Мариам Петросян - The Gray House

Ralph felt acute disappointment. When you start hoping for a miracle you sometimes get it, and then it turns out completely hollow. What did he expect from this old clown? Even in his better times he couldn't see past his own nose.

As if confirming his suspicions, Old Man waved his hand dismissively at the cabinets.

“What you're looking for isn't there,” he said again, tapping his forehead. “It's all in here, collected and stored. The fount of memory is inside, and all that is just dumb paper.”

With that he grabbed Ralph by the hand and pulled him to the door.

“Let's go! I will tell you everything I remember, and I remember everything!”

Alarmed by this promise, Ralph shuffled after Old Man while he, not letting his mouth close even for a moment, clicked the switches that gradually restored the library to darkness.

“You see... As soon as I saw you today, I immediately thought: Time to come out! It was like lightning! I simply had to come out, that's what I thought ...”

The night-guard quarters, the first room from the stairs, turned out to be a tiny nook stuffed to the brim with mismatched furniture, old magazines, and clocks. The clocks filled all available space on the walls. Ralph's first impression was that the walls were encrusted with glass plaques in lieu of wallpaper, and he had to look closer to realize his mistake. It was indeed mostly clocks, with a few watches here and there, and even some alarm clocks thrown in. He froze in stunned amazement, studying the dials that surrounded him. None of them worked. Their hands pointed at different angles, some had no hands at all. For some reason Ralph's memory brought up that endless winter night when his watch and the time itself refused to move, an experience he didn't much like to recall.

Old Man obviously relished his reaction.

“Impressive, isn't it? Took me fifteen years to collect. Not everything was salvageable, of course, and then I have some I couldn't fit here. I've got two more boxes under the bed, both chock full.”

He hung the cap on the nail in the door, squeezed sideways between the table and the bed, went to the far corner, crouched down, and started rummaging there.

It occurred to Ralph that he was going to be presented with the undisplayed part of the collection, but when Old Man straightened up he was holding a bottle.

“Someone mentioned that the life expectancy of a clock in the House, doesn't matter what kind, was surprisingly small,” he said, wiping off the bottle with a suspicious-looking piece of cloth. “That was what had set it in motion. I was only collecting the wall clocks at first. The ones in the canteen and the classrooms. I expect others in my position would just give in and stop putting them up, but I was intrigued. It was a challenge of sorts.”

He proudly placed the bottle on the table and admired it.

“Usually we couldn't find any evidence of them being tampered with, you see. Then it came to me that watches should be out there somewhere too, and I put a word out for the janitors to be on the lookout and bring me any that they found in the trash. Now those were being broken on purpose. Crushed down to dust, almost. The collection got a big boost. After a while I had to stop accepting the ones that were completely destroyed.”

Ralph attempted to read the label on the bottle, but Old Man switched off the light and turned on a feeble desk lamp.

“That better? The collection does make people a tad uncomfortable sometimes.”

“It is better,” Ralph agreed. “And it is uncomfortable. Too sparkly.”

“I'm used to it. It's all a matter of habit. I would miss them if they went away.”

Old Man presented Ralph with a glass and pulled up a stool, then made himself comfortable on the quilt-covered couch. The glass appeared to be holding wine.

“What is it that you do here, exactly?” Ralph said.

The question sounded somewhat impolite, but Old Man clearly had been waiting for it to be asked and wasn't too particular about the precise wording. He leaned forward, clutching the unlit pipe in his hand.

“I observe. I track the situation as it develops. Truth be told, I seem to have missed some things in my time.”

Practically all of them, Ralph thought. And you missed them while sitting in the principal's office. What do you hope to see now from the night guard's post?

“I had some theories I wanted to check.” Old Man downed almost an entire glass in one gulp. “That old story kept tormenting me. A couple of years ago I finally realized that I had to go back. And so—here I am!”

It sounded so pompous that Ralph winced. He knew he should try to be tolerant, but Old Man was grating on his nerves. His self-righteous complacency, that idiotic clock collection—Ralph's day hadn't been going too great even without all this.

“I suppose you enjoy full access to a lot of things now?” he said. “From this room, I mean. In your position as a guard.”

“More than you can imagine,” the former principal said importantly, leaving a significant pause.

Ralph at this point had neither energy nor desire to feign interest. The pause lingered.

“Ask!” Old Man prompted, leaning back on a stack of magazines that gave way under the weight. The magazines cascaded down on the floor. Old Man pretended not to notice.

“What about?” Ralph said glumly.

“Anything! don't you have any questions at all?”

The wine was sweet to the point of stickiness and almost impossible to drink. Ralph felt the encounter moving inexorably to Old Man taking offense and Ralph feeling guilty for having offended him. Old Man desperately required an enraptured listener, and Ralph was crushingly bad at it. He rolled the syrupy liquid in his mouth and managed to force it down.

“I am afraid,” he began cautiously, “that the questions I have are not the kind you might have answers to.”

“Try me! What have you got to lose?”

Old Man frowned.

“Oh, all right. I get it. That's fine, you don't have to. I’m not going to push you. I just thought that you might be interested in learning some things. You looked like you were stumped.” He filled his glass again and emptied it in two gulps. Fighting the belch coming up, he added, “I'm telling you, Rex's grandma is something else. She isn't the goody-two-shoes she's playing. I figured you'd appreciate my help, now that you've locked horns with her.”

Ralph straightened up.

“What?” he said, not quite believing his ears. “Who are you talking about?”

“That granny of Rex's, who else?” Old Man looked at him quizzically. “Wasn't it her that you crossed at the meeting today?”

Ralph took a huge swig of the wine.

“Once more from the beginning,” he said. “Are we talking about the same person? Godmother? Is she somehow related to Vulture?”

Old Man nodded.

“Sure. His own dear granny. You mean you didn't know?”

“Where did you get that?”

“For crying out loud!” Old Man said hotly. “Where! Same place you'd get it, if only you made an effort and utilized your head once in a while. I used to have this habit, you know, of checking out people before hiring them. And she was the only one who looked halfway professional among the riffraff that your new principal dragged in. Of course, that piqued my interest. People like her don't all of a sudden come to work for people like him. I conducted my usual due diligence. All of her credentials turned out to be fake. Then I just sneaked a peek at her driver's license, registered under her real last name.”

He gave Ralph an incensed look.

“don't tell me you didn't even suspect it!”

Ralph poured himself more wine. “Except that's the truth. It has never crossed my mind. I guess I was surprised when she came in, but that was the extent of it. I wouldn't dream of checking someone's papers. Who knows what her reasons were for coming here.”