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Back Margery Kempe Save as PDF
Chapters (69)
  1. Cover
  2. Biographical Notes
  3. Title Page
  4. INTRODUCTION
  5. MARGERY KEMPE
  6. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  7. Dedication
  8. Front
  9. PART ONE
  10. 1
  11. 2
  12. 3
  13. 4
  14. 5
  15. 6
  16. 7
  17. 8
  18. 9
  19. 10
  20. 11
  21. 12
  22. 13
  23. 14
  24. 15
  25. 16
  26. PART TWO
  27. 17
  28. 18
  29. 19
  30. 20
  31. 21
  32. 22
  33. 23
  34. 24
  35. 25
  36. 26
  37. 27
  38. 28
  39. 29
  40. 30
  41. 31
  42. PART THREE
  43. 32
  44. 33
  45. 34
  46. 35
  47. 36
  48. 37
  49. 38
  50. 39
  51. 40
  52. 41
  53. 42
  54. 43
  55. 44
  56. 45
  57. 46
  58. PART FOUR
  59. 47
  60. 48
  61. 49
  62. 50
  63. 51
  64. 52
  65. 53
  66. 54
  67. 55
  68. 56
  69. MY MARGERY, MARGERY’S BOB

So that night Mary went to a feast with important people—she was disguised but visible. It was not unusual for these banquets to include a pauper who was holy, even divine. She sat at the high table next to Wenslawe, the priest from St. John Lateran. He was like a child, wide eyed with surprise. He ate with his head lowered, then pressed a gold coin in her palm and whispered, “If I have to die, return me as a stylish woman’s elaborate earring.”

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I feel close to Wenslawe and I make Jesus into my own god whose beauty is a lens—intenser light, clearer colors—like sight in heaven. Absolute Good is casting shadows, and when I pull out I am awed that he is stretched wide open and I catch a whiff as sweetly fetid and timeless as any New York sewer.

When I began Margery, I took Flaubert’s “The Legend of St. Julian Hospitaler” as a model, a moral and supernatural tale by a writer whose entire faith was in writing, as though telling a story perfectly were the same as obtaining forgiveness for existing. I am drawn to modernism but my faith is impure. I am no more the solitary author of this book than I alone invent the fiction of my life. As I write, I read my experience as well as Margery’s. Is that appropriation?—that I am also the reader, oscillating in a nowhere between what I invent and what changes me?

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When I was a child, belief attracted and repelled me, especially beliefs of Christian friends. Eating the body, drinking blood. Sexual sins whispered into hidden ears. The whacked-out saints, their fragmented corpses. Jesus nursing and the glorious fleshy ham.

There wasn’t enough faith to go around. My god inclined towards a darkness which was not interested in my belief or my sins and which continues to be none of my business. Where are the Jewish martyrs, the seven million who return as documentaries? I was raised in a kosher home in the huge Jewish community in Cleveland but I didn’t learn of the camps till I saw them on TV in Los Angeles and then my mother volunteered with neutral excitement that we’d lost relatives, as though relating us to TV rather than to history. Did she want to protect me from the abnormality of our recent past? Or maybe everyone talked and I wasn’t listening?

Later I read some mystics and wanted to join a monastery. Illuminating holy books was a career that suited my temperament and passage to this magical universe was simply belief in it.

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