TWO
Armand Gamache settled into the worn leather sofa beneath the statue of General Wolfe. Nodding to the elderly man across from him he pulled the letters out of his satchel. After a walk through the city with émile and Henri, Gamache had returned home, picked up his mail, collected his notes, stuffed it all into his satchel, then he and Henri had walked up the hill.
To the hushed library of the Literary and Historical Society.
Now he looked at the bulging manila envelope on the sofa beside him. Daily correspondence from his office in Montreal sent on to émile’s home. Agent Isabelle Lacoste had sorted his mail and sent it with a note.
Cher Patron,
It was good to speak to you the other day. I envy you a few weeks in Québec. I keep telling my husband we must take the children to Carnaval but he insists they’re too young yet. He’s probably right. The truth is, I’d just like to go.
The interrogation of the suspect (so hard to call him that when we all know there are no suspicions, only certainties) continues. I haven’t heard what he’s said, if anything. As you know, a Royal Commission has been formed. Have you testified yet? I received my summons today. I’m not sure what to tell them.
Gamache lowered the note for a moment. Agent Lacoste would, of course, tell them the truth. As she knew it. She had no choice, by temperament and training. Before he left he’d ordered all of his department to cooperate.
As he had.
He went back to the note.
No one yet knows where it will lead, or end. But there are suspicions. The atmosphere is tense.
I will keep you informed.
Isabelle Lacoste
Too heavy to hold, the letter slowly lowered to his lap. He stared ahead and saw Agent Isabelle Lacoste in flashes. Images moved, uninvited, in and out of his mind. Of her staring down at him, seeming to shout though he couldn’t make out her words. He felt her small, strong hands gripping either side of his head, saw her leaning close, her mouth moving, her eyes intense, trying to communicate something to him. Felt hands ripping away the tactical vest from his chest. He saw blood on her hands and the look on her face.
Then he saw her again.
At the funeral. The funerals. Lined up in uniform with the rest of the famous homicide division of the S?reté du Québec as he took his place at the head of the terrible column. One bitter cold day. To bury those who died under his command that day in the abandoned factory.
Closing his eyes he breathed deeply, smelling the musky scents of the library. Of age, of stability, of calm and peace. Of old-fashioned polish, of wood, of words bound in worn leather. He smelled his own slight fragrance of rosewater and sandalwood.
And he thought of something good, something nice, some kind harbor. And he found it in Reine-Marie, as he remembered her voice on his cell phone earlier in the day. Cheerful. Home. Safe. Their daughter Annie coming over for dinner with her husband. Groceries to buy, plants to water, correspondence to catch up on.
He could see her on the phone in their Outremont apartment standing by the bookcase, the sunny room filled with books and periodicals and comfortable furniture, orderly and peaceful.
There was a calm about it, as there was about Reine-Marie.
And he felt his racing heart settle and his breathing deepen. Taking one last long breath, he opened his eyes.
“Would your dog like some water?”
“I beg your pardon?” Gamache refocused and saw the elderly man sitting across from him motioning to Henri.
“I used to bring Seamus here. He’d lie at my feet while I read. Like your dog. What’s his name?”
“Henri.”
At the sound of his name the young shepherd sat up, alert, his huge ears swinging this way and that, like satellite dishes searching for a signal.
“I beg you, monsieur,” smiled Gamache, “don’t say B-A-L-L or we’ll all be lost.”
The man laughed. “Seamus used to get excited whenever I’d say B-O-O-K. He’d know we were coming here. I think he loved it even more than I do.”
Gamache had been coming to this library every day for almost a week and except for whispered conversations with the elderly female librarian as he searched for obscure volumes on the Battle of the Plains of Abraham, he hadn’t spoken to anyone.
It was a relief to not talk, to not explain, or feel an explanation was desired if not demanded. That would come soon enough. But for now he’d yearned for and found peace in this obscure library.
Though he’d been visiting his mentor for years, and had come to believe he knew old Québec intimately, he’d never actually been in this building. Never even noticed it among the other lovely homes and churches, convents, schools, hotels and restaurants.
But here, just up rue St-Stanislas where émile had his old stone home, Gamache had found sanctuary in an English library, among books. Where else?
“Would he like water?” the elderly man asked again. He seemed to want to help and though Gamache doubted Henri needed anything he said yes, please. Together they walked out of the library and down the wooden hall, past portraits of former heads of the Literary and Historical Society. It was as though the place was encrusted with its own history.
It gave it a feeling of calm and certainty. Though much of old Quebec City was like that within the thick walls. The only fortress city in North America, protected from attack.
It was, these days, more symbolic than practical but Gamache knew symbols were at least as powerful as any bomb. Indeed, while men and women perished, and cities fell, symbols endured, grew.
Symbols were immortal.
The elderly man poured water into a bowl and Gamache carried it back to the library, putting it on a towel so as not to get water on the wide, dark floorboards. Henri, of course, ignored it.
The two men settled back into their seats. Gamache noticed the man was reading a heavy horticultural reference book. He himself went back to the correspondence. A selection of letters Isabelle Lacoste had thought he might like to see. Most from sympathetic colleagues around the world, others from citizens who also wanted to let him know how they felt. He read them all, responded to them all, grateful Agent Lacoste sent only a sampling.
At the very end he read the letter he knew was there. Was always there. Every day. It was in a now familiar hand, dashed off, almost illegible but Gamache had grown used to it and could now decode the scrawl.
Cher Armand,
This brings my thoughts, and prayers that you’re feeling better. We speak of you often and hope you’ll visit. Ruth says to bring Reine-Marie, since she doesn’t actually like you. But she did ask me to say hello, and fuck off.
Gamache smiled. It was one of the kinder things Ruth Zardo said to people. Almost an endearment. Almost.
I do, however, have one question. Why would Olivier move the body? It doesn’t make sense. He didn’t do it, you know.
Love,
Gabri
Inside, as always, Gabri had put a licorice pipe. Gamache took it out, hesitated, then offered the treat to the man across the way.
“Licorice?”
The man looked up at Gamache then down at the offering.
“Are you offering candy to a stranger? Hope I won’t have to call the police.”
Gamache felt himself tense. Had the man recognized him? Was this a veiled message? But the man’s faded blue eyes were without artifice, and he was smiling. Reaching out the elderly man broke the pipe in half and handed the larger portion back to his companion. The part with the candy flame, the biggest and the best part.
“Merci, vous êtes très gentil.” Thank you, you’re very kind, the man said.
“C’est moi qui vous remercie.” It is I who thank you, Gamache responded. It was a well-known, but no less sincere, exchange among gracious people. The man had spoken in perfect, educated, cultured French. Perhaps slightly accented, but Gamache knew that might just be his preconception, since he knew the man to be English, while he himself was Francophone.
They ate their candy and read their books. Henri settled in and by three thirty the librarian, Winnie, was turning on the lamps. The sun was already setting on the walled city and the old library within the walls.
Gamache was reminded of a nesting doll. The most public face was North America and huddled inside that was Canada and huddled inside Canada was Québec. And inside Québec? An even smaller presence, the tiny English community. And within that?
This place. The Literary and Historical Society. That held them and all their records, their thoughts, their memories, their symbols. Gamache didn’t have to look at the statue above him to know who it was. This place held their leaders, their language, their culture and achievements. Long forgotten or never known by the Francophone majority outside these walls but kept alive here.
It was a remarkable place almost no Francophone even knew existed. When he’d told émile about it his old friend had thought Gamache was joking, making it up, and yet the building was just two blocks from his own home.
Yes, it was like a nesting doll. Each held within the other until finally at the very core was this little gem. But was it nesting or hiding?
Gamache watched Winnie make her way around the library with its floor-to-ceiling books, Indian carpets scattered on the hardwood floors, a long wooden table and beside that the sitting area. Two leather wing chairs and the worn leather sofa where Gamache sat, his correspondence and books on the coffee table. Arched windows broke up the bookcases and flooded the room with light, when there was light to catch. But the most striking part of the library was the balcony that curved above it. A wrought iron spiral staircase took patrons to the second story of bookshelves that rose to the plaster ceiling.
The room was filled with volume and volumes. With light. With peace.
Gamache couldn’t believe he’d never known it was here, had stumbled over it quite by accident one day while on a walk trying to clear his mind of the images. But more than the flashes that came unbidden, were the sounds. The gunshots, the exploding wood and walls as bullets hit. The shouts, then the screams.
But louder than all of that was the quiet, trusting, young voice in his head.
“I believe you, sir.”