William Bell - Fanatics

While Raphaella was paying for the service I dropped a few dollar coins into the shrinkwrap machine and sealed up the original manuscript. I slid the photocopy into the professor’s file box. We left the store and rode to Mrs. Stoppini’s lawyer’s office on Colborne Street. We explained to the secretary who we were.

“Ah, yes,” she said. “I was speaking to Mrs. Stoppini myself.”

We handed over the package and made our way out the door-but not until we had watched the secretary put the package into the safe.

The sun had climbed toward noon by the time we pulled through the mansion gates. Raphaella and I went directly to the library and put the photocopy where it belonged. We sat down in the chairs facing the fireplace.

“One last duty,” I said with no confidence whatsoever.

“Finding a way to make the spirit leave.”

“For good.”

We threw a few ideas around, including Raphaella’s joking suggestion to hire a priest to conduct an exorcism. She was laughing when she said it.

“I don’t think you can hire a priest, anyway. Besides, you’re not Catholic.”

No matter how many scenarios we spun, we ended up with the same problem-the gold cross.

“How about we separate the relic from the cross?” I suggested.

“Thereby accomplishing what?”

“Did you just say ‘thereby’?”

“Sorry. Must have been the influence of the lawyer’s office. But answer my question anyway.”

“If we remove the atlas we dissolve the cult. No reliquary, no secret movement.”

“But they don’t actually need the reliquary. They can still hold meetings and worship the friar and hatch their plans. And really, none of that is our business. They have a right to believe what they want.”

“True. Okay, why don’t we post the atlas on an online auction. ‘One fanatical monk’s atlas bone. Previously owned. Slightly marked by events.’ ”

“ ‘Be the first kid on your block to have your very own holy relic,’ ” Raphaella added, and began to giggle. “If we separate the relic from the cross, what do we do with the atlas?” she asked, suddenly serious again. “I don’t believe it’s holy, but it is part of a human being, however evil he was sometimes.”

“Could we bury it?”

“Where?”

“A Catholic cemetery?”

“But would that solve anything?”

“I don’t know.”

“Me either.”

“So,” I summed up, “we’re agreed.”

“Yeah. We don’t have a clue what to do.”

“Exactly.”

OVER THE NEXT WEEK a lot happened in the part of my life that had nothing to do with the Corbizzi estate or the Renaissance ghost that had taken up residence there.

Raphaella was in constant demand. MOO was gearing up for opening night, with a full rehearsal schedule. The show was coming together well, she told me. It was looking and sounding good. Mr. and Mrs. Director were getting along. Between MOO and her responsibilities at the Demeter, Raphaella was run ragged.

I was bouncing down the stairs from my room one morning when my cell rang. A man introduced himself as Derek and said he and his wife had been looking at the walnut cabinet I had made and put on display in the Olde Gold showroom. My father had given him my cell number. Would I be able to come to their house and discuss a commission?

I rode out to their century home on Maple Drive, where we sat by the lake in wicker patio chairs and worked out a deal for the cabinet and three more custom-designed pieces-two chests of drawers and a bookcase with glass doors. I agreed to come back with an estimate and preliminary drawings in a couple of weeks-they weren’t in a hurry, they said-and left the patio with a deposit cheque in my wallet.

I practically sang out loud as I rode home. Finally, a real customer-and some cash flow. Finally, I could realistically hope that not too far in the future Raphaella and I would be able to find a place of our own and move in together. We had talked about getting married. The conversation lasted about five seconds, as I had expected. Raphaella thought marriage was an outmoded institution based on the idea that women were property or second-class citizens. “We don’t need a piece of paper,” she had said. “We know how we feel about each other.” I didn’t care one way or the other, as long as I was with her.

I came back into the house to hear a strange sound coming from the living room. Our TV set never saw action until at least six o’clock. I walked down the hall and got my second shock. My mother was watching TV. In the middle of the day.

Before I could say, “What’s wrong?” she asked, “Heard the news?”

At the bottom of the screen a white banner crawled, almost shouting “Breaking News,” while an overly made-up woman sitting behind a huge kidney-shaped desk was talking.

“… confirmed that at least six men, including the imam of the Scarborough mosque all the suspects attended, were arrested early this morning in a coordinated series of raids in Scarborough and Mississauga involving security services and two police forces. The men, all Pakistani-Canadians, ranging in age from juveniles to mid-twenties, have been detained in connection with possible terrorist activities. More on this after the break.”

Mom hit the Mute button on the remote.

“It’s started,” she said.

“Did you know it was coming?”

“I knew it would be soon. That’s why I went to the city and checked out the mosque and some of the addresses I had acquired by using the phone numbers on the cell you found. I just drove by and took pictures. I already had their names.”

“So you’re all set to go?”

The sparkle in her eyes said yes. “I think so. There might even be a book in this.”

On the TV screen, where the news reader had just been talking about suspected terrorists, a woman was earnestly demonstrating the wonders of a new brand of paper towel to her husband. The “more after the break” claim turned out to be a repeat of the announcement. Additional information was promised.

By the time the six o’clock news came on the kitchen radio, the arrest count had risen and the media had already dubbed the detainees “The Severn Ten,” continually referring to them as Muslim men. The training camp had been discovered, thanks to an anonymous source, near Orillia.

“That’s us, Mom,” I exclaimed, earning a scowl from her and a confused glance from my father. He put down his knife and fork and calmly aligned them beside his plate of fish and chips.

“Why do I have the feeling I’m the last one to get the joke?” Dad asked.

Mom took a sip of her white wine and began to explain. She emphasized the reasons why she couldn’t tell Dad what she had been working on. Now that the story was out, she could. Our plates were empty by the time she finished.

Dad looked at me, then at Mom, then he smiled.

“So you’re not going to Herat, then,” he said.

By eleven o’clock the training camp was being called “jihadist” and the men “Islamists.” They had been plotting, the police said, to attack one or more targets in the city, including Union Station and CSIS headquarters. A huge cache of firearms, ammunition, and explosives had been captured during the raids. In addition, each of the detained men carried a copy of a manifesto calling for the establishment of an Islamist state and strict rule according to Sharia law.

“In other words, a theocracy,” I murmured. “There’s not much news left for you to break, is there, Mom?” I asked.

“Oh, we’ll see,” she said mysteriously.

AFTER DINNER I FLOPPED in front of the TV and flipped through channels mindlessly, unable to give my attention to anything on offer. I tossed the remote aside without turning off the set. On the screen two ego-warriors in black jumpsuits and watch caps were going through the classic Hollywood “suiting up” scene-buckling buckles, zipping zippers, cinching drawstrings, slamming ammo clips into wicked-looking weapons, eager to shoot or blow up anything that got in their way-all this as uptempo music pounded in the background. It wasn’t clear to me what they were fighting for, other than their own egos. As sparks flew and mangled bodies fell, my mind was constantly drawn back to reality and the radio newscast at dinner.