A Great Reckoning

  “I’m thinking of getting one,” said Clara, dipping a slice of toasted baguette, spread with saffron aioli, into the bouillabaisse. “I miss Lucy. It would be nice to have another heartbeat in the home.”

  She looked over at Henri, curled in a corner. Rosa, forgetting her enmity for the dog in favor of warmth, was nesting in the curve of his belly.

  “How’s the portrait coming?” Reine-Marie asked.

  Clara had managed to scrape the oil paint off her face, though her hands were tattooed with a near-permanent palette of colorful dots. Clara seemed to be morphing into a pointillist painting.

  “You’re welcome to take a look,” she said. “But I want you all to repeat after me, ‘It’s brilliant, Clara.’”

  They laughed, but when she continued to look at them they all, in unison, said, “It’s brilliant, Clara.”

  Except Ruth, who muttered, “Fucked up, insecure, neurotic and egotistical.”

  “Good enough,” laughed Clara. “If not brilliant, I’ll settle for FINE. But I have to admit, my focus is being undermined by that damned blanket box. I actually dream about it at night.”

  “But have you found anything valuable?” asked Gabri. “Daddy needs a new car and I’m hoping to turn that old pine box into a Porsche.”

  “A Porsche?” asked Myrna. “You might get into it, but you’d never get out. You’d look like Fred Flintstone.”

  “Fred Flintstone,” said Armand. “That’s who you—”

  But on seeing the look of warning on Olivier’s face, he stopped.

  “Baguette?” Armand offered the basket to Gabri.

  “That map?” asked Gabri. “You all seemed interested in it. It’s got to be worth something. Let me get it.”

  He hopped up and returned, smoothing it on the pine table.

  “This’s the first time I’ve looked at it,” he said. “It’s quite something.”

  But what, was the question.

  “It’s both a map and a work of art,” said Clara. “Wouldn’t that increase its value?”

  “The problem is, it’s both and it’s neither,” said Olivier. “But the main problem is that map collectors tend to like maps of a specific area, often their own, or ones of some historic significance. This is of a small corner of Québec. And not even a historic corner. Just villages and homes, and that silly snowman. It might seem charming to us because we live here. But to anyone else, it’s just a curiosity.”

  “I’ll give you fifty for it,” said Ruth.

  They turned to her in shock. Ruth had never, in their experience, offered to pay for anything.

  “Fifty what?” asked Myrna and Olivier together.

  “Dollars, you dickheads.”

  “Last time she bought something, it was with licorice pipes,” said Myrna.

  “Stolen from the bistro,” said Olivier.

  “Why do you want it?” asked Reine-Marie.

  “Does no one get it?” demanded Ruth. “Don’t any of you see? Not even you, Clouseau?”

  “It’s Miss Marple to you,” said Armand. “And see what? I see a beautiful map, but I also understand what Olivier’s saying. We’re probably the only ones who value it.”

  “And do you know why?” Ruth demanded.

  “Why?” asked Myrna.

  “You figure it out,” she said. Then she looked at Myrna closely. “Who are you? Have we met?”

  Ruth turned to Clara and whispered loudly, “Shouldn’t she be doing the dishes?”

  “Because a black woman is always the maid?” asked Clara.

  “Shhh,” said Ruth. “You don’t want to insult her.”

  “Me insult her?” said Clara. “And by the way, being a black woman isn’t an insult.”

  “And how would you know?” asked Ruth, before turning back to Myrna. “It’s all right, I’ll hire you if Mrs. Morrow lets you go. Do you like licorice?”

  “Oh, for God’s sake, you demented old wreck,” said Myrna. “I’m your neighbor. We’ve known each other for years. You come into my bookstore every day. You take books and never pay.”

  “Now who’s demented?” said Ruth. “It’s not a bookstore, it’s a library. Says it right on the sign.” Ruth turned back to Clara and whispered again, “I don’t think she can read. Should you teach her or would that just be inviting trouble?”

  “It says librairie,” said Myrna, giving it the French pronunciation. “‘Bookstore’ in French. As you very well know. Your French is perfect.”

  “No need to insult me.”

  “How is calling your French perfect an insult?”

  “I think we’re going in circles here,” said Armand, getting up and starting to clear the table. Years ago, when he’d first heard exchanges like this, he’d been appalled. But as he got to know them all, he’d seen it for what it was. A sort of verbal pas de deux.

  This was how they showed affection.

  It still made him uncomfortable, but he suspected it was meant to. It was a form of guerrilla theater. Or maybe they just liked insulting each other.

  Reaching for more dishes to take to the sink, he looked down at the map. In the candlelight it seemed to have changed.

  This wasn’t just a doodle, made by some bored pioneer to while away the winter months. There was purpose to it.

  But there was another slight change he was noticing now. One he might even be imagining.

  The snowman, who appeared so jolly in daylight, seemed less joyous by candlelight. And more, what? Anxious? Was that it? Could a bonhomme be worried? And what would he be worried about?

  A lot, thought Gamache, as he ran hot water into the sink and squirted detergent. A man made of snow would worry about the very thing the rest of the world looked forward to. The inevitable spring.

  Yes, a snowman, however jolly, must have worry in his heart. As did the work of art. Or map. Or whatever it was they’d found in the wall.

  Love and worry. They went hand in hand. Fellow travelers.

  Going back to the table to get more dishes, he saw Ruth watching him.

  “Do you see it?” she asked quietly as he bent for her bowl.

  “I see an anxious snowman,” he said, and even as the words came out, he realized how ridiculous they were. And yet the old poet didn’t mock. She just nodded.

  “Then you’re close.”

  “I wonder why the map was made,” said Armand, looking at it again.

  He didn’t expect an answer, nor did he get one.

  “Whatever the reason, it’s not for sale,” said Olivier, looking at it wistfully. “I like it.”

  While Armand and Myrna did the dishes, Olivier got dessert out of the fridge.

  “Are you looking forward to the first day of school?” Olivier asked as he served up the chocolate mousse, made with a dash of Grand Marnier and topped with fresh whipped cream.

  “I’m a little nervous,” Gamache admitted.

  “Don’t worry, the other kids’ll like you,” said Myrna.

  Gamache smiled and handed her a dish to dry.

  “What’re you worried about, Armand?” Olivier asked.

  What was he worried about? Gamache asked himself. Though he knew the answer. He was worried that in trying to clean up the mess at the academy, he’d only succeed in making it worse.

  “I’m worried I’ll fail,” he said.

  There was silence, broken only by the clinking of dishes in the sink, and the murmur of voices as Clara took Reine-Marie into her studio.

  “I’m worried that I’ve undervalued what’s in the blanket box,” said Olivier, putting a dollop of whipped cream on a serving of mousse. “But what I’m really worried about is that I don’t know what I’m doing. That I’m a fraud.”

  “I’m worried that the advice I gave to clients years ago, when I was a therapist, was wrong,” said Myrna. “I wake up in the middle of the night, afraid I’ve led someone astray. In the daylight I’m fine. Most of my fears come in the darkness.”

  “Or by candlelight,” said Armand.


  Myrna and Olivier looked at him, not sure what that meant.

  “Do you really think you’ll fail?” Olivier asked, putting the coffee on to perk.

  “I think I’ve made some extremely risky decisions,” said Armand. “Ones that could go either way.”

  “When I’m afraid, I always ask myself, what’s the worst that can happen?” said Myrna.

  Did he dare ask that? Armand wondered.

  He’d have to resign and someone else would take over the academy. But that would be the very best outcome, if he failed.

  The worst?

  He was bringing Serge Leduc and Michel Brébeuf together. For a reason. But suppose it backfired? There would be a conflagration, he knew. And one that would consume not just him.

  It was a very dangerous sequence of events he’d set in motion.

  * * *

  “I wouldn’t recommend it,” said Clara.

  “What?” asked Reine-Marie.

  They were in Clara’s studio, surrounded by canvases and brushes in old tin cans and the smell of oil and turpentine and coffee and banana peels. In the corner was a dog bed where Lucy, Clara’s golden, used to sleep as Clara painted, often into the night. Henri had followed them into the studio and was now fast asleep in the bed.

  But what held Reine-Marie’s attention, what would grab and hold anyone’s, was the canvas on the easel. Close up it was a riot of color, of bold slashes in purple and red and green and blue. All the tiny dots on Clara’s hands were splashed there, large.

  But take a step back and what appeared from the confusion was a woman’s face. Clearly Clara.

  “I wouldn’t recommend doing a self-portrait,” said the woman herself, sitting comfortably on the stool in front of the easel.

  “Why not?” Reine-Marie asked, though she seemed to be speaking to Canvas Clara.

  “Because it means staring at yourself for hours on end. Have you ever seen a self-portrait where the person didn’t look just a little insane? Now I know why. You might start off smiling, or looking intelligent or thoughtful. But the longer you stare, the more you see. All the emotions and thoughts and memories. All the stuff we hide. A portrait reveals the inner life, the secret life of the person. That’s what painters try to capture. But it’s one thing to hunt it down in someone else, and a whole other thing to turn the gun on ourselves.”

  Only then did Reine-Marie notice the mirror leaning against the armchair. And Clara reflected in it.

  “You start seeing things,” said Clara. “Strange things.”

  “You sound like Ruth,” said Reine-Marie, trying to lighten the mood. “She seems to see something in that map that no one else can.”

  She’d sat down on the sofa, feeling the springs where no spring should be. The portrait, which had appeared stern when she’d first seen it, now seemed to have an expression of curiosity.

  It was an odd effect. How the mood of the portrait appeared to mirror the mood of the actual woman. Clara too was looking curious. And amused.

  “She saw W. B. Yeats at one of her poetry readings last year,” Clara remembered. “And this past Christmas she saw the face of Christ in the turkey. That was at your place.”

  Reine-Marie remembered it well. The fuss Ruth had made, trying to get them to not carve the bird. Not because she believed the Butterball was divine, but because it could be auctioned on eBay.

  “I think ‘strange’ and Ruth are fused,” said Clara.

  Reine-Marie took her point. The woman, after all, had a duck.

  Now the portrait’s expression changed again.

  “What’re you worried about?” Reine-Marie asked.

  “I’m worried that what I see might actually exist.” She gestured at the mirror.

  “The portrait’s brilliant, Clara.”

  “You don’t have to say that.” Clara smiled. “I was just joking.”

  “I’m not. It really is. It’s far different than anything else you’ve done. The other portraits are inspired, but this?”

  Reine-Marie looked again at the canvas, and the strong, vulnerable, amused, afraid middle-aged woman there.

  “This is genius.”

  “Merci. And you?”

  “Moi?”

  Clara laughed, imitating her. “Moi? Oui, madame. Toi. What’re you worried about?”

  “The usual things. I worry about Annie and the baby, and how Daniel and the grandchildren are doing in Paris. I’m worried about what Armand is doing,” Reine-Marie admitted.

  “As head of the Sûreté Academy?” asked Clara. “After what he’s been through, it’ll be a breeze. He’s facing spitballs and paper cuts, that’s all. He’ll be fine.”

  But of course Reine-Marie saw more than Clara. She’d seen the visit to the Gaspé. And she’d seen the expression on Armand’s face.

  * * *

  While they’d been at dinner, the front had moved in, bringing thick flurries. Not a blizzard, but constant heavy flakes that would need shoveling in the morning.

  At the door, after putting on all his outerwear, Olivier shoved the map into his jacket and zipped up.

  After saying good night to Clara, the friends walked through the large flakes, along one of the paths dug across the village green, their feet sinking into the new snow. Gabri walked beside Ruth and held Rosa, cradling the duck to his chest.

  “You’d make a good eiderdown, wouldn’t you?” he whispered into what he assumed were her ears. “She’s getting heavy. No wonder ducks waddle.”

  Trailing behind, Myrna whispered to Reine-Marie, “I’ve always liked a man with a big duck.”

  A puff of laughter came out of Reine-Marie and then she bumped into Armand, who’d stopped at the intersection of paths, where Myrna veered off to her loft above the bookstore.

  They said their good nights, but Armand stayed where he’d stopped, looking up at the pine trees, the Christmas lights jiggling in the slight breeze. Henri stood looking up at him, his shepherd’s tail wagging, waiting for a snowball to be tossed.

  Reine-Marie obliged, and the dog sailed into a snowbank, headfirst.

  “Come on,” said Reine-Marie, linking her arm in Armand’s. “It’s late and cold and you’re beginning to look like a snowman. You can stare at the trees from our living room.”

  At the path to their home, they parted ways with the others, but once again Armand stopped.

  “Olivier,” he called into the darkness and jogged over to him. “Can I borrow the map?”

  “Sure, why?”

  “I just want to check something.”

  Olivier brought it out from under his jacket.

  “Merci,” said Armand. “Bonne nuit.”

  Reine-Marie and Henri were waiting for him, and farther ahead Gabri was slowly walking Ruth and Rosa home. At her own path, Ruth turned and stared at Armand. In the light of her porch, she looked amused.

  “You asked why the map was made,” she called. “Isn’t the better question, why was it walled up?”

  * * *

  The next morning, Armand phoned Jean-Guy and asked if he would be his second-in-command at the academy.

  “I’ve already sharpened my pencil, patron,” said Jean-Guy. “And I have new notebooks and fresh bullets for my gun.”

  “You have no idea how that makes me feel,” said Gamache. “I’ve spoken to Chief Inspector Lacoste about this. Isabelle will put you on leave for a term. That’s all we have.”

  “Right,” said Jean-Guy, all humor gone from his voice. “I’ll come down to Three Pines this afternoon and we can discuss your plans.”

  When Jean-Guy arrived, shaking the snow from his hat and coat, he found Gamache in his study. After pouring himself a coffee, Beauvoir joined his father-in-law. Instead of studying the curriculum or staff CVs, or the list of the new cadets, Gamache was bent over an old map.

  “Why did it take you so long to ask me to be your second-in-command?”

  Gamache took off his reading glasses and studied the younger man. “Because I knew you’d agree, and I?
??m not sure I’ll be doing you any favors. The academy is a mess, Jean-Guy. You have your own career. I don’t think being my second-in-command at the academy will advance it.”

  “And you think I’m that interested in advancement, patron?” There was an edge of anger in his voice. “Do you know me so little?”

  “I care for you that much.”

  Beauvoir inhaled and breathed out his annoyance. “Then why ask me now?”

  “Because I need help. I need you. I can’t do this alone. I need someone there I can trust completely. And besides, if I fail I need someone to blame.”

  Jean-Guy laughed. “Always glad to help.” He looked down at the map on the desk. “What’ve you got there? Is it a treasure map?”

  “No, but there is a mystery about it.” He handed it to Jean-Guy. “See if you can figure out what’s strange about it.”

  “I’m assuming you know the answer. Is this a test? If I solve it, the job’s mine?”

  “The job is hardly a prize,” Gamache pointed out, and left Jean-Guy to study the worn and torn and dirty old thing. “And it’s yours now, like it or not.”

  A while later, Jean-Guy joined Armand and Reine-Marie in the living room, only to find another worn, torn and dirty old thing on the sofa.

  “Well, numbnuts, I hear Clouseau has finally asked you to be his second-in-command,” said Ruth. “I always knew you were a born number two.”

  “Madame Zardo,” said Jean-Guy, making her sound like a Victorian medium. “As a matter of fact he has asked, and I’ve accepted.”

  He sat beside her on the sofa and Rosa waddled onto his lap.

  “Did you figure it out?” asked Gamache. “What’s strange about the map?”

  “This. Three pines,” said Jean-Guy, circling his finger over the illustrated trees. “Three Pines. The village isn’t on any official map, but it’s here.”

  He’d put his finger on it. And once seen, something else became obvious. All the roads, the paths, the walking trails led there. They might pass through other communities, but they ended at the three pines.

  Armand nodded. Jean-Guy, with his sharp mind, had seen through the clutter to what was most extraordinary about it.