Cruelest Month

‘So pity is the near enemy of compassion,’ said Gamache slowly, mulling it over.

‘That’s right. It looks like compassion, acts like compassion, but is actually the opposite of it. And as long as pity’s in place there’s not room for compassion. It destroys, squeezes out, the nobler emotion.’

‘Because we fool ourselves into believing we’re feeling one, when we’re actually feeling the other.’

‘Fool ourselves, and fool others,’ said Myrna.

‘And love and attachment?’ asked Gamache.

‘Mothers and children are classic examples. Some mothers see their job as preparing their kids to live in the big old world. To be independent, to marry and have children of their own. To live wherever they choose and do what makes them happy. That’s love. Others, and we all see them, cling to their children. Move to the same city, the same neighborhood. Live through them. Stifle them. Manipulate, use guilt-trips, cripple them.’

‘Cripple them? How?’

‘By not teaching them to be independent.’

‘But it’s not just mothers and children,’ said Gamache.

‘No. It’s friendships, marriages. Any intimate relationship. Love wants the best for others. Attachment takes hostages.’

Gamache nodded. He’d seen his share of those. Hostages weren’t allowed to escape, and when they tried tragedy followed.

‘And the last?’ He leaned forward again. ‘What was it?’

‘Equanimity and indifference. I think that’s the worst of the near enemies, the most corrosive. Equanimity is balance. When something overwhelming happens in our lives we feel it strongly but we also have an ability to overcome it. You must have seen it. People who somehow survive the loss of a child or a spouse. As a psychologist I saw it all the time. Unbelievable grief and sorrow. But deep down inside people find a core. That’s called equanimity. An ability to accept things and move on.’

Gamache nodded. He’d been deeply affected by families who’d risen above the murder of a loved one. Some had even been able to forgive.

‘How’s that like indifference?’ he asked, not seeing the connection.

‘Think about it. All those stoic people. Stiff upper lip. Calm in the face of tragedy. And some really are that brave. But some,’ she lowered her voice even more, ‘are psychotic. They just don’t feel pain. And you know why?’

Gamache was silent. Beside him the storm threw itself against the leaded glass as though desperate to interrupt their conversation. Hail hammered the glass and snow plastered itself there, blotting out the village beyond until it felt as though he and Myrna were in a world all their own.

‘They don’t care about others. They don’t feel like the rest of us. They’re like the Invisible Man, wrapped in the trappings of humanity, but beneath there’s emptiness.’

Gamache felt his own skin grow cold and he knew goose bumps had sprung up on his arms under his jacket.

‘The problem is telling one from another,’ Myrna whispered, straining to keep an eye on the grocer. ‘People with equanimity are unbelievably brave. They absorb the pain, feel it fully, and let it go. And you know what?’

‘What?’ Gamache whispered.

‘They look exactly like people who don’t care at all, who are indifferent. Cool, calm and collected. We revere it. But who’s brave, and who’s the near enemy?’

Gamache leaned back in his seat, warmed by the fire. The enemy, he knew then, was near.

Agents Lacoste and Lemieux had left for the day and Inspector Beauvoir was alone in the Incident Room. Except for Nichol. She was hunched over her computer, her pasty face looking like something dead.

The clock said six. Time to go. He picked up his leather coat and opened the door. Then closed it quickly.

‘Holy shit.’

‘What?’ Nichol wandered over. Beauvoir stepped back and invited her to open the door. She looked at him with suspicion then quickly did so.

A blast of ice-cold rain hit her, and something else. As she leaped further back she noticed something bouncing. Hail. Fucking hail? The door was banging now in the wind and as she reached to shut it she noticed snow swirling in the light as well.

Fucking snow?

Rain, hail and snow? Where’re the frogs?

Just then a phone rang. It was the tinny tune of a cell phone. A familiar tune, but not one Beauvoir could place. It certainly wasn’t his. He looked at Nichol who finally had some blood in her face. She looked made up by a vindictive mortician, great red splotches on her cheeks and forehead. The rest remained waxy.

‘I believe your phone is ringing.’

‘Not mine. Lacoste must have left hers.’

‘It’s yours.’ Beauvoir stepped toward her. He had a pretty good idea who would be on the other end of the line. ‘Answer it.’

‘It’s a wrong number.’

‘If you won’t I will.’ He advanced on her and she backed up.

‘No. I’ll get it.’ She opened it slowly, obviously hoping the ringing would stop before she had to hit the button. But the phone kept ringing. Beauvoir advanced. Nichol jumped back but wasn’t quick enough. In a flash Beauvoir had grabbed the phone.

‘Bonjour?’ he said.

The line was dead.