The Beautiful Mystery

THIRTEEN

“What did you say?” asked Beauvoir, not even bothering to hide his amusement. They were in the prior’s office, before heading for breakfast.

“What could I say?” asked Gamache, looking up from making a few notes. “I said, ‘Bonjour,’ bowed to the abbot, and took a seat in one of the pews.”

“You stayed? In your pajamas?”

“It seemed a bit late to leave,” smiled Gamache. “Besides, I was wearing a robe. Like them.”

“You were wearing a bathrobe.”

“Still…” said the Chief.

“I think I’m going to need therapy,” mumbled Beauvoir.

Gamache went back to his reading. He had to admit, this wasn’t how anyone had expected to start the day. The monks by finding a man in pajamas on their altar at five A.M. Vigils, and Gamache by being that man.

And Beauvoir could not have expected such a gift of a story to land in his lap first thing in the morning. His only regret was not seeing it for himself. And possibly taking a picture. If the Chief cut up rough about his relationship with Annie that photo would surely silence him.

“You asked me to find out who that monk was who insulted the abbot at dinner last night,” said Beauvoir. “His name’s Frère Antoine. Been here since he was twenty-three. Fifteen years.”

Beauvoir had done the math. He and Frère Antoine were exactly the same age.

“And get this,” Beauvoir leaned across the desk, “he was the soloist on that recording.”

The Chief also leaned forward. “How d’you know?”

“Those bells woke me up early. I assumed it was some sort of alarm. Apparently the monks found a man in his pajamas on their altar this morning.”

“I don’t believe it.”

“Anyway, once those damned bells woke me up, I headed to the showers. That young monk who stays in the porter’s office, Frère Luc, had the stall next to mine. We were alone, so I asked him who that monk was who’d challenged the abbot. Guess what else Frère Luc told me.”

“What?”

“He said the prior planned to replace Frère Antoine and make him the soloist on the new recording.” Beauvoir watched the Chief’s eyes widen.

“Him, Luc?”

“Him, Luc. Me, Beauvoir.”

Gamache leaned back in his chair and thought for a moment. “Do you think Frère Antoine knew that was the plan?”

“I don’t know. More monks arrived and I didn’t have a chance to ask.”

Gamache glanced at his watch. It was almost seven. He and Beauvoir must have just missed each other in the showers.

If it was slightly unorthodox to eat at the same table with all the suspects, it was definitely unorthodox to shower with them. But there were private stalls, and no option.

Gamache had also had a shower conversation that morning, after Vigils. A few of the monks had come in while he was washing and shaving. Gamache had struck up polite, apparently pointless, conversation, asking each monk why he’d joined the Gilbertines. To a man they answered, “For the music.”

And everyone he’d spoken with had been recruited. Specially chosen. For their voices, primarily, but also for their expertise. As the Chief had discovered reading over their interviews the day before, each monk had a discipline. One was a plumber. Another a master electrician. One was an architect and another a stonemason. There were chefs and farmers and gardeners. A doctor, Frère Charles. An engineer.

They were like a Noah’s Ark, or a fallout shelter. Able to rebuild the world in case of disaster. Every major element present. With one exception.

No womb.

So, in the event of a catastrophe that only the monastery of Saint-Gilbert-Entre-les-Loups survived, there’d be buildings and running water and electricity. But no life.

But there would be music. Glorious music. For a while.

“How were you recruited?” the Chief had asked his companion in the next stall, after all the other monks had dressed and left.

“By the abbot,” said the monk. “Dom Philippe goes out once a year, looking for new monks. We don’t always need one. But he keeps track of brothers with the qualities we need.”

“And what would those be?”

“Well, Frère Alexandre, for instance, is in charge of the animals, but he’s getting beyond it, so Père Abbé will keep an eye out for a monk from the outside who has an expertise in that area.”

“Another Gilbertine?”

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 Sûreté 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?”

They left the shower rooms and Gamache followed Frère Bernard down the quiet corridor. Toward the closed door at the end. Not the one into the Blessed Chapel. But the other end.

Frère Bernard pulled on the handle and they stepped into a bright new day.

They were, in fact, in a huge walled enclosure. With goats and sheep, chickens and ducks. Frère Bernard took a reed basket for himself and handed one to Gamache.

The air was fresh, cool, and felt good after the heat of the shower. Over the high wall he could see pine trees, and hear birds and the soft lapping of water on rocks.

“Excusez-moi,” said Bernard to the chicken before taking her egg. “Merci.”

Gamache also burrowed his large hand under the chickens, and found the warm eggs. He placed them carefully in his basket.

“Merci,” he said to each chicken.

“Peace appeared to have been restored, Chief Inspector,” said Bernard as he moved from hen to hen. “But Saint-Gilbert didn’t feel the same. There was tension. Some of the monks wanted to capitalize on our popularity. Arguing it was clearly God’s will, and it would be wicked to turn our backs on such an opportunity.”

“And others?”

“They argued that God had been generous enough, and we needed to accept what He’d given with humility. That this was a test. That fame was a serpent, masquerading as a friend. This was our temptation and we needed to reject it.”

“Where did Frère Mathieu stand?”

Bernard came to a large duck and stroked her head, whispering words Gamache couldn’t hear but recognized as endearments. Then Frère Bernard kissed the top of her head and moved on. Without taking away any of her eggs.

“With the abbot. They were best friends, two halves of a whole. Dom Philippe the aesthetic, the prior a man of action. Together they led the monastery. Without the abbot there would never have been a recording. He supported it completely. Helped with the connections with the outside world. Was as joyful about it as the rest.”

“And the prior?”

“It was his baby. He was the undisputed leader of the choir and the recording. He chose the music, the arrangements, the soloists, the order in which they’d be recorded. It was all done in a single morning, in the Blessed Chapel, using an old tape machine the abbot borrowed on a trip to the abbey at Saint-Benoit-du-lac.”

It was, Gamache knew from listening to the CD many times, not of good quality. But that added a sort of sheen to it, a legitimacy. No digital editing, no multiple tracks. No tricks or fakery. It was real.

And it was beautiful. It had captured what Frère Bernard had described. When people listened it was as though they too belonged. Were less alone. Were still individuals, but part of a community. Part of everything. People, animals, trees, rocks. There was suddenly no distinction.

It felt as though the Gregorian chants entered people’s bodies and rearranged their DNA, so that they were part of everything around them. There was no anger, no competition, no winners or losers. Everything was splendid and everything was equal.

And everyone was at peace.

No wonder people wanted more. Cried for more. Demanded more. Showed up at the monastery, and pounded on the door, almost hysterical to be let in. And given more.

And the monks had refused.

Bernard had been quiet for a few moments, walking slowly around the perimeter of the enclosure.

“Tell me,” said Gamache. There was more, he knew. There was always more. Bernard had followed him into the showers, with one purpose. To tell Gamache something, and so far while interesting, this wasn’t it.

There was more.

“It was the vow of silence.”

Gamache waited, then finally prodded. “Go on.”

Frère Bernard hesitated, trying to find the words to explain something that didn’t exist in the outside world. “Our vow of silence isn’t absolute. It’s also known as a rule of silence. We’re allowed to talk to each other sometimes, but it disturbs the peace of the abbey, and the peace of the monk. Silence is seen as both voluntary and deeply spiritual.”

“But you are allowed to talk?”

“Our tongues aren’t cut out when we sign up,” said the monk with a smile. “But it isn’t encouraged. A chatty man would never make a monk. There’re times of the day where quiet is more important. Night, for instance. That’s called the Great Silence. Some monasteries have relaxed the vow of silence, but here at Saint-Gilbert we try to maintain a great silence most of the day.”

Great silence, thought Gamache. That was what he’d experienced a few hours ago, when he’d risen and walked into the corridor. It had felt like a void into which he might fall. And if he had, what would he have met there?

“The greater the silence the louder the voice of God?” asked Gamache.

“Well, the better chance we have of hearing it. Some of the monks wanted the vow lifted so that we could go into the world and speak to people about the music. Maybe do concerts. We were getting all sorts of invitations. There was even a rumor that we’d been invited to the Vatican, but the abbot had declined.”

“How did people feel about that?”

“Some were angry. Some were relieved.”

“Some supported the abbot, and some didn’t?”

Bernard nodded. “You have to understand, an abbot is more than a boss. Our allegiance isn’t to the bishop or archbishop. It’s to the abbot. And the abbey. We elect him and he keeps that job until he either dies or steps down. He’s our pope.”

“And is he considered infallible?”

Bernard stopped walking and crossed his arms, laying his free hand protectively and instinctively on the eggs.

“No. But the happiest abbeys are where the monks don’t question their abbot. And the best abbots are open to suggestions. Discuss everything in Chapter. Then they make a decision. And everyone accepts. It’s seen as an act of humility and of grace. It’s not about winning or losing, but voicing your opinion. And letting God and the community decide.”

“But that stopped happening here.”

Bernard nodded.

“Was there someone who started this campaign to end the vow of silence? A voice for the dissenters?”

Again, Bernard nodded. This was what he’d wanted to say.

“Frère Mathieu,” said Bernard, at last. He looked miserable. “The prior wanted the vow of silence lifted. It led to terrible rows. He was a forceful man. Used to getting what he wanted. Up until then what he wanted and what the abbot wanted were the same thing. But not anymore.”

“And Frère Mathieu didn’t submit?” asked Gamache.

“Not at all. And slowly other monks saw that the walls didn’t crumble if they too didn’t submit. If they continued to fight, and even disobeyed. The arguments escalated, became more vocal.”

“In a silent community?”

Bernard smiled. “You’d be surprised how many ways there are to get your message across. Far more powerful, and insulting, than words. A turned back in a monastery is like dropping the f-bomb. A rolled eye is a nuclear attack.”

“And by yesterday morning?” asked Gamache.

“By yesterday morning the monastery had been laid to waste. Except that the bodies were still walking and the walls still standing. But Saint-Gilbert-Entre-les-Loups was dead in every other way.”

Gamache thought about that for a moment, then thanking Frère Bernard he handed him his basket of eggs and left the enclosure, returning to the dim monastery.

The peace had been not simply shattered, but murdered. Something precious had been destroyed. And then a rock had landed on Frère Mathieu’s head. Shattering it too.

As he’d left Frère Bernard, Gamache had paused at the door to ask one last question.

“And you, mon frère? Where did you stand?”

“With Dom Philippe,” he said without hesitation. “I’m one of the abbot’s men.”

The abbot’s men, thought the Chief as he and Beauvoir entered the silent breakfast hall a few minutes later. Many of the monks were already there, but none looked in their direction.

The abbot’s men. The prior’s men.

A civil war, fought with glances and small gestures. And silence.