How the Light Gets In

EIGHTEEN

“You lied to me.”

“You sound like a schoolgirl,” said Ruth Zardo. “Are your feelings all hurt? I know what’ll help. Scotch?”

“It’s ten in the morning.”

“I was asking, not offering. Did you bring Scotch?”

“Of course I didn’t.”

“Well then, why’re you here?”

Armand Gamache was trying to remember that himself. Ruth Zardo had the strange ability to muddle even the clearest goal.

They sat in her kitchen, on white plastic preform chairs, at a white plastic table, all salvaged from a Dumpster. He’d been there before, including at the oddest dinner party he’d ever attended, where he’d been far from certain they’d all survive.

But this morning, while maddening, was at least predictable.

Anyone who placed himself within Ruth’s orbit, and certainly within her walls, and wasn’t prepared for dementia had only himself to blame. What often came as a surprise to people was that the dementia would be theirs, not Ruth’s. She remained sharp, if not clear.

Rosa slept in her nest made from an old blanket, on the floor between Ruth and the warm oven. Her beak was tucked into her wing.

“I came for the Bernard book, on the Quints,” he said. “And for the truth about Constance Ouellet.”

Ruth’s thin lips pursed, as though stuck between a kiss and a curse.

“Long dead and buried in another town,” Gamache quoted, conversationally, “my mother hasn’t finished with me yet.”

The lips unpursed. Flatlined. Her entire face went limp, and for a moment Gamache was afraid she was having a stroke. But the eyes remained sharp.

“Why did you say that?” she asked.

“Why did you write that?” He brought a slim volume out of his satchel and placed it on the plastic table. Her eyes rested on it.

The cover was faded and torn. It was blue. Just blue, no design or pattern. And on it was written Anthology of New Canadian Poetry.

“I picked this up from Myrna’s store last night.”

Ruth lifted her eyes from the book to the man. “Tell me what you know.”

He opened the book and found what he was looking for. “Who hurt you once, / so far beyond repair / that you would greet each overture / with curling lip? You wrote those words.”

“Yes, so? I’ve written a lot of words.”

“This was the first poem of yours to be published, and it remains one of your most famous.”

“I’ve written better.”

“Perhaps, but few more heartfelt. Yesterday, when we were talking about Constance’s visit, you said she told you who she was. You also said you didn’t ask her any more questions. Alas.”

She met his eyes, then her face cracked into a weary smile. “I thought maybe you’d picked up on that.”

“This poem is called ‘Alas.’” He closed the book and quoted by heart, “Then shall forgiven and forgiving meet again / or will it be, as always was, / too late?”

Ruth held her head erect as though facing an attack. “You know it?”

“I do. And I think Constance knew it too. I know the poem because I love it. She knew it because she loved the person who’d inspired it.”

He opened the book again and read the dedication, “For V.”

He carefully placed it on the table between them.

“You wrote ‘Alas’ for Virginie Ouellet. The poem was published in 1959, the year after her death. Why did you write it?”

Ruth was quiet. She bent her head and looked at Rosa, then she dropped her thin, blue-veined hand and stroked Rosa’s back.

“They were my age, you know. Almost exactly. Like them, I grew up in the Depression and then the war. We were poor, my parents struggled. They had other things on their mind than an awkward, unhappy daughter. So I turned inward. Developed a rich imaginary life. In it, I was a Quint. The sixth quint,” she smiled at him, and her cheeks reddened a bit. “I know. Six quints. Didn’t make sense.”

Gamache chose not to point out that that wasn’t the only leap of logic.

“They always seemed so happy, so carefree,” Ruth went on.

Her voice became distant and her face took on an expression Gamache had never seen before. Dreamy.

Thérèse Brunel followed Clara from the bright kitchen into her studio.

They passed a ghostly portrait on an easel. A work-in-progress. Thérèse thought it might be a man’s face, but she wasn’t sure.

Clara stopped in front of another canvas.

“I’ve just started this one,” she said.

Thérèse was eager to see it. She was a fan of Clara’s work.

The two women stood side-by-side. One disheveled, in flannel and a sweatshirt, the other beautifully turned out in slacks, a silk blouse, a Chanel sweater and thin leather belt. They both held steaming mugs of tisane and stared at the canvas.

“What is it?” Thérèse finally asked, after tilting her head this way and that.

Clara snorted. “Who is it, you mean? It’s the first time I’ve done a portrait from memory.”

Thérèse wondered how good Clara’s memory could be.

“It’s Constance Ouellet,” Clara said.

“Ah, oui?” Again Thérèse tilted her head, but no amount of twisting could make this look like one of the famous Quints. Or any other human. “She never finished sitting for you.”

“Or started. Constance refused,” said Clara.

“Really? Why?”

“She didn’t say, but I think she didn’t want me to see too much, or reveal too much.”

“Why did you want to paint her? Because she was a Quint?”

“No, I didn’t know it then. I just thought she had an interesting face.”

“What interested you? What did you see there?”

“Nothing.”

Now the Superintendent turned from her study of the canvas to study her companion.

“Pardon?”

“Oh, Constance was wonderful. Fun and warm and kind. A great dinner guest. She came here a couple of times.”

“But?” Thérèse prompted.

“But I never felt I got to know her better. There was a veneer over her, a sort of lacquer. It was as though she was already a portrait. Something created, but not real.”

They stared at the blotch of paint on the canvas for a while.

“I wonder if you could suggest someone to put up a satellite dish,” Thérèse asked, remembering her mission.

“I can, but it won’t help.”

“What do you mean?”

“Satellite dishes don’t work here. You can try rabbit ears, but the TV signal’s still pretty blurry. Most of us get our news from radio. If there’s a big event we go up to the inn and spa and watch their TV. I can lend you a good book though.”

“Merci,” said Thérèse with a smile, “but if you could find the satellite person anyway that would be great.”

“I’ll make some calls.” Clara left Thérèse alone in the studio contemplating the canvas, and the woman who’d been not quite real and now was dead.

Ruth held the volume of poetry in her thin hands, pressing it closed.

“Constance came to me the first afternoon she was here. She said she liked my poetry.”

Gamache grimaced. There were two things you never, ever, said to Ruth Zardo. We’re out of alcohol, and I like your poetry.

“And what did you say to her?” he was almost afraid to ask.

“What do you think I said?”

“I’m sure you were gracious and invited her in.”

“Well, I invited her to do something.”

“And did she?”

“No.” Ruth sounded surprised still. “She stood at my front door and just said, ‘Thank you.’”

“What did you do?”

“Well, what could I do after that? I slammed the door in her face. Can’t say she didn’t ask for it.”

“You were provoked beyond reason,” he said, and she gave him a keen, assessing look. “Did you know who she was?”

“Do you think she said, ‘Hi, I’m a Quint. Can I come in?’ Of course I didn’t know who she was. I just thought she was some old fart who wanted something from me. So I got rid of her.”

“And what did she do?”

“She came back. Brought a bottle of Glenlivet. Apparently she’d had a word with Gabri over at Chez Gay. He told her the only way into my home was through a bottle of Scotch.”

“A gap in your security system,” said Gamache.

“She sat there.” Ruth pointed to his plastic chair. “And I sat here. And we drank.”

“At what stage did she tell you who she was?”

“She didn’t really. She told me I had the poem right. I asked her which poem and she quoted it to me. Like you did. Then she said that Virginie had felt exactly like that. I asked what Virginie she had in mind, and she said her sister. Virginie Ouellet.”

“And that’s when you knew?” Gamache asked.

“God, man, the fucking duck knew then.”

Ruth got up and returned with the Bernard book on the Quints. She threw it on the table and sat back down.

“Vile book,” she said.

Gamache looked at the cover. A photograph, in black and white, of Dr. Bernard sitting in a chair, surrounded by the Ouellet Quints, about eight years of age, looking at him adoringly.

Ruth was also looking at the cover. At the five little girls.

“I used to pretend I was adopted out and one day they’d come and find me.”

“And one day,” Gamache said quietly, “Constance did.”

Constance Ouellet, at the end of her life, at the end of the road, had come to this falling-down old home, to this falling-down old poet. And here, finally, she’d found her companion.

And Ruth had found her sister. At last.

Ruth met his eyes, and smiled. “Or will it be, as always was / too late?”

Alas.