TWO
“Remarkable, don’t you think?”
Armand Gamache turned to the distinguished older man beside him.
“I do,” nodded the Chief Inspector. Both men were silent for a moment, contemplating the painting in front of them. All around was the hubbub of the party in full swing, talking, laughing, friends getting caught up, strangers being introduced.
But the two men seemed to have formed a separate peace, a quiet little quartier.
In front of them on the wall was, either intentionally or naturally, the centerpiece of Clara Morrow’s solo show. Her works, mostly portraits, hung all around the white walls of the main gallery of the Musée d’Art Contemporain. Some were clustered close together, like a gathering. Some hung alone, isolated. Like this one.
The most modest of the portraits, on the largest of the walls.
Without competition, or company. An island nation. A sovereign portrait.
Alone.
“How do you feel when you look at it?” the man asked and turned his keen gaze on Gamache.
The Chief Inspector smiled. “Well, it isn’t the first time I’ve seen it. We’re friends of the Morrows. I was there when she first brought it out of her studio.”
“Lucky man.”
Gamache took a sip of the very good red wine and agreed. Lucky man.
“Fran?ois Marois.” The older man put out his hand.
“Armand Gamache.”
Now his companion looked more closely at the Chief and nodded.
“Désolé. I should have recognized you, Chief Inspector.”
“Not at all. I’m always happier when people don’t,” smiled Gamache. “Are you an artist?”
He looked, in fact, more like a banker. A collector, perhaps? The other end of the artistic chain. He’d be in his early seventies, Gamache guessed. Prosperous, in a tailored suit and silk tie. There was a hint of expensive cologne about the man. Very subtle. He was balding, with hair immaculately and newly cut, clean-shaven, with intelligent blue eyes. All this Chief Inspector Gamache took in quickly and instinctively. Fran?ois Marois seemed both vibrant and contained. At home in this rarified, and quite artificial, setting.
Gamache glanced into the body of the room, packed with men and women milling about and chatting, juggling hors d’oeuvres and wine. A couple of stylized, uncomfortable benches were installed in the middle of the cavernous space. More form than function. He saw Reine-Marie chatting with a woman across the room. He found Annie. David had arrived and was taking off his coat, then he went to join her. Gamache’s eyes swept the room until he found Gabri and Olivier, side-by-side. He wondered if he should go and speak with Olivier.
And do what? Apologize again?
Had Reine-Marie been right? Did he want forgiveness? Atonement? Did he want his mistake purged from his personal record? The one he kept deep inside, and wrote in each day.
The ledger.
Did he want that mistake stricken?
The fact was, he could live just fine without Olivier’s forgiveness. But now that he saw Olivier again he felt a slight frisson and wondered if he wanted that forgiveness. And he wondered if Olivier was ready to give it.
His eyes swept back to his companion.
It interested Gamache that while the best art reflected humanity and nature, human or otherwise, galleries themselves were often cold and austere. Neither inviting nor natural.
And yet, Monsieur Marois was comfortable. Marble and sharp edges appeared to be his natural habitat.
“No,” said Marois to Gamache’s question. “I’m not an artist.” He gave a little laugh. “Sadly, I’m not creative. Like most of my colleagues I dabbled in art as a callow youth and immediately discovered a profound, almost mystical lack of talent. Quite shocking, really.”
Gamache laughed. “So what brings you here?”
It was, as the Chief knew, a private cocktail party the night before the public opening of Clara’s big show. Only the select were invited to a vernissage, especially at the famous Musée in Montréal. The monied, the influential, the artist’s friends and family. And the artist. In that order.
Very little was expected of an artist at the vernissage. If they were clothed and sober most curators considered themselves fortunate. Gamache stole a glance at Clara, looking panicked and disheveled in a tailored power suit that had experienced a recent failure. The skirt was slightly twisted and the collar was riding high as though she’d tried to scratch the middle of her back.
“I’m an art dealer.” The man produced his card and Gamache took it, examining the cream background with the simple embossed black lettering. Just the man’s name and a phone number. Nothing more. The paper was thick and textured. A fine-quality business card. No doubt for a fine-quality business.
“Do you know Clara’s work?” Gamache asked, tucking the card into his breast pocket.
“Not at all, but I’m friends with the chief curator of the Musée and she slipped me one of the brochures. I was frankly astonished. The description says Madame Morrow has been living in Québec all her life and is almost fifty. And yet no one seems to know her. She came out of nowhere.”
“She came out of Three Pines,” said Gamache and at the blank look from his companion, he explained. “It’s a tiny village south of here. By the Vermont border. Not many people know it.”
“Or know her. An unknown artist in an anonymous village. And yet—”
Monsieur Marois opened his arms in an elegant and eloquent gesture, to indicate the surroundings and the event.
They both went back to gazing at the portrait in front of them. It showed the head and scrawny shoulders of a very old woman. A veined and arthritic hand clutched a rough blue shawl to her throat. It had slipped to reveal skin stretched over collarbone and sinew.
But it was her face that captivated the men.
She looked straight at them. Into the gathering, with the clink of glasses, the lively conversations, the merriment.
She was angry. Filled with contempt. Hating what she heard and saw. The happiness all around her. The laughter. Hating the world that had left her behind. Left her alone on this wall. To see, to watch and to never be included.
Like Prometheus Bound, here was a great spirit endlessly tormented. Grown bitter and petty.
Beside him Gamache heard a small gasp and knew what it was. The art dealer, Fran?ois Marois, had understood the painting. Not the obvious rage, there for all to see, but something more complex and subtle. Marois had got it. What Clara had really created.
“Mon Dieu,” Monsieur Marois exhaled. “My God.”
He looked from the painting to Gamache.