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.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
My sincerest thanks to Angela Aki, dear friend and the first person ever to read this book; Bette Alexander and Jolanta Benal, perfectionists; Liuba Apostolova, who is made of starlight; Marty Asher, Jamie Byng, Anne Collins, Gerry Howard, Anya Serota, and Bill Thomas, the early believers; the Brattis, my second family; all the staff at Canongate, Doubleday, Janklow Nesbit, and Random House Canada; Dr. Linda Dietrick and Dr. Ann- Catherine Geuder, advisors on all matters Germanic; the editors (Anne, Gerry, and Anya) who, with elegant scalpels, helped debride the dead parts; Dr. Kathy J. Edwards, who patiently answered all my burning questions; John Fontana, who makes me look good; Helen Hayward, killer teacher; my international proofreaders Kyoko Aoyama, Yoichi Takagi, and Miko Yamanouchi (Japanese), Ъa Matthнasdуttir (Icelandic), and Giuseppe Strazzeri (Italian); Eric Simonoff, the novel’s greatest champion; Dorothy Vincent, who took the book around the world; the publishing assistants essential to getting things done, particularly Katie Halleron, Eadie Klemm, and Alexa Von Hirschberg; Joe Burgess, Kirby Drynan, Liz Ericksson, Kevin and Alex Hnatiuk, Alison and Helen Ritchie, and Paige Wilson, friends with feedback; my family, nuclear and extended, for their support and love; and Harley and Fjola, for everything.
To the following resources, I am particularly indebted:
Notes
