The Gargoyle

Sayuri pointed out-in a most gentle ma

“That’s just the kind of cheap Oriental wisdom I don’t need in my life.”

I suppose it was then that she realized I was looking for a fight and she took a step closer. She said that how well I would eventually walk depended on many things, but mostly on my willingness to work. “Your fate is in your own hands.”

I said I doubted it really mattered to her one way or the other how my progress went, as she’d get her paycheck just the same.

“That’s not fair,” Sayuri replied, providing just the opening that I was hoping for. I took the opportunity to explain to her what “not fair” really was. “Not fair” was the fact that when she went home in the evening to eat sushi and watch Godzilla on the late night show, I’d still be lying in my hospital bed with a tube sucking piss out of my body. That, I pointed out, was unfair.

Sayuri realized there was no point in continuing to talk to me, but still she was graceful. “You’re scared and I understand that. I know it’s difficult because you want to imagine the ending but you can’t even imagine the begi

To which I replied: “Wipe that condescending look off your face, you Jap bitch.”

Maria

An hour later, Sayuri Mizumoto came into the room, her head held high. She glanced at Maria

I did my best to affect a small bow in her direction, though it wasn’t easy lying down. I started to speak the words I’d memorized: “Mizumoto san, konoaidawa hidoi kotoba o tsukatte hontouni gomenasai. Yurushite kudasai.” (This roughly translates as I’m truly sorry that I spoke such terrible words to you the other day. Please forgive me.)

It was obvious that I’d caught her off guard. She replied. “I accept your apology. How did you learn the words?”

“This is my-friend, Maria

It was sheer coincidence that this was the first time the two women had met. Maria

Sayuri’s eyes opened with astonished delight and she bowed back.

Maria

Sayuri smiled.

Maria

Maria

Sayuri stifled a giggle with a hand raised to her mouth.

Sayuri looked deeply pleased that my vile behavior the day before had produced such an unexpected meeting. She excused herself from the room with a wide smile, bowing one final time towards Maria

Maria

She moved away from my bed, pulled a chair from the corner, and sat heavily, with the tired look of a wife disappointed in her husband’s failure. Her strange little speech drove me to voice a question that I’d long wanted to ask but had been too afraid to: “What do you want from me?”

“Nothing,” she answered. “I want you to do absolutely nothing for me.”

“Why?” I asked. “What does that even mean?”

“Only by doing nothing will you truly be able to prove your love.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You will,” she said. “I promise.”

With this, Maria

VIII.

Growing up in Engelthal, I found my most difficult challenge was to keep my voice down. I understood that silence was an integral part of our spiritual welfare, but nevertheless I received many reprimands for my “excessive exuberance.” Really, I was simply acting as a child does.

It was not only sound that was muted at Engelthal, it was everything. All aspects of our lives were outlined by the Constitutions of the Order, a document so thorough that it had a full five chapters devoted just to clothing and washing. Even our buildings could have no elegance, for fear it might taint our souls. We had to sit in the dining hall in the same order that we took our places in the choir. During the meal, readings were given so we received spiritual nourishment as well as physical. We’d listen to passages from the Bible and a lot of St. Augustine, and sometimes The Life of St. Dominic, the Legenda Aurea, or Das St. Trudperter Hohelied. At least the readings distracted from the food, which was flavorless-spices were prohibited and we couldn’t eat meat without special permission, given only for health reasons.

Whenever I wasn’t in the central chapel for Mass, I spent my time in the scriptorium. Gertrud made it clear from the start that she didn’t appreciate my presence. Because of her position as armarius, however, it would have been improper for her to vent her frustrations directly. For this, she had her minion Sister Agletrudis.

Agletrudis was a chubby little planet that orbited around Gertrud, the scriptorium’s largest star; her every action was calculated to please her mistress by torturing me. Her only goal in life was to take over the scriptorium when Gertrud finally died. What was I, except an obstacle upon that path?

Well before I arrived, a financial consideration had infiltrated the scriptorium. It was common practice to produce books for wealthy citizens, often in exchange for land upon their deaths. Gertrud, despite all her self-professed holiness, never took offense at the economic terms of this arrangement but disliked the sale of books for a different reason altogether: it interfered with using the scriptorium to achieve her own ends. Early in her career, Gertrud had decided that she would produce one great work upon which her legend would forever rest: a definitive German-language version of the Bible. Though she never said it aloud, I’m certain she imagined it would come to be known as Die Gertrud Bibel.