by TEULE, Jean
‘No, I’m not hungry.’
Being alive takes so long. Giving up everything takes so long.
‘I’m going to bed.’
The thing is, tomorrow he’ll have to live again.
28
The next morning, Monsieur Tuvache no longer has the strength to get up. His wife tells him not to worry. ‘Stay in bed. With the children’s help, we’ll manage very well. The doctor I’ve called says that you’re having a real nervous breakdown and that you have to rest. I’ve made an arrangement with Alan’s school. He’ll miss a few days but it doesn’t matter. You know how full of ideas that little chap is.’
‘What ideas?’
Mishima attempts to get up: ‘I have to mould breeze-blocks, weave ropes, sharpen blades …’
But his head is spinning and his wife orders: ‘Get back into bed! And don’t think about it any more. We’ll work out how to run the shop without you.’
And off she goes, leaving the door open so that her husband can call. From downstairs in the shop, Monsieur Tuvache hears imagination preparing for an orgy of activity in the bright light of day. Lucrèce and Marilyn come up the stairs.
‘There, my dear, take the basket and go and buy three legs of lamb, some oranges and bananas … and some sugar too! I’m going to prepare it in the old way, and I’ll follow Alan’s advice as well. It doesn’t matter if the lambs didn’t commit suicide. It doesn’t change the taste. Ernest, would you help me to get rid of all this? So, Vincent, will the first ones be ready soon?’
Mishima detects an odd smell in the air. ‘What are you making?’
His wife arrives with a plate, enters the bedroom and answers: ‘Crêpes.’
‘You mean … mourning crêpe?’
‘Of course not; don’t be silly! The sort of crêpes you eat, of course. Look, Vincent pours batter into the frying pan with the ladle. He designs them in the shape of a skull and leaves holes for the eyeballs, the nasal cavities and the spaces between the teeth. And then, see? He pours in the batter crosswise, in the form of two crossed bones, like on pirate flags.’
‘Do you serve them dusted with cyanide?’
‘Oh, very funny! I think you need to rest now,’ says Lucrèce, leaving the room.
They all bustle about, passing each other in the corridor, like butterflies scattering madness at a whirling ball. At lunchtime, orders are shouted out: ‘Two portions of lamb – Lucrèce! Three crêpes – Vincent! Marilyn, would you please go and shake the hand of the gentleman downstairs? Crêpes: two with chocolate and one with sugar.’
‘Lucrèce!’
‘What now?’
Madame Tuvache enters the bedroom again, wiping her hands on an apron. Her husband, who is horribly tense, asks her: ‘What is this place turning into? A restaurant?’
‘No, you silly thing, because we’re going to have music too!’
‘Music?! What kind of music?’
‘Alan has some friends who play ancient instruments. I think they’re called … guitars. And besides, that boy’s remarkable, you know. He cheers up the victims.’
‘What victims?’
‘The customers.’
‘You call our customers victims? But, Lucrèce …’
‘Oh, everything’s fine. I don’t have time to argue.’
She goes out again leaving him to a melancholy waltz and vertigo; Mishima seems to be looking though a haze of vapour. Sitting in his bed, wearing a kimono jacket with a red X under the solar plexus, he looks like some oriental thinker … Chaos churns in his mind and heavy mists swim before his eyes.
Alan passes the room and stops. ‘How’s it going, Dad?’
What large eyes the child has, this friendly healer of human anxieties. His adored schemes in which unknown treasures sparkle. And his fireworks, his outbursts of joy, which bring laughter to the dumb, shadowy skies of the City of Forgotten Religions.
Something escapes from Mishima’s throat like a song that has lost its way. The child goes away.
Monsieur Tuvache would like to get up but he gets tangled in the sheets like a fish struggling in the mesh of the net. He can’t manage it, and drops his arms onto the bedcovers.
He can feel the metamorphosis, attributes it entirely to Alan. He knows that now everything at the Suicide Shop has been altered by the skilled little alchemist.
29
‘The door!’
Mishima has ordered that the bedroom door be kept shut. In bed, he switches on his TV (3D – with integral sensations) in time for the evening news. He presses one of the many buttons on a remote control.
A female presenter materialises in the room. At first as translucent as a veil, she becomes progressively clearer.
‘Good evening. Here is the news.’
She announces nothing but ultra-pessimistic shit. At least there’s one person who doesn’t disappoint Mishima.
She looks real; seated there on a chair with her arms folded, you would think she was actually in the room. By leaning to right or left, you can see her in profile. Mishima can smell her perfume, which he finds too heady. He diminishes its intensity with the use of his remote control.
The presenter crosses her long, attractive legs. Monsieur Tuvache is not so keen on the colour of her skirt. He swaps its colours round by pressing on the zapper. He clicks a cursor to bring the chair closer to him. The presenter is now by the pillows, as though she is seated at the bedside of a sick man. If Monsieur Tuvache stretches out his hand he can touch her, feel the fabric of her skirt, which he can push up above her delicate-skinned knees. While she is talking, he could also unbutton her blouse if he wanted, but he’s not in the mood for that. He listens to her.
Relaxed, leaning forward and with one elbow on her thigh, she whispers the news to him in the manner of an intimate conversation. Gone is the declamatory, solemn tone of the television of yesteryear. The presenter’s low, slightly tired Italian voice is beautiful:
‘This morning, in the Siberian province, the dictator of the universe, Madame Indira Tu-Ka-Ta, opened a vast complex of eight hundred thousand chimneys six hundred metres tall, which will – we hope – repair the ozone layer round our planet. But I don’t believe it,’ the presenter says.
Mishima shares her opinion.
‘All the experts think that this decision ought to have been taken as early as the twenty-first century,’ she goes on, ‘and that it’s now much too late. Madame President is, however, convinced …’
‘Of course,’ says Mishima.
‘… as she declared in her inaugural speech. And now, watch out, it will feel as if we are in the middle of this vast territory dotted with ozone chimneys. It is very cold there. Cover yourselves up.’
Mishima’s bed is suddenly right in the middle of Siberia. He feels the icy wind, pulls up the covers, sniffs the damp, frozen peat. And, everywhere, very tall chimneys are blowing ozone into the sky. The smell of this gas pricks his eyes a little. Monsieur Tuvache reaches one hand out of bed and touches the ground. It’s a long time since he’s felt the texture of grass that, when you stretch it, cuts into your fingers a little. He looks at his hand, which shows no sign of injury.
Suddenly Siberia leaves the bedroom. The presenter reappears on her chair. Blonde Marilyn enters, wearing a rippling Spanish gown. She is even more beautiful than the woman on the TV. Her cemetery warden is with her: ‘Good evening, Father.’
Monsieur Tuvache’s daughter walks through the light that constitutes the presenter. ‘It smells like a perfume factory in here,’ she says, sitting down on her father’s bed.
He turns off the TV. Click!
‘Father, look at the beautiful bouquet Ernest gave me. He picked flowers from the tombs while he thought of me. Ah, l’amour, as the French would say.’
‘La mort?’
‘L’a-mour … Oh dear, you’re not cured at all! You’d feel much better downstairs in the shop with us. You’d soak up the atmosphere with the garlands and the Chinese lanterns – that would put you back on your fe
et. Do you want me to bring you a pancake?’
‘Only if it’s stuffed with poisonous mushrooms …’
‘Oh, Father, you old devil. Look, I’ll leave my bunch of flowers from the cemetery on your bedside table. Don’t wait for Mother before you go to sleep, because she’ll be coming to bed late. Tonight we’re going to live it up in the fresh produce section.’
‘Live it up?’
30
Several evenings later Mishima, in tired old slippers and wearing the kimono with the red cross (for self-disembowelment) instead of pyjamas, has regained a little strength and the will to get up and attempt a few first weary steps.
Unshaven, with dark rings round his eyes and with his face all crumpled from the folds in the bedcovers, he drags himself along the corridor as if drunk, reaches the little door that gives access to the tower and stands at the top of the stairs that lead down into the shop. And there on the landing, holding onto the banister, he looks down.
And what does he see?
He just can’t believe it. The shop, the beautiful shop that belonged to his parents, grandparents, etc., which has been as sober as a hospital mortuary, clean, tidy … look what it has become!
On a long banner stretched from one wall to the other above the display units, a slogan is written: ‘KILL YOURSELF WITH OLD AGE!’ Mishima recognises Alan’s writing.
Underneath, a joyous crowd is debating, laughing, gathering on tiptoe to watch three young men in the fresh produce section, singing, playing a lively tune on the gui … guitar.
They’re clapping their hands in time, ordering skull-and-crossbones pancakes from Vincent, who is making them on a production line, using an electric hotplate placed on the counter. The smoke rising from the frying pan blurs, softens, renders opaque the light of the neon tubes amongst the fragrance of powdered sugar caramelising, of chocolate which sometimes drips, falls, stains the tiled floor. The batter ladle rises, falls, traces crossed tibias across the pan, and Lucrèce operates the drawer of the till. ‘One pancake? Three euro-yens. Thank you, sir.’
On the razorblade stand, where the blades have been cleared away, Marilyn is cramming apples (not the ones from the Alan Turing kits) into a juicer, which she uses to extract the fresh juice straight into glasses: ‘One euro-yen, please.’
Ernest is giving a demonstration of seppuku, but the blade of the tanto pressing on his belly twists, loops and bends into a figure of eight. Mishima rubs his eyes, and walks down the stairs. The cemetery warden sells three sabres to beaming customers, rolls them up and puts them into bags bearing the word: ‘YIPPEE!’ Monsieur Tuvache has to duck down to get underneath the garlands, and bumps his head on some festively coloured Chinese lanterns. He tells himself that perhaps he is dreaming. But no, for his wife is calling to him.
‘Oh, darling, here you are at last! Well, so much the better. You can help us, because we’re worked off our feet. Do you want a pancake?’
A genuinely desperate individual – one who is not aware of the changes at the shop – enters and naturally heads for Mishima, who is wearing the same overwhelmed expression as he is. ‘I would like a breeze-block so I can sink to the bottom of the river.’
‘A breeze-block … Ah! Quite. I’m glad to see someone normal at last. Have they moved them? No, they’re still here.’
Monsieur Tuvache takes a deep breath and bends down to hoist one up with both hands, but he’s astonished at being able to lift it so easily. The block of mortar seems extraordinarily light to him. He could balance it on one fingertip and spin it round. The few days’ rest couldn’t have given him so much strength. He examines its texture, scratching it with his nails:
‘Polystyrene …’
The customer also weighs the breeze-block in his hand.
‘But this floats! How am I supposed to drown with it?’
Mishima frowns, raises his eyebrows and shakes his head. ‘I suppose it’s no good holding onto it with your hands … but, if the chain is fixed to an ankle, you must be able to drown under the polystyrene breeze-block floating on the surface.’
‘What’s the point of selling that?’
‘To be honest … I don’t know. Do you want a pancake?’
The disconcerted customer looks at the gaudy masked crowd hooting party blowers and dancing idiotically to the loud music.
‘Don’t these people ever watch the news on TV? Don’t they ever despair for the future of the Earth?’
‘That’s what I was wondering,’ replies Mishima to the man who was hoping to spend his night at the bottom of the river. ‘I’d willingly accompany you too.’
Overwhelmed, they fall into each other’s arms with a wail, and blubber on each other’s shoulders while in the fresh produce section Alan, who has hung up a sheet, presents a puppet show in which everything is wonderful, beautiful, unrealistic and inevitably stupid. Vincent looks at home in this country-fair atmosphere with its smoke. With his bandaged cranium he’s not smiling, of course, but he does look better.
Lucrèce, who discovers her husband in floods of tears, rushes forward and blames the customer who is holding him in his arms. ‘Leave him alone! What have you said to him to get him into this state? Go on, get out!’
‘I only wanted to find something to kill myself with tonight,’ the other man defends himself.
‘Didn’t you see the banner above the shelves? Here we don’t kill ourselves any more, except with old age! Go on, bugger off.’
And, moving through the happy crowd, she walks back to the staircase with her faltering husband, who asks: ‘What are the new tanto blades made of?’
‘Rubber.’
‘And why did you change the materials for the breeze-blocks?’
‘Because when the customers dance, if they bump into the central gondola, I was worried that one of the blocks would fall on their feet. Can you imagine the damage? It’s like with the ropes; now we sell the same ones as for bungee jumps. It was Vincent’s idea; he says that when people jump off the stool and then hit their heads three or four times on the ceiling, they won’t want to do it again. Did you know that we’ve changed suppliers? No more Don’t Give A Damn About Death. Now, we buy everything from Laugh Out Loud. And, since we changed, our turnover has tripled.’
Mishima’s knees give way. His wife catches him under the armpits.
‘Go on, off to bed, my gloomy one!’
31
Later, when the shop has emptied of customers and the silence of night has descended once more, Madame Tuvache is in Alan’s room. Seated on a chair, she watches him sleep. With hands joined and flat on the top of her head, elbows triangling above her shoulders, the arrangement of Lucrèce’s arms traces in the air the outline of a great eye on top of a body. The pupil – Madame Tuvache’s head, leaning over to one shoulder – seems to be turned and lowered towards Alan’s face, which is as delicate as if it were entirely surrounded by gauze and whose every feature speaks of the joy of living.
One day will he have to be put in irons and thrown into the sea, this inventor of brave new worlds? His little snub nose in the air, he dreams of shining paradises. He is an oasis in a desert of boredom. His neck in the hollow of a synthetic pillow, he moves his lips a little, caught in one of the stories of his dreams. His eyelids, as soft as the moon, are closed, rimmed with long lashes, and everything about him engenders a kind of hope that is so anachronistic in this era.
The boy who by day makes human minds dream, asleep looks as innocent as a babbling brook, spilling its happy insouciance over everything. He resembles those beautiful horizons that lead you to unknown places. And his feet under the covers seem ready to run an adventurous race. The smell of his room … Few perfumes are as fresh as the scent of childhood. He is dreaming up his singular miraculous schemes. Oh, the mind of a child, where fairy tales are constructed!
Tonight, the moon is dreaming more lazily. Madame Tuvache stands up, and caresses Alan’s blond curls. He opens his eyes and smiles at her. Then he turns over and goes back to sl
eep. Life, at his side, seems to be played on a violin.
32
Lucrèce is in bed, beside her husband. Lying on her back with her arms at her sides, an eternal silence hovers above her. The shapes have faded and are no more than a dream now, but then the horrible cloud of her past rises up again, making her slowly bend her knees within herself.
When she was a little girl – four or five years old – her mother would ask her to wait for her after school, sitting on a bench in the playground of the infant school, and promised her that if she was very good, she could have a go on the swings.
Her mother was often late, and sometimes didn’t come, so the headmistress of the school would tell the child to go home on her own. Her father, despite his promises, never came. And often in the evening the little girl waited, behaving well, so well; waiting for her mother and the go on the swings.
Did she ever have a go on the swings? Lucrèce doesn’t remember. All she can remember is the wait, the wait for her mother who, she imagined, would watch her on the swings.
With her chubby little hands, with the turned-up tips of the fingers, laid flat on her thighs and sitting up tall, not slumping at all, her eyes wide open, she looked straight in front of her. She looked straight in front of her but she saw nothing! She was nothing but good, the very image of goodness, so good that her mother must come!
She forbade herself any movement, any word, any breath of a sigh. She waited so perfectly that her mother could not but come. If the tip of her nose was itching or one little sock had slipped down over her ankle, she remained motionless. Mummy would come. She dissolved into herself, breathed in the itch at the tip of her nose, the cool patch on her calf where her sock had slipped down. She had learned how to absorb that. She knew how to gather herself together, was learning how to become Zen. When, later on, she watches documentaries on ancient Buddhists she will realise that already, at the age of four, she knew how to attain the same mental state. From her childhood, she has retained this ability to absent herself, this way of suddenly seeming to look very far in front of her. There is a great space in her head, just as when she waited for her mother on a bench in the school playground. She was turning to stone there, could no longer feel her body, could swear that she was no longer breathing. When the mother arrived, her daughter would no longer be alive.