Мариам Петросян - The Gray House

“And I prefer to listen and compare.”

Groaning, she straightens her legs. The sneakers, in service for so long that they're now uniformly gray, have been darned with thread where the canvas meets the rubber. Baby shoes. So touching I can't look at them without misting up. When Mermaid shifts, the knots on the vest shift too, exposing a different slogan. Hate to the grave!

“What's with the hate?” I ask.

“I don't know. Just in case. I thought I needed something sinister too.”

“And I don't think you do. At all.”

The Hate to the grave slides back under the knots, and my mood lightens. I know it's all child's play, but I take these things seriously. Maybe because I happen to know that the games are never just games in the House.

Mermaid pulls up her knees and hugs them. No slogans, no shape anymore, just a flowing mass of hair.

“You think that I'm not cut out for strong feelings. That they don't really suit me, right?”

I've trodden on the favorite toe. I keep forgetting the Gray Mouse Complex.

“You see, I don't have a personality. I'm so dull inside. Faded ...” It's no use fighting it, and it drives me mad with the unassailability of its tenets. “Take Ginger, for example ...” That is, take someone for whom controlling her emotions is a daily losing battle, who bursts into fireworks at the slightest touch or even without it, jumps from laughter to tears and back with nothing in between, wears all her loves and hatreds on her sleeve: now that's beautiful, that's feminine, that's attractive, like bright patterns of a butterfly's wing, it's a whirlwind, a torrent, a trap; but very few people can stand Ginger's flamboyant personality for more than a couple of hours at a time, even when her feelings are directed not at them but elsewhere. Long live Noble, Noble's patience and everything else that he has and I don't, I guess this is something that he knows and understands, because he used to be that way too, until he went in for a stint where the real crazies live, and yes, they do look great together, this couple always at the point of combustion, fire-haired Isolde and sapphire-eyed Tristan, both on the edge, both wide open, breathe in deeply and hide the breakables, but one thing I don't understand in all of this is why should anyone envy it and agonize about it, I could never understand this and in my attempts to convince Mermaid rose almost to the Noble-Gingerish heights of passion, except it always ended up the same. “It's nerves, simply nerves, and in this case they hang out like live wires, so anyone passing by trips them; it's got nothing—nothing—to do with personality and its richness, you silly little girl!” But instead of a reply I get only pursed lips, and all my gnashing of teeth and banging of head against the wall do nothing, the matter is closed and not subject to negotiation.

And then there's Rat, a predator, as like Blind as a twin sister, except less friendly, no comparison with Mermaid, thank God, except that my sincere “thank God” is a cold comfort for Her Mousy-Walking Grayness.

I look at her, hidden under hair all the way down to her shoes, then close my eyes and embrace her tightly with my nonexistent arms. Mermaid readily leans on me as if I really did that, and I am struck again by her sensitivity. She always responds to the touch of my ghostly hands, even when she's upset and has other things on her mind. Like now.

“We're not going to discuss exceptional personalities, right? Remembering them one by one, marveling at how beautiful and special they are?” I whisper to her. “If you don't mind, of course. Do you mind?”

“Of course not.”

She shifts, throwing back her head to better read the expression on my face, but I move my chin to block her view, again and again, until she abandons her attempts and curls up in a tender catlike knot, so familiar to my touch. “You must hate me for constantly bringing this up. You had such a miserable voice just now. I'm talking about it too often.”

“No. Often is not the problem here. It's just that I detest this entire subject: ‘Wouldn't you like it if I were more like ...’ No, I wouldn't like it. And I never will. It's possible that sometime, on a beautiful day filled with divine wisdom, you’ll understand this. Then I’ll go to Tabaqui and ask him to commemorate it by adorning me with festive ribbons and colorful tattoos.”

She pulls a long cord out of her vest, or maybe it's a thread, and brings it to her mouth. Now she's going to gnaw on it until it almost dissolves into a sloppy mess.

“I guess I’ll have to give this shirt to you now. You've got people to hate until the grave, so it should be yours by rights.”

“Who are you talking about?” I say suspiciously, lightly tapping my chin against her part. “It's not Black again, is it? Would you like to tell me something I don't know, or is it just that his manly charm has you in its grasp? I don't remember us ever spending so much time discussing him.”

“What if I do want to tell you something? About him?”

Now it's my turn to crane my neck, trying to look her in the eye.

“Just promise me you're not going to say you're madly in love with him. Everything else I think I can handle.”

She pushes away, shaking her hair.

“Picture him in your head. It shouldn't be too hard.”

“Why?”

“No reason. Just get the picture of him as you remember.”

I straighten up and dutifully imagine Black. In all the shiny glory of his splendid muscles. It really is not hard.

“All right. Now what?”

“Now tell me, who is he trying to look like?”

“He's trying to look like an idiot. Who else?”

“No, that's not it. Someone you are very familiar with. You’re going to be surprised when you get it.”

I am already surprised by what she's saying, so I carefully study the image of Black in my head. My imaginary Black is a carbon copy of the real one. I've lived side by side with him long enough to get full measure of the man.

“I don't understand,” I have to admit. “He looks like only one man, himself. There are no others like him.”

“I'm not talking about his looks. It's about his style. Like, for example, the way he started dressing after becoming a Leader. Did you notice any changes in that?”

Black did change his style since assuming the responsibilities of the Alpha Hound. He abandoned tank tops, shaved his head, and stopped wearing suspenders over baggy pants. Those made me want to throw up for many long years. You could even say that his taste in clothes underwent a marked improvement. It didn't help to make him look like anyone other than himself, of course. All that I relate to Mermaid.

“All right, then tell me who else, among those now living in the House, shaves his head, drapes jackets over his shoulders, wears bandanas, and wraps the ends of shoelaces around the ankles?”

“Jackets—only me. As for the shaved head ...” I suddenly get what she's driving at. “You're crazy! I do not shave my head! And I only started wearing a bandana because you gave it to me! You can't be serious. He hates me with a passion! He's made it a point never to go in the shower after me!”

“Maybe so.” Mermaid shrugs. “It's just that all this jumps out at anyone who cares to give an unbiased look. He imitates your walk, your attire, he even started talking like you. And all of that began when he moved to the Sixth. That is, to where you can't see how he looks and what he does every day.”

“And what does that prove?” I ask dumbly.

Mermaid is silent. Eyes like two green grapes with the pips showing through the semitranslucent skin. Very somber and serious eyes.

“Oh god, that's horrible!”

I cringe and glance up at the windows of the Sixth, shining silver in the reflected sun. Almost fearing that behind each of them hides Black, a grotesque facsimile of me, shaven headed and frowning, in a pirate-like head scarf covered with skulls and bones. It's a nightmare.