Written by me.
English translation by Elwen_Rhiannon.
A Thousand and One Nights
The night at the barricade is dark, too dark; with a feeble light of a few torches cutting through the darkness. You have to walk carefully, minding every step, if you want to find the source of the light: even a small mistake means falling on a stone or an iron bar. And Combeferre knows there's no place at the barricade for people entering the revolution on their knees.
He adjusts his glasses and tightens fingers on a book held with extreme care, slowly forcing his way through the darkness. Only a few hours till dawn: enough to allow yourself a moment of solitude. Besides, he'll return to them before dawn. Only two things matter now: light and word. When he finally reaches a torch attached to a stone wall, for a brief moment he feels exhausted and sits heavily on a ground.
Before he has time to get absorbed in reading, he can hear silent steps behind him. He forces himself to lift up his tired eyes from the book only because of them. No, he won't frighten the intruder away: perhaps he's even grateful. After a moment Feuilly sits next to him, close enough to feel his presence, and far enough to not disturb him.
He asks no questions and that's why Combeferre feels he can let him see the cover. Feuilly squints his eyes, far too well accustomed to dim light, and reads the title. He lifts his eyebrows, but does not comment, and Combeferre is grateful: this is not the book he could impress anyone here, at the barricade. He should have taken something else: Brissot, or maybe Condorcet, one of the great voices praising liberty, egality and fraternity. Perhaps he should have and maybe he would have if he were more like Enjolras, even if Enjolras would never agree neither with Brissot nor with Condorcet.
But Combeferre has never been like Enjolras, and why exactly should he have taken something else to read?
„Jehan had this book, too," says Feuilly in a voice one could take as indifferent, but Combeferre knows how much it does cost him to speak the name of a dead friend aloud.
„Because it's his book," he explains, leafing through a thick volume and touching each page as if he was feeling not a rough paper, but a smooth and warm hand of a friend beneath his fingertips. „He lent it to me a few days ago. He wanted to know if I would like it."
„You'll tell him tomorrow," sighs Feuilly. „Or rather today. You look as if you were going to fall down with fatigue. If you don't want to sleep, better read it to the end."
Contrary to his advice, Combeferre closes the book carefully, puts it on his knees and watches Feuilly's face, tired and serious. For a moment he concentrates on the wrinkles crossing the forehead of his companion. It's easier this way: he does not have to look into his eyes. His own eyes are burning with fatigue, but Combeferre doesn't want to lay down to sleep, even if he knows that he should. His mask of the one who is always rational and always controlling himself weighs horridly and Combeferre suddenly bows his head.
„I already did," he confesses, holding the book tightly and not letting it slip from his knees. „Before. A few times. Didn't want to tell him, he was so happy that he can have something to recommend to me." He shakes his head. "All went wrong."
Feuilly gives him a compassionate look and then lowers his gaze towards the book.
„He was going to tell me one of these stories, you know?" he says, pensively. „Never finished, though. He started once, in „Musain", but I had to go, then we were all busy with preparations, and now..."
Feuilly suddenly stops and Combeferre swallows.
„And now Jehan is dead," he ends his companion's sentence. "They killed him."
His voice is unnaturally sharp, too sharp against quiet voices in the background, angry beyond expectation. Combeferre is usually calm and rarely angry, but this time he is unable to control it, as if saying it aloud again has finally confirmed what happened just a few hours ago. But when he takes a deep breath, with fingernails in his palms to calm down his nervousness, Feuilly puts a hand on his shoulder.
Combeferre knows that his companion is not the one to talk about feelings; there's no time for them on the streets of Paris or during so many working hours. They're the last thing a worker may want: feelings and sentiments get you away from work, making you less effective, and you know that the less effective you are, the less you earn. A few sous can make sometimes a big difference, equaling a meal or warmth in the cold evening. They can also postpone the spectre of tuberculosis and save from fever. You shouldn't think about sentiments if you want to live another day and there's nothing strange about it: it's the matter of common sense and will to survive. No one, who has to earn one's living by the sweat of one's brow, will ever be a good poet.
No, Feuilly doesn't know how to talk about feelings and he lacks Jehan's intuition. Yet Combeferre accepts the touch of his warm and calming hand with relief: he needed something like that.
„We can still win, you know," says Feuilly slowly. „They'll send us help in the morning, anyway, they promised to. The bell of Saint-Merri is still ringing. We can do it, you'll see yourself."
„Maybe," agrees Combeferre indifferently and for one moment it doesn't matter to him.
He looks at Feuilly as if he has been seeing him for the first time in his life, realizing how soon has his companion had to grow up to survive, never really having the chance to be a child. This childlike faith that Combeferre sees in his eyes is something unexpected, yet it makes him regain a bit of his own.
„Would you like me to tell you the ending?" he asks suddenly, as if it could change anything. But Combeferre is sure Jehan would like Feuilly to know how the fairytale ends. No matter if the „lived happily ever after" differs so much from what happened before and nobody knows if they'll meet the ending of Shehrzad and Shehriyar*. Combeferre reminds himself silently that Jehan always believed that words have power to change the world, and he would surely want a happy ending for these two from the oriental fairytale.
But Feuilly is not like Jehan. He never had the chance to learn about the power of happy endings. Combeferre doesn't think that anyone, Jehan apart, has ever been telling him fairytales, not that Feuilly would ever agree to listen to them from another storyteller. Even now, when the danger is near, he takes a nail and slowly moves it cross the wall of the building they're sitting by; he can't stand inactivity. As if an occupation, no matter which one, was the only thing able to protect him from himself and his gloomy thoughts. He gives Combeferre a glance and nods.
„It is recorded in the chronicles of the things that have been done of time past that there lived once, in the olden days and in bygone ages and times, a king of the kings of the sons of Sasan..."** starts Combeferre quietly, pretending not to hear the scratch of a nail. The more he engages in the story, the less tired he is. He finally has a goal, even if it's only the end of the story.
It is as if the words were postponing what they both know must come. When Combeferre finishes reading, he looks above and notices first traces of summer daylight. He knows now that their story is coming to an end as well and soon everything will determine itself, though he doesn't know yet in what way.
„No matter how you try, there's always something left unfinished," says Feuilly, as if he could read his thoughts, and gives him a smile. This is something unexpected and no matter if Combeferre isn't astonished by even the boldest ideas or the most fantastic scientific discoveries, he's taken by surprise. He knows well enough how much does it take to put a smile on Feuilly's face and isn't sure what made his companion to be so open with him. Maybe it's the night, or Jehan's ghost. They've never been that close to each other as now. For a moment Combeferre regrets not using the chance to get to know Feuilly better during these years and that perhaps he'll not have it anymore.
„Except for fairytales. They should always end, and only in one way. It wouldn't be a good fairytale if Shehriyar had her executed anyway. A waste of all she did," he says quietly, reprimanding himself for being too sentimental; it's the last thing his clear-headed companion might want to hear. But to his astonishment, Feuilly seems to understand.
„Jehan would say it's a waste of a story," he says in undertone.
„Yes," says Combeferre and suddenly smiles, too; he's not surprised anymore that Feuilly knew Jehan as well as he. „That's exactly what he would say."
And maybe it's that new, barely discovered Feuilly that makes Combeferre want to tell him something more, not necessarily about Shehrzad and Shehriyar.
„We were supposed to go birdwatching this Sunday. He never knew how to distinguish a hooded crow from a rook. Called them both ravens anyway, he thought it sounds more poetic," he says unexpectedly, and Feuilly simply nods.
„I left a half finished fan at home, you know?" he says, incoherently on the surface. „Got out of paint, was to go and buy some, but..." He waves his hand helplessly. „Do you think someone may still need it, if I die?"
Combeferre doesn't know how to answer this kind of question: he feels a shudder. But there's only relief in Feuilly's eyes.
„One thousand and one nights of work," he murmurs, putting away the nail and looking at the words scratched on a wall. „Over three years of sleep only by day and of fear of tomorrow. One can demand some rest after something like that, don't you think? Besides, they would sell it anyway, after all every sou matters. To some indigent courtesan, perhaps. If she wouldn't show all of it, it would look quite good. Another one would be too expensive for her," he sighs. „Poor girl."
He closes his eyes and leans against a stone wall, as if he was suddenly without any strength. For a moment Combeferre watches his tired profile, looks at a hunched back and realises something he has always known, but has never thought about before: that Feuilly is only twenty-five yet looks as if he had ten years more.
When Feuilly looks at the words written in stone, it seems as if these ten years were gone: he straightens his back with relief and gets up. He turns his face towards Combeferre and smiles friendly.
„Well, at least something is finished," he says, brushing his hands off. „Better than nothing. Come on, let's go to them, they must be waiting. Maybe we've gotten some reinforcement troops?"
„Long live the peoples," reads Combeferre in an undertone, when the first rays of morning sun touch the words in stone. Before he gets up and follows Feuilly, he puts the book under the wall, with a cover upwards. Yes, he knows they're waiting and he knows what he should say to not let them lose their faith. He will talk exactly as Jehan would like him to. About Enjolras, Bahorel and monsieur Mabeuf , perhaps even about Le Cabuc.
About Jehan above all.
„If words hold the power to change anything, let them do it. And then – come what may," whispers Combeferre and slowly, but without hesitation follows Feuilly.
* All forms of names are based on John Payne's translation.
** Translation by John Payne.