Bury Your Dead

The Wife stared at Marc and Clara could see a flush spreading up her neck. Marc smiled, turned on his heels, and left.

“I’m sorry—” Dominique started to say to The Wife.

“It’s all right, he has a point actually. Old worships your father-in-law. I think he sees him as a sort of surrogate grandfather for Charles.”

“His own father doesn’t visit?”

“No. He died when Old was a teenager.”

“Must have been a fairly young man when he died,” said Myrna. “An accident?”

“He walked out onto the river one spring. The ice wasn’t as solid as he thought.”

She left it at that and it was far enough. Everyone in the room knew what must have happened. The cracking underfoot, the web of lines, the man looking down. Stopping. Standing still.

How far away the shore must seem when you’re on thin ice.

“Did they ever find him?” Myrna asked.

The Wife shook her head. “I think that’s the worst. Old’s mother’s still waiting for him.”

“Oh, God,” moaned Clara.

“Does Old?” Myrna asked.

“Think he’s still alive? No, thank God, but he doesn’t think it was an accident.”

Neither did Clara. It sounded deliberate to her. Everyone knew that walking on ice in spring was courting death.

And sure enough, the ice had broken under the father, as he knew it would, but his son had also lost his footing that day. And Vincent Gilbert had righted him. The Asshole Saint had stepped in and was helping Charlie, and helping Old. But at what cost?

Was that what she’d heard a few minutes ago in Marc Gilbert’s voice? Not sarcasm, but a small crack?

“What about you Clara?” Dominique asked, pouring more tea. “Are your parents still alive?”

“My father is. My mother died a few years ago.”

“Do you miss her?”

There was a question, thought Clara. Do I miss her?

“At times. She had Alzheimer’s at the end.” Seeing their faces she hurried to reassure them. “No, no. Strangely enough the last few years were some of our best.”

“When she was demented?” asked Dominique. “I begin to see why they called you Poo.”

Clara laughed. “It was actually a bit of a miracle. She forgot everything, her address, her sisters. She forgot Dad, she even forgot us. But she also forgot to be angry. It was wonderful,” Clara smiled. “Such a relief. She couldn’t remember her long list of grievances. She actually became a delightful person.”

She’d forgotten to love, but she also forgot to hate. It was a trade-off Clara was happy to accept.

The women in the room chatted about love, about childhood, about losing parents, about Mr. Spock, about good books they’d read.

They mothered each other. And by lunch they were ready to meet the winter’s day. As Clara walked home, scone crumbs in her hair, the taste of chamomile on her lips, she thought of Old’s father, frozen in time. And the look on Marc Gilbert’s face as the crack had appeared.

Armand Gamache sat in the Paillard bakery on rue St-Jean and stared at Augustin Renaud’s diary. Henri was curled up under the table while outside people were trudging head down through the snow and the cold.

How could Chiniquy, the fallen priest, and Augustin Renaud, the amateur archeologist be connected? Gamache stared at Renaud’s excited markings, the exclamation marks, the swirls around the names of the four men. Chin, JD, Patrick, O’Mara. Swirls of ink so forceful the pen had almost ripped the paper. And below the entry were the catalog numbers.

9-8499

9-8572

Almost certainly the numbers related to books sold by the Literary and Historical Society and, equally certainly, they were from the lot donated by Chiniquy’s housekeeper and left in their boxes in the basement for more than a century.

Until Augustin Renaud had bought them from the secondhand bookseller, Alain Doucet. In two lots. First in the summer, then the last lot just a few weeks ago.

What was in those books?

What did Chiniquy have that excited Augustin Renaud?

Gamache took a sip of hot chocolate.

It had to have something to do with Champlain, and yet the priest had shown absolutely no interest in the founder of Québec.

Chin, Patrick, O’Mara, JD. 18-something.

If Chiniquy was ninety when he died in 1899, that meant he was born in 1809. Could the number be 1809? Or 1899? Maybe. But where did that leave him?

Nowhere.

His eyes narrowed.

He looked at 1809 closely then snapping his notebook shut he drained his drink, put money on the table then he and Henri hurried into the cold. Taking long strides he saw the Basilica getting larger and larger as he approached.

At the corner he paused, in his own world, where snow and biting cold couldn’t touch him. A world where Champlain was recently dead and buried, then reburied.

A world of clues over the centuries, as buried as the body.

He turned and walked briskly up des Jardins, stopping in front of the beautiful old door, with the wrought-iron numerals.

1809.

He rapped and waited. Now he felt the cold and beside him Henri leaned against his legs for warmth and comfort. Gamache was about to turn away when the door opened a crack, then all the way.