Мариам Петросян - The Gray House

“Does it hurt?” he asked.

“A bit.”

To avoid looking him in the face, I stared at his sneakers. They were worn out, and he'd wrapped the laces around the ankles. Mine were much cooler.

“Bad enough to cry?” he continued.

Yeah. Discretion was not his strong suit.

“Of course not,” I managed.

It was silly of me to have expected that he would just turn around silently and leave me alone with my embarrassment. Now he was surely going to start an inquiry into why I seemed so unhappy.

“Your coffee's getting cold,” he said.

I felt the cup. It was still warm.

Whether it was because I didn't see Sphinx, who was now standing behind me so I could not see him in the mirror, or because he never did ask me anything, or because I wouldn't have known what to answer if he had, or all of it together, the dam burst again. Except now it was words gushing out of me in a flood instead of tears.

“I'm a Pheasant,” I said to my puffy reflection. “A freaking Pheasant. I am for some reason not happy drinking my coffee right after a punch in the face. And you know what the funniest part is? That Lary doesn't think I'm one. Oh, he calls me a Pheasant, but he doesn't believe it himself. Or he wouldn't be doing this. No Pheasant would ever take it, he'd snitch in an instant. So on the one hand he hates me for being a Pheasant, and on the other he counts on me not being a Pheasant. Isn't that special? What if I were to wheel out of here right this moment and go to Shark's office?”

I felt my face again. The swelling was visibly spreading. By dinnertime it was going to occupy half of my face. Much to the joy of the First.

“You can put some foundation cream on it,” Sphinx suggested. “It's in the cabinet to your left.”

I bristled. He was so sure that I wanted to hide that shiner. Lary was too. What if I wanted to reveal it to the world? Tell everyone of the circumstances of me acquiring it and see what happened next? This was the Pheasant talking, of course, and it was scary.

“I am going to tell Shark,” I said out of sheer contrariness.

Sphinx came up to the adjacent sink and sat on it. He even crossed his legs, like it was a chair. I immediately thought of the caked toothpaste and wondered if he'd still look cool with toothpaste smeared on his butt.

“Right now?” he said.

“What?”

“Are you going to tell right now?”

I didn't answer. Of course I wasn't going anywhere, but he at least could have pretended to believe me. And try to talk me out of it.

“It was a joke,” I said crossly.

“Why?”

As I thought about it, he answered himself.

“Well, obviously you wanted to be talked out of it. To begin with. What else? Did you want to scare me? Possibly. But why me and not Lary? Or maybe you'd like me to stand up for you next time? Something like a covenant to protect you from him in the future? Sorry, I can't promise you that. I'm not your nanny.”

I felt myself reddening from my ears all the way down to my heels. Sphinx's interpretation of my behavior turned it pathetic. And it was very accurate. I just wasn't thinking about it in those terms.

“All right,” I said. “Enough.”

Sphinx blinked.

“No, wait,” he said. “I said I can't promise you anything, but I can go find Lary and tell him how hard it was for me to talk you out of going to Shark. He'd believe me and would never lay a finger on you again. That's all I can do. If that's something that works for you.”

“It does,” I said quickly. “It does work for me.”

I was this close to telling him that all I'd wanted was to irk him, but stopped myself just in time. I snatched the cigarette left for me by Alexander, clicked the lighter, and took a drag so hard that my eyes almost bugged out. The wretched creature in the mirror imitated my greedy gesture, making me ashamed for him and for myself.

“Listen, Smoker, why is it that you never fight back when someone's beating you up?”

I coughed up smoke.

“Who? Me?”

“Yes, you.”

The faucet behind Sphinx's back leaked, so the bottom of his shirt was getting wet. The deepening cyan color was making his eyes even more green than normal. He sat hunched up, not straight like he always did, as if trying to draw out my soul with those water-sprite eyes of his. Pull it out and then dissect it at his leisure.

“What good would that do?” I said.

“More than you can imagine.”

“Sure. Lary would have a laughing fit and forget to swing his fists.”

“Or be so surprised that he'd stop thinking of you as a Pheasant.”

He seemed to genuinely believe in what he was saying. I couldn't even get angry at him for this.

“Sphinx, stop it,” I said. “This is ridiculous. What was it I should have done? Scrape his knee?”

“You should have done whatever. Even Tubby bites when he feels threatened. And you had a cup of hot coffee right in your hand. I think it scalded you when you fell.”

“So I was supposed to pour my coffee on him?”

Sphinx closed his eyes for a second.

“Better that than pouring it all over yourself.”

“I see,” I said and crushed the cigarette in the ashtray. It flipped over and I barely managed to grab it. “You guys crave entertainment. You'd like to see how I flap my arms at Lary, bite his finger, and douse the bed in coffee. I guess Tabaqui would even make a song about it afterward. Thank you so much for the advice, Sphinx! How can I ever repay you?”

Sphinx suddenly shot off his perch and was next to me in just a couple of steps. He was looking at me in the mirror. He had to bend down, like he was peering at someone behind a low window.

“You're welcome,” he said, addressing that someone. “don't mention it. Lary himself would have given you the same advice if he happened to be here.”

His jumping startled me so much I swallowed all the curses that were ready to come out.

“Of course,” I said. “He'd have nothing to lose.”

Sphinx nodded. “And he'd finally be able to leave you alone. Do you know why Logs are always picking on Pheasants? Because they never fight back. Not in principle and not in practice. Just close their eyes and go wheels up without a peep. And until you stop doing that, a Pheasant will be all Lary sees when looking at you.”

“You said you were going to set him straight.”

Sphinx was still trying to mesmerize my reflection. The reflection that was still looking worse and worse.

“I did. And I will. Not a problem.”

His tricks were making my head spin. I felt that there were three of us here.

“Sphinx, will you stop talking to the mirror?” I blurted out. “The me that's in there is all wrong!”

“Yep. You've noticed it too, haven't you?”

He turned around absentmindedly, as if he really was talking to someone else and I'd interrupted him. Then he focused on me, which was even more disconcerting. I felt a headache coming on.

“All right,” he said. “Let's forget about that you, the one living in the mirror.”

“Are you saying he is not me?”

“He is. But not quite. He is you seen through the lens of your image of yourself. We all look worse in the mirror than we actually are, didn't you know that?”

“I've never thought about it that way.”

Suddenly it dawned on me how crazy it all sounded.

“Cut out this nonsense, Sphinx. It's not funny.”

Sphinx laughed.

“It is funny,” he said. “It really is. Funny how, as soon as you start to grasp something important, your first reaction is to shake it out of yourself.”

“I'm not shaking out anything.”

“Look over there,” Sphinx said, nodding at the mirror. “What do you see?”

“A pathetic cripple with a shiner,” I said darkly. “What else can I possibly see?”