William Bell - Fanatics

She looked up.

“Off to work?” she asked.

I nodded, then said, “Have you ever heard of a Professor Corbizzi? Lived near here?”

Mom was also a magician when it came to research. “Lived? Past tense? Doesn’t ring a bell. A professor, you say?”

I nodded again. Her fingers blurred over the keyboard.

“Eduardo Corbizzi?”

“I don’t know his first name.”

“There’s someone here. Wrote a few books. Died recently. It just says he lived somewhere near Orillia.”

“Must be him. There can’t be more than one professor in the area with an unusual name like that. What are the books about?”

“The Italian Renaissance, all out of print. Wait a minute. That’s where your new shop is-that estate up the lake.”

“Right.”

“It’s his library you’re working on. Might be interesting.”

“It already is,” I replied. “Anyway, see you later.”

“ ’Kay,” she replied, her hands already in motion, her eyes on the screen.

IT WAS A SULTRY MORNING, the heavy air already sweltering when I got to the Corbizzi gate and activated the remote I kept clipped to the inside of the fairing on my motorcycle. I drove up the lane, grateful for the cool shade of the woods, and parked under the birches by the workshop.

I saw Mrs. Stoppini’s mannequin-like shape in the kitchen window as she worked at the sink, probably washing her breakfast dishes. I waved, but she didn’t seem to notice. I let myself in the side door of the shop and hung my helmet and leather jacket on a hook by the door. Then I flipped on the overhead fans, wound the windows open, and put on my apron, mentally rehearsing my plans for the day.

I clamped one of the new mantel’s side panels into the bench vise and began to plane the edges. As usual, I got lost in the work, and when my cell rang I was surprised to hear Mrs. Stoppini announce, without so much as a hello, “I shall be serving a light lunch on the patio in thirty-five minutes.”

Even under the patio umbrella the air was sticky and oppressive. The lake gave off a brassy glare under the relentless sun, and the flowers in Mrs. Stoppini’s gardens drooped as if they had given up the fight hours ago. For the first time I noticed that there was no dock on the shore, which probably meant that the late professor was not a boater. It also meant that no one could conveniently visit the estate from the water.

Mrs. Stoppini had prepared panini-Italian sandwich rolls-of prosciutto, cheese, and lettuce and arranged them on a platter beside a bowl of olives. When we had made our deal and signed our contract, she hadn’t said anything about providing tea and coffee and lunch. But I wasn’t going to bring it up.

“I would customarily offer a good Chianti at lunch,” she said, looking cool despite her long-sleeved black housedress, “but as you are using machinery I thought mineral water might be best.”

“Good thinking,” I said, helping myself to a sandwich.

She sat down opposite me, straight-backed and rigid, and proceeded to demolish a panino. I popped an olive into my mouth, savouring the saltiness, and watched an Albacore far out on the water by Chiefs Island, desperately searching for a snatch of wind.

“If I may say, Mr. Havelock, you seem an admirably quiet and serious young man.”

I felt myself blush.

“Not like those uncivilized creatures whose animal noises and whoops one hears from the city park when the wind is in an unfavourable direction.”

“Raphaella says I’m steady. And reliable. I think she means dull.”

Something happened to Mrs. Stoppini’s face. I realized she was smiling. Sort of.

“I shall look forward to meeting this Miss Skye of yours.”

“I don’t think she’d like the ‘of yours’ part.”

“Indeed.”

“Do you mind if I ask something?” I said, changing the subject. “Professor Corbizzi-he was a university teacher?”

“He was an eminent historian and author of several books. He held a chair at Ponte Santa Trinita University in Renaissance studies in our native Florence, and his specialty was the San Marco church and monastery. I take it you have not had an opportunity to examine his library.”

“Too busy,” I said.

“Indeed. Well, he was, some years ago, offered a post at the University of Toronto, and after a few years he retired to this place. I fear he was not happy at Toronto. His work was… a trifle unorthodox.”

“Oh.”

There was something unusual in the way she talked about the man who had been her companion. Raphaella and I assumed that meant they were a couple and had been for years. Yet she seemed impersonal when she spoke of him. “He was not happy,” “he retired,” “his work was unorthodox.” Strange, I thought as I munched on the last olive in the bowl.

“He continued his work here, but I am not aware of its exact nature. He did not share it with me.”

I got the message. Don’t enquire any further. I drank down the remains of my water and stood.

“Well, thanks for the lunch,” I said. “Time to get back to work.”

DURING THE AFTERNOON, thunder grumbled on and off in the darkening northwest sky. I wondered if I should pack it in and head home before the rain came. Riding a motorcycle with a face full of windblown water was no fun. But I put it off, intent on what I was doing, and didn’t clue in to the weather again until I heard a handful of rain spatter against the window above the bench. I opened one of the garage doors, allowing a gust of cool air to swirl inside, carrying sticks and dust with it. I pushed the bike inside and ran the door back down, hoping that if there was a thunder-shower, it would be short.

I sat for a while, safe and dry behind the glass, and watched the drama in the sky above the lake, where thick purple clouds roiled over the whitecaps. Here and there bars of sunlight shot through like yellow spotlights, illuminating the emerald green water. But soon the lowering sky formed a dark ceiling. Lightning flashed and crackled. Thunder boomed like artillery. The wind came like a series of punches, bending the tall spruce between me and the water like blades of grass and lifting the skirts of the willows along the shore. Small branches spun past the window. The patio chairs tipped and rolled across the grass. The umbrella, folded and tied, rattled in its mooring, rocketed into the air, touched down briefly in a sea of irises, and somersaulted toward the lake and out of sight.

A roar like an approaching train announced the downpour, and huge raindrops slammed the concrete apron outside the shop like tiny bombs. Puddles appeared almost instantly. Distorted by the curtain of rain running down the kitchen window, Mrs. Stoppini’s tall form appeared. My cellphone rang.

“Are you quite all right?” she asked anxiously.

“Snug as a bug, Mrs. Stoppini.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I’m fine,” I said. “It’ll probably blow by in few minutes.”

“I hate storms,” she said, and hung up.

The uproar moved on after less than an hour of heavenly mayhem. The violent gusts of wind gave way to a steady breeze. The rain stopped and the sun came out, drawing steam from the apron and the patio, and setting alight the droplets that hung from every leaf. I went back to work, but by suppertime, when I had planned to quit, a sullen downpour had set in.

Mrs. Stoppini offered me supper and a guest room for the night, “in view of the weather,” and when I saw the doleful look on her face I remembered her saying earlier in the day that she hated storms-which meant they scared her. I called home and let my parents know. After supper-pasta with garlic, butter, fresh Parmesan cheese, and asparagus-I put in another hour’s work, then called it a day.