A Trick of the Light

Clara followed his sharp gaze. It ended at Armand Gamache.

“So,” said the curator, putting her arm around Clara’s waist. “Who do you know?”

Before Clara could answer, the woman was pointing out various people in the crowded room.

“You probably know them.” She nodded to the middle-aged couple behind Beauvoir. They seemed riveted by Clara’s painting of the Three Graces. “Husband and wife team. Normand and Paulette. He draws the works and she does the fine detailing.”

“Like the Renaissance masters, working as a team.”

“Sort of,” said the curator. “More like Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Very rare to find a couple of artists so in sync. They’re actually very good. And I see they adore your painting.”

Clara did know them, and suspected “adore” wasn’t the word they themselves would use.

“Who’s that?” Clara asked, pointing to the distinguished man beside Gamache.

“Francois Marois.”

Clara’s eyes widened and she looked around the crowded room. Why was there no stampede to speak to the prominent art dealer? Why was Armand Gamache, who wasn’t even an artist, the only one speaking to Monsieur Marois? If these vernissages were for one thing it wasn’t to celebrate the artist. It was to network. And there was no greater catch than Francois Marois. Then she realized few in the room probably even knew who he was.

“As you know, he almost never comes to shows, but I gave him one of the catalogs and he thought your works were fabulous.”

“Really?”

Even allowing for the translation from “art” fabulous to “normal people” fabulous, it was a compliment.

“Francois knows everyone with money and taste,” said the curator. “This really is a coup. If he likes your works, you’re made.” The curator peered more closely. “I don’t know the man he’s talking to. Probably some professor of art history.”

Before Clara could say the man wasn’t a professor she saw Marois turn from the portrait to Armand Gamache. A look of shock on his face.

Clara wondered what he’d just seen. And what it meant.

“Now,” said the curator, pointing Clara in the opposite direction. “Andre Castonguay over there’s another catch.” Across the room Clara saw a familiar figure on the Quebec art scene. Where Francois Marois was private and retiring, Andre Castonguay was ever-present, the eminence grise of Quebec art. Slightly younger than Marois, slightly taller, slightly heavier, Monsieur Castonguay was surrounded by rings of people. The inner circle was made up of critics from various powerful newspapers. Radiating out from there were rings of lesser gallery owners and critics. And finally, in the outer circle, were the artists.

They were the satellites and Andre Castonguay the sun.

“Let me introduce you.”

“Fabulous,” said Clara. In her head she translated that “fabulous” into what she really meant. Oh merde.

*   *   *

“Is it possible?” Francois Marois asked, searching Chief Inspector Gamache’s face.

Gamache looked at the older man, and smiling slightly he nodded.

Marois turned back to the portrait.

The din in the gallery was almost deafening as more and more guests crowded into the vernissage.

But Francois Marois had eyes for only one face. The disappointed elderly woman on the wall. So full of censure and despair.

“It’s Mary, isn’t it?” asked Marois, almost in a whisper.

Chief Inspector Gamache wasn’t sure the art dealer was talking to him, so he said nothing. Marois had seen what few others grasped.

Clara’s portrait wasn’t simply of an angry old woman. She’d in fact painted the Virgin Mary. Elderly. Abandoned by a world weary and wary of miracles. A world too busy to notice a stone rolled back. It had moved on to other wonders.

This was Mary in the final years. Forgotten. Alone.

Glaring out at a room filled with bright people sipping good wine. And walking right by her.

Except for Francois Marois, who now tore his eyes from the painting to look at Gamache once again.

“What has Clara done?” he asked quietly.

Gamache was silent for a moment, gathering his thoughts before answering.

*   *   *

“Hello, numb nuts.” Ruth Zardo slipped a thin arm through Jean Guy Beauvoir’s. “Tell me how you are.”

It was a command. Few had the fortitude to ignore Ruth. But then, few were ever asked how they were, by Ruth.

“I’m doing well.”