“It’s cold,” said Armand, rubbing his frigid hands together. “Let’s go inside. Have a coffee and maybe some bacon and eggs. I live just over there.”
He gestured toward his home. He wondered if he should have identified his home, but realized this person probably already knew where he lived. He’d just come from there, after all. It was hardly a secret.
He waited for the robed figure to respond to his breakfast invitation, wondering briefly what Reine-Marie might think when he brought home his new friend.
When there was no response, Armand reached out to take hold of his arm. And coax him along.
All conversation had stopped in the bistro, the morning service grinding to a halt.
Everyone, patrons and servers alike, was staring out at the two men on the village green.
“He’s going to drag the guy away,” said Olivier, joining them.
Anton made to get up, but Olivier waved him back down. There was no rush anymore.
They watched as Armand lowered his hand, without touching the man.
Armand Gamache stood perfectly still himself now. And while the robed figure stared at the bistro, the bookstore, the boulangerie, and Monsieur Béliveau’s general store, Gamache stared at him.
“Be careful,” Armand finally whispered.
And then he turned, and returned home.
The robed figure was still there in the afternoon.
Armand and Reine-Marie passed him on their way to Clara’s home, on the other side of the village green.
An invisible moat had formed around the man. The village had slowly ventured out and gone about its business. Though a wide circle was circumscribed around him, beyond which no one went.
No children played on the grass and people walked faster than usual, averting their eyes as they passed by.
Henri, on his leash, gave a low growl and moved to the far side of Armand. His hackles up. His huge ears were forward, then he laid them back on his large and, it must be admitted, slightly vacuous head.
Henri kept everything important in his heart. He mostly kept cookies in his head.
But the shepherd was smart enough to keep his distance from the robed figure.
Gracie, who’d been found in a garbage can months earlier, along with her brother Leo, was also on a leash.
She stared, as though mesmerized by the figure, and refused to move. Reine-Marie had to pick her up.
“Should we say something?” Reine-Marie asked.
“Let’s leave him be,” said Armand. “It’s possible he wants attention. Maybe he’ll go away when we don’t give it to him.”
But she suspected that wasn’t the reason Armand wanted to ignore it. Reine-Marie thought Armand didn’t want her to get that close to it. And truthfully, neither did she.
As the morning had progressed, she’d found herself drawn to the window. Hoping it would be gone. But the dark figure remained on the village green. Unmoving. Immovable.
Reine-Marie wasn’t sure when it had happened, but at some point she’d stopped thinking of him as “him.” Any humanity it had had drained away. And the figure had become “it.” No longer human.
“Come on in,” said Clara. “I see our visitor is still there.”
She tried to make it light, but it was clearly upsetting her. As it was them.
“Any idea who he is, Armand?”
“None. I wish I had. But I doubt he’ll stay much longer. It’s probably a joke.”
“Probably.” She turned to Reine-Marie. “I’ve put the new boxes in the living room by the fireplace. I thought we could go through them there.”
“New” wasn’t completely accurate.
Clara was helping Reine-Marie with what was becoming the endless task of sorting the so-called archives of the historical society. They were actually boxes, and boxes, and boxes, of photographs, documents, clothing. Collected over a hundred years or more, from attics and basements. Retrieved from yard sales and church basements.
So Reine-Marie had volunteered to sort through it. It was a crapshoot of crap. But she loved it. Reine-Marie’s career had been as a senior librarian and archivist with the Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec and, like her husband, she had a passion for history. Québec history in particular.
“Join us for lunch, Armand?” asked Clara. The scent of soup filled the kitchen. “I picked up a baguette from the boulangerie.”
“Non, merci. I’m heading over to the bistro.” He lifted the book in his hand. His Saturday afternoon ritual. Lunch, a beer, and a book, in front of the fireplace at the bistro.
“Not one of Jacqueline’s,” said Reine-Marie, pointing to the baguette.
“No. Sarah’s. I made sure of that. Though I did get some of Jacqueline’s brownies. How important is it?” asked Clara, cutting the crispy baguette. “That a baker knows how to make a baguette?”
“Here?” asked Reine-Marie. “Vital.”
“Yeah,” said Clara. “I think so too. Poor Sarah. She wants to pass the bakery on to Jacqueline, but I don’t know…”
“Well, maybe brownies are enough,” said Armand. “I think I could learn to spread brie on a brownie.”
Clara winced, and then thought about it. Maybe …
“Jacqueline’s only been here a few months,” Reine-Marie pointed out. “Maybe she’ll catch on.”
“Sarah says with baguette you either have it or you don’t,” said Clara. “Something to do with touch, but also the temperature of your hands.”
“Hot or cold?” asked Armand.
“I don’t know,” said Clara. “It was already too much information. I want to believe baguettes are magic, not some accident of birth.” She put down the bread knife. “Soup’s almost ready. While it warms up, would you like to see my latest work?”
It was unlike Clara to offer to show her work, especially those in progress. At least, as Armand and Reine-Marie reluctantly walked across the kitchen to her studio, they hoped there’d been progress.
Normally they’d have leapt at the rare chance to see Clara’s work, as she painted her astonishing portraits. But just recently it had become clear that her idea of “finished” and everyone else’s was very different.
Armand wondered what she saw that they did not.
The studio was in darkness, the windows only letting in the north light, and on a cloudy November day there was precious little of that.
“Those are done,” she said, waving into the gloom at the canvases leaning against one wall. She switched on the light.
It was all Reine-Marie could do not to ask, “Are you sure?”
Some of the portraits looked close, but the hair was just a pencil outline. Or the hands were blotches, blobs.
The portraits, for the most part, were recognizable. Myrna. Olivier.
Armand went up to Sarah, the baker, lounging against the wall.
She was the most complete. Her lined face filled with that desire to help that Armand recognized. A dignity, almost standoffish. And yet Clara had managed to capture the baker’s vulnerability. As though she feared the viewer would ask for something she didn’t have.
Yes, her face, her hands, her attitude, all so finely realized. And yet. Her smock was dashed on, missing all detail. It was as though Clara had lost interest.
Gracie and her littermate, Leo, were wrestling on the concrete floor, and Reine-Marie stooped to pet them.
“What is that?” Everyone spasmed a little on hearing the querulous voice.
Ruth stood there, holding Rosa and pointing into the studio.
“Jesus, it’s awful,” said the old poet. “What a mess. Ugly doesn’t begin to describe it.”
“Ruth,” said Reine-Marie. “You of all people should know that creation is a process.”
“And not always a successful one. I’m serious. What is it?”