|
Revolting (Combeferre): July, 1830
When the order came from the king and the presses closed, the air was full of the words that could not be printed, rumbling with the freedom that some had come to take for granted. Everyone was discussing what should be done, not only those men who had been less than comfortable with a king, like us, but everyone who had suddenly awakened to find that the power of an absolute monarch is a hideous burden on any country, far too heavy and painful for La Belle France. We had only a few hours of sleep that first night. My brothers and I were all through the city, talking to this group and that, planning what would happen. Birds were singing by the time I got home, and Julien arrived after I had fallen asleep. The dawn came early, though we didn't see it. I woke in the middle of the morning, and I was afraid. I lay quietly beside Julien, not wanting to rob him of any sleep he could have that night, and I prayed. I could not have found the gall to address my thoughts to the God of my youth, not when I held my lover in my arms and felt the heat of his skin against mine. I could not pray to any God who would require me to repent of loving whom I loved and letting them know it. If I was damned for caring about my friends and taking joy in them -- then I was damned, for I would not cease loving them when we faced danger. But I felt the need to ask someone greater than myself for assistance; I was not the savior of Paris, nor of anyone else, and I could only hope to help the people I knew in tiny ways. Julien stirred in my embrace and I kissed him softly. He looked at me as if he did not know me for a moment, then returned the kiss. "It's late," he said. "Not too late. I haven't heard anything." "We should go." I sighed and sat up. "Yes. I love you." He was already out of bed, dressing as quickly as he could. "And I love you. Now, where did I put them?" It was madness in the streets in the horrid heat of July. The comfortably affluent wanted the soldier to know that they were welcome, and that His Majesty would never be overthrown. All the gold louis in Paris were his for the asking. But wealth or no, the people were angry. Their presses were gone -- shut down by order of the King, and by order of his damnable ministers. Later, Bossuet told me that in the house where he lodged, the affluent tenants on the ground floor had opened their doors to the soldiers and offered them wine and bread, while the students, the grisettes, and the workingmen who populated the rickety flats above threw insults, rotten food, and the contents of chamberpots onto the soldiers' heads. Julien was in his element in the streets, more rapturous at the head of a throng chanting to a cadence than I had ever seen him in all the years we had been together. It was all suddenly real as it had never been in the years I had heard him speak of his ideals. He had spoken of using force to realize a true government, a republic. He had spoken of rallying the people to claim their natural rights, of tossing aside the current government as a boy puts away his toy soldiers, and moving on to better things. It was not until I saw him leading men, instituting anarchy to clear away monarchy, that I understood he had always spoken the truth. I had been lying to myself, as I have been lying since I met him. I had thought he was not truly a warrior, that no one as gentle in love as he could ever kill another man, nor incite his fellows to sin against God and nature by slaying their brothers. My falsehoods were a great deal more beautiful than the truth, than the man who can kill without sorrow and lose friends without flinching. I did not follow him too closely that day; I could not. He walked as Apollo with an arrow of flame nocked on his bow. I knew that if I saw him kill, I would never be able to believe in the myth of my sweet beloved again, no matter how much I would prefer it to remembering this militant, splendid man. There was no reason that I should have walked beside him. I was not armed; I carried no gun, no sword. I had only the bag that I used when I worked in the hospital, and another -- a pillowcase from the bed Julien and I shared -- stuffed full of bandages, makeshift and otherwise. No matter that I had not finished my training; I could stanch the flow of blood as well as any man, given the proper materials. All through that horrible, wonderful day, I feared that Julien would fall, and that I would not see him to be able to help, but that fear was not enough to make me walk close to him. I fell further back into his entourage, the mob he led. Aimery, Jehan, Daniel, Bossuet, and Chrétien walked with me, and I stayed with them, although it hurt my heart to see Jehan -- barely a man -- armed with a carbine. They needed me then as they had never had before. They joked with each other. I could not join in their merriment. Any words stuck in my throat with the certainty that I was responsible for their presence in this impossibly dangerous attempt war. I could hardly smile at them, though Aimery tried time and again to break my silence. The only time I spoke was when someone near us was hurt and needed my poor skills -- most often strangers, for my friends did not stay together. Jehan, Bossuet, and Chrétien disappeared in the crowds, off with other acquaintances. All morning, all afternoon, I had no idea what was happening in Paris. I was only aware of the men around me, needing help, firing guns, bleeding, and Julien somewhere impossibly distant, though I never got so far from him that I could not see him. And yet I could not move when Daniel was shot. I saw it too clearly, and in that moment I knew that everything I had done to bring these men together was wrong. I should have left them alone, so that they would have been friends and no more; it would have been painful enough to see a friend injured, but it was horrible to see my brother bleeding. I stared at him for an endless moment until Aimery shook my shoulder and said, "Audric!" His voice was hoarse with fear. Whatever sympathetic pain I felt, Aimery must have felt twice over. I glanced at him and saw how worried he was. That woke me from my daze, for if it had been any normal day, any normal problem, he would never have let himself look frightened. Daniel had been shot in the left shoulder. He sat in the street behind the small barricade we'd built, holding his injured arm with the good one. I knelt beside him and carefully cut away his jacket and his shirt. When I had done that, it became easier, more routine. He was a patient, not a friend, not a brother. Aimery knelt beside me, saying something -- to me or to Daniel, but I wasn't listening. Daniel's shoulder had only been grazed, and he was not nearly as seriously wounded as I had feared. I said, "It'll be all right. Just -- I'll have to sew it, and you should go home. And -- Aimé, you should go with him." Daniel would probably have been all right, once I'd put in the sutures and bandaged it. He most likely didn't need help changing the bandage. I explained how he might do it himself when I put the first one on. He could have asked someone, anyone, for assistance with the hard parts. But I had to send them away, though it was not strictly necessary. I had to do what I could to keep them both safe. If I could have convinced anyone else that they would have to leave the streets, Jehan, Chrétien, I would have told them lies as blithely as I gave Aimery my half-truth. He took it and a length of cloth and lint with gravity I've rarely seen in him. He pressed my shoulder for a moment, then gave Daniel a hand up. "Let's get you home, mon frère," he said, and he sounded old and tired. Daniel gave me a brave smile and bid me farewell. They were gone in the crowd a moment later, leaving me to explain to the rest what had happened. I did not see either of them again until two evenings later, when everything that was going to change for the better had changed. The king was deposed, long live the king. We had won against Charles X and lost to Louis-Philippe. Was it any wonder that we gathered, bleary-eyed and tired, in a café and drank together? Julien did not approve, but I was past caring what he thought. He had been unlike himself for days on end; I had no desire to placate his sensitive sensibilities. He left early. In my memory he was pale as a skull that night, and I should have followed him, as perhaps Aimery should have followed Daniel. Daniel was healing well and did not need anyone with him, but it would not have hurt him to have company. And Chrétien was no sicker that day than any other, and so he left alone, leaving Bossuet laughing on Jehan's shoulder. We should all have gone home, away from the madness that was the so-called revolution. Christophe should never have invited us with him; I should never have accepted. If I had gone with Julien, I would have had little patience for him, and perhaps it would have ended there, in the hazy, painful night. But my friends restored my patience and my faith in Julien. I lost myself and my agony in their arms, my beloved brothers, and I remembered four years of loving Julien, not three days of fearing him.
[ before | after ]
|
