by Louise Penny
As she spoke Saul mouthed the words, lip-synching to the familiar tune.
‘CC Das, he said, you above all others know that when the chakras are in alignment all is white. And when all is white, all is right.’
Saul wondered whether she was confusing an Indian mystic with a KKK member. Ironic, really, if she was.
‘You must go back into the world, he said. It would be wrong to keep you here any longer. You must start a company and call it Be Calm. So I did. And that’s also why I wrote the book. To spread the spiritual word. People need to know. They’ve got it all wrong with all those flaky sects just out to take advantage of them. I needed to tell them about Li Bien.’
‘Now, I get confused,’ Saul said, enjoying the flush of anger this always produced. CC was predictable in the extreme. She hated anyone suggesting her ideas were in any way muddled. ‘Was it Ramen Das who told you about Li Bien?’
‘No, you idiot. Ramen Das was in India. Li Bien is an ancient oriental philosophy, passed down through my family.’
‘Of ancient Chinese philosophers?’ If he wasn’t long for this relationship he might as well get his licks in. Besides, it would make a funny story to tell later. Ward off the insipient dullness of his conversation. He’d make CC a laughing stock.
She clicked her tongue and huffed. ‘You know my family’s from France. France has a long and noble history of colonialism in the East.’
‘Oh, yes. Vietnam.’
‘Exactly. Being diplomats my family brought back some of the ancient spiritual teachings, including Li Bien. I’ve told you all this. Weren’t you listening? Besides, it’s in the book. Haven’t you read it?’
She threw it at him and he ducked but not before he felt a sting on his arm as it bit him on the way by.
‘Of course I’ve read your fucking book. I’ve read it and read it.’ He used all his effort not to call it the load of crap he knew it to be. ‘I know this story. Your mother painted a Li Bien ball and now it’s the only thing you have left from her.’
‘Not just from her, you asshole. From my whole family.’ Now she was hissing. He’d wanted to anger her but he’d had no idea what he’d unleashed. He suddenly felt two feet tall, an infant cowering as she rose and blocked the sun, blocked all the light from him. He shrank and withered and hunched. Inside. On the outside the grown man stood stock-still, staring. And wondered what had produced such a monster.
CC wanted to rip his arms out. Wanted to pluck his bulging eyes from their sockets, wanted to tear the flesh from his bones. She felt a power growing and aching in her chest and radiating out like a sun gone nova. Her hands strained to feel his heart throbbing in the veins of his neck as she throttled him. And she could. Even though he was bigger and heavier, she could do it. When she felt like this she knew nothing could stop her.
After a lunch of poached salmon and gigot d’agneau Clara and Myrna had split up to do their Christmas shopping. But first Clara was heading off in search of Siegfried Sassoon.
‘You’re going to a bookstore?’ asked Myrna.
‘Of course not. I’m going to have my hair done.’ Really, Myrna had grown quite out of touch.
‘By Siegfried Sassoon?’
‘Not him personally, but someone in his salon.’
‘Or his unit. I understand it’s the hell where youth and laughter go.’
Clara had seen pictures of the Sassoon salons and thought that while Myrna’s description was a little dramatic it wasn’t that far off, judging by the pouting, unhappy women in the photos.
A few hours later, struggling along rue Ste-Catherine, mittened hands grasping the ropes of bags overflowing with gifts, Clara was exhausted and pleased. Her buying spree had gone brilliantly. She’d bought Peter the perfect gift, and smaller items for family and friends. Myrna was right. Jane would be having fun watching her spend the money. And Myrna had also been right, though cryptic, about the Sassoon thing.
‘Nylons? Hershey bar?’ The lyrical, warm voice came up behind her.
‘I was just thinking of you, you traitor. You sent me out into the mean streets of Montreal to ask strangers where I could find Siegfried Sassoon.’
Myrna was leaning against an old bank building, shaking with laughter.
‘I don’t know whether to be upset or relieved that no one knew I wanted a dead poet from the Great War to do my hair. Why didn’t you tell me it was Vidal not Siegfried?’ Now Clara was laughing too, and dropped her bags onto the snowy sidewalk.
‘It looks great,’ said Myrna, stepping back to survey Clara, her laughter finally subsiding.
‘I’m wearing a tuque, you moron,’ said Clara and both women laughed again as Clara pulled the knitted pompom hat down over her ears.
It was hard not to feel light-hearted in that atmosphere. It was close to four o’clock on 22 December and the sun had set. Now the streets of Montreal, always full of charm, were also full of Christmas lights. Up and down rue Ste-Catherine decorations glowed, the light bouncing off the snowdrifts. Cars crawled by, caught in the rush-hour snag, and pedestrians hurried along the snowy sidewalks, occasionally stopping to look in a bright shop window.
Just ahead was their destination. Ogilvy’s. And the window. Even from half a block away Clara could see the glow, and the magic reflected on the faces of the children staring up at it. Now the cold vanished, the crowds, elbowing and nudging moments before, disappeared; even Myrna receded as Clara approached the window. There it was. The Mill in the Forest.
‘I’ll meet you in there,’ Myrna whispered, but her friend had gone. Into the window Clara had climbed. Past the enraptured children in front, over the pile of clothing on the snowy sidewalk and right into the idyllic Christmas scene. She was walking over the wooden bridge now, toward the grandma bear in the wooden mill house.
‘Spare some change? L’argent, s’il vous plaît?’
A spewing sound cut into Clara’s world.
‘Oh, gross. Mommy,’ a child cried as Clara tore her eyes from the window and looked down. The pile of clothing had thrown up, the vomit gently steaming on the crusted blanket wrapped round him. Or her. Clara didn’t know, and didn’t care. She was annoyed that she’d waited all year, all week, all day for this moment and some bum on the street had vomited all over it. And now the kids were all crying and the magic had gone.
Clara backed away from the window, and looked around for Myrna. She must have gone inside, Clara realized, and already be at the big event. It wasn’t just the window that had brought them to Ogilvy’s this day. A fellow villager and good friend, Ruth Zardo, was launching her latest book in the basement bookstore.
Normally Ruth’s slim volumes of poetry were slipped to an oblivious public following a launch at the bistro in Three Pines. But something astounding had happened. This elderly, wizened, bitter poet from Three Pines had won the Governor-General’s Award. Surprised the hell out of everyone. Not because she didn’t deserve it. Clara knew her poems were stunning.
Who hurt you once so far beyond repair
that you would greet each overture with curling lip?
It was not always so.
No, Ruth Zardo deserved the prize. It was just shocking that anyone else knew it.
Will that happen with my art? Clara wondered as she swooshed through the revolving doors into the perfumed and muted atmosphere of Ogilvy’s. Am I about to be plucked out of obscurity? She’d finally found the courage to give her work to their new neighbor, CC de Poitiers, after she’d overheard her talking in the bistro about her close personal friend, Denis Fortin.
To have a show at the Galerie Fortin in the Outremont quartier of Montreal was to have arrived. He chose only the very best, the most cutting edge, the most profound and daring of artists. And he was connected worldwide. Even…dare she think it? The Museum of Modern Art in New York. The MOMA. MOMA mia.
Clara imagined herself at the vernissage at Galerie Fortin. She’d be sparkling and witty, the center of awed attention, lesser artists and major critics hanging on he
r every insightful word. Peter would be standing slightly outside the circle of admirers, watching with a small smile. He’d be proud of her and finally see her as a fellow artist.
Crie sat on the snowy steps of Miss Edward’s School. It was dark now. Inside and out. She stared ahead, unseeing, the snow accumulating on her hat and shoulders. At her side was a bag containing her snowflake costume. Stuffed into it was her report card.
Straight As.
Her teachers had tsked and shaken their heads and bemoaned the fact that such brains had been wasted on someone so damaged. A crying shame, one of them had said and all had laughed at the witticism. Except Crie, who happened to be walking by.
The teachers all agreed they’d have to have a stern talk to whoever it was who’d hurt her so badly she could barely talk or meet an eye.
Eventually Crie got up and began cautiously walking toward downtown Montreal, her balance thrown off by the slippery, steep sidewalks and near unbearable weight of the chiffon snowflake.
FOUR
As Clara walked through Ogilvy’s she wasn’t sure what was worse, the stink of the wretched bum or the cloying smell of the perfumeries in the department store. After about the fifth time some slim young thing had sprayed her Clara had her answer. She was offending even herself.
‘It’s about fuckin’ time.’ Ruth Zardo limped over to Clara. ‘You look like a bag lady.’ She gave and received a kiss on each cheek. ‘And you stink.’
‘It’s not me, it’s Myrna,’ Clara whispered and nodded to her friend nearby, waving her hand under her nose. It was actually a warmer reception than she generally got from the poet.
‘Here, buy that.’ Ruth handed her a copy of her new book, I’m FINE. ‘I’ll even sign it for you. But you have to buy it first.’
Tall and dignified, leaning on her cane for support, Ruth Zardo limped back to her small desk in a corner of the huge store, to wait for someone to ask her to sign her book.
Clara went off and paid for the book then had it signed. She recognized everyone in the room. There were Gabri Dubeau and his partner Olivier Brulé. Gabri large and soft and clearly going to pot and loving every mouthful of it. He was in his mid-thirties and had decided he’d had enough of being young and buff and gay. Well, not really enough of being gay. Beside him stood Olivier, handsome and slim and elegant. Blond to his partner’s dark, he was picking a distressing strand of hair from his silk turtleneck, clearly wishing he could stick it back in.
Ruth needn’t have bothered coming all the way to Montreal for the launch. The only people who showed up were from Three Pines.
‘This’s a waste of time,’ she said, her short-cropped white head bending over Clara’s book. ‘No one from Montreal came, not a goddamned person. Just you lot. What a bore.’
‘Well, thank you very much, you old hack,’ said Gabri, holding a couple of books in his large hands.
‘Great.’ Ruth looked up. ‘This is a bookstore,’ she said, very slowly and loudly. ‘It’s for people who can read. It’s not a public bath.’
‘Too bad, really.’ Gabri looked at Clara.
‘It’s Myrna,’ she said, but since Myrna was across the way chatting with Émilie Longpré her credibility was lost.
‘At least you drown out the stink of Ruth’s poetry,’ said Gabri, holding I’m FINE away from him.
‘Fag,’ snapped Ruth.
‘Hag,’ snapped Gabri, winking at Clara. ‘Salut, ma chère.’
‘Salut, mon amour. What’s that other book you have?’ Clara asked.
‘CC de Poitiers’s. Did you know our new neighbor’s written a book?’
‘God, that means she’s written more books than she’s read,’ said Ruth.
‘I got it over there.’ He pointed to a pile of white books in the remainder bin. Ruth snorted then stopped herself, realizing it was probably just a matter of days before her small collection of exquisitely crafted poems joined CC’s shit in that literary coffin.
A few people were standing there including the Three Graces from Three Pines: Émilie Longpré, tiny and elegant in a slim skirt, shirt and silk scarf; Kaye Thompson, at over ninety years of age the oldest of the three friends, wizened and shriveled, smelling of Vapo-rub and looking like a potato; and Beatrice Mayer, her hair red and wild, her body soft and plump, and ill-concealed beneath a voluminous amber caftan with chunky jewelry about the neck. Mother Bea, as she was known, held a copy of CC’s book. She turned and glanced in Clara’s direction, only for a moment. But it was enough.
Mother Bea looked overtaken by some emotion Clara couldn’t quite identify. Fury? Fear? Extreme concern of some sort, that much Clara was sure of. And then it was gone, replaced by Mother’s peaceful, cheery face, all pink and wrinkled and open.
‘Come on, let’s go over.’ Ruth struggled to her feet and took Gabri’s offered arm. ‘There’s nothing much happening here. When the inevitable hordes arrive, desperate for great poetry, I’ll race back to the table.’
‘Bonjour, dear.’ Tiny Émilie Longpré kissed Clara on both cheeks. In winter, when most Québecois looked like cartoon characters, wrapped in wool and parkas, Em managed to look both elegant and gracious. Her hair was dyed a tasteful light brown and was beautifully coiffed. Her clothes and make-up were subtle and appropriate. At eighty-two she was one of the matriarchs of the village.
‘Have you seen this?’ Olivier handed Clara a book. CC stared back, cruel and cold.
Be Calm.
Clara looked over at Mother. Now she understood why Mother Bea was in such a state.
‘Listen to this.’ Gabri started reading the back. ‘Ms de Poitiers has officially declared feng shui a thing of the past.’
‘Of course it is, it’s ancient Chinese teaching,’ said Kaye.
‘In its stead,’ Gabri persevered, ‘this new doyenne of design has brought us a much richer, much more meaningful philosophy which will inform and indeed color not just our homes but our very souls, our every moment, our every decision, our every breath. Make way for Li Bien, the way of light.’
‘What is Li Bien?’ Olivier asked no one in particular. Clara thought she saw Mother open her mouth, then shut it again.
‘Mother?’ she asked.
‘Me? No, dear, I don’t know. Why do you ask?’
‘I thought since you have a yoga and meditation center you might be familiar with Li Bien.’ Clara tried to put it gently.
‘I’m familiar with all spiritual paths,’ she said, exaggerating slightly, Clara thought. ‘But not this one.’ The implication was clear.
‘But still,’ said Gabri, ‘it’s a strange coincidence, don’t you think?’
‘What is?’ Mother asked, her voice and face serene, but her shoulders up round her ears.
‘Well, that CC should call her book Be Calm. That’s the name of your meditation center.’
There was silence.
‘What?’ said Gabri, knowing he’d somehow put his foot into it.
‘It must be a coincidence,’ said Émilie, evenly. ‘And it’s probably a tribute to you, ma belle.’ She turned to Mother, laying a thin hand on her friend’s plump arm. ‘She’s been in the old Hadley place for about a year now; she’s no doubt been inspired by the work you do. It’s a homage to your spirit.’
‘And her pile of crap is probably higher than yours,’ Kaye reassured her. ‘That must be a comfort. I didn’t think it was possible,’ she said to Ruth, who looked at her hero with delight.
‘Nice hair.’ Olivier turned to Clara, hoping to break the tension.
‘Thank you.’ Clara ran her hands through it, making it stand on end as though she’d just had a scare.
‘You’re right.’ Olivier turned to Myrna. ‘She looks like a frightened doughboy from the trenches of Vimy. Not many people could carry off that look. Very bold, very new millennium. I salute you.’
Clara narrowed her eyes and glared at Myrna whose smile went from ear to ear.
‘Fuck the Pope,’ said Kaye.
CC straightened the
chair again. She stood dressed and alone in the hotel room. Saul had left without a goodbye kiss offered or expected.
She was relieved to see him go. Now, finally, she could do it.
CC held a copy of Be Calm and stood at the window. Slowly she brought the book up to her chest and pressed it there as though it was the piece that had been missing all her life.
She tilted her head back and waited. Would this be the year they eluded her? But no. Her lower lip trembled slightly. Then her eyes fluttered and a small lump fizzed in her throat. And then they came, racing cold down her cheeks and into her now open, cavernous, silent mouth. And she tumbled down that dark chasm after them and found herself in a familiar room, at Christmas.
Her mother stood beside a long dead and undecorated pine tree propped in the corner of the stark, dark room, a sprinkling of sharp needles on the floor. A single ball hung on the tree and now her mother, hysterical and howling, yanked it off. CC could still hear the storm of needles hitting the floor and see the ball racing toward her. She hadn’t meant to catch it. Had only put her hands up to protect her face, but the ball had landed right in her palms, and stuck there, as though finding a home. Her mother was on the floor now, rocking and crying, and CC was desperate for her to stop. Desperate to shut her up, silence her, calm her before the neighbors called the police again and again her mother was taken away. And CC was left alone, in the company of strangers.
For an instant, though, CC hesitated and looked at the ball in her hands. It glowed and was warm to the touch. On it was painted a simple image. Three tall pine trees grouped together like a family, snow nestled on the bowing branches. Below it was written, in her mother’s hand, Noël.
CC leaned into the ball, losing herself in its peace and calm and light. But she must have looked too long. A banging on the door tore her away from the three pines and back to the horror in front of her.
‘What’s going on in there? Let us in,’ the man’s voice demanded from the other side of the door.
