A
Life About to Start “Oh stay with company and mirth But I, of all people, could understand him
now: this wasn’t the way I thought it would be, either. (Told you I
should stick to parodies – September ’02) Back to the Pretentiousness | Back to the
Gibberish 
[5th June 1832, by Combeferre. Rabidly melodramatic, but at least it was therapeutic. Also, have borrowed VH's Combeferre/Enjolras dialogue for the present-tense section. Hope that's all right, Victor.]
And daylight and the air;
Too full already is the grave
Of fellows that were good and brave
And died because they were.”
- A. E. Housman, Last Poems XXXVIII
Jehan always looks thoughtful. He looks
as though he’s not there at all, much of the time. So many times at the Café Musain I’d see him across the room,
smiling faintly with his eyes on some distant dream and his mind Heaven knows
where, and I’d smile to myself, wondering what his eyes could see that was
invisible to the rest of us. Perhaps we’d all done that a little earlier, as we
listened to his verse in the gathering dusk.
But at that moment it wasn’t a romantic reverie that occupied his thoughts,
once the sun had set and the only light was the one we hoped or imagined we’d
see when all this was over. He sat a
few feet from the barricade, his knees bent with his hands held over them, gaze
lowered; then rapidly, as if moved to action by some injury, raised a hand to
cover his eyes. None of us were quite
ourselves any more, overtaken by the gravity of our circumstances, but I
couldn’t leave him on his own and crept over to crouch beside him.
“Jehan.”
No answer. Only the vaguest movement of
his head indicated a slight flicker of indecision.
“Jehan – ” I laid a hand on his shoulder and thought it jolted slightly as if
he were choking back a sob. As gently
as I could, I took the hand covering his face in mine and lowered it, but he
still wouldn’t look at me.
“I’m sorry – I’m just being – it doesn’t matter, really it doesn’t.” He rubbed his free hand roughly across his
eyes; his voice was steady only by an obvious and considerable effort.
“I think it probably does.” I didn’t
let go of his hand. He bit his lip
undecidedly. I sat down properly now; I
had no intention of leaving him like this.
“It doesn’t matter,” he repeated, far from firmly. For a moment he looked as though he was trying to smile. Don’t try and be brave, Jehan, not now – I
know you are, you don’t have to prove anything, it’s far too late now. “This is – ” He tried again to steady his
voice. “It’s not a game any more, is
it?” Finally he raised his eyes to mine
and I caught my breath: the look in them was one of pure terror. For a moment he held my gaze then sharply
looked back down again. “I know how
stupid this sounds, you must think me such an idiot – I know what you all think
– ”
“No-one thinks that, Jehan.” He looked
up at me again, touchingly trusting now and agonisingly childlike. Far too young for this, Jehan, far too alive
and far too aware of the beauty of all you’re afraid to leave behind, because
everything becomes a poem in your eyes.
Far too reluctant to let go of clouds and cornflowers and
constellations, and so you should be, and we both know it. “Jehan,” I began, as gently as I could –
“Did you really never realise what you were getting into?”
The accusation stung, which I accepted as unavoidable; he jerked backwards a little from me and
turned his face away, but only tightened his grip on my hand. “It’s easily done – you don’t think it is,
but – you keep thinking ‘I’ll be ready, when the time comes, I’ll do anything’,
and you never really think the time’s going to come and I know I’m a fool,
Combeferre – ” Another sob forced a pause in his speech and his face crumpled
painfully. “I’m not good enough for any
of this, I’m not going to be any use – ”
“You aren’t a fool and I understand.”
Had I been afraid of this all along?
That our Jehan, hopeless romantic and boundless idealist that he was,
had been swept up in the exuberance of our ideology, in the glory and nobility
of sacrifice at the altar of principle, had been half in love with the poetry
of dying for a cause, for a future we’d never see – and all of this without
ever really knowing what that sacrifice meant?
“I am. So stupid. I’m no good to you, I’m not...oh, I don’t
know…” So unlike him to be inarticulate… He turned his face away again, looking
at the ground resignedly. “All this
time, Combeferre!” Almost a whisper
now. “This is what we’ve given
everything for, we’ve been waiting for this all these years and thinking, ‘when
we get our chance’, and now we’ve got it and – I wanted this to happen as much
as anyone, or at least I thought – ” He broke off sharply and bowed his head,
clapped a hand over his mouth, closed his eyes tightly but not tightly enough
to stop the tears. I reached across to
hold him by the arms and looked straight at him.
“It isn’t too late, Jehan – you can still leave – ” Enjolras’ ardent rhetoric
was ringing in my ears but all I saw was my friend – my brother – in pain, and
all I felt was a desperate desire to rescue him, take him out of here, save one
innocent soul from this almost certainly lost cause. “Whatever tomorrow we’re fighting for, you’re worth more to it
alive and it’s not worth it, Jehan – ”
Finally he looked up at me again and I realised he hadn’t considered this for a
moment and wasn’t about to. “You
say that? Do you think I believe
that?” He looked at me intently, his
eyes shining as they searched mine.
That passionate soul of his was loyalty itself and would never permit
him to run away, I saw that then. “I’m
not sorry. I’m afraid, because I’m weak
and stupid and – I’m afraid for all of you, and Heaven knows I never really
believed we’d have to go this far and I’d do anything now, anything at all, to
get us out of here unhurt – but Combeferre, you mustn’t think I regret this,
that I’m not prepared to do this, most of all that I don’t believe in this,
because – because you mustn’t, that’s all.
I believe in Enjolras, I believe in you – I believe in all of you – ” There
could be no doubting his conviction now, his voice was trembling not with fear
but with sincerity: “ – more than anything, Combeferre.”
I looked at him gravely. It’s harder to
die when you’re conscious of what you’re losing, when your life is a sonnet you
will never write.
We both smiled sadly then embraced fiercely.
“I won’t let you down – I won’t let any of you down,” he said in a sob into my
shoulder.
* * *
He’ll be back in a moment, of course he will.
Won’t he?
I look across at the police inspector, tied to his pillar, without seeing him
at all. “Are you really set on the
death of this spy?”
Give yourself up, Jehan, none of this is worth it. It’s no good being brave
now, not when you’re – God knows what they’re doing to you over there but you
must be able to find a way out of it, you must; you’re not stupid, you’re not
going to throw your life away.
Are you?
Enjolras won’t look at me. “Yes,” he
says firmly, but his tone softens a fraction, “but less so than on the life of
Jean Prouvaire.”
“Well then - ” I have to stop because my voice is starting to shake. I can’t
look at him either. “I’ll tie a handkerchief to my stick and bargain with them,
our man for theirs.” Anything,
anything, just give us our Jehan back…
“Wait.” His hand is on mine, his eyes
are grave, and we both hear the rattle of muskets from the other end of the
street.
Oh, God –
“Long live France! Long live the
future!”
Oh, God.
“They’ve shot him.” It doesn’t sound
like my voice, but it must be because I feel myself choke on the words.
Enjolras lowers his eyes as I cover my face with my hands. But it’s no good, nothing blocks it out; all
I see is Jehan’s face as it was only hours ago, painfully young and with every
line etched in anguish, the alarm in his eyes there because perhaps that vivid
imagination of his had already seen what would happen, and I try so hard not to
see him facing those muskets across the street, and - Jehan, you idiot, you
stupid, stupid boy, why didn’t you leave when I told you to, why didn’t you let
me get you out of here, why did you believe in this – in us – enough to think
any of it was worth your life, why -
Was this what you meant, Jehan, when you said you wouldn’t let
us down?
You must have been thinking of us when they found you,
Jehan, when they dragged you over there, when you realised what was happening,
when they levelled their muskets at you, when – but I can’t think of that – you
were thinking of us as we were thinking of you. But I can think, now, of nothing else, and I know that neither
can Enjolras though I can’t see him because even if I opened my eyes my vision
would be hazed over with tears; I can think of nothing except you.
And whether this is right or wrong or worth the sacrifice I no longer know,
Jehan, but if you can believe it is then so must I.