And I, I myself, had helped him.
The knowing of it felt like a dagger to my heart. Had I given him names I should not have? Had someone been killed this night because I told Orléans he had visited the king or written to the queen? Were Louis-Charles and his family in prison because of something I had seen? Something I had said? I moaned like an animal and sank to the floor, weeping.
Nicolas leaned over me. It is too late for tears, he said. Get up. Pick up the things you have broken. Do not be here when the duke returns.
I did not get up. I lay on the floor for some time, until the candles burned low. Until the first light of morning appeared in the sky. And then I remembered my work at the Temple and that Louis-Charles would be waiting for me.
I got to my hands and knees and was about to stand when I caught sight of myself in Orléans’ mirror. It seemed as if a stranger stared back at me. A stranger whose face was as white as chalk. Whose cheeks were stained by tears. Whose eyes were sunken and dead.
I crawled closer, through the broken glass, the torn clothing and scattered jewels, and touched my fingers to the stranger’s.
Is it Paris that’s gone mad? I asked her. Or is it you?
I stop reading, devastated. Alex witnessed the massacres. Worse yet, she thinks she may have played a role in them. I remember learning about them in class. They were horrible. After we did a segment on them, our teacher, Ms. Hammond, told us there was a lot of spin directed at them—at the time they actually happened and ever since.
“Some historians call the massacres a spontaneous outburst of violence, a shameful aberration fueled by fear and hysteria. Others said the butchery was planned, that it was orchestrated by those in power in order to rid Paris of counterrevolutionaries,” she said.
“Well, which is it?” Arden Tode asked.
“One or the other. Both. Neither.”
“Are you, like, trying to be funny?”
“What I’m trying to do, Ms. Tode, is show you that the answer depends on where you stand. Marie-Antoinette undoubtedly saw the massacres in a different light than, say, a stonemason who’d watched his child die of hunger and who expected to be killed any second himself by a Prussian soldier. To the former, it was a depraved act of butchery. To the other, perhaps a necessary evil.”
“Um, can I put that on the final?”
Ms. Hammond sighed. “History is a Rorschach test, people,” she said. “What you see when you look at it tells you as much about yourself as it does about the past.”
I remember Ms. Hammond’s words and I think about Alex. She was there. A part of it all. She saw history up close and personal. And what she saw made her insane.
26 May 1795
I sit by the river tonight waiting for darkness. The sky is clear and I have my basket with rockets in it at my side.
Madame du Barry, an old courtesan, sits beside me and clasps my hand in hers. I remember her death. All of Paris does. She screamed her head off. Quite literally. Please, she wheedles now, think of apricots, the scent of roses, the pricking of champagne bubbles on the tongue.
The dead are bigger thieves than ever I was. They steal the most precious things from me. The feel of silk. The sound of rain pattering on the cobbles. The smell of snow on the wind. They take these things and leave me with the taste of dirt and ashes.
I think not of apricots, but of guillotines and graves.
She frowns. For those I do not need your help, she says, and flounces off.
I told Benôit that I see them. He says it means I’m well and truly mad and he may be right, but I am not angry with the dead for it. It is not they who have made me mad.
It was not the massacres of September, either, though certainly they helped.
It was not the king’s death at the guillotine that did it. Or learning that Orléans was among the deputies who voted for it.
It was not the stories from the Vendée, where entire towns were burned and Frenchmen shot Frenchmen. And women. And children. Or chained them together and drowned them.
It was not during Robespierre’s Terror, when hundreds upon hundreds were guillotined in Paris and there was so much blood in the streets that people slipped in it and dogs lapped at it and flies swarmed over it in great black clouds.
Nor was it when Orléans was arrested for treason and jailed.
It was the day they took Louis-Charles away.
His jailers said they had learned of a plot to rescue the prince and his mother from the Temple and that the Assembly had decided they must no longer be together, for it would be harder to free them if they were apart. It was time to teach Louis-Charles how to be a good Republican, they said. Time to educate him in the ways of the revolution.
The queen fought them. She shielded Louis-Charles with her body and would not let them near him. She told them they would have to kill her first. They told her it was not she whom they would kill, but her daughter, and finally she had to surrender him, to spare Marie-Thérèse.
They dragged him away. He was only eight years old.
I was in a hallway when they took him. Near the room where the family dined. I had just come up from the kitchens with their dinner. The guards knocked me aside as they tore him from his mother. I fell. Food went everywhere. Dishes shattered. The tray clanged against the stone floor.
I remember little of that, however. What I remember is Louis-Charles’ face. His eyes were red with weeping. He looked back for his mother but could not find her. He saw me instead and reached for me, and I reached for him. For a second we clasped hands. There was terror in his eyes, and sorrow and innocence and something else—something I wish to God I had not seen, for it has doomed me.
It haunts me always, that instant. It tortures me. I wish I could go back and undo it. All of it. From the very beginning. I wish my family had never gone to Versailles. I wish the king’s carriage had never stopped in the town square. I wish I’d never heard that little boy’s laughter.
I am not afraid of beatings or blood anymore. I’m not afraid of guards or guillotines.
There is only one thing I fear now—love.
For I have seen it and I have felt it and I know that it is love, not death, that undoes us.
* * *
I lay my head on my pillow. I’m afraid to read any more.
Please let this have a happy ending. Let one thing in this shitty world have a happy ending.
I think back to the television interview with G and my father, sifting desperately through what I remember of it for something hopeful. G said that some people believed Louis-Charles was smuggled out of prison and a dead child’s body was placed in his cell, autopsied, and buried. He said that several people came forth years after Louis-Charles supposedly died and claimed they were him. Dad said bones from the most likely contender—Naundorff—had failed the DNA tests.
But what if they’re wrong—Dad and G? What if Naundorff wasn’t the most likely contender? What if the most likely contender never came forward?
I mean, why would he after what he’d been through? So they could interrogate him? Maybe throw him in prison again? No way. Most likely, he’d lie low in some little cottage in the middle of nowhere and hope like hell that the world that had treated him so badly would forget he’d ever existed.
Let Louis-Charles have escaped, I say silently. Let the heart not belong to him. Let it belong to some poor kid who was already dead when they smuggled him into the Temple.
Please.
50
A door slams. I wake with a start.
The clock on my night table says it’s nearly two a.m. I must’ve fallen asleep. I hear keys jangling. Footsteps from the hallway. It’s Dad. Why is he so late?
I rub my eyes. Crawl out of bed. By the time I pull a sweater on and walk to the hallway, he’s in the living room. Talking on the phone.
It smells like alcohol out here. I’m closer now and can see that there’s an open wine bottle on the coffee table in front of him. He’s sitting on the sofa, rubbing hi
s forehead. I hear him ask Minna how she’s doing and about Helix, their cat. I don’t want to listen to their personal stuff, so I head back to my room. But then he starts talking about the heart and I stop in my tracks.
I hear mtDNA and D-loop and PCR amplification. I vaguely understand that stuff. I mean, I’ve been hearing about it since I was in the womb. Dad once took blood samples from me and Truman and took them to his lab. A few days later he brought home the results.
“That’s you,” he said to us, taping the gels on our kitchen window. He pointed at the columns of little gray bars, then said, “Everything you are, everything you ever will be, is right there. Eye color, height, intelligence, predisposition to diseases, aptitudes, abilities—DNA tells us so much about life.”
“No … no results yet. We’ve just finished sequencing,” he says now. “I know, it is amazing. I had pretty low expectations but the sample was surprisingly good. We’re comparing it against hair samples from Marie-Antoinette, two of her sisters, and two living Habsburg descendants. Yeah, it is comprehensive.”
There’s a pause, then, “Mmm-hmm. We did the excision at the Coté medical lab. Took off the end and a piece of the aorta. It was as hard as rock. I had to use a saw. We put the samples for Cassiman and Brinkmann into jars and sealed them. The seals were broken by notaries in Belgium and Germany. We did the extractions two ways—with silica and with phenol-chloroform. Yeah, it probably is overkill, but no one’s taking any chances. It was in such good condition. Really well preserved. I could see the muscles, the vessels …”
His voice trails off. “Yeah, I’m still here,” he says. He gives a small, sad laugh. “I wonder why, sometimes, Min. I wonder how.” He listens, then says, “I know, I know. I’m supposed to stay objective but I’ve become a monarchist. G gave me the background to read. It was horrible what was done to them. Horrible. I’m finding I have a great deal of sympathy for the king and queen. They suffered for their sins. I can’t even imagine their torment. No, not at losing their own lives. At leaving their children behind in such a terrible place with such cruel people. Knowing they would be brutalized and knowing they could do nothing to protect them.”
He’s silent for a few seconds. “Well, maybe I can imagine that,” he says. There’s another pause, and then, “It’s so small, the heart. They were the same age, did you know that? Truman and Louis-Charles. They were both only ten years old when they died. And I can’t help … I can’t help wondering how a child’s heart can be so small and so big all at once.”
His voice catches. He wipes his eyes. And I realize he’s crying. And suddenly, I am, too.
“I felt close to him there, Minna. In the lab. Working on the heart. It’s crazy, I know it is. But I felt he was there somehow. With me.” He takes a gulp of wine and says, “Yeah, I have. Matter of fact, I’m on my second bottle.”
Another pause, then, “Andi? Asleep, I think. I hope. Yeah. Pretty much the same. Hates me. Blames me for what happened. I know she does. I blame myself. If only I’d been around more.”
I blame him? No, that’s not it at all. He blames me. I know he does. I blame myself. Because it was my fault. I wait for him to finish, which he does after another minute or two. He puts the phone down, then sits very still, his head in his hands.
“Hey, Dad,” I say, taking a couple of steps toward him. I want to try to talk to him. About everything. About the heart and Truman and the diary and Virgil.
He looks up, startled, and wipes his face. “I thought you were sleeping, Andi. Where were you?” he says, awkward and suddenly angry.
Those words again. Where were you? They shut me down.
“Not where I was supposed to be, I guess. Once again.”
“What?” he says, looking confused. And very tired.
“Nothing. Forget it. Good night.”
I walk back to my room and close the door. I go to the wall. The one separating me from my father. I push on it. Slap it with my palms. Hit it with my fists. But it doesn’t move. I lean against it, sink down to the floor, and stay there for some time, my head in my hands.
51
It’s late Sunday morning and coffee is everywhere. On the counter. On the floor.
On my feet.
I’m a little out of it. I took four pills last night. After my little episode with my father. That’s more than I’ve ever taken at one time. They’ve Qwelled the pain and almost everything else. Gross motor skills are working but the fine motor skills are leaving a bit to be desired. I managed to get out of bed, put my clothes on, and stumble to the kitchen for a cup of coffee. But I somehow seem to have missed the cup.
I clean up the mess, then head to the dining room, where my father is sitting in a chair, reading my work. I sit down across from him and watch him. He looks pretty engaged. That’s good. After a few minutes he looks up at me. As if he just realized I’m here.
“So?” I say.
“This is wonderful, Andi. Very fine work. I have to admit, I was a bit skeptical about the topic—”
“Really, Dad? I had no idea.”
“—but you did a great job. On both the outline and the intro. Very comprehensive. Who knew that mathematics figure so heavily in music?”
“Um, musicians?”
“Now all you have to do is finish it. Which shouldn’t be a problem. You have until May.”
“Finish it so I can graduate.”
“Yes, of course.”
“And what then? Go to Stanford? I don’t want to go to Stanford.”
He hesitates, then says, “We’ll talk about it.”
Which means he’ll talk and tell me all the reasons why music school is a bad idea. And I’ll listen. For about ten seconds. And then I’ll blow up. And he’ll blow up. And it will be Armageddon. Like it always is with us. And probably always will be. But I don’t say that. I don’t say anything. Because he just gave me the green light to fly home tonight and I’m going to do nothing—not one thing—to jeopardize that.
“So,” he says, breaking the silence. “You have your ticket? Your passport?”
“I’ve got everything, Dad. I’m all set.”
“I won’t be here when you leave. I’ll be in the lab all day. So don’t forget to call the airline before you go. In case they call a strike. I don’t want you stranded at Orly.”
“I won’t.”
“And call me when you get to the house. And remember to check in with Mrs. Gupta. I’ll be calling her, too. And Andi …”
My phone goes off. Hooray. Saved by the ring tone. “Excuse me, Dad,” I say, heading into the kitchen to answer it.
“Hey,” a voice on the other end says. It’s Vijay.
“Oh, hey,” I say. I’d thought—well, desperately hoped—it might be Virgil.
“Wow. Glad to hear your voice, too.”
“Sorry, V. I’m a little out of it. Thought you were somebody else.”
“Um … remind me again why I’m your friend?”
“I’m thinking … still thinking … sorry. Can’t come up with anything.”
“Ha.”
“What are you doing up so early? It’s noon here, so it’s got to be, like, six a.m. in Brooklyn.”
“Just got off the phone with King Abdullah’s press office. For, like, the tenth time. They finally said to send my paper and they’ll try to get him to comment.”
“That’s so great.”
“Yeah, it is. I’m really stoked. I’m going to try Tajikistan next. How’s your outline going?”
I tell him about all the work I’ve done, that Dad’s given it the thumbs-up, and that I’ll be home tomorrow. He’s surprised. And happy. And immediately tells me to finish it and not screw it up.
“I’m touched by your faith in me,” I say.
“Look, the reason I called is to let you know that Mission Van Gogh is accomplished,” he says. “I smuggled everything in to your mom yesterday afternoon. I got Kavita to help me. She wore a kurta and baggy pants. We taped the tubes of paints and the brushes to h
er legs. Put the flea-market stuff in a backpack and taped it to her front. Pretended she was pregnant. The security guard didn’t search her.”
I don’t know what I did to deserve a friend like Vijay. But whatever it was, I must’ve done it in another life, not this one.
“Wow, V, thank you,” I say. “Thank you so much. Did she like it?”
“She was a little out of it at first. Kind of a Stepford wife. But when we showed her what we’d brought, and told her you sent it, she sparked up. Started painting right away. On the wall of her room.”
“That’s so great. Was her doctor around? Dorky guy in a white coat? Did he try to put a stop to it?”
“There were lots of dorky guys in white coats around. It’s a hospital. But no one came in while we were there. It was right at the end of visiting hours. On a Saturday. He was probably home.”
“Cool. I so owe you, Vijay.”
“It’s nothing. Oh, and thanks for the bobbleheads. So cool. Medvedev and Talabani are totally hard to find.”
I laugh. Only Vijay Gupta could think politician bobbleheads are cool. I found some the day I was hunting for things for my mother and put them in the FedEx box for him.
“Oh, and one more thing … I’m supposed to tell you that Nick says hi. He got arrested again.”
“For what?”
“For stabbing a giant blow-up Ronald McDonald on Court Street.”
“No way.”
“Way. The thing was enormous, like ten feet high. A little kid was crying, refusing to walk by it. Her nanny was dragging her in to get a Happy Meal and she kept saying she didn’t want to be happy. Nick felt sorry for her. He pulled out a Swiss army knife and nailed Mickey D. I saw him do it.”