Midnight in the Boathouse

The barometric pressure over northern Lombardy began its steep, violent plunge at ten o'clock that evening. From the high terrace of Villa Bellisima, the night sky to the north transformed into a wall of bruised purple and charcoal clouds rolling down from the Saint Gotthard pass in Switzerland. The air grew heavy, static electricity crackling through the cypress branches, while the surface of Lake Como—normally calm as black glass—began to…