A Great Reckoning (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, #12)

by Louise Penny

It was a careworn face. But most of the lines, if followed back like a trail, would lead to happiness. To the faces a face made when laughing or smiling, or sitting quietly enjoying the day. Though some of those lines led elsewhere. Into a wilderness, into the wild. Where terrible things had happened. Some of the lines of his face led to events inhuman and abominable. To horrific sights. To unspeakable acts. Some of them his. The lines of his face were the longitude and latitude of his life.

It is the chiefest point of happiness, she scribbled quickly, before the Commander could see, that a man is willing to be what he is.

“The Universe is change. Life is opinion.” “Really?” he said. “That’s not what I meant to say. I thought I said, Our life is what our thoughts make it.”

It was from some Buddhist nun. The other cadets had snickered at that, but Amelia had written it down. They were the very first words in the very first notebook. Don’t believe everything you think.

Sneak home and pray you’ll never know/the hell where youth and laughter go.”

“It’s too easy to feed the anger. Too cowardly to stoke the hate. You must look inside yourself and decide who you are and who you want to be. Character is not created in times like these. It’s revealed. This is a trying time. A testing time. Be careful.”

The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.

It was said with warmth, and yet Gamache thought he detected a subtext. Perhaps even a warning. Don’t believe everything you think, he reminded himself. But still …

“Matthew 10:36,” said Lacoste. “When he was head of homicide, it was one of the first lessons Gamache taught his agents.” “And a man’s foes shall be they of his own household,” said Beauvoir. Gélinas nodded. “And H. E. Charpentier would start in this household, to find the killer.” “I’d have thought that was obvious,” said Lacoste, getting up to go. “A household isn’t just a house,” said Gélinas. “There’s an intimacy implied in that quote. It speaks of someone close. Very close.”

So they’d tried it. At first it felt awkward, wrong. As though God would be offended if people took a meal in his house. Until they realized that the sacrilege wasn’t eating and talking and laughing in the chapel. It was leaving it empty.

The old poet didn’t sleep much anymore. Didn’t seem to need it. What she needed was time. She could see the shore ahead. A distance away still, she thought. But visible now.

“So you think Mayor Florent is a religious fanatic and God was his accomplice?” asked Beauvoir. “Now you just make it sound silly,” said Gélinas with a rueful smile, then he shook his head. “He might be a religious man, but I think if he killed Leduc, it was driven by hatred of the man and not love of God. I’ve learned never to underestimate hatred. There’s a madness that goes with it.”

Maintiens le droit. Defend the Law. Paul Gélinas had never been completely comfortable with that. He knew that law wasn’t always the same as justice. But it had the advantage of being fairly clear. Whereas justice could be fluid, situational. A matter of interpretation. And perception.

“A place’s history is decided by its geography. Is the terrain mountainous? If so, it’s harder to invade. The people are more independent, but also isolated. Is it surrounded by water? If so, it’s probably more cosmopolitan—”

“So what would you call a gathering of students?” asked Myrna. “A disappointment?” asked Ruth. “No, wait. That’s children. Now, students? What would you call a group of them?”

“A crowd of faults,” Ruth said with certainty. “That’s what they are.” Gamache made a guttural sound, somewhere between amusement and astonishment.

Perhaps, Ruth thought, because evil really was, in the words of Auden, unspectacular and always human. “And shares our bed,” she murmured. “And eats at our own table.” Gamache, who was beside her, turned slightly to the old poet. “And we are introduced to Goodness every day,” he whispered back. “Even in drawing-rooms among a crowd of faults.” She held his steady gaze while conversation flowed around and past them. “Do you know how it ends?” she asked quietly “This?” he whispered, nodding toward Gélinas. “No, the poem, you moron.” He grimaced and thought for a moment. “It is the Evil that is helpless like a lover,” he said haltingly, struggling to remember. “And has to pick a quarrel and succeeds—” “And both are openly destroyed before our eyes.” Ruth finished the poem. “That’s how it ends.”

She had painted robust youth. Made frail and vulnerable by fear. By the stupidity and cruelty and decisions of old men. The boy was afraid to die. And Amelia was afraid to live. But there was something else in that stare. In those eyes. Forgiveness.