‘Lemon meringue pie.’
‘And how do you know He was God?’
The interview wasn’t going as he’d imagined.
‘I don’t,’ he admitted. ‘He might have been just a fisherman. He was certainly dressed like one. But he looked across the room at me with such tenderness, such love, I was staggered.’ He was tempted to break eye contact, to stare at the warm wooden surface where his hands now rested. But Armand Gamache didn’t look down. He looked directly at her.
‘What did God do?’ Émilie asked, her voice hushed.
‘He finished his pie then turned to the wall. He seemed to be rubbing it for a while, then he turned back to me with the most radiant smile I’d ever seen. I was filled with joy.’
‘I imagine you’re often filled with joy.’
‘I’m a happy man, madame. I’m very lucky and I know it.’
‘C’est ça.’ She nodded. ‘It’s the knowing of it. I only became really happy after my family was killed. Horrible to say.’
‘I believe I understand,’ said Gamache.
‘Their deaths changed me. At some point I was standing in my living room unable to move forward or back. Frozen. That’s why I asked about the snowstorm. That’s what it had felt like, for months and months. As though I was lost in a whiteout. Everything was confused and howling. I couldn’t go on. I was going to die. I didn’t know how, but I knew I couldn’t support the loss any longer. I’d staggered to a stop. Like you in that snowstorm. Lost, disoriented, at a dead end. Mine, of course, was figurative. My cul de sac was in my own living room. Lost in the most familiar, the most comforting of places.’
‘What happened?’
‘The doorbell rang. I remember trying to decide whether I should answer the door or kill myself. But it rang again and I don’t know, maybe it was social training, but I roused myself enough to go. And there was God. He had some crumbs of lemon meringue pie on the corner of His mouth.’
Gamache’s deep brown eyes widened.
‘I’m kidding.’ She reached out and held his wrist for a moment, smiling. Gamache laughed at himself. ‘He was a road worker,’ she continued. ‘He wanted to use the phone. He carried a sign.’
She stopped, unable for a moment to go any further. Gamache waited. He hoped the sign didn’t say The End is Nigh. The room faded. The only two people in the world were tiny, frail Émilie Longpré and Armand Gamache.
‘It said Ice Ahead.’
They were silent for a moment.
‘How did you know He was God?’ Gamache asked.
‘When does a bush that burns become a Burning Bush?’ Em asked and Gamache nodded. ‘My despair disappeared. The grief remained, of course, but I knew then that the world wasn’t a dark and desperate place. I was so relieved. In that moment I found hope. This stranger with the sign had given it to me. It sounds ridiculous, I know, but suddenly the gloom was lifted.’
She paused a moment, remembering, a smile on her face.
‘Annoyed the hell out of Mother, I’ll tell you. She had to go all the way to India to find God and He was here all along. She went to Kashmir and I went to the door.’
‘Both long journeys,’ said Gamache. ‘And Kaye?’
‘Kaye? I don’t think she’s made that journey and I think it scares her. I think a lot of things scare Kaye.’
‘Clara Morrow has painted you as the Three Graces.’
‘Has she now? One day that woman will be discovered and the world will see what an astonishing artist she is. She sees things others don’t. She sees the best in people.’
‘She certainly sees how much the three of you love each other.’
Em nodded. ‘I do love them. I love all this.’ She looked around the cheerful room, the fires crackling in the grates, Olivier and Gabri talking to customers, price tags dangling from chairs and tables and chandeliers. When he’d been annoyed at Olivier one day Gabri had waited on tables with a price tag dangling from himself.
‘My life’s never been the same since that day I opened the door. I’m happy now. Content. Funny, isn’t it? I had to go to Hell to find happiness.’
‘People expect me to be cynical because of my job,’ Gamache found himself saying, ‘but they don’t understand. It’s exactly as you’ve said. I spend my days looking into the last room in the house, the one we keep barred and hidden even from ourselves. The one with all our monsters, fetid and rotting and waiting. My job is to find people who take lives. And to do that I have to find out why. And to do that I have to get into their heads and open that last door. But when I come out again,’ he opened his arms in an expansive movement, ‘the world is suddenly more beautiful, more alive, more lovely than ever. When you see the worst you appreciate the best.’