Мариам Петросян - The Gray House

Black has fled to the windowsill with a stack of magazines. Before Blind's hungry, grasping tentacles Rat pitches three cans of coffee, four cartons of cigarettes, a pack of AA batteries, and dark glasses of an especially ghastly persuasion. Humpback has a set of combs and a meerschaum pipe. There are two more packets on the table, but we don't get to open them, as R One appears suddenly in the middle of the classroom inquiring what it is we think we're doing when the class has already started and the teacher is on the way. Rat somehow escapes his attention.

We quickly whisk away the items, the packaging, ribbons, string—in short, everything that smells of fun and can therefore upset the teachers, who are excluded from it. Rat zips up the bag and leaves.

“How're you feeling?” Ralph asks, stopping at Noble's desk.

“Good,” he says with a shrug.

Ralph nods, walks away, and hovers over Smoker's head.

“What about you?”

Smoker blushes and blinks.

“All right, I guess.”

Ralph gives him a look, as if he has deep suspicions concerning Smoker's all-right feelings, before scampering to his own chair.

During lunch break I keep pestering Sphinx until he relents and directs Alexander to take the map of New Zealand off the wall. We have two pictures stapled under it. Big ones, each almost the size of half the map.

One of them, done in black ink, is of a tree, gnarly and sprawling, almost denuded of leaves. On the bare branch there's a lonely frazzled raven, and underneath it, by the roots, what looks like a garbage pile. Even though the garbage is just regular human trash, it's still somehow obvious that it was the raven that's assembled it—the bottles, the bones, the concert tickets, the wall calendars. And the reason it's so sad appears to be that the whole of its life has turned into that waste. So the picture is actually about anyone and everyone, funny at first sight and somber at all the subsequent sights. Like every picture Leopard's ever drawn. The second is in color. A scrawny, sand-colored cat in the middle of a parched desert. It's got emerald-green eyes and looks a bit like Sphinx. Apart from it, there's only the cracked earth and ghostly brush populated by yellowish-white snails. On the ground near the cat's paws are broken snail shells. The shards are covered with scratches that are actually notes and Latin proverbs. Also on the ground, someone's footprints. Could be a bird, could be an animal. The prints straggle by where the cat's sitting, loop around the brush, and disappear somewhere in the distance.

We look at the pictures for a while. They make us a bit depressed. The first drawing belongs to me and the other one to Sphinx, but they are in fact communal property of the pack. So valuable that we never leave them out on display, to make sure we don't get used to them. We look and remember Leopard. They're his present to us. Blind usually takes part in the ritual as well. He has his own ways of reaching the right frame of mind, and we could only make wild guesses at what those are. But he never skips the picture-viewing sessions. The animals in the corridor are accessible to his fingers and he knows them as well as we do. Before filling them in, Leopard always scored the outline into the wall. But these he only knows from our descriptions.

So here we are, sitting and standing before our treasure. Looking at it and not looking, at the same time. Seeing it. Listening and thinking. Then we put the map back and return to the daily grind. Smoker isn't asking questions, which is a bit strange. Could it be that he too is finally growing up?

29.b.

In some cases repositioning to the windowsill can be achieved by utilizing the services of a helper if the latter is already situated on said windowsill. For the person being repositioned this facilitates a quicker achievement of his goals. Safety tip: the weight of the lifter should exceed that of the liftee.

Smoker, on the floor, flips through old issues of Blume , slowly coming to the realization that the overwhelming majority of the articles had been written by Jackal. Noble is counting the hours until the card players' meeting in a secret location. Blind is also waiting. For the House to settle down. For the transition into the night. For the time when he can go out in search of the Forest. Humpback is inviting slumber by playing his flute. Sphinx listens. To him and to Smoker, who is arcing with irritation.

There are two toxic zones in the room. Around Smoker and around Black.

“I've got this hunch,” Tabaqui says, finishing up the pre-repose batch of sandwiches, “that we're having the Longest tonight.”

“Could very well be,” Sphinx agrees. “I'd even say more likely than not.”

He jostles Blind with his knee.

“Hey! What do you think?”

“Yes,” Blind says. “Quite possible. It's a bit early this year, for some reason. Or maybe we're going to have more than one.”

“That's a new one to me,” Tabaqui says. “I've never heard of that happening before. So, why and wherefore did you get this idea?”

Smoker studies them warily, suspicious that they are deliberately talking nonsense to make him feel stupid and provoke him into asking questions. So he isn't asking them.

It's night. Only two wall lamps out of the dozen are on. Everyone who's left in the dorm is asleep. Except for Smoker. Smoker is on the floor next to the pile of magazines, deep in thought. He wants to do something he's never done before. Take a drive around the House after lights out, for example. This could be the old magazines talking. He's not sure. With bated breath he starts inching toward the door. He almost makes it when there's tossing and turning on the bed. A shaggy head leans down from it.

“What?”

“Going out,” Smoker whispers back.

Tabaqui tumbles onto the floor.

“Horrible,” he mumbles. “Instead of sleeping peacefully I've now got to look after this dunce lest something happens to him. He's going out, don't you know. In the dark. Possibly in the middle of the Longest. Enough to drive a man crazy.”

“I'm not asking you to come with me. I want to go by myself.”

“Yeah, and there are many things I want too. You're not going out alone. Either we go together or I wake up Sphinx and he knocks some sense into you. Your choice.”

Before Smoker is able to crawl any farther, Tabaqui is already at the door, aboard Mustang. Still in pajamas. Clutching his socks and a handful of amulets. Despite the threatening voice, Smoker imagines that Tabaqui is looking forward to a ride with him.

“All right,” Smoker says. “We go together.”

Then he has to concentrate on trying to climb into the wheelchair, and when he's finally in he sees Tabaqui methodically stuffing his backpack. The backpack is already so bloated that it's impossible to close, but Jackal continues to add to its contents.

“What's all that for?”

“Sweaters, in case we get cold. Food, in case we get hungry. Weapons, in case we get attacked,” Tabaqui explains. “You don't just drive out into the night unprepared, silly!”

Smoker doesn't argue. He follows Tabaqui into the anteroom and then into the pitch-dark hallway, where Tabaqui orders him to switch off the flashlight.

“Otherwise we are going to be seen by everyone who's already accustomed to the darkness, and at the same time we won't be able to see them.”

Smoker obediently switches it off and darkness envelops them.

“Let's ride,” Tabaqui whispers.