Just because we get around.
Things they do look awful cold –
I hope I die before I get old.
Talkin' about my generation.
– THE WHO, "My Generation"
It was a relief to be out of the rain. Although he could still hear it thundering dully overhead, it felt good to be somewhere that was dry, if not warm. Immediately water began streaming off him and collecting in a lukewarm puddle around his bare feet. The crow was obviously grateful to be out of the wet, it shook itself vigorously and tiny droplets of water flew off its feathers in the hundreds.
Nonetheless, the man wished that he was anywhere but here. This was not a good place, something told him. He was standing in what looked like a gloomy kitchen with a dirty window. There was a deep stone sink and a water pump. There were shelves and bottles and cups and glasses and platters and saucepans. Across the kitchen was another door, wooden this time. The man seemed to remember walking through here – running, sometimes – when a whole crowd of people had burst out of this door, raced through the kitchen, jumped down the steps into the Rue de Gres and fled silently into the night.
"The police raided this building a couple of times."
The words were out of his mouth before he had processed them mentally. Police raids. But why? This was an ordinary café, surely. Nonetheless, he seemed to remember times when an urgent voice advised them all to clear out, people had risen from tables with a tearing hurry and made for the back door as one, and he had been forcibly dragged from his chair and pulled along with them when he would much have preferred to remain where he was. Why was I dragged? Couldn't I walk? And who was I with?
does this look familiar boy
"I suppose so." Well, it didn't look unfamiliar.
what lies beyond that door there
"I think there is a room behind there."
why don't we have a look then
"Why must we look?" He seriously did not want to open that door.
because we must
The bird's "voice" (if one could call it that) was calm and serious. So the man walked slowly across the stone flags on the kitchen floor and towards the door.
It looked like there had been a bolt here once, but it must have been removed years and years ago – only a rusty patch indicated where it had once been. The door was painted red, but it had faded now and the coating was peeling off in thin strips leaving whole patches of bare wood beneath. He put his hand on the rusted doorknob and tested it. The door was unlocked. All of a sudden there was a buzzing in his ears, and he could have sworn that he heard many voices behind the door, rising in excitement and exultation.
I do not belong here . . .
The crow sensed the boy's hesitation, and knew that it would not do.
open the door
Sharper than it would have liked, but it did the trick. The boy started, opened the door and stepped into the room with equal fear and resolution. For all the world like a child jumping into a cold lake on a summer's day, knowing that the water will chill it to its bones, but the coolness will then become delightful.
Not that there was anything delightful about what was to come in this case.
The door opened into a large room with a low ceiling and two windows looking out onto an empty courtyard. There were a dozen tables positioned around the room, the largest of which could cater for four or so. Some of the tables had chairs on top of them, others had the chairs pulled back, as if their tenants had just risen and gone away somewhere, and were about to return. Many of the tables had lamps or candles but of course none of them were lit. Some of the tables were covered in a layer of thick dust. It looked like nobody had entered this room for quite some time. The air felt that way too – cold and dead. As if some vibrant presence had once set it humming and it was waiting for that presence to return.
What looked like a map of France hung on one of the walls.
As soon as the man stepped across the threshold, the voices echoing in his mind were still again. Some of the voices had sounded very familiar, others not so. That feeling of sadness which had been haunting him for what felt like hours now was still there, and now it gripped him again. The man wanted to weep suddenly, and he was not sure why. People may have frequented this place once upon a time, but now they were gone.
Weren't they?
The crow left his shoulder and flapped across to perch on the back of a chair. It looked at him across the room and cocked its head.
do you remember this place boy
"Yes. I think I do."
i know you do boy but can you remember who was here
He thought about that, then carried forward to the logical conclusion. He seemed to remember friends. He seemed to remember this place. Surely the two came together, then. "My . . . my friends."
that is right and where are they now
"I don't know." He didn't. Really.
you'll have to do much better than that boy
The crow looked at him. If birds could have facial expressions, this one would be looking pretty much exasperated at its charge's stubborn obtuseness. He would need to be prodded along, and the memories would have to be channelled carefully. There was only one way this could be done, and it was not very pleasant. The boy would hate him for it, but soon he'd be able to control his powers and perhaps even use them voluntarily.
what's that on the table over there boy
The man followed the bird's gaze. A small table quite close to him, with a piece of paper folded on it. He crossed over and examined it. "It's a piece of paper with writing on it."
i see that but what does it say pick it up why don't you
There seemed to be no reason why not to. Shrugging slightly, the man picked the piece of paper up and unfolded it. It was a poem, written in a beautiful slanting hand.
When youth and hope still filled our breast
A gentle voice spoke the lines quietly and reverently, but it might as well have been a chorus of cannon fire for the effect it had on the man. He gasped, reeling, stumbling backwards and away from the table. That voice . . . now he remembered, he remembered a young face – the face of a mere boy – with a shy smile and gentle green eyes that could blaze brightly when their owner was swept up in a flight of passion.
Than to be lovers and well-dressed?
Auburn hair . . . a frown of concentration as the boy furiously scanned a new sheet of flute music, fingers absently drumming on the tabletop as he worked out the best fingering . . . a boy who stood weeping in a dark street to see a girl with a rouged face in a low-cut dress prowling outside a busy cafe when she was obviously half his age . . .
Tripping over his own feet, the man snarled against the memory, falling against the wall behind him, trying to block his ears to the sound of the voice . . . the voice of Jean Prouvaire, the baby, the one they had all called Jehan.
STOP IT!!!!!!
Made forty by our reckoning
Jehan stood in the middle of a street that stank of gunpowder and fear and death, surrounded by fleeing National Guardsmen as a voice rang out "Begone, or I'll blow up the barricade!" He saw one of his friends – a bald-headed man, though he could not have been more than thirty – and tried to run towards him, but rough hands gripped him and dragged him away, away from his friends and over the top of the barricade. Jehan tried to cry out but a hand clapped across his mouth and yet more hands held his arms behind his back as he kicked and struggled . . .
For every winter's day was spring.
STOP IT STOP IT STOP IT STOP IT STOP IT STOP IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And it stopped all right, this boy, Jehan Prouvaire, was blindfolded and stood up against a wall as he cried out "Long live France! Long live the future!" and six musket balls bit into him and ripped his life away.
With a groan of sheer animal pain, the man dropped the crumpled piece of paper from his clenched fist and watched it fall onto the floor. Jehan had died.
Then it hit him.
He remembered them.
They had all died.
NO!!!!!!!!!!!
Hauling himself to his feet, the man faced the wall, hammered at it with his fists, as if in doing so he could smash the returning memories so they could not rise to choke him. He had begun to weep, although he was not aware of it, he was not aware of the hot tears burning at his cheeks.
Mild-mannered Combeferre with his earnest humble nature and sombre face, turned into an unwilling warrior on the barricade, only to be stabbed with bayonets as he tried to lift a wounded Guardsman in his arms. Bahorel who got a kick out of wearing red just to alarm people and liked the idea of a fight more than anything else, exploding with pent-up fury against a society that just didn't care and then lying broken on the ground, bleeding his amazing vitality away.
WHY??????????
He wheeled around, away from the sight of the dead Bahorel, and his knees hit against a chair. He barely noticed the pain, but he grabbed the chair up and threw it away as hard as he could. He saw it strike a table and fall heavily to the ground, one of the wooden legs splintering as easily as if it had been bone. He wished it was bone. He wished it was his bone, surely a broken bone would cause enough pain to obliterate these hideous visions?
I DON'T WANT TO REMEMBER.
you must
Joly who always thought he was sickening with something, who was always asking his friends to feel his brow or take his pulse or tell him what his tongue looked like. Joly who always seemed to have a cold – imagined or otherwise – and who'd had one on the morning it all began. Yes, June 5 it was, at the Corinth where Joly and Bossuet – Lesgles or L'Aigle to his friends – had been breakfasting and the barricade had risen, only to fall a day later, taking so many precious lives with it. Bossuet with his bald head and easy smile, his stupid patched jacket, his spectacles that were constantly going missing, and his notorious bad luck. Well, it really ran out on June 6, didn't it? Two men who'd been brothers in all but blood but had achieved even that in the end, when they lay side by side with broken heads and bleeding wounds.
WHAT DID THEY DO TO DESERVE THAT?????????
Feuilly the fan-maker, who joked that he was the only one of any of them to have an honest trade and argued for freedom in other nations apart from France. He had a habit of putting his head on one side when listening to others talk, and his slender agile fingers were always working with something or other, never still . . . He'd believed implicitly that liberty was a right the people of France would fight for. At the barricade during the final assault he had screamed his pain and anger to the skies, challenging someone to answer him why their call to battle had gone unanswered.
The crow watched the boy as he stumbled about the room as if blind. In a way he was – blinded by pain and searing memories that would not stop. The crow knew that it always happened this way, but that didn't make it any easier. He could feel the man's agony and knew that trying to intervene and calm him was pointless. The man would have to go through this ordeal alone. Perhaps when this first assault was over, he would be able to understand the crow. But not before.
"What have you done with your hat?"
"It was taken off by a cannon-ball."
Courfeyrac the jokester, who could have lit up a coal mine with his smile or talked the devil into buying a box of matches. The man seemed to remember Courfeyrac as being one of his closest friends, of sharing wine with him – wine! That word again – and laughing inanely at the most ridiculous of jokes. But Courfeyrac had died in the end, too, he'd answered some mysterious summons and gone to the barricade and had the breath stolen from his body and the life from his limbs.
CARPE HO RAS
Seize the hours?
Sobbing and screaming, the man clawed at his own face and hair, his gestures wild and futile. He would have willingly ripped his own face away, if it would mean that he would no longer have to see these terrible things. They were all gone. He could not remember where he came into this picture, but now he was seeing them die. And no matter what they had said (something about a Cause, idealism, dreams that made no sense?) death had hurt like hell. They had been afraid, they had been alone. They had been cheated of something.
Smiling faces blown apart by musket balls, laughter silenced forever. Proud bright eyes glazed over in death, and hands which had once gestured so earnestly now lay limp and still.
The crow watched quietly as the boy hauled himself to his feet, eyes wide and staring, still streaming with tears. His breath was coming in ragged, heaving gasps and his hands groped out in front of him.
Where do I fit into this? Why did this happen, and why can't I remember it myself, why can I remember only what they saw? Who the hell AM I? Why can't I remember that? Surely, it can't get any worse than what I have just seen.
Wrong, thought the crow, it gets plenty worse. But it wouldn't do to let the boy know that.
The man stumbled against another table, and one of his hands shot out so he could keep his balance. The hand hit against something cold and hard that fell onto its side with a clunk. Instinctively, he grabbed hold of the object. It was long and cylindrical, and it tapered smoothly up at one end. Blinking the tears and the red cloud out of his eyes, he looked at it.
It's a bottle.
Bottles. He remembered bottles. He seemed to remember himself sitting here on many an occasion, joyously calling out for wine.
Who AM I . . . ?
It was as if the taste of wine filled his mouth again – strong and sweet and soothing. He remembered that wine clouded his mind, but this was a different cloud to the black cloud of sadness. This cloud made it easier NOT to see, but no matter how deliciously hazy it got, some visions had still burned their way through whether he wanted them or not.
He remembered a slender and upright figure. Tall but graceful, hands with a powerful grip. That sonorous voice again, and lips that could become tight with scorn. Blue eyes blazed out of the darkness, piercing through an alcoholic haze, and golden hair gleamed around a perfect head like an angel's halo. Some did call this man an angel, and others called him a statue. But this man was neither, he was flesh and blood – flesh that was torn and blood that dripped from . . .
NO!!!!!!!!!!!
That memory was worse than any other. The face of this man was all too familiar, and he did not want to think about him, let alone remember him. Had this man caused him pain? Many times, he was sure of it. But why didn't he remember hating this man? This man who spoke his name like no other man did, in a voice dripping with scorn and irritation . . .
His name. He had a name. He had an identity, he had an image that others saw and expected him to live up to. An image he had taken a certain deviant pleasure in cultivating and maintaining.
He was . . .
He was . . .
Alain Pierre Grantaire. Grantaire. R. The wine-cask. The drunkard. The sot. The cynic. The fool.
The realisation was enough to make Grantaire stop weeping for a moment, with the sheer shock of it all. Without realising what he was doing, he slumped down into a seat at the table.
He remembered who he was. And he never had belonged here, after all, amongst these men who had believed in something so much they had died for it. Leaving him behind.
What HAD they believed in again . . . ?
Grantaire had never believed in anything, he was sure of it. Maybe that was why he was still here. Why had these men put up with him, with his raving and his ranting and his endless consumption of spirits? Because he amused them, that was why. They had liked his way with words. They had liked him. They had all liked him except for . . . one.
Dare I think his name?
No, because that meant he would have to remember the pain of a proud face that had never looked at him with anything but dislike . . . he would have to remember –
A hand clasping his before the shadows descended . . .
NO. I WON'T THINK ABOUT THAT. I WANT THIS TO STOP NOW.
But it wasn't going to stop.
"You know I believe in you."
"Go away."
"Let me sleep it off here."
"Go and sleep it off somewhere else."
"Let me sleep here, and if need be, die here."
Where had this happened? At the barricade! At the barricade his friends had built, shaking puny fists and guns at an entire nation, demanding changes that would never come. Why had he been at the barricade? Because of this man, this man with his lofty ideals and his eyes that saw beyond the dreariness of present existence to something better and worth fighting for. But this man had despised him.
"Grantaire, you're incapable of believing or thinking or willing or living or dying."
The memory was enough to bring tears to Grantaire's eyes once more. "You'll see," he had said to – No, I won't think his name! – this man, and then he had fallen into the deepest of drunken slumbers.
But what had happened then? Had this man "seen"?
say his name grantaire
That made him jump – he'd forgotten that the crow was here. It had changed position, and now perched on the table in front of him. "You can't make me."
you must say his name if you are to understand
So he wouldn't have to look at the crow, Grantaire looked up at the wall, where the map of France hung.
where did it come from grantaire
"I . . . I think Courfeyrac and Feuilly bought it. For . . ." Oh no. I'm not remembering that. You can't make me remember that. You can't.
for whom
"I don't remember."
well that's too bad because you're going to have to
Grantaire rose to his feet and crossed to the wall. He examined the map – it had been an antique and quite expensive. Everybody had chipped in a few francs to pay for it, except for him and Bahorel. He had been drunk and broke, and Bahorel had been cooling his heels in a prison cell for a few days after brawling with a couple of drunken Guards.
Again, he felt a strong hand grip his, he felt blue eyes boring into him, willing him not to look away. What happened to us? I can't remember, and I don't think I want to remember, but –
you will have to
"Why am I here?"
you won't know that until you remember him
"I'm so afraid."
and there is much to fear i won't lie to you about that
"Please . . ."
you will have to look
Trembling, Grantaire brought one hand up to touch the map. As soon as his fingers made contact with the dusty parchment, his eyes closed and he fell forward into a black hole and remembered the day the world ended.