The Gargoyle (65 page)

When we had told him everything that might be relevant, he said we might have a case but that it wouldn’t be easy.
Things never are,
I thought,
if lawyers can drag it out for a fat payday.
However, as he explained the process, I came to understand that it was not his greed that would delay things. It really was the system.

Usually, a relative of the patient filed the petition for emergency commitment. While it was legally possible for anyone to file, McRand explained, the process was slowed if the petitioner was not a close family member. Because Marianne Engel had no family, she would need to be examined by two physicians before the petition could even be filed. If she refused to be examined—as I knew she would—I’d be forced to submit a sworn statement that she was “gravely disabled.” McRand looked at me inquisitively to ensure that I’d be willing to do so and I assured him that I would, but I’m certain he caught the hesitation in my voice as I said it.

“Umm hmm,” McRand harrumphed, before he continued. Once my petition was properly filed, Marianne Engel would be required to appear before an examining physician at a hospital. If she refused—as, again, I knew she would—law officers would compel her to attend. In my imagination, I saw two beefy cops placing her into a straitjacket and dragging her by the elbows into court.

If the examining physician agreed with my assessment that she was gravely disabled, an emergency commitment of seventy-two hours would be imposed. At the end of this time, the hospital director could file another petition for a longer-term commitment. This was essential because—once again, as we were not relatives—neither Jack nor I could do it ourselves. Without the cooperation of the director, we would have no legal right to proceed with the petition.

Assuming that the hospital director did agree, a hearing would come next. Here Marianne Engel would be compelled to testify, as would I, and Jack in her role as conservator. It was possible that others would be called as well, people who had observed Marianne Engel’s recent behavior. Perhaps Gregor Hnatiuk and Sayuri Mizumoto, for example. The mental health commission would preside over the hearing, although Marianne Engel would have the legal right to a jury trial. And, if it came to that, she could hire her own lawyer.

In court, Mr. McRand warned, there was little doubt that
my
character would be brought up. Given my career in pornography, my admitted drug addictions, and the fact that Marianne Engel was paying all my medical bills, any judge would be reluctant to suspend her legal rights just because I thought it was a good idea. Viewed objectively, she was the upstanding citizen, not I. The court might even find it amusing that I wanted her declared incompetent when she appeared to run her life so much better than I did mine. And—McRand seemed hesitant to bring this up but knew he’d be negligent if he didn’t—Marianne Engel could present an attractive face to a jury. “You, on the other hand…” It was not a sentence that needed finishing.

I pointed out that she had carved her chest with a chisel. What stronger proof could possibly be needed to prove that she was a danger to herself? McRand conceded with a sigh that the incident could possibly be “a good start for a case,” but that there was no evidence she posed a threat to anyone else. “If harming oneself were reason for commitment, psychiatric hospitals would be filled with smokers and fast food customers.”

How could I ask everyone we knew to testify against Marianne Engel in a case that we would almost certainly lose? More to the point, how could
I
testify against her? Given her conspiracy theories, the last thing she needed to believe was that her closest friends were actually enemy agents trying to prevent her from giving away her hearts.

“So…” Mr. McRand sighed in conclusion, pulling on his lapels one more time before resting his hands on his round stomach.

I thanked him for his time and Jack told him to send the bill to her gallery. As we walked out of the office, Jack reached up to put her arm around my shoulders. She told me that she was sorry, and I believed that she was.

Our sole consolation was that Marianne Engel had only five statues left in her countdown. Though it would be painful to watch her finish them, at least it wouldn’t take long. All I could do was look after her as well as I could. When she completed the final stroke on her final statue, she would discover that the effort hadn’t killed her after all.

Bougatsa’s new diet included a steady intake of raw cow pancreases, which allowed him to digest other food by replacing the pancreatic enzymes that his body lacked. While there are powdered dietary supplements that contain the necessary enzymes, Cheryl and I decided to use actual meat. I became well acquainted with the local butchers, who were puzzled by my order until I explained why I needed them, and then they were all pleased to know they were helping the dog on the end of my leash, because it’s not often that a butcher gets to feel like a doctor. Every day Bougatsa looked a little better and every day Marianne Engel looked a little worse.

She was pale from lack of sunlight, although she would occasionally wander up from the basement to grab more cigarettes or another jar of instant coffee. She was becoming a framework of bones etched permanently in dust, her flesh falling away under the force of her physical exertion. She was disappearing, ounce by ounce, like the rock chips that she chiseled off her grotesques. She finished statue
5
before the middle of April and immediately began preparing for
4
.

The anniversary of my accident—my second Good Friday “birthday”—passed without her noticing. I visited the accident site alone, climbing down the embankment to find that the greenness of the grass had now completely overtaken the blackness of the burns. The candlestick from my previous birthday was still standing where we’d left it, grimy from a year’s weather, a testament that the site had remained unvisited since then.

I put down a second candlestick, another of Francesco’s alleged creations, and slipped a candle into its expectant iron mouth. I said a few words after lighting it—not a prayer, because I only pray when in Hell—as a remembrance of things past. If nothing else, living with Marianne Engel had instilled in me a certain fondness for ritual.

She kept working through the remainder of the month, but her pace was slowing considerably. This was inevitable. When she finished
4
, she had to take two days off before starting
3
. The revolt of her body could not be ignored. Even though she took extra time to prepare, statue
3
still took almost five full days to finish.

Statue
2
took her until the end of the month, and it was only a formidable display of willpower that kept her moving at all. After finishing, she crawled into the bathtub for a proper cleansing before (finally) climbing into bed to sleep for two straight days.

When she woke up, only the final statue would remain. I wasn’t sure whether I should fear this or be overjoyed; then again, Marianne Engel often made me feel that way.

She emerged from her bed on the first day of May and I was greatly relieved to see how much better she looked. I became doubly pleased when, rather than head directly into the basement to commence her final statue, she joined me for a meal. When we spoke, all her words were in the correct order and afterwards we went on a walk with Bougatsa, who was giddy with the long-anticipated return of her attention. We took turns throwing a tennis ball for him to chase down and return in a mouthful of slobber.

It was Marianne Engel who first broached the subject. “I have only one statue left.”

“Yes.”

“Do you know which one it is?”

“Another grotesque, I suppose.”

“No,” she said. “It’s you.”

During the previous months my statue had stood, covered in a white sheet like the caricature of a ghost, in the corner of her workshop. At first I had been disappointed that she’d lost interest in it, but as she grew thinner I was thankful that I didn’t have to sit for her while she wasted away.

I only had to think for a moment before I volunteered to sit for her again. While I wished that she would give up this idea of a final statue altogether, at least I could keep an eye on her while she worked. There was also the advantage that, if my earlier sittings were any indication, she would proceed with my statue at a much more relaxed pace. I was not a frantic beast screaming to be pulled out from under an avalanche of time and stone; I would allow her all the time at my disposal, never rushing.

Curiosity compelled me to ask Marianne Engel whether, when we’d started the statue so many months previous, she’d already known that it would be her final work. Yes, she answered, she had known. So I asked further, why did she bother starting it at all, knowing that she would need to put it aside?

“It was part of
your
preparation,” she answered. “If it was already under way, I thought there would be less chance you’d refuse now. It looks like I was right.”

We started that very day. Being naked in front of her always made me feel awkward, but I felt less self-conscious now that she, too, was physically imperfect. While her unhealthy thinness was not yet a match for my injuries, it did at least bring us somewhat closer in misshapenness.

Work on my statue continued for about ten days, with about half of that time spent on the fine details. Often Marianne Engel would come to my chair to run her fingers over my body, as if trying to memorize my burnt topography so she could map it on the stone as accurately as possible. Her attention to every nuance was so intense that I had to comment on it; she replied that it was vitally important that the finished statue be found perfect, with nothing lacking.

Things went more or less as I hoped that they would. She never approached the intensity of her other carving sessions, usually working for less than an hour at a time despite the fact that I could sit as long as was necessary now that my pressure suit was gone. She seemed to be savoring this, her final work. She smoked less, and the lids on the jars of coffee crystals remained shut. She leaned close while working the stone, whispering into it with a voice too low for me to hear. I leaned forward, trying to catch what she was saying but I never quite could; it didn’t help that my hearing had been so damaged in the accident. I tried to draw out the truth with a casual comment. “I thought the rock talked to you, not the other way around.”

Marianne Engel looked up at me. “You’re funny.”

And so it went, until she stepped back after the inevitable last stroke of her chisel. For what seemed an eternity, she inspected my stony doppelgänger before deciding that there was no longer any difference between him and me. Satisfied, she said, “I want to add the inscription in private.”

She worked until late in the night and, although my curiosity was almost overwhelming, I respected her request for privacy. When the final word was engraved, Marianne Engel came upstairs. Naturally, I asked if I could read what she’d carved.

“There’ll be plenty of time for that later,” she answered. “Right now, we’re going to go to the beach to celebrate.”