against the restless dead. The night watchman crossed himself and sat down again.
As Pepper ran from room to room, he pondered: What if pipes like this could be built on an intercontinental scale, to carry money not just from Lingerie to Accounts, but from Paris to Ceylon, where poor people needed it more! Or wages from sailors to their distant wives and children! Or love letters from sweethearts separated by Fate! Letters home from runaway children apologizing for not yet being…
Confessions! Yes, yes! If holy confession could be made this way, then Pepper would have been able to write out his three times a week and set it flying to his parish priest! Father Ignatius would unscrew the canister, read the confession inside—
Father, forgive me for
missing communion
not honoring my parents
stealing a ship and twelve rounds of sausage
being fourteen
—then send forgiveness back wrapped in a sheet of penances:
Say three Hail Marys and a novena and don’t swim for half an hour after eating sausage.
Lying back on the big bed, floating between awake and asleep, Pepper continued to muse over the amazing maze of pipes…. What about prayers! With enough tubing, you might even reach all the way to Heaven! Oh!
This last idea wedged in his head, in the way all superstition does, and he had to get up and do it, then and there. That night and obsessively each night after, he unscrewed a cash canister in Leather Goods or Horology or Books and slipped a prayer inside it. Then he would tug the brass handle. The cash tube gave a sigh and a rattle, and Pepper’s prayer shot off across the ceiling of the Marseillais Department Store like a shooting star through space:
Bless Mother and Aunty, and teach Father to drink tea.
Please don’t make me go yet: I like it here.
Amen.
He never received an answer, and he was very afraid it might jog the saints’ memory and put them on his scent again, like bloodhounds. But he could not help himself. Praying each night was one of the rules Aunt Mireille had thrashed into him, and Pepper was a stickler for obeying rules.
Whatever God, in His cashier’s cage, thought of Pepper, the customers of the Marseillais Department Store loved him. He sliced sausage and carved ham with more panache than Cyrano de Bergerac, his long knife flashing like a duellist’s rapier. He diced with Death at the slicing machine, paring sausages all the way down to their knotted ends with never a care for his fingertips. He ran the deadly cheese wire through cheeses like God separating night from day. He remembered the preferences of all his regulars and pitted all the olives himself, for fear the elderly might choke or break their teeth on the stones. Within afortnight, he was a celebrity. Well, that is to say, a few regular customers came to know his face, and smile when he served them.
Old Madame Froissart, for instance. Madame Froissart had arthritis in her hands and could no longer crack nuts. So when Suzanne arrived at work each morning—however early she arrived—she found Pepper, sleeves rolled up, shelling walnuts especially for Madame Froissart.
“Where did you work before this?” Suzanne asked, idly fingering his discarded jacket. “On the ships?”
“Not me,” said Pepper Salami.
Suzanne was impressed by Pepper’s hard work, but not by his physique and crumpled clothes. Suzanne was in love with a boy called Bertrand in Leather Goods. But she had lost two fingers to the meat slicer, and now she would never win Bertrand’s heart. This was the conclusion Suzanne had come to, sitting in the hospital, and even when the bandages came off, she could no more pick up her old hopes and dreams than she could pick up a coin from the floor. Bertrand was lost to her, just like her queenly realm: the Delicatessen department.
Pepper also knew about Bertrand in Leather Goods. It was impossible to spend one day with Suzanne without knowing about Bertrand in Leather Goods. Suzanne talked about the
As Pepper ran from room to room, he pondered: What if pipes like this could be built on an intercontinental scale, to carry money not just from Lingerie to Accounts, but from Paris to Ceylon, where poor people needed it more! Or wages from sailors to their distant wives and children! Or love letters from sweethearts separated by Fate! Letters home from runaway children apologizing for not yet being…
Confessions! Yes, yes! If holy confession could be made this way, then Pepper would have been able to write out his three times a week and set it flying to his parish priest! Father Ignatius would unscrew the canister, read the confession inside—
Father, forgive me for
missing communion
not honoring my parents
stealing a ship and twelve rounds of sausage
being fourteen
—then send forgiveness back wrapped in a sheet of penances:
Say three Hail Marys and a novena and don’t swim for half an hour after eating sausage.
Lying back on the big bed, floating between awake and asleep, Pepper continued to muse over the amazing maze of pipes…. What about prayers! With enough tubing, you might even reach all the way to Heaven! Oh!
This last idea wedged in his head, in the way all superstition does, and he had to get up and do it, then and there. That night and obsessively each night after, he unscrewed a cash canister in Leather Goods or Horology or Books and slipped a prayer inside it. Then he would tug the brass handle. The cash tube gave a sigh and a rattle, and Pepper’s prayer shot off across the ceiling of the Marseillais Department Store like a shooting star through space:
Bless Mother and Aunty, and teach Father to drink tea.
Please don’t make me go yet: I like it here.
Amen.
He never received an answer, and he was very afraid it might jog the saints’ memory and put them on his scent again, like bloodhounds. But he could not help himself. Praying each night was one of the rules Aunt Mireille had thrashed into him, and Pepper was a stickler for obeying rules.
Whatever God, in His cashier’s cage, thought of Pepper, the customers of the Marseillais Department Store loved him. He sliced sausage and carved ham with more panache than Cyrano de Bergerac, his long knife flashing like a duellist’s rapier. He diced with Death at the slicing machine, paring sausages all the way down to their knotted ends with never a care for his fingertips. He ran the deadly cheese wire through cheeses like God separating night from day. He remembered the preferences of all his regulars and pitted all the olives himself, for fear the elderly might choke or break their teeth on the stones. Within afortnight, he was a celebrity. Well, that is to say, a few regular customers came to know his face, and smile when he served them.
Old Madame Froissart, for instance. Madame Froissart had arthritis in her hands and could no longer crack nuts. So when Suzanne arrived at work each morning—however early she arrived—she found Pepper, sleeves rolled up, shelling walnuts especially for Madame Froissart.
“Where did you work before this?” Suzanne asked, idly fingering his discarded jacket. “On the ships?”
“Not me,” said Pepper Salami.
Suzanne was impressed by Pepper’s hard work, but not by his physique and crumpled clothes. Suzanne was in love with a boy called Bertrand in Leather Goods. But she had lost two fingers to the meat slicer, and now she would never win Bertrand’s heart. This was the conclusion Suzanne had come to, sitting in the hospital, and even when the bandages came off, she could no more pick up her old hopes and dreams than she could pick up a coin from the floor. Bertrand was lost to her, just like her queenly realm: the Delicatessen department.
Pepper also knew about Bertrand in Leather Goods. It was impossible to spend one day with Suzanne without knowing about Bertrand in Leather Goods. Suzanne talked about the
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