The Sound of Building Coffins Read online

  Malvina had drawn a large veve for Erzulie le Flambeau with powdered cornmeal twenty feet from the altar’s base. A dancer called Rosalie now sat at the center of it, legs crossed and head down. A loose circle of dancers glided deftly around her, all of them dressed as she; immaculate white linen draping their lithe brown bodies, bright red headwraps hiding the black of their hair. Malvina raised a finger towards a barrel-chested man who nodded in response before sounding the conch shell. The sound of it was a low moan, a request for Papa Legba to open the gate. The drumming intensified as the dancers dipped and weaved with improvised elegance, and the salty wind of the Spiritworld gushed forth.

  As the call for Ayizan’s protection was bypassed, Malvina felt a guilty thrill. She breathed in deeply, a childlike smile coloring her face with wonder. Anything could happen now, she marveled. Anything, anything.

  As the dancers continued their slow circle, Rosalie lifted herself into a standing position at their center. Arms held forward, head thrown back, eyes closed; an invitation for possession. Malvina reached into the bucket near the altar; threw a handful of dried corn and gunpowder towards the girl’s shins, tempting the rooster to draw near. Rosalie lifted a foot to stroke its feathers. The fowl cooed.

  Slowly, almost unnoticeably, Rosalie’s face began to change.

  Chapter eighteen

  Djab

  Rosalie fell.

  Her red headwrap loosened as her head hit warm, hard ground, her black hair flowing down like water against concrete. Tiny drops of blood dotted the rooster’s beak as it pecked her head and neck. Rosalie’s eyes opened; changed. This was Rosalie. This was not Rosalie.

  Djab.

  Malvina rushed forward to wave the bird away, but was interrupted by a fist to the jaw that threw her to the far wall between altar and coffin. The bird made soft chuckles.

  The djab in Rosalie now turned to face the drummers, its newly acquired body jerking in wild spasms, instructing rhythm with alien motion. The men changed their beat to suit the movement of the djab, and as the new rhythm fell into place the djab’s weird motion intensified—coaxing the drummers to push harder, faster.

  Bap. Bap-bap. Buh-bap, bap, buh-bap

  Bap. Bap-bap. Buh-bap, bap, buh-bap

  Bap. Bap-bap. Buh-bap, bap, buh-bap

  Rhythm changed, night taken.

  Malvina ran towards the girl, but scooped up the rooster. Threw the bird towards the altar, jumped down upon it, held its body firmly between her knees. The rooster protested—pecking frantically at Malvina’s hands and legs in rhythm with the drums, blood now pouring from the mambo’s wrists. Malvina wrinkled her nose at the smell of her own blood before reaching into a small leather pouch she kept tied around her neck, quickly smearing a mixture of bloodroot and honey over the bird’s feathers. Holding the rooster’s neck in one sticky hand, she reached into the bucket by the altar and proceeded to push the dried corn and gunpowder down its gullet with the ball of her thumb. As the bird’s neck bulged, its panicked squawks degenerated into sleepy whistles. A final pinch of hard corn and the rooster whistled no more.

  As the bird slipped from her fingers, a wave of dizziness washed over Malvina and gravity urged her down. Lying on her side and facing the bird’s honey-matted feathers, her head felt light, almost peaceful.

  Drums pounded like thunder. Arms and legs of dancers flashed like lightening. A smell of burnt coffee hung rich and smooth in the air. The night hurtled on towards something unknowable.

  anything, anything

  Malvina’s eyes focused hazily on the stomping feet of the congregation. Sound evaporated. Eyes clouded. Thinking.

  Thinking of Maria’s grief. Knowing her niece would soon die, that her sister Frances would suffer terribly at the loss. That Marcus Nobody Special could not possibly suffer enough for his crimes, and that any revenge she may bring would not undo the damage he had done. That her own reckless notion of justice had brought this terrible thing—this djab—into the world, with no idea of how to send it back—or even whether it could be sent back at all. This is what love has wrought, she mused. The love of a gravedigger. The love of a sister like a daughter. Useless love, wringing its fists at the sky. Tenderness corrupted by rage.

  Love could go so terribly, terribly wrong.

  The rooster woke from its death-sleep to let out a final crow—but not a crow. The sound of an immortal spirit terrified.

  The warning crow of Loco.

  A warning…

  (too late, too late)

  Lithe hands reached down to her and lifted Malvina’s limp body upwards by the hair. Malvina sailed across the room, all of her hundred and twenty pounds expertly pitched into the mulatto’s coffin. Malvina lay atop the corpse, felt its stillness, its lack of warmth, its chest that did not rise for air.

  Drummers pounded skins and dancers flailed, human thunder and lightning intensifying—faster, wilder—hands and feet blistering with friction of speed. An oblivious foot kicked out at the bucket willy-nilly, causing kernels and black powder to spray waist high before distributing across the dirty floor with weird purpose; settling in lines like the rows of a field. As the djab spun and leapt to the wild beat, the touch of Rosalie’s delicate feet somehow reduced hard kernels of corn to fine yellow dust. Gunpowder sparked and crackled.

  Malvina lay in the coffin, the corpse beneath her no longer still.

  A tremble.

  Her soul began to tumble. Something had taken her. Leading her downward.

  And down she went.

  Chapter nineteen

  Intentions Eversweet

  Falling.

  She is falling. Through the dead mulatto, through the bottom of the casket, through the table, the concrete, and the ground below. Falling.

  The sound of drumming becomes distant, then fades. Finally: To nothing.

  Air turns dark and thick, but offers no resistance to the fall. Air assumes color and then is not air at all.

  Water.

  Green, smooth water. Beautiful, safe, caressing water. She is falling through the womb of the Spiritworld, the city of the dead. Where no harm can come, where finality offers nothing but time. She sucks green, perfect water into her lungs, holds; then expels. She can breathe—but slowly. Pulling the stuff into her lungs gives her a divine sense of relief, a profound serenity.

  She closes her eyes. Imagines she is an infant, cradled in the arms of a mother. Now, for once, Malvina Latour is not the mother. She imagines a gentle hand stroking her brow, wiping away all the pain of her life.

  There is a hand wiping her brow. Softly, gently. She opens her eyes.

  A magnificent brown-skinned woman is cradling her at the floor of a deep green river, stroking her hair. “Shhh,” says the woman.

  Malvina looks into her eyes, into her troubled smile. She feels nothing but love and gratitude for the woman, wants to articulate emotion beyond words, but says only:

  “Mama.”

  Malvina knows this lwa. She is Manman Brigitte.

  The voice of the lwa is soft and rich, traveling through green water to caress Malvina’s ears:

  “Peace to you, child. This thing is not your fault. You have acted on your pain. Actions born of loss can never be truly evil. You have never experienced the trials and joys of true motherhood, but have acted as a mother to many. Your soul is damaged but pure. Your luck has been bad, my child, but your intentions eversweet.”

  Malvina watches as her own tears rise up through green water, tiny spheres of lilac, drifting upward.

  Manman Brigitte smiles:

  “Endure this night, then use what is left of your time on earth to heal the injured souls around you. Show your enemy the light of true pain and he will do right by you and yours of his own accord. The one you now hate will become your saving grace. Make him see, and let his work be done.

  “This is your penance, for it will not be easy. You must leave here now, child. You can no longer breathe in this place.”

  The lwa Manman Brigitte raises
a finger upward. Malvina’s gaze follows it—sees.

  She is in a deep grave. There is no green water here; she is dry and alone. Far, far above her is a rectangle of blue sky and white cloud. The faces of long-dead ancestors peer down from the grave’s edge, watching her curiously, their expressions etched with concern. Their eyes meet Malvina’s as they sprinkle dried rose petals into the grave; the petals flutter, glide—and, finally, tickle the mambo’s face and hands.

  She wants to speak, wants to stand, to reach up to them—but she cannot move. She lies flat on her back in the grave, looking up.

  Her chest does not rise. Her eyes do not blink. Her heart does not beat.

  Rose petals falling. There is a wetness at her back, water rising in the grave. It touches her ears, then fills her nose, covers her eyes. The water is neither green nor smooth. It is muddy and cold and not of the Spiritworld. It is good that her lungs do not crave it.

  She watches the waterline rise quickly, but she does not float up. The water is corrupted with brown, but is just clear enough that she can still see the faces of her ancestors. Their features are distorted and grotesque through the water; abstract, monster-like.

  She closes her eyes. Drifts off to sleep. Does not wish for death.

  Through brown water she feels a breath on her cheek, an odor of sour swamp. She turns her head to see with eyes still closed, a dream within a dream. There is a man lying beside her, he is dressed in tatters, has long hair and a tangled beard, his body is trembling as if from intense cold. His face has no eyes.

  no eyes

  She’s never seen him before but recognizes him as Coco Robicheaux, the bogeyman of children’s tales. He slowly lifts a hand towards her. Her heart is pounding, she wants to get away but cannot, she is frozen with fear. His massive fingers wrap around the thumb of her right hand. He lets out a wail as he squeezes, the sound of it high in pitch like a baby or a cat. Wake up, wake up, wake up, she says aloud in the dream.

  Her heart springs to life; beating fast, free from the second layer of dream but still trapped in the first. Her lungs pull in water; deadly, unbreathable.

  The voice of Manman Brigitte screams in her mind, pours a harsh warning light over her soul:

  “Rise up, child! Now!”

  Malvina understands the lwa’s urgency. It is not her time to die, not her day of finality. She must lift up and expel the death in her lungs. Quickly.

  Her back no longer touches the muddy floor of the grave. She is rising. Hurtling towards rectangular light. Up, up, up.

  Through misty brown the rectangle of blue and white expands above her. She sees silhouettes of heads lining the mouth of the grave, watching her approach. As she nears them, the faces become clearer. They are no longer the faces of her ancestors; they are the faces of Christian saints.

  Her body shoots past them, and bursts into warm, waiting air.

  Chapter twenty

  Popcorn Ash

  Malvina flew upwards from the pine casket and fell hard against the concrete floor of the coffee warehouse. She did not recall the words, face, or touch of Manman Brigitte but she did recognize in herself a new (if mysterious) sense of resolve.

  Resolutely, she pulled herself up on unsteady legs, crossed herself, and turned to face the djab in Rosalie.

  “Gerouge! Serpan dezef! Arete sek!” The thing in Rosalie grinned in amusement and lifted what was left of the motionless rooster, its gullet still thick with dried corn and gunpowder.

  Placing the rooster’s head into Rosalie’s mouth, the demon bit down then jerked away. The stump of the bird’s neck shot white flame into its host’s unguarded face, scorching the girl’s lips, nose and chin with blackish purple blisters. Rosalie’s ruined face cracked in the heat of flame; blisters swelling, bursting, running down once-perfect cheeks like clear, thick honey.

  Rosalie’s feet pounded the ground in relentless rhythm, the gunpowder no longer merely sparking beneath them but igniting into sharp, crisp flame; blackening the girl’s soles. Flames spread quickly across the floor, dried kernels burst into fluffy popcorn, popcorn reduced to fiery ash. Ash dipped and jetted through the air, touching and infecting all in its path with hungry bits of orange, yellow and red. Popcorn ash: Wafting downward, landing on the white linen dresses of the dancers, invading large sacks of coffee, catching everything alight. The skin of Rosalie’s feet blackened then peeled in the heat; tissue and muscle falling away in chunks to expose charred bone, cracking against hot concrete with sickeningly rhythmic smacks. The taut skins of the drums transformed with new color as the drummers beat on, undeterred, slapping at flame, hands oblivious, exposed finger bones whacking against the hard wood of the rims. The formerly rich, thumping drumbeat degenerated into ugly, hollow clacking:

  Clack. Clack-clack. Cluh-clack, clack, cluh-clack

  Clack. Clack-clack. Cluh-clack, clack, cluh-clack

  Clack. Clack-clack. Cluh-clack, clack, cluh-clack

  …somehow circular to Malvina’s ear—round and round and round.

  The warehouse filled with a sound like crackling gunfire as thousands of coffee beans exploded in the heat. The fleshless bones of the dancers whipped and writhed, drummers clacked ever on, and Rosalie’s black ashes mingled with those of the rooster on the dirty concrete floor. Without so much as a whimper they all burned to dust.

  Running through flame, Malvina reached the door.

  Upon touching the cool air outside, she discovered her own dress partially alight and so flung herself to the wet November grass, rolling herself in dewy moisture till the last of the embers had smothered. She sat up in the grass, hugging her knees and sobbing quietly as smoke poured from the single open door of the windowless warehouse.

  She had done this thing. She had killed these children. Had thrown them into the arms of unknown evil. Her excuse was less than pitiful; she had done it because she had loved.

  Flames failed to consume the building. Did not punch irregular holes through the walls of it, did not angle up to melt the tar of the flat roof. Billowing smoke quickly reduced to a trickle—then, finally, evacuated completely into a handful of snake-shaped wisps. There was no smoke at all now. The sky was clear and full of stars; no trace of it remaining.

  Malvina rose to her feet. Looked at the door. Quiet, smokeless. Squinted her eyes. Nothing. As if the awful night had not taken place at all. A reprieve from God? Malvina took a step forward. Still nothing.

  Then. Something:

  Orange water.

  Streaming lightly through the front door, down the steps and onto the grass. Just a trickle at first—then more than a trickle. Bright orange with slender streaks of red and yellow. The color of flame. Pure, smokeless, liquid flame.

  Orange floodwaters progressed along the ground with a low-toned hum, rushing towards Malvina’s bare feet. The mambo held her ground, said a quiet prayer to Ayizan—begging forgiveness—and crossed herself once more. Closed her eyes tight and wished it away.

  Prayer and wishing stopped nothing as the sound of rushing liquid steadied into a roar. Malvina Latour—a mother to none, a mother to many—opened her mouth to scream. Sound poured from her soul and into the night as orange water flowed to, around, and past her ankles. But there was no pain in its touch, no heat, not even warmth.

  The sensation was of cool water. She bent down to place a finger in. Stared into it, noted nearly transparent streaks of pink, flitting past. Like wisps of human flesh, the pure flesh of the not-quite-born. Immortal, bloodless flesh.

  Closing her eyes, she listened.

  Beneath the thick drone of wet motion was a kind of music. Sweet, light music; a rich, tinny echo of happier times—times both past and yet to come. And the echo carried with it a familiar rhythm.

  The carpet of wet surged onward from the yawning mouth of the coffee warehouse; covering the ground, running into and past the street, into and past Congo Square, soaking into the dry, coarse dirt of the yard at Parish Prison. She watched as the water headed towards the Old Basin Cana
l, kissing oblivious dirt streets as it passed.

  It was beautiful, the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen. Tonight she’d committed grave error and witnessed resultant death, but in the here and now there was only epiphany—a culmination of mystical things beyond her understanding. Feathery tongues of recent dream continued to nag at the edges of her mind—wanting to understand, knowing that she would not, could not. She acknowledged a strange joy in the not-knowing. A voice interrupted her rapture:

  “Keep yer damn mouth shut, nigger witch! People trine ta sleep!”

  Malvina hadn’t realized she was screaming.

  She looked up at the irate pink face sticking out of a second story window, feeling oddly thrilled at the sound of a human voice, even an unfriendly one. She smiled and waved in his direction.

  “Isn’t it beautiful?” she cried.

  “Crazy whore! Opium eater!” the man shouted before slamming the shutters.

  As the window smacked shut, the sky drained of color, the humming ceased—and a series of recently loosened gears in Malvina’s soul clicked and snapped into place. The door of the warehouse stood closed and silent as before.

  Once again: no apparent trace of blackest night.

  Suddenly: Aware of a lingering scent. The metallic, acrid smell of burnt coffee. Something remaining. In the air. And she knew that something else remained, too. Something that had gone towards the waters of the bayou.

  “Shoes.”

  “Kilt her is what.”

  She would never clearly remember her journey through the grave that night, through the waters of the dead. Nor would she ever fully recall the gentle caress of Manman Brigitte. At least never in waking life.

  But she did—and always would—remember the orange water with its thin streaks of pink. Would always remember the tinny music, its distant echo. These memories would become a part of who she was. That could not be changed.