James Jenkins - The Valancourt Book of World Horror Stories. Volume 1

I had enrolled in the fine arts. Ah! I remember father’s face. Oh! Oh! You should have seen him, my old man! I had categorically refused the boring law studies he had suggested . . . Damn it! A person has the right to decide for herself, doesn’t she?

For pocket money, my parents sent me practically a yuppie’s salary. I’ve never known what a ‘yuppie’ was, but well, it’s as good an expression as any. In any case, I had enough money to get into trouble with.

I was, to tell the truth, a naive and slightly capricious bourgeois girl who was finally escaping from her golden cage. I wanted to discover the world and swallow it whole. I went out when I wanted and with whom I wanted. I dressed according to my moods and came home when I felt like it. I couldn’t begin tell you what a good time I had. In the beginning, I let myself be taken advantage of often. That served me well, experience being a strong asset. I learned to know my nature and my limits.

It was then that Bakary came into my life. He was the breath of fresh air I so needed. I discovered love and the happiness that comes with it. I no longer wanted but one thing: to spend the rest of my life with him. In fact, I don’t believe it was even a decision, it just went without saying.

My parents, informed by I don’t know what blabbermouth, were caught off guard. As usual! But I can tell you, you’d better not mess with me! Good Lord! Just leave me alone! My life is all I’ve got, and it’s mine to manage as I see fit. Even God can’t control it. My father, whose job didn’t allow him to travel much, nearly had a heart attack more than once on the telephone. As for mother, she often took a plane to try to reclaim her daughter who was lost in the clutches of some loser. I stood up to my father, and she tried to smooth ruffled feathers, as they say. She cried or whined, caught between the hammer and the anvil. Nothing to be done. It pained me, but what did they expect? What could I do? Sacrifice my life to make them happy? Well, no! No, no and no! No, mom and dad, you are how you are, so let me be too! My self-­respect drove me to find a part-­time job. Cashier in a supermarket. My parents could keep their pennies for their old age. From then on, the bridges were burned. I had kept the apartment though. They had bought it and put it in my name. The last straw was when I lived there with Bakary. That really showed them!

When we returned to Dakar, we crashed in an apartment a friend had rented us. Bakary had found work as a radio DJ and was looking for musicians to form a group. His salary wasn’t very high, and my sculptures didn’t exactly sell like hot cakes. We had just enough to survive on without touching our savings.

We bought a little house by the sea. The whole story starts with that house. For thirteen years no one had lived in it. The man who had built it died a week after he moved in, preceding his wife by only a few days. It was rented subsequently to two other people who died one after the other, deaths you might call rather mysterious. No one dared to live there because it was, supposedly, haunted. It was called ‘The House of Leuk Dawour’. Rumor had it that it was the rab who caused this series of deaths. No one slept there for longer than twenty days. These rumors, far from discouraging us, helped us to buy it at a very reasonable price. We started by renovating it.

I must point out, however, that the first time I saw that house, it presented a very somber appearance that unnerved me a little. On the walls, dilapidated and frightfully veined with strange fissures, I perceived the deep traces of a rather sinister mystery. A cold and oppressive sense of loneliness reigned there. It was the only house whose back was turned towards the ocean to open onto a cul-­de-­sac. There was a balcony, however, where attentive eyes and ears could follow the discourse of the waves sweeping the rocky beach. The sea freshness entered the four bedrooms, two of which were on the ground floor. The kitchen was spacious, as was the bathroom. It certainly wasn’t a beautiful villa, but it suited us. I just wanted ‘my place’. The days were long past when I used to complain over the slightest lack of comfort. I had finally turned my back on the sordid bourgeoisie.

While the construction work followed its course, I ventured to visit our future residence alone one night. In fact, I was really seeking refuge there. Bakary and I had had a fight. One of those fights that are part of any couple’s life. You know, living with other people isn’t easy. Even with the one you love with all your heart, sometimes you need a little alone time, to just be one-­on-­one with yourself. At these moments, the other person’s presence can become irritating, unbearable, and then anything can give rise to a conflict . . . In short, I just needed a little air.

I had rolled some joints carefully saved in my handbag, where there was also a packet of Camelia Sport (my favorite cigarettes), a bottle of whisky, and pepper spray in case any little thugs hassled me. It was, I think, two o’clock in the morning, maybe even three. It was my first time going to those premises at such a late hour. I had parked my car in front of the gate.

Alone in the courtyard, leaning against a wall, my joint of Lopito in one hand, my Johnny Walker in the other, I thought about some things and about others. Simply put, I daydreamed. I was chilled out.

At a given moment, something extraordinary took place. A wind of an unheard-­of force burst into the house. Everything started shaking, and me along with it. Although there was a full moon, the sky found a way of putting on its darkest cloak and the agitation of the earth started to compete with that of the sea. Everything moved around me, even the piece of cardboard on which I was sitting. The wind materialized and took on shapes and colors so marvelous that I was sorry I hadn’t brought my camera. I was surprised, astonished and fascinated, but I wasn’t scared. I was stoned, and I calmly attended the spectacle that was presented to me. The wind let out insane howls that covered the deafening groans of the kamikaze waves crashing against the rocks. It entered the building, making the doors and windows slam shut, then returned to whirl furiously in the courtyard. Finally it took on a distinct shape before my eyes: the silhouette of a horse. More than a silhouette, it was a very real horse, an all-­white horse whose shiny coat gleamed as brightly as its blood-­red eyes. It had only one leg beneath its torso and it moved with little hops. No question, it was Leuk Dawour Mbaye, just as the old people described him. My grandmother used to tell me that in her youth she would huddle up in bed at night, frozen with fear, for she heard the ‘Clop! Clop! Clop!’ of Leuk Dawour patrolling the streets.

I was in the presence of the one and undeniable master of Dakar, he who, since time immemorial, had had a strangle­hold on the city. I was seized with fright, paralyzed. I didn’t dare to make any movement, not even to blink, despite all the dust there was in the courtyard. I sweated in my T-­shirt and torn jeans to the point where you’d have said I had taken a shower fully dressed. Cold sweat. I watched Leuk Dawour rise up towards the sky and loom over my head in an enormous and impressive firework display. Suddenly, I heard a whinnying quite near me that made me jump. I turned around. There was nothing but a wooden ladder placed against the cracking wall. It had seemed to me, however, that the whinny­ing came from that ladder. I didn’t have time to recover from my astonishment. I saw the ladder shake, as if under the influence of an electrical shock, and sink slowly into the earth, provoking horrible sounds like bones cracking. If I’d had the courage, I would have pinched myself to assure myself that I wasn’t dreaming. I saw the ladder descend until it was completely swallowed up by the earth. Leuk Dawour also disappeared. Then, nothing. It became calm once more, a calm disturbed intermittently by the sorrowful cries of the dying waves.