Revolution (19 page)

33

“H
ello?” a voice says, a few seconds later.

“Hey, Virgil.”

There’s a split second of silence, then, “Andi?”

“Yeah.”

“Hey,” he says, and I can hear the smile in his voice.

“Hey, yourself,” I say, smiling back.

“What are you doing?”

“Not sleeping. How about you?”

“Also not sleeping. In fact, I’m driving around the Arc de Triomphe.”

“Wow. Good thing.”

“That I’m driving around the Arc?”

“That you’re not sleeping. And driving. At the same time,” I say, cringing. God. Who let the dork out? Why can’t I be cool when I talk to him?

He laughs. “Yeah. I guess it is.”

“I was just wondering if there’s any chance of me getting my iPod back tonight.”

“Um, no. I’m really sorry. I meant to drop it off earlier, but a friend who works eight to midnight got sick and I took his shift and didn’t have time to head over your way.”

“You’re driving for twelve hours straight tonight? Wow. Okay. I totally understand, but you’re still on the hook.”

“For what?”

“For a song. I can’t sleep and I’ve got to get up in five hours. Sing to me.”

He laughs. “All right. But I’ll have to stop if I get a customer.”

He starts rhyming. He’s got one song about Africa. And one about New York. One about cabdrivers. His best friend, Jules. And his neighborhood. He’s got one about Paris, his city, the city of his dreams. He raps about driving around it all night long; and all the night people he meets; and then stopping at Sacré-Coeur, high above the city, to watch the sun come up. I hear him in his songs. His dreams and his fears. His braggedy-ass rapper’s shtick. His kindness and his anger. I hear his soul in his songs, and I could listen to the sound of it all night.

A customer gets in the cab as he finishes Sacré-Coeur, and he has to be quiet for a while. He starts rhyming again when the guy gets out.

“Wait,” I say, stopping him.

“What?”

“Do you really do that? Hang out at Sacré-Coeur to watch the sun come up?”

“Yeah, I do. Sometimes I bring my guitar. It’s my favorite place in Paris. That and the catacombs. Hey, aren’t you asleep yet? It’s almost two o’clock.”

“No.”

“Okay. I’m taking out the big guns now. If this doesn’t do it, nothing will.”

He starts singing. In some language I don’t know. It sounds old and beautiful. His voice rises and falls, carried by the melody. Rises and falls like a chant, a prayer. It’s soft, his voice, and so beautiful that it hurts my heart hugely. Tears slip from my eyes and fall onto my pillow as I listen to him.

“That’s so lovely,” I whisper when he finishes.

“Yeah, it is.”

“Dude, you’re too modest,” I say sleepily.

He laughs. “I meant the song, not my voice.”

“What’s it called?”

“ ‘Ya gamrata ellil.’ It’s a Tunisian song. You should hear Sonia M’barek sing it. Or my mom.”

“Sing it again,” I murmur. “Please.”

He does. Over and over. I don’t know how many times. I lose count. His singing takes me out beyond. Beyond the pills, beyond the pain. It carries me until I feel still. And safe. Until sleep finally comes and finds me wrapped in the dark velvet warmth of his voice.

34

Y
ves Bonnard looks at me like I’ve just dumped a shovelful of shit on his desk.

“What?” I say, pushing the little brown bag closer to him. “It’s a croissant. For you. I thought you might be hungry.”

“Have you any idea—any idea at all—what grease can do to paper?” he asks me, his voice shaking with anger. “Take it away. Now. And wash your hands before you come back.”

“Hey, you’re welcome,” I say, grabbing the bag.

Get on his good side, the professor guy told me yesterday. Looks like I’m well on my way. I go outside, to the courtyard in front of the building. There are some workers there, fiddling with a standpipe. “You hungry?” I ask one of them, then thrust the bag into his hands before he can answer me.

A few minutes later, I’m back in line, with squeaky clean hands and four perfectly filled-out call slips. After ten minutes or so of waiting, it’s my turn. I hand the slips to Yves Bonnard and he examines them, one by one. I’m sure he’s going to tell me to get lost again, but no.

“Good,” he says, putting them into the vacuum tube. “You are actually capable of filling out a call slip correctly. I had my doubts.” He tells me the papers I requested will be brought up shortly, then launches into his list of rules. He goes on and on, but I don’t care. I’m going to get the stuff I need.

He finally finishes, hands me a pencil from the box on his desk, and a pair of thin white cotton gloves. I take them and sit down at my space at one of the reading tables. I glance at the clock on the wall: 9:52 a.m. Not bad, considering I only got here at 9:30. I’d hoped to be earlier, but the trains were slow, and even after I got off the Métro, I took a bit of an unplanned detour. I was just walking out of the station with a big gush of people when my phone rang.

“Your turn,” Virgil said.

“Um, can’t. I’m right smack in the middle of Paris at rush hour.”

“So what?” he says, and there’s a bite to his voice.

“What’s wrong?” I ask him, feeling worried, looking around for a more private place to talk than the Boulevard Henri IV.

“Nothing.”

“Come on,” I say, dashing up a side street. “What’s up?”

“Some guys messed with my cab this morning.”

“What, like, they stole your mirrors or something?”

“No, like, they tried to steal my car. With me in it.”

“Oh my God. You were carjacked?”

“Almost.”

“Virgil, are you okay?”

“Yeah. Just wired.”

“What happened?”

“There was a fight. The cops came and—”

“A
fight?
”

“I’m fine. Really. Can you just sing?”

“Okay, yeah. Um … no. No, I can’t. Not until I know you’re really okay.”

“I am. For real. One of them threw a punch but I ducked it. Mostly. He grazed me. I’ve got a cut on my cheek, that’s all. Sing, Andi. Please. I’m tired. I’m so damn tired.”

So I did. I sat down on a bench in the park and sang stuff we’d sung at Rémy’s the other night. Then tunes from
Plaster Castle
. But it didn’t work. He was still awake. Still amped up on adrenaline. I could hear it in his voice.

I need a lullaby, I thought. I wracked my brains but all I could come up with was “Rock-a-bye Baby,” the worst, most scary-ass lullaby of all time. A cab passed by as I was thinking, with an ad on its side for a British travel agency, Smith and Barlow, and their cheap flights to London. Smith and Barlow. The Smiths. “Asleep.” Perfect, I thought.

I didn’t do the greatest of jobs on it. I could’ve used a piano to back me. And Morrissey. But it didn’t matter. He needed a song. From me. And I needed to give him one.

He sang the last verse with me. Well, mumbled it.

There is another world
There is a better world
Well, there must be
Well, there must be

And then he whispered, “Thank you,” and hung up. And I sat on the bench afterward. Eyes closed. Squeezing the phone. Thinking about what just happened. Thinking about what happened last night. Wishing I was with him. Lying beside him. Listening to him breathe. I don’t know what this is, if it’s even anything. But it better not be anything because he’s more than cool and more than hot. He’s something I’ve never known before. Something real and amazing. And I’m out of here in a few days.

So I tried my best to put him out of my head, but I was humming “Asleep” all the way to the library.

I look around now for the molemen pushing their trolleys but they must still all be underground, because they’re nowhere to be seen. It looks like it’s going to be a few minutes, so I take out the diary. I packed it this morning so I could read it at lunchtime, while the library’s closed.

I open it up, hoping. Even more than I was last night. Hoping that Alex survived. Hoping that Virgil calls me tonight. Hoping so hard that I scare myself.

5 May 1795

The guards have not caught me yet. They have not killed me. My wound has not turned septic. The pain abates. I may yet live to finish this account.

I was writing of Versailles before I was chased, and of the fishwives. We survived the attack, all of us.

At dawn General Hoche, a leader of the Paris guard—the very soldiers who had earlier marched upon the palace—received word of the mob’s attack and came to the king’s aid. Hoche and his men pushed the mob out of the palace. General Lafayette arrived and made peace by asking the king to step out on his balcony and address his people. This the king did, promising that he would indeed go to Paris, where he could be certain of the love of his good and faithful subjects.

Did I not tell you he was stupid?

Afterward, Louis-Charles and his family were hurried away and I was dismissed, swept aside like so much rubbish by the soldiers of the Paris guard. I tried to follow Louis-Charles but they would not let me.

I found myself pushed outside the king’s chamber, back into the Hall of Mirrors. There, a few servants—pale and dazed—collected the dead. Others hurried to and fro, packing dresses, shoes, linens, perfumes—everything the queen needed to travel. Still others wandered, lost. Please, madam, take me with you, a scullery girl begged, clutching the sleeve of a lady-in-waiting. I can cook and mind children. Please, madam!

Maids and chamberlains, fireboys and footmen, cooks and grooms and gardeners—all had been told to leave. They were no longer needed, for Versailles was no more. The king and queen would live in another palace now—the damp and crumbling Tuileries—under house arrest.

Outside, some of the mob were still singing, still shouting, and dancing. Liberty! a woman yelled. Liberty for all!

Liberty. The marchers had shouted it over and over again, all night long. They’d carried banners with the word writ large. Was this liberty? If so, I wanted no part of it. I was free now, yes. Free to pin silly cockades to my hat. Free to sing daft songs. Free to go back to Paris and starve.

On the palace steps, a man mopped up blood. Two more swept up pieces of glass. The jagged shards made an ugly music as they were dumped into a bucket.

I heard the tune and knew it—it was the sound of my dreams shattering.

35

“M
iss? Here are your boxes.”

The voice startles me. I’m lost in the diary again. “What?” I say. Way too loudly.

The man holds a finger to his lips. “Here is the material you asked for,” he says, gesturing to the cart beside him. “Sign for it, please. There are five boxes in all. One for Amadé Malherbeau’s death certificate and will. Three of his sheet music. One containing personal papers.” He places the boxes on the table, then hands me a clipboard.

“Yeah, okay. Thanks,” I say, signing. “Hey, do you know why there isn’t a birth certificate?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Amadé Malherbeau’s death certificate is here but not his birth certificate. Why is that?”

“When would he have been born?”

I know when he died, and how old he was, so I do a quick calculation. “Seventeen seventy-five,” I say.

The man smiles. “That was a very long time ago. It’s likely his birth certificate was destroyed during the many uprisings and invasions Paris has experienced. It might have gone up in flames. Been pulverized by bombs. Or destroyed by damp if it was stored in a basement room, as many records were. If Malherbeau was born in the country, it could be sitting in the attic of some ancient town hall.”

He takes his clipboard back, places it on his trolley, and starts to motor off. But then he stops suddenly and turns around. “Or …” he says.

“Or what?”

“Or he wasn’t born Amadé Malherbeau. Perhaps he went by another name. Our birth and death records are cross-referenced by year if you care to look through them.”

Hmm. Didn’t think of that. “How many do you have for 1775?” I ask.

“A few thousand.”

“Um, no thanks. I’ve just got today, you know? Not the rest of my life.”

The moleman leaves and I get busy. It’s 10:15 now and I have a lot to do before lunchtime. I’ve just started to open the box with the death records in it when I hear a loud, sharp banging.

I look up, startled. It’s Yves Bonnard. He’s pounding on his desk with a gavel. “Number twelve! Gloves, please!” he barks.

Number twelve is me, of course. All the other researchers are giving me a look like I just killed someone. “My bad,” I say. I put the gloves on and snap Yves a sharp salute. He narrows his eyes at me, holds up one finger. I’m pretty sure he means strike one.

I open the first box and carefully take out Amadé Malherbeau’s death certificate and his will. It’s pretty straightforward stuff. He died at the age of fifty-eight, in his house. He had no wife and no heirs, so he left everything to the Paris Conservatory. Neither document tells me anything I don’t already know, but they sure look cool, with all their big scrolly ink letters and flourishes. They’ll make great visuals.

Next, I open the box of personal papers and start going through them. There are receipts in here. Tons of them. For everything from horses to furniture to clothing to a carriage.

There are letters from music publishers, from concert hall owners, from people who wanted him to perform in their homes. There’s one from the violinist and composer Paganini with a return address in London. I pull it out and read it excitedly, thinking maybe the scholars missed this one since I haven’t read about it in any book; hoping for a long, involved, enlightening discussion of their shared musical philosophies.

But no. Paganini spends the whole letter bitching about English roads, English audiences, damp English hotels, the terrible English weather, and the inedible English food. He signs off by saying that he’s looking forward to stopping in Paris in June, on his way back to Genoa, and sharing a pot of coffee with his friend Malherbeau underneath a canopy of red roses in his garden.

I put it all back in its box, disappointed. I’m going to photograph a lot of it, the receipts and the letters—if I fade them out they’ll make great backgrounds for my PowerPoint slides—but I still have to talk about Malherbeau the man in my introduction, I still have to say something meaningful about him, and none of this, and none of what I’ve read in any of the books, is bringing me any closer to understanding him. I mean, what can I say? That he liked coffee and roses? That’s not going to get me to the airport.

Then I open the first box of his music. Malherbeau’s Concerto in A Minor is on the very top. I’ve seen the music. I own a copy of it. It’s the
Fireworks
Concerto. I’ve played this particular piece a hundred times. But I’m not prepared for this—for seeing the notes and measures exactly as he wrote them, for feeling the master’s hand upon the page.

The paper is still milky white, but browned and broken at the edges. I lift the score out carefully and start sight-reading it. Some of the notes are misshapen. There are blots and cross-outs and I realize I’m not looking at the final score, I’m looking at a draft. And it doesn’t quite work. In fact, it’s kind of a mess.

I look at the next piece of music in the box. It’s another draft of the same concerto. This one’s showing definite improvements. How cool is that? There are four more drafts of the same concerto. I place them all in order on the table in front of me so I can see all the first pages at the same time. Looking at one after another, I can see what Malherbeau changed and why. I can see how his mind worked. I can see the originality. The genius.

My heart’s beating really fast. I’m so excited by all of this that I start fingering the measures on an invisible fretboard, without even thinking. And tapping the beat with my foot. And singing the notes. “Ba ba ba BAH da dadadada DAH da …”

And then I hear it again. The gavel pounding. And the voice of God: “Number twelve, quiet, please!” I look up. Yves Bonnard is now holding up two fingers. One more strike and I’m out.

“Sorry!” I whisper.

At that second, at that very second, my cell phone goes off. It might not be so bad if I had, say, Bach’s Cello Suite no. 1 for a ring tone and the volume was turned down. But I don’t. I have “Kashmir.” Turned up. Way up. And I can’t find the phone. Anywhere. I’m digging in my bag and then my jacket pockets. Robert Plant’s warbling about time and space and I still can’t find it. I grab my bag again. I’m frantically pulling everything out of it—wallet, keys, Alex’s diary—when I see it. Finally. It was under the diary.

I turn it off. And I can hear a pin drop. Nobody’s rustling papers or coughing or scribbling notes because they’re busy staring at me in shock and horror. I don’t want to look up at the front desk, but I do. And I see exactly what I thought I would—Yves Bonnard holding up three fingers.