The coffin

I

      As far as I could remember, it had always been there. Its presence in our living room had always seemed incongruous, inappropriate. It had become one with the scenery, after all these years that had seen the family gather mere meters away from it. It was irritatingly clean, shining and blooming all day long with the orange scent of the liquid my mother used to clean it. Every day, without fail, she polished it with precision, humming happily. At ease, as if it was normal that there was a coffin inside of our home. As if it was a piece of furniture as any other.

      This long box of varnished wood seemed to taunt life. I thought for a long time that a millennial vampire was indulging in his restorative sleep and that one day, at the end of his long hibernation, he would wake up to drink our blood. I wondered if he was part of the family, maybe a great-grandfather I would have loved to know. I imagined him beautiful, with translucent skin. Bloodshot eyes, and his teeth, keen, razor-sharp.

Deep down, I felt very proud that one of those fantastic beings, discovered in the books of the only library of the town, was resting in my house. I often talked about him to my friends, avoiding sharing with them the fear that was secretly mine. I told them that I had already seen him, that in a tasty Creole, he had said to be called Excalibur as the sword of which the legends spoke. They were shaking when I told them the nocturnal excursions of my friend the vampire. And it was not unusual for one of them to pretend to have seen him pass under her window.

          -He really talked to you, Melie?

          -How are his teeth? Weren’t you scared?

          -You think we could see him?

      I loved being the centre of attention. I took with them the condescending look of the expert in front of their naive enthusiasm of novices. I told them that the existence of the vampire was a secret and that I was the only one to whom it was revealed. I loved seeing them envy my courage and my luck. And for a few moments, I could forget the fear that gripped every inch of my being as soon as I walked through the door of the house.

II

      I spent long hours observing these four boards, curious to pierce their secret. This coffin was at the core of my biggest fears as a child, this and the big clock of the living room. It was huge, hung near a window overlooking the narrow corridor that allowed going from the bedroom to the veranda. It was beautiful, gilded, and announced each hour with amusing gurgling birds. This clock was older than me, and I did not know how it had landed there. Like the coffin, it had never moved.

      Some nights, I was alone in the living room. My grandmother always went to bed very early, around 6 PM ​​most of the times. Often my mother, tired of all the bustling of the day, would join her as soon as night fell in the only bedroom. I slept very little. The imagination feverish, the head constantly filled with new ideas of games, I spent long waking hours, lost in my worlds. For me, all the objects in the house were alive. Spoons, forks, knives, brushes, combs, all the objects were characters-friends to whom I invented stories, mostly love stories inspired by my readings.

      When everyone was sleeping around me, the coffin behind me, while the candle, the only source of light, diffused an uncertain light, the night took another dimension. There was no electricity at home. In the silence of the night, I could feel the slightest quivering of the trees outside, the crackling of leaves under the feet of rats or mongooses, the screams of locusts and anoles. But I could barely concentrate on all that. I was tortured by the noise made by the needles of the big clock while moving. For me, they were heavy steps that were coming in my direction. As if behind me, someone with heavy boots was moving forward, ready to grab me. I would turn suddenly to glance at the unmoving coffin. Yet I perceived perfectly the steps in my back. But the coffin seemed closed forever. His apparent immobility, however, proved nothing. The vampire might have been able to come out and close after him. Maybe he was already in the dark room, leaning over my mother or grandmother, thirsty.

      I was scared but dared not move from my chair. I felt the footsteps closer to me each time, even felt faintly a light touch on my neck. My legs would begin to shake, chills running through my body. Each time, I wondered if it was the last, if he was not going to finally get tired of this silly game and feed on me.

      After a good half-hour enduring this unbearable tension, I invariably ended up holding my breath, counting to five, before rushing to the next room. In total darkness, I would manage to spot my mother and huddle against her belly. She would surround me with her arms without asking questions. Certainly, she knew about the vampire.

III

      It must be said that nobody had bothered to explain to me the presence of this coffin, enthroned in our living room. To the questions I asked only came evasive answers. My mother would reproach me for my curiosity. However, my grandmother, Aline, seemed panicked when I spoke about it. When a person of her age died in the village, she spent long minutes contemplating the coffin of the vampire, an indecipherable expression on his features. Perhaps accusing him of those deaths.

      Only in these instances could I see Grandma Aline frightened. I admired her strength and energy. I had seen her sick only once when I was six. Her skin was burning and my mother had multiplied cold compresses on her forehead without seeming able to overcome the fever. I remember her glancing frantically at the coffin, a palpable fear on her face and in her eyes. It had struck me so much that the memory was irretrievably printed in my mind. Already then, I told myself that this illness was due to a vampire attack.

IV

      One morning in July, while my grandmother had left the house for her grocery shopping, I had dared. The idea had come to my mind a week ago and since then it had tortured me. I had then begun to wait for the moment to take action. I was hoping for and dreading this opportunity. What would I discover in the coffin? It seemed more threatening since I had decided to uncover its secret. Several times, I had been close to doing it but an unexpected event always happened and ruined everything.

Last time was three days ago. I was alone. Not a single noise could be heard in the house. Step by step, heart pounding at a frantic pace, I had advanced to the coffin, curiosity itching my fingertips. “Finally!” I said to myself. I was trying to silence my fears and all the terrifying stories I had imagined about the mysterious being in my living room. I was close to my goal, my impatient hands were stretched already when suddenly, by the door remained ajar, had reached the hoarse voice of my mother. Contrary to her habits, she returned from the market while the sun was still high in the sky. I ran to the room as if I had the devil (or the vampire!) on the heels; another failed attempt. I had to wait.

But that day, finally, I did it. The clock was ticking 1:30PM. My grandmother had just left.

          "Behave," she told me.

          -You too, Grannie

      She had smiled with her toothless mouth before closing the door, saying she was going for some shopping, that she would not be late. But knowing my grandmother, there was no doubt that she would be out all day. Even though I had plenty of time, I felt a sense of urgency. Nobody was going to interrupt me this time. I walked without hesitation towards the long box that haunted my dreams. My friends would have admired my courage. It was the thought that carried me. I harnessed all the strength of my slender limbs to lift the heavy lid, and surprise!

The coffin was empty.

    Empty. How could that be? Not the slightest trace of my vampire. The interior smelled musty, and there were some nests in the corners harbouring cockroach eggs. No dried blood or anything to reveal that the vampire had slept there. He might have left; perhaps one of those nights when I had heard the sound of his footsteps echoing through the house. I slowly closed the casket. My momentarily satiated curiosity left me with an immense void. And then, without my vampire, I felt very lonely.

V

      It was my mother who finally told me the whole story one evening when I literally assaulted her with my exacerbated pre-adolescent curiosity. In the bedroom, Grannie had been resting for almost an hour. We were sitting in the living room, my mother and I. She was trying, with the help of a comb, to overcome the recalcitrant knots of my unruly hair. It was a real ordeal every time she pulled on the comb. But the silent night was far less terrifying with my mother sitting at my back. The uncertain glow of the candle lit up the contours of the coffin in front of us, whose shadow was moving on the wall. She joined the gigantic shadow of my mother and mine in a dance of which I struggled to grasp the principle; one more thing that used to scare me.

Since I had realised that the coffin was empty, my fear had gradually faded. For my ninth anniversary, my aunt Vivienne had given me a beautiful watch with a beautiful rose mount on which was embedded silver stones. I always had it on me. One morning, while the house was plunged in a heavy silence, I perceived the noise coming from the mechanism of my watch. The same footsteps that I used to hear, but the sound was much lower. So I understood. And I was glad I had never revealed my fears to anyone. The shame it would have been!

      Little by little, the demons of my childhood were flying away, maybe that was growing actually meant. But I had not divulged to my friends my discovery about the coffin. Even though I felt they did not believe in it as much lately. Was our childhood definitely over?

      In my head, I had counted to five before addressing the question to my mother.

      "Mother," I whispered, "why is there a coffin in our living room?

      There was a long silence, and then she reminded me that we had already spoken about this. But I insisted so much that she ended, to my astonishment, to capitulate.

      "It's your grandmother's coffin," she told me.

      I opened my eyes wide to this revelation. A coffin for Grandma Aline, who was still so young. I could not imagine such a thing. And she was alive, my grandmother!

      It was a gift from your uncle Hibbert, she said after struggling against a more forbidding knot than the others. He died before you were born. It was my older brother. He was very handsome. Light skin, intense black eyes. He was the lover of half of the girls around...

VI

      Eyes closed, I tried to imagine this unknown uncle to whom I lent all the charms of princes whose portraits I had seen in the library. I made live in my head the story that my mother continued to unfold in the calm of the night.

       My uncle Hibbert was, according to my mother, an alcoholic and a gambling enthusiast. So, he was always broke and in debt. I imagined him, however, very friendly, an extrovert. I tried to portray his joy on that day when he won a great sum in the evening lottery, his impatience to see the sun rise.

A few days before, Grandma Aline had fallen seriously ill. There was no longer any hope of seeing her survive. This part made me shudder. I loved her so much, Grannie. At the time, there were four of them at home, Grannie, my uncle, my father and my mother. The day after luck had smiled on him, my uncle did not go back to sleep. My mother did not care. It was not the first time her brother had slept out. The next day, the neighbours brought on a stretcher the dead and bruised body of my uncle. My mother had collapsed. They had tried to seal the truth to Grannie for as long as possible, especially since Hibbert was her favourite child.

      Nobody knew how my uncle had used the sum earned. It was never known whether his death was due to love or money. The story remained unclear. Be that as it may, two days after his burial, four men, built like Hercules, had appeared in the town, carrying at arm's length a magnificent coffin, whose varnished entwining seemed to shine under the sun. They had stopped, sweaty, in front of the house. As soon as my mother opened the door, they had rushed inside, quietly placing the coffin in a corner of the living room, where it was to remain for years. Silently surprised, my mother watched them act without moving an eyelash.

      It was my father who, emerging from the room, had summoned the porters to provide him with an explanation. The latter, embarrassed, had exposed their inability to answer him. A little investigation had made it possible to go back to a cabinet shop outside the city where Hibbert, the day before his death, had paid in advance the making of a beautiful coffin for his mother whom he thought was dying.

VI

      When Mamie Aline, whose condition had worsened since the death of my uncle, saw the coffin for the first time, she gasped with surprise, and looked frantically at my mother, who was putting cold compresses on her forehead. Mom explained to her the reason for the coffin, and Grandma Aline simply said "oh!". She asked my mother to leave the curtain raised above the door, so from the bedroom, she kept a constant eye on her strange gift. Sometimes she would stare at it for hours, as I had seen her doing it. And from time to time, my mother told me, tears would come to her eyes and she could not contain them. Mom thought Grannie was crying over my uncle Hibbert through that coffin. But I, who had often seen the fear in Grannie's gaze when she observed the coffin, easily imagined the shock that must have been hers in discovering so close to her the box where her body was supposed to be buried, she must have suddenly seen her own death and felt an unspeakable fear invading her. Like me with my vampire.

Three days after the delivery of the coffin, Grannie's ailment disappeared without a trace. She had already resumed all her activities, dapper, as rejuvenated by ten years. My mother, of course, believed in a favourable action of the coffin and chose not to part with it. Her decision was so established that when my father died, in obscure circumstances, a week after my birth, she refused to use the coffin for him despite the insistence of my paternal family, who hoped to save some expenses. They insulted her restlessly, but the coffin did not move from its location.

      Over the years, many family members died. No one dared to ask my mother for the coffin; the refusal seemed to be painted on her lips. In the midst of all these deaths, Grannie and her coffin remained immutable. But never did my grandmother talk about it. Her connection to the coffin was silent; a relationship made of respect and fear. Poor Grannie!

VII

      Since I have heard the story of my mother, I no longer saw the coffin with the same eye. The traces of fear that might have lingered in my soul disappeared forever. I only had the memory of a time already gone. The coffin did not hide a sleeping vampire, it was a death symbol dropped in our living room, which was perhaps even more terrible. I was sad thinking that someday my grandmother would be nailed between these four dark planks. One day, her smile and her toothless mouth that used to amuse me would simply disappear.

   But it was terrible to tell myself that I would be stuck in a similar box when I died. I had cold sweats. I did not want to be locked in a coffin like a vampire. Like Excalibur. I understood my grandmother's fear; no one could better grasp her feelings than me. This coffin had haunted my dreams; hers too, I'm sure. Her looks were revealing. How did Mom not realize it? Who would want to live under the same roof as their coffin? Even less so when it reminds you of the pain of losing a son.

I came back from the library one day, still troubled by the book I had read there. It spoke of death, of the different rites related to it and so many other things. At night, when my mother served supper, I approached her and with the most solemn air, said to her:

           -Mom, when I die, I don't want to be left in a coffin.

     My mother brought her hand to her heart, but in the dim light of the room, I saw Grannie's discreet smile.

      I understood you Grannie!