The Suicide Shop / Магазинчик Самоубийств

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 Strychnosbranches for extracting curare, black holly berries for theobromine ...'
Intoxicated by this succession of possibilities, the customer no longer knows what to think. 'What would youtake?'
'Me? I've no idea,' replies 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 heonly 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: '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."'