She imagined the young woman, exhausted, in pain, desperate, crawling up the stone stairs on her knees. Praying.
“Finally, at dawn, Marie-Harriette reached the top,” said Gamache. “She looked up, and standing at the door of the church was Brother André, apparently waiting for her. He helped her up and they went in together and prayed. He listened to her pleas, and he blessed her. Then she left.”
The room fell silent and Myrna took a deep breath. Relieved the long climb was over. She could feel the sting in her knees. Could feel the ache in her own womb. And she could feel Marie-Harriette’s belief, that with the help of a chaste priest and a long-dead virgin, she might finally have a child.
“It worked,” said Gamache. “Eight months later, in January 1937, the day after Brother André died, Marie-Harriette Ouellet gave birth to five healthy daughters.”
Even though she knew how the story ended, Myrna was still amazed.
She could see how this would be considered a miracle. Proof that God existed and was kind. And generous. Almost, thought Myrna, to a fault.
SIXTEEN
“It was, of course,” said Gamache, voicing Myrna’s thoughts, “considered a miracle. The first quintuplets to have ever survived childbirth. They became sensations.”
The Chief leaned forward and placed a photograph on the coffee table.
It showed Isidore Ouellet, their father, standing behind the babies. He was unshaven, his farmer’s face weather-beaten, his dark hair unkempt. It looked like he’d spent the night running his immense hands through it. Even in the grainy picture, they could see the dark circles under his eyes. He wore a light shirt with a collar, and a frayed suit jacket, as though he’d thrown on his Sunday best at the last minute.
His daughters lay on the rough kitchen table in front of him. They were tiny, newborn, wrapped in hastily brought sheets and dish towels and rags. He was looking at his children in amazement, his eyes wide.
It would be comical if there wasn’t so much horror in that beaten face. Isidore Ouellet looked as though God had come for dinner and burned down the house.
Myrna picked up the picture and took a close look. She’d never seen it before.
“You found this in her home, I imagine,” she said, still distracted by the look in Isidore’s eyes.
Gamache put another photograph on the table.
She picked it up. It was slightly out of focus, but the father had disappeared and now standing behind the babies was an older woman.
“Midwife?” asked Myrna, and Gamache nodded.
She was stout, no-nonsense, her hands on her hips and a stained pinafore covering her large bosom. She was smiling. Weary and happy. And, like Isidore, amazed, but without his horror. Her responsibility, after all, was over.
Then Gamache put down a third black and white picture. The older woman had disappeared. The rags and wooden table had disappeared, and now each newborn was neatly wrapped in her own warm, clean flannel blanket and laid on a sterile table. A middle-aged man, dressed head to toe in white, stood proudly behind them. This was the famous photo. The world’s introduction to the Ouellet Quintuplets.
“The doctor,” said Myrna. “What was his name? Bernard. That’s it. Dr. Bernard.”
It was a testament to the Quints’ fame that almost eight decades on, Myrna would know the name of the doctor who’d delivered them. Or not.
“You mean,” she said, going back to the original pictures, “Dr. Bernard didn’t deliver the Quints after all?”
“He wasn’t even there,” said Gamache. “And when you think about it, why would he be? In 1937 most farmers’ wives had midwives at their deliveries, not doctors. And while they might have suspected Marie-Harriette was carrying more than one child, no one could have guessed there were five of them. It was the Depression, the Ouellets were dirt-poor, they could never have afforded a doctor even if they knew they needed one.”
They both looked down at the iconic picture. The smiling Dr. Bernard. Confident, assured, paternal. Perfectly cast for a role he’d play for the rest of his life.
The great man who’d delivered a miracle. Who, because of his skill, had done what no other doctor had managed. He’d brought five babies into the world, alive. And kept them alive. He’d even saved their mother.
Dr. Bernard became the doctor every woman wanted. The poster boy for competence. A point of pride for Québec, that they had trained and produced a physician of such skill and compassion.
A shame, thought Gamache as he put on his glasses and studied the photo, that it was a lie.