What Happens at Night - Peter Cameron Page 0,49

door and returned a moment later with a small piece of pink paper which featured a black-and-white photograph of a woman with enormous breasts above the following words:

XXX Cine Paris Eros XXX

19 Kujanpääntie

50% réduction

avec ce billet

toujours ouvert

“cum anytime”

When the man had finished his meal he left the hotel and ventured around the corner to the little market. The large window that looked out onto the street was completely fogged over, and a long leather strip encrusted with silver bells jangled as he opened the door. Inside it was very bare and bright, and he was disappointed to find the market was the type where everything is stored on shelves behind the counter, and one must ask the shopkeeper to fetch the desired items. What an absurd arrangement, the man thought. He remembered that in the drugstore of the puritanical New England town he grew up in, the pornographic magazines were kept behind the counter, in a rack with their covers obscured, and just the names visible, so that one was forced to ask the druggist or his matronly wife for Playboy or Penthouse or Oui. In his boyhood he could not imagine anyone ever being brazen enough to do that, and so felt his first inkling of the amazing power of sex.

Another reason he was remembering the drugstore of his youth: the shopkeeper was wearing a white jacket with a Nehru collar, identical to the one that Mr. Pasternak, his hometown pharmacist, had worn. This costume, and the brilliant fluorescent lighting that antiseptically illuminated the white linoleum floor and counter, made the market feel more like a clinic, a place where things more delicate and dangerous than the purchase of groceries occurred. The man wished he could turn around and leave the store to avoid the inevitable humiliation of trying to purchase any of the things his wife wanted in this intimate way, but he decided to embolden himself.

Good evening, he said, as he approached the counter, which was unnervingly bare, except for a very old-fashioned cash register, as if a medical operation might possibly be performed upon it.

The shopkeeper nodded in acknowledgment of the man’s greeting.

Do you have yoghurt? the man asked. And then, deciding that an imperative would be more effective than a question, he said, I would like some yoghurt.

Plain or fruit? Big or small?

Big, said the man. Fruit.

With Gummi?

Gummi?

Candy bear, said the shopkeeper.

Oh, said the man. No. No Gummi.

The shopkeeper nodded and disappeared back into the aisles of shelves behind the counter. He returned after a moment and placed a large glass bottle of deep purple yoghurt on the counter, equidistant between himself and the man, and said, You want many things?

No, said the man. Just a few. Do you have a peach?

In tin, said the shopkeeper. You want?

No, said the man. The kitten and the orchid, of course, were out of the question, but the man wondered if he might venture to ask about the balsam incense. What a triumph it would be to return with that! It would be almost as precious as the golden-egg-laying goose.

Do you have any incense? Balsam, if you have it.

Balsam?

Fir, said the man. Pine. Christmas tree. Tannenbaum. He raised his index fingers in the air and outlined the kind of Christmas tree a child first learns to draw.

No, said the shopkeeper. We have no tree.

No, no, said the man. Not a tree. The smell of the tree. Incense. Or a candle. But with a smell. He sniffed vehemently several times.

Ah, yes. I know now. The shopkeeper once again disappeared into the shelves and returned with a small packet of tissues, which he balanced carefully atop the jar of yoghurt. Paperinenäliina, yoghurt. More?

No, said the man. Nothing more.

When he returned to the hotel room his wife was sleeping. He decided not to wake her. He drew back the thick drape and placed the jar of yoghurt on the windowsill, close to the frozen windowpane, and then pulled the drapes together again. He thought about getting in bed beside his wife and trying to fall asleep, but he knew he was not ready to sleep. He felt unusually awake and wondered if the drug the businessman had given him the night before had been tranquilizing him all day and had finally worn off.

The man sat in the lobby for most of the evening, drinking schnapps. A woman dressed like a prostitute came and sat beside him for a while, saying nothing, just smoking a cigarette and suggestively crossing and uncrossing her