Мариам Петросян - The Gray House

“Needle's been sewing the wedding dress,” Mermaid says, springing a surprise on me. “In our room, so that no one could see her. She and Lary are getting married as soon as... well, you know. As soon as they can. And I'm in charge of decorations. White beads all over, imagine that.”

“All over Lary?” I say, horrified.

Ginger snorts, spraying coffee, and bangs her feet against the floor.

“Of course not. All over the dress. She wants everything to be proper.”

I picture Lary at the altar, in his customary black leather, spearing the wedding band with his long pinkie fingernail, and almost faint.

“Yuck! Disgusting petty properism, that's all I can say about this. Still, I'm going to give them my blessing. And a present. I think I’ll get them a richly illustrated edition of the Kama Sutra .”

Suddenly I feel desperately sad. As if Alexander and his realization of the inner self weren't enough, now it's Lary and his wedding. I come to the conclusion that I should be drinking something stronger than coffee, drinking and drowning my sorrows in that something. But the Coffeepot is the Coffeepot, it never stocks anything nerve-calming. However, I remember that Ginger used to carry a flask.

“This calls for a drink,” I say. “It's not every day Lary makes a decision this momentous.”

“Today is not the day he's made it,” Ginger demurs.

I give her a reproachful look and say, “don't tell me you'd begrudge me!”

The flask is passed over, accompanied by a look of deep offense. I pour out a little into the coffee cup. It's Doom, just as I expected. I invented this pick-me-up myself. It's unlikely that a dose as small as what I've managed to beg is going to have any effect, but better a little something than a big nothing. I raise the cup and, to my own surprise, my voice is trembling from all the tribulations.

“My friends! Time, our principal and primary enemy, is implacable. The years take their toll as they roll by. The old grow older, the young grow stronger. Little dragons leave the ancestral shells and cast their misty sights at the sky! Improvident Bandar-Logs enter into matrimony with no regard to the consequences! Cute little boys turn into mean surly youths with a pronounced tendency to snitching! Our own reflections disrespect our advanced age!”

“Oh wow,” Ginger says. “All this, and he hasn't even had a drop yet.”

I feel Noble's hand on my shoulder, and his crutch clangs against Mustang's weights.

“That's my coffee talking. Those of a thieving nature always get a high when acquiring something that isn't theirs.”

“All right, but not to that extent!”

“The creaky bones ache, feeling the chilly breath of the grave,” I insist. “Recently proud men now permit the assorted riffraff to blatantly trample their self-respect. It pains me, pains me and frightens me, my friends! As does the fact of my nonparticipation in all these happenings... But Jackal is Jackal, he never grows up, And marry never will he! He’ll say good-bye to all of his friends, and forever nowhere he’ll be!”

I'm being patted from three different sides. Ginger is cradling my tear-stained head, saying, “Come on, Tabaqui, what's with you, don't cry ...”

Noble says, “Stop soothing him, or he’ll never shut up.”

At the next table Viking is trying to wrestle the razor from Hybrid, while Hybrid's bellowing, “No! No! Give it back! He's right about everything! Everything, I tell you!”

In short, it's quite a hubbub, but my own time has frozen in a little lump. And while a part of me is hamming up the unquenchable sorrow, this devious and cunning lump senses through the shirt the two warm bumps, positioned so frighteningly close to each other. Soft and firm at the same time. And if a man in the throes of agony would draw spasmodic gasps, no one would suspect that he is in fact desperately sniffing something. Because it's quite likely that never again in my life will I have an opportunity to smell a girl this close, in direct contact, and it would be a crying shame that my nose is full of snot, except that if it weren't for the snot she wouldn't be pressing me to her breasts.

But I must have shifted wrong at some point, because Ginger pulls away abruptly and looks down at me like I've just bitten her. And goes red. Terribly red, the way gingers do, when you expect them to burst into flames at any moment. I must have gone red too. Ginger narrows her eyes. I close mine, waiting for the well-earned slap across the face, but before I do I have time to notice that our little pantomime didn't escape Noble's attention, while completely escaping Mermaid's, who's too busy being upset.

Still there's no slap coming. This is a bit insulting. She can't be pitying me, can she? I open my eyes. Ginger has traveled to faraway places. She's fingering the wet shirt and looking in my direction, but not seeing me at all. Mermaid pushes a handkerchief at me.

I blow my nose loudly.

Ginger snaps out of her trance and says, “Tabaqui. It's OK.”

And goes back to her chair. That's it. Still, it would've been satisfying to receive the well-deserved thrashing. That would put me on the same level as all other full-blown smart alecks sniffing at other people's girls.

Mermaid keeps petting my head and whispering that I am not at all old and that no one is planning to say good-bye to me and be forever nowhere.

“You silly child. You little naif. That's their destiny. And my destiny is to look at them receding in the distance and wave the wet hanky. It's life, baby.”

Viking has disarmed Hybrid. Now all Hybrid can do is to stare at me with puffy eyes and transmit secretive signs and winks. Probably inviting me to join him in the hallway so we can hang ourselves together or something.

The Hound table is deep in a heated argument concerning whether it's possible to get drunk from one sip, and if it is, what should be in the cup. Another minute, and they're going to be driving over to check, so I take a hasty gulp of the Doom. Their inspections are always bad news.

Hound Rickshaw, having split right at the beginning of my attack of melancholy, now returns with Sphinx, Alexander, and Smoker in tow. If that's how he's been planning to intercede and save me, he's way too late.

Alexander, still white as a polar mouse, dives behind the counter straight off. Sphinx joins us, grabbing a free chair on the way with his foot and plopping it down next to Mustang.

“There,” Noble says. “If I'm not mistaken, that's one of the proud men who's been permitting us to trample their self-respect. Sphinx, please stop permitting it, it interferes with Jackal's nervous system.”

“Wait, what was that? Trample what now?”

“It's not my quote. Self-respect. Assorted riffraff trampling it blatantly, and you tolerate it.”

“You snitch!” I fume. “Dirty stoolie!”

Noble smiles beatifically. It's Mermaid who goes red instead of him. Smoker, ensconced in the corner, takes out his diary, maintaining his customary sour grimace.

“Time affects different people differently,” Gnome shrieks at the Hound table. “Just look around, and you’ll see... some grow up and change, and the others don't. Why's that? Tell me!”

“Crazy stuff,” Noble says and takes a nonchalant swig out of my cup.

“I found this strange tape in your nightstand,” Smoker informs me, bent over his daily toil. “With crunching sounds and some kind of snorting. And nothing else. Is that supposed to mean something?”

So he stumbled on one of those six tapes ruined by the pursuit of the elusive ghost cart. The last one that I didn't bring over to the classroom. I try explaining it to Smoker. He keeps looking at me with the same “you can't convince me and don't even try” expression that's really started to grate on me lately.