The Gargoyle

by Andrew Davidson

  That afternoon my mind opened to new possibilities, and my heart to new understandings. I could not imagine why Gertrud would want to prevent Eckhart’s writings from entering our collection of books. What some would call heretical, I saw only as reasonable suppositions about the nature of God. I came away convinced that the teachings of my youth had been limited. If the arguments of Eckhart had not been allowed to cross my ears, what else had I not heard? As Seuse said that afternoon, with a brilliant gleam in his eyes, “That which is painful sharpens one’s love.”

  In a moment of candor, I confessed to Seuse that I desperately wished I could read something by Eckhart. This caused a slightly wicked smile to cross his lips, but he said nothing. I wondered if he was amused that I would speak a desire that ran contrary to the monastery’s stance, but I thought no more of it until he left us a few days later. I very much wanted to spend more time with him, but Gertrud, perhaps sensing this, ensured that my scriptorium duties were doubly heavy.

  I was allowed to bid farewell to Seuse at the gates, as he set out again towards Köln. When he was certain that no one was looking at us, he slipped a small book into the folds of my robe.

  IX.

  Since the moment I wrote the words, they have haunted me. Wipe that condescending look off your face, you Jap bitch. The urge is always with me to retouch yesterday’s canvas with today’s paintbrush and cover the things that fill me with regret, but I want so desperately to remove these words that I am convinced I must leave them in.

  Sayuri Mizumoto is not a bitch and she did not have a condescending look on her face. That much should be obvious. I said those horrible words because I was mad at Marianne Engel for not visiting me in a week.

  I am ashamed of how I treated Sayuri and afraid that leaving that sentence in will make me appear racist. How could it not? But I assure you I chose the word “Jap” only because I was looking for any advantage that might make Sayuri feel vulnerable. I used the word not because I think Japanese people are inferior, but on the possibility that Sayuri might feel herself inferior, being Japanese in a non-Japanese culture. (As I’ve gotten to know her better, I’ve discovered that she absolutely does not have an ethnic inferiority complex.) And just as the word “Jap” suggests racism, so the word “bitch” suggests misogyny, but the truth is that I dislike most men as much as I dislike most women. If anything, I am an equal opportunity misanthropist.

  Or rather, I was. I believe that I have changed since the day I attacked Sayuri. While I’m not claiming that I now feel great love for all people, I can state with some confidence that I hate fewer people than I used to. This may seem like a weak claim to personal growth, but sometimes these things should be judged by distance traveled rather than by current position.

  Dr. Gregor Hnatiuk, in righteous anger, was beautiful to behold. He stormed into my room to demand that I apologize to Ms. Mizumoto. Apparently he was behind the times: he’d heard of my insult, but not about my Japanese-speaking act of contrition. But still, it was breathtaking to see the shine on his sweaty brow as he defended the honor of the fair lady.

  It was then that I understood upon whom he had his crush.

  I explained that all the necessary fences had been mended and added that in the process Sayuri had even found a new companion with whom to speak Japanese. This placated Gregor somewhat, but he still felt it necessary to throw one final barb. “Someday you’ll have to learn that your big mouth is the front gate of all misfortune.”

  “Yes, Gregor, I’ve heard that before,” I said. “From Sayuri.”

  His chipmunk cheeks turned red. It was obvious that just hearing her name spoken aloud was enough to unsettle him, and the way he spun on his heel to exit confirmed all my suspicions.

  At the door he stopped suddenly, turned back around, and said: “Marianne can speak Japanese?”

  What follows is a translation of the conversation between Marianne Engel and Sayuri Mizumoto.

  Marianne Engel: Ms. Mizumoto. It’s nice to meet you. I’m Marianne Engel.

  Sayuri Mizumoto: Is it so? It’s nice to meet you, too. Please treat me favorably. You can speak Japanese?

  Marianne Engel: A little bit. I lived on a lavender farm in Hokkaido for a number of years. May I ask, is your first name the Chinese character for “Small Lily”?

  Sayuri Mizumoto: Yes, it is. Your Japanese is very good.

  Marianne Engel: No, it’s not. And your family name means “Source of the Water,” doesn’t it?

  Sayuri Mizumoto: Yes, it does.

  Marianne Engel: Your name bodes very well for my friend. Please take good care of him. Please forgive his very bad manners.

  Sayuri Mizumoto: Yes, I will do my best.

  The question: how can I include a translation of a conversation that I did not understand when it was first spoken?

  The answer: Sayuri helped me. She assures me that it’s faithful to the original conversation but I really have no way of knowing that it is, other than to trust her. Which I do, mostly, although I still have a nagging fear that the whole thing is a massive manuscript error that Titivillus will throw into his sack for Satan to use against me on Judgment Day. But this is a chance I’ll have to take.

  I’m pleased to report that my cruel words did not fatally sabotage what has grown into a friendship between us. In the many hours that we’ve spent together, I’ve learned the truth of Sayuri’s childhood (or, at least, her version of it), as I reported earlier.

  But what I have learned above all else, in the years that have passed, is that Sayuri Mizumoto is an exceptional woman. What other word could be used to describe a woman who has helped with translations for a book in which she’s called a Jap bitch?

  Sayuri and Marianne Engel decided to work together on my rehabilitation program. Dr. Edwards had some reservations about the idea, but acquiesced when Sayuri suggested that a partner would make the program both easier and more enjoyable for me.

  I had stood and even taken a few steps, but Sayuri wanted me walking. The process was not going to be as simple as me jumping out of bed and lurching down the hall. She brought in a special chair that allowed my legs to dangle while she crouched in front of me, pedaling my legs in circles. She, or Marianne Engel, would press her hands against my soles to mimic the resistance of the ground, and I was to push back against them. Sounds simple; wasn’t.

  At the end of each session, Sayuri would make me stand for as many seconds as I could. It was never very long, but she’d yell “Fight! Fight! Fight!” to encourage me. When I could take it no more, I was placed back in bed and we’d review the day’s progress.

  Sometimes Marianne Engel would hold my hand and I’d have trouble concentrating on what Sayuri was saying.

  Marianne Engel arrived in clothes so dusty I was surprised they’d let her in. She must have sneaked past the nurses’ station, although I don’t know how that was entirely possible, as she was dragging her two hampers. When she squatted to start unloading them, I saw a little cloud of dust cough out of the crook of her knee.

  “I’ve been thinking about the story of Francesco and Graziana,” I blurted, remembering that I had never updated Marianne Engel about the improvement to the idealistic aspects of my personality. “It’s romantic.”

  She laughed at me while pulling bottles of Scotch out of the cold hamper. “These are for Dr. Edwards, Mizumoto san, and the nurses. I’d prefer that you don’t lie to me, but maybe you’ll like tonight’s story better.”

  I noticed the dried blood clinging around the edges of her battered fingernails as she took food from the coolers. Fish ’n’ chips, bangers ’n’ mash. Prime rib with pudgy Yorkshire puddings. Finger sandwiches: ham and egg, cheese and vegetables. Scones with strawberry jam. Kaiser buns. Garlic and onion bagels. Herb cream cheese. German butter cheese, Swiss, Gouda, smoked Gruyère, and Emmenthal. Fresh cucumber salad with yogurt sauce in a delightful little bowl adorned with images of Hänsel and Gretel. Chunky red potatoes, quartered to show their white interiors; chubby gr
een stems of asparagus, sweating butter; a plump eggplant’s fecund belly pregnant with stuffing. There were fat mutton slices piled up in an obscene monument to arterial sclerosis. A lonely pile of sauerkraut that seemed to have been added at the last moment only because someone had thought there weren’t enough vegetables. Roasted eggs, even though who the hell eats roasted eggs? Then, an abrupt culinary turn towards the Russian states: varenyky (pirogies, in layman’s terms), cavorting with candy-blackened circles of onions, and holubtsi (cabbage rolls, fat with rice) in tangy tomato sauce.

  Marianne Engel popped an egg whole into her mouth, as if she hadn’t eaten in days, and devoured it in a manner that was almost bestial. How could someone this hungry not have sampled the meal while preparing it? When she had tamed the worst of her hunger, she announced, “The story of Vicky Wennington has great storms, vigilant love, and saltwater death!”

  I settled in, anxious to hear it, and took another bite of the holubtsi.

  X.

  In London society, nothing was more important than a revered family name, and Victoria D’Arbanville was born with one of the oldest and most respected. Her childhood was a series of lessons for her improvement: she was taught to speak French, Italian, German, Latin, and a smattering of Russian; she could discuss Darwin’s theories without overtly suggesting any relationship between men and monkeys; and she could sing the best of Monteverdi, though she preferred Cavalli. Her parents didn’t really care what music she liked; they only cared that she marry a gentleman, because this is what Victorian ladies did.

  Victoria never doubted that she would do just that, until the day that she met Tom Wennington. Not a Thomas, this man was every inch a Tom. They were attending the same formal dinner, with Tom—in an ill-fitting suit—accompanying a city friend. After the meal, the men retreated to a drawing room where the main topics were Parliament and the Bible. Tom didn’t have much to say about those things although, if pressed, he could have offered his opinions about dirt. He was a farmer, through and through, as his forefathers had been.

  Tom was a rougher sort of man than Victoria generally knew but there was no denying the delight she felt each time she ran into him, accidentally on purpose, during the following weeks. And for his part, Tom extended his stay in London a month longer than he had originally intended; he put up with the parties, the teas, and the operas just on the chance that he might see Victoria. Eventually Tom’s friend, well-heeled and generous though he was, began to run out of suits to loan him. Tom, knowing full well that his fields weren’t likely to plant themselves, had a decision to make—go home alone or screw his courage to the sticking place. Which was, by the way, a phrase that Victoria had taught him.

  The D’Arbanvilles were horrified when they first guessed their daughter’s interest in this, this, this—farmer! But by then, it was already far too late. Victoria had not only been quoting Lady Macbeth, but channeling her efficiency (if not her criminal intent) in planning. When it quickly became apparent that Tom didn’t understand the language of flowers, Victoria arranged a private tour of London’s foremost factory producing steam-driven barn machinery.

  Tom had been navigating the foreign world that was London only because he was besotted with Victoria, but it never left his mind that she knew nothing of his life. With this tour, she showed him that she was willing to learn about agriculture. Her questions to the plant manager demonstrated that she had done a good deal of research on the equipment before she ever set foot in the factory, and this was what convinced Tom there could be no other woman for him.

  When Tom proposed, she knew that her days in the drawing room were over. Yes, she answered immediately, not playing any game of hesitation. She was finished as Victoria, and ready to start her new life as his beloved Vicky.

  Her parents’ objections weakened considerably when they learned the vast acreage of Tom’s land, and the couple married in a ceremony that was too grand for Tom’s liking. Vicky moved into the large Wennington farmhouse, which overlooked their fields on one side and the North Sea on the other. It was a rather strange location for the house, but Tom’s great-grandmother had insisted on a view of “the very spot where the earth ends and falls into the sea.”

  Vicky would admonish Tom when he forgot to shave, and Tom would tease Vicky that her heels were too high for a farmer’s wife, but she secretly thrilled at the rugged angles of his stubbled jaw and he loved the way her city boots made her hips sway. The smell of his sweat could bring her skin to gooseflesh, and the hint of her perfume could make him wipe the back of his neck with his well-stained handkerchief. In London, her body had been a muted thing, but on their farm, Vicky was plugged directly into the elements of the earth. She would stoke the fire to heat giant kettles for Tom’s evening bath. She squeezed the bellows, smiling, sweating, and imagining how he would feel under her touch. It was during these evening baths that Vicky loved her hands for the first time in her life. She forgot her childhood piano lessons as she scrubbed the dirt from her husband’s body.

  At harvest time, Vicky conceived. She grew fat over the winter and gave birth in the spring. Vicky called the boy Alexander; Tom called him Al. The country air was even sweeter than before.

  On their cliff they would stand in the mornings, baby in arms, watching the fishermen come and go. They had done this often through their marriage, and things did not change over the baby’s first summer. Tom would close his eyes and imagine that it was he who was on the water. When he was younger, he had flirted with the idea of enlisting in the Royal Navy, but had abandoned the notion when his father died and left him the farm.

  Still, Tom had a small boat that he took out on Sundays. On one such day in early November, much like any other, he asked Vicky to come with him. The crops had recently been harvested and they had the time to take a day for themselves. She told him that she was feeling under the weather and wanted to stay with the baby. “But go,” she said. “Enjoy yourself.”

  From the cliff Vicky, with Alexander in her arms, watched as Tom steered the boat out of the harbor and into the ocean, becoming smaller and smaller until he disappeared. She pulled her coat tighter and tucked the baby’s blanket under his chin. There was a chill wind coming; she felt it in her bones as she hurried back to the house. It’s November, she thought, wind’s to be expected.

  The wind brought a storm upon its cold breath, very suddenly and very violently. Inside the farmhouse, Vicky was sleeping off her headache with the baby pressed to her bosom. She tossed and turned until they were startled awake by a vicious slap of lightning against their fields. Vicky sat bolt upright and Alexander burst into tears. She threw on her clothes and headed for the edge of the cliff, handing the child to the housemaid.

  Vicky scanned the horizon for her husband’s little boat. There was nothing but the water’s churning gray anger.

  Soon, one of the farmhands came to bring Vicky back to the house, afraid that the wind might pull her over the cliff’s edge. At the bottom were rocks that could shred a person. Once Vicky was inside, the hands tried to reassure her. “Mr. Wennington’s a good sailor. He’ll find shelter in an inlet and wait out the storm in a safe place. He’ll return when it’s over.” Vicky nodded distractedly, wanting to believe it.

  The storm was the worst in living memory and raged for three obscene days. Vicky wandered from farmhouse to cliff, where she would stand until a farmworker forced her back to the house by telling her that Alexander was crying and needed attention.

  The storm finally passed. The dark skies opened and sunlight poured through the cracks in the clouds. Vicky resumed her place at the cliff’s edge, and there she stood for an entire day, awaiting her husband’s return. But he did not appear.

  The next day she organized a search party. Tom was well liked and all available boats ran up and down the coast looking for him.

  There was no sign of Tom. No sign of anything. Just long, lonely expanses of water. It was as if the ocean had removed all evidence of his existence. After three days of
searching, the fishermen reluctantly called off their efforts. They had families of their own to feed. They promised Vicky that they would continue to keep a good eye out.

  She would not—could not—give up so easily. She hired a sailor and his boat, and together they spent six more weeks looking. Vicky became intimately acquainted with every rocky crag of the shoreline. In mid-December, however, the icy winds blew Vicky and her hired man right off the ocean. It was time to return from the search for the lost to the care of the living. The child Alexander needed his mother.

  The farmhands continued their duties but lacked the direction that Tom had provided. They were only thankful that the crops had been brought in before the storm. Christmas was an awful affair, with no tree erected and no goose cooked. The year, which had started so promisingly with Alexander’s birth in the spring, ended in sadness.

  Gradually Vicky resumed her life but, still, she wore only black. The locals called her the Widow Wennington. She received some decent offers for the farm, but decided not to sell. It did not feel right to release the land that had been in Tom’s family for generations, and she did not want to give up the home where she had loved and been loved so well. Besides, she could not return to London society life now. There was too much dirt under her fingernails.