The Suicide Shop / Магазинчик Самоубийств

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.