Мариам Петросян - The Gray House

“We will,” I assure him. “I'm waiting for someone. And if that someone isn't here in the next half an hour we’ll try to scramble out. I just need some time.”

Noble sighs and takes out the cigarette butt he salvaged. The pendant around his neck is pulsating in sync with his breathing. The Sikh, humming softly, produces a gold-plated hookah out of thin air.

Blind's soft hands rest on my shoulders, giving me a substantial electric jolt. I startle.

“How are you?” he asks considerately.

“Lousy.”

Sightless One sits across from us. He looks exactly the way he always does, no image changes for him. Maybe a little more transparent, that's all.

“That's not good,” he says. “Pull yourself together. You've got responsibilities.”

“Keep your leadership lectures for another time, will you,” I say. “I'm not in the mood.”

Blind agrees with surprising amiability.

“As you wish. Except there might not be another time.”

The lights blink and switch back on. Twice. The beards in the corner whistle disapprovingly.

“Wow,” Noble says, aghast. “Will you look at that ...”

I turn around. There's a strange creature making its way toward us between the tables. It's naked and skeletally thin, with stubs of wings over its shoulders, covered in sores and welts from head to toe. A rusty iron collar encircles its neck, trailing an equally rusty chain all the way to the floor.

“What kind of sick thing is that?” Noble whispers. “Night of the living dead?”

“Of course it's not dead,” the Sikh says reproachfully, taking a break from the hookah. “This is our dear Alexander.”

The mangled angel stops in front of us, holding his chains gingerly, and waits. The white feathers that he has on his head instead of hair are hanging down over his face, the remains of the wings expose the bones. It would be better not to look too closely. Every wound is crawling with something that would be better not to notice. The face bears an expression that would be better not to remember. Noble turns away and fumbles for his crutches, taking sharp indrawn breaths.

“Alexander,” I say. “Enough with the crazy.”

He raises his eyes at me. Wine-red eyes on the white face. I see that it's in fact Ancient. Or that he looks like Ancient.

“Stop this, please,” I beg him. “I've already forgiven you. There is no blame on you.”

“Really?” he says in a cracked voice. “You're not just lying to me out of pity?”

“I never lie out of pity.”

The lights go out again. Screams in the darkness.

I close my eyes, and when I open them I'm back in the canteen. A boombox is blaring under the Rat table, a continuation of the screams that ended my visit to the Not-Here. Lary nods in sync with the music, wiping a plate with a piece of bread. Tubby is dozing next to him, face down in a stained bib. Alexander is busy with his soup, bent low over it so that no one can see he's crying.

Tabaqui shoots me a withering look.

“Sphinx, what's going on here? I demand to know what's going on!”

“Nothing,” I say. “What possibly could have happened here ?”

“You hurt Alexander, didn't you?” Jackal presses on. “Because I'm going to kick the crap out of you if you did!”

“Everything's fine,” I hiss through clenched teeth, getting slowly steamed by his nosiness. “Calm down and leave me alone.”

“If everything's fine, why is he crying?”

“And why are you asking Sphinx?” Blind inquires, throwing a crumpled napkin on the plate. “Can't a member of this pack have a cry in peace without you butting in?”

“Sphinx has promised something to him,” Tabaqui persists. “And now Alexander's crying.”

I get up and leave the canteen before he has a chance to really get to me.

Right outside the door, I walk into Noble sitting on the floor with a look of someone just condemned to death, hugging his crutch. I sit down next to him.

Noble blows his nose loudly into a handkerchief and says, “You need nerves of steel with this crowd.”

He goes back to cuddling the crutch. I look up at the ceiling, at a snaking line of letters barely distinguishable from down here, and think: There we go, the need for expression has driven them to the ceiling, it's only a matter of time before ceilings start looking like walls with all the writings and drawings, and whoever would want to read them would need a stepladder, so we're going to have an infestation of stepladders in the House.

I sit in silence and think about all of this.

They throw a bucket of soapy water on the floor. Clanking, splashing, sudsy rivers flowing. Colored green, for me. For everyone else they're probably gray. Those who didn't scamper out in time now besiege the windowsills and peer down, terrified.

The second bucket. The rivers receive reinforcement, and there's a veritable lake on the floor. I wouldn't want to swim in it. Just the accumulated spit alone would be enough, though it can't be seen, actually, having merged with the suds. But the cigarette butts and assorted floating half-eaten dreck melts and congeals unpleasantly.

“I wish I had a boat,” Whitebelly squeaks from the windowsill, leaning precariously. “Sail away, sail away! A rowboat!”

Someone pushes him off, and we have one more Ratling-worth of general wetness.

Microbe and Monkey, both sour-faced, push ahead brooms wrapped in rags. Water splatters everywhere. They look at their shiny boots in horror, as if they haven't been walking over this same crap for the last month, only sans water. The brooms reach the wall and turn the other way. Honestly, it's all just spreading around the dirt. Not much effect at all. Still, if this isn't done once a month, I shudder to think what would happen to all of us here.

Gaby, Echidna, and Treponema mill at the doors, pretending like they're all dressed up to pitch in. Echidna is even clutching a brush, with two painted talons, as if she's holding a delicate flower arrangement.

I look around the dorm. It's almost empty, apart from the spectators. Everything that could be hauled out has been. I grab a sleeping bag that's drifting nearby and drag it to the bathroom. It spews forth torrents of water. The maidens scatter. Figures. This is the communal screwing bag, better not to imagine what's inside. Personally, I wouldn't venture to climb in on the pain of death.

I lower the leaky monster in the bathtub, open both taps wide, and pull on the zipper. It's stuck, naturally. I yank on it harder. Then I leave the bag to bleed out and beat a retreat.

There's a mini-assembly in the dorm, in the middle of the remains of the lake. They mourn the disappearance of the hallowed bag. “O brethren, where shall we copulate?” The looks directed at me are not exactly friendly.

“You've thrown it away! How's we supposed to do it now?”

Whitebelly rinses his sneakers in the bucket. He couldn't care less about the bag.

“We’ll take yours, then,” Hybrid says, businesslike. “Yours is even roomier. Because you went and got the old one wet. And it’ll take a while to dry out.”

I demonstrate to him how, where, and under what circumstances he's going to so much as lay a finger on my sleeping bag.

“I'm gonna cut you,” Hybrid screeches. “Tonight! Cut you up like a sausage! It's coming, you hear?”

I hear. I hear all kinds of stuff from him. All he ever cuts is furniture. Sometimes the walls. No one has been paying any attention to his screams for ages.

“The room isn't going to clean itself,” I say.

Hybrid rummages in his pockets, looking miserable. Dropped his razor somewhere, I’ll bet. Again. Always the same story.