But the dark figure remained on the village green. Unmoving. Immovable.
Reine-Marie wasn’t sure when it had happened, but at some point she’d stopped thinking of him as “him.” Any humanity it had had drained away. And the figure had become “it.” No longer human.
“Come on in,” said Clara. “I see our visitor is still there.”
She tried to make it light, but it was clearly upsetting her. As it was them.
“Any idea who he is, Armand?”
“None. I wish I had. But I doubt he’ll stay much longer. It’s probably a joke.”
“Probably.” She turned to Reine-Marie. “I’ve put the new boxes in the living room by the fireplace. I thought we could go through them there.”
“New” wasn’t completely accurate.
Clara was helping Reine-Marie with what was becoming the endless task of sorting the so-called archives of the historical society. They were actually boxes, and boxes, and boxes, of photographs, documents, clothing. Collected over a hundred years or more, from attics and basements. Retrieved from yard sales and church basements.
So Reine-Marie had volunteered to sort through it. It was a crapshoot of crap. But she loved it. Reine-Marie’s career had been as a senior librarian and archivist with the Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec and, like her husband, she had a passion for history. Québec history in particular.
“Join us for lunch, Armand?” asked Clara. The scent of soup filled the kitchen. “I picked up a baguette from the boulangerie.”
“Non, merci. I’m heading over to the bistro.” He lifted the book in his hand. His Saturday afternoon ritual. Lunch, a beer, and a book, in front of the fireplace at the bistro.
“Not one of Jacqueline’s,” said Reine-Marie, pointing to the baguette.
“No. Sarah’s. I made sure of that. Though I did get some of Jacqueline’s brownies. How important is it?” asked Clara, cutting the crispy baguette. “That a baker knows how to make a baguette?”
“Here?” asked Reine-Marie. “Vital.”
“Yeah,” said Clara. “I think so too. Poor Sarah. She wants to pass the bakery on to Jacqueline, but I don’t know…”
“Well, maybe brownies are enough,” said Armand. “I think I could learn to spread brie on a brownie.”
Clara winced, and then thought about it. Maybe …
“Jacqueline’s only been here a few months,” Reine-Marie pointed out. “Maybe she’ll catch on.”
“Sarah says with baguette you either have it or you don’t,” said Clara. “Something to do with touch, but also the temperature of your hands.”
“Hot or cold?” asked Armand.
“I don’t know,” said Clara. “It was already too much information. I want to believe baguettes are magic, not some accident of birth.” She put down the bread knife. “Soup’s almost ready. While it warms up, would you like to see my latest work?”
It was unlike Clara to offer to show her work, especially those in progress. At least, as Armand and Reine-Marie reluctantly walked across the kitchen to her studio, they hoped there’d been progress.
Normally they’d have leapt at the rare chance to see Clara’s work, as she painted her astonishing portraits. But just recently it had become clear that her idea of “finished” and everyone else’s was very different.
Armand wondered what she saw that they did not.
The studio was in darkness, the windows only letting in the north light, and on a cloudy November day there was precious little of that.
“Those are done,” she said, waving into the gloom at the canvases leaning against one wall. She switched on the light.
It was all Reine-Marie could do not to ask, “Are you sure?”
Some of the portraits looked close, but the hair was just a pencil outline. Or the hands were blotches, blobs.
The portraits, for the most part, were recognizable. Myrna. Olivier.
Armand went up to Sarah, the baker, lounging against the wall.
She was the most complete. Her lined face filled with that desire to help that Armand recognized. A dignity, almost standoffish. And yet Clara had managed to capture the baker’s vulnerability. As though she feared the viewer would ask for something she didn’t have.
Yes, her face, her hands, her attitude, all so finely realized. And yet. Her smock was dashed on, missing all detail. It was as though Clara had lost interest.
Gracie and her littermate, Leo, were wrestling on the concrete floor, and Reine-Marie stooped to pet them.
“What is that?” Everyone spasmed a little on hearing the querulous voice.
Ruth stood there, holding Rosa and pointing into the studio.
“Jesus, it’s awful,” said the old poet. “What a mess. Ugly doesn’t begin to describe it.”
“Ruth,” said Reine-Marie. “You of all people should know that creation is a process.”