by TEULE, Jean
‘Gymnastics teacher at Montherlant High School.’
‘There you go, just as I thought!’
‘I can’t stand my colleagues or my pupils any more.’
‘Dealing with kids can be difficult sometimes,’ acknowledges Mishima. ‘For example, our last child …’
‘I thought about petrol or napalm.’
‘Ah, a nice immolation in the indoor play area, that’s not bad either,’ agrees the shopkeeper. ‘We have everything you need for that, but, frankly, seppuku … Anyway, I’m not pushing you to spend money; it’s your decision.’
The PE teacher weighs up the two options: ‘Immolation, hara-kiri …’
‘Seppuku,’ Monsieur Tuvache corrects him.
‘Does it require a lot of equipment?’
‘A samurai kimono in your size. I must have an XXL left, and of course the tanto. People make a lot of fuss about it but, look, basically it’s a rather short sabre.’ Monsieur Tuvache speaks dismissively, removing from the wall a white – and actually rather long – weapon, which he places in the customer’s hands. ‘I sharpen them myself. Touch the blade. It goes through you like butter.’
The gym teacher contemplates the glinting blade and frowns while Mishima reaches into a cardboard box for a kimono jacket, which he spreads out in front of him.
‘My eldest son had the idea of sewing this red silk cross onto it, to indicate where to aim the sabre, because there have been times when people aim too high, at the sternum, and it won’t go in, or too low, so it goes into the belly. And, apart from severing your appendix, that doesn’t do anything for you.’
‘Is it expensive?’ enquires the teacher.
‘Three hundred euro-yens, the lot.’
‘Oh! Really? Can I pay by –’
‘Credit card?’ asks the shopkeeper. ‘Here? You must be joking – you might as well suggest a loyalty card while you’re at it!’
‘The thing is it’s an investment.’
‘Ah, of course, it’s more costly than a can of napalm, but, after all, it’ll be your last expense … Not to mention the fact that seppuku is the aristocracy of suicide. And I’m not saying that just because my parents called me Mishima.’
The customer hesitates.
‘I’m afraid I won’t be brave enough,’ confesses the depressive teacher, feeling the weight of the tanto. ‘You don’t do a home service, do you?’
‘Oh no!’ replies Monsieur Tuvache indignantly. ‘We’re not murderers, you know. You have to understand that’s prohibited. We supply what is needed but people do the deed themselves. It’s their affair. We are just here to offer a service by selling quality products,’ continues the shopkeeper, leading the customer towards the checkout.
And, carefully folding the kimono, which he slips into a carrier bag with the sabre, he justifies himself. ‘Too many people do an amateurish job. You know, out of a hundred and fifty thousand people who make the attempt, one hundred and thirty-eight thousand fail. These people often find themselves disabled in wheelchairs, disfigured for life, but with us … Our suicides are guaranteed. Death or your money back! Come now, you won’t regret this purchase, an athlete like you! Just take a deep breath and go for it! And anyway, as I always say, you only die once, so it ought to be an unforgettable moment.’
Mishima puts the PE teacher’s money into the cash register then, as he hands him his change, he adds: ‘Wait a minute. I’m going to tell you a trick of the trade …’
He takes a good look around him to check that nobody is listening, and explains: ‘When you do it in your dining room, kneel on the ground and that way, even if the blade doesn’t go in very deep … because it’s going to sting a little … if you’re on your knees, you can just fall onto your stomach and that’ll push the sabre in up to its hilt. And when you’re discovered, your friends will be really impressed! You don’t have any friends? Well, then, it’ll impress the medical examiner who’ll say: “This fellow didn’t pull his punches!”’
‘Thank you,’ says the customer, overwhelmed at the thought of what he has to do.
‘Don’t mention it – it’s our job. Glad to be of service.’
5
‘Lucrèce! Can you come here!’
Madame Tuvache appears, opening a door under the stairs at the back of the shop. She is wearing a gas mask, which covers her face and neck. The circular goggles over her eyes and the bulky filtration cartridge in front of her mouth make her look like an angry fly.
Dressed in a white overall, she takes off her latex surgical gloves and joins her husband, who has called her over to explain the needs of one of their customers.
‘The lady would like something feminine.’
‘Won-won-won, won-won-won!’ buzzes Madame Tuvache’s fly face. Then she realises she is still wearing her protective gear, unfastens the head straps and continues, gas mask in hand: ‘Ah, something feminine, well, that has to be poison! It’s the most feminine thing there is. In fact, I was just preparing some in the scullery.’
She unbuttons her overall too, and places her paraphernalia on the counter, next to the cash register.
‘Poison … Now, what do I have to offer you? Would you prefer a contact poison – one touch and you’re dead – one you inhale or one you ingest?’
‘Er …’ says the lady, who wasn’t expecting this question. ‘Which is the best?’
‘Contact poison, it’s very fast!’ explains Lucrèce. ‘We have blue eel acid, poison from the golden frog, night star, elven curse, deadly gel, grey horror, fainting oil, catfish poison … Not everything is here, though. Certain items are in the fresh produce section,’ she says, pointing to a unit exhibiting a large quantity of phials.
‘What about the poison you inhale? What’s that like?’
‘It’s quite simple. You unscrew the top and breathe in the contents of the bottle. It could be spider venom, hanged man’s breath, yellow cloud, evil-eye toxin, desert breath …’
‘Oh, I don’t know what to choose. You’re having to go to a lot of trouble.’
‘Not at all,’ replies Madame Tuvache understandingly. ‘It’s perfectly normal to be undecided. If that’s not for you, if you prefer something to swallow, we have vertigo honey, which reddens the skin, of course, because you start to sweat blood.’
The customer frowns.
‘Briefly, why do you want to end it all?’ Lucrèce asks her.
‘I’ve been inconsolable ever since the death of someone I was close to. I think about him all the time. And that’s why I’ve come here to buy something; I can’t think of any other way to forget him.’
‘I see. Well, I would recommend strychnine. It’s extract of nux vomica. As soon as you swallow it, it makes you lose your memory. That way, you’ll have no more suffering or regret. Then paralysis develops and you suffocate to death without remembering a thing. That one’s spot on for you.’
‘Nux vomica …’ repeats the bereaved lady, rubbing her tired eyes with her palms.
‘But, if you prefer to grieve one last time,’ ventures Lucrèce, ‘you can also make your own poison. Many women like the idea of mulling over their pain as they prepare for death. For example, digitalis: you crush up some foxglove petals in a mortar, which we have in the fresh produce section. You know, they’re those clusters of flowers shaped like drooping fingers, the ones that resemble the limp hands of people overcome by grief. When you’ve obtained a fine powder, mix it with water and boil it. Then let it cool – that will give you time to blow your nose and write a letter explaining what you’ve done – then filter the solution. Put it on to boil again until the liquid has evaporated. This will produce a white, crystalline salt, which you swallow. The advantage is that it’s not expensive: two fifty a bunch! We’ve also got Strychnos branches for extracting curare, black holly berries for theobromine …’
Intoxicated by this succession of possibilities, the customer no longer knows what to think. ‘What would you take?’
‘Me? I’ve no idea,’ replie
s Lucrèce regretfully. And the look in her beautiful, solemn eyes becomes fixed, as if she were gazing far ahead of her. It’s as if she’s no longer in the shop. ‘We’re depressed too, and we’d have plenty of reasons to end it all, but we can’t sample our own products or the last one of us to try them would have to pull down the steel shutters pretty fast. And then what would our customers do?’
Madame Tuvache seems to come back to earth. ‘What I do know is that cyanide dries out the tongue and creates an unpleasant sensation. So, when I prepare it, I add mint leaves to refresh the mouth … Those are the extras our business offers. Alternatively, we also have the cocktail of the day! What did I make this morning?’
She goes back to the slate hanging on the window catch. On it is written, in chalk: SANDMAN.
‘Oh yes, Sandman! Why didn’t I think of it before? I’m so scatterbrained at the moment. Madame, you couldn’t decide between poisons for contact, inhalation or ingestion. Well, this is a mixture of all three: belladonna, deadly gel and desert breath. So, whichever option you should choose at the last moment, whether you swallow the cocktail, touch it or breathe it in, the game will be up!’
‘Right, well, I’ll take that one,’ the customer decides.
‘You won’t regret it. Oh! I’m so stupid, I was about to say: “You can tell me how you get on with it.” It’s that child who’s driving me mad!’ grumbles Lucrèce, pointing her chin at Alan, who’s standing in front of the rope display with his feet together and his hands on his head. ‘Do you have children, Madame?’
‘I did have one, actually … One day he came here to buy a bullet for a .22 long rifle.’
‘Oh.’
‘He saw everything in black. I could never make him happy.’
‘Well, we certainly can’t say the same about our youngest …’ laments Madame Tuvache. ‘He sees everything in shades of pink – can you imagine? As if there was any reason for such a thing! I don’t know how he does it. And yet I can assure you that we brought him up exactly the same way as the other two, who are depressives just as he should be, but he only ever notices the bright side of things,’ sighs Lucrèce, raising a hand that trembles with indignation. ‘We force him to watch the TV news to try and demoralise him, but if a plane carrying two hundred and fifty passengers crashes and there are two hundred and forty-seven fatalities, he only remembers the number of survivors!’ She imitates him: ‘“Oh, Mother, how lovely life is! Three people fell out of the sky and they weren’t hurt at all.” My husband and I have pretty much given up. I can assure you that there are times when we would gladly take some Sandman if we didn’t have to take care of the shop.’
Intrigued, the customer approaches Alan. ‘He’s in the corner …?’
The said Alan turns his curly blond head towards her. A broad piece of sticking plaster hermetically seals the child’s mouth. On the pink plaster, in felt-tip pen, someone has drawn an evil sneer and a tongue sticking out, with the corners of the mouth sloping downwards – making him look like an extremely bad sort.
While wrapping up the phial of Sandman, his mother explains to the lady: ‘It was his big brother, Vincent, who drew the grimace. Personally, I wasn’t terribly keen for him to draw it with the tongue sticking out, but it’s still better than continually hearing him laughing out loud about how wonderful life is.’
The customer examines the sticking plaster. From the shape of the Elastoplast as it sticks to the lips, it is quite clear that underneath the grimacing lines, the child is smiling. Lucrèce hands the carrier bag to the lady. ‘He’s being punished. At school, he was asked who suicides were, and he answered: “People being sued.”’
6
Vincent’s emaciated body is swamped in a grey djellaba patterned with drawings of explosives: sticks of dynamite and black ball-shaped bombs with fuses spitting out yellow and green flashes of light. He is twenty years old. The walls of his bedroom are entirely devoid of decoration. As he sits facing a narrow bed, elbows propped on an overloaded table backed up against a wall, a tube of glue trembles in his hand. The Tuvaches’ elder son has striking bushy eyebrows and sports a short, spiky red beard. His breathing is laboured and quivering, and his fixed sidelong look reflects the tragedy of his inner torment. Crêpe bandages compress the entire upper part of his head; he still suffers from violent migraines. Brown crusts swell his thick lower lip, the result of frequently being bitten hard enough to draw blood, while his upper lip is very red and delicate. In the middle it lifts into two points, like the scarlet canopy of a tiny circus tent. In front of him on the table lies a strange, macabre model under construction, while behind him, on the other side of the dividing wall, can be heard:
‘Da-da, doobi-doobi da-da-da!’
‘Mother!’
‘What now?’ demands his mother from the kitchen.
‘Alan’s playing happy songs!’
‘Oh no, give me strength … You know, I’d rather have given birth to an entire nest of vipers than bring up that ridiculous child!’ grumbles Lucrèce, coming into the corridor and opening the door of her younger son’s bedroom. ‘Will you give it a rest? How many times have I told you we don’t want you to listen to those stupid cheerful ditties? Were funeral marches composed for dogs? You know how much it upsets your brother, having to listen to those cheery songs, and how much it makes his head hurt.’ She leaves the room and enters Vincent’s, where she’s confronted by the debris of the exploded model. ‘Oh, well done, you’ve really done it now!’ she says, still talking to Alan. ‘Look at this catastrophe your music’s caused. You’ve really done yourself proud this time!’
It’s not long before the father of the family arrives. ‘What’s happening?’
Then Marilyn appears, dragging her feet. All three of them – Lucrèce, Marilyn and Mishima – are here now, surrounding Vincent.
‘What has happened,’ yells Madame Tuvache, ‘is that your younger son has been up to his usual tricks again!’
‘He’s not my son,’ retorts her husband. ‘My son is Vincent. He’s a real Tuvache.’
‘And what about me?’ asks Marilyn. ‘Where’s my place in all this?’
Mishima strokes his elder son’s bandaged cranium. ‘So, what happened? You broke your model?’
‘A model of what?’ enquires the Tuvaches’ daughter.
Vincent sobs. ‘The model of a suicide theme park.’
‘Of what?’
7
‘It would … It would be like a big fair for people who’d had enough of life. At the shooting gallery customers would still pay, but to be the target.’
As he listens to Vincent, Mishima sits down on the bed.
‘My son is a genius.’
‘It would be the most deadly amusement park. On the walkways, among the smells of frying chips and the poisonous mushrooms we would sell, tears would trickle softly down the customers’ cheeks.’
‘Death caps!’ cries Mishima, and Lucrèce and Marilyn get carried away too, breathing in the smell of the chips …
‘Barrel organs would grind out sad songs. Ejection carousels would propel people like catapults, right over the town. There would be a very high palisade from which lovers could throw themselves, just like they’d throw themselves off a cliff, hand in hand.’
Marilyn joins her own hands and rubs them together.
‘In the din of the ghost train’s wheels, laughter punctuated with sobs would spin off into an imitation gothic castle full of comical traps, all of them deadly: electrocution, drowning, sharpened portcullises that would slam down into people’s backs. The friends or relatives who had accompanied a despondent person would leave with a small box containing the desperate person’s ashes, because at the end of the fairground attraction there would be a crematorium, into which the bodies freefall one after the other.’
‘The lad is amazing,’ says Mishima.
‘Father would feed the furnace. Mother could sell tickets …’
‘And what about me – how would I be of use? Where would
I fit in?’
Vincent Tuvache pivots his head so that he almost faces his sister. Oh, the piercing power of his gaze, the ravaged radiance of his anguished eyes beneath his head bandages! Outside in the darkness, through the panes of his sombre room’s small window, a neon advertising sign suddenly dazzles him with a crazy intense yellow light. Then the shadows of his face become a very pale green and his short, now pink, beard seems painted by brushstrokes arranged in a star formation. Overexposed in the artificial brightness, he is also haloed by the vibrations of an incredible self-destructive passion. The three people around him are moved by the sound of his heart-rending cry. The light changes and becomes red. It is as if Vincent, who lowers his head, had been caught in the blast from a bomb:
‘It would be like when I’m dreaming and I wake up, then I go back to sleep but I’m still forever dreaming of the same fairy tale, the same setting …’
‘Have you had this project in mind for a long time?’ asks his mother.
‘On the walkways, employees disguised as evil witches will offer poisoned toffee apples – “Come, Mademoiselle. Eat this poisoned apple …” – then they’ll go off and see someone else.’
‘Actually, I could do that,’ suggests Marilyn. ‘I’m ugly.’
The elder son sets out all his plans: the cabins on the Big Wheel – the floors of which would give way at twenty-eight metres above ground – and the incomplete Figure of Eight rollercoaster with ascending rails that, after a dizzying descent, would suddenly stop in full flight. He explains the model, which he demolished moments ago with a blow from his fist, while his little brother leaves his room, and passes Vincent’s open door humming and snapping his fingers in time:
‘Don’t worry, be happy … !’
His appalled mother, curses at the ready, turns round and clenches her fists at him. To her and her husband, Alan’s castanet fingers are an aberration.