The Gargoyle

by Andrew Davidson

  The German requested permission to perform radiocarbon dating on both the parchment and the ink. When I granted it, he had such a look of orgasmic joy on his face that I was afraid he might pass out. “Danke, danke schön, ich danke Ihnen vielmals!”

  When the tests were completed and the parchment was dated to 1335, plus or minus twenty years, the German’s mood stepped a notch higher. “This is a discovery that is so far beyond anything that I…that I…” He couldn’t even find the words for his flabbergasted delight; the translation had been made within decades of Dante’s original Italian. I decided that it would not hurt to allow further research, and I even gave the German a push in a certain direction: I suggested that he might want to focus his investigation on the scriptorium at Engelthal. The German’s mouth twitched again, and he went back to his work.

  When he contacted me some weeks later, he seemed to have finally accepted that he was investigating an impossible document. Yes, he confirmed, the work gave many indications of having been done at Engelthal. And yes, the copying was highly indicative of a particular scribe whose work was well known in the years circa 1310 to 1325. In fact, this scribe had always posed a minor mystery to scholars of German mysticism: her literary fingerprints were on a huge number of documents, her talent exceeding that of any of her peers, and yet her name could not be found anywhere. Such a secret could only have been kept by a coordinated effort between the prioress and the armarius of the time but, as Engelthal was otherwise proud of its literary reputation, the great question was: what was it about this particular nun that required such secrecy?

  The German’s mustache was positively dancing as he spoke of all this but, he admitted, some points contradicted the Engelthal hypothesis. The parchment was of a different quality than that found in the monastery’s other documents, and the inks seemed to be of a different chemical composition. So while the workmanship suggested that it came from Engelthal, the German explained, the physical materials did not. And—need he even add this?—Engelthal would almost certainly have had nothing to do with Dante’s great poem. “It was not their particular milieu, if you understand what I mean. Not only was it in Italian, but entirely blasphemous for its time.”

  The German asked, somewhat sheepishly, whether I had any more “hints” for him. As it turned out, I did. I suggested that he might now want to divert his attention from Engelthal to the city of Mainz, paying attention to privately produced books from the mid-1320s. The scribe, I said, might have written under the name of Marianne. The German’s bushy eyebrows furrowed under the weight of this new information and he begged to know how I could offer such specific suggestions. I said it was just a hunch.

  He spent the better part of a month seeking out manuscripts that matched my parameters. He called often, sometimes to update me on progress but usually to complain that the confidentiality agreement was holding him back. “Do you have any idea how difficult it is to request such documents when I can’t explain why I need them? Do you think I can just go to the library and check out books from the fourteenth century?”

  I could tell he was about to start talking to his colleagues, with or without my permission, so I declared his research concluded. I thought he was going to smack me in the face, but instead he launched into a series of impassioned pleas: “This is one of the major discoveries in the history of the field…far-reaching implications…radically alter what we think about German translation…” When I continued to refuse, he changed his tack. He begged for a few more days of study and I swear that he actually batted his eyes at me. I refused this request as well, certain that he’d use the time to make a high-quality copy of the original. When I demanded my manuscript back that very minute, he threatened to go public with what he knew. “A contract of law is nothing compared with such a great gift to the world of literature!” I told him that his sentiment was highly admirable; nevertheless, I would sue him into bankruptcy if he spoke a single word. At this, he suggested that Dante should have added another Circle to Hell for “book-haters” like me.

  In an effort to offer some small consolation to the man’s ego, I assured him that should I ever bring forth the German translation of Inferno, I would publicly acknowledge all the research that he had done. In fact, I would invite him to publish his findings concurrently, so that he was in no way deprived of academic acclaim. And then the German greatly surprised me. “I couldn’t care less if you include anything about who I am. This discovery is simply too important to keep hidden away.”

  As of this day, I still haven’t decided what I’ll do with the copies of Inferno that Marianne Engel left me. When I’m feeling particularly fanciful, I tell myself that I’ll take the Italian copy into the grave with me, just in case I run into Francesco Corsellini one more time and I can return his father’s book to him.

  I’m keeping my fake toes but I’ve declined fake fingers; the toes help with my balance, while the fingers are only vanity. Besides, with a body like mine, fake fingers are the equivalent of replacing the headlights on a crashed car.

  There are still things I could do to improve my appearance, small surgeries or corrective cosmetics that might soften my roughest edges. A plastic surgeon offered to rebuild my ears using cartilage from my ribs, or to provide prosthetic ears that look like real ones. But, like fake fingers, pseudo-ears lack a functional use: neither cartilage nor plastic will allow me to hear again. The theory is that they would make me feel more human by making me look more “normal,” but when I slipped on the prosthetics, they made me feel like Mr. Potato Head. As for a phalloplasty—the surgical construction of a new penis—I just haven’t gotten around to it. Maybe one day I will, but I’ve had enough surgeries for now. I’m tired. So recently I told Dr. Edwards, simply: “Enough.”

  “I understand,” she said. And then the look crossed Nan’s face, the one I knew so well, the look she wore when weighing the benefits of telling the truth against lying or keeping quiet. As always, she decided on the truth. “You once asked why I chose to work in the burn unit. I’m going to show you something that I’ve never shown another patient.”

  She pulled her white coat aside and rolled up her shirt, to reveal a large hypertrophic scar that covered the entire right side of her torso. “It happened when I was only four years old. I pulled a pot of boiling water off the stove. It’s our scars that make us who we are.” And then she left the office.

  So I’m left with a Depression-era dustbowl of a skull. The top of my head is like infertile fields after a windstorm, bunched up in drifts of bullied dirt. There are subtle shifts in color, shades of red and brown. All is dry and wasted, as if the skin has been waiting years for the rain to come. A few wisps of tenacious hair sway across the furrowed landscape of my skull, like survivor weeds that don’t know they’re supposed to be dead.

  My face is the field after the stubble has been burned. My lips, once so full, are thin like dehydrated worms. Knowing the medical term microstomia does not make my lips less ugly. Still, I prefer this mouth to the one I had before I told Marianne Engel that I loved her.

  Pre-fire, my spine was strong; post-fire, it was replaced with a snake. Now the snake is gone and I’m rediscovering my backbone, which is a good start. My right leg is filled with metal pins and I could view them as shackles forged from the remains of my crashed vehicle. I could decide to drag my accident everywhere. I won’t.

  I’m exercising harder than ever before. A few times each week Sayuri takes me to the local pool, where she leads me through a series of workouts. The water itself adds buoyancy, reducing stress on my joints. On the days when I’m not in the pool, Sayuri is teaching me to skip in the backyard. I suppose it must puzzle anyone who looks over from St. Romanus. What do they think about the monster bouncing around the yard, driven by a tiny Japanese woman? Occasionally Father Shanahan sees me and waves, and I always wave back. I’ve decided not to dislike him, despite the fact that he’s a priest.

  After my workouts, Gregor comes over to pick Sayuri up and t
he three of us have tea. At our most recent gathering, I shared the news that this book was going to be published. They had no idea I had been writing this story; I’d been keeping it a secret, because I didn’t know what I would do with it when it was finished. But though I’m keeping back the Infernos, I have made my decision to release this book into the world. I am still unsure whether it is the correct thing to do so—my emotions on the matter change often—but silence is too painful.

  My friends were excited by my news, although Sayuri confessed that she still could not read English nearly as quickly as she would like. Then she excitedly grabbed her husband’s arm as if she’d just had the greatest idea of her life. “Wait! Will you read to me before we go to sleep each night? That way we’ll get the story at the same time!”

  Gregor looked a little sheepish about Sayuri’s display of affection but I assured him that it sounded like a wonderful idea, adding, “And you might even learn something about the history of your wedding present.”

  I am more than my scars.

  When I returned home after her disappearance, after my initial statements to the police, I went down into the workshop to read what Marianne Engel had carved into the pedestal of my statue.

  Dû bist mîn, ich bin dîn:

  des solt dû gewis sîn;

  dû bist beslozzen in mînem herzen,

  verlorn ist daz slüzzelîn:

  dû muost och immer darinne sîn.

  “You are mine, I am yours; you may be sure of this. You’ve been locked inside my heart, the key has been thrown away; within it, you must always stay.”

  Lebrecht Bachenschwanz produced the first known German version of The Divine Comedy (Die göttliche Komödie) in the years 1767 to 1769, and the translation of Inferno in my possession is at least four hundred years older than that. While amazing, this hardly proves that Marianne Engel translated the book in the first half of the fourteenth century; it only means that someone did. But if Marianne Engel was not the translator, how did the book come to rest in her safety deposit box? How did it exist for almost seven centuries with absolutely no record of its existence? As with so many things, I don’t know.

  I’ve written so much about the German translation that you might assume there’s nothing exceptional about the Italian original, save its age. I assure you that nothing could be further from the truth. There are a few defects in the manuscript’s condition that, while lowering the book’s monetary value, are of considerable interest to me.

  It is obvious that the book was in a fire at one point. The pages are singed at the edges, but the flames did not creep far enough inwards to burn away any of the words. Somehow, the book was spared extensive fire damage; in fact, it is the other flaw that is more obvious.

  There is a wide cut through the book’s front cover, produced by a sharp instrument. A knife or an arrow, perhaps. The cut penetrates into the book’s body so that when the cover is opened, there is a slit of almost equal size on the first page. This slit, situated in the middle of each page, becomes smaller the deeper one turns into the book. The back cover of the book bears only a small exit wound; it’s apparent that the sharp instrument was almost, but not quite, stopped by the thickness of the manuscript.

  It took me a long time to work up the courage to remove my neck chain and insert the arrowhead into the wound of the manuscript’s cover. It slid in perfectly, like a key finding the correct lock. I pushed further until the arrowhead was engulfed by the book and its tip just barely peeked through the slit in the back cover.

  These days, I like to imagine that if a man were to enter through that slash on the book’s cover, as if it were a door, he could walk right into the very heart of Inferno.

  There were a number of reasons that Jack and I decided not to get a grave for Marianne Engel, but two stood above all others. First, it felt strange with no actual body to place into it. And second, who would visit this grave, anyway, except the two of us?

  I don’t want to visit a grave.

  Every day I wake up with Bougatsa sleeping at my feet. I feed him raw pancreas, and then we load ourselves into the car to head to the ocean.

  I look out over the ocean as the sun rises. It’s my vigil, an hour of the day devoted to remembering Marianne Engel, and it’s also the only time that I allow myself in the direct sunlight. Too much exposure is not good for my skin, but I like the warmth on my face.

  Bougatsa usually runs around, picking up little pieces of driftwood in his mouth and then dropping them at my feet. He begs me to throw them for him, and I do, and then he goes bounding out into the tide. But there are some mornings when he doesn’t feel like running and just lies at my feet staring at the ocean. It’s just like the night she walked in; it’s as if he still expects that she will come wading back out to us. I guess he doesn’t know any better. He’s just a stupid dog.

  All the while, I’m composing in my mind. These pages that you have now read, most of them originated at my lonely command post at the edge of the world where the earth falls into the sea. I have spent much time there, in this grand empty space between memory and desire, creating this cracked empire of sentences in which I now live.

  I wanted to write this book to honor her but I have failed, just like all the times that I failed her in life. I know my words are nothing more than pale ghosts, but I need Marianne Engel to exist somewhere.

  Every Good Friday, this anchored yet ever-changing anniversary of my accident, I go to the little creek that saved my life and light one more candle. I offer thanks for two facts: that I am one year older, and that I am one year closer to death.

  When Marianne Engel gave me the arrowhead, she said that I would know what to do with it when the time comes. But I already know. I shall wear it always and proudly, and when I am an old man and my living is done, I will slip the arrowhead from my necklace. I’ll place it on a shaft, straight and true, and I will ask a dear friend to shoot that arrow through my heart. Perhaps that friend will be Gregor, or Sayuri; perhaps it will be someone I haven’t met yet. The arrow will fly to my chest and split open my birth-scar like a seal that has been waiting to be opened.

  This will mark the third time that an arrow has entered my chest. The first time brought me to Marianne Engel. The second time separated us.

  The third time will reunite us.

  Ah, but don’t let me sound too serious. I still have a lifetime of work ahead of me.

  After Marianne Engel’s disappearance, I took it upon myself to learn about carving. I suppose my motivation is selfish, because carving helps me feel closer to her. I love the movement of steel against stone. One usually misinterprets rock as unmoving, unforgiving, but it is not: stone is like flowing water, it’s like dancing fire. My chisel moves as if it knows the secret wishes of the stone, as if the statue is guiding the tool. But the strangest thing I’ve discovered is how natural carving seems, as if I have done it before.

  My skills are not nearly as developed as Marianne Engel’s were, and when I create a little statue it rarely looks as I imagined. But that’s okay. In fact, it’s not often that I even produce original stonework. More often, I use her tools to chip away at the statue of me that she left behind.

  Standing in front of my likeness still embarrasses me a little, but I remind myself that it is not vanity. I am not looking at myself; I am looking at a part of Marianne Engel that remains. And then I lift the chisel and target a small area—the corner of my elbow, a fold in my burned skin—and strike with the hammer. With each stroke, another piece of me falls away. I can only stand to shave off a tiny splinter at a time because each time a stone fragment hits the floor, I am slightly closer to becoming nothing.

  The Three Masters stated that Marianne Engel’s lover would know the reason he had to release her final heart, to release her. And I do: the end of her penance was the beginning of mine. Allowing her to walk unhindered into the ocean was only the starting point of my task, because releasing her did not occur in an instant. It is an ongoing process that
will last my lifetime, and I will not allow myself to die until I have carved away the last trace of my statue.

  With every fragment of rock that falls from me, I can hear the voice of Marianne Engel. I love you. Aishiteru. Ego amo te. Ti amo. Ég elska Þig. Ich liebe dich. It is moving across time, coming to me in every language of the world, and it sounds like pure love.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  My sincerest thanks to Angela Aki, dear friend and the first person ever to read this book; Bette Alexander and Jolanta Benal, perfectionists; Liuba Apostolova, who is made of starlight; Marty Asher, Jamie Byng, Anne Collins, Gerry Howard, Anya Serota, and Bill Thomas, the early believers; the Brattis, my second family; all the staff at Canongate, Doubleday, Janklow & Nesbit, and Random House Canada; Dr. Linda Dietrick and Dr. Ann-Catherine Geuder, advisors on all matters Germanic; the editors (Anne, Gerry, and Anya) who, with elegant scalpels, helped debride the dead parts; Dr. Kathy J. Edwards, who patiently answered all my burning questions; John Fontana, who makes me look good; Helen Hayward, killer teacher; my international proofreaders Kyoko Aoyama, Yoichi Takagi, and Miko Yamanouchi (Japanese), Úa Matthíasdóttir (Icelandic), and Giuseppe Strazzeri (Italian); Eric Simonoff, the novel’s greatest champion; Dorothy Vincent, who took the book around the world; the publishing assistants essential to getting things done, particularly Katie Halleron, Eadie Klemm, and Alexa Von Hirschberg; Joe Burgess, Kirby Drynan, Liz Ericksson, Kevin and Alex Hnatiuk, Alison and Helen Ritchie, and Paige Wilson, friends with feedback; my family, nuclear and extended, for their support and love; and Harley and Fjola, for everything.