The Coffin-1

THE COFFIN

Mysteries of the Art World had been a huge success. People had flocked from all over Europe – the world, even – to Valletta, the pocket-sized capital of tiny Malta to see the dozen pieces on display in the Muza art museum. The Tourist Board reckoned that several of thousand visitors had come just to see the special exhibition; the Muza people had counted record attendances, all of them happy to pay the stiff 30 Euro fee.

 

Stephen Buttigieg was happy too. The Mysteries show had closed on Saturday and all the items bar one had been despatched to their next showings or were safely back en route to their home countries – the pair of Easter Island statues; the Blueflower that looked uncannily like a Van Gogh but had been painted 50 years before his birth; a Banksy, carefully prised from a wall in Manchester; the tiny statuettes from Madagascar; a painting of a rhinoceros on a stone unearthed in the Sahara; the vast collection of pictures of house-fronts taken by a photographer in Lewisham, London; the exquisitely detailed pink flower mosaics that had been carbon-dated to 10,000BCE and all the rest.

That left just the Famagusta Sarcophagus, and that was due to fly out on the evening’s DHL freighter to a show in Brasilia, via Brussels and then on to Rio as bellyhold cargo on a Verusa passenger flight.

 

The Sarcophagus – or the Mystery Coffin as The Times of Malta had dubbed it – was his least favourite piece in the show. Blown out of the crypt of a church destroyed by a mortar in the Civil War, it had lain disregarded in a Connecticut university’s archaeology department until the early 2000s. Then, a young researcher had noticed the supposedly Celtic runic carvings – about a thousand years and a thousand miles out of place. Experts had been theorising about it ever since.

 

There was something about the dark ebony-black mottled wood that made Stephen feel almost queasy, like animal or human flesh. From one end, it did look like a coffin, something that could have contained a corpse but it became progressively more twisted and distorted along its length; the other end piece was practically at right angles to the other, the wood in-between covered by an almost fungoid growth.

 

The parties of schoolkids loved it though, goggling and giggling at the distorted black shape.

 

And that researcher must have had sharp eyes. Even knowing they were there, Stephen could hardly make out the faint carvings; mere scratchings in the black surface. More of an artefact, than art, he thought.

Still, like the dutiful parents of an ugly child, you had to take care of every shipment you were entrusted with, and the Coffin would be no exception.

 

The Coffin was already loaded onto Interworld Art Shipping’s small covered Mitsubishi truck in Muza’s loading-bay, trussed up in an open wooden frame – better to allow the ancient wood to breathe – with temperature, humidity and shock monitors attached - ready for the short trip to Malta International Airport.

Stephen had assigned Charlie, his best driver, to the job. He trusted him to negotiate the cobbled streets of Valletta and the bumps of the main road ultra-carefully and without submitting the Sarcophagus to any more vibration than absolutely necessary.

 

 

Stephen’s phone rang. It was Ronny, from the airfreight general sales agency up near the airport in Luqa. Another good guy; an Englishman who’d come out to Malta 30 years ago and never gone home. Knew everything there was to know about airlines, airports and handling agents in every known corner of the globe, and even quite a few unknown ones.

“Stephen – there’s a problem with the shipment; the big coffin. It can’t fly.”

“Can’t fly? Why can’t it fly? We made the booking weeks ago; we paid extra for the priority rate, BOTH sectors, the DHL and Verusa, NO WAY could we get offloaded.!… The Verusa flight’s gone technical, hasn’t it? Might have known, can’t trust anyone these days …”

“No, it’s not that. The airline’s refusing to take it. Refusing, point blank…”

“ What? WHY?

 “You don’t really do social media, do you Stephen? But go on Facebook, Twatter, whatever, there’s this story that’s being going round about this coffin thing being unlucky, dangerous. People have got wind of the fact that it’s going to be on a Verusa flight; they’ve been cancelling bookings left, right and centre, Verusa’s passenger department are doing their nut … Even some of the crew saying they’re going to refuse to fly…”

“That’s PRE-POST-ER-OUS. For FUCK’s sake, it’s just a piece of wood, man! We got the health certs, all the clearances. We can X-ray it again, if they want, if we must … No way could that thing ever explode! Only way it could be dangerous is if you dropped it on your goddam FOOT!”

“It’s not that, Stephen. People just think it’s kind of, like the Mummy’s Curse - lots of stories over the years. People touching the thing and dying in agony, plagues, that sort of thing … ”

“CURSED? Give me Verusa’s number in Brussels; sure they’ll know about cursing when I talk to them. This is CRAZY, man!”

“They’re adamant, Stephen. “The Coffin’s not flying anywhere, for the foreseeable…Have a look on the social media when you’ve time”

“But surely it can go on the freighter, the DHL to Brussels tonight? Or are you telling me they’re spooked too?”

“No, DHL haven’t enough imagination to be spooked. But my agent in Brazil isn’t keen on it ending up in their hub in Brussels with nowhere to go. Busy freight terminal isn’t the best place for a thousand-year-old artefact ... “

“And he just thought I might be willing to give it house room in my depot until people have stopped RUNNING ABOUT on the CEILING …”

“It would probably be just the one night, Stephen. “Chances are we can find a thoroughly unsuperstitious freighter operator to Brazil from somewhere in Europe and get it on its way tomorrow…”

“OK, OK, I can do. Let me run downstairs and catch Charlie before he heads off to the airport. Wonder what DHL’s T&Cs say about mass hysteria…”

 

 

With Charlie rerouted to Interworld’s depot in Paola, he tracked down the Muza’s duty manager and explained the situation. She was far from happy that the Coffin was heading for anywhere other than the Brussels flight but in the end shrugged, and said: “Well, we know you’ll take good care of it, Stephen. We can count on you to keep it safe, can’t we? The Coffin WILL be safe, won’t it?”

 

He hurried out of the Muza. Before heading for the bus station, he had to drop some paperwork at Grimaldi Shipping’s office on St Barbara Bastion. He scampered down Merchants Street, right onto Melitta Street, left onto St Paul’s, right again onto San Gwann, his shoes ringing metallically on the smooth stone pavements. The Valletta streets were quiet at this hour; the few tourists were congregated on in and around the bars and restaurants of Republic Street.

His footsteps clattered over the footbridge and there he was on St Barbara Bastion. Grimaldi’s buildings with its blue shutters, too pretty really to be a shipping line office.

Dropping his papers with the receptionist, he headed back up St Barbara Bastion, glancing to the left across the Grand Harbour. A bulker was heading, in ballast, towards the shipyard, a jack-up rig was moored in the Channel. The last of the daylight glinted off the golden medieval stone of the old city. He’d lived on Malta all his life; it wasn’t a view you would ever get tired of.

On Sant Orsla street, a black-frocked woman was methodically closing the shutters on the veranda. High winds were forecast. Valletta was hunkering down for a stormy night.

 

In the bus station, he sought out a bus to Hamrun, eventually locating one in its far reaches, below the bastion wall. Generally, he didn’t do buses – his normal commute from his home in St Julian’s the depot was easier in the car, but today was an exception, because he’d needed to go into the centre of Valletta.

It was dark by the time the bus got to Hamrun. He got off at the third stop on Zumar Road, walked the hundred yards to the office. Charlie had parked the truck in Interworld’s small loading bay; it fitted the space like a glove, just a few inches to spare either side and above, almost as if it had been built round it. The Coffin, still lashed to its flatbed, couldn’t have been in a safer place.

“Ciao, Stephen!” called Charlie, heading to the door, his bag over his shoulder. “See you tomorrow!”

 

He called his wife, Martha. “Just a minute Stephen.” She bellowed in Malti a misbehaving grandchild. Then: “When are you coming home tonight?”

“I can’t, tonight. Something’s come up.”

“What’s come up?”

“The Mystery Coffin. It’s in the depot. I’ve got to stay and look over it…”

“WHAT! Who on God’s earth would steal that old lump of..of WOOD! Just lock the place up and come home Steve! Have you taken leave of your senses?”

“Sorry, Martha. But I did promise the Muza that I’d look after it and sod’s law says that the one night I decide to leave something in the depot unguarded, it’ll be the one night that we have a break-in. I’ll be fine.”

“Well, I can’t come out there and bring you any dinner – I’ve got Louisa’s kids tonight.”

“Yes, I know. I can get something delivered, if I’m hungry.”

“Well, you know best Steve. See you tomorrow …”