Frère Raymond paused. It was as though a void had suddenly opened up in the flow of words. Beauvoir stared. And waited. As Frère Raymond teetered on the edge. Of silence. Or more words.
Beauvoir decided to give him a little push.
“What can’t you survive without?”
The monk lowered his voice further. “The foundations are rotten.”
Now Beauvoir wasn’t sure if Frère Raymond was speaking metaphorically, as les religieux tended to do, or for real. But he thought this monk, with this accent, probably didn’t go in for metaphors.
“What do you mean?” Beauvoir also whispered.
“How many ways are there to interpret that?” Raymond asked. “The foundations are rotten.”
“Is that a big job?”
“Are you kidding? You’ve seen the monastery. If the foundations go, the monastery collapses.”
Beauvoir stared at the intense monk, whose eyes were boring into him.
“Collapses? The monastery will fall down?”
“Completely. Not today. Not tomorrow. I’d say we have about ten years. But it’ll take that long to repair. The foundations have supported the weight of the walls for hundreds of years,” said Raymond. “It’s amazing what those first monks did. Way ahead of their time. But they hadn’t counted on the terrible winters. The cycles of freezing and thawing and what that does. And something else.”
“What?”
“The forest. Saint-Gilbert-Entre-les-Loups is fixed in place, but the forest keeps moving. Toward us. Roots are breaking through the foundations. Cracking them, making them weak. Then water got in. The foundations are crumbling and rotting.”
Rotting, thought Beauvoir. It wasn’t a metaphor, but it could be.
“When we arrived we noticed many of the trees around the monastery have been cut down recently,” said Beauvoir. “Is this why?”
“Too little too late. The damage is done, the roots are already here. It’ll take millions to repair. And all sorts of skilled workers. But he,” now Raymond jerked his knife toward the abbot, “thinks two dozen aging monks can do the work. He’s not only incompetent, he’s delusional.”
Beauvoir would have to agree. He watched the abbot in what appeared to be polite conversation with the Superintendent, and for the first time, wondered about his sanity.
“What does he say when you tell him it’s impossible for you to fix the foundation yourselves?”
“He tells me I should do as he does. Pray for a miracle.”
“And you don’t believe there’ll be one?”
Now Brother Raymond turned completely, to look at Beauvoir face on. The anger, so evident a moment earlier, all gone.
“Just the opposite. I told the abbot he could stop praying. That the miracle had happened. God gave us voices. And the most beautiful chants. And an age when they can be sent around the world. To inspire millions, while making millions. If that isn’t a miracle, I don’t know what is.”
Beauvoir sat back and looked at this monk, who not only believed in prayer and miracles, but believed God had granted them one. The silent order would make money with their voices, and save the abbey.
But the abbot was too blind to see that what he prayed for he already had.
“Who else knows about the foundations?”
“No one. I only discovered the problem a couple of months ago. Did some tests, then told the abbot, expecting him to tell the community.”
“But he didn’t?”
Frère Raymond shook his head and lowered his voice further, glancing around at his brother monks. “He ordered the trees to be cut, but told the brothers it was for firewood, in case the geothermal ever fails.”
“He lied?”
The monk shrugged. “It’s a good idea to have an emergency supply of wood, in case. But it wasn’t the real reason. None of them knows that. Only the abbot. And me. He had me promise not to tell anyone.”
“Do you think the prior knew?”
“I wish he had. He’d have saved us. It would be so easy. One more recording. And maybe a concert tour. We’d have enough to save Saint-Gilbert.”
“But then Frère Mathieu was killed,” said Beauvoir.
“Murdered,” agreed the monk.
“By who?”
“Come on, son. You know as well as I do.”
Beauvoir shot a look at the head of the table, where the abbot had risen to his feet. There was a shuffling as the other monks, and Sûreté officers, also got up.