The Suicide Shop by Jean TEULE

grandmother.
    Madame Tuvache calls out: ‘Vincent! Vincent! Come and see! Alan is back!’
    Box of chocolates in hand and munching, Vincent appears at the top of the stairs by the little door leading to the spiral staircase of the old religious building (church, temple, mosque? …) The north wind, blowing under the door, puffs up the bottom of his djellaba, decorated with atom bombs.
    Alan climbs the stairs and embraces his big brother. ‘Hey, City’s Artist, you’ve put on weight!’

    The latter – this turbaned Van Gogh – peers at his younger brother’s sweatshirt, illustrated with a design that intrigues him. It depicts an aquarium with a letter at the bottom reading: Goodbye . Above the opening of the glass tank, a goldfish drips and flies away, attached to the string of a balloon. Another fish, which is still in the water, is making bubbles and shouting to him: No, Brian! Don’t do it!
    Vincent doesn’t laugh.
    ‘What’s that?’
    ‘Humour.’
    ‘Oh.’
    Arriving at the bottom of the steps, Mishima throws back his head and shouts up to Alan: ‘Why have you come back early?’
    ‘I was sent home.’
    The child, who astonishes everyone with his frankness, who is at ease everywhere like the air in the sky and water in the sea, walks down the staircase, his laughter covering it with a triumphal carpet.
    ‘I had a lot of fun there but that annoyed the instructors. And I knew how to make the other pupils who were learning to be human bombs like me relax. When we were sneaking through the darkness, dressed in white sheets and a pointed hood with two holes for the eyes, I told them jokes that made them crack up, all over the cakes of plastic explosive taped to their bellies. While they were peeing in the dunes of Nice, I was gathering desert roses and when I told them they were made of camel’s piss mixed with sand and carved by the wind, they thought life was marvellous. They went back singing: “ Boom! My heart goes boom … ! ” The director of the suicidecommando course was devastated. I pretended that I didn’t understand any of his technical explanations. He was tearing his hair out and his beard. One morning, when he was at the end of his tether, he put on a belt of explosives, took the detonator in his hand and told me: “Look closely, because I’ll only be demonstrating this to you once!” And he blew himself up. I was sent home.’
    Mishima first nods his head up and down, in silence. He is like an actor who can’t remember the words of his part. Then he shakes it from side to side: ‘What on earth are we going to do with you?’
    ‘You mean for the rest of the holidays? He can help me make the poisons!’ enthuses Lucrèce.
    ‘And he can make masks with me,’ says Vincent from the top of the stairs.

24
     
     
    ‘Ha ha! Oh, that’s so funny, tee hee! Oh, my stomach’s hurting. Ha ha …! I can’t breathe! Oooh …!’
    A small, scrawny man with a moustache and a hat, dressed all in grey, had walked sadly into the shop. Lucrèce had shown him a mask made by Vincent and Alan.
    ‘Oooh! Oooh! Oh, but that’s funny! Ha ha ha …! Oh, that moronic face, oh …!’
    Mishima is sitting slumped on a chair, feeling oppressed. Forearms resting on his parted thighs, with his fingers interlaced between his knees, he raises his head with an effort to look at this morning customer, the first of the day. He watches him face-on, guffawing at the sight of the mask Lucrèce is showing him, with her back to her husband.
    The laughing customer puts a hand to his mouth. ‘Oh! But how could anyone have given birth to that?! Oh!’
    ‘My boys made this mask last night. It’s well put together, don’t you think?’
    ‘Oh! But what a stupid-looking face. And the eyes! Tee hee! And nose! Oh good grief, look at the nose … I can’t believe it!’
    The customer bends double with laughter at the sight of the facial disguise, which Madame Tuvache is holding at chest height right in front of him. He’s