Theory of Remainders (36 page)

“Guérin,” Philip said suddenly. “In the archives. He might be able to help.”

“An excellent thought. People say he knows everything
.
”

If history was what Philip wanted, that would be their best bet.

On their way to city hall they passed the
Tord-boyaux
, and through the open door a voice rang out, calling for Roger. He hopped up the steps and reached in, shaking hands with the gangly police officer and the short, tweed-capped man. Something he said triggered laughter in the group.

“You actually know them?” Philip said when he returned.

“Not really,” Roger replied with a satisfied smile. “A couple of them, yes. But as a Norman originally from Yvetot, I’m entitled to a lifelong membership in their club. We share a common history. Even the jokes are handed down from one generation to the next.”

“And you shook hands with them? Even the mealy little fellow with the driving cap?”

“That
mealy little fellow
is the mayor of Yvetot. Try not to disparage our locally elected officials, Philip. It won’t endear you to the Yvetotais.”

In front of city hall, they passed before the monument to the First World War, the colossal soldier frozen in a huddled mass of dark green metal streaked with black. Downstairs they entered the tidy main office of the archive, threading their way between the shelves of boxes. At the reception counter, as Roger reached out to tap the service bell, muffled voices sounded in the direction of the storage room in the back. Philip led him down the narrow corridor.

“I’ll take two,” said a voice in French.

“Three for me.”

“Dealer takes one. Now who’s in?”

There was a clink of coins.

As they turned the corner of the overflowing shelves of bric-a-brac, the scene that met their eyes included Guérin, Bécot, and Cabot, all sitting around a game table, cards in their hands, coins and bills in the pot. It was Religion versus History versus Hospitality—and judging by the well-ordered stacks of coins amassed before Guérin, History was winning.

“
Bon sang
,” cried Father Cabot, when he caught sight of the two men, leaping to his feet and stumbling on the hem of his cassock, cards tumbling from his hands.

“Hello, Father,” Philip said as they approached.

“For the love of God!” went the priest. “Monsieur Abbler, don’t startle us like that. I didn’t hear anyone come in.”

Bécot looked none too pleased either. “What are you doing here, Monsieur Adler?” he said, his voice strained. “And now you’ve dragged along Monsieur Aubert.”

Only Guérin seemed genuinely glad to see them. “Gentlemen!” he sang out, his eyes gleaming under his cumulus of white hair. “How timely. Care to join us for a hand?”

“Just a harmless game . . . of cribbage, you know,” Cabot said stepping forward to block the view of the winnings.

Guérin chuckled. “Cribbage? My dear Quentin, I think these fellows understand a wager when they see one.”

“Well, yes, I suppose,” the priest fumbled. “There is a religious aspect to betting, of course. Ever since Pascal . . .”

Guérin ushered the men forward for a flurry of handshakes and an exchange of greetings.

Roger peered about at the jumbled miscellany of the storeroom, examining the clocks and books and birdcages, and admiring with particular attention a plaster sculpture of a bare-breasted woman. “Quite a Cave of Wonders you have down here, Monsieur.”

“You’re the son of Anne-Madeleine, aren’t you?” Guérin asked.

“Ah yes,” said Cabot. “Tell me, Monsieur Aubert, how is your mother doing these days? Such a dear woman.”

“How kind of you to ask, Father. She’s doing as well as might be expected, under the circumstances.”

“I’m so glad to hear it.”

“You see, you buried her about two weeks ago,” Roger added.

“Did I?” Cabot’s ruddy complexion went violet. “Oh my, so I did. Do forgive me. There are so many, you know.” His voice trailed off.

Philip and Roger accepted seats at the table and Philip explained their mission: they needed help tracking down some information.

Bécot grimaced. “Monsieur Adler,” he said, shaking his head.

Cabot took this as his cue to exit. “Well, I doubt I can be of much assistance to you in such matters.” He began to collect his remaining coins.

“Actually, Father,” Roger interjected, “we need to enlist your help understanding a few articles of faith.”

Cabot blanched as far as his complexion allowed. “Articles of faith?”

“We have questions about a Biblical reference.”

“Well, of course. Certainly. As long as it’s not too complicated. You see, it’s a very busy day. In just a little while I have . . . I have . . .” He glanced at his watch. “I have . . .” He cast his eyes about the storeroom, and his voice trailed off.

Cabot helped where he could, but he explained that he was more of a shepherd than a scholar. At first he thought their question about Saint Louis had to do with the city in Missouri, which in turn he confused with the jazz and carnivals of New Orleans. Even when they got him focused on the right person, his knowledge of the specifics barely exceeded Roger’s schoolboy image of the king giving out justice at the foot of an oak. He wasn’t
entirely
sure what the grounds were for the king’s sainthood, so he waffled, suggesting this and that, hinting that it was never easy to fathom the motivations of popes.

Roger enjoyed Cabot’s floundering, and he tossed him questions the way one might lob anvils at a drowning man. “By the way, Father, I don’t recall which pope that was,” he said. “Or even what century. Could you clear that up for us?”

“Oh, well, I . . . I don’t recall the exact year,” Cabot said as he squirmed, looking at his companions in hopes that they might bail him out. Then his eyes lit up. “Henri,” he said to Monsieur Guérin, “surely you have a book for this somewhere?”

And of course Guérin did. He pulled a volume from the dusty shelves and handed it to his friend. While Cabot thumbed through, Guérin leaned toward Philip. “Thirteenth century,” he whispered. “I’d bet him ten euros.”

“Boniface the eighth,” came Cabot’s victorious cry. “Now let’s see,” he muttered as he scanned the entry. “In 1297. That’s when he was canonized. Oh my! The poor fellow died of bubonic plague. What a miserable finish for a king.” He moved his lips and mumbled softly as he educated himself about the life and death of Saint Louis, eighth king of France in the Capetian line, occasionally emitting an “Ah!” or an “Oh my!”

Bécot disapproved of the whole business, eventually deciding to leave the others to their unhealthy pursuits. After all, he had the appearance of propriety—or at least neutrality—to maintain. He didn’t want to be caught lending Philip a hand.

“Give it up, Monsieur Adler,” he advised as he made for the door. “Don’t disturb the past.”

“Nonsense,” Guérin countered. “That’s what that past is there for. Come now, you old goat. Leave us in peace if you’re not going to help.”

Guérin escorted his friend to the exit, securing at least his promise of silence.

For the next hour and a half, the four remaining men labored in the archive, pulling down reference materials and puzzling through the bluffs and wagers of Morin’s words, interrupted only by the growling of Father Cabot’s stomach. By the middle of the afternoon, books and papers were strewn over the poker table. Guérin’s neat cloud of hair had gone stormy from his tugging at it while he thought, and even Roger was looking less than dapper.

Morin had issued his cryptic statements in English, so Philip and Roger translated them for the others, often stumbling over the strange phrasing. It didn’t help that Morin drew together so many disparate ideas. In addition to religious imagery there were the references to justice, trees, fruit and even probability. Sometimes a phrase appeared meaningful, but in too many ways. For instance, the
kernel of our grief
evoked mourning, a theme that meant something to both Philip Adler and Édouard Morin. Monsieur Guérin showed how these losses—the death of Philip’s daughter and that of Édouard’s father—coexisted in the town registry, where the names were separated by fourteen years and twenty-two pages. He handed over the book and Philip reviewed the scant records of these lives. There Sophie lay as an official record, reduced to two lines of type.

On the facing page Philip’s finger fell upon another name he recognized—Julien Hesse, the man who had died just weeks before Sophie, and whose tomb he’d seen in the cemetery. It was the same name that had bled through on the hardware store sign. Yes, he was getting to know the families of Yvetot pretty well. Soon he’d be like Guérin, a repository of Yvetot family histories.

But these small discoveries led to nothing clear. Did the kernel of grief refer to Sophie? To Morin’s father? Or to something entirely different? The phrase, like all the others, was so vague that it could indicate almost anything. Reading these words was like staring at Rorschach blots: the longer you looked, the more shapes you saw.

Philip noted a recurrence of contours in the references to saints and crosses and burdens and mounts. He quizzed Guérin and Cabot about the religiousness of the images. Might they not point to some specific sites in the region? Could Morin be hinting at a location?

“Religious imagery in Normandy?” Guérin exclaimed, and Roger and Cabot joined him in a hearty laugh.

“Look, Philip,” Roger explained, “In this neck of the woods you can barely walk five paces without stumbling over something religious.”

“Still,” Guérin said. “You never know . . .” He pursed his lips and closed his eyes to think. “As far as I can recall, there are no churches near Yvetot with windows or statues of Saint Louis. What about you, Quentin? Anything come to mind?”

Cabot was again put on the spot. His eyes grew large. “Well . . . no. Not that I can think of, that is.”

There was the old Saint Louis Chapel, in Rouen, Guérin mused. Also in Rouen they would find last judgment sculptures on the cathedral and Saint-Maclou church. But these were so far away.

“As far as crosses go,” Cabot volunteered, “if you start tallying those up, where will it end? My goodness, this is Normandy. Think of all the churches, the cemeteries, the
calvaires
.”

Philip interrupted. “What do you mean by the
calvaire?
Because Morin mentioned the Calvary, too.”

“No, no, Monsieur Abbler,” Cabot replied with condescension. “Not
le Calvaire
, the hill, but
les calvaires
, the sculptures. You know—the stone or wood crucifixes you find at intersections in the countryside
.
”

“What was Morin’s wording again?” Guérin asked, craning to see the paper.

Philip looked down at the page where he had listed the phrases:
The Calvary, a likely mount
. It was an awkward line to translate into French, and he hesitated over his choice of words. What did it mean for a hill to be
likely?
In what way is a rise in the earth related to probability or chance? He cast about for a way to render this phrase in French for Guérin and Cabot, fumbling over the options.

It was Roger who got there first, uttering the words:
une montagne de possibilités.

The phrase echoed back to Philip in English with a strange familiarity. He had heard this phrase before, in Morin’s own voice, at their very first meeting. He flipped through the pages of his diary, going back to the notes of his first meeting. There it was, written in the ink from Yvonne’s pen. “Your Mountain,” he muttered.

“What do you mean?” Roger said.

“That’s how Morin described it. Yew Mountain.”

“My mountain?”