The Brutal Telling

“She looks a bit like you,” came the voice beside Clara.



“You think so?” said Clara, far from convinced it was a compliment.



The woman was in her sixties. Beautifully dressed. Poised and composed. Elegant.



“I’m Thérèse Brunel.” The woman reached out her hand. When Clara continued to look perplexed she added, “Superintendent Brunel. Of the Sûreté du Québec.”



“Of course. Forgive me. You were in Three Pines with Armand Gamache.”



“Is that your work?” She nodded toward the portfolio.



“Photographs of it, yes.”



“May I see?”



Clara opened the portfolio and the Sûreté officer looked through, smiling, commenting, drawing in breath occasionally. But she stopped at one picture. It was of a joyous woman facing forward but looking back.



“She’s beautiful,” said Thérèse. “Someone I’d like to know.”



Clara hadn’t said anything. Just waited. And after a minute her companion blinked then smiled and looked at Clara.



“It’s quite startling. She’s full of Grace, but something’s just happened, hasn’t it?”



Still Clara remained silent, staring at the reproduction of her own work.



Thérèse Brunel went back to looking at it too. Then she inhaled sharply and looked at Clara. “The Fall. My God, you’ve painted the Fall. That moment. She’s not even aware of it, is she? Not really, but she sees something, a hint of the horror to come. The Fall from Grace.” Thérèse grew very quiet, looking at this lovely, blissful woman. And that tiny, nearly invisible awareness.



Clara nodded. “Yes.”



Thérèse looked at her more closely. “But there’s something else. I know what it is. It’s you, isn’t it? She’s you.”



Clara nodded.



After a moment Thérèse whispered so that Clara wasn’t even sure the words had been spoken aloud. Maybe it was the wind. “What are you afraid of?”



Clara waited a long time to speak, not because she didn’t know the answer, but because she’d never said it out loud. “I’m afraid of not recognizing Paradise.”



There was a pause. “So am I,” said Superintendent Brunel.



She wrote a number and handed it to Clara. “I’m going to make a call when I get back to my office. Here’s my number. Call me this afternoon.”



Clara had, and to her amazement the elegant woman, the police officer, had arranged for the Chief Curator at the Musée d’art contemporain in Montreal to see the portfolio.



That had been weeks ago. A lot had happened since. Chief Inspector Gamache had arrested Olivier for murder. Everyone knew that had been a mistake. But as the evidence grew so did their doubts. As all of this was happening Clara had taken her work into the MAC. And now they’d asked for a meeting.



“They won’t say no,” said Peter, speeding along the autoroute. “I’ve never known a gallery to invite an artist to a meeting to turn him down. It’s good news, Clara. Great news. Way better than anything Fortin could have done for you.”



And Clara dared to think that was true.



As he drove Peter thought about the painting on his own easel. The one he now knew was finished. As was his career. On the white canvas Peter had painted a large black circle, almost, but not quite, closed. And where it might have closed he’d put dots.



Three dots. For infinity. For society.



Jean Guy Beauvoir was in the basement of his home looking down at the ragged strips of paper. Upstairs he could hear Enid preparing lunch.



He’d gone to the basement every chance he got in the last few weeks. He’d flip the game on the television then sit with his back to the TV. At his desk. Mesmerized by the scraps of paper. He’d hoped the mad old poet had written the whole thing on a single sheet of paper and simply torn it into strips so he could fit them together like a jigsaw puzzle. But, no, the pieces of paper wouldn’t fit together. He had to find the meaning in the words.



Beauvoir had lied to the Chief. He didn’t do it often, and he had no idea why he’d done it this time. He’d told the Chief he’d thrown them all out, all the stupid words Ruth had tacked onto his door, shoved into his pocket. Given others to give to him.



He’d wanted to throw them out, but even more than that he’d wanted to know what they meant. It was almost hopeless. Perhaps the Chief could decipher it, but poetry had always been a big fat pile of crap to Beauvoir. Even when presented with it whole. How could he ever assemble a poem?