The Gargoyle

  I remained silent, not wanting to encourage her, as she pulled her arrowhead necklace up over her head. “This has always been yours, and someday you’ll know what to do with it.”

  “I don’t want it,” I said.

  She pressed it into my hand anyway. “I’ve kept it all this time so that I could return it to you. It will protect you.”

  I could tell she would not let me refuse it, so I took it. But so she would not think that I was endorsing her story, I said, “Marianne, I don’t believe this was ever blessed by Father Sunder.”

  She leaned her head into the crook of my shoulder and said, “You’re a wonderful liar.”

  And then she asked a question she had never asked before.

  “Do you love me?”

  Our bodies were pressed into each other, our chests touching. I’m certain she could feel my heart racing. My birth-scar was against the place where, under her sweater, she had carved my name into her breast.

  Do you love me?

  I had never admitted aloud to anything more than “caring” for her. I had rationalized that she knew the truth without my speaking it. But really, I was just a coward.

  “Yes.”

  For so long, I had wanted to confess myself.

  “Yes. I love you.”

  It was time to stop failing her, so I brushed back the wild cords of her hair and poured out the words that had been in the crucible of my heart, becoming pure, since the first moment I had met her.

  “I spent my entire life waiting for you, Marianne, and I didn’t even know it until you arrived. Being burned was the best thing that ever happened to me because it brought you. I wanted to die but you filled me with so much love that it overflowed and I couldn’t help but love you back. It happened before I even knew it and now I can’t imagine not loving you. You have said that it takes so much for me to believe anything, but I do believe. I believe in your love for me. I believe in my love for you. I believe that every remaining beat of my heart belongs to you, and I believe that when I finally leave this world, my last breath will carry your name. I believe that my final word—Marianne—will be all I need to know that my life was good and full and worthy, and I believe that our love will last forever.”

  There was a moment in which we just held each other, and then she stood up and began walking towards the ocean. She peeled off her clothing as she went and the moonlight made her skin seem all the whiter. By the time she reached the water she was entirely nude, ghostly in her pale brilliance. There she turned and faced me for a moment, under stars that sparkled like frost through the bitter cold; she stood as if trying to memorize what I looked like, looking back at her.

  “See?” Marianne said. “You do have God.”

  She turned away from me and waded calmly into the ocean. The water climbed up her legs and back, and soon it shrouded the tattooed wings inked into the alabaster of her skin. She leaned forward and began to stroke out into the vastness of the ocean, her black mess of hair trailing behind.

  I didn’t do anything but watch her move away from me until, at last, the waves swallowed the whiteness of her shoulders.

  After a quarter hour Bougatsa began to howl terribly and turned in agitated circles, imploring me to do something. But I just sat there. So he ran into the tide, ready to swim, until I called him back. I knew the water was too cold and it was already too late. He trusted me enough to do as I said, but he whimpered as he lay at my feet. Still, his eyes remained hopeful. It was as though he believed that if only he waited long enough, eventually you would come wading back to us, out of the ocean.

  XXXIII.

  Everyone agreed that Sayuri was exceptionally beautiful in her gown. Her mother, Ayako, cried happily in the front row and her father, Toshiaki, kept raising his hand to cover his happily trembling upper lip. When Gregor slipped the ring onto her finger, Sayuri’s smile had never been more radiant.

  It was an August wedding, in a garden under a cloudless blue sky. Luckily there was a gentle breeze; my tuxedo didn’t allow my skin to breathe properly. Special arrangements had been made to ensure that the groomsmen, of whom I was one, would stand under a large elm tree during the ceremony; it was one of the many kindnesses shown to me by the bridal couple. I was surprised that they had invited me into the wedding party at all, despite the closeness we’d grown into, but neither Gregor nor Sayuri seemed to mind that there would be a monster in their wedding pictures.

  Technically, my date was the bridesmaid opposite me, but really, my escort was Jack Meredith. She managed mostly not to embarrass me, despite the massive amount of Scotch she consumed later during the reception. Clearly there was nothing romantic about her accompanying me, but we’d been spending a fair amount of time together in the preceding months. At some point, she had discovered that she could actually stand me. Our new understanding was almost a friendship, although I won’t go quite that far.

  For their wedding gift, I gave Sayuri and Gregor the Morgengabe angel. They looked at it strangely, not knowing what to make of this strange little statue, and asked if Marianne Engel had carved it. I didn’t try to explain that, apparently, I had; nor did I attempt to explain that, despite its age and weathering, it was the finest gift I could give them.

  At the reception Sayuri would not allow herself any champagne, because her pregnancy was just starting to show. There had been some debate about whether the wedding should occur before or after the birth, but Gregor is an old-fashioned sort of man. He wanted the child to be “legitimate,” so he and Sayuri flew to Japan, where he hired a translator to convey his honorable intentions to Toshiaki. Sayuri could have done this herself but Gregor did not want her to translate, to her own father, his request to marry her. When Toshiaki granted permission, Ayako cried and bowed many times while apologizing—although for what, Gregor was not quite sure. After Ayako wiped dry her eyes, they all drank tea in the garden behind the house.

  Sayuri’s parents did not seem bothered in the least that she was living abroad or marrying a foreigner, nor that she was well past the age of fresh Christmas cake. (In fact, Ayako pointed out that, as greater numbers of Japanese women were getting married later in life, the cutoff age for spinsterhood was no longer twenty-five. Single women who reached the age of thirty-one were now being called New Year’s Eve noodles.) The only thing about the marriage that troubled Sayuri’s parents, just slightly, was that she had decided to take her husband’s family name. They privately lamented that “Sayuri Hnatiuk” lacked any sense of poetry and, despite their best efforts, they could not learn how to pronounce it correctly.

  Towards the end of the day I had the opportunity to chat with Mrs. Mizumoto for a few minutes, with Sayuri acting as translator. Sayuri had already told her mother about Marianne Engel’s passing in the spring, and Ayako offered her most sincere condolences. When I thanked her for this, I could see that she found the growl of my voice shocking but was too polite to mention it. Instead she only increased the width of her smile and, in an instant, I understood where Sayuri had learned her mannerisms. We spoke pleasantly for a few minutes and I assured Ayako that I thought her daughter was destined for a happy married life despite the fact that Gregor, even in a tuxedo, looked an awful lot like a chipmunk. Sayuri hit me on the arm for saying this but apparently translated it accurately anyway. Her mother nodded her head enthusiastically, agreeing: “So, so, so, so, so, so, so!” All the while she held her hand in front of her mouth, as if trying to prevent her laughs from escaping.

  As our conversation was coming to a close, Mrs. Mizumoto offered a final deep bow of condolence. When she came back up, she gave me a hopeful smile, put her hand upon Sayuri’s stomach, and said, “Rinne tenshō.”

  The translation was not easy for Sayuri, who suggested the closest approximation was either “Everything comes back” or “Life is repeated.” Sayuri added that this was the type of thing old Japanese ladies sometimes say when they think that they’re more Buddhist than they really are. It appeared to me, from the dirty lo
ok she shot her daughter, that Ayako understood more English than she let on.

  But as they walked away, they hugged each other tightly. Ayako seemed to be quick to forget her daughter’s comment about old Japanese ladies, and Sayuri was just as quick to forgive her mother for laughing at the image of Gregor as a chipmunk.

  After Marianne Engel disappeared the authorities searched along the shoreline for three days but did not find a body. Nothing was found but long, lonely expanses of water. The problem with the ocean is that you cannot drag the entire thing, and it was as if the water had removed all evidence of her life but refused to offer any confirmation of her de-th.

  Marianne Engel had no life insurance, but suspicion was directed towards me nevertheless. Rightfully so: less than six months before her disappearance, she had changed her will to name me as the primary beneficiary. This situation did not sit well with the police, especially since I was with her when she went missing. They questioned me at length but the investigation showed that I had no knowledge of the will, and the teenagers who drank beer on the beach testified that it was not uncommon for “the burnt guy” and “the tattooed chick with weird hair” to come late at night. She often went swimming, they confirmed, regardless of the weather. On that particular night, I had done nothing but sit on the beach while the dog ran around in circles.

  Jack also spoke on my behalf. Her words carried special weight because she was not only Marianne Engel’s conservator but also the person whom I had replaced in the will. Despite this, Jack spoke highly of my character and told the police that she had no doubt of the love between Marianne Engel and me. While she did confirm that I didn’t know about the changes to the will, she also added, “I thought I would have plenty of time to talk Marianne out of it later. I didn’t expect her de-th to come so soon.”

  Jack Meredith can speak words that I cannot write. Words like de-th. Words like suic-de. These words make a coward of me. Writing them would bring them that much closer to being real.

  The legal proceedings accounted for most of my time during the summer, but in truth I barely paid attention. I didn’t care what the police decided about my responsibility in the disappearance and I didn’t care what the lawyers said about the will. In the end, Jack had to retain an independent lawyer on my behalf, because, without counsel, I would have signed any document put in front of me, just as I had in the hospital when my production company was put into bankruptcy.

  Marianne Engel had bequeathed almost everything to me, including the house and all its contents. Even Bougatsa. Jack, despite the years of service she had given in managing Marianne Engel’s business affairs, received only the statues that were already in her gallery.

  In a collection of shoeboxes at the back of a closet, I found bankbooks from a dozen accounts holding hundreds of thousands of dollars, now mine. Marianne Engel had been entirely debt-free, perhaps because no financial institution considered her an acceptable credit risk. I also discovered a series of receipts that revealed the truth of my private hospital room. It was not, as Nan had said at the time, a “happy accident” that the room was available so she could research recovery rates for patients in private, versus shared, rooms. Nor, as I guessed at the time, had I been put in a private room primarily so Nan could keep Marianne Engel away from the other patients. The truth was that Marianne Engel had paid for the private room so she could tell me her stories without being disturbed. She just had never told me.

  Nothing that I inherited will become mine for a number of years yet, because there was no body. Only after sufficient time has passed will a “presumptive de-th certificate” be issued for Marianne Engel, and until then her assets will remain in escrow. Luckily, the courts determined that I could continue living in the fortress as it was already my primary residence when she went missing.

  The local newspapers, and even a few international ones, carried short articles about the disappearance of a mentally ill but highly talented sculptress. “Presumed de-d,” they all said. Because nothing improves an artist’s reputation more than a tragic end, Jack was able to sell the gallery’s remaining statues in record time. Although I had to violate the terms of the will to do so, I gave Jack most of those that still remained at the fortress. (I kept only the statue of myself, and a few other favorite grotesques.) My lawyer advised against this, but it wasn’t as if the police were monitoring my actions. It was common for trucks to come and go, so no one in the neighborhood paid any attention when a few more statues were hauled away. When Jack brought over a check for their sale, less her commissions, I pressed the payment back into her hand.

  She deserved it more than I did. And even though the bank accounts were frozen, I had ample money on which to live.

  Marianne Engel, despite her generally scattered thinking, had foreseen the possibility that she might not always be around to pay my bills. After her disappearance, I found an envelope addressed to me, containing a key to the safety deposit box that she’d arranged would be accessible to me. When I opened the box, I discovered that it contained more than enough cash to provide for all my needs until the will came into force.

  There were two other things in the box, as well.

  Ultimately the police determined that I was without culpability in the disappearance of Marianne Engel. But they were wrong.

  I killed Marianne Engel. I killed her as surely as if I had lifted a gun or tilted a bottle of poison.

  As she walked towards the ocean, I knew that she was not going swimming. I knew that she would not return, and I will not pretend otherwise. And yet, I did nothing.

  I did nothing, just as she had once requested that I do, as a way of proving my love.

  I could have saved her with nothing more than a few words. If I had told her not to enter the water, she wouldn’t have carried out her plan. I know this. She would have returned to me, because her Three Masters had told her that I needed to accept her final heart but then release it, to release her. Any effort that I made to stop her would have constituted a refusal to release her, so all I had to say was “Marianne, come back.”

  I didn’t, and now I’m doomed to live with the knowledge that I didn’t say three simple words that would have saved her life. I’m doomed to know that I didn’t take her to court in an attempt to have her committed, that I didn’t try hard enough to sneak medicine into her food, that I didn’t handcuff her to the bed whenever her carving got out of control. There are literally dozens of actions that could have prevented her from dy-ng, all things that I did not do.

  Marianne Engel believed that she had killed me seven hundred years ago, in an act of kindness, but that story was fiction. The reality is that I killed her in this lifetime: not with kindness, but through inaction. While she believed that she was freeing herself from the shackles of her penitent hearts, I knew better. I am not schizophrenic. And still, I remained quiet. Ineffective. Murderous.

  I face this fact for a few moments each day, but that’s all I can stand. Sometimes I even try to write it down before it slips away, but usually my hand begins to shake before I can get the words out. It never takes me long to start lying again, trying to convince myself that Marianne Engel’s imaginary past was legitimate simply because she believed it so deeply. Everyone’s past, I try to rationalize, is nothing more than the collection of memories they choose to remember. But in my heart, I know this is just a defense mechanism that I manufacture simply so I can go on living with myself.

  All I had to say was “Marianne, come back.”

  The word paleography comes from the Greek palais (old) and graphia (script), so it is not surprising that paleographers study ancient writings. They classify manuscripts by examining the lettering (size, slant, pen movement) as well as the writing materials (papyrus or parchment, scroll or codex, type of ink). Good paleographers can determine the number of writers who worked on a manuscript, can assess their skill, and often can even assign the manuscript to a specific region. With religious writings, they can sometimes identify not only a
specific scriptorium but even a particular scribe.

  Not long ago I engaged the services of two of the world’s foremost paleographers: one an expert in medieval German documents and the other an expert in medieval Italian documents. I hired them to look at the items that I had found, in addition to the cash, in the safety deposit box.

  Two copies of Inferno, both handwritten but by different hands: the first in Italian and the other in German. Both appeared, to my untrained eye, to be hundreds of years old.

  Before I would tell either paleographer what I wanted examined, I made them sign strict nondisclosure agreements. Both men found my request unusual, almost humorous, but consented. Professional curiosity, one supposes. But when I presented the manuscripts, both men realized in an instant that they’d been handed something exceptional. The Italian blurted an excited profanity, while the German’s mouth twitched at the corners. I assumed a pose of complete ignorance regarding the origins of the books, saying nothing about where I’d acquired them.

  Because Inferno was immediately popular with readers, it is one of the most common works to survive in copies from the fourteenth century. The Italian paleographer had little doubt that my copy was among the very earliest, perhaps made within a decade of the first publication. He begged that I allow him to confirm his findings with other experts, but I declined his request.

  The German was not as quick to assign an age to the translation, partially because his initial examinations provided some bewildering contradictions. First, he wondered how a manuscript so remarkably well-preserved had gone unnoticed for so long. Second, it appeared that a single hand had penned the entire work, which was highly unusual for such a long document. Third, whoever had produced the book was exceptionally skilled. Not only was the script beautifully formed, but the translation itself was better than most, if not all, modern ones. But it was the fourth point that was most puzzling: the physical attributes of the manuscript—parchment, ink, lettering—suggested that it had been produced in the Rhine area of Germany, perhaps as early as the first half of the 1300s. If this was true—though it hardly could be—then my manuscript predated any known German translation of Inferno by several centuries. “So you see, I simply must be mistaken.” He trembled. “I must be! Unless…unless…”