Everyone agreed that Sayuri was exceptionally beautiful in her gown. Her mother, Ayako, cried happily in the front row and her father, Toshiaki, kept raising his hand to cover his happily trembling upper lip. When Gregor slipped the ring onto her finger, Sayuri’s smile had never been more radiant.
It was an August wedding, in a garden under a cloudless blue sky. Luckily there was a gentle breeze; my tuxedo didn’t allow my skin to breathe properly. Special arrangements had been made to ensure that the groomsmen, of whom I was one, would stand under a large elm tree during the ceremony; it was one of the many kindnesses shown to me by the bridal couple. I was surprised that they had invited me into the wedding party at all, despite the closeness we’d grown into, but neither Gregor nor Sayuri seemed to mind that there would be a monster in their wedding pictures.
Technically, my date was the bridesmaid opposite me, but really, my escort was Jack Meredith. She managed mostly not to embarrass me, despite the massive amount of Scotch she consumed later during the reception. Clearly there was nothing romantic about her accompanying me, but we’d been spending a fair amount of time together in the preceding months. At some point, she had discovered that she could actually stand me. Our new understanding was almost a friendship, although I won’t go quite that far.
For their wedding gift, I gave Sayuri and Gregor the Morgengabe angel. They looked at it strangely, not knowing what to make of this strange little statue, and asked if Marianne Engel had carved it. I didn’t try to explain that, apparently, I had; nor did I attempt to explain that, despite its age and weathering, it was the finest gift I could give them.
At the reception Sayuri would not allow herself any champagne, because her pregnancy was just starting to show. There had been some debate about whether the wedding should occur before or after the birth, but Gregor is an old-fashioned sort of man. He wanted the child to be “legitimate,” so he and Sayuri flew to Japan, where he hired a translator to convey his honorable intentions to Toshiaki. Sayuri could have done this herself but Gregor did not want her to translate, to her own father, his request to marry her. When Toshiaki granted permission, Ayako cried and bowed many times while apologizing-although for what, Gregor was not quite sure. After Ayako wiped dry her eyes, they all drank tea in the garden behind the house.
Sayuri’s parents did not seem bothered in the least that she was living abroad or marrying a foreigner, nor that she was well past the age of fresh Christmas cake. (In fact, Ayako pointed out that, as greater numbers of Japanese women were getting married later in life, the cutoff age for spinsterhood was no longer twenty-five. Single women who reached the age of thirty-one were now being called New Year’s Eve noodles.) The only thing about the marriage that troubled Sayuri’s parents, just slightly, was that she had decided to take her husband’s family name. They privately lamented that “Sayuri Hnatiuk” lacked any sense of poetry and, despite their best efforts, they could not learn how to pronounce it correctly.
Towards the end of the day I had the opportunity to chat with Mrs. Mizumoto for a few minutes, with Sayuri acting as translator. Sayuri had already told her mother about Marianne Engel’s passing in the spring, and Ayako offered her most sincere condolences. When I thanked her for this, I could see that she found the growl of my voice shocking but was too polite to mention it. Instead she only increased the width of her smile and, in an instant, I understood where Sayuri had learned her mannerisms. We spoke pleasantly for a few minutes and I assured Ayako that I thought her daughter was destined for a happy married life despite the fact that Gregor, even in a tuxedo, looked an awful lot like a chipmunk. Sayuri hit me on the arm for saying this but apparently translated it accurately anyway. Her mother nodded her head enthusiastically, agreeing: “So, so, so, so, so, so, so!” All the while she held her hand in front of her mouth, as if trying to prevent her laughs from escaping.
As our conversation was coming to a close, Mrs. Mizumoto offered a final deep bow of condolence. When she came back up, she gave me a hopeful smile, put her hand upon Sayuri’s stomach, and said, “Rinne tensh.”
The translation was not easy for Sayuri, who suggested the closest approximation was either “Everything comes back” or “Life is repeated.” Sayuri added that this was the type of thing old Japanese ladies sometimes say when they think that they’re more Buddhist than they really are. It appeared to me, from the dirty look she shot her daughter, that Ayako understood more English than she let on.
But as they walked away, they hugged each other tightly. Ayako seemed to be quick to forget her daughter’s comment about old Japanese ladies, and Sayuri was just as quick to forgive her mother for laughing at the image of Gregor as a chipmunk.
After Marianne Engel disappeared the authorities searched along the shoreline for three days but did not find a body. Nothing was found but long, lonely expanses of water. The problem with the ocean is that you cannot drag the entire thing, and it was as if the water had removed all evidence of her life but refused to offer any confirmation of her de-th.
Marianne Engel had no life insurance, but suspicion was directed towards me nevertheless. Rightfully so: less than six months before her disappearance, she had changed her will to name me as the primary beneficiary. This situation did not sit well with the police, especially since I was with her when she went missing. They questioned me at length but the investigation showed that I had no knowledge of the will, and the teenagers who drank beer on the beach testified that it was not uncommon for “the burnt guy” and “the tattooed chick with weird hair” to come late at night. She often went swimming, they confirmed, regardless of the weather. On that particular night, I had done nothing but sit on the beach while the dog ran around in circles.
Jack also spoke on my behalf. Her words carried special weight because she was not only Marianne Engel’s conservator but also the person whom I had replaced in the will. Despite this, Jack spoke highly of my character and told the police that she had no doubt of the love between Marianne Engel and me. While she did confirm that I didn’t know about the changes to the will, she also added, “I thought I would have plenty of time to talk Marianne out of it later. I didn’t expect her de-th to come so soon.”
Jack Meredith can speak words that I cannot write. Words like de-th. Words like suic-de. These words make a coward of me. Writing them would bring them that much closer to being real.
The legal proceedings accounted for most of my time during the summer, but in truth I barely paid attention. I didn’t care what the police decided about my responsibility in the disappearance and I didn’t care what the lawyers said about the will. In the end, Jack had to retain an independent lawyer on my behalf, because, without counsel, I would have signed any document put in front of me, just as I had in the hospital when my production company was put into bankruptcy.
Marianne Engel had bequeathed almost everything to me, including the house and all its contents. Even Bougatsa. Jack, despite the years of service she had given in managing Marianne Engel’s business affairs, received only the statues that were already in her gallery.
In a collection of shoeboxes at the back of a closet, I found bankbooks from a dozen accounts holding hundreds of thousands of dollars, now mine. Marianne Engel had been entirely debt-free, perhaps because no financial institution considered her an acceptable credit risk. I also discovered a series of receipts that revealed the truth of my private hospital room. It was not, as Nan had said at the time, a “happy accident” that the room was available so she could research recovery rates for patients in private, versus shared, rooms. Nor, as I guessed at the time, had I been put in a private room primarily so Nan could keep Marianne Engel away from the other patients. The truth was that Marianne Engel had paid for the private room so she could tell me her stories without being disturbed. She just had never told me.
Nothing that I inherited will become mine for a number of years yet, because there was no body. Only after sufficient time has passed will a “presumptive de-th certificate” be issued for Marianne Engel, and until then her assets will remain in escrow. Luckily, the courts determined that I could continue living in the fortress as it was already my primary residence when she went missing.
The local newspapers, and even a few international ones, carried short articles about the disappearance of a mentally ill but highly talented sculptress. “Presumed de-d,” they all said. Because nothing improves an artist’s reputation more than a tragic end, Jack was able to sell the gallery’s remaining statues in record time. Although I had to violate the terms of the will to do so, I gave Jack most of those that still remained at the fortress. (I kept only the statue of myself, and a few other favorite grotesques.) My lawyer advised against this, but it wasn’t as if the police were monitoring my actions. It was common for trucks to come and go, so no one in the neighborhood paid any attention when a few more statues were hauled away. When Jack brought over a check for their sale, less her commissions, I pressed the payment back into her hand.
She deserved it more than I did. And even though the bank accounts were frozen, I had ample money on which to live.
Marianne Engel, despite her generally scattered thinking, had foreseen the possibility that she might not always be around to pay my bills. After her disappearance, I found an envelope addressed to me, containing a key to the safety deposit box that she’d arranged would be accessible to me. When I opened the box, I discovered that it contained more than enough cash to provide for all my needs until the will came into force.
There were two other things in the box, as well.
Ultimately the police determined that I was without culpability in the disappearance of Marianne Engel. But they were wrong.
I killed Marianne Engel. I killed her as surely as if I had lifted a gun or tilted a bottle of poison.
As she walked towards the ocean, I knew that she was not going swimming. I knew that she would not return, and I will not pretend otherwise. And yet, I did nothing.
I did nothing, just as she had once requested that I do, as a way of proving my love.
I could have saved her with nothing more than a few words. If I had told her not to enter the water, she wouldn’t have carried out her plan. I know this. She would have returned to me, because her Three Masters had told her that I needed to accept her final heart but then release it, to release her. Any effort that I made to stop her would have constituted a refusal to release her, so all I had to say was “Marianne, come back.”
I didn’t, and now I’m doomed to live with the knowledge that I didn’t say three simple words that would have saved her life. I’m doomed to know that I didn’t take her to court in an attempt to have her committed, that I didn’t try hard enough to sneak medicine into her food, that I didn’t handcuff her to the bed whenever her carving got out of control. There are literally dozens of actions that could have prevented her from dy-ng, all things that I did not do.
Marianne Engel believed that she had killed me seven hundred years ago, in an act of kindness, but that story was fiction. The reality is that I killed her in this lifetime: not with kindness, but through inaction. While she believed that she was freeing herself from the shackles of her penitent hearts, I knew better. I am not schizophrenic. And still, I remained quiet. Ineffective. Murderous.
I face this fact for a few moments each day, but that’s all I can stand. Sometimes I even try to write it down before it slips away, but usually my hand begins to shake before I can get the words out. It never takes me long to start lying again, trying to convince myself that Marianne Engel’s imaginary past was legitimate simply because she believed it so deeply. Everyone’s past, I try to rationalize, is nothing more than the collection of memories they choose to remember. But in my heart, I know this is just a defense mechanism that I manufacture simply so I can go on living with myself.
All I had to say was “Marianne, come back.”
The word paleography comes from the Greek palais (old) and graphia (script), so it is not surprising that paleographers study ancient writings. They classify manuscripts by examining the lettering (size, slant, pen movement) as well as the writing materials (papyrus or parchment, scroll or codex, type of ink). Good paleographers can determine the number of writers who worked on a manuscript, can assess their skill, and often can even assign the manuscript to a specific region. With religious writings, they can sometimes identify not only a specific scriptorium but even a particular scribe.
Not long ago I engaged the services of two of the world’s foremost paleographers: one an expert in medieval German documents and the other an expert in medieval Italian documents. I hired them to look at the items that I had found, in addition to the cash, in the safety deposit box.
Two copies of Inferno, both handwritten but by different hands: the first in Italian and the other in German. Both appeared, to my untrained eye, to be hundreds of years old.
Before I would tell either paleographer what I wanted examined, I made them sign strict nondisclosure agreements. Both men found my request unusual, almost humorous, but consented. Professional curiosity, one supposes. But when I presented the manuscripts, both men realized in an instant that they’d been handed something exceptional. The Italian blurted an excited profanity, while the German’s mouth twitched at the corners. I assumed a pose of complete ignorance regarding the origins of the books, saying nothing about where I’d acquired them.
Because Inferno was immediately popular with readers, it is one of the most common works to survive in copies from the fourteenth century. The Italian paleographer had little doubt that my copy was among the very earliest, perhaps made within a decade of the first publication. He begged that I allow him to confirm his findings with other experts, but I declined his request.
The German was not as quick to assign an age to the translation, partially because his initial examinations provided some bewildering contradictions. First, he wondered how a manuscript so remarkably well-preserved had gone unnoticed for so long. Second, it appeared that a single hand had penned the entire work, which was highly unusual for such a long document. Third, whoever had produced the book was exceptionally skilled. Not only was the script beautifully formed, but the translation itself was better than most, if not all, modern ones. But it was the fourth point that was most puzzling: the physical attributes of the manuscript-parchment, ink, lettering-suggested that it had been produced in the Rhine area of Germany, perhaps as early as the first half of the 1300s. If this was true-though it hardly could be-then my manuscript predated any known German translation of Inferno by several centuries. “So you see, I simply must be mistaken.” He trembled. “I must be! Unless…unless…”
The German requested permission to perform radiocarbon dating on both the parchment and the ink. When I granted it, he had such a look of orgasmic joy on his face that I was afraid he might pass out. “Danke, danke schön, ich danke Ihnen vielmals!”
When the tests were completed and the parchment was dated to 1335, plus or minus twenty years, the German’s mood stepped a notch higher. “This is a discovery that is so far beyond anything that I…that I…” He couldn’t even find the words for his flabbergasted delight; the translation had been made within decades of Dante’s original Italian. I decided that it would not hurt to allow further research, and I even gave the German a push in a certain direction: I suggested that he might want to focus his investigation on the scriptorium at Engelthal. The German’s mouth twitched again, and he went back to his work.
When he contacted me some weeks later, he seemed to have finally accepted that he was investigating an impossible document. Yes, he confirmed, the work gave many indications of having been done at Engelthal. And yes, the copying was highly indicative of a particular scribe whose work was well known in the years circa 1310 to 1325. In fact, this scribe had always posed a minor mystery to scholars of German mysticism: her literary fingerprints were on a huge number of documents, her talent exceeding that of any of her peers, and yet her name could not be found anywhere. Such a secret could only have been kept by a coordinated effort between the prioress and the armarius of the time but, as Engelthal was otherwise proud of its literary reputation, the great question was: what was it about this particular nun that required such secrecy?
The German’s mustache was positively dancing as he spoke of all this but, he admitted, some points contradicted the Engelthal hypothesis. The parchment was of a different quality than that found in the monastery’s other documents, and the inks seemed to be of a different chemical composition. So while the workmanship suggested that it came from Engelthal, the German explained, the physical materials did not. And-need he even add this?-Engelthal would almost certainly have had nothing to do with Dante’s great poem. “It was not their particular milieu, if you understand what I mean. Not only was it in Italian, but entirely blasphemous for its time.”
The German asked, somewhat sheepishly, whether I had any more “hints” for him. As it turned out, I did. I suggested that he might now want to divert his attention from Engelthal to the city of Mainz, paying attention to privately produced books from the mid-1320s. The scribe, I said, might have written under the name of Marianne. The German’s bushy eyebrows furrowed under the weight of this new information and he begged to know how I could offer such specific suggestions. I said it was just a hunch.
He spent the better part of a month seeking out manuscripts that matched my parameters. He called often, sometimes to update me on progress but usually to complain that the confidentiality agreement was holding him back. “Do you have any idea how difficult it is to request such documents when I can’t explain why I need them? Do you think I can just go to the library and check out books from the fourteenth century?”
I could tell he was about to start talking to his colleagues, with or without my permission, so I declared his research concluded. I thought he was going to smack me in the face, but instead he launched into a series of impassioned pleas: “This is one of the major discoveries in the history of the field…far-reaching implications…radically alter what we think about German translation…” When I continued to refuse, he changed his tack. He begged for a few more days of study and I swear that he actually batted his eyes at me. I refused this request as well, certain that he’d use the time to make a high-quality copy of the original. When I demanded my manuscript back that very minute, he threatened to go public with what he knew. “A contract of law is nothing compared with such a great gift to the world of literature!” I told him that his sentiment was highly admirable; nevertheless, I would sue him into bankruptcy if he spoke a single word. At this, he suggested that Dante should have added another Circle to Hell for “book-haters” like me.
In an effort to offer some small consolation to the man’s ego, I assured him that should I ever bring forth the German translation of Inferno, I would publicly acknowledge all the research that he had done. In fact, I would invite him to publish his findings concurrently, so that he was in no way deprived of academic acclaim. And then the German greatly surprised me. “I couldn’t care less if you include anything about who I am. This discovery is simply too important to keep hidden away.”
As of this day, I still haven’t decided what I’ll do with the copies of Inferno that Marianne Engel left me. When I’m feeling particularly fanciful, I tell myself that I’ll take the Italian copy into the grave with me, just in case I run into Francesco Corsellini one more time and I can return his father’s book to him.
I’m keeping my fake toes but I’ve declined fake fingers; the toes help with my balance, while the fingers are only vanity. Besides, with a body like mine, fake fingers are the equivalent of replacing the headlights on a crashed car.
There are still things I could do to improve my appearance, small surgeries or corrective cosmetics that might soften my roughest edges. A plastic surgeon offered to rebuild my ears using cartilage from my ribs, or to provide prosthetic ears that look like real ones. But, like fake fingers, pseudo-ears lack a functional use: neither cartilage nor plastic will allow me to hear again. The theory is that they would make me feel more human by making me look more “normal,” but when I slipped on the prosthetics, they made me feel like Mr. Potato Head. As for a phalloplasty-the surgical construction of a new penis-I just haven’t gotten around to it. Maybe one day I will, but I’ve had enough surgeries for now. I’m tired. So recently I told Dr. Edwards, simply: “Enough.”
“I understand,” she said. And then the look crossed Nan’s face, the one I knew so well, the look she wore when weighing the benefits of telling the truth against lying or keeping quiet. As always, she decided on the truth. “You once asked why I chose to work in the burn unit. I’m going to show you something that I’ve never shown another patient.”
She pulled her white coat aside and rolled up her shirt, to reveal a large hypertrophic scar that covered the entire right side of her torso. “It happened when I was only four years old. I pulled a pot of boiling water off the stove. It’s our scars that make us who we are.” And then she left the office.
So I’m left with a Depression-era dustbowl of a skull. The top of my head is like infertile fields after a windstorm, bunched up in drifts of bullied dirt. There are subtle shifts in color, shades of red and brown. All is dry and wasted, as if the skin has been waiting years for the rain to come. A few wisps of tenacious hair sway across the furrowed landscape of my skull, like survivor weeds that don’t know they’re supposed to be dead.
My face is the field after the stubble has been burned. My lips, once so full, are thin like dehydrated worms. Knowing the medical term microstomia does not make my lips less ugly. Still, I prefer this mouth to the one I had before I told Marianne Engel that I loved her.
Pre-fire, my spine was strong; post-fire, it was replaced with a snake. Now the snake is gone and I’m rediscovering my backbone, which is a good start. My right leg is filled with metal pins and I could view them as shackles forged from the remains of my crashed vehicle. I could decide to drag my accident everywhere. I won’t.
I’m exercising harder than ever before. A few times each week Sayuri takes me to the local pool, where she leads me through a series of workouts. The water itself adds buoyancy, reducing stress on my joints. On the days when I’m not in the pool, Sayuri is teaching me to skip in the backyard. I suppose it must puzzle anyone who looks over from St. Romanus. What do they think about the monster bouncing around the yard, driven by a tiny Japanese woman? Occasionally Father Shanahan sees me and waves, and I always wave back. I’ve decided not to dislike him, despite the fact that he’s a priest.
After my workouts, Gregor comes over to pick Sayuri up and the three of us have tea. At our most recent gathering, I shared the news that this book was going to be published. They had no idea I had been writing this story; I’d been keeping it a secret, because I didn’t know what I would do with it when it was finished. But though I’m keeping back the Infernos, I have made my decision to release this book into the world. I am still unsure whether it is the correct thing to do so-my emotions on the matter change often-but silence is too painful.
My friends were excited by my news, although Sayuri confessed that she still could not read English nearly as quickly as she would like. Then she excitedly grabbed her husband’s arm as if she’d just had the greatest idea of her life. “Wait! Will you read to me before we go to sleep each night? That way we’ll get the story at the same time!”
Gregor looked a little sheepish about Sayuri’s display of affection but I assured him that it sounded like a wonderful idea, adding, “And you might even learn something about the history of your wedding present.”
I am more than my scars.
When I returned home after her disappearance, after my initial statements to the police, I went down into the workshop to read what Marianne Engel had carved into the pedestal of my statue.
“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.”
Lebrecht Bachenschwanz produced the first known German version of The Divine Comedy (Die göttliche Komödie) in the years 1767 to 1769, and the translation of Inferno in my possession is at least four hundred years older than that. While amazing, this hardly proves that Marianne Engel translated the book in the first half of the fourteenth century; it only means that someone did. But if Marianne Engel was not the translator, how did the book come to rest in her safety deposit box? How did it exist for almost seven centuries with absolutely no record of its existence? As with so many things, I don’t know.
I’ve written so much about the German translation that you might assume there’s nothing exceptional about the Italian original, save its age. I assure you that nothing could be further from the truth. There are a few defects in the manuscript’s condition that, while lowering the book’s monetary value, are of considerable interest to me.
It is obvious that the book was in a fire at one point. The pages are singed at the edges, but the flames did not creep far enough inwards to burn away any of the words. Somehow, the book was spared extensive fire damage; in fact, it is the other flaw that is more obvious.
There is a wide cut through the book’s front cover, produced by a sharp instrument. A knife or an arrow, perhaps. The cut penetrates into the book’s body so that when the cover is opened, there is a slit of almost equal size on the first page. This slit, situated in the middle of each page, becomes smaller the deeper one turns into the book. The back cover of the book bears only a small exit wound; it’s apparent that the sharp instrument was almost, but not quite, stopped by the thickness of the manuscript.
It took me a long time to work up the courage to remove my neck chain and insert the arrowhead into the wound of the manuscript’s cover. It slid in perfectly, like a key finding the correct lock. I pushed further until the arrowhead was engulfed by the book and its tip just barely peeked through the slit in the back cover.
These days, I like to imagine that if a man were to enter through that slash on the book’s cover, as if it were a door, he could walk right into the very heart of Inferno.
There were a number of reasons that Jack and I decided not to get a grave for Marianne Engel, but two stood above all others. First, it felt strange with no actual body to place into it. And second, who would visit this grave, anyway, except the two of us?
I don’t want to visit a grave.
Every day I wake up with Bougatsa sleeping at my feet. I feed him raw pancreas, and then we load ourselves into the car to head to the ocean.
I look out over the ocean as the sun rises. It’s my vigil, an hour of the day devoted to remembering Marianne Engel, and it’s also the only time that I allow myself in the direct sunlight. Too much exposure is not good for my skin, but I like the warmth on my face.
Bougatsa usually runs around, picking up little pieces of driftwood in his mouth and then dropping them at my feet. He begs me to throw them for him, and I do, and then he goes bounding out into the tide. But there are some mornings when he doesn’t feel like running and just lies at my feet staring at the ocean. It’s just like the night she walked in; it’s as if he still expects that she will come wading back out to us. I guess he doesn’t know any better. He’s just a stupid dog.
All the while, I’m composing in my mind. These pages that you have now read, most of them originated at my lonely command post at the edge of the world where the earth falls into the sea. I have spent much time there, in this grand empty space between memory and desire, creating this cracked empire of sentences in which I now live.
I wanted to write this book to honor her but I have failed, just like all the times that I failed her in life. I know my words are nothing more than pale ghosts, but I need Marianne Engel to exist somewhere.
Every Good Friday, this anchored yet ever-changing anniversary of my accident, I go to the little creek that saved my life and light one more candle. I offer thanks for two facts: that I am one year older, and that I am one year closer to death.
When Marianne Engel gave me the arrowhead, she said that I would know what to do with it when the time comes. But I already know. I shall wear it always and proudly, and when I am an old man and my living is done, I will slip the arrowhead from my necklace. I’ll place it on a shaft, straight and true, and I will ask a dear friend to shoot that arrow through my heart. Perhaps that friend will be Gregor, or Sayuri; perhaps it will be someone I haven’t met yet. The arrow will fly to my chest and split open my birth-scar like a seal that has been waiting to be opened.
This will mark the third time that an arrow has entered my chest. The first time brought me to Marianne Engel. The second time separated us.
The third time will reunite us.
Ah, but don’t let me sound too serious. I still have a lifetime of work ahead of me.
After Marianne Engel’s disappearance, I took it upon myself to learn about carving. I suppose my motivation is selfish, because carving helps me feel closer to her. I love the movement of steel against stone. One usually misinterprets rock as unmoving, unforgiving, but it is not: stone is like flowing water, it’s like dancing fire. My chisel moves as if it knows the secret wishes of the stone, as if the statue is guiding the tool. But the strangest thing I’ve discovered is how natural carving seems, as if I have done it before.
My skills are not nearly as developed as Marianne Engel’s were, and when I create a little statue it rarely looks as I imagined. But that’s okay. In fact, it’s not often that I even produce original stonework. More often, I use her tools to chip away at the statue of me that she left behind.
Standing in front of my likeness still embarrasses me a little, but I remind myself that it is not vanity. I am not looking at myself; I am looking at a part of Marianne Engel that remains. And then I lift the chisel and target a small area-the corner of my elbow, a fold in my burned skin-and strike with the hammer. With each stroke, another piece of me falls away. I can only stand to shave off a tiny splinter at a time because each time a stone fragment hits the floor, I am slightly closer to becoming nothing.
The Three Masters stated that Marianne Engel’s lover would know the reason he had to release her final heart, to release her. And I do: the end of her penance was the beginning of mine. Allowing her to walk unhindered into the ocean was only the starting point of my task, because releasing her did not occur in an instant. It is an ongoing process that will last my lifetime, and I will not allow myself to die until I have carved away the last trace of my statue.
With every fragment of rock that falls from me, I can hear the voice of Marianne Engel. I love you. Aishiteru. Ego amo te. Ti amo. Ég elska Þig. Ich liebe dich. It is moving across time, coming to me in every language of the world, and it sounds like pure love.