When Hel awaits

Like a skeleton with wispy hair, and skin like leather, she lies there, propped up against her old pillows with the worn and faded rose patterns on the pillowcases. The ancient mahogany queen-size bed looks enormous around her. There is a smell of rotting flesh in the room, mixed with the lavender she always insists on having on her nightstand. It’s making me nauseous, but I try to appear unfazed.

She looks like she is hanging on by the thinnest of threads. However, her eyes are still clear and piercing. She is looking at us all, one at a time, with a look that could wither even the hardest, most rugged and toughest man. As her eyes land on me, I feel myself flinching before I can steel myself and try to look back with kindness. She doesn’t seem to care, but carries on eyeing the members of her family with disdain.

“I see you’ve all managed to find time, at long last, to come and see me.” Her voice is quiet, and weak but you can still hear the anger and the contempt as she hisses and spits out the words.

We all steal looks around the room, trying to avoid meeting HER eyes for as long as possible. My father is standing on my left side and he takes a tentative step forward before his shoulders visibly slump in front of me.

“Mother, please! We are all here because we love you…” he begins but she makes a growling noise (where does she get the strength??) and he goes quiet. He takes a step back, to return to my side.

“Well, you’re all here now, and I don’t have long, so I want to tell you a family secret I have been carrying with me ever since I was a young woman, because I do not wish to go and see Hel and have to deal with her wrath.” Her long, skeletal fingers are dancing lightly over the sheet lining the comforter on the bed, and I cannot help but being reminded of spiders. Clawlike spiders, with skinny but swift legs. I shrug imperceptibly, to rid myself of the image I have conjured.

“Find chairs and take a seat. I don’t want you all towering over me.” A small amount of spittle has appeared in the corner of her mouth and I turn my head away so I don’t have to see it. It has a red tinge. She isn’t long for this world.

We all reluctantly grab chairs and begin gathering around the bed, father taking the spot closest to his mother, who gives him a withering look. I wonder what’s going on there. I always thought he could do no wrong in her eyes. I know my mother has always had to be the one blamed for everything that has happened, because grandmother would never consider, even with proof presented on a silver platter, that her son would have flaws. I was quite young when I understood this dynamic in our family. Mother has never said anything to me to indicate that she has felt wronged, but I’ve seen the pain in her eyes that these two have caused her, and I loathe them for it.

“I am going to tell you what happened to my beloved husband all those years ago, and I am not going to hold anything back.”

I am abruptly brought back to the present by the hissing and spitting voice of my grandmother. I look over at her and she has a sneer on her face that makes me feel ill. I have never seen such malice in her face before. She looks positively evil.

I hear a collective breath being drawn by the aunt, the uncle, and the grandchildren gathered around the spent and emaciated witch lying in the bed. We have all wondered what happened that night he disappeared, long before I was born. We have all also conjured ideas and stories to try to explain it, but we have nothing. No trace was ever found of him, no body, no letter. Nothing. I always considered the possibility that it had been foul play, though. However, I can’t claim to think grandmother was involved. She has always been so frail, and frankly cowardice.

“It all started when I was pregnant, with you, Silvia” grandmother looks over at her middle child, a portly woman in her 50s with jowls already threatening to cover what little remained of a jawline, and cankles that threaten to overflow in her sensible walking shoes.

“I was ill, quite ill, and my maid had been sent to fetch medications from the pharmacy that Dr. Frost had prescribed and…” grandmother closes her eyes, but her mouth remains wide open gasping for air. We all look at her in morbid fascination, presumably wondering if she’ll manage to finish this story at all. She looks deathly beige, not white as one might assume, but rather beige and patchy. Her skin is stretched taught over her cheekbones, and there are circles under her eyes that look like second-day bruises. I look over at mother who is sitting on the other side of the bed, and I notice that she is no longer watching grandmother. She is looking over my shoulder at a portrait I know is hanging on the wall behind me. A portrait of my grandfather, whom I never met.

It has been decided, and very firmly stated by grandmother, that no heroic efforts will be used to keep her on this earth, so we all wait, quietly. After what seems like an eternity, she opens her eyes again. For a quick moment, she seems surprised to see us, and then her memory returns.

“Where was I? Oh yes, the maid went to fetch my medication. That’s right. That girl was always so loyal to me. Hard to find employees like that anymore.” Something approaching softness spreads across her face. I bet she can’t remember that girl’s name though, I think.

“You were at my side as well, Frank” she says now, turning her head to look at father. “You were always at my side when I was sick. You were such a good boy. Such a shame you chose so poorly when it came to a wife.” Everyone’s heads swiveled with an almost perceptible “swoosh” to look at my mother on the other side of the bed. I felt hot raging anger welling up inside me.

“How dare you, grandmother!” I shout before I can even think twice about it. I stand up and take a step closer to the bed. “You are a wicked woman. You never accepted mother, and thus you never accepted me, either!” Several people in the room draw audible gasps. Father stands up, and puts a hand on my shoulder.

“Mathilda, please. This is not the time or the place.”

“Oh, you coward! You weak, pathetic excuse for a man! You have NEVER supported mother. You don’t deserve her!” I feel my hand balling into a firm fist, and I can feel the urge to punch him start to overwhelm me. There is a lot of built-up tension here that has been looking for a reason to release, for quite some time.

I feel a warm hand on my other arm, and I whip my head around. Mother is there, tears in her eyes, gratitude shining from her face.

“Mathilda, darling, please sit down. Your father is right. This is neither the time, nor the place.”

I look around the room, at my uncle Gerard leaning forward in his chair, glee filling every greasy pore in his blotchy face, and at Silvia who has gone white. I skirt past the grandchildren, and my eyes finally fall on grandmother on the bed. Her sneer remains. She looks at me with contempt. And father, that craven, repugnant excuse for a man, is standing by his mother’s side looking at me and mother with a face full of malice.

I let mother lead me back to my chair, and I watch as she walks back to hers, her head lowered and arms hugging herself tightly. My time will come for revenge, don't you worry, mother. I will make sure mother’s reputation is saved, and I will destroy my father’s. But they’re right. It will have to wait.

“Temper just like my beloved husband, you have, Mathilda. No self-control. He was the same.” Her voice has grown stronger. The hatred she harbors for me and mother has given her the strength she needed. The evil is fully unleashed now.

“Well, he learned. He learned that a temper gets you nowhere. He learned that the biggest strength a man can display is self-control. But he learned it all too late. He was not a kind man, your father” she continues, laying her eyes on father. He flinches. I know he loved his father, he adored him in fact. This must cause him to falter in his support of his villainous mother. It is about damn time!

“I was ill, but not so ill that I could not act, when he came to inform me that his mistress was also pregnant. He told me, who was due to deliver his second child in less than 2 months, that he had just found out his mistress was pregnant as well. And he told me he wanted me, ME, to raise that child as my own!” She is breathing heavily now, rage causing red blotches to appear on her wrinkly neck and beige cheeks.

“Have you never wondered why there are only 7 months between you two, Silvia and Gerard? Have you never wondered, Gerard, why I never spent much time with you much less providing affection? You were forced on me! I never wanted you.”

I look over at Gerard and he, too, has gone completely white. I can’t conjure an ounce of compassion. He has always been an imbecile, with huge gambling debts.

“Well, that is what happened, and I was heart-broken. I loved your father, but he was an oaf and a scoundrel and I had to punish him for what he put me through.” Father has sat down again. I can see he is shocked and confused. I feel satisfaction welling up inside me.

“Well, my maid was loyal to me, and only me. She was a good girl. We hatched a plan. She hated you too, incidentally, Gerard. She was the one who had to look after you, because I refused. She had to wipe your bottom when you took ages to potty train. She loathed you.” Grandmother shoots a look of venom towards my uncle once more. He looks like he’s about to pass out, or have a coronary. I do not give it a second thought. I look back at the pile of excrement in the bed, that is trying to assume the persona of my grandmother.

“About two weeks before I was to give birth to you, Silvia, we set the plan in action. The maid pretended to have injured her foot, so he had to go and give the pigs food. I went with him, and as he was leaning over the trough, I drove an axe into the upper part of his back. He passed out, of course, but didn’t die at that time. He became paralysed, though. Couldn’t do a darn thing when he finally woke up. And he woke up in the pigs’ pen. He pleaded with me to help him. I spat in his face.” Her eyes have glazed over while she is telling the story, but pink spittle continues to form in the corners of her mouth. She seems delirious and we are all looking at each other horrified. Nobody is horrified that she is dying. It is what she is telling us that horrifies us.

Her eyes slide back into focus, all of a sudden, and she glares at us all in turn again. There is such malice in her eyes. There’s no doubt in my mind where she is headed, when the grim reaper finally arrives.

“Yes! I did that. The scoundrel had been unfaithful and expected me to pick up the pieces! I left him in that pen. And pigs, when they’re hungry, do not leave much for anyone to find. What was left of him, a week later, we threw in the furnace and left it at that. My sweet maid took the secret to her grave. And I have carried the burden of all this, all these years, but I feel better now.” She sighs, and closes her eyes again.

We are all sitting there in stunned silence. Nobody dares to look at anyone. Well, except for me. I am watching father. He is twitching, next to me. His face is turning redder with every passing second. There is no doubting it, he is livid. He suddenly shoots up from his chair and heads over to his mother. She opens her eyes and looks up at him.

“Have you finally come to kill me, Frank? It would not be a moment too soon. And when you’re done, do the same with that useless wench you call a wife.” Her voice does not have quite the same strength as before. She is completely spent. I find myself wishing father would hurry up and do it already. She does not deserve to die with dignity. She should die in anguish. She is truly evil.

Father yanks the pillow with the faded rose pattern from underneath her skeletal head and holds it up in front of her face. She sneers at him.

“Do it, coward. DO IT!” some of that strength has suddenly returned and she sounds like a demon from the most fetid corners of hell. Father is moved into action. He places the pillow over her face, and as she struggles to draw her last breaths, her arms flailing helplessly, we all get up from our chairs and slowly file out of the room, leaving father to finish the job that should have been done years ago.

The last thing I hear is a faint laugh, as Hel arrives to collect the rotten, tarnished soul of a wicked woman. I smile. I’ll be asking her to come back soon. Someone else has a debt to pay.