by William Bell
The victim, his back twisted under his filthy shift, his shoulders misshapen, knelt on the floor before the table, forehead on the stone, mumbling repeatedly, “De profundis clamavi ad te domine, domine esuadi vocem meam.”
Partially within the glow cast by the candles, their faces in the shadow of their hoods, the three men were at their places behind the table. The one in the centre was shorter than the other two, his shoulders broader, and he was in command. He said something calmly, as if passing the time of day with his colleagues, and the jailers approached the victim. One held the leather thongs for the prisoner’s wrists, the other clutched the end of the hoisting rope. Still on his knees, the prisoner placed his elbows on the table’s edge, grunting with the pain, his hands together as in prayer.
“Credo in unum deum…”
The man at the table spoke again. The prisoner looked up, and as he did the candlelight fell upon his face, revealing sunken cheeks, thick lips, and a large hooked nose. There was no mistaking his identity.
He was the man on the medal hidden in Professor Corbizzi’s secret cupboard.
Four
I
RAIN BUCKETED DOWN for half the night, then slackened as the storm rampaged off to the east and beyond the lake. When morning light rose in my window I was able to sleep.
But not for long. Mom called me for breakfast at the usual time. When I slouched into the kitchen, yawning and knuckling sleep from my eyes, I found my parents at the table, their faces blank and cold. I poured a coffee and dropped two slices of bread into the toaster.
The only sounds in the room were the clink of cutlery on a plate or a jam pot and me slurping down hot coffee to kick-start my brain. Mom had the local paper open to the city page. I laid my hand on her shoulder and leaned over to scan the dramatic headline shouting that the city’s third drowning victim had been found at the north end of Cumberland Beach, near Greyshott Drive. The unidentified man was wearing sporting gear, the article said, and was unknown to locals.
“Any chance you’ll be assigned to cover that?” I asked, just to make conversation.
Mom shook her head. She didn’t do accidents. She did wars, conspiracies, naughty politicians. I took my toast to the table, sat, and spooned a dollop of Dad’s homemade strawberry jam onto my barely singed bread.
“Um,” I began, hoping to break the ice that held my parents in its grip, “do either of you know anything about Roman numerals?”
“Does,” Mom said.
“Pardon?”
“It’s ‘Does either of you know.’ ”
“Oh, sorry. Okay, I tries again. Does youse guys can reads Roman numerals any good?”
My father’s eyes twinkled. “Garnet, please doesn’t be sarcastic. We all gots to talk good, or people will think we ain’t been edjimicated.”
Mom let out a theatrical sigh. “I’m living with a couple of boors. Who always gang up on me.”
“I can,” Dad said. “Read Roman numerals, that is.”
“Good. I know numbers one, five, and ten, but that’s all. What’s MCDXCV?”
“Let’s see…” he mused, scrutinizing the ceiling. “It’s a lot.”
“It’s 1495,” Mom cut in.
“Exactly what I was going to say,” Dad added, nodding wisely.
“And one more question-Was the Italian language in 1495 pretty much the same as now?”
It was my mother who replied. “Back then, Italy wasn’t a unified nation as it is today. It was a group of small republics, duchies, and kingdoms-Venice, Milan, Naples, for example. And each area had its own dialect. Books were usually written in Latin, the language of those your father would call edjimicated. It was sort of the universal language of Europe.”
“And of the Roman Catholic Church,” Dad put in. “Which, at that time, was the Church.”
I had a thought. “So prayers would be said in Latin.”
Both of them nodded at once. “The mass was said in Latin, too,” Dad said.
My sleep-deprived brain was suddenly energized. I felt my excitement growing, but I did my best to sound casual.
“If I gave you a few sentences in Latin, could you translate them?”
Dad shook his head.
Mom replied, “No, but we know someone who could.”
Dad gave a look of mock confusion. “We does?”
II
BEFORE I LEFT for the estate and the thousands of books waiting to be catalogued I phoned Raphaella, but the call went immediately to her voicemail. I wanted to let her know that I had discovered the identity of the torture victim in my dream. “I’m pursuing a lead,” I said, “just like a detective. It has to do with language,” I added mysteriously.
I disconnected and sat down to compose a letter to Marshall Northrop, my parents’ friend in the classical studies department at York University. Mom had called him after breakfast and left a message asking for help and telling him I’d be in contact.
I had noted the title of Professor Corbizzi’s antique book on my laptop, along with the inscription on the medal, so it was a simple matter to paste the information into a letter. I explained to the prof that the medal’s words were very hard to read, but I had done my best to copy them accurately. Last, I asked him to call my cell at his convenience because there were some oral expressions I wanted to ask him to translate. I didn’t say that the words had been uttered by a man who was being tortured. In a jail cell somewhere back in history. In a dream.
I sent off the email, then walked down Matchedash Street to Mississauga and over to the Half Moon Cafe. Nodding to Marco, I took a table near the bar. The mid-morning crowd was thin, the cafe fairly quiet, except for a table of women who were chirping away enthusiastically, coloured shopping bags at their feet and crumb-sprinkled plates next to their empty cups and mugs. Beside a trio of men in suits, their table strewn with pamphlets and papers, Evvie McFadden was reading a book, on her break, I guessed, from the Magus Bookstore a few doors down. I waved when she raised her head. I had known Evvie since grade one, when I had been in love with her for a week or so.
Marco appeared with my latte and two tiny pastries, each dusted with powdered sugar and topped with a dab of chocolate.
“How did you know what I was going to order?”
The parentheses appeared briefly at the corners of his smile. “I took a wild guess,” he said, wiping his hands on a rag.
“Thanks, Marco.” I nodded toward the back. “Who are the suits? I don’t recognize any of them.”
“Dunno. They’re with Geneva Park, they said. Some conference or other.”
“I think I heard about that. Raphaella mentioned her production might get to perform out there. By the way, thanks for connecting me with Mrs. Stoppini.”
Marco waved his hand as if swatting a fly. “Don’t mention it. Everything workin’ out okay?”
“Couldn’t be better. I have the shop set up and operational.” I kept in mind my promise to Mrs. Stoppini not to disclose any details about my contract and didn’t say anymore.
“Great,” he replied.
“Marco, you said the professor was a distant cousin. Can you tell me anything about him?”
Marco settled back in his chair and rested an ankle on the opposite knee. “When I asked around the clan for his phone number I ran into a few road blocks. Nobody had much to say about him, which is rare in our family, where everybody butts into everybody else’s business, and where a dinner party is like a football match with everybody talking at once. But my aunt Isabella, she was married to… well, never mind the details. Anyways, she seemed to know a lot about the prof and was happy to talk to me.”
I sipped my latte and waited. Marco’s pause was my cue to prompt him for details. He loved to gossip, and he passed on information with a storyteller’s gift for drama and a comedian’s sense of timing. I popped one of the pastries into my mouth, chewed, swallowed, and raised my eyebrows to encourage him.
“See,” he went on, “our family has two lines, the Bianchi
s and the Corbizzis. How they mingled up with each other I got no idea. Nobody seems to know when it happened. Prob’ly a love affair somewhere along the road. Who can say? The Bianchis were Calabrian farmers, dirt poor and rough around the edges. The Corbizzis were Florentine merchants, minor nobility-they think they still are-and naturally they’re snobs. Look down on the Bianchis like a queen looks at the maid who cleans her bathroom. During World War II the Corbizzis sided with the Fascists. But Aunt Isabella says Eduardo Corbizzi-that’s the prof-wasn’t like the rest of them. He broke from his clan. He also refused the family money, struck off on his own, got an education, and became a scholar. Then he left Italy-a mortal sin among the Corbizzis. He was a real radical. Quit the Church at fifteen, didn’t believe in marriage. That’s what Isabella said.”
I thought about what Marco had told me. Whatever embellishments he or his aunt might have added, it fit with the little I had learned from Mrs. Stoppini. It explained her relationship with the prof, for one thing. She and the prof had been a couple but had never married in a church or at city hall. The prof was estranged from his family, a recluse, a man who held unusual opinions. Mrs. Stoppini had hinted as much when she explained that he hadn’t fit in very well at the University of Toronto. She had also indicated that he had become obsessed with his work toward the end of his life.
“Interesting guy,” I commented.
Marco leaned forward, elbows on the table, and dropped his voice. “Aunt Isabella said the prof was into some pretty weird stuff.”
“Like what?”
“Something to do with religion. She wouldn’t go into detail. I don’t know-maybe she was exaggerating. She’s a Bianchi, after all. Thinks the Corbizzis haven’t noticed that the world has changed. Funny thing is, from what she said, the prof prob’ly would’ve agreed with her.”
“So, Marco,” I said mischievously, “you’re a Grenoble, not a Corbizzi or a Bianchi. How did that happen?”
He got up and waved his hand. “Don’t ask.”
III
WHEN I GOT TO WICKLOW POINT the estate gate was blocked by a panel van with BRADLEY SUMMERHILL & SON, AUCTIONEERS painted on the side. Brad Summerhill, the son, was heaving his bulk from the driver’s seat. I pulled my motorcycle around the van and activated the remote.
“Follow me,” I said, and steered through the opening gate.
Brad backed the van up to the coach house door. I helped him lug the table into the shop.
Brad handed me a clipboard. “Sign here,” he said in his usual barely civilized manner.
I initialled the hand-printed form and passed the clipboard back.
“Your father was lucky,” Brad remarked.
“Oh?”
“He should never have gotten the table so cheap.”
Brad always seemed as if he’d sucked half a dozen lemons before he began his day.
“He bought it at auction, didn’t he?”
“Yeah.”
“Your auction.”
“So?”
“So how does an auction work? Remind me.”
“Forget it,” Brad growled. He squeezed himself behind the wheel and drove off.
“YOU’LL TAKE SOME refreshment before you begin your work,” Mrs. Stoppini informed me.
“Love to.”
“Tea?”
“I guess it’s too late for a cappuccino,” I said, “even for an uncivilized guy like me.”
Mrs. Stoppini checked the kitchen clock. “Most assuredly not.”
She went to the coffee machine and began to froth the milk. Over her shoulder and in a voice that suggested a major crime had occurred, she protested, “Your friend left without saying hello.”
“Brad was delivering a table my father bought. It needs to be refinished. Brad was in a hurry. He’s not a friend, really. More of a business, er…”
“Associate?”
“Right. More that than friend. He’s a little abrupt at times.”
“Then he has missed out on a homemade brioche.”
“Serves him right.”
Mrs. Stoppini made the espresso in a wide cup, then poured the foamy milk on top and set the cup on the table.
“May I enquire how your work is progressing?” she asked, sitting down and pushing the plate of pastries toward me.
“Well,” I said after swallowing a piece of bread roll as light as a fairy’s wing, “as you know, the repairs, the painting, and the mantel are finished. I’ve made an inventory of the furniture and everything else that isn’t a book, including the items in the, er… well, as I said, everything. Raphaella has worked out an efficient way of cataloguing the books. Which reminds me, I’ll need to know which ones you want noted in detail.”
“There are a number of volumes that he valued more than the others. They are all to be found in the alcove,” Mrs. Stoppini replied.
I should have known. “Okay” was all I said.
“Splendid progress, Mr. Havelock.”
“I have work to do in the shop this morning-the table I mentioned-then I’ll put in a few hours with the books.”
“Excellent. And I do think your young lady will prove to be an asset.”
I left the house smiling, picturing the look on Raphaella’s face when I informed her that she was not only a young lady but an asset.
Nourished by the cappuccino and brioches, I crossed the yard to the shop and began to inspect the table-a plain, functional piece of pine furniture, still sound but showing its age through scratches, dents, flaking paint, cigarette burns, and one wobbly leg. Dad wanted it refinished as original, which meant seeing to the leg and then stripping off the old finish and sanding the table before repainting it.
I set to work, and after a few hours the piece stood clean and ready for sanding. I hung up my apron, washed my hands, and went to the house. I wanted to acquaint myself with the books in the alcove before Raphaella and I began to catalogue them in detail. On the day we had worked out the professor’s method of organizing his collection and Raphaella had stuck her labels on the “columns,” we had avoided that part of the room.
I entered the library and shut the doors behind me. I felt as if I had closed myself off from the world. Since the first day I had come through those pocket doors with their lion’s-head knobs the alcove had seemed like a sinister space all its own, a special niche that was physically part of the larger room but at the same time a separate area. Most of the books scattered across the hardwood and rugs had been found in or around the alcove, and the table there had been knocked over, as if the professor’s final struggle had begun there. But it was more than that. The room’s menacing atmosphere intensified as I neared the alcove. The occasional whiff of smoke I often detected in the library was stronger there. My discovery of the keys and the secret cupboard with its weird contents seemed to intensify the mystery and malevolence.
Once again I wondered if I was letting my imagination carry me away. Could the whole mystery surrounding the professor’s death and the fire be explained by a simple break-in gone wrong? Had someone known about the cross, the vellum manuscripts, the medal-all worth who knew how many thousands or millions of dollars-and entered the house bent on theft? Could a violent struggle with a burglar explain the condition of the room the night the professor died-even the death itself, and the fire?
The theory was attractive. It explained things logically, in a real-world way, and it pushed thoughts of the supernatural and of sinister presences back into the land of superstition, where they belonged.
But it didn’t account for my dreams, which I knew were connected in some way to the Corbizzi house and the medal, although I hadn’t discovered how. It didn’t clarify the premonitions felt by both me and Raphaella. I trusted Raphaella’s insight more than I would a compass or an adding machine. And once more I reminded myself that my own experience had proved that presences and the supernatural were as real as the hardwood floor under my feet.
So I stood there in the alcove, leaning back on the table, and let
my eye wander at random over some of the titles. The Pazzi Family of Renaissance Florence, Savonarola and Il Magnifico, The Renaissance Popes, The Siege of San Marco, Blood in the Cathedral: The Pazzi-Medici Feud, Savonarolan Theocracy-the last by none other than Eduardo Corbizzi.
The prof had been a scholar of Renaissance Italy, which I knew-after I looked it up-was the period from 1300 CE to 1600 CE. But that was all I knew, besides the fact that I couldn’t have found Florence on a map. I went to the reference shelves behind the escritoire and took down an atlas, looked up the city’s name in the index. Florence was in Tuscany, a region in central Italy, just like Marco had said.
My cell trilled. A city number I didn’t recognize.
“Hello?”
“Garnet Havelock?”
“That’s me.”
“Hello, this is Marshall Northrop.”
My parents’ friend, the professor from the classical studies department at York University.
“Thanks for calling,” I said.
We traded pleasantries for a few minutes, then Northrop got down to business. “You needed some translations. Got a pen handy?”
I sat down at Raphaella’s work station by the window and pulled a writing tablet to hand.
“Ready,” I said.
“First, let’s talk about the book. The title, Compendium Revelationem, is easy. The English is ‘Collection of Revelations.’ ”
“Okay.”
“Hieronymvs is a given or what used to be called a Christian name,” he went on. “You may not have known that in Latin a v is an English u. The modern spelling would be Hieronymus, like the artist Hieronymus Bosch.”
“Ah, I see,” I said knowingly. I had no idea who the prof was referring to.
“In English the name would be Jerome.”
