The Suicide Shop by Jean TEULE Page A

suffocating, coughing, belching.
    ‘Oh no, I mean, really, living with a face like that! It’s not the kind of mug to win you friends, is it? And what about women? Do you know a single woman who’d want anything to do with a guy like that? Oh! Not even a dog or a rat would want him!’
    The customer laughs until he cries, attempting to get his breath back. ‘Show me again. Oh, I can’t take any more!’
    ‘Then look away,’ Madame Tuvache advises him.
    ‘No, my decision is made. Ha ha ha! And how seedy-looking he is. He must be some kind of bloody idiot, that guy there! Even a goldfish would rather fly out of its bowl than stay looking at him! Aaaah!’
    The customer laughs so much he wets himself:
    ‘Oh, forgive me! I’m so embarrassed. I’d heard that you had grotesque masks but this one … Aaah!’
    ‘Would you like to see others?’ suggests Lucrèce.

    ‘Oh no, nothing could be worse than the one you’ve shown me. Ha ha! Oh, the idiot! I hope he dies, the damn fool! Nobody will miss the bloody idiot!’
    Up to now, Mishima’s gaze has been vague and demoralised. Now, he fixes his attention on the unusual customer who is killing himself with laughter at the mask.
    ‘My heart! Aaaah …! Oh, how stupid he looks! Ha ha ha!’
    He turns red, becomes rigid, arms folded across his chest and his fingers outspread like the points of a star, then collapses onto the floor, yelling at the mask. ‘Idiot!’
    Mishima stands up and checks him over:
    ‘Well, that makes two … But what did they dream up this time?’
    Lucrèce turns round and shows him a mask in impersonal white plastic, onto whose nose Alan and Vincent have stuck a mirror.

25
     
     
    ‘Learn to look at yourself using the reflection of this mask, Mademoiselle. Look at yourself again and then take it back to your house. You can put it in your bathroom or on your bedside table.’
    ‘Oh, goodness me, no thank you! I’ve already seen enough horrors …’
    ‘Yes,’ insists Alan, facing the cash register. ‘Learn to love yourself. Go on, one more time to please me.’
    He holds up the mirror mask in front of the young woman, who quickly turns her head away.
    ‘I can’t.’
    ‘But why?’
    ‘I’m monstrous.’
    ‘How are you monstrous? What on earth are you saying? You’re like everyone else: the same number of ears, eyes, a nose … What’s the difference?’
    ‘You must be able to see it, little one. My conk is long and misshapen. My peepers are too close together, and I have enormous cheeks, covered in spots.’
    ‘Oh come on, what rubbish! Let’s see …’

    Alan opens the drawer beneath the cash register and unrolls a metre-long dressmaker’s tape measure. He places the metal tip of one end between the customer’s eyes and stretches it to the tip of the nose. ‘Right, seven centimetres. How many should it be? Five? And what about the space between your eyes? Let’s measure that. How much further apart should they be? One centimetre, no more. The cheeks … how much too big are they? Don’t move, while I place this under your earlobe. Personally, I’d say four centimetres too big.’
    ‘Each.’
    ‘Yes, each, if you like. But, anyway, it all adds up to a few millimetres compared to the size of the universe. It’s not enough to mess everything up! What I know is, when I saw you come in, I didn’t see an extra terrestrial with eight tentacles covered in suckers and round eyes at the end of twelve-metre antennae! Ah, you’re smiling … Smiling suits you. See how much it suits you,’ he says, lifting up the white plastic mask in front of the customer, who immediately pulls a face.
    ‘My teeth are hideous.’
    ‘No, they’re not hideous. Crooked like that, they give you the look of a little girl who’s not ready for braces. It’s touching. Smile.’
    ‘You’re kind.’

    ‘It’s true that he’s being kind …’ a low voice comments in a whisper, quite a long way from the young woman’s back, ‘because her teeth