‘You don’t know either,’ said Myrna. ‘You want to believe it was God. I have to tell you, people are locked up for less.’
‘But not for long.’ Clara caught Myrna’s eye. ‘Now, in my place what would you believe? That CC was right and the work is crap or that a vagrant was God and the work is brilliant?’
‘Or you could stop listening to the outside world and decide for yourself.’
‘I’ve tried that.’ Clara laughed. ‘At two in the afternoon my art is brilliant, at two in the morning it’s crap.’ She leaned forward until her hands were almost touching Myrna’s. She looked into her friend’s warm eyes and said very quietly, ‘I believe I met God.’
Myrna smiled, not in a patronizing way. If Myrna knew one thing it was how little she really knew.
‘Is that Ruth’s book?’ Clara picked up I’m FINE. ‘May I buy it?’
‘But you bought one yesterday. We both did. Even had her sign it. You know, I think I saw her signing some books by Auden too.’
‘I lost mine somewhere. I’ll get this and if she signs an Anthony Hecht I’ll buy that too.’
Clara opened the book and read, at random.
‘Well, all children are sad
but some get over it.
Count your blessings. Better than that,
buy a hat. Buy a coat or pet.
Take up dancing to forget.
‘How does Ruth do it? I swear she’s just an old drunk.’
‘You thought that about God, too,’ said Myrna.
‘Listen,
Forget what?
Your sadness, your shadow,
whatever it was that was done to you
the day of the lawn party
when you came inside flushed with the sun,
your mouth sulky with sugar,
in your new dress with the ribbon
and the ice-cream smear,
and said to yourself in the bathroom,
I am not the favorite child.’
Myrna looked out the window and wondered whether their peace, so fragile and precious, was about to be shattered. Since CC de Poitiers had arrived there’d been a gathering gloom over their little community. She’d brought something unsavory to Three Pines, in time for Christmas.
SIX
The days leading up to Christmas were active and full. Clara loved the season. Loved everything about it, from the sappy commercials to the tacky parade for Père Noël through St-Rémy sponsored by Canadian Tire, to the caroling organized by Gabri. The singers moved from house to house through the snowy village filling the night air with old hymns and laughter and puffs of breath plump with song and snowflakes. Villagers invited them into their living rooms and they carried on round pianos and Christmas trees, singing and drinking brandy eggnogs and eating shortbread and smoked salmon and sweet twisty breads and all the delicacies baked in the festive ovens. The carolers sang at every home in the village over the course of a few evenings, except one. By unspoken consent, they stayed away from the dark house on the hill. The old Hadley place.
Gabri, in his Victorian cape and top hat, led the carolers. He had a beautiful voice but longed for what he couldn’t have. Each year Ruth Zardo visited the bistro as Father Christmas, chosen, Gabri said, because she didn’t have to grow a special beard. Each year Gabri would climb onto her lap and ask for the voice of a boy soprano and each year Father Christmas offered to kick him in the Christmas balls.
Every Christmas Monsieur and Madame Vachon placed the old crèche on their front lawn, complete with the baby Jesus in a clawfoot bathtub surrounded by three wise men and plastic farm animals who slowly became buried under snow and emerged unchanged in spring, another miracle, though one not shared by every villager.
Billy Williams hitched his percherons to his bright red sleigh and took boys and girls round the village and into the snow-covered hills. The children crawled under the ratty bearskin rug and cradled hot chocolate while the dignified gray giants pulled them along in a manner so calm and measured it was as though they knew their cargo to be precious. Inside the bistro parents were granted the window seats where they could sip hot cider and watch their children disappear over rue du Moulin, then they’d turn back to the warm interior with its faded fabrics, mismatched furniture and open hearths.
Clara and Peter finished their decorations, putting up splays of pine branches in their kitchen to complement the huge Scotch pine in the living room. Their home, like everyone else’s, smelled of the forest.
All the presents were wrapped and placed under the tree. Clara walked by them every morning thrilled that finally, thanks to Jane’s will, none of their gifts came from the Williamsburg dump. Finally they’d exchange gifts that didn’t need disinfecting.