The Piano Maker (27 page)

“At the time, you told me that I was not the only uncommitted one in your congregation. And you did not mind. Or ‘you did and you didn’t,’ if I remember correctly.”

“Yes, yes. But, the difference, Mrs. Giroux – surely you can see that. The difference is that the other uncommitted people haven’t just admitted that they killed another human being. And they are not sitting at our piano, right in front for all the congregation to see – in a place of privilege – making our sacred music at Mass.”

That silenced her for a moment.

“I hadn’t thought of it that way,” she said then.

“Hadn’t you.”

“No. What do you want me to do?”

“It’s not what
I
want you to do. It’s what the church requires of you. You must be seen at confession. You must be seen to be contrite. And you must be seen doing penance. Three steps.”

“Even if I don’t believe in them?”

“Yes. Even then. Let’s put that aside for now. In any case, there is always hope. Until the last breath, we are told.”

“And what was that final day of the trial if not one long confession? And contrition and genuine sorrow.”

“That was altogether different, and you know it.”

“As far as I’m concerned, it comes to exactly the same thing in the end.
Exactly
. But never mind.”

“Yes. Never mind.” He stood up. “Mrs. Giroux, the issue has been weighing on me ever since the verdict. It pains me to say it, but I have made my decision, and here it is: I can give you the rest of today and tomorrow to think about it, but if you have not done publicly by then what is required of you now, I cannot allow you to provide our music any more. In that case, tonight would be your last time at our piano.”

And so at five o’clock she stood in line with all the others at the confessional, and they nodded at her and looked at one another with raised eyebrows.

When she was on the kneeling bench with the curtain closed and her window not yet open, she could hear him whispering towards the other side. Then that window slid shut and hers opened, and he glanced at her and leaned close to the screen to listen. Afterward he made the sign of the cross between them. He murmured in Latin, and the sweet, earnest simplicity of it all took her back to her childhood in Montmagny, to her first communion, when her father had been home, and it nearly broke her heart all over again.

For penance he gave her two Lord’s Prayers and three Hail Marys, and she walked to a pew and sat with her eyes
closed, hunched over the bible rail in the cold church saying them.

In the hotel kitchen, the women were preparing three strings of carp for dinner for the strict Catholics over the holidays. For all the others they’d be roasting several turkeys and geese. Side dishes would be Brussels sprouts done in garlic and butter, squash and turnip and sweet potatoes and sugar peas and mashed field potatoes, all from the fall harvest in the Annapolis Valley. Dessert would be a compote of pears and wild blueberries stewed with maple syrup and a splash of raisin rum. All local food, most of it donated like every year. Mildred had hired four more helpers, women who’d just the other day been laid off again at the Quaker, and she’d put Marie-Tatin in charge of them.

“Now, mind,” Mildred overheard Marie-Tatin say to the new ones. “Mrs. Yamoussouke, she wants things done quite particular in her kitchen. You’ll be startin’ with the vegetables and I’ll be tellin’ you how, so please listen.”

During midnight Mass she sat at the piano waiting for Father William to give her the sign. From where she sat she could see Claire and David Chandler, side by side in a pew. She had already asked him, and he’d said he would be very pleased to sit between them for the meal at the hotel on Christmas Day.

“And Mrs. Giroux,” he’d said with a smile. “Do you think it might be possible for you and me to use first names? From this Christmas on, perhaps. Would you agree? I would like that very much.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, David,” she’d said. “Of course. I would like it too.”

Claire looked so beautiful in that light. She looked a lot like Pierre, something about her jawline and the way she held her head. But also like Mother somehow, around the eyes.

She thought of her mother and of her mother’s face, and how much it had calmed her to see Father Dubert in her last hours. All anxiety gone in an instant. He’d parted the curtains and appeared in his full vestments like a king walking into a desert tent with all the power to bring peace, and she’d stood up from the chair and moved back while he went down on one knee and knelt at Mother’s bed.

“
In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti …
,” he’d said.

So strange. Quite wonderful.

She sat with her hands in her lap, kneading them a bit to keep them warm, and just before the second set of carols, Morris turned off half the lights from the row of switches by the side altar, and he came forward and with a pinewood taper lit the eight candles along the communion rail.

It was so absolutely still in the church that they could hear the crackling of the small flame.

Everyone was watching as the wicks caught the light one by one, and when Morris had blown out the taper and moved back into the shadows, Father William turned to her and gave the tiniest of nods.

I wish to thank Jacques Franklin, old-world
accordeur
, who years ago in Africa introduced me to the secret world of pianos, and who knew all about the art in the craft. Thank you also to Lara Hinchberger, my editor, who brought a great deal to this story; to Ellen Seligman my publisher; and to Ellen Levine, my agent. Thank you to our friends Lynne and Tony Prower for sharing some of their musical knowledge, and to Phyl and Don Ketcheson for the many fine musical moments at their house, and for letting me tinker with their Bechstein. And a very big thank-you to you, Heather, always my first reader.

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