Fanatics

“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 Bianchis 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