The Gargoyle

Sayuri completed her degree with honors and accepted a job in the hospital where she would, eventually, meet me. Long before I came along, she had paid back every yen her father had given her for her education.

Dr. Hnatiuk came by my room every few days to pass along a new psychology book. I was starting to like him. It’s not easy for me to pinpoint when my feelings turned, as there was no moment of revelation in which I exclaimed: “Hey, the chipmunk’s not so bad after all.” He crept up on me. The most important thing was that he stopped trying to relate to me in a doctor-patient capacity, and simply let the conversation flow naturally. There was also the fact that he liked the gargoyle statue that Maria

As the weeks passed, a physical change occurred in Gregor. He lost his tasseled loafers and ill-advised corduroys and began wearing clothes that almost seemed to fit properly. Even if they couldn’t be considered quite “stylish,” they were at least passable. He’d been exercising to the point that the glow in his cheeks no longer looked as if it came from climbing a flight of stairs too quickly, and he was losing some of the excess fat from around his midsection.

Gregor never asked why I was reading psychology books, but he was willing to answer every question I had about schizophrenia. Although I had never mentioned her name in any of our discussions, one day I let it slip (not quite accidentally) that I was doing my research because I feared that a friend of mine SHE’S NOT YOUR FRIEND might be suffering from the condition. SHE’S JUST A CRAZY WOMAN.

“I know,” Gregor said. “Maria

Gregor seemed satisfied to have proven himself a step ahead of me, but I assumed he’d been consulted when Dr. Edwards tried to convince me not to encourage her visits. Gregor had actually treated her several times, he said, the last being when she had been admitted for “talking to ghosts” in public. SEE? I asked why he’d never told me before this. He cited the Hippocratic oath, and added that he’d say no more about her than he already had.

“Furthermore,” he added, “I will neither confirm nor deny a diagnosis of schizophrenia.”

Gregor also pointed out that he never mentioned the content of our conversations to anyone. I told him that he was free to repeat whatever he wanted, because I was not his patient. To this, he countered that we were still in a hospital where I was a patient and he was a doctor, so he considered this reason enough for confidentiality. I voiced my opinion that psychiatrists were generally useless and that I really didn’t care what they (meaning he) thought about me.

“Oh, it might be true that many of us could do better,” Gregor conceded, “but we have our moments. For example, out of your many personality flaws, I can diagnose your largest.”

“And what’s that?”

“You think you’re smarter than everyone else.”

With the exception of the periods when she disappeared for almost a week at a time, Maria

“I talked to Dr. Edwards,” she said. “She’s given me permission to bring you some food.”

Since she was now talking to my doctor, I asked whether she would give me permission to discuss her case with one of the doctors who had treated her. Specifically, Dr. Hnatiuk.

She answered that she didn’t want me discussing her case with anyone, and was offended that I would even ask. Of all people, she said, I should know that she was not crazy.

There was a moment of awkward silence between us, until Maria

“If ever you were a racist,” she said, ru

Her fingers were gentle lingering over the wasteland. They moved across my torso and towards my neck, pausing at the shoulders to follow the curves. “What is it like to wear another person’s skin?”

“I don’t have a good answer for that,” I said. “It hurts.”

“Can you remember their stories? Can you feel the love that they felt?”

It was difficult, sometimes, to know whether Maria

“It makes me think of us,” she continued. “It makes me want to sew myself to you like skin.”

I cleared my throat.

“Did you know,” she asked, “that my body is marked too?”

I had some idea what she was talking about. When she wore T-shirts it was impossible not to notice the tattoos of Latin phrases that circled her upper biceps. On the left arm was the phrase Certum est quia impossibile est. I asked what it meant, and she said that it translated as “It is certain because it is impossible.” On her right arm was the phrase Quod me nutrit, me destruit. This, she said, meant, “That which nourishes me also destroys me.”

“I don’t get it,” I confessed.

She laughed. “Well, that’s only because you haven’t seen me carve yet.”

Then Maria

It’s a tiny thing, to have your face touched. Isn’t it? But think again about the burnt and unbeloved beasts of the world. Think about the people whose skin ca

“What does my face feel like?”

“Like the desert after a windstorm.”

I had an overwhelming urge to tell her that I was beautiful before the accident, but I didn’t. What would be the point? And then, I reached out with my good hand to touch her cheek. She didn’t pull back: no. Not even in the least.

“There are good things happening,” Maria

When she returned to my bedside, her smile indicated that her request had been granted. “Would you like to see my other tattoos?”