her talkative and inappropriate jokester friend drops by two days later.
I’m visiting Clothilde, like I usually do when I’m on the lookout for visitors. None of us understand how she managed to afford a place in this cemetery in the first place, what with the no name, no family, no mourners thing, but at least there’s a certain “logic” to hers being the least popular spot, right next to the trash by the exit.
The main entrance is on the other side, by the church, but that’s not where the interesting visitors come through.
“So how long do you think she’ll keep this up?” Clothilde asks as she lounges on the ground, right on top of where her casket lies, six feet below. Her hands folded behind her head and her ankles crossed, she stares dreamily at the two or three clouds clotting the painfully blue winter sky.
“I don’t know,” I reply. “Not much we can do about it. She’ll just have to get it out of her system.” I’m sitting with my back against her tombstone, arms around my bent knees, and my chin on my knees. I’d put my hands over my ears if I thought it would do any good.
Even if we do this regularly, it still grates on the nerves to hear someone screaming in panic from waking up in a coffin for several days on end.
Clothilde grunts and blows at a fly zipping around her nose. The fly careens off course.
“We can’t all be like you,” I say. “Accepting that you’re dead isn’t easy for anyone.”
“It is if you were as good as dead before.”
Clothilde tends to make cryptic and worrisome comments like this. There’s no point in asking her to elaborate, she’ll only clam up. But I take note of everything. One day, maybe, I’ll understand where she came from.
The rusty hinges of the iron grate squeal and the jokester comes through. He looks more at ease in a pair of jeans and a thick leather jacket than he did in a suit two days ago, but there are dark circles under his eyes and his hair doesn’t look like it’s seen shampoo or a comb since the funeral.
He looks left and right, making sure he’s alone—it’s half past ten on a Wednesday night, of course he’s alone—before making a beeline for the new grave.
“I’m going to listen in,” I say as I jump up and follow. “You coming?”
Clothilde sighs. “Guess so.” She rolls into an upright position with more grace than a dancer. “It’ll take my mind off the screaming. Maybe.”
The jokester stands at the limit between grass and dirt, his tear-filled eyes on the wooden cross with “Florence Bernard” penciled in. Just as I reach him, he falls to his knees in the dirt and the air goes out of his lungs in a whoosh.
He leans forward, shoving his hands into the black earth. His position makes me think of praying Muslims. But he’s not talking to a deity. He’s talking to the girl who’s still screaming, who still hasn’t accepted her fate.
“I’m so sorry,” he sobs. “It’s all my fault. I’m so, so sorry.”
Ah. A confession.
Although I don’t have the satisfaction of having worked to find the culprit, at least I can tell the girl about it when she comes out. Perhaps it will be enough to allow her to move on immediately.
“I told them, Flo,” the man continues, his face only millimeters from touching the dirt. “I told them who did it, but they didn’t believe me. Two different police officers and they told me to take a hike. I didn’t even make a joke!”
He sobs for a couple of minutes. His hands start to shake, probably from the biting cold, but he leaves them buried.
“This is why I always make the jokes, Flo. Nobody ever takes me seriously, so I might as well make it look like it’s on purpose. You were the only one to ever really listen to me. And now you’re dead because of that bastard!” A fist escapes the dirt and he slams it into the ground several times, gasps escaping as his body attempts to sob and breathe at the same time.
Okay, so maybe he’s not the killer. It would be really helpful if he could give me a name, though. This is where being a ghost is really a drag—my suspects can’t hear my questions.
“Everybody can see how much he loved her.” He’s quoting someone, complete with dirty fingers slashing quote marks in the air. “He’d never lay a hand on her. Can’t you see how torn up he is? Of course he’s torn up! He bloody killed you! He no longer has his golden goose!”
He sits back on his haunches and runs his hands through his hair. I wince in sympathy and hope he’s planned on taking a shower soon.
I also wish he’d give me a name.
The man calms down. He pats the dirt back into place, as if having a perfectly smooth mound of dirt is Flo’s greatest preoccupation at the moment.
“You shouldn’t have done it,” he says, his voice so low I can hardly hear him over his friend’s screams. “We were fine as just friends. Worked out really well. You had your successful fiancé, the great job, the white picket fence in view. Everything you and your father had planned for.”
He sits back on his heels. “Shouldn’t have thrown it all away, Flo. I’d rather have had you for a friend than not have you at all.”
Okay. Moving the fiancé up to the top of the list of suspects.
The friend—lover?—stays for over an hour, crying silently on the grave.
The screams from below continue.