A Great Reckoning

CHAPTER 43

A wail filled the air, followed quickly by an expletive and a familiar voice. “Oh, for God’s sake. Does the crying ever stop?”

“Probably just thirsty,” said Clara. “Sounds like you when you want a drink.”

“Jeez.” Myrna turned around from the pew in front of them. “I thought that was Ruth.”

There was another piercing wail.

“Nope,” Myrna said. “Not loud enough.”

Ruth cackled. “I could use a shot of Liebfraumilch.”

Shhhh, said the rest of the congregation.

“Me?” said Ruth. “You’re telling me to shush? Tell that to the kid.”

She thrust Rosa, her appendage, toward the altar.

It was a warm morning in late spring, and Three Pines was gathered in St. Thomas’s Church.

Armand stood at the front and looked out at the congregation.

Daniel and Roslyn were there from Paris, with their daughters Florence and Zora.

Jean-Guy’s family were elbowing each other in the front pew.

And beyond them, friends, sitting and standing. At the very back stood the four cadets.

Jacques, Huifen, Nathaniel, and Amelia.

The graduation ceremony had been held at the academy the day before. It was more solemn than most, given the events of that term.

The cadets had stood as one, somber, erect, silent, when Commander Gamache entered the auditorium and walked alone across the stage.

He gripped the podium and stared out at them, in their dress blues. Those about to graduate and enter service, and those returning the following year.

The uniforms were perfectly pressed, the creases sharp, the buttons polished, the young faces shiny and clean.

He stared in silence, and they stared back. The specter of the tragedies filling the space between them. Filling the room. Darkening the past, dimming the present, and eclipsing their bright futures.

And then he smiled.

Armand Gamache’s face broke into a radiant smile.

He smiled. And he smiled.

First one, then a few, then they all smiled back. They beamed at each other, Commander and cadets. Until the darkness was banished. And finally he spoke.

“Things are strongest where they’re broken,” said Commander Gamache, his voice deep and calm and certain. The words entered each of the cadets. And their families. And their friends. And filled the void.

And then he talked about what had happened. The shattering events. And the healing.

He ended his address by saying, “We are all of us marred and scarred and imperfect. We make mistakes. We do things we deeply regret. We are tempted and sometimes we give in to that temptation. Not because we’re bad or weak, but because we’re human. We are a crowd of faults. But know this.”

He stood in complete silence for a moment, the huge auditorium motionless.

“There is always a road back. If we have the courage to look for it, and take it. I’m sorry. I was wrong. I don’t know.” He paused again. “I need help. Those are the signposts. The cardinal directions.”

And then he smiled again, the creases deep, his eyes bright.

“You are extraordinary and I’m very proud of each and every one of you. It will be an honor to serve together.”

There was a pause, and then the cheering began. Lusty, robust, joyful. They threw their caps in the air and hugged each other, while Armand Gamache stood at the podium. And smiled.

Under each of their seats, the graduates found a package, wrapped in simple brown paper. In it were two books. Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations and Ruth Zardo’s I’m FINE. Gifts from the Commander and his wife.

After the ceremony, cadets came up, eager to introduce Commander Gamache to their parents.

Jean-Guy stood beside him, never leaving Gamache’s side, scanning the crowd. And finally, he spotted them. Working their way toward them.

Beauvoir stepped forward, but a hand was laid on his arm.

“Are you sure?” Jean-Guy asked.

“I’m sure.”

Though Gamache did not look certain. He was pale, but his cheeks were flushed, as though his very body was conflicted. Engaged in a not entirely civil war.

The two men watched as Amelia Choquet wove through the crowd.

“I can stop them,” whispered Jean-Guy urgently. “Just say the word.”

But Gamache was silent, his eyes wide. Beauvoir could see the tremble in his right hand.

“Commander Gamache,” said Amelia. “I’d like to introduce you to my father.”

The man was slight and older than Gamache by about ten years.

Monsieur Choquet studied him for just a moment, then held out his hand. “You turned my daughter’s life around. You brought her home to her family. Merci.”

There was the briefest pause while Armand looked at the outstretched hand, then into the man’s eyes.

“You are welcome, sir.”

And Armand Gamache shook Monsieur Choquet’s hand.

Now it was Armand’s turn to stand beside Jean-Guy, as Annie and Reine-Marie stood on the other side of the baptismal font with the minister between them.

The minister was Gabri, specially anointed for the occasion, by himself.

He wore his choir robes, and in his arms he held Annie and Jean-Guy’s baby.

“Oh, please,” Olivier was heard to pray. “Dear Lord, don’t let him lift the baby and sing ‘Circle of Life.’ Oh, please.”

The baby howled in Gabri’s arms.

“This is nothing,” Jean-Guy whispered to Armand. “You should hear him at night.”

“I did. All night.”

Jean-Guy smiled proudly.

Gabri lifted the baby up as though offering him to the congregation. “Let us sing.”

“Oh no,” whispered Olivier.

And Gabri, in his rich tenor, began “Circle of Life,” joined immediately by the choir and the congregation, and then by Olivier, in robust, full voice.

Jean-Guy looked at his son and felt, again, a surge of love that left him weak, and strong. He glanced at his father-in-law and saw that Armand had stopped singing and was staring, open-mouthed, straight ahead of him.

“What is it?” whispered Jean-Guy, following his gaze to the back of the chapel. “The cadets?”

Armand shook his head. “Non. I’ll tell you later.”

“Who here stands for this child?” Gabri asked when the song was over. Olivier and Clara stood at their seats.

“I don’t know why they didn’t ask me,” came a querulous voice.

“Probably because you can’t stand,” said Myrna.

“I can’t stand you,” muttered Ruth, and struggled to her feet.

Myrna was about to tell her to sit down, but something about the elderly woman made her stop. Ruth was standing straight and tall. Her face forward. Resolute. Even Rosa looked as dignified as a duck possibly could.

Then Myrna got up.

Then Monsieur Béliveau, the grocer, rose to his feet. As did Sarah, the baker. As did Dominique and Marc and the Asshole Saint. As did Billy Williams and Gilles Sandon and Isabelle Lacoste and Adam Cohen and Yvette Nichol and the Brunels.

Jacques and Huifen and Nathaniel and Amelia stepped forward.

The entire congregation stood.

Jean-Guy took his infant son in his arms and turned him to face the men and women and children who would be his godparents.

And he whispered, “May you be a brave man in a brave country, Honoré.”

“What were you looking at?” Jean-Guy asked Armand, as they stood on the village green eating burgers off the huge grill Olivier had set up.

A long table had been brought out, filled with salads and fresh rolls and cheeses. Across the green was another, longer table with all sorts of cakes, pies, pastries. Cookies and brownies and candies and children.

Little Zora, in an excited tizzy, ran straight into her grandfather’s legs, knocking herself to the soft grass. And looked up at him, in amazement.

He gave his plate to Jean-Guy and scooped her up, kissing her cheek, and the tears that were moments away turned to laughter, and she was off again.

The bar had been set up on Ruth’s porch, where the old poet sat in a rocking chair, Rosa on her lap and her cane across the arms like a shotgun. The four cadets got their beers and were deep in conversation.

“What’re you talking about?” Clara asked, pouring herself a gin and tonic.

“Ruth says she wants a name for her cottage,” said Nathaniel. “She asked me to choose one.”

“Really?” asked Myrna. “She asked you?”

“Well, more told me to find one,” he admitted. “And told me not to fuck it up.”

“So what’ve you come up with?” asked Clara.

“We’ve narrowed it down,” said Huifen. “It’s between Rose Cottage”—she pointed to the sweetbriar roses around Ruth’s porch—“and Pit of Despair.”

“I dare you,” said Clara, laughing, as she and Myrna crossed the dirt road and joined Reine-Marie and Annie, who was holding Honoré and chatting with Gabri.

“A beautiful ceremony, mon beau,” Annie said, kissing his cheeks.

“Merci. I was thrown a little when everyone stood up,” he admitted.

“But you covered it nicely by breaking into ‘Hakuna Matata.’ The King James version, if I’m not mistaken.”

Gabri leaned down and spoke to Honoré. “One must always have a song in the heart.”

“And an éclair in the hand,” said Myrna, lifting hers.

“Sage words,” said Annie.

She looked across the village green and noticed her husband and her father walking back to the chapel.

They followed and found the two men standing once again in front of the stained-glass boys.

Reine-Marie slipped her hand into Armand’s, then pulled it away.

“You’re all sticky.”

“That was Zora,” he said.

“Of course it was,” said Reine-Marie. “What’re you looking at?”

Armand was staring at the window, but not at the one boy who always drew their attention. He was looking at one of the other young men.

“He’s pointing at something,” said Armand.

“Huh,” said Jean-Guy, leaning closer. “You’re right.”

“But what?” asked Reine-Marie. “That, maybe?”

She followed the direction of the finger and saw a bird in the sky above the battlefield.

“Or maybe the tree,” said Annie. A single charred evergreen stood askew in the mud.

“I noticed the gesture a while ago, but thought it must be just an artistic touch,” said Armand. “But when I was at the front of the church during the baptism, I realized what the soldier wanted us to see. He’s not pointing into his world. He’s pointing into ours.”

He turned, and they turned with him.

“At that.”

He didn’t tell them that shortly before his death, Michel Brébeuf had made a similar gesture. Pointing above the doorway of his room in the academy, to the frame that could be mistaken for a rose, but was not.

Armand put his hand in his pocket and felt the linen and traced the letters with his finger while the others stared above the door of the church at a stylized stained-glass rose they’d seen hundreds of times before.

They looked and they looked.

And finally—

“My God,” whispered Reine-Marie. “It’s not just a rose window. It’s a compass rose.” She turned back to the soldier. “He’s pointing at a compass.”

They walked closer to it, until Armand told them, “It’s really best seen from the front. That’s one of the reasons no one noticed before. We were all too close. I only noticed during the baptism, when I stood here.”

He stepped onto the dais and they joined him.

The bright June sun was streaming in through the hundreds of tiny panes of glass, stained shades of red and pink and green. It hit the old pine floor of the chapel right in the center of the aisle, creating the cheerful, intricate design of a multipetaled rose. With almost unnoticeable spikes.

The four directions.

“But it’s tilted,” said Annie.

“It’s not tilted,” said Jean-Guy. “It’s pointed.”

“It’s indicating a direction,” said Reine-Marie. She looked at Armand. “We should follow.”

“We should. But not today,” said Armand, taking little Honoré in his arms.

The next morning a group set out cross-country. Jacques held the old map, the original, while Armand oriented a compass salvaged from the box of items brought home from the war.

The four cadets were there, as were Clara, Myrna, Olivier, and Gabri. Ruth had decided to stay home.

“I think she’s embroidering the name on a pillow,” Nathaniel explained to Clara.

“What did you go with? Rose Cottage or Pit of Despair?”

“Another FINE Mess,” said Amelia, and Clara laughed.

The troop crossed streams and hiked through forests and fields. They paused at Larsen’s Rock, where a cow was once stranded, and rescued.

They climbed over a stone wall and stopped for a drink of water at the intersection of two dirt lanes, where a snowman had celebrated a victory by Le Club de Hockey Canadien.

“Did you notice he’s not just celebrating?” said Huifen, imitating the snowman. “He’s pointing.”

And sure enough, he was. In the direction they were heading.

“You haven’t yet accepted a posting,” Commander Gamache said to Jacques, as they continued their walk through a meadow of tall wildflowers.

“No. I’ve been speaking with Inspector Beauvoir and I think I’ll take some time away before deciding what to do next.”

“Any ideas?”

“The Inspector and I’ve discussed options. I’m thinking of volunteering in Haiti. And you, sir?”

“Me?”

“In your commencement address, you ended by saying it would be an honor to serve with us. What did you mean by that?”

Armand glanced down at the compass, making sure they were heading in the right direction. The others were fanned out behind. Enjoying the flowers and the bright young green of the trees and the buzz of newborn bees.

Gamache turned to Jacques and smiled. “You’ll see.”

Armand looked behind him and, spotting Amelia, he waved her forward.

“Here,” he said. “You take it.”

He handed her the compass.

“But I don’t know how to use it.”

“I’ll teach you.”

And he did. Nathaniel and Huifen joined the other two and Armand fell back to walk beside Reine-Marie, letting the four young people lead.

They’d win no races, getting lost a few times before Amelia got her bearings. But finally they arrived, where they all knew they were headed anyway.

To the pyramid on the map. That was not a pyramid at all, but a roof truss.

Their journey ended in the cemetery, now filled with daylilies and wild rugosa roses.

It was Nathaniel who found it.

He knelt beside a headstone, his arms scratched and bleeding from pulling the roses away.

“Look.”

There, etched into the granite, was another compass rose. And a flag.

“A control,” said Huifen quietly. “For an orienteer to find.”

“The last one,” said Jacques.

It was over. They’d finally found Antony Turcotte.

The young people rubbed the lichen and dirt from the face of the stone.

“That can’t be right,” said Nathaniel, sitting back on his heels.

“What is it?” asked Gamache.

Nathaniel got to his feet, shaking his head, while the other cadets remained on their knees in front of the grave.

“We were wrong,” said Jacques.

“It’s not the right one?” asked Beauvoir.

“Right grave,” said Amelia, also getting to her feet. “Wrong person.”

There, below the rose and the flag, was the name.

Marie Valois

Died September 5, 1919

Loving Mother of Pierre, Joseph, and Norman

Notre-Dame-de-Doleur

“Not the father,” said Reine-Marie, looking down at the stone. “The mother. Our Lady of Grief.”

They sat under the Cinzano umbrellas on the bistro’s terrasse, lemonades and beers in front of them.

After returning to Three Pines, the cadets had taken off, back to the records office. With a new name. And a new mission. And when they had found what they needed, they’d returned.

And now they sat, dossiers in front of them, knees jiggling, just waiting for Clara and Myrna to arrive.

Myrna knew where to find Clara. Where she always was these days.

In her studio, painting.

“They’re back,” said Myrna.

“Almost finished.”

“Take your time,” Myrna suggested. She wandered into the kitchen, picking up a cookie.

“There,” said Clara, getting off the stool and stepping back. “I think it’s finally done. What do you think?”

Myrna had been dreading this moment, this question.

She turned to look. And the cookie stopped mid-bite.

“But it’s not you at all.”

A woman’s face filled the whole frame. Staring straight ahead. Facing the world. Meeting it head on. She was pierced and tattooed. She was scarred. And she was scared.

“It’s the cadet,” said Myrna. “Amelia.”

“Yes.”

“But it’s more than that,” said Myrna, stepping toward the portrait, then looking at her friend. “It’s the boy, the soldier.”

Clara nodded.

She had painted robust youth. Made frail and vulnerable by fear. By the stupidity and cruelty and decisions of old men.

The boy was afraid to die. And Amelia was afraid to live.

But there was something else in that stare. In those eyes.

Forgiveness.

It was hot and the cadets chugged their lemonades.

Huifen looked down at her notebook.

In two weeks she’d be joining the Sûreté detachment in Gaspé, as their most junior agent. But for now she had this, her last assignment and first investigation, to wrap up.

“Marie Turcotte married Frederick Valois in 1893. They lived in Montréal and had three sons. Pierre, the oldest, then twins Joseph and Norman.”

Reine-Marie had placed the old photograph on the table beside the map. As Huifen spoke, they looked at Joe and Norm in their uniforms, grinning into the camera and hugging their mother, Clara’s home in the background.

Another photograph lay on Reine-Marie’s lap. She’d come across it in the archives that afternoon, when they’d returned from the gravesite.

“Turcotte?” said Jean-Guy. “Antony Turcotte was her brother? Her father?”

“We’re coming to that,” said Nathaniel.

“According to the Bureau of Records, Monsieur Valois was a mapmaker,” said Amelia, picking up the story. “Not a particularly good one, but serviceable. Good enough to keep food on the table. He made maps mostly for mining companies. Until one day he walked off a cliff.”

“Was he…?” Reine-Marie asked.

“Killed?” said Jacques. “Yes. The next piece of information we found was a record of Marie Valois renting here.”

“My place?” asked Clara.

“No, here, here,” said Nathaniel, pointing to the ground. “The bistro, though it was a private home at the time, owned by a Monsieur Béliveau.”

“I knew he was older than me,” said Ruth.

“Not, perhaps, the current one,” suggested Myrna.

“I’ll see if he’s in.” Armand got up, and as he walked across the terrasse, past the boulangerie to the grocer, he checked his watch.

Past six. It was a warm, still evening, the scent of peony and old garden roses in the air. The sun was still well up in the clear sky and wouldn’t set for another few hours.

When he returned, the elderly grocer was with him.

“You’re wondering about the Valois family?” he asked.

Armand indicated his chair, and Monsieur Béliveau bowed slightly and sat.

“Did you know them?” asked Nathaniel.

Monsieur Béliveau’s somber face broke into a smile. “I’m not quite that old.”

“Told you,” Myrna whispered to Ruth.

“But my grandfather knew them. He owned this building at the time and rented to Madame Valois. She was a widow, I believe.”

“Yes, with three sons,” said Huifen. “She must have been memorable, for your grandfather to tell you about them.”

“She wasn’t,” said Monsieur Béliveau. “And neither were the boys. They were just regular kids. What was memorable was what happened to them. All three died on the same day. At the Somme. My grandfather said he could still hear her wail, years later. Just the wind through the pines, my grandmother would tell him. But he insisted it was her.”

Reine-Marie looked at Armand. How often had they heard that howl from the forest?

“Why didn’t you tell us all this before?” asked Huifen.

“Because you were asking about Antony Turcotte,” said Monsieur Béliveau. “Not Madame Valois. I’d never heard of Turcotte.”

“Well, where does he come in then?” asked Gabri.

“After her sons were killed, Marie Valois went to live in Roof Trusses,” said Jacques. “She died just after the war.”

“Spanish flu probably,” said Myrna. “Judging by the date on the headstone. It killed millions in 1919.”

“Why would she leave Three Pines?” asked Gabri.

“You’ve never been a mother,” said Reine-Marie.

“He’s been a mother—” began Ruth.

“Ah,” said Jean-Guy, holding up Honoré, his little feet dangling. “Not in front of the baby.”

“She didn’t leave,” said Monsieur Béliveau, and all heads turned to him.

“Pardon?” said Clara.

“Madame Valois. She didn’t leave Three Pines. At least, she didn’t mean to. Not forever. She kept renting the place from my grandfather.”

“But, Roof Trusses?” said Olivier, not sure how to form the question.

“She wanted to get away,” said Monsieur Béliveau. “But just for a while. I think it was too painful for her here. But she always planned to come back. This was her home. She left most of her things here.”

“Including that,” said Myrna, pointing to the old map that had been placed on the table.

“But if all the boys were killed, how did the map get back to their mother?” asked Clara.

“It didn’t,” said Armand. “This map never left. It was made after the boys were missing in action. Before she left for Roof Trusses. In case.”

“In case?” Jacques asked.

“In case they weren’t dead,” said Reine-Marie.

“This whole village is one big orienteering exercise,” said Jean-Guy. “The map, the stained-glass window, the compass rose.”

“She made them each a map, to take with them,” said Armand. “So they could find their way home, and then she made another, so they could find her.”

“You mean she commissioned the maps,” said Huifen. “Antony Turcotte actually made them. The man in the toponymie office was certain. He must’ve been her father, or maybe a brother or uncle.”

“No,” said Gamache. “I mean she made them.”

The cadets, confused, looked at him, then at each other.

“Marie Valois was Antony Turcotte,” said Gamache. “She used her maiden name when she started making maps.”

“I don’t understand,” said Huifen.

“Probably a good thing that you don’t,” said Myrna. But she understood. “Back then, a hundred years ago or so, women weren’t encouraged to have jobs, and they sure weren’t encouraged to have a profession.”

“So they often took men’s names,” said Clara. “Painters did it. Writers and poets often used men’s names. She might have learned mapmaking by watching her husband, and then discovered that she was far better at it.”

“Not the first wife to excel at the same profession as her husband, but have to hide it,” said Myrna. “The men often took credit for their wives’ work.”

Huifen looked perplexed. It was, to her, inconceivable. And ancient history.

“So you’re saying all those maps—” began Huifen.

“Were done by Marie Valois,” said Gamache. “Oui.”

Amelia was nodding. “Monsieur Toponymie said that no one actually met Antony Turcotte. It was all done by correspondence. No one ever knew.”

“How sad, then,” said Reine-Marie, “that after mapping and naming all those towns and villages, Marie Valois finally had one named after her. But not for her work as a cartographer. But because of the enormity of her grief.”

“Notre-Dame-de-Doleur,” said Armand.

They looked at the photo of the smiling farm woman, between her tall sons.

“But assuming what you say is true,” said Olivier, “why did she take Three Pines off the maps of Québec?”

Reine-Marie brought out the small sepia photo. Older even than the one already on the table.

They leaned toward it and saw three grinning boys, children, covered in dirt, their boots resting on spades, and in front of each was a sapling.

“They planted the trees,” whispered Gabri. He hadn’t meant to whisper, but that was all that came out.

“The others blew down in a terrible storm,” said Monsieur Béliveau. “Two fell and one was badly damaged. Gilles Sandon’s great-grandfather cut it down. Made the floors of the bistro and bookstore with them. The village was devastated by the loss, my grandfather told me. But one morning they woke up and those saplings had been planted. They never knew who did it.”

He and the others looked across the village green to the three pines. Strong and straight. And still growing.

“I think it was just too painful a reminder,” said Reine-Marie. “So close to losing her sons. So Madame Valois took the village off the map before sending it in to the toponymie department. It might even have been a spur-of-the-moment decision. Erasing the village, as though she could erase her sorrow.”

“But as Monsieur Béliveau said, she always meant to come home again,” said Armand. “To return to Three Pines. And return the village to the map.”

“Then why didn’t she?” asked Gabri.

“She died before she could,” said Reine-Marie.

“Of the flu,” said Myrna.

Of grief, thought Reine-Marie. And heard a small moan from the forest, while on the village green the three pines swayed and played, reaching out their branches to touch each other.

“Velut arbor aevo,” said Amelia.

“As a tree with the passage of time,” said Armand.

The next morning, Armand and Reine-Marie got up just as a soft blue appeared in the sky. The morning was fresh and mild, and dew was dripping off the lady’s mantle and the roses and the lilies. With Gracie on a leash and Henri running free, they walked across the village green to the three pines.

“Ready?” asked Reine-Marie.

“Not quite,” said Armand, and took a seat on the bench.

Just as the sun rose, so did he.

He walked over to the pines and chose a spot. Then he put his foot on the spade.

“Can I help?” came the familiar voice.

He turned to see Jean-Guy, a little bleary after a night comforting his crying child.

Honoré was in his arms. Sleeping now that Papa was awake.

Armand smiled. “Merci, but no. This is something I need to do myself.”

Not because it was easy, but because it was difficult.

The sun rose higher and the hole got deeper, until finally he stopped and picked up the box that had sat in the basement for too long.

Opening it up, Armand saw again the report. The one with his parents’ names. Honoré and Amelia Gamache. Killed. By a drunk driver.

Armand reached into his pocket and brought out the handkerchief. He traced the embroidered letters with his scarred finger, then he placed it in the box.

Putting the top back, he lowered it carefully into the hole.

The police report had one other name. Of the boy.

Robert Choquet.

The young man, all of sixteen, had been given a suspended sentence. And gone on to live his life. To get married and have a family.

One daughter.

Whom he named Amelia.