Мариам Петросян - The Gray House

Indeed! One never knows how many delights one simple Swap Tuesday can bring.

We run. The music is plenty bumpy. Viking is plenty fast. I maintain a tight grip on my bundle. Then I spot a familiar shiny dome in the sea of hallway heads.

I tear out the earbuds and shout down to Viking, “Whoa! Right here is fine.”

He puts on the brakes and unloads me on the floor. Right under Sphinx's feet.

“What's with the horsemanship?” Sphinx inquires.

“That's not horsemanship, that's a matter of life and death,” I explain, paying Viking.

“Where did you get this gorgeous vest? I don't think I've seen it before.”

Lary arrives, spoiling the story of the vest.

“You swapped it!” he screams. “My Yngwie! Sphinx, let me at him! I'm going to kill him!”

Sphinx, naturally, does not let him. Lary is spraying snot and spit, looking like he's about to go apoplectic at any moment.

“Keep yourself together,” I say to him. “There are Logs all around us. What are they going to think? I've never swapped your precious Yngwie. As Sphinx's legs are my witness.”

“Where is it then, you bloodsucking merchant?”

“Back in the wheelchair, I guess. Downstairs. Where I left it, having had to depart urgently.”

Lary smacks himself in the face, turns around, and runs back.

“Wouldn't be surprised if Rats get to it first,” I tell Sphinx. “You know how they are. No respect for other people's property.”

“Look who's talking about respect for property, Tabaqui,” Sphinx says, crouching down. I climb on his shoulders. “If his record gets swiped, you're giving him one of yours. Got that?”

I don't say anything. What can I say? Sphinx knows perfectly well that Lary has no use for any of my records. Just as I, for his. From up here I get a good view of the upper portions of the wall murals, so I busy myself studying them, even though Sphinx is striding too fast for a really close look. Once we reach the dorm I bend down to his ear.

“You know what? I think I'm going to give him a flashlight instead. It's very nice. Even a bit risque, in a sense. Deal?”

The time between lunch and dinner drags on the longest, so by dinnertime I'm usually almost bonkers from all the waiting. But that's only if the day was dull; if it was not and there is something I can tell others about, that's different. I do have something today, and so I tell, to everyone in turn, until I myself grow tired of the repetitive details. Lary is the only one who refuses to listen. He comes back hauling his Yngwie, slots it in place, shakes a fist at me, and goes away. One might even think he's totally uninterested in finding out where I got the new vest.

I take it off to get a closer look. Then put it back on. Then take it off again. It gets better and better every time I do it. Even Nanette thinks so. She struts around and tries to peck off the beads. I have to use a magazine to shoo her off. It's a whole week until next Tuesday, if you count today, but I decide to stock up on the swappies, especially in view of a sack of freshly cracked walnut shells.

Putting on headphones to better filter out the distractions and sundry pack business, I start stringing the shells on a piece of fishing line, picking the smallest and the cutest ones. The radio is tuned to some garbage for the toddlers.

It's shameful what they feed the Outsides kids. Hair stands on end, honest. I mean, “The Snow Queen” by itself isn't half bad, but they chose to give the narration to this deep female voice doing sexy whispers and moans, which gives the story a rather unexpected flavor.

“The boat drifted with the stream,” she sighs hoarsely in my ears, “little Gerda sat quite still without shoes, for they were swimming behind the boat, but she could not reach them, because the boat went much faster than they did. ‘Perhaps the river will carry me to little Kay,’ said she; and then she grew less sad.” The voice stumbles, overwhelmed with emotion.

Another shell. And another.

Black comes to rummage in the nightstand, then in the desk drawer. Finally finds a razor and goes away. He's already got a beard to worry about. I've got nothing in that department.

“‘I have often longed for such a dear little girl,’” a vampire voice hisses. “‘Now you shall see how well we agree together.’”

Someone's hair is being combed, with a suspicious crunching sound.

“‘O-o-oh, I'm so sleepy, what is happening,’” Gerda squeaks. She's forty if she is a day. Fascinating stuff. The necklace is almost ready, and my fingers are in agony. You might think making holes in walnut shells is easy, but it's not. I hang the first string on the nail. Looks like it’ll be a good one. The shells are all almost identical.

“‘Caw! Caw! Good day! Good day!’”

Judging by the voice, Raven is off the wagon. His spouse seems to be the first character in the entire thing who is actually young. She caws in a tender soprano. I pick out the second piece of fishing line.

Humpback runs in. He has this peculiar face, so it's obvious that something big has just happened. I drop the shells and look at his lips. I used to be able to read lips when I was younger, but that was so long ago, and besides he keeps turning away, so I can't quite make it out. I guess I'd better take off the earphones, except I’m scared. Because I think I saw him say “Noble.” Which is impossible.

“‘Yes, yes; for certain that was Kay,’” enunciates the on-the-wrong-side-of-forty Gerda in my head. “‘Oh, won't you take me to the palace?’”

Out of the corner of my eye I notice that Sphinx is also a bit frazzled. He stumbles backward to the bed and sits down, staring at Humpback. Blind comes in. He looks strange too. And then—Noble's wheelchair, pushed by Ralph, with Noble in it.

“‘They are only dreams... Dreams of noble gentlemen ...’”

To hell with the headphones.

Silence. It's so quiet that I can hear the thrum of the House in the walls, and even the noises of the Outsides. Real silence, the kind we don't often have. Ralph is looking at us, and we’re looking at Noble. Then comes the loudest dinner bell I've ever heard in my life. Ralph turns to leave and bumps into freshly shaven Black.

“Sorry,” Black says to him, and then “Oh!” as he notices Noble.

“Not at all,” Ralph says and walks out.

We keep staring at Noble. It really is him. Alive, in the flesh, not in a song or a dream. You can touch him, smell him, pull his hair. I need to find out how long he's going to be here and all kinds of important stuff, but I'm stupefied and can't snap out of it. Noble is hunched down in his chair. Pitiful looking, exactly the way I pictured him when playing the harmonica. Closely cropped hair. Not a buzz cut, but it would have been better if it were, because the person who gave him this was clearly bipolar. Hair sticking out in untidy clumps, and between them the skin is visible under the stubble, like he's got ringworm. Whoever thought of cutting Noble's hair, especially in this fashion, can't be considered normal, that much is obvious. Noble has on Humpback's leather jacket and my old vest. His eyes seem bigger than before, face looks smaller, fingers tease the badges stuck all over the jacket, and he never raises his head. He looks like hell, and the worst of it is that everyone just stares silently.

I begin swaying fretfully. The bad situation is getting worse and worse, until Blind sneaks out to the wheelchair and offers cigarettes to Noble.

“Here, have a smoke. You're unusually quiet.”

Noble grabs the pack the way a drowning man grasps at the life preserver. And my stupefaction is suddenly gone. So is everyone else's. I turn on the afterburners, but I'm still the last one to reach him. Noble is being swarmed, jostled, sniffed, and shouted at. I join in the festivities at top volume. In the middle of the celebrations he breaks down and starts crying.