The Long Way Home(68)

Gamache walked back to the home of Marcel Chartrand.

“I thought I heard someone leave,” said Chartrand from the porch as Gamache approached. “How’d you sleep?”

“Perfectly.”

“You must be used to strange beds,” said their host, handing Gamache a mug of coffee that steamed in the fresh morning air.

“I am,” the Chief admitted. “But few as comfortable as yours. Merci.” He lifted the mug toward Chartrand in appreciation.

“Un plaisir. Would you like to see the gallery?”

Gamache smiled. “Very much.”

He felt like a child given a private pass to Disneyland.

Chartrand unlocked the door and turned on the lights. Gamache walked to the center of the room and stood there. He realized, with some alarm, that he felt like weeping.

Here, around him, was his heritage. His country. His history. But it was more than that. Here on the walls, were his insides. Out.

The brightly painted homes. Red and mustard yellow. The smoke tugged from the chimneys. The church spires. The winter scenes, the snow on the pine boughs. The horses and sleighs. The soft light through the windows at night.

The man with the oil lamp. Walking a path worn through the deep snow. Toward home in the distance.

Gamache turned. He was surrounded. Immersed. Not drowning, but buoyed. Baptized.

He sighed. And looked at Marcel Chartrand, who was beside him. He also looked as though he might weep. Did the man feel like this each day?

Was this his bench above the village? Was he also surprised by joy each day?

“Peter Morrow came here often,” said Chartrand. “Just to sit. And stare at the paintings.”

Sit and stare.

God knew Gamache did enough of that himself, but the combination of words, and the inflection, triggered a memory. Not an old one. It sat near the top. And then Gamache had it.

Someone else had described Peter sitting and staring. As a child.

Madame Finney, Peter’s mother. She’d told Gamache that young Peter would just stare, for hours on end. At the walls. At the paintings. Trying to get closer to the pictures. Trying to join the genius that saw the world like that, and painted how he felt about it.

All flowing strokes, lines that joined each other, so that solid homes became land, became trees, became people, became sky and clouds. That touched the solid homes.

And all in bright, joyous colors. Not made-up hues, but ones Gamache actually saw now through the windows of the gallery. No need to embellish. To fictionalize. To romanticize.

Clarence Gagnon saw the truth. And didn’t so much capture it as free it.

Young Peter longed to be set free too. And the paintings on the walls of that grim home were his way out. Since he couldn’t actually escape into them, he’d done the next best thing.

He became an artist. Despite his family. Though his family had accomplished one thing. They drained the color and creativity from him, leaving him and his art attractive but predictable. Safe. Bleached.

Gamache stared at the walls of the Galerie Gagnon. At the vivid colors. At the swirls and flowing brush strokes. At the landscapes that were as much internal as external.

Peter had stared at these same walls. And then disappeared.

And for a moment Armand Gamache wondered if Peter had achieved the magic he seemed so desperate to find, and had actually entered one of the paintings.

He leaned closer, examining the man with the lantern. Was it Peter? Plodding toward home?

Then he grinned. Of course not. This was Baie-Saint-Paul, not the Twilight Zone.

“Is this why Peter came to Baie-Saint-Paul?” Gamache indicated the paintings lining the gallery.

Chartrand shook his head. “I think it was a perk, but not the reason.”

“What was the reason?”

“He seemed to be looking for someone.”

“Someone?”

“Someone or something, or both. I don’t know,” said Chartrand.

“Why didn’t you tell us this last night?”

“I hadn’t really thought about it. Peter was an acquaintance, nothing more. Just another artist who came to Charlevoix hoping for inspiration. Hoping that what inspired these”—he gestured toward the Gagnons on the walls—“would also inspire him.”

“That Gagnon’s muse would find him and come out to play again,” said Gamache.

Chartrand considered for a moment. “Do you think he’s dead?”

“I think it’s very difficult for people to just disappear. Much harder than we realize,” said Gamache. “Until we try.”

“Then how’s it done?”

“There’s only one way. We need to stop living in this world.”

“You mean die?”

“Well, that would do it too, but I mean remove yourself from society completely. Go to an island. Go deep into the woods. Live off the land.”

Chartrand looked uncomfortable. “Join a commune?”

“Well, most communes these days are pretty sophisticated.” He studied his host. “What do you mean?”

“When Peter first visited the gallery, he asked after a man named Norman. I had no idea who he meant, but I said I’d ask around.”

“Norman?” Gamache repeated. The name sounded familiar. “What did you find out?”

“Nothing useful.”