The Angel in the Marble
“I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.” — Michaelangelo
There was an art to putting something into existence. Above all else, there was a pattern in doing such a marvelous act. A rhythm.
Of course, he had been doing this for so long that he had memorized the feeling of his tools in his hands. The rough, splintery handle of his mallet as it wore callouses against his palm. The cool kiss of his chisel—forged from fire, forging magic now in its tempered, steel form.
He knew the rhythm so well that he could focus on other things while following it, tap, tap, tapping away at crevices and corners so detailed that they almost made his projects look real. The state of ‘almost’—thank heavens—was only temporary, though, as the state of his finished products always said otherwise.
Yes, there was an art to putting something into existence. It was a skill however, to be able to make those somethings last.
Tap, tap, tap.
“And what else?” He asked suddenly. “Was he—charming?”
“As his mother, I think I am obligated to say yes.”
“But what is your true answer?”
Tap, tap, tap again.
His company paused, needing a moment to withhold her answer.
“I suppose he tried to be charming. He focused more on being kind, though.”
The man, the artist, halted his rhythmic chiseling, leaning back from his work to examine the lines he had just carved. Two collar bones, both even in size. Good.
He bent forward again, this time blowing out a short breath to push excess dust off them both. A thin cloud briefly fogged his vision. “I see,” He mused finally in reply, “And did he ever wish to be a tutor of some sort? A school teacher perhaps?”
He nearly forgot how far he was from the woman upon asking the question, only being reminded of such a fact by the faraway sound of her pew creaking underneath her weight. It certainly did not help that he wasn’t facing her, but he could hear her voice just fine through the echoes of their space.
Per his only rule when it came to spectators, she wasn’t faced in his direction either.
“At one point he did, yes. How did you know that?”
The artist adjusted his mallet again, now at his piece’s sternum. His tone was light. “Call it intuition. Unless, you would like to believe that he told me that himself just now.”
That commentary made the woman laugh wistfully, but no actual words accompanied the response.
She fell silent, leaving him at that, and all there was was the sound of him working away.
Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap. Was the space between his collar bones too narrow?
Eyeing the small pit at his statue’s neck, he chipped further to resolve the issue he saw, his hollow chiseling falling into a more rapid pattern for a few seconds before he stopped again. Blow. Dust cloud. Repeat. Perhaps if he were not transfixed by the little details, he would be finished in no time at all, but he needed to be precise with this one. Down to the very last fissure. After all, the statue’s likeness came from somewhere, and the artist could not imagine there ever being a face of little importance.
Satisfied with how the sternum turned out, the man found himself switching tools, leaning down from his position atop a small stool to grab hold of a thinner chisel. His previous one clanged against the floor, void of purpose now that it was not held within his hands, and it was at that exact moment that he allowed himself to glance behind him, looking out to his audience of one who sat with her back to him.
He was the one then to break the silence. “Tell me more about him. This seems, well—therapeutic for you.”
The woman’s head rose slightly, and although she did not turn back, he did not need to see her expression to know that it was a good question to ask. What better way to grieve than to talk about the person one lost?
He did not wait for her reply before he faced his original direction again, having already resumed his tapping when he heard her speak. She began in a tender mix of grief and happiness, a strange in-between that only a mother could have understood. “My son taught me everything that I couldn’t have possibly learned on my own. He taught me the values of humility and integrity. He taught me how to be brave, simply because he was brave himself.”
He heard her steal a shaky breath.
“I have already mentioned to you that he was a soldier, but there was so much more to him than that. There was a boy inside him that liked to watch bakers sell bread through windows. There was a man who never batted an eye when it came to helping others, through big acts or small. There was someone I raised that was not like me at all—someone too forgiving to be mine, too generous, too noble. The list goes on. He was a benevolent soul whose love for others was as infinite as the ocean beyond our shores, who did good things for the sake of them and not because he needed to gain something else. My son was, I suppose, everything I never have been.”
The note she chose to end on had been striking to say the least, her words sending a haunting chill into the air before she quieted down again. She had nothing else to say, and despite the man not having reacted in a way to show that he was impacted, he certainly had many thoughts swimming around his head. That had been the most the woman had spoken thus far, both about herself and about her son.
It was quite telling the things she had said, and truly, it made sense now why she approached him in the first place only a few months prior, asking what exactly he was able to do with his art before she commissioned him. She had visited this place nearly every day since then, asking the same questions of when he would be done, when she could finally see his work, all while waiting for the miracle that was recreation to be completed in full.
She loved her son, so much so that she would request that he be sculpted in memory of his life shortly after his tragic death. So much so that she would return to a location that she had not been for decades after closing an earlier chapter in her life and starting anew. It seemed she would have requested anything to get just a semblance of her late child back, and he was the only artist in their city said to have the best work. He didn’t even need a description of the person in order to sculpt them.
Her request was what brought them to where they were now, of course, inside a cathedral that had long been abandoned, with her seated somewhere in an endless sea of pews and him surrounded by his own collection of tools at the altar. The replica that the woman desired was at the center of it all, standing tall upon a slightly elevated step that put him over the artist as he worked. That was why he needed a stool to kneel upon in order to reach anything above the shoulders. That was why he asked all of those who requested something like this from him to not look at the project until he was completely finished.
If they wanted to spectate, they had to enter the church with their back turned until they found a seat—a pew that was also turned in the opposite direction from the altar.
If they wanted to speak with him while he turned stone into man, they might, but they could not rush the process. No one could. And he made no exceptions for the mother who was mourning and wanted him to recreate what she had lost.
From his own perspective, she was a fool in her request.
From the part of him that was an artist, she was, in fact, a genius.
After considering her spiel for several moments, the man repeated her words out loud, as if testing them of their validity. “A benevolent soul whose love for others was as infinite as the ocean beyond our shores… How touching.”
His rhythmic tapping did not falter as he inched further up to add detail to his piece’s jugular. However, somewhere in between the short, hollowed-out noises, he sounded amused all of a sudden, like there was something funny about this all. “In the city. There is a name for people like that, is there not?”
The woman shifted a bit in her seat, unsure of the inquiry but responding anyway in a low voice.
“Yes. People like that, I believe, are typically called Good Samaritans. Although… there are not many of them around anymore. Goodness comes in small measures these days.”
Tap, tap, tap. A Good Samaritan?
He said nothing at first. He gave a perfectly executed pause. Then, his questioning continued.
“And you admire those kinds of people? So much so that you would hope your son was like them?”
“What? I—” The company of the man floundered for a flicker of a moment, before she gathered enough composure to shoot out something accusatory. “My son was one of those people. Are you insinuating that I’m not telling the truth about that?”
Without turning around, the artist chose to ignore her last utterance, the cap of his knee readjusting itself on the wood of his stool nonchalantly. He truly had little reaction to her, and he was rather blunt in the callous, unfiltered statement that came next. “I suppose you may be right then, amate. About what you said about Samaritans. They do not last long in this world, and neither did your beloved son.”
He heard the mother gasp, and already having expected to be damned to Hell because of his commentary, he interjected sharply before she could cut him off, his tone a bit more firm. “I am not finished. Please—let me continue on.”
The burning, heavy silence from the woman should have been answer enough. After all, he could sense—feel—her volatile temperament heating up the entire cathedral, which held irony in itself when remembering whom she had once been. Where she came from.
Slow to speak, slow to anger…
He could not say for certain if she practiced such a scripture anymore, but in this particular instance, she seemed to try. In fact, the only thing that let him know that he could continue forward was the smallest of grunts, before he heard something akin to a tight creaking sound. That let him know that she had most likely gotten up in the silence, nearly leaving the holy space altogether before returning to her pew. He could only hope she was still facing the other direction.
Exhaling a quiet sigh, he pressed the edge of his chisel against his piece’s jawline, now chipping away at another facet. “Your son. Your son was a Good Samaritan. Unlike most young men these days, he was an honorable, fair, benevolent gentleman, and according to you, he was a soldier not faint of heart.” He turned his chisel one way, fine powder falling down with every hit of his mallet. “He lost his life serving in a war that I do not suppose many will think we will win. It has, after all, been a perilous year for our humble little city, but I take it that your son knew that. And chose to serve in our legion regardless.”
Tap, tap, tap.
“If he was as honorable as you claim him to be, he was different from all the countless other men who rode off into war because they saw it as an obligation, to protect their mothers, to not be seen as cowardly by their fathers. Your son, if he were truly a Good Samaritan like you said, chose to fight because he wanted to. For the good of everyone, so that perhaps five, ten years from now, others will not have to. Far beyond whatever worthless reason justifies sending your soul off to die, he reasoned with himself that that was his purpose in life—to sacrifice himself for others, to throw himself out in front of the sword.”
At that last word, he drew back his tools, eyes already inspecting the statue’s jaw with much care. “So, I do believe that I am correct in saying that your son perished like a true Good Samaritan would. You, given your past obligations here within the church, should know more than anyone that horrible things are inflicted upon good people all of the time. They do not deserve it of course, but that is just the way things are. Why else do you think we have such a thing called fallen heroes?”
With everything he had said, the artist knew he was pushing it by daring to ask her a question—one that he ultimately knew she would not answer. She did not dare to make even a sound when he was finished speaking, which in turn caused him to glimpse behind himself for a second time to check if she was still there.
She was—only this time, her head was hung downwards, and her entire body frame was trembling silently in her seat. Tearfully. His lips pressed into a solemn line upon noting this, and he considered for a split moment in time not saying anything else at all, especially now that he had made her cry.
But… something moved him to speak regardless. Almost as if it were an urge buried deep within his bones. Like a whisper in his ear.
Tell her… keep going.
A final attempt at making things better, the man set down his tools, and his head turned halfway in her direction. His voice echoed outwards, softer than before. “If I may say one last thing… And I swear to it that I will never speak of this again… Dying with the reputation of being a Good Samaritan makes your son better than all of us. The same cannot be said for a lot of people, and I am certain that he did not die for nothing.”
A moment passed between them. And then another. And another.
It was in slow motion that the woman finally raised up her head, barely able to stop trembling as she did her best to compose herself. He watched as one hand flew to touch her face—probably to wipe away tears—and it was only when it fell back into her lap that she bore enough courage to speak again.
“Are you done, yet?”
“I already told you I was.”
“No. I mean with the statue. Are you finished with it, yet?”
The artist wordlessly turned his head back to his project, jaw settling as he gave it a thoughtful examination, tracing it with his eyes up and down. He should have expected her to ask that. The woman was not herself if she didn’t.
Shockingly though, his answer was different this time around.
“Yes… Would you like to see him?”
She stood before he could even finish the question. Her pew squeaked; he jumped forward. The man quite literally had to make his way down the altar before she could even dare to turn around, and words began to tumble from his mouth soon enough. “Please. I will help you up there. Just close your eyes and do not open them until I tell you. You have my word that it will be worth it.”
He positioned himself so that his frame blocked her view in the meantime, and for the first instance since she arrived, he was able to catch an up-close glimpse of her expression. It was duly noted the manner in which she chose to scowl at him, at his request, but nevertheless, she did as she was told. She shut her eyes, well-aware that nothing would happen if she didn’t, and by the arm, he led her to where he had been only moments before, setting her right before the statue where streaks of warm sunlight came in just behind it—from the magnificent display of cathedral windows.
After all they had spoken about, this moment could not have arrived soon enough.
Eyes flickering between the woman and his masterpiece, the artist breathed in and eventually took a step back from the scene he had purposely created. Back down the steps, until he stood upon the very last one of the altar.
The golden word came only whenever he was fully out of the picture, his role having switched from centerpiece to audience in just one nimble stride. He was a spectator now to this glorious, sunlit scene, and there was nothing more liberating than finally being able to drop the curtain. Finally being able to just sit and watch for what came after.
After all, the past was the past.
“Alright.”
The present was now.
“Open.”
And as it was, this moment most certainly had always been his favorite one. The reveal, the reaction. Hers unfolded just as he expected it would with a telling array of emotions flying across her features, one sticking out more than all the others as she became absolutely breathless.
Disbelief. It was disbelief.
She had gasped whenever she first peeled open her gaze, and since then, she could not stop gaping at what existed in front of her. Her eyes shot up and down in a flurry, back and forth across a perfectly measured stature, before her attention fixated on facial features.
She dared to ask the man aloud after a few more seconds, and somehow, he had expected this one more than the other. He knew it was coming.
It always came, and he was ready to explain the impossible.
“How? How did you do this?”