It's been five months now. Five months since the uprising. Five months since the streets were slick with blood. Five months since Jehan and his friends followed Enjolras to death on the barricades.

Five months since the day our world ended.

It angers me, so that when I visit Jehan's grave I do not know whether to shout or cry. They called themselves the friends of the abaissé, the abased. They said they were dedicated to helping the downtrodden, to raising up the poor. Yet in the end they helped no one. They shed their blood on a hot June day--and for what? To widow wives, orphan children, drive families into poverty. To leave their own women abandoned.

Hear me, Jehan. We are the abaissé. And you abandoned us.

Musichetta--soft-skinned, dramatic Musichetta--wept for days after she heard the news. Then she attempted to become a nun, so that she could devote her life to mourning Joly. Of course she did not last three weeks; the Abbess sent her away with the admonition that nuns worship God, not dead lovers. She stayed with me for a few days, and then left again. I see her now and then with a man, each time a different one. No one can fill the hole that Joly left in her, but she knows no other way to live.

Little Pauline did not weep when she head of Feuilly's death. Her lips tightened and her fingers laced together. Then she went back to her family in the country. We were close friends once, she and I. Now we have been apart for months, and I know nothing of what happened to her. I hope she was able to forget her sorrows, love again and be happy. Pauline was ever one for taking happiness where she could get it.

Gabrielle did the best of us. She mourned Coufeyrac for a month, and then let her life begin again. Her golden curls did not fail her; two weeks ago she married a rich man. Vernet was his name, I think. Whether she loves him or not I do not know; when we talk--and it is not often--she is cynical about it, but that has always been her way.

Danielle? She was born to be widowed. She lives with her brother now, and works in his shop. Alone of all the femmes de l'A. B. C. (so we laughingly called ourselves once), she still visits me regularly. She is brave and cheerful and faithful to Combeferre's memory. If the dance is gone from her step--bravery will not bring back the dead, nor will cheerfulness, either.

It is Raquel who makes me weep. She had been with Bossuet four years, longer than any of the rest of us had been with our men; and when he died, she had nothing left. Some of us tried to help her, but she did not want help or comfort. For weeks afterwards she hardly got up out of bed. Finally the landlord evicted her. She wandered out into the streets and disappeared. It was Danielle who told me she had become a prostitute. I saw her a week ago; she was standing on a street corner, shivering in a low-cut gown of dirty silk. I called to her, but she first ignored me, then ran away.

Is that why you died, Jehan? So Raquel could sell her body on the streets of Paris?

Me? I get by. When the money Jehan had left me started to run out, I got work as a seamstress. It was bad at first, but my stitching improves, and so does my pay. My room is small but well-furnished; the rent is always paid. I have friends, and we visit; sometimes, I still laugh.

But I am not brave, like Danielle. I cannot forgive Enjolras for leading them to their deaths, no, I cannot forgive Jehan either. You said you loved me, Jehan. You said you would never leave me. But you did. You and all your friends did.

It is winter now; tomorrow it will be Christmas. But there will be no joy for us, for we have no hope of spring. You were our summers, and now that you are gone we are lost in winter forever.

Why did you do it? I am standing here on the Rue du Ponceau late at night, and nothing has changed. The people scurry past, hugging their coats to themselves. The gamins thread in and out among them, their clothes ragged, their feet poorly shod as they run through the snow. The rich drive by in their warm carriages without noticing the suffering around them.

Where's that new world you promised us, Jehan?

And then I see her, shivering in front of a shop on the other side of the street. Raquel. But this time I do not cry out. I thread my way through the crowd silently, like cat stalking prey. I do not speak even when I reach her; I simply lay my hand on her shoulder.

She jumps, and turns big eyes on me. "I am sorry, Mademoiselle," she says quickly. "Is this your shop? I will go away. I know you do not want women like me nearby--"

"Raquel," I say (and she quivers at the sound of her name), "it is I. Marie."

Her mouth falls open and her lips tremble. "Marie."

"Come with me," I say. "We will have dinner together."

And we do.

During the meal Raquel says nothing. She huddles up inside the shawl I gave her and eats up soup as fast as she can. I do not think she has eaten so well in a long time.

I look at her, thin and cringing in on herself, and I want to weep. A year ago we dined together--I and Jehan, Musichetta and Joly, Raquel and Bossuet. She was plump then; she was happy. Bossuet's ring gleamed on her finger, his necklace glittered at her throat. What have you done to us, Jehan?

At last Raquel puts down her spoon. She licks her lips nervously, then says, "Thank you, Marie. It was good of you to take me in even though-- I should be going now." She starts to stand, and I catch her arm.

"No, Raquel," I say. "You are not going. You are staying the night with me, and many more too." She stares blankly at me, and her lips move without sound. "You don't have to go back to the streets," I say. "Ever, Raquel. You can stay with me now."

Then she jerks away and stands up. "No, I can't-- Don't you see-- I can't stay here, I'm-- Marie, I can't!"

I stand up too, step over and catch her by her elbows.

"Yes, you can," I say. "You will."

"But Marie," she whispers, and the words sound as if they're being torn out of her, "you don't know what I've done..."

You can hurt so much you can't cry, did you know that?

"I know," I whisper, hugging her. "I know."

And then she melts in my arms, and everything comes tumbling out, everything she has kept locked up in her heart for five months of Hell.

"Oh Marie, he left me, he said he'd stay but he left me, he said I will kiss you tomorrow ma chérie but he never did, Marie I can't not without him not alone, and I'd give anything to have him back but if I did he wouldn't want me, not like this, not used by every man in Paris, but it's his fault he left and made me this and why?"

You tell her why, Jehan.

"Shh, shh, it's all right," I murmur into her hair.

But it's not all right and never will be. I know that, and she knows that.

Eventually she calms down a little and sits back down in the chair. I sit down next to her.

"They knew they wouldn't win," she says. "They must have known they had no hope. Why did they go?"

I shrug. "Enjolras would say that there is nothing better than to die for freedom. That no blood is shed in vain."

Raquel's lips quiver. "Bossuet did not die for my freedom. He died to make me a slave."

And then I understand what is breaking her, and if Enjolras were not dead already, I would kill him. Slowly. With my bare hands.

"He loved you, Raquel," I say. "He died but that does not mean he didn't love you."

"Are you so sure?" she asks, looking at me with wet eyes.

And I want to say No, I am not sure, Jehan left me too and I hate him for it, but I have to be strong for her.

"Listen, Raquel," I say. "Bossuet loved you more than anyone else on Earth. He died because--because he wanted to make things better for you. Because he wanted you to end your days in a better world than the one you began in. And if he died--well--no one ever said men were wise."

And she laughs. Briefly and shakily, but she laughs! I could almost forgive Enjolras for that laugh alone.

"Thank you, Marie," she says. "I am not--very good Christmas company, am I? I was better last year."

I squeeze her hand and smile. "You are better than last year, Raquel. Far better." If I am not careful, I will forgive Enjolras and Jehan as well.

"Can I really stay with you?" she says. Hopefully, this time.

"No," I say. The smile drops from her face. "You will stay with me." It is back and bigger than ever.

Small jokes, small mercies. But they are keeping us sane.

Raquel half turns away, then looks back at me with a little sideways look that I remember from long ago.

"Do you think they were right, Marie? Would you have done the same, in their place?"

And I cannot answer her.

I would have gone with you if I had known, Jehan. I would have gladly died beside you.

But would I have gone away to die and left you alone?

"I don't know," I say.

"Because I was wondering," Raquel says, still looking at me sideways, "why it is that men go out and die but women never do."

Why indeed? You died, Jehan, and that was hard; but I lived, and that was harder.

"Well," I say, "someone has to put flowers on their graves."

Her face cracks in a smile again, and that is the end of it. On the outside. But later, after Raquel is tucked into bed and sleeping peacefully, I go to the window and look out at the snow-covered city. And I cannot sleep because of the questions inside me.

Were you right, Jehan? Did you really accomplish something?

And why am I still alive? Why am I seeing this Christmas when you are not?

Because there must be a reason for this. And I suddenly realize that that is why I am so angry: because I cannot find a reason anywhere.

You took away my reasons, Jehan. You made my life meaningless.

Did you?

The clock chimes on the wall; Raquel stirs in her sleep. It is midnight. A few moments later bells begin to ring outside, joyous bells welcoming the birth of Christ.

That was pointless, too. A good man dead on a cross, and nothing changed.

But it wasn't. Or so the priests say; since the barricade, I've found it hard to believe.

Does your death mean something also, Jehan?

Do hopeless causes really succeed?

Is there, maybe, a reason for all this?

And I turn away from the window, confused, because all sorts of thoughts are spinning through my head. Such as that maybe there is a meaning to all this, a purpose, too big for us to see but still there. That maybe every winter has a Christmas, and maybe every Good Friday has an Easter. That maybe we are all nestled in the hands of God, and no blood is ever shed in vain.

And then suddenly I begin to laugh, as I have not laughed for five eternal months. Why did I ever doubt you, Jehan? How could I think you had left me? You love me, and not guns nor barricades nor life nor death nor things to come nor any other creature could separate you from me.

So I laugh until I cry, and then I go back to the window and look out, my heart aching for all that I have been given and do not deserve. And I forgive Enjolras and Bossuet and Joly and Jehan and all the others, and I promise that I will live for them, as they died for me.

Hear me, Jehan. You shall not die in vain.

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