My mother explained to me that you have to make the cadaver resemble its living counterpart as best you can – you can’t bury a person with their insides and limbs scattered all over inside the coffin. We reassembled Vili’s body, pushing back as much stuffing as possible, stapling his skin together so he would resemble his old self again. He didn’t – his body was the most horrible sight; his face was a deformity, his friendly smile now a cut-­up grin of insanity. We placed the body in a plastic bag. I demanded that we put some onion into the bag as well – my mother gave in, chopped a bit of red onion and sprinkled it beside Vili. Then we buried the bag in the back yard – I also placed a small cross on the grave. My mother offered me sweets again, then told me to clean my room.

The next morning, I found the cross fallen over and the grave disturbed, as if the earth had been moved from below. My backpack dropped from my hands because I knew that Vili had returned.

Of course, I had alternative theories as well. It could have been an animal that dug up the body, or even a person, a poor child who could only afford dead toys. Perhaps it was Nyinyi who had come for Vili in order to take his distorted body and present it at a gathering of the undead: Look, this is what mankind does to us.

The girl explained to me how it happened, not then, but years later, as an adult.

We met in a supermarket. My cart contained nothing but two bottles of vodka and a six-pack of beer. She was the one to notice me and called my name in a tone which suggested she was happy to see me, as if I were a good old friend, a link to a carefree period of the past. When she called my name I trembled as if she had struck me, and I felt ashamed for not recalling hers. I smiled at her as best I could to camouflage my embarrassment. The girl had become a mother; her daughter was standing by the basket with her head down and a plush toy in her hands – Vili. My throat went dry when I saw Vili; of course I knew it was not my Vili, just another, similar plush toy.

I saw a tiny lesion on the toy’s neck. The girl, who was now a mother, smiled at me. It’s like yours was, she said and leaned closer to me so she could whisper in my ear. Sadly, she whispered, and I could smell chamomile on her breath, sadly, she got infected with some kind of disease. This plush toy is dying, and my daughter has to accept it.