The Beautiful Mystery (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #8)

After a minute or so of silence, Gamache heard a sound. It seemed quite far off, and he wondered if a plane was approaching again. It was a haunting sort of hum.

Then he realized it wasn’t coming from outside at all. But inside.

The sound was coming from Frère Simon.

What started as a drone, a hum, a note hanging in the air, turned into something else. With a swoop, the note descended and seemed to play in the lower registers before leaping back up. Not a jagged leap, but a soft soar.

It seemed to sweep into Gamache’s chest and surround his heart, then take it along for the ride. Higher and higher. But never precipitous, never dangerous. Never did Gamache feel the music, or his heart, were about to come crashing down.

There was a certainty, a confidence. A lilting joy.

Words had replaced the hum, and now Frère Simon was singing. Gamache, of course, couldn’t understand the Latin, and yet, he felt he understood completely.

Frère Simon’s clear, calm, rich tenor held the notes, the nonsensical words, like a lover. There was no judgment there, just acceptance, in the voice and in the music.

And then, the final note descended to the earth. Softly, gently. A tender landing.

And the voice stopped. But the music stayed with Gamache. More a feeling than a memory. He wanted that feeling back. That levity. Wanted to ask Frère Simon to please keep going, to never stop.

The Chief realized there was no sign of “Camptown Races.” It had been replaced by this brief, but glorious, burst of song.

Even Frère Simon seemed surprised by what he’d just produced.

Gamache knew he’d be humming this beautiful tune for a long time to come. The doo-dahs had been replaced with I can’t hear you. I have a banana in my ear.

*   *   *

Beauvoir tossed a rock into the water, as far from the shore as he could heave it.

No skipping of flat stones. He chose another heavy rock, hefted it in his hand, then cocked his arm back and threw.

The rock arched away and landed in the water with a plop.

Beauvoir stood on the shore, strewn with water-rounded pebbles and stones and clamshells, and looked into the clear, clean lake. The waves he’d created washed ashore, breaking over the pebbles in tiny white caps. Like a miniature world, inundated by an unexpected tidal wave. Of Beauvoir’s making.

After his encounter with Francoeur he needed fresh air.

Frère Bernard, the wild blueberry monk, had mentioned a path. Beauvoir found it and started walking, though he didn’t take in much of his surroundings. Instead he was squirreling away in his head. Going over the few words he’d had with Francoeur.

And what he should have said. Could have said. The clever, cutting remarks he might have made.

But after a few minutes his furious thinking and his furious pace slowed, and he realized this path hugged the coastline. The shore here was strewn with boulders. And blueberry bushes.

He slowed to a normal walk, then a stroll, then finally he stopped on a small, stony peninsula that jutted into the remote lake. Huge birds swooped and glided overhead, never seeming to flap their wings.

Beauvoir removed his shoes and socks, rolled up his pant legs and put his big toe into the lake. Then quickly brought it out again. It was so cold it scalded. He tried again, until, millimeter by millimeter, both his feet were in the freezing water. They’d grown used to it. It constantly amazed him what you could get used to. Especially if you went numb.

He sat quietly for a minute, picking and eating tiny wild blueberries from a nearby bush, and trying not to think.

And when he did think, what came to mind was Annie. He took out his BlackBerry. There was a message from her. He read it, smiling.

It talked about her day at the law office. A funny little story about an Internet mix-up. Trivial, but Beauvoir read every word twice. Imagining her bafflement, the crossed communications, the happy resolution. She told him how much she missed him. And loved him.

Then he wrote back, describing where he was. Telling her they were making progress. He hesitated before hitting send, knowing while he hadn’t exactly lied, neither had he told her the complete truth. Of how he was feeling. His confusion, his anger. It seemed both directed at Francoeur and undirected. He was mad at Frère Raymond, mad at the monks, mad at being in the monastery instead of with Annie. Mad at the silence, broken by interminable masses.

Mad at himself for letting Francoeur get under his skin.

Mostly he was mad at Superintendent Francoeur.

But he told Annie none of that. Instead, he ended his message with a smiley face and hit send.

Wiping his feet off with his sweater, he put his socks and shoes back on.