A Trick of the Light

Clara looked from him to the glasses then back to Olivier. A slight breeze picked at his thinning blond hair. Even with an apron around his slender body he managed to look sophisticated and relaxed. But Clara remembered the look they’d exchanged while kneeling in the corridor of the Musée d’Art Contemporain.

“That was fast,” she said.

“Well, they were actually meant for someone else, but I judged it was an emergency.”

“That obvious?” smiled Clara.

“Hard not to be, when a body appears at your place. I know.”

“Yes,” said Clara. “You do know.”

Olivier indicated the bench on the village green and they walked over to it. Clara dropped the heavy newspapers and they hit the bench with a thump, as did she.

Clara accepted a shandy from Olivier and they sat side-by-side, their backs to the bistro, to the people, to the crime scene. To the searching eyes and averted eyes.

“How’re you doing?” asked Olivier. He’d almost asked if she was all right, but of course she wasn’t.

“I wish I could say. Lillian alive in our back garden would have been a shock, but Lillian dead is inconceivable.”

“Who was she?”

“A friend from long ago. But no longer a friend. We had a falling out.”

Clara didn’t say more, and Olivier didn’t ask. They sipped their drinks and sat in the shade of the three huge pine trees that soared over them, over the village.

“How was it seeing Gamache again?” asked Clara.

Olivier paused to consider, then he smiled. He looked boyish and young. Far younger than his thirty-eight years. “Not very comfortable. Do you think he noticed?”

“I think it’s just possible,” said Clara, and squeezed Olivier’s hand. “You haven’t forgiven him?”

“Could you?”

Now it was Clara’s turn to pause. Not to reflect on her answer. She knew it. But on whether she should say it.

“We forgave you,” she finally said and hoped her tone was gentle enough, soft enough. That the words wouldn’t feel as barbed as they could. But still she felt Olivier stiffen, withdraw. Not physically, but there seemed an emotional step back.

“Have you?” he said at last. And his tone was soft too. It wasn’t an accusation, more a wonderment. As though it was something he quietly asked himself every day.

Was he forgiven. Yet.

True, he hadn’t murdered the Hermit. But he’d betrayed him. Stolen from him. Taken everything the delusional recluse had offered. And some he hadn’t. Olivier had taken everything from the fragile old man. Including his freedom. Imprisoning him in the log cabin, with cruel words.

And when it had all come out, at his trial, he’d seen the looks on their faces.

As though they were suddenly staring at a stranger. A monster in their midst.

“What makes you think we haven’t forgiven you?” asked Clara.

“Well, Ruth for one.”

“Oh, come on,” laughed Clara. “She’s always called you a dick-head.”

“True. But you know what she calls me now?”

“What?” she asked with a grin.

“Olivier.”

Clara’s grin slowly faded.

“You know,” said Olivier, “I thought prison would be the worst. The humiliations, the terror. It’s amazing what you can get used to. Even now those memories are fading. No, not really fading, but they’re more in my head now. Not so much here.” He pressed his hand to his chest. “But you know what doesn’t go away?”

Clara shook her head and steeled herself. “Tell me.”

She didn’t want what Olivier was offering. Some scalded memory. Of a gay man in prison. A good man, in prison. God knew, he was flawed. More than most, perhaps. But his punishment had far outstripped the crime.

Clara didn’t think she could stand to hear the best part of being in prison, and now she was about to hear the worst. But he had to tell it. And Clara had to listen.

“It’s not the trial, not even prison.” Olivier looked at her with sad eyes. “Do you know what wakes me up at two in the morning with a panic attack?”

Clara waited, feeling her own heart pounding.

“It was here. After I’d been released. It was walking from the car with Beauvoir and Gamache. That long walk across the snow to the bistro.”

Clara stared at her friend, not quite understanding. How could the memory of coming home to Three Pines possibly be more frightening than being locked behind bars?

She remembered that day clearly. It had been a Sunday afternoon in February. Another crisp, cold winter day. She and Myrna and Ruth and Peter and most of the village had been snug inside the bistro, having café au laits and talking. She’d been chatting with Myrna when she’d noticed Gabri had grown uncharacteristically quiet and was staring out the windows. Then she’d looked. Children were skating on the pond, playing a pick-up game of hockey. Other kids were tobogganing, having snowball fights, building forts. Down rue du Moulin she saw the familiar Volvo drive slowly into Three Pines. It parked by the village green. Three men, wrapped in heavy parkas, got out of the vehicle. They paused, then slowly walked the few paces to the bistro.