A Better Man (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #15)(119)

And Gamache went for a walk. To think.

He strolled once around the village green. His hands clasped behind his back, he watched Henri and Gracie playing in the mud.

Reine-Marie might not thank him for this, he thought.

“Come along,” he called to them, and together they walked up the road out of town. Stopping on the crest of the hill, he turned to admire the view, which stretched past Québec and well into the Green Mountains of Vermont.

The snow was heading off somewhere else but had left a centimeter behind. It was, he knew, almost certainly the last snowfall. The end of a season. And the beginning of another.

He brushed off the bench that he and Reine-Marie had placed there for all to rest on.

As he did, familiar words were uncovered, etched deep into the wood.

Surprised by Joy

And below that:

A Brave Man in a Brave Country

Marilynne Robinson’s words always made him think of his father and mother.

“I’ll pray that you grow up a brave man in a brave country,” he whispered. “I will pray you find a way to be useful.”

Would their prayers for him have been answered?

But mostly he thought of his grandchildren. Florence, Zora, Honoré.

And soon, a new granddaughter.

He closed his eyes. Briefly. And tried not to think that the country they’ll grow up in won’t be his own.

Then, opening his eyes, he looked at the white world and thought of the white whale. That devoured reason.

All that most maddens and torments; all that stirs up the lees of things; all truth with malice in it.

That was where the quote ended, for him. He didn’t know the rest. But in the small hours, in front of the fireplace, while Reine-Marie and Homer slept, while Henri snored at his feet and Gracie ran free in her dreams, he’d looked up that quote and read the rest.

All that cracks the sinews and cakes the brain; all the subtle demonisms of life and thought; all evil …

It was difficult, in this peaceful place, looking out over the quiet little village just waking up, to imagine the torment that cracks the sinews and cakes the brain.

But it existed. He met it every day. The subtle demons of life and thought.

That turned something horrific into something acceptable. That turned a crime into a punishment. That somehow made it okay to push a young, pregnant woman off a bridge to her death.

That twisted reality, until malice and truth were intertwined and indistinguishable.

Had the demons caught up with Lysette Cloutier, in love with Homer? Had they caught up with Cameron? With Pauline Vachon? Carl Tracey?

He was honest enough to recognize that it wasn’t just murderers who harbored those demons. Cops did, too. He did, too.

His prejudices. And preconceptions. His blinders. And blunders. And outright mistakes.

He heard a car approach. Then slow down. And stop. He heard Henri’s and Gracie’s collars clink as they raised their heads and looked.

The car idled by the side of the road.

Then silence.

Gamache did not look behind him but continued to stare off into the distance, into the wilderness.

He felt the presence first, then saw it out of the corner of his eye.

“Clare, Clare, do not despair.” Gamache spoke the words slowly, deliberately, sending them out over the peaceful village below. “Between the bridge and the water, I was there.”

Then he turned and faced the person standing beside the bench.

“And so were you.”



* * *



Clara stared at the closed door to her studio. Then went in.

Turning on the lights, she stood directly in front of her easel. Arms at her sides. Shoulders back. Almost at attention. A coward caught. Called out. And facing what was coming.

She lifted her chin in defiance and stared at her works. Daring them to do their worst.

And they did.

As she watched with growing dismay, the tiny paintings shifted before her eyes and went from something brilliant to something less than brilliant. And another shift.

My God, Clara thought. They were right.

The critics.

The gallery owners.

Dominica Oddly.

The assholes on social media. So filled with bile they were easily dismissed. One described her as a painter whose art began with an f. That juvenile comment got hundreds of retweets. Someone else said she was an artist who painted only in brown.

And she saw now that it was true.

The miniatures were shit.

It wasn’t that she’d tried to be bold and failed, it was that she hadn’t tried. Exactly as Oddly had said. She’d whipped them off without thought. Without feeling. Without caring. Fooling herself into believing that because it was a new medium, new territory for her, it was a brave experiment.

It was not.

She had betrayed the gift. Cheapened it.

Sitting down on the stool, she felt the lump forming in her throat.

When she was able to move, she took the miniatures off the easel, got out a hammer. And went to work.

Then she placed a clean canvas in front of her. And stared at it. White. White. It grew larger and larger. Huge. It was taunting her, daring her to approach.



* * *



“You’d better sit down,” said Gamache.

And Bob Cameron did.

He felt the holster on his belt push into him. As though reminding him it was there.