by Louise Penny
Gabri, in his Victorian cape and top hat, led the carolers. He had a beautiful voice but longed for what he couldn’t have. Each year Ruth Zardo visited the bistro as Father Christmas, chosen, Gabri said, because she didn’t have to grow a special beard. Each year Gabri would climb onto her lap and ask for the voice of a boy soprano and each year Father Christmas offered to kick him in the Christmas balls.
Every Christmas Monsieur and Madame Vachon placed the old crèche on their front lawn, complete with the baby Jesus in a clawfoot bathtub surrounded by three wise men and plastic farm animals who slowly became buried under snow and emerged unchanged in spring, another miracle, though one not shared by every villager.
Billy Williams hitched his percherons to his bright red sleigh and took boys and girls round the village and into the snow-covered hills. The children crawled under the ratty bearskin rug and cradled hot chocolate while the dignified gray giants pulled them along in a manner so calm and measured it was as though they knew their cargo to be precious. Inside the bistro parents were granted the window seats where they could sip hot cider and watch their children disappear over rue du Moulin, then they’d turn back to the warm interior with its faded fabrics, mismatched furniture and open hearths.
Clara and Peter finished their decorations, putting up splays of pine branches in their kitchen to complement the huge Scotch pine in the living room. Their home, like everyone else’s, smelled of the forest.
All the presents were wrapped and placed under the tree. Clara walked by them every morning thrilled that finally, thanks to Jane’s will, none of their gifts came from the Williamsburg dump. Finally they’d exchange gifts that didn’t need disinfecting.
Peter hung their stockings on the mantelpiece. The shortbread cookies were baked into stars and trees and snowmen and decorated with silver balls that could have been buckshot. In the living room each evening before caroling Peter would tend the fire and read his books while Clara noodled on the piano, singing carols off key. Many nights Myrna or Ruth, Gabri or Olivier would drop by for drinks or an easy dinner.
Then, before they knew it, it was Christmas Eve and they were all off to Émilie’s for her réveillon party. But first, midnight service at St Thomas’s church.
‘Silent night, holy night,’ the congregation sang, with more gusto than talent. It actually sounded slightly like the old sea shanty, ‘What shall we do with the drunken Sailor’. Gabri’s beautiful tenor naturally led them, or at least made it clear they were wandering in a musical wilderness, or lost at sea. Except one. From the back of the wooden chapel came a voice of such exquisite clarity it staggered even Gabri. The child’s voice swooped out of the pew and mingled with the meandering voices of the congregation and hovered around the holly and pine boughs the Anglican Church Women had placed all over so that the worshippers had the impression they were not in a church at all, but a forest. Bare maple limbs had been attached to the rafters by Billy Williams, and the ACW, led by Mother, had asked him to twine small white lights loosely about the branches. The effect was of the heavens sparkling above the small gathering of faithful. The church was filled with greenery and light.
‘Green is the heart chakra,’ Mother had explained.
‘I’m sure the Bishop will be pleased,’ Kaye said.
On Christmas Eve St Thomas’s was also filled with families, children excited and exhausted, elderly men and women who’d come to this place all their lives and sat in the same pew and worshipped the same God and baptized and married and buried those they loved. Some they never got to bury, but instead immortalized in the small stained glass window placed to get the morning, the youngest, light. They marched now in warm yellows and blues and greens, for ever perfect and petrified in the Great War. Etched below the brilliant boys were their names and the words ‘They Were Our Children’.
This night the church was full of Anglicans and Catholics and Jews and non-believers and people who believed in something undefined and unrestricted to a church. They came because St Thomas’s on Christmas Eve was full of greenery and light.
But, unexpectedly, this Christmas it was also full of the most beautiful singing.
‘All is calm,’ the voice sang, rescuing the sinking congregation. Clara turned, trying to find the child. Many were also craning to see who was leading them. Even Gabri was forced to relinquish his place in the unexpected and not totally welcome presence of the divine. It was as though an angel, as Yeats would have it, became weary of the whimpering dead and chose this lively company.
Clara suddenly had a perfect view.
There at the back stood CC de Poitiers wearing a fluffy white sweater made of either cashmere or kittens. Beside her was her husband, florid and mute. And beside him an enormous child was wearing a sleeveless sundress of the brightest pink. Her underarms bulged and flopped and the rolls of her waist made the skintight dress look like a melting strawberry ice cream. It was grotesque.
But her face was beautiful. Clara had seen this child before, but only from a distance and only with a sullen unhappy face. But now that face was tilted toward the glowing rafters and held a look Clara knew to be bliss.
‘All is bright.’ Crie’s exquisite voice played in the rafters with the lights then slipped under the door of the old chapel and danced with the gently falling snowflakes and parked cars and bare maples. The words of the old carol glided across the frozen pond and nested in the Christmas trees and seeped into every happy home in Three Pines.
After the service the minister hurried out, late for Christmas Eve celebrations in nearby Cleghorn Halt.
‘Joyeux Noël,’ said Peter to Gabri as they gathered on the steps outside the church for the short stroll across the village to Émilie’s house. ‘What a beautiful night.’
‘And what a beautiful service,’ said Clara, coming up beside Peter. ‘Can you believe that child’s voice?’
‘Not bad,’ admitted Gabri.
‘Not bad?’ Mother Bea oscillated up to them, Kaye on her arm like a muff and Émilie on her other side. ‘She was unbelievable. I’ve never heard such a voice, have you?’
‘I need a drink,’ said Kaye. ‘When’re we leaving?’
‘Right now,’ Em assured her.
‘Olivier’s getting the food from the bistro,’ said Gabri. ‘We made a poached salmon.’
‘Will you marry me?’ asked Myrna.
‘I bet you ask all the girls,’ said Gabri.
‘You’re the first,’ admitted Myrna and laughed. But her laughter was cut short.
‘You’re a stupid, stupid girl,’ a voice hissed from the other side of the church. Everyone froze, surprised to stillness by the words that cut through the crisp night air. ‘Everyone was staring at you. You humiliated me.’
It was CC’s voice. There was a side door to the church and a path that was a short cut to de Moulin and the old Hadley house. CC must be there, they realized, standing in the shadow of the church.
‘They were laughing at you, you know. Deep and crisp and even,’ CC sang in a mocking voice, off key and childish. ‘And your clothes. Are you sick? I think you’re mentally unstable.’
‘Now CC,’ came a man’s voice so meek and weak it barely penetrated the flurries.
‘She’s your daughter. Look at her. Fat and ugly and lazy. Like you. Are you crazy, Crie? Is that it? Is it? Is it?’
The crowd was frozen in place as though hiding from a monster, silently pleading, please, please, someone stop her. Someone else.
‘And you’ve opened your Christmas gift, you selfish child.’
‘But you told me I—’ came the tiny response.
‘Me, me, me. That’s all I hear from you. And have you even thanked me?’
‘Thank you for the chocolates, Mommy.’ The voice and the girl were so diminished as to be almost non-existent.
‘Too late. It doesn’t count if I have to beg.’ The end of the sentence was barely audible as CC clicked down the path as though walking on claws.
The congregation st
They’d evaded the monster. Instead, it had devoured a frightened child.
SEVEN
‘Joyeux Noël, tout le monde,’ Em beamed, opening the door to greet her guests a few minutes later. Her year-old shepherd Henri raced out the door and leaped on everyone before being bribed back with a piece of Christmas cake. The chaos and happy turmoil helped banish the unease after CC’s outburst. It seemed the entire village arrived at once, bounding up the steps of Em’s wide veranda, shaking snow from their hats and coats.
Émilie’s home was a sprawling old clapboard cottage across the green from the Morrow place. Olivier paused just outside the circle of light from her porch, balancing his poached salmon on its platter.
Approaching Em’s cottage, especially at night, always enchanted him. It was like walking into those fairy tales he’d read by flashlight under his bedcovers, full of rose-covered cottages and small stone bridges, glowing hearths and content couples hand in hand. His relieved father had thought he was reading Playboy but instead he was doing something infinitely more pleasurable and dangerous. He was dreaming of the day he’d create this fairy-tale world for himself, and he’d succeeded, at least in part. He had himself become a fairy. And as he looked at Em’s cottage, its buttery light beaconing, he knew he’d walked right into the book he’d used to comfort himself when the world seemed cold and hard and unfair. Now he smiled and walked toward the house, carrying his Christmas Eve offering. He walked carefully so as not to slip on the ice that might be waiting under the thin covering of snow. A layer of pure white was both beautiful and dangerous. You never really knew what lurked beneath. A Quebec winter could both enchant and kill.
As people arrived food was taken to the familiar kitchen and too many casseroles and pies were stuffed into the oven. Bowls overflowing with candied ginger and chocolate-covered cherries and sugar-encrusted fruit sat on the sideboard beside puddings and cakes and cookies. Little Rose Lévesque stared up at the bûche de Noël, the traditional Christmas log, made of rich cake and coated with the thickest of icing, her tiny, chubby fingers curling over the tablecloth embroidered with Santa Claus and reindeer and Christmas trees. In the living room Ruth and Peter made drinks, Ruth pouring her Scotch into what Peter knew to be a vase.
The lights on the tree glowed and the Vachon children sat beside it reading the tags on the mountain of brightly wrapped presents, looking for theirs. The fire was lit, as were a few of the guests. In the dining room the gate-legged table was open full and groaning with casseroles and tortières, homemade molasses-baked beans and maple-cured ham. A turkey sat at the head of the table like a Victorian gentleman. The center of the table was saved every year for one of Myrna’s rich and vibrant flower arrangements. This year splays of Scotch pine surrounded a magnificent red amaryllis. Nestled into the pine forest was a music box softly playing the Huron Christmas Carol and resting on a bed of mandarin oranges, cranberries and chocolates.
Olivier carried the whole poached salmon to the table. A punch was made for the children, who, unsupervised, stuffed themselves with candy.
Thus did Émilie Longpré hold her réveillon, the party that spanned Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, an old Québecois tradition, just as her mother and grandmère had done in this very same home on this very same night. Spotting Em turning in circles Clara wound her arm round the tiny waist.
‘Can I help?’
‘No, dear. I’m just making sure everyone’s happy.’
‘We’re always happy here,’ said Clara, truthfully, giving Em a small kiss on each cheek and tasting salt. She’d been crying this night and Clara knew why. At Christmas homes were full of the people there and the people not there.
‘So when do you plan to take off your Santa beard?’ Gabri asked, sitting next to Ruth on the worn sofa by the fire.
‘Bitch,’ muttered Ruth.
‘Slut,’ said Gabri.
‘Look at that.’ Myrna sat on the other side of Ruth, her bulk almost catapulting the other two off the sofa. Myrna motioned her plate in the direction of a group of young women standing by the Christmas tree critiquing each other’s hair. ‘Those girls think they’re having a bad hair day. Just wait for it.’
‘It’s true,’ Clara said, looking around for a chair. The room was full, people yakking away in French and English. She eventually sat on the floor, putting her overflowing plate on the coffee table. Peter joined her.
‘What’re you talking about?’
‘Hair,’ said Myrna.
‘Save yourself,’ said Olivier, reaching out to Peter. ‘It’s too late for us, but you can get away. I understand there’s a conversation on prostates at the other sofa.’
‘Sit down.’ Clara pulled Peter down by his belt. ‘Those girls over there all think they have it bad.’
‘But wait ’til menopause,’ confirmed Myrna.
‘Prostates?’ Peter asked Olivier.
‘And hockey,’ he sighed.
‘Are you guys listening?’
‘It’s so hard being a woman,’ said Gabri. ‘There’s our periods, then losing our virginity to you beasts, then the kids leave and we no longer know who we are—’
‘Having given the best years of our lives to thankless bastards and selfish kids,’ nodded Olivier.
‘Then, just when we’ve signed up for pottery and Thai cooking courses, bang—’
‘Or not,’ said Peter, smiling at Clara.
‘Watch it, boy.’ She poked him with her fork.
‘Menopause,’ said Olivier in a sonorous CBC announcer voice.
‘I’ve never told a man to pause,’ said Gabri.
‘The first gray hair. Now there’s a bad hair day,’ said Myrna, ignoring the guys.
‘How about when the first one appears on your chin,’ said Ruth. ‘That’s a bad hair day.’
‘God, it’s true.’ Mother laughed, joining them. ‘The long wiry ones.’
‘Don’t forget the moustache,’ said Kaye, creaking down where Myrna offered her seat. Gabri got up so that Mother could sit. ‘We have a solemn pact.’ Kaye nodded to Mother and looked over at Em talking to some neighbors. ‘If one of us is unconscious in the hospital, the others will make sure it’s pulled.’
‘The plug?’ Ruth asked.
‘The chin hair,’ said Kaye, eyeing Ruth with some alarm. ‘You’re off the visitors list. Mother, make a note.’
‘Oh, I made that note years ago.’
Clara took her empty plate back to the buffet and returned a few minutes later with trifle and brownies and Licorice Allsorts.
‘I stole them from the kids,’ she said to Myrna. ‘Better hurry up if you want some. They’re getting wise.’
‘I’ll just eat yours,’ and Myrna actually attempted to take one before a fork menaced her hand.
‘Addicts, you’re pathetic.’ Myrna looked over at Ruth’s vase of Scotch, half gone.
‘You’re wrong there,’ said Ruth, following Myrna’s gaze. ‘This used to be my drug of choice. In my teens my drug of choice was acceptance, in my twenties it was approval, in my thirties it was love, in my forties it was Scotch. That lasted a while,’ she admitted. ‘Now all I really crave is a good bowel movement.’
‘I’m addicted to meditation,’ said Mother, eating her third helping of trifle.
‘There’s an idea.’ Kaye turned to Ruth. ‘You could visit Mother at the center. She can meditate the crap out of anyone.’
Silence met this statement. Clara scrambled for something to replace the repulsive image that had sprung to her mind and was grateful when Gabri picked up a book from the stack under the coffee table and waved it around.
‘Speaking of crap, isn’t this CC’s book? Em must have bought it at your launch, Ruth.’
‘She probably sold as many as I did. You’re all traitors,’ said Ruth.
; ‘Listen to this.’ Gabri opened Be Calm, Clara noticed that Mother shifted in her seat as though to get up but Kaye laid a claw on her arm, stopping her there.
‘Therefore,’ Gabri was reading, ‘it stands to reason that colors, like emotions, are harmful. It’s not a coincidence that negative emotions are given colors, red for rage, green for envy, blue for depression. But, if you put all the colors together, what do you get? White. White is the color of divinity, of balance. The goal is balance. And the only way to achieve it is to keep the emotions inside, preferably beneath a layer of white. This is Li Bien, an ancient and venerable teaching. In this book you’ll learn how to hide your true feelings, to keep them safe from an unkind and judgmental world. Li Bien is the ancient Chinese art of painting from the inside. Keeping the colors, the emotions, in. That is the only way to achieve peace, harmony, and calm. If we all kept our emotions to ourselves there would be no strife, no harm, no violence, no war. In this book I am offering you, and this world, peace.’ Gabri snapped the book shut. ‘She didn’t exactly have Li Bien coming out the yin-yang tonight.’
Peter laughed with the others but was careful not to catch anyone’s eye. Privately, beneath his layer of white skin, Peter agreed with CC. Emotions were dangerous. Emotions were best hidden away beneath a calm and peaceful veneer.
‘But this doesn’t make sense,’ Clara said, flipping through the book and puzzling over a particular passage.
‘And that other stuff did?’ asked Myrna.
‘Well, no, but here she says she got her philosophy of life in India. But didn’t she just say Li Bien was Chinese?’
‘You’re actually looking for sense in there?’ Myrna asked. Clara had buried her face back in the book and slowly her shoulders started heaving, then her back, and finally she raised her face to the circle of concerned friends.
‘What is it?’ Myrna reached out to Clara, who was crying.
‘The names of her gurus,’ said Clara between sobs. Myrna was no longer sure whether she was crying or laughing.
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