The Suicide Shop / Магазинчик Самоубийств

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 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!'