Мариам Петросян - The Gray House

Some would not understand or accept this, some would not even notice, but not Elk. He understood everything, and when it was time for him to go he knew he had to take Blind with him.

Blind never expected that. He knew that sooner or later Elk would have to leave, that he'd be left alone again, and that it would be terrifying. But he never imagined it could be otherwise. Then the miracle happened.

His memory preserved that day in the smallest detail, with all its smells and sounds and the warmth of the sun's rays on his face. They were walking, Blind holding Elk's hand, gripping it with all his strength, his heart fluttering like a wounded bird. They walked and walked. The sun shined, the pebbles crunched underfoot, the trucks rumbled in the distance. Never before had he walked this far. Then they climbed into a car and he had to let go of Elk's hand, so he grabbed the side of his jacket instead.

This was how they came to the House. There were a lot of children here too, and all of them were sighted. Now he knew what that really meant—that all of them had something he couldn't have. But this no longer worried him. The only important thing was the presence of Elk, the man whom he loved and who loved him.

And then it turned out that the House was alive, that it too could love. Its love was unlike anything else. It was a little scary at times, but never terrifying. Elk was god, so it followed that the place where he lived could not be a common place. It also could not cause any real harm. Elk never showed that he knew the true nature of the House; he would feign ignorance, and Blind guessed that it was a great secret that never should be spoken about. Not even with Elk himself. So he loved the House silently, loved it like no one had ever loved it before. He liked the scent of it, he liked that there was plenty of wet plaster for him to peel off the walls and eat, he liked the large yard and the captivatingly long hallways. He liked how long the traces of those who passed by hung in the air, he liked the crevices in the walls of the House, all its nooks and abandoned rooms, all its ghosts and open roads. He could do anything he wanted here. His every step had always been controlled by the grown-ups. The new place lacked that, and he was even a little uncomfortable at first, but he got used to it surprisingly quickly.

Elk, the blue-eyed catcher of little souls, went out to the porch and looked at the sky. The scorching flame was being extinguished on the horizon, but the coming evening did not promise any respite from the heat.

The boy sitting on the porch had a black eye and was also looking at the sky.

“What happened?” Elk asked.

The boy grimaced.

“He said I was supposed to learn how to fight. What for? He is always silent, like he's deaf or something. So why doesn't he just stay silent, because when he speaks it's even worse. I used to think how it was so sad that he never said anything. Now I think it was better that way. I don't need his fighting lessons. He punched me in the eye for some reason. I guess he's jealous that I can see and he can’t.”

Elk thrust his hands in his pockets and swayed back and forth on his heels.

“Does it hurt?”

“No.”

The boy stood up and leaned over the railing, hanging down halfway into the yard.

“I'm sick of him. Sometimes it's like he's not right in the head. He's weird.”

“That's exactly what he says about you,” Elk said, holding back a smile, intently watching the dejected figure on the railing. “Do you still remember the deal we had?”

The boy pushed his feet off the floorboards and started swinging.

“I remember. No complaining, no sulking, and no grumbling. But I am not complaining and I am not sulking. I just went out for a bit of fresh air.” He stopped swinging and looked up. “Elk, look! It's beautiful. The red sky. And the trees are black, like the sky burned them.”

“Let's go in,” Elk said. “It's even more beautiful from the balcony. Here you're a mosquito buffet.”

The boy reluctantly peeled himself off the railing and followed Elk.

“And poor little Blind can't see any of it,” he said with barely disguised glee. “I guess that could make him a bit edgy.”

“So describe it to him,” Elk said and opened the door. “He would very much like to hear about what he can't see.”

“Yeah.” The boy nodded. “Sure. And then he can punch me in the other eye, so that we both can't see, equally. He would very much like that too.”

Two boys on the balcony were lying head to head on an air mattress amid a sea of stale popcorn and cookie crumbs. The boy in a straw hat, with the empty sleeves of the shirt tucked under his stomach, was droning in a monotone, not taking his eyes from the vivid colors of the mattress cover.

“So they are white and they move, and the edges are like somebody was tearing them or chewing them a bit. Pinkish on the bottom. Pink is kind of like red, only lighter. And they move very, very slowly, and you have to look at them for a long time to notice. There aren't that many of them now. And when there's more of them then it's not sunny anymore, and then when they turn dark they make everything dark too, and it might even rain.”

The long-haired boy lifted his head and frowned.

“don't talk about things that aren’t. Describe what is now.”

“All right,” the boy in the hat agreed and turned over on his back. “So they're white, and pink on the bottom, and they float slowly, and it's all blue around them.”

He squinted through his sun-bleached eyelashes at the smooth blue expanse of the sky, untouched by even a single cloud, and continued with a smile.

“It's so blue under them, and above them too. They are like fluffy white sheep. It's too bad you can't see how beautiful they are.”

The House was empty. Or it seemed empty. Cleaners crossed its hallways every morning, leaving behind glossy trails of floor polish. Fat flies threw themselves against windowpanes in the empty dorms. Three boys, tanned almost to the point of blackness, lived in the cardboard hut in the yard. Cats went out for night hunts; they slept all through the day, curled in fuzzy balls. The House was empty, but still someone cleaned it, someone prepared the food and put it on the trays. Unseen hands swept away the dirt and aired out the stuffy rooms. The inhabitants of the cardboard hut came running into the House for water and sandwiches, leaving behind candy wrappers, blobs of gum, and dirty footprints. They were trying their best but there were too few of them, and the House was too big. The sound of their feet faded away, their cries were lost in the emptiness within the walls, and they ran back to their little encampment as soon as they could, away from the dead faceless rooms, all identical and smelling of polish. The invisible hands quickly erased the signs of their visit. There was only one room that remained alive. Those living in it were not afraid of the uninhabited House.

The boy didn't quite know what scared him on the first day when they returned. What woke him up was the din of their presence. He opened his eyes and realized that the House was full of people, that the silence—the sultry summer silence, so familiar to him now after this past month—was gone. The House creaked, slammed its doors, and rattled its windows, it was tossing musical snippets to itself through the walls, it was bubbling with life.

He pushed away the blanket and ran out on the balcony.

The yard was brimming with people. They milled around the two red-and-blue buses, they laughed, smoked, and lugged their bulging backpacks and bags from place to place. They were colorful, tanned, rowdy, and they smelled of the sea. The yard sizzled under the burning sky. He crouched down, pressed his forehead against the railing, and simply looked at them. He wanted to join them, become a part of their charmed grown-up life. He was aching to rush down—and still he didn't move. Besides, someone would have to dress him first. Finally he tore his eyes off them and went back to the room.