The Beautiful Mystery

Then Brother Charles, the médecin, walked in, his tenor filling in the gaps between the first two monks.

One after another the brothers filed in, their voices joining, mixing, complementing. Giving a plainchant depth and life. As beautiful as the music had been on CD, as wonderful as it had been yesterday, it was even more glorious now.

Gamache could feel himself both invigorated and relaxed. Calmed and enlivened. The Chief wondered if it was simply because he knew the monks now, or if it was something less tangible. Some shift in the monks that came with the death of their old choirmaster and the ascension of the new.

One after another, the monks walked in, singing. Frère Simon. Frère Raymond. And then, at last, Frère Luc.

And everything changed. His voice, not a tenor, not a baritone. Neither, yet both, joined the rest. And suddenly the individual voices, the individual notes were connected. Joined. Held in an embrace, as though the neumes had lengthened and become arms, and were holding each monk and each man listening.

It became whole. No more wounds. No more damage. The holes became whole. The damage repaired.

Frère Luc sang the simple chant, simply. No histrionics. No hysteria. But with a passion and fullness of spirit that Gamache hadn’t noticed before. It was as though the young monk was free. And being freed, he gave new life to the gliding, soaring neumes.

Gamache listened, struck dumb by the beauty of it. By the way the voices claimed not just his head, but his heart. His arms, his legs, his hands. The scar on his head, and his chest, and the tremble in his hand.

The music held him. Safe. And whole.

Frère Luc’s voice had done that. The others, alone, were magnificent. But Frère Luc elevated them to the Divine. What had he told Gamache? I am the harmony. It seemed the simple truth.

Beside Gamache on the bench, Jean-Guy Beauvoir had closed his eyes, and felt himself slip away to that familiar world, where nothing mattered. There was no more pain, no more ache. No more uncertainty.

Everything would be fine.

And then, the music stopped. The last note died away. And there was silence.

The abbot stepped forward, made the sign of the cross, opened his mouth.

And stood there.

Stunned by another sound. One never heard during Vespers. Never before heard during any prayer service at Saint-Gilbert-Entre-les-Loups.

It was a rod on wood.

Pounding.

Someone was at the door. Someone wanted in.

Or out.

TWENTY-SEVEN

Dom Philippe tried not to notice.

He intoned a blessing. Heard the response. Gave the next call.

He’d become quite good, he realized, at not noticing. At shutting out unpleasantness.

His vow of silence had been expanded to include a vow of deafness. Much longer and he’d be completely senseless.

Standing perfectly still, he surrendered to God.

Then Dom Philippe sang, in a voice no longer young and vigorous but still filled with adoration, the next line of the prayer.

And heard the pounding on the gate, as though in response.

“Lord have mercy,” he sang.

Pounding.

“Christ have mercy.”

Pounding.

“Holy Trinity, have mercy on him.”

Pounding.

The abbot’s mind went blank. For the first time in decades, after hundreds, thousands of services, his mind went blank.

The peace of Christ, the grace of God had been replaced. By pounding.

Pounding.

Like a giant metronome.

Pounding at the gate.

The monks, lined up on either side of him, looked. At him.

For guidance.

Oh, God, help me, he prayed. What should I do?

The pounding wouldn’t stop, he realized. It had taken on a rhythm. A dead, repetitive thumping. As though a machine was doing it.

Bang. Bang. Bang.

It would go on forever. Until …

Until it was answered.

The abbot did something he’d never, ever done before. Not as a novice, not in all his years as a monk, and now as abbot. The thousands of services he’d celebrated. He’d never once left.

But he did now. He bowed to the cross, then turning his back on his congregation, he walked off the altar.

His heart was pounding too, but much faster than the banging at the gate. He could feel perspiration beneath his robes. They felt heavy as he walked down the long aisle.

Past that Superintendent of the Sûreté, with his clever eyes and clever face.

Past the young Inspector, who seemed so anxious to be anywhere other than where he was.

Past the Chief Inspector, who listened so closely, as though trying to find answers not just for the crime, but for himself.