Bury Your Dead

Old Mundin picks up his narrative, explaining that he saw a walking stick he knew was his father’s in the Montreal shop where he once worked. He immediately sought out Olivier, the seller, and moved to Three Pines, taking furniture-restoration work. Gabri defends his partner, saying he is incapable of murder. Old Mundin gently agrees, explaining that while he remained curious about where the artifacts came from, he also fell in love with his wife and started a family, leaving vengeance behind. The quest only resumed the night he discovered the cabin. He explains that he knew his father had not died by accident or suicide, as all of his most precious artifacts had disappeared along with him. He assumed that only murder could have separated him from his family, and he believed the trove in the cabin belonged to the murderer.

He left the “Woo” carving, his first wood project, outside the cabin to lure the Hermit out. He hoped his father’s killer would recognize his childhood nickname—he could not pronounce “wood” and said “Woo,” which only his father remembered (455-56). He hoped seeing this on the carving would frighten the Hermit. He struck the old man with the menorah to avenge his father.

Beauvoir’s perspective fluctuates here, from the moments after the confession to a later conversation with the villagers at the Morrow home. In the short term, he has the others leave the bistro, where he establishes that Old Mundin’s mother, Charlotte, used to read him Charlotte’s Web and that his nickname comes from his father’s habit of calling him “old son” (461). He explains to the Morrows that the Hermit stole his treasures from all over Communist Europe, smuggling them to Canada after faking his death. He tells the villagers what he told Mundin: the young man killed his own father, thinking he was killing his father’s murderer. The Hermit’s carving of a young man, which everyone assumed was Olivier in The Brutal Telling, was the older man’s rendering of his adult son, as in his old age he was filled with grief for the life he left behind.

Beauvoir, exhausted, finds himself gratefully accepting Clara’s invitation to dinner, realizing that he has come to look at the village as a refuge. He secretly takes half a Percocet. When he tells Clara he will come in an hour, she tells him to bring Ruth. Beauvoir, almost comforted, realizes she knows he is seeking out the elderly poet for his own reasons. He arrives at Ruth’s, and she tells him she has cued up the video of the warehouse raid for him, so that they can watch together.

In Québec City, Gamache walks home with Émile in the snow, pondering the mystery of Champlain’s remains, still unsolved. When he returns from walking his dog, he finds that Émile, like Ruth in Three Pines, has set up a laptop, saying, “I’d like to watch the video with you“ (466).

Beauvoir watches the firefight: There were many more terrorists than anticipated, and some officers are quickly overwhelmed. He himself is hit. In the chaos, Gamache drags him to safety, helping him staunch his wounds. Then Gamache “did something not meant to be seen by anyone else. Now seen by millions. He kissed Beauvoir on the forehead” (470). Gamache captures a gunman but is hit himself, in the head and chest. Beauvoir sees him, injured, fearful his mentor is dying. Gamache whispers his wife’s name and then loses consciousness, only revived after assistance from paramedics.

The perspective shifts to Émile’s memories of arriving at the hospital, with Reine-Marie uncertain of her husband’s future, though relieved he is alive. The dam is saved. Mere days after he regains consciousness, Gamache practices walking, determined to be in the funeral procession for his lost officers. The image of his grief makes him an international sensation.

Beauvoir, in Three Pines, finds himself walking arm in arm with Ruth to dinner with the Morrows, Gabri, and the others.

Gamache, with Émile, recalls Francoeur’s refusal to believe the intelligence from the Cree community that the dam is under threat. He finally begs, and Francoeur says that if he is wrong he will be arrested. In the present, Émile tries to reassure his protégé that the video portrays him as “heroic,” but Gamache feels he is being “lionized for nothing” and suspects the person who leaked the video intended him to feel precisely this sense of self-loathing (485).