The Long Way Home(29)

“Yes?”

“I’m Clara Morrow. I understand my husband came by to see you—”

“Peter,” said the professor, smiling and coming toward her, his hand extended. “Yes. How are you? I’ve been following your success. Very exciting.”

He seemed to mean it, thought Myrna. He looked genuinely happy for Clara, and happy to see her.

“Did Peter tell you about it?” Clara asked.

“I read about it in the papers. You’re our greatest success. The student has outstripped the master.” Professor Massey studied the woman in front of him. “Probably because we were never really your masters, were we, Clara? Perhaps that was the key. You didn’t follow us. You didn’t follow anyone.” He turned to Myrna and confided, “Not easy to have a pupil who was genuinely creative. Hard to grade, harder still to corral. To our shame, we tried.”

He spoke with such humility, such awareness of his own limitations, that Myrna found herself drawn to him.

“I’m afraid I can’t remember any of your works,” he said.

“I’m not surprised,” said Clara with a smile. “Though they were heavily featured in the college’s Salon des Refusés.”

“You were part of that?” Professor Massey shook his head sadly. “A terrible thing to do to vulnerable young people. Humiliating. I am sorry. We took care that that never happened again, you know. Peter and I talked about it too.”

“Well, I survived,” said Clara.

“And flourished. Come in, sit down.” He walked across the studio without waiting for their answer and pointed toward a group of shabby chairs and a sofa whose middle sagged to the concrete floor. “Can I get you a drink?” He stepped toward an old refrigerator.

“You used to stock it with beer,” said Clara, following him. “We’d have parties in your studio after class on Fridays.”

“Yes. Can’t do that anymore. New administration. New rules. Lemonade?”

He offered them a beer.

Clara laughed and accepted.

“Actually, I’d prefer a lemonade if you have one,” said Myrna, who was parched after a morning trudging from gallery to gallery in sizzling Toronto.

Professor Massey handed her one, then turned back to Clara.

“What can I do for you?”

“Oh, much the same as for Peter,” she said, sitting on the sofa. Her knees immediately sprang up to her shoulders and a whitecap of beer landed on her lap.

She should have been prepared for that, she realized. It was the same sofa they’d sat on as students, all those years ago.

Professor Massey offered Myrna a chair, but she preferred to wander the studio, looking at the works. She wondered if they were all painted by the professor. They seemed good, but then Myrna had bought one of Clara’s Warrior Uteruses, so she was hardly a judge of art.

“Well,” said the professor, taking a chair across from Clara, “Peter and I talked mostly about the other students and faculty. He asked about some of his favorite teachers. Many of them gone now. Dead. A few demented, like poor Professor Norman, though I can’t say he was anyone’s favorite teacher. I like to think it was the paint fumes, but I think we all know he came in demented, and working here might not have helped. I myself have escaped detection by having a mediocre career and always agreeing with the administration.”

He laughed, then fell silent. There was a quality about the silence that made Myrna turn from the blank canvas on the easel to look at them.

“Why are you really here?” Professor Massey finally asked.

It was said softly, gently.

His blue eyes watched Clara and seemed to place a bubble around her. A shield. Where no harm would come to her. And Myrna understood why Professor Massey was a favorite teacher. And why he would be remembered for things far more important than “translating the visual world onto canvas.”

“Peter’s missing,” said Clara.

* * *

Their progress through the woods reminded Jean-Guy of something. Some old image.

Gamache was ahead of him, on what they all suspected was not really a horse. For the past fifteen minutes, Beauvoir had ducked branches as they snapped back into his face, at about the same time Gamache called, “Watch out.”

And when he wasn’t being bitch-slapped by nature, all Beauvoir could see was Bullwinkle’s ass swaying in front of him.

He was not yet having fun. Fortunately for Beauvoir, he hadn’t expected to.

“Can you see it?” he called ahead for the tenth time in as many minutes.

“Just enjoy the scenery and relax,” came the patient response. “We’ll get there eventually.”

“All I see is your horse’s ass,” said Jean-Guy, and when Gamache turned around with mock censure, he added, “sir.”

Beauvoir rocked back and forth on his own horse and couldn’t quite bring himself to admit he was beginning to enjoy himself. Though “enjoy” might be overstating it. He was finding the soft, rhythmic steps of the careful animal reassuring, calming. It reminded him of the rocking of monks as they prayed. Or a mother soothing a distressed child.

The forest was quiet, save for the clopping of the hooves and the birds as they got out of the way. The deeper they went, the more peaceful it became, the greener it became.