The Poutou Vendor’s Window

In the late autumn of 1974, the coastal town of San Rocco was a place where the sea breeze carried the scent of salt and fried dough. My friends and I would often bicycle along the boardwalk after the evening show at the Rialto, our laughter mingling with the sound of waves. But on this particular Saturday, the fog rolled in thick, muffling the streetlights and turning the familiar promenade into a labyrinth of grey. I was with my cousin, Fabio, and we had decided to walk instead of cycle, craving the warm comfort of Signora Gallo’s famous sweet fritters from her stall near the harbor.

After the movie, we bought our paper-wrapped fritters and settled onto a wooden bench facing the water. The fog was so dense that the sea was invisible, only the restless murmur of the waves gave it away. We ate in silence, the sugar and warmth a small defiance against the damp chill. It was past eleven, and the town was empty, save for the occasional gulls picking at forgotten crumbs.

As we finished, a new sound intruded upon the stillness: a rhythmic clicking, sharp and deliberate, like the ticking of a clock but faster. It came from the direction of the pier. Fabio’s chewing slowed, and he tilted his head. A woman emerged from the grey, walking with an unnerving precision. She wore a crimson dress that seemed to absorb the little light there was, and her heels, impossibly high, clicked against the wet planks like a Morse code of menace. Her hair was a cascade of black curls, and her face, even from a distance, was strikingly beautiful, with high cheekbones and a full, red mouth.

She approached us, her eyes fixed ahead, but as she passed our bench, she turned her head and smiled. It was a smile that did not reach her eyes, a calculated gesture that made my skin crawl. I had seen such smiles before, on mannequins in department store windows, or in paintings of sirens luring sailors to their doom. Fabio, however, was entranced. He nudged me, whispering, ‘Did you see her? She’s stunning.’ I forced a grin, but something was off. Her dress looked antique, like something from a 1950s film, and the way she walked, as if floating on air, seemed too fluid for human motion.

We decided to follow her, partly out of curiosity, partly because Fabio insisted. She led us away from the harbor, into the narrow alleys of the old town, places I knew were closed at this hour. The fog followed us, a silent companion. We passed shuttered shops and silent houses, our footsteps echoing, but hers made no echo. She stopped in front of a building that I had never noticed before, a shop with a large bay window. The window was filled with a display of old-fashioned mannequins, dressed in elegant attire from decades past. But in the center, standing slightly apart, was a mannequin in a crimson dress, identical to the woman now standing beside it. The woman turned to face us, and with a slow, deliberate motion, she raised her hand and pressed it to the glass, leaving a faint smear. Then, she faded, not stepping away, but dissolving like fog, until only the mannequin remained, its painted eyes fixed on us.

Fabio laughed nervously. ‘It must be a trick of the light,’ he said, but his voice was thin. We approached the window, and I noticed something that made my blood turn to ice. The mannequin’s hand, the one that had pressed against the glass, was slightly wet, and on its crimson sleeve was a single, fresh smear of sugar, from the fritter we had just eaten. In that moment, the mannequin’s smile seemed to widen, and I saw that its eyes, once glassy and lifeless, were now following our movements. We stumbled backward, and as we did, the lights inside the shop flickered on, revealing a room filled with untold numbers of mannequins, all facing the window, all wearing the same unnerving smile. Among them, I spotted a mannequin in a blue jacket, just like the one Fabio wore, and another in a striped shirt, like mine. They were in the back, half hidden, but their faces were frozen in a silent scream.

We ran, not daring to look back. The fog seemed to part for us, and we burst onto the main square, gasping. I turned to glance down the alley, but it was empty, and the shop was gone, as if it had never existed. We never spoke of it again, but for years after, I would avoid that part of town. And every time I saw a mannequin in a store window, I would check its sleeve for the faintest trace of sugar, afraid that one day, I would see a smear that matched my own.