“No.”
There had been no anger in her voice, but also no regret. Her voice was simply dull and hollow, lacking any nuance of compassion, as if her words were not new sounds but echoes.
By the time I had my foot on the stairway’s bottom step, all her attention was once again focused on the stone in front of her.
The veterinarian was a plump woman named Cheryl with red hair and bright eyes, probably of Irish heritage. One of the first things she asked was why I looked the way that I do, which was so much better than trying to pretend that there was nothing wrong with my appearance. “Car accident.”
“I see. So when did you start noticing the problem with, ah”—she glanced at the chart that her receptionist had filled out—“Bougatsa? Greek pastry, right?”
“Yeah. Same color. I found diarrhea on the floor this morning, and I think he’s been eating leaves.”
“I see.” Cheryl nodded. “His coat always like this? It seems to be lacking luster.”
“You’re right,” I answered, “and it feels kind of greasier than usual. His problems started recently, but this morning it was like they just jumped up a level. He’s definitely losing weight.”
She asked whether he was lacking energy, and I confirmed he was. Then she performed a few little tests on him, shining a light into his mouth and eyes, with Bougatsa whimpering passively throughout the process. I asked what she thought the problem was.
“Does he seem tender in this region?” She asked this while pressing at Bougatsa’s stomach, and then answered her own question. “Actually, he doesn’t seem to mind it too much. Were there any signs of undigested fat in his stool?”
Who—other than a veterinarian—knows what undigested fat looks like in dog shit? I answered that I’d forgotten to run a chemical analysis before arriving, so I couldn’t say definitively. Cheryl gave me a scowl before lifting Boogie’s tail to inspect his anus. “Has he been eating his own excrement?”
“Jesus Christ.” Once again, Cheryl expected far more from my observational skills than I felt was reasonable. “I don’t know. Maybe?”
“I can’t be sure what the problem is,” Cheryl said, “without running a few tests. Would you consent to leaving him here for a day or two?”
This wasn’t the time to explain that Bougatsa was not actually my dog, so I just signed the release forms. When I asked whether the tests would be painful, the good vet looked offended. “Not if I can help it.”
I told the dog to be good for Dr. Cheryl and he slopped his tongue out to lick my hand. Some people might view this as a sign of affection, but I’m fully aware that dogs do it only because it is an inborn instinct for grooming.
When I called a few days later, Cheryl still hadn’t found the cause of Bougatsa’s problems but assured me she was getting close. She sounded apologetic but, truthfully, this was actually what I’d been hoping for.
The clinic would be convenient housing while I had my operation, so I explained my situation and asked whether Bougatsa could remain until I got out of the hospital. The vet was agreeable, saying it would provide time to do a thorough diagnostic workup.
Now I only had Marianne Engel to contend with. I didn’t want to leave her alone at home, but she was an adult and I was only going to be in the hospital one night, two at the most. Should she follow her regular schedule, she would be carving the entire time. Had I been home, she would only have ignored me anyway.
As soon as I was settled in at the hospital, all the old faces filled my room. Both Connie (ending her shift) and Beth (starting) dropped in to say hello. Nan was there, and after a few minutes Sayuri and Gregor entered at a respectable distance from each other, touching hands only when they thought no one was looking. When I said the only person missing was Maddy, Beth informed me that she’d recently married and moved away. My first assumption was that her new husband must be some sort of bad boy—perhaps a Hell’s Angel or a corporate lawyer—but, much to my surprise, he was a graduate student in archaeology and Maddy was accompanying him to a dig on the coast of Sumatra.
Everyone asked about Marianne Engel; and I lied, sort of. I said she had a pressing deadline for a statue, seeing no need to add that her Three Masters were the ones who now set her timetable. Everyone nodded but I could see that Sayuri, at least, was not buying my story. I couldn’t look her in the eyes, and this alerted Gregor to my deception as well.
When only Nan and I remained in the room, I asked—since I still had a few hours before my surgery—if she wanted to go for a walk around the hospital grounds. She looked at her schedule, checked her pager and cell phone, and called the nurse’s station before she finally agreed. Halfway through our stroll, she even slipped her arm into the crook of mine and pointed out some patterns in the clouds that she said reminded her of a school of sea horses. I treated her to a hot dog from a vendor and we sat on a bench as the people walked by. Nan got a mustard stain on her shirt and I thought it looked good on her.
I counted backwards when the mask was placed over my mouth. By this point, I was an anesthesia expert and I knew I’d wake up in a few hours. Undoubtedly there would be residual soreness, but I was used to pain and had been through enough surgeries to know that I would be fine. At least, as fine as I ever was.
Except it didn’t work out that way. My routine surgery had a complication: sepsis. Such infections are not uncommon in burn patients, even those as far along in their recovery as I was, but luckily the infection was not particularly severe and my body—so much stronger because of my exercise regimen—would be able to cope. Nevertheless, I needed to remain in the hospital until it passed.
Sayuri called Cheryl to extend Bougatsa’s stay, while Gregor volunteered to inform Marianne Engel of my situation. He decided to drive to the fortress to tell her in person, since she was not answering her phone. I warned him that there was a good chance that she wouldn’t answer the door and, as it turned out, I was correct. After ten minutes of pounding, Gregor gave up even though he could hear Bessie Smith wailing at full volume from the basement.
Jack had an extra set of keys, so I called her to request that she check in on, and feed, Marianne Engel. Jack assured me that she would do so, and even asked whether I needed anything brought to the hospital. There wasn’t, because I’d made so many visits that I habitually packed a full bag (fresh pajamas, toiletries, books, etc.) for even the smallest of operations.
With these few things put in order, there was nothing left to do but lie in my bed (which, by the way, no longer felt like a skeleton’s rib cage) and heal. Each evening, Gregor brought me new books, and once he even sneaked in a few beers. Because, as he explained with a glint in his eye, he was a bit of a rebel. I assured him that he most certainly was.
After a week I was released, and Gregor booked off an hour to drive me home. When we arrived at the fortress, all was silent. Normally this would mean nothing—maybe Marianne Engel was out for a walk, or preparing on a fresh slab of stone—but I had a bad feeling. I didn’t even bother to check her bedroom; I headed directly for the basement, with Gregor following.
Even though I had lived with her for more than a year, I was not prepared for what I saw. First, there were three newly completed statues: numbers 8, 7, and 6. Given that I’d been gone only a week and it usually took her more than seventy hours to complete a single piece, the arithmetic suggested that she’d been working not only without a break but also with greater fervor than usual. This I could hardly believe.
Marianne Engel was not working or asleep on new stone. She was sitting in the middle of her three new grotesques, covered entirely in stone dust that emphasized her every emaciated bone. She had been skinny when I’d left for the hospital, but she was much thinner now. She must have eaten nothing since I’d last seen her. Her chest heaved a wretched little victory with each breath, and her skin, which was so bright when she was healthy, looked as though it had been rubbed over with old paraffin. Her face was a skeletal mirror of what it once had been, with such larg
e dark circles under her eyes that they gave the impression of gaping sockets.
A crimson gloss of blood coated the medieval cross tattooed on her stomach, oozing from a series of deep gashes on her chest. Her right hand lay open on the floor, cradling a gory chisel in fingers that looked like an old lady’s, ready to snap under even the slightest pressure.
Across the flaming heart on her left breast, Marianne Engel had carved my name deeply into her flesh.
I have no doubt that Gregor Hnatiuk is a good doctor but his practice mostly involves speaking to people, trying to figure out their problems, maybe prescribing a few pills. He was not prepared to see what Marianne Engel had done. He didn’t seem to be able to accept the scene as real, perhaps in part because she had long since stopped being a patient and had grown into a fond acquaintance. He was unable to distance himself and kept blinking as if trying to reset the wayward gyroscope of his mind, surprised each time he opened his eyes to find that nothing had changed.
Marianne Engel turned her euphoric face towards me, her eyes filled with tears not of pain but of joy. Her face was filled with vacant wonder, as if she had seen something far too marvelous for mere words to describe.
“God sent an immense fire into my soul.” Her voice quivered with delight, as the blood continued to flow out of my name on her breast. “My heart was utterly inflamed with love, and I hardly noticed the pain.”
Despite his initial shock, Gregor recovered first and ran upstairs to phone emergency services. Meanwhile, I tried to convince Marianne Engel to rest calmly, but she just kept talking. “That which abides the fire shall become clean.” She stared at me wildly, as if waiting for agreement. “The water of separation shall purify.”
Gregor returned, bringing with him a blanket to cover her shaking body. As we draped it over her, he tried to reassure her. “The paramedics are coming, and everything will be okay. You just need to relax.”
Marianne Engel paid no attention to the words. “The Lord is a consuming fire.” Ten minutes later, when the EMS team arrived and Gregor led them into the basement, she was still going on. “That which can’t abide the fire shall go through water.”
The female paramedic asked whether there was a history of substance abuse and I assured her there was not; she nodded, but I’m not sure she believed me.
“The skies sent out a sound,” Marianne Engel was saying, as they knelt beside her and checked her vitals, and it was as though she were trying to convince them. “The arrows went abroad.”
The paramedics strapped Marianne Engel to a board and carried her out. I was allowed to ride in the ambulance with her, while Gregor followed in his car. I held her hand as they slipped an IV tube into her arm. “When the rock was opened,” she slurred, “the waters gushed out.”
In a few moments, the drugs put her to sleep. As soon as she was under, I gave a more detailed medical history—as much as I knew, in any case—so the paramedics could radio ahead to the hospital. When we arrived at the emergency entrance, two doctors and the on-duty psychiatrist met us and Gregor took over the task of admitting her. I continued to hold her unconscious hand and talk soothingly, saying all the things I wanted to tell her, but still couldn’t, when she was conscious.
When I finally returned to the veterinary clinic, Cheryl sat me down. “Do you know what pancreatic insufficiency is?”
I said I did, if it was anything like pancreatitis in humans.
“Dogs can get pancreatitis as well, but that’s not quite what Bougatsa has. Pancreatic insufficiency is common in large breeds like German Shepherds, and symptoms come on quickly, which sounds like what happened here. To put it simply, he can’t break down his food into smaller molecules because he lacks the proper enzymes. As a result, he’s not absorbing any nutrients, and that’s why he’s hungry all the time. He’s been eating as much as he can, even plants, to make up for the lack, but no matter how much he eats, he isn’t getting the nutritional benefits. It’s kind of like he’s been starving to death.”
“But that’s the bad news,” she said. “The good news is you caught it quickly and it’s completely treatable, controllable with diet. He’ll be his old self in no time.”
She took me to the kennel and I would almost swear there was a sparkle in Bougatsa’s eyes when he saw me coming. But it was probably only because Cheryl had given him some food he could finally digest.
The doctors told Marianne Engel they were only treating her for exhaustion, but the truth was that they were also monitoring her mental state closely. Gregor came by her hospital room often, but his visits were driven by friendship rather than professional interest. Because of his personal involvement, a different psychiatrist was handling the case.
I came every day and the doctors even let me bring Bougatsa by the hospital once. Canine therapy, they called it. Marianne Engel came out to sit on a bench in the sunlight and pet him a bit. She seemed shocked by his thinness, as if she didn’t remember that his condition had developed in front of her eyes. The dog, for his part, forgave her completely for deserting him when he needed her most. Dogs are stupid like that.
When she was released at the end of the week, it was against the strongest recommendations of her doctor. I was hesitant, as well: of all the damage she’d inflicted on herself, most had come through simple disregard for her own body. Carving my name into her chest was a willful and horrifying act, which made me feel I was no longer simply neglectful of her but also a cause of her pain. As she was physically recovered, the hospital couldn’t keep her without a court order, however, and no matter what I said I couldn’t talk her into a few more days. When we returned home, Bougatsa ran all around the house, knocking over the plant that a few weeks earlier he’d been eating.
Marianne Engel had been home only two days before she started peeling off her clothing to prepare for her next stone. When she came to the bandages wrapped around her chest, she removed those as well. “I can’t communicate with these on.”
I was not going to let her do this again. I had already watched her collapse twice. I would not fail her a third time; I would not allow my name to become infected on her flesh.
What followed could not properly be called an argument, because arguments involve an exchange of opposing ideas. This was all me. I spoke softly; I yelled; I cajoled; I threatened; I pleaded; I demanded; I spoke with logic; I spoke with emotion; I spoke word after word after word after word that she completely ignored. She gave the same answer repeatedly: “Only five statues left. I’ll rest when they’re finished.”
As I could not talk her out of it—logic is useless in the face of obsession—I would have to find another way to protect her. I decided to visit Jack, even though she had broken her promise to care for Marianne Engel while I was in the hospital.
When I walked into the gallery I saw a trio of familiar grotesques and, on the wall behind them, a picture of a healthy Marianne Engel. Chisel in hand, her mutant hair artfully tousled, she was leaning against one of her early creations. The short caption under the photo mentioned nothing about her mental illness: “Unlike most modern sculptors, this local artist with an international reputation refuses to use any pneumatic tools, preferring to carve in the medieval tradition….”
A young couple walked around one of the larger works, running their fingers over the edges. They were discussing its “wonderfully tactile sense”—but where could they put it? Nothing turns the stomach quite like moneyed thirtysomethings discussing art. Jack, seeing a prospective sale, attempted to walk right past me with a dismissive hand lifted in my direction and said, “I’ll be with you in a minute.”
“Why did you abandon her?” I asked. For once, I was pleased with the rasping quality of my voice—it made my proclamation of her failure sound all the worse.
Jack immediately aborted her approach to the customers and pulled me into an alcove to launch into a vigorous defense against my accusation. The way she spoke reminded me of a train derailing: all her words were boxcars, hurtling frantica
lly forward, threatening to fly off the tracks and burst through the end of each sentence in a devastating mess. She claimed that she had gone to the fortress every night I was in the hospital, forcing her way in past the furniture piled up against the front door. Once inside, she had stood between Marianne Engel and her statues, refusing to move until she at least ate some fruit.
“You found her in the middle of the afternoon, right?” Jack was referring to the time of day when Gregor and I arrived at the fortress. “I work, you know. I’m not like you—I pay my own bills. I can’t shut down the gallery to fritter away the day with her. And if you’d bothered to call, I would have rushed right down to the hospital. But no…”
We debated who was responsible for what, until the young couple couldn’t help but stare in our direction. I shot them my most monstrous look, the one that would let them know to mind their own goddamn business.
Jack viewed this as an excellent opportunity to point out that her customers funded my life. I countered that they paid for her life as well, while she piggybacked on Marianne Engel’s talent. “You’re probably overjoyed that she’s already carving again.”
In that instant, all the anger on Jack’s face was replaced by genuine surprise. “She’s what?”
It became impossible for me to continue my attack: there could be no denying Jack’s concern. “She’s never had manic sessions so close together before. Once a year, maybe. Twice, in a bad year.”
In that moment, I hated Jack for the fact that she’d shared twenty years of her life with Marianne Engel. It was the very worst kind of hate, built upon envy, but it was also hate that I had to put aside. Jack’s experience would be invaluable, so I leveled my voice as well as I could. “What do I do now?”