A minute passed in eerie silence, and I could see in the way they glanced from face to face that everyone was certain you’d died. The nurses tentatively allowed themselves to sit down, exhausted from dealing with you.
And then you jolted awake with a gasp, your eyes filled with terror as if you had seen everything there was to know about death. You began to scream again, so I slapped your face and tried to force you to focus, but your eyes kept darting in search of that demon again. I grabbed you as vigorously as I dared and brought my face inches from yours, yelling. When you were finally able to concentrate upon me, your fear seemed to fly away.
The look in your eyes was more like recognition than anything else. We studied each other. I don’t know how many moments passed. You tried to say something, but it was so soft I thought I must be imagining your voice. I brought my ear nearer to your mouth. The other nuns had taken a few steps back and could not hear that in a garbled voice, you said a few words.
“My heart…Locked…The key.”
Then you closed your eyes and drifted back into unconsciousness.
I had no idea what you meant by these words, but they somehow strengthened my certainty that I was meant to help you. It is not in the nature of any nun to accept the idea of a man’s heart being locked, especially the heart of a man who might so soon be at the threshold of Heaven—or, though I did not want to admit it to myself, Hell. One must be realistic about the final destination of a mercenary.
I stayed with you through the night and washed away the murky fluids that ran from your chest. I was as gentle as I could be, but your flesh still leapt beneath my touch. As difficult as it was to look upon your pain, I was certain—for the very first time in my life—that Engelthal was exactly the place for me to be. My lack of mystic visions, my lack of understanding about the Eternal Godhead, these things were now completely unimportant.
The following morning, on the way back to my cell, I met Gertrud. She inquired, with a fakely sweet voice, when I “might find a few moments away from the killer” to resume my scriptorium duties and continue God’s work. I informed her that Mother Christina had specifically requested my help with the burn patient, and that was my primary responsibility at the moment. I also let it slip that Mother Christina thought I was uniquely qualified to find any relevant information in our scriptorium. I could see anger pass across Gertrud’s face, but only for a moment.
When she regained her composure, Gertrud said, “It is most kind of Mother Christina to devote such resources to aiding this man. However, I think you would be wise to remember that only God can help this soldier. It is out of the hands of a bastard child left at the gate.”
These were by far the harshest words she’d ever spoken to me. I was shocked, but I assured her that she was quite right, of course. I added that, nevertheless, I should excuse myself to say my prayers and get some sleep, just in case God did decide to grace a bastard child such as myself with the ability to assist a man in need.
When I returned to the infirmary later that day, I discovered that you’d had a very rough time in my absence. You’d been babbling incoherently, tossing violently. Mother Christina and Father Sunder were there, consulting with the nurses, but no one knew what to do next.
Without warning, you lifted an arm and pointed at me. All your confused talk fell away and you called out in a clear voice: “This one.”
Everyone was stunned. Except for the few words that only I had heard, this was the first time you had spoken. There was a perfect dramatic pause in the room before you added, “I had a vision.”
The nuns gasped and Mother Christina uttered an immediate prayer for guidance. A soldier having a vision: truly Engelthal was a mystical and wonderful place! But I didn’t believe it. You’d been in the monastery for a short time, I thought, but somehow you’d managed to learn that the only currency which mattered was heavenly revelations.
Mother Christina took a tentative step forward. “What kind of vision?”
You pointed at me again and whispered, “God said this one would heal me.”
Mother Christina clutched tightly at Father Sunder’s arm. “Are you certain?”
You nodded almost imperceptibly and closed your eyes, exactly the way the nuns did to show just how deeply they were in contemplation.
The nun-nurses clasped their hands in holy fear and kneeled in reverence, while Father Sunder and Mother Christina withdrew into a corner to confer. Shortly after, Mother Christina took my hands into her own. “It is highly strange, Sister Marianne, but we must take him at his word. Have I not always known there was something more to you than meets the eye?”
Perhaps Mother Christina, bless her, was anticipating a marvelous new chapter in her Engelthal chronicles. Who was I to disappoint? I nodded, as though the mantle of chosen healer was a heavy burden for an unexceptional sister such as I, but one that I would shoulder for the sake of our monastery. Behind Mother Christina, you appeared to have lapsed back into unconsciousness, but there was the trace of a smile on your lips.
The other nuns gave me great leeway in your treatment after the revelation. No doubt, they didn’t want their earthly mistakes to sully divine remedy. I cleaned your wounds with cold water and changed your bandages, but I also took to cutting away bad flesh, a procedure that drew protests from the others until I reminded them of your vision. Perhaps they didn’t have the stomach for it, or perhaps they thought we had no right to desecrate a body created by the Lord, but whatever the reason, they always left the room when I did it.
Why I decided cutting was the correct course of action, I’ll never know. From my birth, it had been ingrained in me that one had to separate the bad from the good, so maybe I was only taking this idea to its most literal level. And why you allowed me to cut at your skin, I also don’t know, but you did. You screamed, and slipped in and out of consciousness, but you never once told me to stop using the knife. I was amazed by your courage.
In that first week you were consistently delirious. On the seventh day, your fever broke and you finally woke fully into the world. I was dabbing the sweat from your brow when you looked up and began to sing in a weak voice.
Dû bist mîn, ich bin dîn:
des solt dû gewis sîn;
dû bist beslozzen in mînem herzen,
verlorn ist daz slüzzelîn:
dû muost och immer darinne sîn.
It did not matter, the fact that you coughed fitfully in the middle of your singing. Simply because it came from the throat of a recovering man, it was more beautiful than any song that I had heard ever lifted on the nuns’ voices in salute to the glory of the Lord.
Word of your awakening traveled the length of Engelthal. “Truly a miracle has been worked through the hands of Sister Marianne!” I thought that common sense would prevail, but you can’t argue with a monastery of elated nuns. Even Gertrud and Agletrudis stopped whispering into the ear of Mother Christina that I needed to get back to my scriptorium duties.
XIII.
So what did the song mean?”
“How strange that you no longer remember your mother tongue,” Marianne Engel mused. “You are mine, I am yours: you may be sure of this. You’ve been locked inside my heart, the key has been thrown away; within it, you must always stay. It’s a traditional love ballad.”
“Why that one?” I asked.
“You were a warrior, not a singer. Maybe it was the only song you knew.”
We spoke more—mostly she talked, explaining the tradition of the Minnelieder—medieval love songs—to me, until it came time for her to leave. After gathering her belongings, she asked me to close my eyes.
When I did, she slipped over my head a thin strand of leather, with a hanging coin as its pendant. “The proper name for that is an ‘angel.’ They were issued in England in the sixteenth century. Please allow me to make a gift of it to you.”
On one side of the coin was the image of someone killing a dragon; Marianne Engel explained its history. “It’s the Arc
hangel Michael, from Revelation. ‘And there was war in Heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon…. And the great dragon was cast out.’”
“Thank you,” I said.
“When the time comes, you’ll know what to do with that coin.”
Such comments from Marianne Engel, nonsensical at worst and cryptic at best, were so common that I had stopped asking what they meant. Trying to get her to explain herself in these matters usually brought our conversations to a halt and, ultimately, she never really explained anyway.
Marianne Engel informed me that she’d not be able to return until after the New Year because she had a basement full of neglected grotesques. As she headed towards the door, she patted the briefcase containing the two hundred grand. “Don’t forget, you’re coming to live with me.”
DO YOU THINK SHE WILL EMPTY YOUR CATHETER’S DRAINAGE BAG?
I concentrated on the emptiness of the room. I would not allow my serpentine tormentor to succeed in her efforts.
I WONDER IF SHE WILL BRING HOME MEN WITH PENISES?
The most useful function of my old drug habit was the ability to write off entire days. I longed for the whiteout that cocaine and booze could always provide.
WOMEN HAVE NEEDS WHICH YOU CANNOT FULFILL.
Dr. Edwards entered, wearing a bright red sweater for the holidays. I’d never seen her in anything other than her lab coat. “I hear the party was a good time.”
I was pleased to see Nan, because her appearance meant the snake would disappear for a while. The snake liked to confront me when we were alone. “It’s too bad you weren’t there.”
She checked my medical chart. “Maybe next year.”
“Did you have anything to do with it?” I asked. “I mean, there must have been a lot of forms to fill out. Legal documents, disclaimers, that sort of thing.”
“The hospital did have to consider its position,” Nan admitted, “and demand legal indemnity on a lot of issues. What if someone got food poisoning?”
“I can’t imagine Marianne navigated the paperwork by herself.”
“I acted as a liaison between her and the board,” Nan said, “but only because I thought it would be good for all the patients. Not just you.”
“Thank you. I know you don’t like her very much.”
Dr. Edwards’ back straightened, slightly. “I think she is a fine person.”
“It’s only as a caregiver that you have doubts.”
“It doesn’t matter much what I think.”
“Of course it does,” I said. “I like your sweater. Are you going out?”
She looked down as if she had forgotten that she was wearing it, but it was bad pantomime. “I’d prefer to keep my personal life personal.”
“Fair enough,” I said. “Why did you become a doctor?”
“That’s a personal question.”
“No,” I corrected, “it’s about your profession.”
She tilted her head to one side. “For the same reason anyone does, I guess. To help people.”
“And I thought some doctors did it for the money,” I said. “Why the burn ward? There are easier places to work.”
“I like it here.”
“Why?”
“When people leave here, there’s a…” Nan paused, thinking about the best choice of words. “When I was a resident, they taught me to consider everyone who came here to be already dead. It’s a trick, you know, because so many burn patients die in the first few days. But if you consider the patient to be dead when he arrives, and then he manages to somehow make it…”
“It’s a way to think you only save people and never lose them,” I said. “Does it work?”
“Sometimes I hate it here.”
“Me, too.” I wanted to reach out to take her hand, but I knew better. So instead I said, “I think you’re an excellent doctor.”
“I’m selfish. I just want that feeling I get every time a patient walks out of here.” She looked up from her feet and back into my eyes. “Did anyone ever tell you that your heart stopped twice during your emergency surgeries?”
“No. I guess it’s safe to assume it started again.”
“They don’t always.”
“I am going to live with Marianne.”
“I just don’t want you to make a mistake after you’ve come this far.”
“If I don’t go to her, I have no idea why you saved my life.”
Nan thought about this statement, taking a few moments before speaking again. “I can’t save anyone’s life. The very best I can do is help a few not die before their time, and I can’t even do that very often.”
“Well,” I said, “I’m still here.”
“Yes, you are.” She reached down and took my hand in hers, but only for a moment. She then turned to leave the room but at the door spun around and added, almost impulsively, “I’m meeting my ex-husband for a glass of brandy. That’s why I’m wearing the sweater.”
“I didn’t know you’d been married.”
“I was, and I’m not now.” She fidgeted with the door handle, turning it a couple of times. “My husband is a good person but we were a bad match. It happens.”
After New Year’s, Marianne Engel stepped up her participation in my physical therapy sessions. I was being trained in the arts of brushing my teeth, buttoning shirts, and using utensils, practicing these ADLs—activities of daily living—for the time that I would be released. Each time I used my good hand to manage these tasks, Sayuri rebuked me. While it would be easier in the short term, she argued, it would give my damaged hand license to wither. Even such simple activities were “exercise.”
I was scheduled for a tutorial on bathing, one more thing that I would have to learn all over again, and I had a great deal of discomfort with the idea of Marianne Engel’s attendance at this lesson. Though she had been helping with most aspects of my rehabilitation, she had not yet been present when my bandages were fully removed. She knew that my penis was gone; she simply had not not seen it yet. When I moved into her house, she would be the one to help me bathe, and obviously that would be impossible with my clothing on. Still, I was not ready for her to witness this specific lack in my physique.
A compromise was reached. Even though Sayuri thought it would be best if Marianne Engel were involved in the practice from the start, we would do the first few baths without her, while I was given more time to adjust to the idea.
Gregor was ecstatic about his evening with Akira Kurosawa and Sayuri Mizumoto.
He regaled me with stories about what they had bought at the concession stand (popcorn + licorice twists); how Sayuri did not like licorice (apparently a cultural thing, as most Japanese people think it tastes like bad Chinese medicine); how their fingers had accidentally touched while they were reaching for popcorn at the same time; how they held hands after the popcorn was gone; how all he could think about was the buttery residue on his fingers; how he was praying she didn’t think the butter grease was sweat; how he wiped his fingers on his pants so as not to offend her with his greasy hands; how for the remainder of the evening there were four greasy finger streaks on his pants; how he was certain that she would find the streaks a disgusting indication of his poor hygiene; and so forth. It was all very cute. Gregor told me everything except the name of the movie, which I suppose was the least important aspect of the event.
At the end of their evening, Sayuri agreed to eat dinner with Gregor at Rasputin’s on the following weekend.
Marianne Engel pushed my wheelchair into a room where a large group of interns was waiting. Sayuri introduced me to everyone and then asked a seemingly innocent question: “What is my job?”
The interns looked to each other, sensing a trick. A young man in the back suggested, obviously, that Sayuri was a physical therapist. Her ever-wide smile spread ever wider as she shook her head. “Today I’m a tailor. These measurements are extremely important, because the suit we’re making will be worn twenty-four hours a day, for a year.”
&n
bsp; She pulled out a tape measure and asked who wanted to help. Two interns stepped forward and were soon laying out scraps of fabric, the kind used to make pressure garments, along the contours of my body. The work took longer than I expected, mostly because they were so unsure of themselves. Sayuri patiently dealt with all their questions and it was obvious that not only was she a good teacher, she enjoyed it as well. When the measurements were finished, she was glowing as she exclaimed that what came next—making the first impression for the plexiglass mask I’d need to wear—was far more challenging.
“Most of his head surgeries have already been performed and the swelling in his face has subsided, so the primary function of the mask is to minimize scarring. What do we do first?”
“We make a negative impression of the face,” answered one of the students.
“Nope,” Sayuri said, holding up a camera. “We take photographs for reference when we’re preparing the inside of the mask. How would you like to wear a mask for a year if it didn’t fit properly?”
Sayuri took the pictures herself, shooting from all angles to capture every nuance of my face. I hated that she was making a permanent record of how I looked. When she put the camera down, she said, “Now it’s time for the impression. What do we do first?”
At least one student had read the correct chapter in the book. “We pour GelTrate over the face, and then we lay on plaster strips.”