The Gargoyle

Voltaire wrote that Dante was a madman who had many commentators, and whose reputation would continue to grow mostly because almost no one actually reads the Commedia. I suggest the reason that so few people read Dante is because no one actually needs to. In the Western world, Inferno is everyone’s idea of Hell; as literature, only the Bible is more deeply woven into society’s collective consciousness.

“Did you know,” Maria

“One of your Three Masters, right?”

“Yes,” she answered.

I admitted that, not surprisingly, I knew very little (in truth: nothing) about this woman, so Maria

Das flieЯende Licht der Gottheit, as the masterwork is known in German, influenced countless writers who followed, including Meister Eckhart and Christina Ebner. It is also clear that Dante Alighieri read the Latin translation, and many scholars are convinced he used Mechthild’s ordering of the afterlife as the conceptual basis for the Divine Comedy: Heaven at the top, Purgatory directly below, and Hell at the bottom. In the very abyss of Mechthild’s Hell, Satan is chained by his own sins while anguish, plague, and ruin flow from his burning heart and mouth. This sounds suspiciously similar to Dante’s Satan, a three-faced beast trapped in a block of ice at the lowest center of Hell chewing at a frothy trio of si

“There are those who believe,” said Maria

“Is that what you think?” I asked.

“I believe,” she answered with a slight smile, “that in his work, Dante often wrote in appearances by those who influenced him.”

As she read me the tale of Dante’s journey, I found it deeply familiar and I loved it despite (or perhaps because of?) my burn ward surroundings. There was something comforting in having Maria

When I presented Maria

“Uh-huh.” I hadn’t seen that coming. “When did you translate it?”

“I suppose about ten or twenty years after Dante finished writing it. It took me quite a while. I’m pretty sure I was Inferno’s first translator, but you can never be positive about these things.”

“And when did you read it to me?” I asked.

“When you were recovering from your first burn.”

Inferno was first published in A.D. 1314. If Maria

As I detail these numbers, I’m not forgetting that this is ludicrous and could not have actually occurred. I’m simply pointing out that, at least, the impossible things were occurring in a possible timeline. This is what I find rather amazing about her mental state: her wild statements were held together by internal consistency.

Because I didn’t live in the Middle Ages, I needed to do a lot of research during the writing of this book to check what she said, or what I remember her saying, against facts. The interesting thing is that all the events she claimed were true could have happened exactly as she described them, had she not been talking about ancient events in the first person.

Despite being under the control of the Church, Engelthal was a democratic institution whose prioress was elected. All daily activities were outlined in the Orders of the Constitution. Maria

While there is no record of Heinrich Seuse having visited Engelthal, there is also no way to prove that he did not do so. If he did come during the early 1320s, as Maria

Still. No matter how perfectly she constructed her timelines or researched German religious figures, Maria

“You are studious, aren’t you?” she said. “Don’t worry, there’s a reason you can’t find information on me or on Gertrud’s Bible. We’ll get to it, I promise.”

Goodwill carolers dropped in to sing about silent nights, holy nights. A Sally A

How strange it was to be looking forward to the holiday season. Traditionally, I’d hated Christmas; it always left a taste in my mouth akin to moldy fruitcake. (By this, I do not mean an elderly Japanese spinster.) In my childhood, I’d had a succession of Christmases when the Graces spent the money originally intended for my presents on methamphetamine; in my adulthood, Christmas meant fucking a woman who was wearing a red felt hat.

I still had my exercise sessions, my regular medical procedures, but the most interesting event was to be a meeting of the important women of my life: Nan, Sayuri, and Maria

Sayuri arrived first. I’ve mentioned before that she always seemed to carry her tiny body behind a gigantic smile, but on this day only the tiny body was present. When I asked whether everything was okay, she answered unpersuasively that it was. Rather than push the subject, I asked whether she’d bought my gift for Gregor yet. She replied that she had and in this, at least, I believed her. I was going to ask a few more questions when Maria