Мариам Петросян - The Gray House

Lary is engrossed in excavating his nostril, imagining that he's doing it discreetly. Noble and Humpback also put on blankets. Alexander roams the room offering tea, and the boombox is burbling unobtrusively. In short, a nice evening of pleasant domesticity. Not quite the way we would have done it by ourselves, though, or even with the Old Sissy Guard, because girls are girls and their presence is somewhat limiting. It's one thing to imagine yourself sparkling with wit, but the wit itself does not readily present itself. Only stale, belabored jokes, not worthy of being thought of, much less enunciated. Better to keep silent. So I'm silent for a spell. Breathing in and listening to others.

They're rehashing the snow battle. Can't seem to get enough of it. Ginger's bare feet peek from under the blanket. The feet are milky white and scratched, the curled-up toes move when she speaks. Fly makes faces, sways, and giggles. Then she chokes on the smoke and sweeps the corner of the blanket off her head, so we now see her sharp teeth and the metal rings in her ears, five in each. Eyebrows dusted with glitter. She looks like a thieving ragamuffin. Maybe because she constantly pouts, or maybe because she keeps flaring her nostrils. Takes no great leap of imagination to picture her doing something like stealing horses. Also, she talks too fast. Even for me.

Ginger is silent. Either smoking or gnawing at her nails. Looking at the two of them, an outside observer would say: now here's a shy and quiet girl, and here's a gregarious and talkative one. All nice and clear, choose whichever one suits you better. But those of us who knew them from a tender age know that it's not so simple. Because Fly was the one who never said a single word for five straight years, from age six to age eleven. She was neither deaf nor mute, but she'd flee under the bed anytime anyone tried to approach her. Whereas Ginger had been at one time dubbed Satan by the counselors. Not even I have distinguished myself with a nick like that. So she's about as humble and mild mannered as I am. And she's grown quieter and quieter each year.

I pull at the edge of her blanket.

“Hey, Gingie, do girls still get sent to the Cages?”

She leans closer to me.

“Of course. But to the ones in our hallway, not those on the counselors' floor. Godmother never allows Cases near us. They’re always drunk and tend to let their hands wander too much. So she does the honors herself. Locks us in and lets us out. She's the only one with the keys.”

“Wow,” I say. “That sounds just like her.”

Counselor Godmother is the House's Iron Lady. Looking at her you start imagining that she must be jangling and clanking as she walks, like the Tin Man. But the only sound you actually hear is those heels clicking.

Lary inquires about Blondie, the new counselor. Girls' counselors are a favorite topic with Logs, and they absolutely adore Blondie. Ever since they first laid their eyes on her.

“Still feeling out the place,” Fly says. “She's kinda cute, but on the nervous side. I don't think she's going to take an entire shift. Running errands for others is just about her speed. And that hair, it's real, imagine that. A natural strawberry blonde. Gorgeous shade.”

Lary swallows and lets out a wistful sigh. As far as I’m concerned, blondes like that are better off being buried alive. Well, this one might be cute, I wouldn't know. I've only seen her twice, and both times I could only look at the watch she had. Huge thing, the size of a large onion. Ticking like a bomb. Disgusting. So her hair was the last thing on my mind.

“Our Tubby is totally in love with her,” Sphinx says. “I was walking him down on the first. And she'd just left Shark's office, straight at us. Tubby tossed himself out of his wheelchair and made a beeline for her. At a ridiculous speed. No one could've expected that.”

“And?” Fly says, opening her eyes wide.

“Nothing,” Sphinx scowls. “Gummed her a bit, that's all. But you should have heard the screams.”

We are silent for a while, out of respect for Tubby's broken heart. Ginger has emerged from under her veil. Humpback's red shirt and her own fiery hair—the impression here is of a flaming torch. You just can't go and set black eyes into a face like that. It's scary. The skin does not exactly crawl, but definitely feels scratchy.

Fly keeps turning her head this way and that, looking for something.

“Where's your crow? I heard you had a crow living here. I'd love to take a look!”

Humpback goes to take out Nanette. The poor bird, already tucked in for the night.

“How's Mermaid doing?” I ask. “You know, the small one with the longest hair,” I clarify, because I'm still not sure about the nick.

“Ask her,” Fly says, pointing at Ginger. “They're from the same room. The Dreadful Dorm.”

Ginger's eyebrows jerk up. She's not looking at Fly; her chin is buried in her knees, finger sweeping the lips distractedly.

“I mean, distinctive,” Fly backpedals. “The most unusual, I mean ...”

Humpback returns with sleepy Nanette in an irritated torpor and parades her before the girls. Fly carefully pets the gunmetal feathers. The bird startles and pulls the translucent film over her eyes. Were she in a bit more conscious state, the enemy's fingers already would have been pecked to a bloody mess.

“Isn't she a darling... Beau-utiful... ,” Fly coos obliviously. “So cute.”

The cute darling looks daggers and is already starting to wheeze threateningly, so Humpback whisks her away back to the perch.

“Such a sweetie,” Fly persists. “I could've just eaten her up!”

“Before you do, make sure you have a spare set of eyes handy,” Black says. “It's not a darling at all, really.”

“Nah,” Fly pouts, not taking her eyes off departing Nanette. “She's a sweet girl, she can't be a meanie.”

“So, how's Mermaid?” I ask again. “I had a little talk with her yesterday.”

Ginger looks at my vest and smiles.

“Mermaid's doing fine,” she says. “She's one of those people... Well, maybe they only look like that, I don't know. But anyway, they're rare, those people who never have any problems. Or at least behave as if they don't have any.”

We all look at Alexander. He blushes and gets tangled in the coffeemaker's electric cord. We turn away, giving him time to untangle.

I have a strange aftertaste in my mouth after this exchange. As if I, too, know how she is, the girl who creates the most wonderful vests in the world and then gives them away to the first stranger she meets. This conversation calls for a smoke. Ginger and I light up in unison, except her cigarette, unlike mine, gets six lighters thrust at it from all directions, and the most insistent of them belongs to Noble, and I suddenly realize that he's been kind of strangely bright red of color, and the looks he's been giving Ginger are also strange. Probing and fiery. Predatory, one might even say. It is so obvious that I grow uncomfortable, and throw a sideways glance at Sphinx: Has he noticed yet?

Well, if he has, he's not letting it show. He's twirling the ashtray with the rake, all sleepy like. He and Wolf always looked like that when something piqued their interest. Deceptively relaxed.

“I tried my best to protect the ear.” Lary wades in with a non sequitur. “And still it got walloped. A nasty one, too. Hope it's not going to get infected like the last time.”

He feels his ear and then examines the fingers. As if, when he touched it, the infection could have fallen out.

“You don't look like your ears would be giving you trouble,” Fly notes kindly.

Lary considers this. Should he take it as a compliment?

We discuss the latest Gallery. The actual paintings there could be counted on one hand, but Lizard from the Third exhibited himself, painted. That was a sight to behold. Looking at Lizard is a scary proposition even under normal circumstances. But body-painted... Talking about the Gallery shakes Smoker out of his funk and he tells us about a couple of exhibitions he happened to attend back in the Outsides. Then we discuss the Fortune-Telling Salon. I worked there for a week as Madame Zazu, fortune-teller and palmist extraordinaire, and can impart some inside info. Fly and Lary proceed to gossip about the girls' counselors—that is, Fly gossips while Lary nods excitedly. Ginger and I get into an argument about Richard Bach, also in a gossipy way. We both agree that he isn't too bad as a writer, but as far as women in his life are concerned, he behaved like a complete bastard. Take, for example, his search for the One, where the aspiring girls more or less had to pass a private pilot's exam at some point.