Isabella's
passion

Standing in the cold outside the Mare household, his back against the exterior wall of the kitchen, the gentleman nestled into the name Aquarius had spoken—Magnar Bochinski—and adjusted for any error in its fit. The name suited him perfectly. He could find only one glaring flaw in its design—this business of murder. The notion felt distressingly familiar. 

Damp frost painted the windowsill of the Mare kitchen. Magnar (this was his name; of this he was certain) tried to remember something, anything, about a murder, but memory had become a difficult and frustrating exercise. Soft candlelight from the window illuminated the lemon tree beside him, its leaves contracting against the cold, curling inward, seeking protection. On this touch of chilly spring evening drifted memory. Minuscule threads only. Tender, fragile. Press too hard, they break. 

Memory thinned and snapped, and in the Mare yard a fat white cat lumbered toward shelter under the back porch, tiny puffs of fog emanating from its mouth and nose. Magnar watched the cat’s breath with fascination while he eavesdropped on the story Aquarius was telling the large gathering at the Mare supper table. Occasionally, a familiar-sounding woman joined in the conversation, her voice a memory. Isabella. Why was she here? Why was he? 

He didn’t know.

This thread of memory (if that’s what it was; where does memory stop and imagination begin?) grew big enough for him to grasp. Isabella. He had met her in Canada. At a concert she had given in Hamilton. With him were his father and the little neighbour boy, Eoin MacDonald. Eoin was Isabella’s nephew. Now, she lived in Florence. Had Magnar followed her there? Had he followed her here, to Pavullo? Or had he been to Pavullo before? He had an overwhelming feeling that he had arrived in Italy for one reason and stayed for another. 

Questions. No real answers. A shamble of random threads. No warp. No weft. Magnar watched the white cat lick its paw and waited for his own breath to show in the freezing mountain air.
. . . - - - . . .
“What was her name?” asked Piera.

“Whose?” Aquarius asked as he bit into a porcini bruschetta. Sheer bliss. Heaven. Life without bruschetta was life without—

“The victim, Aquarius. The poor soul who was murdered. Please tell me you have not forgotten her name.”

“No, of course not,” said Aquarius. He set aside the bruschetta and picked up his tumbler of red wine, racking his brain for Angel’s surname. Better? Best? Good? Goodwin. Ah. Yes. “Angel Goodwin,” he said. 

“Angel? This was the name of the poor girl? Angel? Truly?” said his mother, pulling her handkerchief from her apron pocket and wiping tears from her eyes. 
“Si,” replied Aquarius, wrapping one arm around his mother. “That is what they called her.”

“Mother of God,” his mother muttered, crossing herself.

“Her sister is named Olive. She was abducted that same night,” interjected Alba, nodding at the bowl of olives on the table. 

“Olivia? Si?” said Mama. “Bueno. Olivia. Bueno.”

Aquarius shrugged at the mention of Olive, as if she were a minor detail, when, in fact, his heart was thundering in his throat. He prayed that the people around the table would not notice his distress and would forget about Olive; he was juggling enough lies concerning Angel and Magnar. He yearned for the church and the pew where his guilt-laden discussions with God were of the refreshingly imaginary kind. This dinner table discussion was far too real. 

Isabella said, “Olive is still missing. She has never been found and is presumed dead.” 

“Mother of God,” Mama said and the table went silent, but not Aquarius’s belly that twisted in pain as he envisaged the newspaper clipping secreted in his room upstairs that echoed exactly what Isabella had just said: “Goodwin sister missing. Presumed dead.”

Into the stillness, Piera quietly asked: “What became of Magnar?” They all waited for Aquarius to reply and when he didn’t, Isabella said, “Sadly, he was convicted and hanged.”
“Truly? Hanged?” asked Piera.

“Si. Si si si,” said Aquarius, trying to concentrate on his food. He touched the envelope inside his pocket but thought about another English-language newspaper upstairs in his secret compartment, the one with the headline declaring Bochinski Hanged! “Yes. Bochinski was convicted easily. And executed. Hanged in Nova Scotia.”
. . . - - - . . .
Magnar had only begun to grapple with his guilt or innocence regarding the murderer conundrum when he was assailed by this new information wafting from the Mare window. He ran a finger under his scratchy, uncomfortable collar, trying to think and remember. He pondered the frost; winter was creeping down early from the Italian mountains, but unlike the cat, Magnar’s breath had not yet created puffs of cloud in the cold air. He continued to wait. After several minutes, he knew: he could be waiting an eternity.

There must be a mistake. Hanged? Surely not. Being a murderer was one thing. Being dead was quite another.