FIVE
The next morning dawned bright and warm.
Reine-Marie stepped out their front door onto the porch and almost trod on the moth. It had fallen on its back directly beneath the light, face up, its wings spread wide as though in ecstasy.
Armand, Reine-Marie, and Henri strolled up the hill, past the little church, past the old mill, past the Inn and Spa in the old Hadley House. Through the tunnel of trees they walked. They could see their footprints in the dirt from the day before, and the day before that.
And then their footprints stopped. But they walked on. A hundred yards farther. Always a little farther. Until they’d gone far enough and it was time to turn back.
At the bench they paused and sat down.
“It looks like a compass, doesn’t it?” said Reine-Marie.
Armand tossed the ball to the eager and tireless Henri, then considered what she’d said.
“You’re right,” he smiled. “I hadn’t seen that before.”
The village of Three Pines was built around the village green. The homes formed a circle, and out of that circle ran four roads, like the cardinal directions. Gamache now wondered if they really did head out to true north, south, east, and west.
Was Three Pines a compass? A guide for those blown off course?
“Can you tell me about Clara?” Reine-Marie asked.
“I wish I could, mon coeur.”
Gamache looked unhappy. He told his wife almost everything. Throughout his career he’d told her about the evidence, the suspects, his suspicions. He’d told her because he trusted her and wanted to include her in his life. They’d discussed murder cases he was working on and the books and old documents she was working on in the national archives.
But some things, some things, Gamache kept secret. Those he would tell no one. And he knew Reine-Marie had her secrets too. Confidences she would keep.
“But you told Jean-Guy.”
It wasn’t an accusation, simply a query.
“That was a mistake. When we went over to Clara’s place to discuss it, she made it clear I shouldn’t have.”
He grimaced slightly and Reine-Marie suspected Clara had been quite clear.
“But she did want your help with something.”
Her voice was calm, but her heart pounded. Reine-Marie knew if Clara was asking for help from Armand it wasn’t to set a mousetrap or cut some hedges or fix the roof. Clara could do all those things for herself.
If she turned to Armand, it was for something only he could provide.
“I thought she wanted my help.” He grinned and shook his head. “It doesn’t take long to get rusty, I guess. To miss signals.”
“It’s not getting rusty, it’s getting relaxed,” said Reine-Marie.
She looked into his bright eyes and knew that despite what her husband said, not much escaped his notice. And if he thought Clara had been asking for help, she probably was. Once again, Reine-Marie wondered why Clara wanted help, and why she’d changed her mind.
“Would you have given it to her?” she asked.
Gamache opened, then shut, his mouth. He knew what the right answer was. But he also knew the truthful answer. He wasn’t sure the two aligned.
“How could I not?” Then realizing how ungracious that sounded, he went on. “Well, it’s academic now. She doesn’t want anything from me.”
“Maybe she just wanted you to listen.” Reine-Marie placed her hand on his knee and got up. “Not your body and soul, mon vieux. Just an ear.”
She bent to kiss him. “I’ll see you later.”
Armand watched her and Henri walk down the hill. Then he pulled the book from his pocket, put on his half-moon reading glasses and, opening to the bookmark, hesitated, went back to the very beginning, and started again.
* * *
“You haven’t got very far.”
Gamache closed the book and looked up over his glasses. Clara was standing in front of him holding two mugs of café au lait. And a bag of croissants.
“A peace offering,” she said.
“Like the Paris Conference,” he said, accepting it. “If this is about partition, I get Myrna’s bookstore and the bistro.”
“Leaving me with the bakery and the general store?” Clara considered. “I predict war.”
Gamache smiled.
“I’m sorry about last night.” She sat down. “I shouldn’t have said all that. You were kind to offer to help.”
“No, it was presumptuous. No one knows better than me that you can take care of yourself, and then some. You were right—I think I’m so used to being presented with problems that need solving, I just assume that’s what people want.”
“Must be difficult, being the oracle.”
“You have no idea.” He laughed and felt lighter. Maybe she did want him to simply listen. Maybe nothing more would be expected of him.
They ate their croissants, the flakes falling to the ground beneath their feet.
“What’re you reading?” she asked. It was the first time she’d been so clear in her questioning.
Gamache kept his large hand splayed over the cover of the book, forcing it shut as though trapping the story inside.
Then he lifted his hand and showed it to her, but when she reached out for it, Gamache drew it back. Not far, barely noticeable. But far enough.
“The Balm in Gilead,” she read the title, and searched her memory. “There’s a book called Gilead. I read it a few years ago. By Marilynne Robinson. Won the Pulitzer.”
“Not the same one,” Gamache assured her, and Clara could see that it wasn’t. The one that was in his hand, that he was now placing in his pocket, was thin and old. Worn. Read and reread.
“One of Myrna’s?” Clara asked.
“Non.” He examined her. “Do you want to talk about Peter?”
“No.”
The Paris Peace Conference had hit a stalemate. He sipped his coffee. The morning mist had almost burned away and the forest spread green as far as he could see. These were old-growth trees, not yet discovered and felled by the lumber industry.
“You never finish the book,” she said. “Is it difficult to read?”
“For me, yes.”
She was quiet for a moment. “When Peter left, I was sure he’d come back. I was the one who forced the issue, you know. He didn’t want to go.” She lowered her head and studied her hands. As hard as she scrubbed, she couldn’t seem to get the paint out of her cuticles. It was as though the paint was part of her. Had fused there. “And now, he doesn’t want to come home.”
“Do you want him back?”
“I don’t know. I won’t know until I see him, I think.” She looked at the book just poking out of his pocket. “Why’s it so difficult for you to read? It’s in English, but I know you read English as well as French.”
“C’est vrai. The words I understand, it’s the emotions in the book that I struggle with. Where it takes me. I find I need to tread carefully.”
Clara looked at him full on. “Are you all right?”
He smiled. “Are you?”
Clara pushed her large hands through her hair, leaving croissant flakes behind. “May I see it?”
Gamache hesitated, then tugged the book out of his pocket and gave it to her, watching closely, his body suddenly taut as though he’d handed her a loaded gun.
It was a slender hardback, the cover worn. She turned it over.
“There is a balm in Gilead,” she read from the back, “to make the wounded whole—”
“There’s power enough in Heaven / To cure a sin-sick soul.” Armand Gamache finished the phrase. “It’s from an old spiritual.”
Clara stared at the back cover. “Do you believe it, Armand?”
“Yes.” He took the book from her and grasped it so tightly in one hand she half expected words to squeeze out.
“Then what are you struggling with?”
When he didn’t answer, she had her answer.
The problem wasn’t with the words, it was with the wounds. Old wounds. And maybe a sin-sick soul.
“Where’s Peter?” she asked. “What’s happened to him?”
“I don’t know.”
“But you know him. Is he the sort to just disappear?”
Gamache knew the answer to that, had known since the day before when Clara had brought her problem to him.
“No.”
“So what happened to him?” she pleaded, searching his face. “What do you think?”
What could he say? What should he say? That Peter Morrow would have come home if he could? That for all his faults, Peter was a man of his word, and if he couldn’t for some reason show up in person he’d have called, or emailed, or written a letter.
But nothing had come. Not a word.
“I need to know, Armand.”
He looked away from her, across the forest that went on and on forever. He’d come here to heal and, perhaps, to hide. Certainly to rest.
To garden, and walk, and read. To spend time with Reine-Marie and their friends. To enjoy Annie and Jean-Guy’s weekend visits. The only problem he wanted to solve was how to hook up the garden hose. The only puzzle was whether to have the cedar plank salmon or the Brie and basil pasta for dinner at the bistro.
“Do you want my help?” he asked at last, not daring to look at her in case his face betrayed his offer.
He saw Clara’s shadow on the ground. It nodded.
He lifted his eyes to hers. And nodded. “We’ll find him.”
His voice was reassuring, confident.
Clara knew she was hearing the same voice, seeing the same face, so many others had. As the large, calm man had stood before them. And handed them their worst fears. And assured them he’d find the monster who had done it.
“You can’t know that. I’m sorry, Armand, I don’t mean to be ungrateful, but you don’t know for sure.”
“C’est vrai,” Gamache conceded. “But I’ll do my best. How’s that?”
He didn’t ask if she was prepared for the answer to her question. He knew that while Clara wanted Peter, she also wanted peace. She was as prepared as she could be.
“You don’t mind?” she asked.
“I don’t mind at all.”
She studied him. “I think you’re lying.” Then she touched his large hand. “Thank you for that.” She got up, and he rose with her. “A brave man in a brave country.”
He was unsure what to say to that.
“It’s a prayer, from the other Gilead,” Clara explained. “It’s a dying father’s prayer for his young son.” She thought for a moment, remembering. Then she recited, “I’ll pray that you grow up a brave man in a brave country. I will pray you find a way to be useful.”
Clara smiled.
“I hope I’m useful,” he said.
“You already have been.”
“Who do you want to know about this?”
“Might as well tell everyone now,” she said. “What do we do first?”
“First? Let me think about that. We can probably find out a lot and not even leave home.” He hoped his relief at that wasn’t too obvious. He watched her closely. “You can stop it at any time, you know.”
“Merci, Armand. But if I’m ever going to get on with my life, I need to know why he didn’t come home. I’m not expecting to like the answer,” she assured him. She left and walked down the hill.
He sat back down and thought about a dying father’s prayer for a young son. Had his own father thought of him, at the moment of impact? At the moment he knew he was dying? Did he think of his young son, at home, waiting for headlights that would never, ever arrive?
Was he still waiting?
Armand Gamache did not want to have to be brave. Not anymore. Now all he wanted was to be at peace.
But, like Clara, he knew he could not have one without the other.