William Monk 12 - Funeral in Blue

and Elissa, battling for reform of such a vast, seemingly untouchable force of government. He had seen in every direction the superb facades of the state and government buildings, the mansions and theaters, museums, opera houses and galleries. What fire of reform had burned inside them that they dared attempt to overthrow such power? They must have cared passionately, more than most people care about anything. Where would you ever begin to shake the foundations of such monolithic control?
    He could see in Ferdi’s young face that something of it had caught him also.
    “I need to find the people on my list,” he said aloud. “The people who were there then, and knew my friends.”
    “Right-oh!” Ferdi answered, blushing with happiness and enthusiasm, striding out even more rapidly so Monk was now obliged to lengthen his own step to keep up. “Have you got money for a carriage?”
    That afternoon they saw streets where the barricades had been, even chips out of stone walls where bullets had struck and ricocheted. They had supper in one of the cafés in which young men and women had sat huddled over the same tables, planning revolution by candlelight, a new world of liberty on the horizon, or mourned the loss of friends, perhaps in silence but for the rain on the windows and the occasional tramp of passing feet on the pavement outside.
    Monk and Ferdi ate soup and bread in silence, each lost in thoughts which might have been surprisingly similar. Monk wondered about the bond between people who shared the hope and the sacrifice of such times. Could anything that came in the pedestrian life afterwards break such a bonding? Could anyone who had not been in that danger and hope enter into the circle or be anything but an onlooker?
    In the flickering candlelight, with the murmur of conversation at the little tables around them, it could have been thirteen years ago. Ferdi’s young face, flushed and lit golden by the candle in an upright wine bottle, could have been one of theirs. The smells of coffee and pastry and wet clothes from the rain outside would be the same, the water streaking the windows, wavering the reflecting street lamps, and as the door opened and closed, the splash of water, the brief hiss of carriage wheels. Except that the dreams were gone, the air was no longer one of excitement, danger and sacrifice; it was comfortable, rigidly set prosperity and law in the old way, with the old rules and the old exclusions. The powerful were still powerful, and the poor were still voiceless.
    In spite of the defeat, Monk envied Kristian and Max their past. He had no memory of belonging, of being part of a great drive for his own people, any cause fought for or even believed in. He had no idea if he had ever cared about an issue passionately enough to fight for it, die for it, enough to bond him to others in that friendship that is the deepest trust, and goes through life and death in a unity greater than common birth and blood, education or ambition, and makes you one of a whole that outlasts all its parts.
    The closest he had ever come to that was fighting a cause for justice, with Hester, and then with Oliver Rathbone and Callandra. That was the same feeling, the will to succeed because it mattered beyond individual pain or cost, exhaustion or pride. It was a kind of love that enlarged them all.
    How could it possibly be that Kristian or Max Niemann could have murdered Elissa, no matter how she had changed in the years since?
    He pushed his empty cup away and stood up. “Tomorrow we must find people who fought in May, and in October,” he said as Ferdi stood up, too. “The ones on my list. I can’t wait any longer. Begin asking. Say it is for anything you like, but find them.”
     
     
    The first successful conversation was stilted because it was translated with great enthusiasm by Ferdi, but of necessity went backwards and forwards far more slowly than it would have had Monk understood a word of German.
    “What days!” the old man said, sipping appreciatively at the wine Monk had bought for them, although he insisted on water for Ferdi, to the boy’s disgust. “Yes, of course I remember them. Wasn’t so long ago, although it seems like it now. Except for the dead, you’d think they never happened.”
    “Did you know many of the people?” Ferdi asked eagerly. He had no need to pretend his ardor; it shone in his eyes and quivered in the edge to his voice.
    “Of course I did! Knew lots of them. Saw