Louis Maistros - The Sound of Building Coffins

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.

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.