“Can we discuss this calmly?” I asked.
“Not if-”
“Annie, please let him talk,” Dad said, throwing himself into a chair.
My mother tilted her head a little, a gesture of agreement.
“I… I have an idea,” I began, my thoughts forming quickly. “A sort of compromise.”
My father bristled. There was not going to be a compromise as far as he was concerned. I held up my hand. “Just let me say something, Dad.”
He settled back. My mother sat down slowly at her desk.
“Okay. Now, Mom, if you insist on going, I’d like to come with you. No, really,” I added, cutting her off again. “Hear me out. I’d be a help. I could carry your equipment. More important, we know that conservative Muslim men over there, not to mention the Islamists, insist that women should never go out in public unless they’re accompanied by a man-”
Mom’s face coloured with impatience.
“Their husband, or elder brother, or eldest son. I’m your son, right? So you see, I could go along. I’d always be with you, and you’d be… well, legal or whatever the word is. Besides, I’ve never had much chance to travel, so-”
My mother snapped, “It’s out of the question!”
“But why?”
“Because it isn’t-”
And she stopped.
“Safe?” my father said quietly, not so much as a hint of triumph in his voice.
The room went still again. After a moment, Mom got up and left the office. My father turned to look as the front door closed quietly.
IV
AS IF THE ATMOSPHERE in the sky above the roof was tuned to the squally mood of the Havelock household, thunderstorms began to hit the town early in the evening and rolled overhead like a succession of bowling balls for most of the night.
From my balcony, where I had retreated with a book right after supper, I watched the first storm cell gathering. Dark clouds poured from the sky and a cool wind drove the daylight into hiding. I turned pages, half-concentrating, for as long as I could in the failing light, then gave up and dragged my chair back into my room just as the thunder announced itself. I read in bed for a while, then turned in for the night.
As always, the dream came indirectly, padding into my sleep like a predatory cat, taking shape as if emerging from a dark mist. In the background, thunderclaps and rapid strobelike flashes of lightning ebbed away, revealing the now familiar prison cell shrouded in darkness barely diluted by points of yellow light. There were two candles on the long table this time. The only sounds were the gasps of the prisoner and the occasional scrape of a leather sandal on the stone floor.
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.