The Long Way Home(32)

“What can I do for you?”

“Oh, much the same as for Peter,” she said, sitting on the sofa. Her knees immediately sprang up to her shoulders and a whitecap of beer landed on her lap.

She should have been prepared for that, she realized. It was the same sofa they’d sat on as students, all those years ago.

Professor Massey offered Myrna a chair, but she preferred to wander the studio, looking at the works. She wondered if they were all painted by the professor. They seemed good, but then Myrna had bought one of Clara’s Warrior Uteruses, so she was hardly a judge of art.

“Well,” said the professor, taking a chair across from Clara, “Peter and I talked mostly about the other students and faculty. He asked about some of his favorite teachers. Many of them gone now. Dead. A few demented, like poor Professor Norman, though I can’t say he was anyone’s favorite teacher. I like to think it was the paint fumes, but I think we all know he came in demented, and working here might not have helped. I myself have escaped detection by having a mediocre career and always agreeing with the administration.”

He laughed, then fell silent. There was a quality about the silence that made Myrna turn from the blank canvas on the easel to look at them.

“Why are you really here?” Professor Massey finally asked.

It was said softly, gently.

His blue eyes watched Clara and seemed to place a bubble around her. A shield. Where no harm would come to her. And Myrna understood why Professor Massey was a favorite teacher. And why he would be remembered for things far more important than “translating the visual world onto canvas.”

“Peter’s missing,” said Clara.

* * *

Their progress through the woods reminded Jean-Guy of something. Some old image.

Gamache was ahead of him, on what they all suspected was not really a horse. For the past fifteen minutes, Beauvoir had ducked branches as they snapped back into his face, at about the same time Gamache called, “Watch out.”

And when he wasn’t being bitch-slapped by nature, all Beauvoir could see was Bullwinkle’s ass swaying in front of him.

He was not yet having fun. Fortunately for Beauvoir, he hadn’t expected to.

“Can you see it?” he called ahead for the tenth time in as many minutes.

“Just enjoy the scenery and relax,” came the patient response. “We’ll get there eventually.”

“All I see is your horse’s ass,” said Jean-Guy, and when Gamache turned around with mock censure, he added, “sir.”

Beauvoir rocked back and forth on his own horse and couldn’t quite bring himself to admit he was beginning to enjoy himself. Though “enjoy” might be overstating it. He was finding the soft, rhythmic steps of the careful animal reassuring, calming. It reminded him of the rocking of monks as they prayed. Or a mother soothing a distressed child.

The forest was quiet, save for the clopping of the hooves and the birds as they got out of the way. The deeper they went, the more peaceful it became, the greener it became.

The heart chakra. A villager who ran a nearby yoga center once told him that.

“Green’s the color of the heart chakra,” she’d said, as though it was a fact.

He’d dismissed it then. And, for the record, for public consumption, he’d dismiss it now. But privately, in the deep green peace, he began to wonder.

Ahead he could see Gamache, swaying on his creature. A map of Paris sticking out of the saddlebag.

“Are we at the Louvre yet?” Jean-Guy asked.

“Be quiet, you silly man,” said Gamache, no longer bothering to turn around. “You know damn well we passed it a while back. We’re looking for la Tour Eiffel and beyond that, the 15th arrondissement.”

“Oui, oui, zut alors,” said Beauvoir, giving an exaggerated French nasal laugh. Hor, hor.

Ahead of him he heard the Chief grunting in laughter.

“There it is.” The Chief pointed, and in that moment Beauvoir knew exactly what this reminded him of. A drawing of Don Quixote he’d seen in a book.

Gamache was pointing toward a rude cabin in the woods, with a ruder man inside. Or it might have been a giant.

“Should we tilt at it?” Beauvoir asked, and heard the soft rumble of unmistakable laughter from the Chief.

“Come, Sancho,” he said. “The world needs our immediate presence.”

And Jean-Guy Beauvoir followed.

* * *

Professor Massey listened, not interrupting, not reacting. Simply nodding now and then as Clara told him about Peter. About his career, his art, their life together.

And finally there was nothing left to say.

The professor inhaled, a breath that seemed to go on forever. He held it for a moment, his eyes never leaving the woman in front of him. And then he exhaled.