Мариам Петросян - The Gray House

Lary picks up a bottle and shakes it indignantly.

“So that's what they've been doing here, while we worry about them and stock up on provisions there!”

“don't waste your breath,” Black says. “It's not worth it.”

I listen. I listen very carefully to the tone of his voice, almost gloating, and I wonder what could he, beaten, tired, and hungry, be gloating about. Then I look at Blind and understand what it is that's making him gleeful there under the bandages. His happiness looks like Blind's face with a swollen eye and a split lip. That on the day when they found a corpse. On the day when any scratch is a mark of involvement. Involvement and guilt. He doesn't care that he's completely covered with those marks, the important thing is that Blind's got them.

Forest... Dark and fragrant, smelling of mint... Sweet songs, lures for the strangers ...

Black stubs out his cigarette against the six-pack abs of the bodybuilder on a poster above his bed.

“What do I say to Ralph when he asks about the shiners?”

Beaten, tired, he earnestly solicits his packmates' opinion regarding correct behavior in a tight spot. Not a reason at all for someone to break out in hives from the cheeks all the way down to the navel, the kind that are going to still itch a week later, yet I feel them coming, the tiny burning gnats spreading like wildfire, bitey and sticky-footed, as if someone has thrown a handful of them under my collar.

“Say whatever you were planning to when you kicked off the hysterics,” I suggest. “Or don't say anything at all. Both of those choices work fine for your purposes.”

The sparks of rage directed my way seep through the strata of tape.

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing. Just that I wouldn't be in such a rush to return to normal after a bout of insanity, if I were you. didn't you go nuts, Black? As recently as yesterday, if the memory serves. So hold on a bit with the reasonable questions. That would definitely look more natural.”

I talk and talk, can't stop talking, my speech sounds more and more like a sermon, and I even remember it being eloquent and not simply protracted. But then again, maybe that's just wishful thinking, because I also vividly recall a finger that I waved in front of Black's Band-Aided nose, and where would I have found a thing like a finger on my body? I presented a broad outline of the classic descriptions of madness, from Ophelia to Captain Ahab, discoursed on pig tails peeking from under the skirts and on lovers jumping out of windows to escape jealous husbands while leaving their pants behind. I expounded extemporaneously and convincingly, interrupted only by Tabaqui's rapturous applause and the attacks of my biting gnats, and when I was finished Black asked, “What was that crap supposed to mean?”

Tabaqui advises Black to “let the sleeping dogs lie,” because “it's obvious he's extremely, and I mean extremely, tense, isn't that enough for you?”

“Listen to the voice of the people,” I say to Black. “You, Ophelia who somehow stopped just short of the river.”

Upon hearing the mention of a river, the actual candidate for the madhouse, our beat-up Leader and Forest pilgrim, nods and imparts, “Rivers are a tricky substance... You never know if you can drink out of them. Best bet is to lie down and listen for a while, until you're sure that there are frogs in it. Then drink all you want, it's not going to be poisonous.”

“Thank you,” I say to Blind. And then to Black, “There. Learn from the masters.”

Then, without listening to his aggressively barking repartee, I leave, the scratchy bugs having almost finished eating me alive. I bump into Ralph on the way out, also grayish in color from the sleepless night, and also wearing surgical tape on his face.

What happens next is easy to predict, and I do predict it. The Cage for Blind and Black, where they quite probably are going to tear each other to pieces from boredom and mutual antipathy; interrogations and investigations into the circumstances of Crab's death; state of confusion among Rats temporarily left without their Leader; and many other things, both related and unrelated to those mentioned above. What I totally fail to predict is that, after a long time spent in the Cage, Black and Blind are going to come to an agreement regarding the Sixth. I can't imagine either how bored they were for Blind to come up with an idea like that, or how much Black loathed returning to the pack to accept it. It's possible that if they had spent a little more time in there, Blind would have thought of something even better. The Cages are conducive to introspection, unless you’re stuck there for too long. The longer you sit in them, the harder it becomes not to give in to fear, and that kicks all the thoughtfulness right out of your head. But that's if you're alone; for two it wasn't unheard of to last a week. The detention of Black and Blind smashed all Cage records—eleven days and change. Good thing I’m bald, or my head would have acquired that exact number of snowy-white hairs, one for each day of their absence. We have Ralph to thank for it, or rather his concern for the Rat runaways. He got it into his head that Blind was going to squash them as soon as he had a chance, so he did his best to make sure Blind didn't get that chance, leaving Blind with plenty of time for all kinds of novel ideas. He'd discuss them with Black, and the rest of the time they spent playing chess and peeling the upholstery off the walls, looking for the secret cigarette stash. That was a traditional endeavor for visitors to the Cage ever since that time when Wolf had announced publicly that he'd sewn a carton's worth into its walls somewhere. It was most likely a joke and treated as such by everyone. Except that after two days in the Cage, the sense of humor is usually the first thing to go, and then people start looking. That's why the chintz featured rips and gashes, marking the places where the prisoners’ fingernails and razors had gone to work. There already wasn't an untouched patch more than four inches square. It was customary to sew back up the checked-out places, for which purpose there was always a threaded needle left stuck right above the door. Black and Blind didn't need it, because they went past the upholstery, past the foam, and even past the plasterboard, all the way to the brickwork.

Shark sincerely suspected them of trying to tunnel into the Outsides. After Squib, Solomon, and Don, he became very jumpy in that regard and spent a lot of time questioning Black about where they would have gone if they had managed to get out. He must have imagined that this way he'd be able to track those three, as if the Grayhouse folk, like spawning salmon, were only capable of moving in one direction. I haven't personally witnessed the devastation the merry couple wreaked, but judging by how long the repairs took, the Cage sustained some serious damage.

I realize with a start that I've been talking for a while now without hearing any response, and look suspiciously at Mermaid's head, which has slipped down from my shoulder.

“Hey. You didn't doze off, by any chance, great lover of stories? I've been full of sound and fury especially for you, you know ...”

“Of course not,” a pointedly alert voice replies, slightly muffled by the sweater sleeve. “I've been listening all this time. And thinking.”

“What exactly were you thinking about, sleepyhead?”

She gently pushes away, and I again see that she “remembers everything” in the gaps of her vest.

“I'm thinking how the same story comes out completely differently depending on who's telling it. And for all that, none of you is really lying.”

“Because whoever's telling the story creates the story. No single story can describe reality exactly the way it was. I told you that I personally prefer Tabaqui's version.”