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.