The Cruelest Month

‘He was a gummy bear,’ agreed Clara.

‘He completed me,’ said Myrna. ‘And then some.’ She patted her middle, large and generous, like the woman herself.

‘Look at this.’ A razor voice cut through conversation.

Ruth Zardo stood in the center of the bistro holding aloft a chocolate rabbit as though it were a grenade. It was made of rich dark chocolate, its long ears perky and alert, its face so real Clara half expected it to twitch its delicate candy whiskers. In its paws it held a basket woven from white and milk chocolate, and in that basket sat a dozen candy eggs, beautifully decorated. It was lovely and Clara prayed Ruth wasn’t about to toss it at someone.

‘It’s a bunny rabbit,’ snarled the elderly poet.

‘I eat them too,’ said Gabri to Myrna. ‘It’s a habit. A rabbit habit.’

Myrna laughed and immediately wished she hadn’t. Ruth turned her glare on her.

‘Ruth.’ Clara stood up and approached cautiously, holding her husband Peter’s Scotch as enticement. ‘Let the bunny go.’

It was a sentence she’d never said before.

‘It’s a rabbit,’ Ruth repeated as though to slow children. ‘So what’s it doing with these?’

She pointed to the eggs.

‘Since when do rabbits have eggs?’ Ruth persisted, looking at the bewildered villagers. ‘Never thought of that, eh? Where did it get them? Presumably from chocolate chickens. The bunny must have stolen the eggs from candy chickens who’re searching for their babies. Frantic.’

The funny thing was, as the old poet spoke Clara could actually imagine chocolate chickens running around desperate to find their eggs. Eggs stolen by the Easter bunny.

With that Ruth dropped the chocolate bunny to the floor, shattering it.

‘Oh, God,’ said Gabri, running to pick it up. ‘That was for Olivier.’

‘Really?’ said Olivier, forgetting he himself had bought it.

‘This is a strange holiday,’ said Ruth ominously. ‘I’ve never liked it.’

‘And now it’s mutual,’ said Gabri, holding the fractured rabbit as though an adored and wounded child. He’s so tender, thought Clara not for the first time. Gabri was so big, so overwhelming, it was easy to forget how sensitive he was. Until moments like these when he gently held a dying chocolate bunny.

‘How do we celebrate Easter?’ the old poet demanded, yanking Peter’s Scotch from Clara and downing it. ‘We hunt eggs and eat hot cross buns.’

‘Mais, we go to St Thomas’s too,’ said Monsieur Béliveau.

‘More people go to Sarah’s Boulangerie than ever show up at church,’ snapped Ruth. ‘They buy pastry with an instrument of torture on it. I know you think I’m crazy, but maybe I’m the only sane one here.’

And on that disconcerting note she limped to the door, then turned back.

‘Don’t put those chocolate eggs out for the children. Something bad will happen.’

And like Jeremiah, the weeping prophet, she was right. Something bad did happen.

Next morning the eggs had vanished. All that could be found were wrappers. At first the villagers suspected older children, or perhaps even Ruth, had sabotaged the event.

‘Look at this,’ said Peter, holding up the shredded remains of a chocolate bunny box. ‘Teeth marks. And claws.’

‘So it was Ruth,’ said Gabri, taking the box and examining it.

‘See here.’ Clara raced after a candy wrapper blowing across the village green. ‘Look, it’s all ripped apart as well.’

After spending the morning hunting Easter egg wrappers and cleaning up the mess, most villagers trudged back to Olivier’s to warm themselves by the fire.

‘Now, really,’ said Ruth to Clara and Peter over lunch at the bistro. ‘Couldn’t you see that coming?’

‘I admit it seems obvious,’ Peter laughed, cutting into his golden croque-monsieur, the melted Camembert barely holding the maple-smoked ham and flaky croissant together. Around him anxious parents buzzed, trying to bribe crying children.

‘Every wild animal within miles must have been in the village last night,’ said Ruth, slowly swirling the ice cubes in her Scotch. ‘Eating Easter eggs. Foxes, raccoons, squirrels.’

‘Bears,’ said Myrna, joining their table. ‘Jesus, that’s pretty scary. All those starving bears, rising from their dens, ravenous after hibernating all winter.’

‘Imagine their surprise to find chocolate eggs and bunnies,’ said Clara, between mouthfuls of creamy seafood chowder with chunks of salmon and scallops and shrimp. She took a crusty baguette and twisted off a piece, spreading it with Olivier’s special sweet butter. ‘The bears must have wondered what miracle had happened while they slept.’

‘Not everything that rises up is a miracle,’ said Ruth, lifting her eyes from the amber liquid, her lunch, and looking out the mullioned windows. ‘Not everything that comes back to life is meant to. This is a strange time of year. Rain one day, snow the next. Nothing’s certain. It’s unpredictable.’

‘Every season’s unpredictable,’ said Peter. ‘Hurricanes in fall, snowstorms in winter.’

‘But you’ve just proved my point,’ said Ruth. ‘You can name the threat. We all know what to expect in other seasons. But not spring. The worst flooding happens in spring. Forest fires, killing frosts, snowstorms and mud slides. Nature’s in turmoil. Anything can happen.’

‘The most achingly beautiful days happen in spring too,’ said Clara.

‘True, the miracle of rebirth. I hear whole religions are based on the concept. But some things are better off buried.’ The old poet got up and downed her Scotch. ‘It’s not over yet. The bears will be back.’

‘I would be too,’ said Myrna, ‘if I’d suddenly found a village made of chocolate.’

Clara smiled, but her eyes were on Ruth, who for once didn’t radiate anger or annoyance. Instead Clara caught something far more disconcerting.

Fear.

TWO

Ruth had been right. The bears did come back each Easter in search of chocolate eggs. Of course, they found none and after a couple of years gave up and instead stayed in the woods surrounding Three Pines. Villagers quickly learned not to go for long walks in the woods at Easter, and to never, ever get between a newborn bear cub and its mother.

It’s all part of nature, Clara told herself. But a niggling worry remained. Somehow they’d brought this on themselves.

Once again Clara found herself on her hands and knees, this time with the beautiful wooden eggs they’d substituted for the real thing. That had been Hanna and Roar Parra’s idea. Coming from the Czech Republic they had no mean knack with painted eggs.

Over the winter Roar whittled the wooden eggs and Hanna handed them out to anyone interested in painting them. Soon people from all over the Cantons de l’Est were taking eggs. School kids did them as art projects, parents rediscovered latent talents, grandparents painted scenes from their youth. Over the long Quebec winter they painted and on Good Friday they started hiding them. Once found the children exchanged the wooden bounty for the real thing. Or at least, the chocolate thing.

‘Hey, look at this,’ Clara called from beside the pond on the green. Monsieur Béliveau and Madeleine Favreau went over. Monsieur Béliveau stooped down, his long slender body almost bending double. There in the long grass was a nest of eggs.

‘They’re real,’ he laughed, spreading the grass to show Madeleine.

‘How beautiful,’ said Mad, reaching out.

‘Mais, non,’ he said. ‘Their mother will reject them if you touch.’

Mad quickly brought back her hand and looked at Clara with a wide open smile. Clara had always liked Madeleine, though they didn’t know each other well. Mad had lived in the area for only a few years. She was some years younger than Clara and full of life. She was also a natural beauty, with short dark hair and intelligent brown eyes. She always seemed to be enjoying herself. And why not, thought Clara. After what she’d been through.

‘What sort of eggs are they?’ Clara asked.

Madeleine made a face and put up her hands. Not a clue.

Monsieur Béliveau again folded himself in a graceful movement. ‘Not chicken. Trop grand. Maybe duck, or goose.’

‘That would be fun,’ said Madeleine. ‘A little family on the green.’ She turned to Clara. ‘What time’s the séance?’

‘You’re coming?’ Clara was surprised though delighted. ‘Hazel too?’

‘No, Hazel’s refused. Sophie gets home tomorrow morning and Hazel says she has to cook and clean, mais, franchement?’ Madeleine leaned in conspiratorially, ‘I think she’s afraid of ghosts. Monsieur Béliveau has agreed to come.’

‘We must be grateful Hazel has decided to cook instead,’ said Monsieur Béliveau. ‘She’s made us a wonderful casserole.’

It was very like Hazel, Clara thought. Always caring for others. Clara was slightly afraid people took advantage of Hazel’s generosity, especially that daughter of hers, but she also realized it was none of her business.

‘But we have a great deal of work to do before dinner, mon ami.’ Madeleine smiled radiantly at Monsieur Béliveau and touched him lightly on the shoulder. The older man smiled. He hadn’t smiled a lot since his wife died, but now he did, and Clara had another reason to like Madeleine. She watched them now holding their baskets of Easter eggs and walking through the late April sunshine, the youngest and tenderest of lights falling on a young and tender relationship. Monsieur Béliveau, tall and slim and slightly stooped, seemed to have a spring in his step.

Clara stood up and stretched her forty-eight-year-old body, then glanced around. It looked like a field of derrières. Every villager was bending over, placing eggs. Clara wished she had her sketch pad.

There was certainly nothing cool about Three Pines, nothing funky or edgy or any of the other things that had mattered to Clara when she’d graduated from art college twenty-five years ago. Nothing here was designed. Instead, the village seemed to follow the lead of the three pines on the green and simply to have grown from the earth over time.

Clara took a deep breath of the fragrant spring air and looked over at the home she shared with Peter. It was brick with a wooden porch and a fieldstone wall fronting the Commons. A path wound from their gate through some apple trees about to bloom to their front door. From there Clara’s eyes wandered around the houses surrounding the Commons. Like their inhabitants, the homes of Three Pines were sturdy and shaped by their environment. They’d withstood storms and wars, loss and sorrow. And emerging from that was a community of great kindness and compassion.

Clara loved it. The houses, the shops, the village green, the perennial gardens and even the washboard roads. She loved the fact that Montreal was less than a two-hour drive away, and the American border was just down the road. But more than all of that, she loved the people who now spent this and every Good Friday hiding wooden eggs for children.

It was a late Easter, near the end of April. They weren’t always so lucky with the elements. At least once the village had awoken on Easter Sunday to find a fresh dumping of heavy spring snow, burying the tender buds and painted eggs. It had often been bitterly cold and the villagers had had to duck into Olivier’s Bistro every now and then for a hot cider or hot chocolate, wrapping trembling and frozen fingers around the warm and welcoming mugs.

But not today. There was a certain glory about this April day. It was a perfect Good Friday, sunny and warm. The snow had gone, even in the shadows, where it tended to linger. The grass was growing and the trees had a halo of the gentlest green. It was as though the aura of Three Pines had suddenly made itself visible. It was all golden light with shimmering green edges.

Tulip bulbs were beginning to crack through the earth and soon the village green would be awash with spring flowers, deep blue hyacinths and bluebells and gay bobbing daffodils, snowdrops and fragrant lily of the valley, filling the village with fragrance and delight.

This Good Friday Three Pines smelled of fresh earth and promise. And maybe a worm or two.

‘I don’t care what you say, I won’t go.’

Clara heard the urgent and vicious whisper. She was crouching again, by the tall grass of the pond. She couldn’t see who it was but she realized they must be just on the other side of the grass. It was a woman’s voice speaking French but in a tone so strained and upset she couldn’t identify her.

‘It’s just a séance,’ a man’s voice said.

‘It’ll be fun.’ ‘It’s sacrilege, for Christ’s sake. A séance on Good Friday?’

There was a pause. Clara was feeling uncomfortable. Not about eavesdropping, but her legs were beginning to cramp.

‘Come on, Odile. You’re not even religious. What can happen?’

Odile? thought Clara. The only Odile she knew was Odile Montmagny. And she was –

The woman hissed again:

‘Each winter’s frostbite and the bug

That greets the spring will leave its mark,

As well as sorrow on the mug

Of infant, youth and patriarch.’

Stunned silence fell.

– a really bad poet, Clara completed her thought.

Odile had spoken solemnly, as though the words conveyed something other than the talent of the poet.

‘I’ll look after you,’ said the man. Clara now knew who he was too. Odile’s boyfriend, Gilles Sandon.

‘Why do you really want to go, Gilles?’

‘Just for fun.’

‘Is it because she’ll be there?’

There was silence, except for Clara’s screaming legs.

‘He’ll be there too, you know,’ Odile pressed.

‘Who?’

‘You know who. Monsieur Béliveau,’ said Odile. ‘I have a bad feeling about this, Gilles.’

There was another pause, then Sandon spoke, his voice deep and flat as though making a huge effort to smother any emotion.

‘Don’t worry. I won’t kill him.’

Clara had forgotten all about her legs. Kill Monsieur Béliveau? Who’d even consider such a thing? The old grocer had never even short-changed anyone. What could Gilles Sandon possibly have against him?

She heard the two walk away and straightening up with some agony Clara stared after them, Odile pear-shaped and waddling slightly, Gilles a huge teddy bear of a man, his signature red beard visible even from behind.

Clara glanced at her sweaty hands clutching the wooden Easter eggs. The cheery colors had bled into her palms.

Suddenly the séance, which had seemed an amusing idea a few days ago when Gabri had put the notice up in the bistro announcing the arrival of the famous psychic, Madame Isadore Blavatsky, now felt different. Instead of happy anticipation Clara was filled with dread.

THREE

Madame Isadore Blavatsky wasn’t herself that night. In fact, she wasn’t Madame Isadore Blavatsky at all.

‘Please, call me Jeanne.’ The mousy woman stood in the middle of the back room at the bistro, holding out her hand. ‘Jeanne Chauvet.’

‘Bonjour, Madame Chauvet.’ Clara smiled and shook the limp hand. ‘Excusez-moi.’

‘Jeanne,’ the woman reminded her in a voice barely audible.

Clara stepped over to Gabri who was offering a platter of smoked salmon to his guests. The room was beginning to fill up, slightly. ‘Salmon?’ He thrust the plate at Clara.

‘Who is she?’ Clara asked.

‘Madame Blavatsky, the famous Hungarian psychic. Can’t you just feel her energy?’

Madeleine and Monsieur Béliveau waved. Clara waved back then glanced over at Jeanne who looked as though she’d faint if someone said boo. ‘I certainly feel something, young man, and it’s annoyed.’

Gabri Dubeau vacillated between delight at being called ‘young man’ and defensiveness.

‘That isn’t Madame Blavatsky. She doesn’t even pretend to be. Her name’s Jeanne someone-or-other,’ said Clara, absent-mindedly taking a piece of salmon and folding it onto a pumpernickel. ‘You promised us Madame Blavatsky.’

‘You don’t even know who Madame Blavatsky is.’

‘Well, I know who she isn’t.’ Clara nodded and smiled at the small, middle-aged woman standing slightly bewildered in the middle of the room.

‘And would you’ve come if you’d known she was the psychic?’ Gabri gestured with the plate toward Jeanne. A caper rolled off the end, to be lost on the rich oriental carpet.

Why do we never learn? Clara sighed to herself. Every time Gabri has a guest he organizes some outlandish event, like the time the poker champ came to stay and took all our money, or that singer who made even Ruth sound like Maria Callas. Still, horrible as these socials Gabri threw together turned out for the villagers, they must have been worse for the unsuspecting guests, roped into entertaining Three Pines when all they wanted was a quiet stay in the country.

She watched as Jeanne Chauvet gazed around the room, rubbed her hands on her polyester pants and smiled at the portrait above the roaring fireplace. Before Clara’s very eyes she seemed to disappear. It was actually quite a trick, though not one that spoke highly of her psychic abilities. Clara felt badly for her. Really, what was Gabri thinking?

‘What were you thinking?’

‘What do you mean? She’s a psychic. She told me when she booked in. True, she’s not Madame Blavatsky. Or from Hungary. But she does readings.’

‘Wait a minute.’ Clara was getting suspicious. ‘Does she even know you’d planned this evening?’

‘Well, I’m sure she divined it.’

‘Once people started showing up, maybe. Gabri, how could you do this to her? To us?’

‘She’ll be fine. Look at her. She’s loosening up already.’

Myrna had fetched her a tumbler of white wine and Jeanne Chauvet was drinking as though it was water before the miracle. Myrna looked over and lifted her eyebrows at Clara. Much more of this and Myrna would have to conduct the séance.

‘Séance?’ Jeanne asked a minute later when Myrna asked what they could expect. ‘Who’s holding a séance?’

All eyes turned to Gabri, who very carefully placed the platter on a table and went over to stand beside Jeanne. Gabri’s bulk and natural exuberance seemed to make the nondescript woman shrink even further until she looked like clothes on a hanger. Clara guessed she was somewhere around forty. Her hair was dull brown and looked as though she cut it herself. Her eyes were faded blue and her clothing was bargain-bin K-mart. Clara, who’d lived in poverty as an artist most of her life, recognized the signs. She wondered fleetingly why Jeanne had come to Three Pines and paid to stay at Gabri’s B. & B., which while not ruinous wasn’t cheap either.

Jeanne no longer seemed afraid, just confused. Clara wanted to go over and put her arms round the little woman and shield her from what was coming next. She wanted to give her a good hot dinner and a warm bath and some kindness, then maybe she’d become substantial.

Clara too glanced around the room. Peter had flatly refused to come, calling it hogwash. But he’d held her hand an instant longer than necessary as she’d left, and told her to be careful. Walking under the stars round the village green to the cheery bistro Clara had smiled. Peter had been raised a strict Anglican. This sort of thing repulsed him. It also terrified him.

They’d had a small discussion over dinner, with Peter taking the predictable view that this was nuts.

‘Are you calling me nuts?’ Clara had asked, knowing he hadn’t but loving to see him squirm. He’d raised his head, full of lush grey curls, and looked at her angrily. Tall and slender with aquiline nose and intelligent eyes, he looked like a bank president, not an artist. And yet that was what he was. But an artist who seemed unconnected to his heart. He lived in a deeply rational world where anything unexplainable was ‘nuts’ or ‘silly’ or ‘insane’. Emotions were insane. Except his love for Clara, which was complete and all-consuming.

‘No, I’m calling the psychic nuts. She’s a charlatan. Contacting the dead, predicting the future. Bullshit. It’s the oldest game in the book.’

‘Which book? The Bible?’

‘Don’t start with me, Clara,’ Peter had warned.

‘No, really. Which book talks about transformations? Of water into wine? Of bread into flesh? Or magic, like walking on water? Of parting the seas and making the blind see and the crippled walk?’

‘Those were miracles, not magic.’

‘Ahh.’ Clara had nodded and smiled and gone back to eating.

So Clara found herself with Myrna as her date. Madeleine and Monsieur Béliveau were there, not quite holding hands but they might as well have been. His long sweater-clad arm was just touching hers, and she didn’t shy away. Once again Clara was taken by how attractive Madeleine was. She was one of those women other women wanted as a best friend and men wanted as a wife.

Clara smiled at Monsieur Béliveau and blushed. Because she’d caught them in an intimate moment, seen feelings best kept private? She considered for a moment, but realized the blush had more to do with her than him. She felt differently about Monsieur Béliveau after overhearing Gilles that afternoon. The gentle grocer had gone from being a benign and kindly presence in their lives to a mystery. Clara didn’t like the transformation. And she didn’t like herself for being so susceptible to gossip.

Gilles Sandon stood in front of the fireplace, rubbing the warmth into the back of his substantial jeans with vigor. He was so big he almost blocked the entire hearth. Odile Montmagny brought him a glass of wine which he took absent-mindedly, preferring instead to concentrate on Monsieur Béliveau, who seemed oblivious.

Clara had always liked Odile. They were much the same age and both were in the arts, Clara a painter and Odile a poet. She claimed to be working on an epic poem, an ode to the English of Quebec, which was suspicious since she was French. Clara would never forget the reading she’d attended at the Royal Canadian Legion in St-Rémy. All sorts of local writers had been invited, including Ruth and Odile. Ruth had read first, from her searing work, ‘To the Congregation’.

I envy you your steady blaze

fed by the Book of Common Praise.

I envy this, believe I do,

that you can be, together, you,

And understand you may not see

that I must, on my own, be me.

And then it had been Odile’s turn. Up she’d sprung and without pause launched into her poem.

Spring is coming with its girth,

And breezy breath of balmy warmth

And burbank, bobolink, and snearth,

Shall banish winter’s chill and dearth,

And luscious joy shall fill the earth.

‘Wonderful poem,’ Clara lied, when everyone had finished and they were crowded around the bar, feeling some urgency for a drink. ‘I’m just kind of curious. I’ve never actually heard of a snearth.’

‘I made it up,’ said Odile with glee. ‘I needed a word to rhyme with dearth and earth.’

‘Like mirth?’ Ruth suggested. Clara shot her a warning look and Odile seemed to consider it.

‘Not powerful enough, I’m afraid.’

‘Unlike the juggernaut that is snearth,’ said Ruth to Clara before turning back to Odile. ‘Well, I certainly feel enriched, if not fertilized. The only poet I can think to compare you to is the great Sarah Binks.’

While Odile had never heard of Sarah Binks she knew her cultural knowledge had been stunted by an education that only admitted fran-cophone genius. Sarah Binks, she knew, must be a very great English poet indeed. That compliment from Ruth Zardo had fueled Odile Montmagny’s creativity and in quiet moments at their shop, La Maison Biologique in St-Rémy, she’d pull out her worn and worried child’s notebook to write another poem, sometimes not even pausing for inspiration.

Clara, a struggling artist herself, identified with Odile and cheered her on. Peter, of course, thought Odile was nuts. But Clara knew differently. She knew that what often distinguished great people of the arts wasn’t genius, but perseverance. Odile persevered.

Eight of them had gathered in the cozy back room of the bistro to raise the dead this Good Friday, and the only question seemed to be, who would do it.

‘Not me,’ said Jeanne. ‘I thought one of you was the psychic.’

‘Gabri?’ Gilles Sandon turned on their host.

‘But you told me you do readings,’ Gabri said to Jeanne, pleading.

‘I do. Tarot cards, runes, that sort of thing. I don’t contact the dead. Not often anyway.’