The Sound of Building Coffins (12 page)

Frances’ eternal response to her sister’s ire (nothing like an answer, something like a question) was regarding this: In 1853 (fifty-three years previously), Frances’ teenage daughter and only child had died during the worst yellow fever epidemic the city had ever seen. Maria’s death had placed a pain in Frances’ heart, the kind that stays long term. She gave her soul over to pain and resentment then—and never let go.

For her own reasons, Frances had blamed her sister for the tragedy. Or so it seemed.

For her own reasons, Malvina blamed herself as well. And so it was, in fifty-three years, not a single word had passed between the sisters. Which isn’t to say there’d been no talking.

“
Shoes.”

“
Maria?”

Frances talked to herself. And Malvina talked to
her
self. Always for the other’s benefit, but in no way acknowledging the other’s presence. Not directly. Talking under breath, between teeth. Sometimes whispered, sometimes howled.

Frances refused to look Malvina directly in the eye, but Malvina often looked into Frances’—and in those eyes she saw the baby she’d once raised. Remembered feeding Frances warm goat’s milk, calming away tiny tears and goosing laughter from that frowning little mouth with funny sounds, impressions of swamp frogs and crickets. Remembered how that little baby would crawl up on her lap as she sat in their dead mother’s big oak rocker, would speak in the wonderful fragmented language of babies, pleading for a song. “
Chanson tanpri, Mer
.”

“
Song please, Mother.”

Such sweet memories. Malvina kept these vivid in her mind and close to her heart, always, always.

And she would sing:

Mo pap li couri la riviere,

Mo maman li couri peche crab

Dodo, mo fille, crab dans calalou

Dodo, mo fille, crab dans calalou

Which translated approximately to:

My papa has gone to the river,

My mamma has gone to catch crab,

Sleep, my daughter, crab is in the river

Sleep, my daughter, crab is in the river

The daily penance paid by Malvina for the last half century, the penance of her sister’s eyes, had succeeded (somewhat) in soothing her own sense of guilt. But even so, what was done could never be undone, and so she’d wondered. Could she have done more to save her sister’s child? She wasn’t exactly sure. In any case, she knew Maria had not died from yellow fever as she’d led Frances to believe. The truth was something she’d protected her
fille
from. The truth, she believed, would have killed Frances.

“
Always under foot.”

“
Where my Maria?”

In 1853 Maria had been the toast of Rue Dumaine, a star attraction at Auntie Jin’s Sporting House. But she’d given her heart to a common man, a lowly cemetery worker. The gravedigger left Maria brokenhearted and heavy with child, making things easy on himself—and so Malvina had seen to it that he paid for his crimes. Among other things, it was hard to be handsome minus a nose.

The gravedigger’s son had died during childbirth and Maria fell gravely ill shortly after. Malvina had tried desperately to save her niece—had done everything she could think of. Conjured cures of the body, cures of the heart—

ground cinnamon, 8 parts; rhubarb, 8 parts; calumba, 4 parts; saffron, 1 part; powdered opium, 2 parts; oil peppermint, 5 parts; macerated with 75 parts alcohol in a closely covered percolator for several days, then allow percolation to proceed to obtain 95 parts of percolate, in percolate dissolve the oil of peppermint, dissolve the oil, dissolve the oil, the oil, the oil, powdered opium, 2 parts; dissolve, powdered, dissolve, powdered

dissolve…

None of it worked. Nearly out of hope, she’d turned to otherworldly methods. A ritual of the spirit meant to mend Maria’s heart, body and mind—and something more, something special for the gravedigger.

Malvina would always remember that night. That strangest of nights. That black, black night in 1853.

“
Pickin’ up other people’s shoes.”

“
Where my Maria?”

dissolve…

Chapter seventeen

Blackest Night

As Maria lay withering in the fall of 1853, Malvina had discovered her own bruised heart lacking in its former capacity for faith. As she prepared for the night’s ritual she was unsure if she possessed the strength required to bring Maria back from death’s edge—but she was quite sure she possessed the skills and wherewithal to ruin the one who had done her harm, the lowdown good-for-nothing gravedigger known as Marcus Nobody Special. Real faith, she determined, was easier to conjure from a heart bolstered by rage than from a heart damaged by sorrow. To fortify her faith, she must focus her rage.

Discarded corpses were plentiful in the killing season of fever, so it hadn’t been hard for Malvina to locate one suitably resembling the gravedigger. The mulatto corpse now lay face-up in an open pine coffin near the foot of Malvina’s altar. The altar itself was a beautiful collage of dried flowers, fine jewelry, gold coin, keepsakes from long-dead ancestors and bones of the dead collected up from the crumbling, shallow-bricked tombs of the poor—all artfully arranged around molded statuettes of Catholic Saints. Other various and appropriate amenities for the
lwas
(tenants of the Spiritworld) included a fine red rooster, omelets prepared with corn and hot peppers, a honey mixture of corn and black pepper, dried corn mixed with gunpowder, raw tafin liquor, pepper jelly, and a red candle intricately carved into the shape of a woman holding a heart.

With all preparations in place, the big door of the tall, box-shaped coffee warehouse shut with a hollow
boom
; signaling the drummers to begin their slow, steady rhythm. Brands held by the dancers were lit aflame, then used to light the many candles of the crowded altar. The rooster responded by squawking and flapping nervously, its plumes bathed dimly in flickering light. Long shadows brushed gracefully up the twenty-foot ceiling’s thick beams, painting various shades of radiant gray on wood.

The guardians of the Spiritworld gladly protect their earthly children from its more destructive tenants, but these same guardians must be specifically invited and given proper respects before such protections can be enjoyed. First was the evocation of
Legba
, who holds the key to the gateway. Then of
Loco
, who will sound a warning crow to alert
Legba
of any malevolent beings at his back. And lastly,
Loco’s
wife
Ayizan—
who will hold at bay any dark being who attempts entry into the world of the living. However, with the gravedigger in mind, chaos and vengeance were not things Malvina wished to avoid on this occasion, so tonight
Ayizan
, the protective mother of the living, was not to be called—leaving unknown possibilities.

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.