Magdalena's Story, a life in three parts

Part Two Chapter 1 The Investigation Begins

Part Two

The second part fulfills the prophecy.

Chapter 1 The investigation begins

Scene 1 Magdalena thinks

All I feel like doing is sleeping. When I arouse, my hand throbs and I try to think of what's happening. I know I am in St. Paul's, I know that I have impact wounds on my body and a knife wound on my hand. I know that Marcello and Randall have been to see me, which was nice. Marcello sat silently grim after his original gush, occasionally tapping his heels in a fashion I associate with an old sea captain I once knew, solemn, official, concerned. Randall, thankfully, brought me my overnight bag and cosmetics bag. That is what I needed the most, my hairbrush and mirror. A true friend to have known that. I also remember that a police officer tried to ask me questions, but I felt so sleepy that I could not tell what he was asking. I am also kinda surprised that Roberto has not come to see me, and yet Mr. Osbourne and Miss Pollock, both of whom I do not particularly like, did. Mr. Osbourne brought more flowers. I am done with his work. His behaviour is puzzling, and Miss Pollock broke out into a soliloquy about how she didn't want me, rather she wanted to be me. She bought glasses to look like mine, and she started to wear jackets, look she said as she raised some tweed drab bit of cloth in front of my tired eyes, which I shut.

But I can't remember what happened. I dozed off to boogie woogie, oh that Basie can make me dance past the sign casting lurid neon on the yellow tiled entrance, yes, yes, yes, up the winding staircase into the Art Deco elegance and classic architecture evident everywhere you look, up at the huge arching windows on both sides of the room, sliding up the curved staircase with Marcello's hand on my elbow, onto the mezzanine, chandeliers sending showers of rainbows, luxuriant magenta-coloured carpeting and a majestic coffered ceiling and out onto the massive sprung hardwood dance floor, to sax and rapid piano, voice scratching the air, jiving, flying over slick black hair and caught by the expert hand of, wait was that Marcello, or my old dance master, hard and stern and able and strong and somehow cruel.

Scene 2 Police ask

Constable Fielder entered the white room, his eyes took a few minutes to adjust to the brightness, the window curtains were drawn back, and the subject lay under a white sheet. Her face was small, her hair very black and spread out on the pillow like Ophelia laying dead amongst the reeds. Big green eyes turned on him and looked. He approached with his notebook open and the pencil ready, he asked her name, age, address, next of kin, all before she had a chance to question him "Who are you?" which he then pardoned himself for forgetting his lines and his cheeks turned pink and he bend his head and she noticed a thin blonde mustache and cheery blue eyes and she closed her eyes and smiled and fell asleep again.

Scene 3 Marcello reflects

I have been married before. She was a special woman. We had known each other since childhood. Everyone assumed that we would get married, and we did. Our families have known each other for centuries and our unborn children would rule Portugal, by the way they spoke. We were fine until I defied all and studied architecture rather than law. I am not good at speaking, at pontificating, at dramatically summing up, like my brother, father, and father before him. No, I draw pictures. I calculate spans, I polish silver and read design magazines, and my wife preferred my brother. She became pregnant soon after my departure to school and in childbirth she too departed. My brother and I made peace with each other at her funeral and the child lived with him until boarding school.

I liked her, she was perfect, but I realize that I did not love her. She scared me, I was always wrong, and she was right. She did not like me, but she would say she loved me, as she wiped food from my cravat. Artists are not children just because we see humour in a situation, see hope in a tiny flower, see romance in a gesture and love in a glance. No indeed not, artists are old people looking out from tired eyes.

Ironic now that I am falling in love for the first time I happen to inhabit an older body, certainly older than I wish for. Roberto understands my unspoken thoughts, he is right, my future dream would be an architecture firm with Magdalena's name in the title. We could cover both residential and industrial design and become the busiest Modernist firm in the west of North America. I really need to get hold of myself. There will be all kinds of brave young men arriving here, in fact some are here all ready and I know she is younger than me. If I could get her into UBC though, she would be beholden to me, don't you think? I'm not that bad looking. Rita doesn't think so.

Scene 4 Could it be that Magdalena killed?

But what happened? I can't figure it out. Did I kill someone? Is that why the police were here? Or did someone try to kill me? Was I in a fight? Was it a police raid, no we were in a straight bar, was it a brawl, was it Mafia? Is this what it is like to be injured in war? No memory.

I remember the red lipstick on the deathly blue face, I remembered thinking that Randall sure knows a lot about make up and smart dressing, about the fact that Mother would have liked him. Whose face was it? Did I know it? Why do I seem to know it? Were they dead? Or was that me? I saw it from the top of the room looking down as I died. No, I am alive in the hospital and Randall was here.

I can't stop dwelling on it. I will force myself to remember. The constable is here quite often now. He has a nice smile. He asks questions I cannot answer, and he pats my arm and says you will do better tomorrow.

Randall came the next day, and we were talking about how much we missed the old routine, working, walking, working more. Coffee and bright lights. We are not even doing our volunteer work. Everything is upset. The office is struggling under the workload and staff shortage. "Where is Roberto, maybe he can help Marcello now?" "No, he has been AWOL a couple of days." Really? "Yes, a no show at his own office, let alone ours" Randall said. "Maybe he is in the hospital for his allergies, has anyone checked?" "Allergies?" asked Randall. "What allergies, he doesn't have allergies." "I don't know. I think someone should find him." Randall told me not to worry he was probably off on some romance or other and he air kissed me and went off.

Shortly afterwards Constable Fielder came in, he was in street clothes, I asked him if he had decided to be more discrete and he laughed and said no he was on his way home. "Just a day off" he said. I said "Okay goodbye, have a good time" and "Oh, would you check in on my friend Roberto, he seems upset about something." Constable Fielder stopped and pulled that tiny leather bound notebook from his inside breast pocket and his short pencil. In tiny precise letters he took down Roberto's last time of sighting, address and last name and he turned in his sparkling boots and was off. Again, I smiled. He is an honest man. One in a hundred. Again, I slid down in the covers and submitted to the expert hands that bound and rebound my wounds and again I slept.