Cruelest Month

Had no one called Odile from Three Pines? Everyone had converged on Olivier’s Bistro to get the latest news. It was their broadcast center, with Gabri as the anchor. Beauvoir had found himself interviewing the only person in the area no one thought to call. Beauvoir felt suddenly very sorry for this woman and her eager, searching face. He felt sorry for her and slightly repulsed. Losers always repulsed him which was one of the reasons he’d never liked Agent Nichol. From the moment he’d met her a few years earlier he’d known she wasn’t just trouble, but worse than that. She was a loser. And in Beauvoir’s experience losers were the most dangerous people. Because eventually they got to the stage where they had nothing more to lose.

‘It’s called ephedra,’ he said.

She seemed to consider the word. ‘And it stopped her heart? Why would someone kill her that way?’

Not ‘why would someone kill her?’ but ‘why do it that way?’ It was the way, not the woman, that seemed to surprise Odile.

‘How well did you know Madame Favreau?’

‘She was a customer. Used to buy her fruit and vegetables here. There were some vitamins she’d pick up too.’

‘A good customer?’

‘Regular. She’d come about once a week.’

‘Did you see each other socially?’

‘Never. Why?’ Did she seem defensive?

‘Well, you had dinner together Sunday night.’

‘That’s true, but it wasn’t our idea. Clara invited us over before the séance. We didn’t even know Madeleine would be there.’

‘Would you have gone had you known?’ Beauvoir knew he was on to something. Could feel it. Could see the defensiveness in her face, could hear it in her tone.

Odile hesitated. ‘Probably. I didn’t have anything against Madeleine. As I said, she was a customer.’

‘But you didn’t like her.’

‘I didn’t know her.’

Beauvoir let the silence stretch. Then he looked around the shop more closely. It was a jumble of items. Food and produce seemed to be on one side and clothing and furniture on the other. On the food side he could see clay pots with wooden lids and scoops hanging from them. He could see coarse sacks and on the wooden shelves climbing the walls were hundreds of glass jars filled with what looked like grass. Could they be dope? He walked closer, noticing Odile staring at him, and peered at the jars. They had names like ‘Bee Balm’ and ‘Ma Huang’ and ‘Beggar’s Button’ and his favorite, ‘Cardinal Monkeyflower’. He took it down and opening the lid he sniffed tentatively. It smelled sweet. He couldn’t believe the Pope had ordained a Cardinal Monkeyflower. He wondered if there was a village named after him near Notre-Dame-de-Roof Trusses.

A bookcase held volumes on how to run a small organic farm, how to build an off-grid home, how to do your own weaving. Why would anyone want to do that?

Jean Guy Beauvoir wasn’t completely insensitive to the environmentalist movement, and had even contributed to a few fundraisers on the ozone layer or global warming or something. But to choose to live a primitive life, thinking that would save the world, was ridiculous. However, one thing did attract him. A simple wooden chair. Its wood was burled and polished and smooth to the touch. Beauvoir caressed it and didn’t want to lift his hand. He looked at it for a long while.

‘Try it,’ said Odile, still stationed behind the counter.

Beauvoir looked back at the chair. It was deep and inviting, like an armchair, only wood.

‘It’ll hold you, don’t worry.’

He wished she’d stop talking. Just let him enjoy looking at this marvelous piece of furniture. It was like a work of art he actually understood.

‘Gilles made it.’ She interrupted his thoughts again.

‘Gilles Sandon? From here?’

She smiled cheerily. ‘Yes. My Gilles. That’s what he does.’

‘I thought he worked in the woods.’

‘Finding trees to make furniture.’

‘He finds his own trees?’

‘Actually, he says they find him. He goes for walks in the woods and listens. When a tree calls him he goes to it.’

Beauvoir stared at her. She’d said this as though that’s what Ikea did too. As though it was perfectly natural and normal to hear trees, never mind listen to them. He looked back at the chair.

Are they all nuts? wondered Beauvoir. The chair no longer spoke to him.

   TWENTY-TWO

Agent Robert Lemieux waited his turn at Monsieur Béliveau’s general store. At first he thought he’d find a dépanneur, filled with junk food, cigarettes, cheap beer and wine, odds and ends people suddenly found they needed, like envelopes and candles for cake. But instead he found a real grocery store. One his grand-mère would have recognized. The dark wood shelves held neatly displayed cans of vegetables and preserves, cereals and pastas and jams and jellies, soups and crackers. All good quality, all neat and orderly. No overcrowding, no gluttony. The floors were scuffed but clean linoleum and a fan moved slowly round on the tongue-in-groove ceiling.