Andrew Davidson - The Gargoyle

Insurance companies were not a problem for me, as my costs were being covered in full by Marianne Engel. But I had to wonder, briefcase of cash under the skeleton bed or not, how could she afford this? She kept reassuring me that her prominence as a carver had left her amply rewarded and that there was nothing she’d rather spend her money on. I was unsure but even if I tried to argue, what would be my case? That my scars should go untreated?

My pressure suits and mask were finally ready in mid-March. When Sayuri handed them over, I could immediately appreciate all the work that had gone into them. The mask had been sanded down so that it would sit comfortably along the contours of my face. Sayuri even pointed out how the students had paid special attention to where my scars were raised above the skin’s surface, and had prepared the plastic accordingly.

“You’ll need to use this as well.” Sayuri held out a spring-loaded contraption. The way my face had been burned left me particularly susceptible to oral commissures-scar tissue around the corners of my mouth-which, if not treated, would make it difficult for me to eat or speak in the future. After I had properly wedged the retractor into my mouth, I raised the mask to my face. It was to remain in place all the time, except during cleaning and skin care, even while I was sleeping. I asked Marianne Engel how I looked (in the process discovering that the retractor made my already garbled voice sound even worse) and she answered that I looked like a man who was going to live for a long time.

I looked into the mirror. As if the scarred topography of my face were not enough, it was now smashed flat by the clear plastic. The areas that were normally red had turned white under the pressure and the retractor had peeled my mouth outwards in a grotesque grimace. Every imperfection was amplified, and I looked like the bastard child of Hannibal Lecter and the Phantomess of the Opera.

Sayuri assured me that a poor first reaction was normal, because all burn patients-including me, despite being specifically told otherwise-assume that the mask will hide their faces. But it did not. It would not shield me and help me cope; it was a Petri dish that would place my face under the microscope of the world.

Sayuri explained the proper order in which to put on the pressure garments and showed Marianne Engel how to fasten the straps in back. While they fussed with the technicalities, I was left to experience the sensation, which was like slipping into the tight fist of an angry god. It’s only fabric, I told myself. It’s not who I am. It sent shivers down my spine anyway.

IT FEELS GOOD, DOES IT NOT? LIKE YOU ARE BEING BURIED ALIVE.The snake loved to laugh at me. I AM COMING.

I found Marianne Engel waiting for me in the dining room, wearing a kimono of jade silk. It bore an embroidered scene, impeccably stitched, of two lovers under a cherry blossom tree near a carp-filled stream. In the garment’s starry sky, a full moon looked down on the lovers as if it were not only the source of their light, but also the protector of their love.

She asked whether I was ready to eat. I answered that I was. I went out on a limb to guess that Japanese was on the menu.

“So desu ne. How perceptive you are,” she said with a slight bow. The stream on her kimono disappeared into the blue sash across her waist, drawn with an obi bow in back. “I’ve been reading Makura no Sshi .”

“Yeah, I saw that on your bookshelf. Pillow-something, right?”

“The Pillow Book of Sei Shnagon . A very famous Japanese text, tenth century, and the first novel ever written. Or so they say, but who knows for sure? I’ve been thinking that I should do something with it. You’d be surprised how many great Japanese books don’t have decent Latin translations.”

“No, I wouldn’t.”

Marianne Engel retreated to the kitchen with short, sharp steps, as she’d even gone so far as to put on geta, traditional wooden slippers. She returned with multihued trays of sushi: slices of white (and orange and silver) fish lay on beds of compressed rice; beady red fish eggs lolled on seaweed beds; and shrimps curled into each other, as if hugging tightly during their final moments on earth. There were inarizushi, cubes of rice wrapped in thin sheets of sweet golden tofu. Gyoza, dumplings made of beef or pork, bathed in zesty black sauce. Yakitori, barbecued strips of chicken and beef, on wooden skewers. There were onigiri, triangles of rice wrapped in seaweed; each, she explained, contained something different, something delicious: plums, fish eggs, chicken, tuna, or shrimp.

We cleaned our hands with o-shibori, steaming napkins, and then she placed her palms together. She said, “Itadakimas!” (a Japanese blessing before eating), before adding her more familiar Latin invocation.

She showed me the proper way to stir my miso soup with chopsticks and demonstrated that ramen noodles must be slurped loudly, because this not only cools them but makes them taste better. While she drank sake, she insisted that I stick with oolong tea; she just wouldn’t give up that silly idea that alcohol and morphine don’t mix. Every time my cup was less than half-full, she refilled it with a slight but respectful bow. When I inserted my chopsticks into my bowl of rice so that they stood straight up like two trees growing out of a snowy hill, she immediately pulled them out. “It’s disrespectful to the dead.”

When the meal finally ended, she rubbed her hands together gleefully. “Tonight I’ll tell you a story about another woman named Sei, although this one wasn’t even born until hundreds of years after the writing of the Pillow Book.”

Long ago in old Japan, a girl named Sei was born to a glassblower named Yakichi. At first her father was disappointed that she was not a son, but his disappointment ended the second that he held her. From that moment on he was devoted to her, and she to him.

Yakichi watched with proud eyes as Sei grew from a spirited child into an intelligent young lady. That she was beautiful was beyond question and, in her fine features, Yakichi could see his late wife’s eyelids and cheekbones. The mother died when Sei was just a child and this made the father and daughter hold each other all the tighter.

On the verge of adulthood, Sei decided to follow in her father’s footsteps. Yakichi felt great joy in her decision and his happiness was now complete: his knowledge wouldn’t die with him, after all. Sei adopted the title of Glassblower’s Apprentice and showed remarkable potential and quick progress. She had a delicate touch and, more important, she could envision the object before it was blown. Technique can always be learned, Yakichi knew, but Sei was born with the gift of vision. She could see beauty where others saw only empty air.

Sei studied well under her father’s tutelage, learning just how hot to stoke the fire and just how forcefully to blow. She learned to read the bright glow of the heated glass. She worked diligently to develop her understanding of breath; for she knew that with breath she could create a world. She imagined herself breathing life into the glass and, with every week that passed, Sei came closer to realizing the loveliness of the objects that she could picture in her imagination.

Yakichi began to bring Sei to the local weekend market, where he maintained a stand to sell their wares. Men started to come in swarms. They claimed they wanted to look at the glasswork but really, of course, they came to look at the captivating young woman. “How like glass you yourself are,” one old man couldn’t help but say, scuttling away like a crab across a beach when he realized that the words had actually slipped aloud from his claws.