The monk had laughed. “There are no other Gilbertines. We’re it. The last of our kind. All of us came from other orders, and were recruited here.”
“Is it a hard sell?” asked Gamache.
“A little, but when Dom Philippe explained that the vocation at Saint-Gilbert is Gregorian chant, well, that’s all we needed to hear.”
“The music is a fair exchange for all you give up? The isolation. You must never see your families or friends.”
The monk stared at Gamache. “We would give up everything for the music. It’s all that matters to us.” Then he smiled. “Gregorian chants aren’t just music and they’re not just prayer. They’re both, together. The word of God sung in the voice of God. We’d give up our lives for that.”
“And do,” said Gamache.
“Not at all. The lives we have here are richer, more meaningful, than anything we could ever have anywhere else. We love God and we love the chants. In Saint-Gilbert we get both. Like a fix.” He laughed.
“Did you ever regret your decision to come here?”
“That first day, those first moments, yes. It seemed a very long boat ride, down the bay. Approaching Saint-Gilbert. I was already missing my old monastery. My abbot and friends there. Then I heard the music. The plainchant.”
The monk seemed to leave Gamache, leave the shower room with its steam and fragrance of lavender and bee balm. Leave his body. And go to a better place. A blissful place.
“Within five or six notes I knew there was something different about it.” His voice was strong, but his eyes were glazed. It was the same expression Gamache had noticed on the faces of the monks at the services. When they sang.
Peaceful. Calm.
“What was different?” Gamache asked.
“I wish I knew. They’re just as simple as every chant I’ve ever sung, but there’s something else there. A depth. A richness. The way the voices blend. It felt whole. I felt whole.”
“You said Dom Philippe recruits new monks with the qualities you need here. That would obviously include a good singing voice.”
“It doesn’t just include,” said the monk. “It’s the first quality he looks for. Though not just any voice. Frère Mathieu would tell the abbot what kind of voice he needed, and the abbot would go to monasteries in search of it.”
“But the recruit would also have to be good with animals, or a chef, or whatever other expertise you need,” said Gamache.
“True, which is why it can take years to replace a monk and why the abbot goes out looking. He’s like a hockey scout, keeping tabs even on the young guys. The abbot knows about prospects even before they take their final vows, when they’re just entering the seminary.”
“Is personality important?” asked Gamache.
“Most monks learn to live in community,” explained the monk, putting on his robes. “That means accepting each other.”
“And the authority of the abbot.”
“Oui.”
It was, Gamache knew, the most curt answer he’d received so far. The monk bent down to put on his socks, breaking eye contact with the Chief, who was himself already dressed.
When the monk straightened up he smiled again. “We’re actually given very thorough personality tests. Evaluated.”
Gamache had thought his expression was neutral, but apparently his skepticism showed.
“Oui,” said the monk with a sigh. “Given the Church’s recent history it might be a good idea to reevaluate the evaluations. Seems the chosen few might not be so choice. But the fact is, most of us are good people. Sane and stable. We just want to serve God.”
“By singing.”
The monk examined Gamache. “You seem to believe, monsieur, that the music and the men can be separated. But they can’t. The community of Saint-Gilbert-Entre-les-Loups is like a living chant. Each of us individual notes. On our own, nothing. But together? Divine. We don’t just sing, we are the song.”
Gamache could see he believed it. Believed that on their own they were nothing, but together the monks of Saint-Gilbert formed a plainchant. The Chief had a vision of the halls of the monastery filled not with monks in black robes, but with musical notes. Black notes bobbing through the halls. Waiting to come together in sacred song.
“How much does the prior’s death diminish that?” asked Gamache.
The monk inhaled sharply, as though the Chief had jabbed him with a pointy stick.
“We must thank God we had Frère Mathieu at all, and not be upset that he was taken from us.”
This sounded less convincing.
“But will the music suffer?” Gamache had chosen his words deliberately and he saw the result. The monk broke eye contact again and fell silent.
Gamache wondered if an equally important part of a chant wasn’t just the notes, but the space between them. The silence.
The two men stood in the silence.
“We need so little,” said the monk at last. “Music and our faith. Both will survive.”
“I’m sorry,” said the Chief. “I don’t know your name.”
“Bernard. Brother Bernard.”
“Armand Gamache.”
The two men shook hands. Bernard held the Chief’s for a moment longer than was necessary.
It was another one of the hundreds of unspoken messages that darted around the monastery. But what was the message? They were two men who had practically showered together. There did seem one obvious invitation. But Gamache instinctively knew that wasn’t what Frère Bernard was trying to say.
“But something changed,” said Gamache, and Frère Bernard released his hand.
The Chief had realized there were plenty of empty shower stalls. Bernard needn’t have chosen the one right next to the S?reté officer.
Bernard wanted to talk. Had something to say.
“You were right last night,” said the monk. “We heard you in the Blessed Chapel. The recording changed everything. Not at first. At first it brought us even closer. It was a common mission. The point wasn’t really to share the chants with the world. We were realistic enough to know that a CD of Gregorian chants might not get on the Billboard charts.”
“Then why do it?”
“It was Frère Mathieu’s idea,” said Bernard. “The monastery needed repairs and as much as we tried to keep up with things, eventually what was needed wasn’t effort or even expertise. It was money. The one thing we didn’t have and couldn’t make. We make those chocolate-covered blueberries. Have you tried them?”
Gamache nodded.
“I help look after the animals but I also work in the chocolate factory. They’re very popular. We trade them to other monasteries in exchange for cheese and cider. And we sell them to friends and family. At a huge markup. Everyone knows that, but they also know we need the money.”
“The chocolates are fabulous,” agreed Gamache. “But you’d have to sell thousands of boxes to make enough money.”
“Or sell each box for a thousand dollars. Our families support us a lot, but that seemed a little much to ask. Believe me, Monsieur Gamache, we tried everything. And finally Frère Mathieu came up with selling the one thing we never run out of.”
“Gregorian chants.”
“Exactly. We sing all the time and don’t have to compete with bears or wolves for the blueberries and we don’t have to milk goats for the notes.”
Gamache smiled at the image of squirting Gregorian chants from the teats of goats and sheep.
“But you had no great hopes?”
“We always have hope. That’s another thing we never run out of. What we didn’t have were high expectations. The plan was to make the recording and sell it at extortionary rates to family and friends. And through the shops in some of the other monasteries. Our friends and families would play the CD once, just to say they’d done it, then put it away and forget about it.”
“But something happened.”
Bernard nodded. “It took a while. We sold a few hundred. Got enough to buy materials to repair the roof. But then about a year after the CDs went out we started getting money into our account. I remember being in Chapter when the abbot told us that more than a hundred thousand dollars had appeared in our account. He’d had the brother who does our accounting double-check and sure enough, it came from the recordings. More had been made, with our permission, but we didn’t know how many. And then there were the electronic versions. The downloads.”
“How did the brothers react?”
“Well, it seemed a miracle. On so many levels. We suddenly had more money than we could use, and more coming all the time. But money aside, it was as if God had given His blessing. Smiled on the project.”
“And not just God, but the outside world,” said Gamache.
“True. It seemed everyone all at once discovered how beautiful our music was.”
“Validation?”
Frère Bernard colored and nodded. “I’m embarrassed to admit, but that’s what it felt like. It seemed to matter after all. What the world thought.”
“The world loved you.”
Bernard took a deep breath and lowered his gaze to his hands, now resting on the lap of his robe. Cradling the ends of the rope around his waist.
“And for a while that felt wonderful,” said Frère Bernard.
“What happened?”
“The world not only discovered our music, they discovered us. Planes started buzzing overhead, people arrived by the boatload. Reporters, sightseers. Self-proclaimed pilgrims came to worship us. It was terrible.”
“The price of fame.”
“All we wanted was heat in the winter,” said Frère Bernard. “And a roof that didn’t leak.”
“But still, you managed to hold them all off.”
“That was Dom Philippe. He made it clear to other monasteries, and to the public, that we’re a reclusive order. With a rule of silence. He even went on television, just the once. Radio Canada.”
“I saw the interview.” Though it could hardly be called an interview. It was Dom Philippe standing in an anonymous location, in his robes. Looking at the camera, and imploring people to please leave his monastery alone. He was glad everyone was enjoying the chants, but said it was all they had to offer. They could give nothing more. But the world could give them, the monks of Saint-Gilbert, a great gift. Peace and quiet.
“And did they leave the monks alone?” asked Gamache.
“Eventually.”
“But peace wasn’t restored, was it?”