Andrew Davidson - The Gargoyle

There was always just enough money to keep us in our lodgings. Our landlady continued to teach me about cooking and introduced me to some of her friends. It took time for them to accept me, because relations with Christians had always been complicated for the Mainz Jews-stories were still told about the massacre at the hands of Emich’s Crusaders, and how the archbishop had once tried to expel all Jews from the city. But as they were living and conducting business within the city, it was impossible not to deal with all types of people. I suppose they decided that since I never pressed my religion upon them, they could accept me as an individual.

So now I had some Jewish acquaintances to go with my Beguine associates, and you had the construction workers at sites all over town. I stopped praying for a sign that I’d made the right choice in leaving Engelthal. I knew that I had.

In the spring, a mason you’d befriended made an unusual and unexpected offer. He said that he was “tired of training stupid little boys” and was longing for the company of a man. If you didn’t mind the low pay, he’d petition the Masonry Guild for a special exemption to take you on as an apprentice. He warned that it would not be easy and that there’d be a cut in your current income, but in the end you’d receive your journeyman’s papers. We only discussed it for a few minutes before deciding that an offer like this might never come along again. There was some difficulty in convincing the guild but in the end they agreed, and that’s how you became the oldest apprentice in Mainz.

You threw yourself into the work, arriving early and leaving late. You did whatever was asked, never complained, and paid deep attention to all your instructions. It didn’t hurt that you had a natural aptitude for stone. The lessons you had learned under your father had not been lost over the years.

Belief in a better future is an amazing gift. We still had no money, but we started talking about eventually getting a new place. “A small house, maybe.” It gave us something to dream on and the dream was necessary because the loss in income was affecting all parts of our life, most noticeably our diet. Without the “charity” from the Beguines, we never would have made it.

Though our stomachs were empty, we’d walk around town and point out the houses that we’d move into. Someday.

“And when we do,” you said, “I will ask you to honor me by becoming my wife.”

Our past was paused here.

When I begged to know whether we got married, Marianne Engel said, “You’ll have to wait and see.”

I returned often to the hospital for more reconstructive surgeries. By this point, these were mostly cosmetic: attempts to make me look, rather than work, better. I asked Nan how much longer my resurfacings would continue, and she answered that she didn’t know. I asked how much better I would look in the end, and she answered that it varied from patient to patient.

It was always my feeling that, as much as Marianne Engel cared for me, my absences from the fortress were welcome as breaks during which she could work uninterrupted. It was common for me to take a cab back after a few days in the hospital to find her stretched exhausted on her bed, still covered in stone dust, and I’d peek into the basement to see a new monster leering up at me. Then I would check the bowls of water and food I had left out for Bougatsa before leaving and they were always empty; I suspected he consumed everything the moment I stepped out the door, but there was nothing I could do about that. All in all, these trips to the hospital worked out well, because her carving in my absence meant we had more time together when I was there.

But there were still times when she was carving and I was not in the hospital, and I was becoming better at looking after myself-and her. While she still managed to pull herself away from her work long enough to bathe me, I could tell that she resented it: the further into her statue she was, the harder she’d scrub at my body. When she finished, she would retreat into the basement and I would bring her food. “You know, you’d be able to carve better-and faster -if you’d just eat something once in a while.”

“It’s not only a matter of getting the gargoyle out. It’s also a matter of honing my spirit.”

“What does that mean?”

“The world pampers the body with food and material comforts,” she said. “They appease the flesh but are enemies of the spirit. Abstinence is a bridle that gives the spirit a chance in the eternal quarrel with the body.”

It was another argument in which logic was a stranger; therefore, it was another argument that I was destined to lose. So I emptied her ashtrays, refilled her water bottles, and left a plate of cut fruit that I knew would still be untouched the next time I came down.

Marianne Engel’s raptures always played themselves out after a few days. She would apologize for her time away, but I knew I didn’t have much to complain about, really, as she usually had only one-two, at most-of these sessions each month. They paid well, including all my bills, and the rest of the time she was devoted to me: anyone whose spouse has a nine-to-five job would tell me to quit whining.

Besides, each work session was the perfect opportunity for me to call up old acquaintances and arrange for the delivery of the extra morphine I was buying with cash advances from my credit card.

The other customers in the supermarket tried not to look at us, but they failed. Marianne Engel waved at a slack-jawed grandmother, who scurried off as if she’d been caught doing something immoral but still could not prevent herself from looking back over her shoulder twice.

Intellectually I understood the fascination with me, but emotionally I hated it. My anonymity is forever lost, because I am now outstanding in the most literal sense of the word. The fact that my body was hidden behind plexiglass and pressure garments only made me, in a way, all the more compelling. As in any good horror movie, the thing you must imagine is scarier than the thing you actually see.

I heard a mother in aisle eight tell her child not to stare. The boy, five or six, curled his little body behind the safety of her leg but his eyes never left me. The mother said, “I’m sorry. He’s, umm, curious and, ah, too friendly…”

“You shouldn’t apologize for that! You can’t be too friendly!” Marianne Engel bent down to look the little guy in the eyes. “You’re cute. What’s your name?”

“Billy.”

“Is that short for William?”

“Yes.”

“That’s a good name.” Marianne Engel nodded in my direction. “William, do you think my friend is scary?”

“A little bit,” Billy whispered.

“He’s actually not that bad once you get to know him.”

I wondered whom Marianne Engel was making most uncomfortable-Billy, Billy’s mother, or me-and I said that we had to get going. I had forgotten the effect my croak had on people hearing it for the first time. After Billy was finished recoiling, he asked with a mixture of curiosity and awe, “What’s wrong with you?”

The mother scolded him, explaining that this question wasn’t very polite. I dismissed it with a wave of my hand, but Marianne Engel asked if she wasn’t just a little bit curious about the very same thing. Billy’s mother fumbled a mouthful of words until two fell out. “Well, sure…”

“Of course you are. Look at him! William is only asking the question that everyone’s thinking.” Marianne Engel rubbed the boy’s hair, so that he would know he wasn’t being criticized.

“He’s only in kindergarten,” the mother said.