13
'It's a cement breeze-block with a ring attached. It comes with a chain, which you padlock to your ankle. You stand beside the river. You throw it in front of you and - splash!You're dragged down to the bottom and it's all over.'
'That's interesting,' nods a customer with a moustache.
Mishima runs the palm of his hand across his brow and half of his bald pate, then continues: 'I make them myself here or in the cellar, with the name of the shop moulded in relief on one side. Pass your hand over it. It reads: THE SUICIDE SHOP. these breeze-blocks can also be used for defenestration.'
The customer is astonished. As he looks at him, Mishima gives a lop sided smile plumping his cheek out on one side under eyes as round as marbles. He raises his eyebrows. 'Yes, yes, yes, breeze-blocks make you heavier because before, you know, on nights when there was a tornado or a hurricane, and people with light bodies threw themselves out of the window, they were found the next morning in their pyjamas, having ended up stuck ridiculously in the branches of a tree, hanging from lampposts or stretched out on a neighbour's balcony. Whereas with the Suicide Shop breeze-block fixed to your ankle, you fall straight down.'
'Ah!'
'Often in the evening, I lift the curtain in our bedroom and watch them falling from the estate's towers. With the breeze-block on one ankle, they look like shooting stars. When there are a lot of them, on nights when the local sports team gets beaten, you'd think it was sand flowing down from the towers. It's pretty.'
Standing anxiously beside the cash register, Lucrèce knits her brows above her beautiful dark eyes, observes her husband, listens to him, and wonders:
'Could Alan be contagious?'