is convicted of crimes against the republic and guillotined. The queen soon follows him. After their deaths, their son Louis-Charles is kept in the Temple. He is a child, only eight years old, but as heir to the throne, he poses an enormous threat to the Revolution. There are those who want to free him and rule in his name. To prevent his escape, Robespierre essentially has him walled-up alive. He’s isolated in a cold, dark tower with little human contact. He has no fire to warm himself and only rags for clothing. He is lonely and terrified. He becomes weak and sick. Eventually, he goes mad.”

  “That’s horrible! How could people let that happen?” I ask him. “He was only a kid. Why didn’t anyone stage a protest? Or lobby to have the place closed down? Like Gitmo.”

  “Stage a protest? Lobby?” G says, chuckling. “Under Robespierre? Ah, my little American, you must remember that France at this time called itself a republic but it was in fact a dictatorship, and dictators don’t take criticism well. Shrewd Robespierre made sure that very few people knew what was happening to Louis-Charles. However, in 1795 … Wait a minute, I have a picture of him here … a photograph of a portrait. Where the devil did it go?” He reaches for the stack of black-and-whites and starts looking through them. “Where was I again?” he says.

  “You were saying very few people knew what was happening to Louis-Charles,” I say.

  “Yes. So the deprivation and the lack of food finally took their toll. In June of 1795, at the age of ten, Louis-Charles died. Which was exactly what Robespierre had wanted. He couldn’t have the child killed because that would have looked very bad—even for him. But he couldn’t let him live, either. The official cause of death was declared to be tuberculosis of the bones. An autopsy was performed and while the body was open, one of the doctors, Pelletan, stole the child’s heart. He wrapped it in a handkerchief and smuggled it out of the prison and … Ah! Here we are.”

  G pulls a photo from the stack and hands it to me. “This is him—Louis-Charles. The portrait was painted while he and his family were prisoners in the Temple. You can tell, can’t you? You can see the uncertainty in his face, the wariness.”

  I don’t answer him. I don’t say anything. I can’t. Because the boy in the photograph looks exactly like Truman. He had the same expression on his face that day. The last time I said goodbye to him. “Go on, Tru,” I said. “Just go. You’ll be fine.”

  I push the photo away, but it’s too late. The pain hits me so hard, I feel like I’ve fallen into a pit filled with broken glass.

  “So as I was saying, Dr. Pelletan took the heart and—”

  “Good God, are we still talking about the heart?” Lili says, banging down a platter of chicken.

  “—smuggled it out of the Temple.”

  “Guillaume, serve the chicken, please,” she says tersely.

  “It was thought that he wanted to—”

  “Guillaume!” Lili snaps. She says more. I don’t catch every word because I’m focusing hard on keeping it together, but I do get that Guillaume should not have brought out these photographs. Not in front of me. Couldn’t he have waited? A dead boy! The same age as Truman, no less. What was he thinking? Why must he always be talking about the dead? Hasn’t this poor girl had enough of death? Look at her! She looks like a corpse herself! Can he not see that?

  Dad looks at me as Lili’s chewing G out. There’s no anger in his eyes, or disappointment, as there usually is when he’s looking at me, just sadness.

  “I’m sorry,” he says quietly. “I didn’t want to tell you about the testing. Or for you to see the pictures. I didn’t want to upset you.”

  “Then why did you make me come here?” I ask him.

  I feel a hand on mine. It’s G’s. “I am so sorry, Andi. I did not even think. I should not have told you this story. I’m so easily carried away by my passions,” he says.

  “It’s okay, G,” I say, because what else am I going to say? But it’s not okay. I look at that photo again, quickly, before Lili sweep
s it off the table, and all I can think of is a small boy, alone in the dark over two hundred years ago, hungry and cold and terrified. Because of a madman named Robespierre. And it makes me think of another small boy, staring up at the gray winter sky as he bled to death on a street in Brooklyn. Because of another madman.

  G’s still talking. “It’s only because I want to find answers that I pursue the story so doggedly,” he says. “I want to find reasons why. I want to understand the most important lesson history teaches us.”

  “That would be that the world sucks,” I say. Bitterly.

  Dad nearly chokes on his wine. “God, Andi!” he says. “Apologize right now. You are a guest here and you don’t speak to—”

  “No, Lewis,” G says. “She should not apologize. She is right. In 1789, when the Revolution began, there was so much hope, such a sense of possibility. And by the time it ended—after the riots, the executions, the massacres, the wars—little was left but blood and fear. The poor suffered, as the poor always do. The wealthy suffered, too; many went to the guillotine. But no one suffered more than this innocent child.”

  G stares into his wineglass for a bit, then says, “I’ve spent the last thirty years of my life trying to understand it. To comprehend how the idealism that toppled a monarchy, that gave birth to the phrase Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, could devolve into such cruelty. Thirty years of research and writing, and still I have no explanation.”

  “That’s it. Finished. We are through with this topic,” Lili announces. “You want an explanation, Guillaume? I have one for you: Most of the mess that is called history comes about because kings and presidents cannot be satisfied with a nice chicken and a good loaf of bread. How much better it would be for all of us if they could.”

  G pours more wine. We eat. Lili’s food—roasted chicken; a crisp, buttery potato cake; parslied carrots; and crusty bread—is delicious but I can barely get it down. I just want to get out of here and go to bed so the sadness can tear me apart in private.

  During dinner, G, Dad, and Lili talk schedules. G won’t be around for the next few days, he says. He’s flying to Belgium tomorrow, then Germany—provided the airlines don’t strike—to meet with two other geneticists taking part in the testing. He tells Dad that there will be meetings with members of the trust, and press conferences, and that he needs to attend them all.

  In addition to the DNA tests he’s conducting, Dad’s doing the superstar-genius thing while he’s here—giving lectures at the Sorbonne, attending a dinner with the president, and meeting with financiers interested in funding his next project.

  “And what will you be doing?” G asks me.

  Dad answers for me. “Andi will be working on the outline for her senior thesis,” he says.

  “What’s the subject?” G says.

  “Amadé Malherbeau,” I tell him, pushing a piece of chicken around on my plate.

  “Malherbeau! Why didn’t you say so?” G says, jumping up. He starts rooting in a bookshelf. “I have some books on him. And of course I now can’t find any of them. Ah! Here’s one. You should also go to his house near the Bois de Boulogne. The Conservatory owns it. They use it for chamber concerts. There’s a wonderful portrait of him there. And I believe the Abelard Library has his personal papers, including a collection of original scores.”

  He hands me a book and sits down again. I thank him, then continue to not eat my food. Lili tells us she’ll be teaching almost every day. She gives classes at the School of Fine Arts in Bourges starting tomorrow, then at the Paris division at the end of the week. Bourges is a bit of a hike, so she overnights at a friend’s house while she’s teaching there.

  “And speaking of guest rooms,” she says, “I’m sure you are ready for yours, Andi.”

  Finally. I make a move to clear up the dishes, but she won’t let me.

  “Leave them. G will help me with them. It will be the first useful thing he’s done all day,” she says. “Let me show you to your room.”

  I pick up my bag and my guitar case and follow her to the far end of the loft. There are two rooms and a bathroom there, partitioned off from the rest of the open space by drywall that’s been taped and spackled but not painted yet. My room has a huge window, a mattress on the floor, and a fruit crate for a night table.

  “Not very luxurious, I’m afraid. We still have a lot of work to do on the place,” Lili says. “The bed’s comfortable, though.”

  “It’s great, Lili. Really. Thank you,” I say. I’m so tired I could sleep on the floor.

  She tells me she’ll leave two sets of keys on the table, one for me and one for Dad, and that I should come and go as I please. I tell her thanks, but she waves my words away. Before she goes, she takes my hands in hers.

  “You are a ghost, Andi,” she says. “Almost gone.”

  I look at her. I want to say something but I can’t get the words out.

  She squeezes my hands. “Come back to us,” she says. And then she’s gone.

  I close the door, turn off the light, and lie down on the bed. I look out of the window into the night sky, searching for stars. But there aren’t any. Just a few snowflakes whirling in the air. I should get up. Brush my teeth. Pee. Take my pills. But I don’t. I’m too tired. I close my eyes, hoping for sleep, but pictures float up in my mind—images of that small, sad heart. Of that small, scared face.

  Paris. What a great idea. It might take your mind off things, Dad said.

  I laugh then, until I cry. Then cry until I sleep.

  13

  I wake up jangling.

  I fell asleep in my clothes, with all my metal on. My earrings are digging into my head. My bracelets are tangled in my hair. My cell phone’s in my back pocket and it’s digging into my butt. My boots are hurting my feet.

  I’m jangling inside, too. I forgot to take my pills last night, which was really stupid.

  I get up, hit the ladies’, and swallow two Qwells, and then one more, washing them down with tap water cupped in my hands. I check the time—nearly noon—then go searching for coffee.

  Dad’s seated at the dining table, talking on G’s house phone. He’s got it on speaker, because that way he can converse, text his assistant, drink his coffee, and read a dissertation all at the same time. I give him a nod. He nods back.

  There are keys on the table and a note from Lili telling us she’ll be in Bourges tonight and where the nearest Métro stations are, and the nearest grocer, baker, and cheese shop. None of them is very near at all. It’s a hike to get anywhere from here.

  I head to the kitchen and am thrilled to find there’s still coffee in the coffeepot. I pour myself a nice big cup, slurp it down, and sigh as the world goes from black-and-white to Technicolor. As I’m reaching for a croissant, my cell phone rings.

  “Hey.”

  “Vijay? Where are you? The reception’s amazing.”

  “I’m up on my roof. Hiding out.”

  “Who from?”

  “The Vietmom. Who else? Where are you? I went to your house this morning and no one was there.”

  “I’m in Paris.”

  “Wow. Cool. Hey, if you still want to kill yourself, there’s no better place to do it. You’ve got Notre Dame, the Eiffel Tower, all those bridges.…”

  “You heard?” I say, cringing.

  “The whole class heard. Maybe the whole school. Thanks to Arden.”

  “What did she say?”

  “That you’re in love with Nick and always have been. That you threw yourself at him. But he’s totally in love with her and he blew you off and you were so upset you tried to jump off his roof.”

  “What? That’s not how it happened at all.”

  “Doesn’t matter. Arden’s an evil genius.”

  “You’re half right.”

  “You can’t do it now.”

  “Do what?”

  “Kill yourself. If you do, Arden Tode’s going to get the credit.”

  “Wow. Didn’t think of that. You’re right.”


  I hear a voice in the background. “Vijay? Viiiijay!”

  “Oh, no,” Vijay says.

  “Vijay? Vijay Gupta, are you up there?”

  “Gotta go. It’s the Momsoon. And hey, speaking of … where’s yours? She go with you? How’d you get her out of the house?”

  “No, she’s not here,” I tell him. “She’s … she’s in a hospital, V.”

  “A hospital? What happened? Is she okay?”

  “No. It’s a psych ward. Dad took her there.”

  “And he took you to Paris,” he says.

  “Yeah. Because we get along so well, you know? We just love each other’s company. It’s so great being together in Paris. In the dead of winter. A few more days of all this greatness and I’ll be in a psych ward myself.”

  “Viiiijay!”

  “I’ll call you back later, Andi, but, hey …”

  “What?”

  “I was only joking, you know. About the Eiffel Tower and all.”

  “I know.”

  There’s a silence. I can’t speak. I guess he can’t, either. I’ve been close before. To checking out. I’m getting close again. I know that. And so does he.

  “Don’t,” he finally says. “Just don’t.”

  I close my eyes and squeeze the phone hard. “I’m trying, V. Really hard,” I tell him.

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Seriously, you okay?”

  “I’m okay. Now go call Kazakhstan.”

  I hang up. I’m not okay. Not by a long shot. My hands are shaking. My whole body’s shaking. The heart got to me. I saw it in my dreams all night long. I saw Max, too. He was pacing and stamping and flailing his arms. “Maximilien R. Peters!” he was yelling. “Incorruptible, ineluctable, and indestructible!” Truman was there. Trying to walk by him.

  If I could only go back. To Henry Street. On a gray December morning. All I’d need is a minute. Not major time. Not the kind of time it takes to compose a symphony. Build a palace. Fight a war. Just a few crappy seconds. The kind of time it takes to tie a shoe. Peel a banana. Blow your nose. But I haven’t got it. And I never will.