The Suicide Shop / Магазинчик Самоубийств

14

'You want to die? Kiss me.'
Marilyn Tuvache sits enthroned like a queen in the fresh produce section. Seated in a large armchair, upholstered in scarlet velvet and carved with gilded acanthus leaves, she wears a clinging dress with a plunging neckline. She leans towards a customer who is intimidated by her new splendour, her youth and the blondeness of her hair. Her lipsticked mouth pouts towards the despairing client: 'Here, on the mouth, with your tongue ...'
The customer dares to approach. Marilyn unfurls her large square of white silk - Alan's gift - and uses it to cover her own and the man's head. And beneath the scarf, which hangs down below their shoulders and conjures up images of ghosts, you can just make out that they're kissing. The heads move slowly for a long time beneath the silk, then Marilyn pulls it away. A delicate thread of saliva stretches between their mouths. The customer collects it with the back of one hand, then licks it so as not to lose anything.
'Thank you, Marilyn ...'
'Don't linger. Other customers are waiting.'
Marilyn Tuvache's new post is proving to be a success, much to the amazement of her parents.
'After a school career that was doomed from the very beginning, she has finally found her place ... in the fresh produce section,' sighs her mother.
'It's the best idea we've had since the Alan Turing kit,' confirms her father.
And the till drawer pings shut. There's a waiting list. When customers telephone to reserve a Death Kiss, Lucrèce replies: 'Yes of course, but not before next week!'
There are so many candidates for the Death Kiss that checks have to be made to ensure that customers don't come back several times. Some of them complain: 'But I'm not dead yet!'
'Ah, well, the Death Kiss can take time to work but it will come and, besides, you can only have one go or there won't be enough to go round.'
Some suicidal customers ask if, by paying more, they could spend an entire night with Marilyn.
Lucrèce is offended by this: 'And then what next? We're not procurers, you know!'
Indignantly, Mishima kicks them out of his shop. 'Go on, get lost! We don't need customers like you here.'
'But I want to die.'
'Sort out your own mess. Go to the tobacconist's shop!'
And, at the back of the shop, Marilyn blossoms like an exotic, carnivorous flower as she kisses the men.
Alan passes close by her, whistling under his breath. 'You see, I was right when I said you were beautiful! All the guys in the City of Forgotten Religions estate are only interested in you. Look at them ...'
They are waiting, the young men from the Osiris tower who've obtained a group discount. In single file between the display units they move forward centimetre by centimetre, through the shelving with its forests of familiar symbols - a skull for toxic products, a black cross on an orange background for noxious and irritant substances, a drawing of a tilted test tube and a droplet to signify corrosives, a black circle with lines emerging from it in star formation indicating explosives, a flame symbolising flammable products and a leafless tree beside a dead fish showing that a product is harmful to the environment. Triangles are illustrated with a lightning flash, an exclamation mark, another skull and then three circles joined together for biological dangers. Every one of the items for sale here is decorated with one of these symbols, but now none of the male customers seems to want anything but a kiss from Marilyn. Jealous female customers are sulking a little.
'But ...! You can partake too, ladies,' points out Mishima, who is broad-minded. 'Marilyn has nothing against it.'
A nice young man enters the overcrowded shop, declaring that he has made a booking for a Death Kiss. Lucrèce turns her gaze towards him:
'You've been before. I recognise you.'
'No, I've never been.'
'Yes, you have; I've seen you before.'
'I'm the warden from the cemetery where your daughter used to lay wreaths for the customers who invited you to their funerals.'
'Oh, forgive me!' exclaims Lucrèce, suddenly lifting a hand to her mouth in confusion. 'I couldn't place you. And yet I should have, because, apart from the cemetery, we don't get out much. Sometimes at the weekend we go to the woods to pick poisonous mushrooms, but apart from that ... It's all these customers trying to come several times who are making my head spin.'
The delicate young man gets into the queue behind them. He is desperate, infinitely wise, and as pale as a candle. His attractive face ravaged by cancers of the heart, he observes Marilyn's breasts in her low-cut dress as she bends forward, and the way her neckline gapes open when she twists round to kiss the men. He gazes fearfully at the woman who is about to give him a kiss. When his turn comes, he commands: 'Poison me, Marilyn.'
Wiping her lips, Marilyn Tuvache looks at him and replies:
'No.'