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“If it’s a girl they think they’ll call her Geneviève Marie Gamache.”

Gamache repeated the name. Geneviève Marie Gamache. “It’s beautiful.”Advertisement

Is this the name they’d write on birthday and Christmas cards? Geneviève Marie Gamache. Would she come running up the stairs to their apartment in Outremont, little feet thumping, shouting, “Grandpapa, Grandpapa?” And would he call out her name, “Geneviève!” then scoop her up in his strong arms and hold her safe and warm in that pocket of his shoulder reserved for people he loved? Would he one day take her and her sister Florence on walks through Parc Mont Royal and teach them his favorite poems?

Breathes there the man with soul so dead

Who never to himself hath said,

“This is my own, my native land!”

As his own father had taught him.

Geneviève.

“And if it’s a boy,” said Reine-Marie, “they plan to call him Honoré.”

There was a pause. Finally Gamache sighed, “Ahh,” and dropped his eyes.

“It’s a wonderful name, Armand, and a wonderful gesture.”

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Gamache nodded but said nothing. He’d wondered how he’d feel if this happened. For some reason he’d suspected it would, perhaps because he knew his son. They were so alike. Tall, powerfully built, gentle. And hadn’t he himself struggled with calling Daniel “Honoré”? Right up until the baptism his name was supposed to be Honoré Daniel.

But in the end he couldn’t do that to his son. Wasn’t life difficult enough without having to walk through it with the name Honoré Gamache?

“He’d like you to call him.”

Gamache looked at his watch. Nearly ten. “I’ll call tomorrow morning.”

“And what will you say?”

Gamache held his wife’s hands, then dropped them and smiled at her. “How does coffee and liqueur in the Great Room sound?”

She searched his face. “Would you like to go for a walk? I’ll arrange for the coffees.”

“Merci, mon coeur.”

“Je t’attends.”

Breathes there the man with soul so dead, Armand Gamache whispered to himself as he walked with measured pace in the dark. The sweet aroma of night-scented stock kept him company, as did the stars and moon and the light across the lake. The family in the forest. The family of his fantasies. Father, mother, happy, thriving children.

No sorrow, no loss, no sharp rap on the door at night.

As he watched the light flickered out, and all was in darkness across the way. The family at sleep, at peace.

Honoré Gamache. Was it so wrong? Was he wrong to feel this way? And what would he say to Daniel in the morning?

He stared into space, thinking about that for a few minutes, then slowly he became aware of something in the woods. Glowing. He looked around to see if there was anyone else there, another witness. But the terrasse and the gardens were empty.

Curious, Gamache walked toward it, the grass soft beneath his feet. He glanced back and saw the bright and cheerful lights of the Manoir and the people moving about the rooms. Then he turned back to the woods.

They were dark. But they weren’t silent. Creatures moved about in there. Twigs snapped and things dropped from the trees and thumped softly to the ground. Gamache wasn’t afraid of the dark, but like most sensible Canadians he was a little afraid of the forest.

But the white thing glowed and called, and like Ulysses with the sirens, he was compelled forward.

It was sitting on the very edge of the woods. He walked up, surprised to find it was large and solid and a perfect square, like a massive sugar cube. It came up to his hip and when he reached out to touch it he withdrew his hand in surprise. It was cold, almost clammy. Reaching out again, more firmly this time, he rested his large hand on the top of the box, and smiled.

It was marble. He’d been afraid of a cube of marble, he chuckled at himself. Very humbling. Standing back, Gamache stared at it. The white stone glowed as though it had captured what little moonlight came its way. It was just a cube of marble, he told himself. Not a bear, or a cougar. Nothing to worry about, certainly nothing to spook him. But it did. It reminded him of something.

“Peter’s perpetually purple pimple popped.”

Gamache froze.

“Peter’s perpetually purple pimple popped.”

There it was again.

He turned round and saw a figure standing in the middle of the lawn. A slight haze hung about her and a bright red dot glowed near her nose.

Julia Martin was out for her secret cigarette. Gamache cleared his throat noisily and brushed his hand along a bush. Instantly the red dot fell to the ground and disappeared under an elegant foot. pqdm.com