Мариам Петросян - The Gray House

“Snoring and heaving my broad hairy chest,” I say. “Except I wouldn't call those Hound howls tiny peeps. I wonder what's gotten into them. Probably the freshly minted Leader flexing his muscles?”

“Not freshly at all. You just can't get used to it.”

It's true, I'm having a hard time accepting the fact of Black becoming the Sixth's Leader. Even though upon reflection that's exactly the place for him. Pompey's throne didn't even need adjusting for size, and Hounds received what they constantly crave—a strong, steady hand on the collar.

“You know what's funny?” Mermaid says. “The way your voice changes when you talk about Black. It's not even yours anymore. I can't understand why you hate him so much.”

“didn't I explain about a dozen times already?”

“You did. But I don't believe your explanations. You aren't that vindictive, to keep hating someone just because he bullied you a long time ago. It's not like you at all.”

She sounds so sure of what she's saying that it makes me uneasy. I am not the flawless, ideal Sphinx she fell in love with. And that's not the worst part. The worst part is that I would very much like to be him. That just, kind, magnanimous guy she likes so much. If I were like that I'd probably have acquired a halo by now. Shined with divine light and trailed heavenly fragrance, like a saint.

“It is too like me. It is me. My true evil nature!”

Mermaid doesn't even argue, just bites on her finger and goes pensive. She detests arguments. Having to prove and defend her point of view. Which does not make her position any weaker. Not in the slightest.

I bump her lightly with my forehead.

“Hey. don't go too far. I can't see you all the way over there.”

“Tell me something interesting,” she says immediately. “Then I’ll stay.”

“What about?”

Mermaid's face lights up. It's amazing how she loves stories. All kinds, it doesn't matter. Lary's tedious laments, stumbling over each syllable, Jackal's epics, convoluted and branching in all directions—nothing fazes her. She's ready to spend hours listening to anyone who'd have an urge to unburden themselves in her company. This to me is her most unusual quality, one the least common in her gender.

“So, what kind of story?” I ask, unable to resist her infectious eagerness.

“Tell me how Black became Leader.”

“Not Black again! What's so special about him?”

“You offered a story and asked what kind. I'm interested to hear about him because to me he's interesting. As someone you dislike.”

“Dislike, now there's an understatement.”

“You see? How can that be not interesting?”

I can only sigh in response.

“So you don't want to tell me a story anymore?” she asks, or rather clarifies. “Just as I thought.”

“No, that's not it. I'm afraid you’ll be disappointed. I don't really know how it happened. I think I can guess. He and Blind were stuck in the Cage. Nothing to do. Blind got this bright idea to send Black to the Sixth as Leader. That wouldn't be the most bizarre thing that someone came up with while in there. So he suggested it, and miracle of miracles, Black agreed, even though it's completely against his principles to agree when he can refuse. And that's how it came about. It might not have been exactly this way, but I wasn't there, and no one was, apart from the two of them, which means that only they can know for sure what really happened.”

“How come they were stuck there together?”

“That's a different story altogether. One I don't much like to recall. It started back on the Longest, and I don't particularly ...”

“Wow, the Longest!”

Mermaid tugs at my shirt imploringly.

“Please tell me, please? The Longest—that's so exciting! All those tales ...”

“That you've heard a thousand times already. Ask Tabaqui. He’ll read you the two-hundred-line poem he composed in honor of that night. And sing you any of the ten songs on the subject. Ginger was with us that night too. Let her tell you all about it. Why should I repeat something that you know by heart? That everybody knows?”

“Ginger is Ginger, and you are you. I'm not asking you for a retelling of Tabaqui's songs and poems. But if you're so uncomfortable with this, don't say anything at all, of course. I just don't understand. They all like to remember that night ...”

“Ginger included?” I say, sure of the answer.

“No, not her. She cringes and changes the subject. Like you.”

“All right. Come up here. Listen, and maybe you’ll understand why it is that I don't like to recall that night when everyone else does.”

Mermaid quickly clambers up on the bench and makes herself comfortable against my side. Her long, loose vest is crocheted so that the rows of fluffy knots running across the whole width of it can move freely, with the openings then exposing any writings on the shirt underneath that Mermaid feels like sharing with the world. She has more than a dozen different shirts with scribbles on them, fit for any occasion. When she sits the way she does now the only message that's visible is on her left shoulder: I remember everything! What this everything includes is not clear. It could be that other messages help clarify the situation, but I can't see them.

She wraps the stained sleeve of my sweater around her neck and hangs her tiny backpack on the back of the bench.

“Now you may begin.”

I sigh and dive into the vortex of blood that is the Longest, into its impenetrable darkness, the stuff of House legends. I dive in and swim through its muck and gore, invariably the favorite subject of those legends.

I begin where the Longest began for me. Anticipating the gasps from the audience along the lines of “Are you saying that you were simply asleep before that?” I even pause dutifully to give Mermaid the necessary space for expressing her indignation, but she does not avail herself of it, and so I stumble forward—after Humpback, who is lighting my way as we search for Tubby.

Truly “The Hunting of the Snark” has nothing on “The Hunting of Tubbs,” especially the way Jackal performs it. “Tenderly passionate lover, lover who conquers darkness, scratching through walls of stone, gnawing through doors of iron ...” And so on, in the same breathless key. With slight variations, where, on the narrator's whim, Tubby morphs from a tender lover into a libidinous maniac and back, while the finding of him by Sphinx, “he who at length discovered,” changes by degrees from one stanza to the next so that I perform progressively impressive feats, ranging from digging Tubby out from an avalanche of bricks, the remains of the wall he destroyed (listening to this version I picture myself as a huge shaggy Saint Bernard, complete with the Red Cross bag across my chest), to extracting him (using my teeth) from the boudoir of the innocently sleeping stark-naked tutoress. My teeth generally play a decisive part in the proceedings while Humpback's participation is mostly glossed over, so it is I, with Tubby hanging down from my jaws, who crosses the interminable hallways, somehow capable at the same time of holding an extended conversation with him, chiding him gently while he whines contritely. The reality is so colorless and dull, so paltry compared to that elaborate nightmare, that I race through it in double time, through my entire stumbling night journey, up the stairs with Humpback, down the same stairs with him and Tubby... Noble, Vulture, Blind... And here we are, back in the dorm, where Tabaqui is already rehearsing the early drafts of the tales and songs he is going to dedicate to this L. N.

“Now you see, this stripling was hell-bent on going for a stroll in the dark. You realize, don't you, what would have inevitably transpired were I not by his side? We moved in pitch-darkness, but nevertheless we moved, and I turned to him and said, ‘Be it as it may, my friend, but you're definitely crazy!’ ‘If only I could have known!’ he replied.”