Мариам Петросян - The Gray House

“All right,” I say. “You have convinced me.”

I unclasp one gear from the chain and place it into his open palm.

He looks at me “fuzzy,” then takes my hand and kisses it. And this, horrible as it is, transforms me into Master of Time for a moment. Standing at death's door, standing there for so long now that it's become something of a habit, because the he-me is ridiculously old. It's impossible to live for that long, only to exist. And I hate doing that, which is why the damn old man is so inaccessible—he's almost always in hibernation that's stretched into eternity. A curt nod—he doesn't waste time on words, a nod is usually more attention than we allow ourselves to bestow on anyone—and I return into the dear old precious adorable sweetie me, who's unable to hide a disgusting giggle.

Noble staggers like I've just slapped him.

“Come on,” I say. “No reason to be embarrassed. I promise not to remind you of what we did tonight. At least not too often.”

Sphinx dreams of the House breaking out in cracks, raining down pieces, bigger and bigger, until they're the size of entire rooms. The fragments disappear together with people, cats, the writing on the walls, the fire extinguishers, the commodes, and the clandestine hotplates. He knows that many share these dreams with him now. It's not hard to figure out who. They sleep in their clothes with bulging backpacks for pillows, and they try not to enter empty rooms and not to walk around the House alone.

Which is why, when Sphinx wakes up and discovers the fat cables woven into the bars on the window, with their ends extending in both directions, to the windows of the Third on the right and of the Sixth on the left, he's not surprised. It just means that someone's dream mirrored his own. He reverentially studies the knots, as big as his fist, and tries to decide if this can be considered a sign of full-blown panic or if it is still at the level of fear. Alexander is watching the tents of the shaved heads from behind Sphinx's back and thinking about something sad.

He's no longer as white as the day before. He has on Humpback's old hoodie, striped gray and orange, with the hood over his head. A sort of compromise between his usual curtain of hair and yesterday's opened face.

“This is the first time I've looked at them.” He addresses Sphinx, who's sitting on the windowsill.

“I know,” Sphinx says without turning around. “You have been avoiding windows ever since they came. Afraid?”

“No. Their presence changes me, that's all.”

Sphinx turns around, trying to catch Alexander's eyes.

“It sure does,” he says. “Radically so.”

Alexander smiles a haunted smile.

It is hot and stuffy in the dorm. The day is cloudy, and the sky has a curiously yellowish tint. The color of a desert waiting for the coming sandstorm. Sphinx leans his head against the bars. There's only a solitary figure on a camp stool down by the tents, with a hood drawn tightly.

Mermaid stumbles around the room, in the dusk that filters through the curtains, collecting her clothes. From the chairs, from the bedsteads. The clothes and the six bells. She clutches them in one hand and climbs up on the table. It is going to take her no less than an hour to brush her hair and braid the bells into it, even though she never takes out all of them at once, only six out of the dozen. Ensconced on the bed, head in hands, Smoker is staring at her. The pack likes to watch Mermaid brush her hair. This spectacle never gets old for them.

Down in the yard it's windy, but not a bit less hot than inside the House. Sphinx sits on the stump in the middle of the parched lawn and looks at the tents. After a visit from Shark, its inhabitants moved back. Not much, just several feet. It still allows them to congregate by the fence and even hang on it, holding on to the wire mesh. And it still allows them to try and attract the attention of anyone who steps out of the House, imploring them to arrange a meeting with the Angel, who “dwells here among you, we know ...”

“He was this close to not dwelling anymore,” Sphinx says to the young shaved head whom they usually send forward for parleys, more often than any others. The shaved head waves his hand at him cheerfully and invitingly. Sphinx doesn't move.

The night snowed in the yard under a mound of trash. Among the plastic bags, bottles, and scraps, Sphinx notices a couple of garish booklets printed on cheap paper. They feature a winged angel on the cover, his hands outstretched to the readers, informing them that Sharing in the divine grace is attainable in this life, my brother (sister)! Alexander is the last person whom this creature resembles. Ruddy cheeks, golden curls, and a moronic smile. It reminds Sphinx only of Solomon when a child, and a more disgusting child Sphinx had never seen in his life. And hopes never to see again. He studies the booklet while holding it down with the toe of his sneaker.

Humpback comes over, with a huge backpack slung over his shoulder. He looks like a pilgrim returning from faraway lands. Bronzed and dirty. His hair, sticking up and in all other directions, is full of leaves and twigs.

“I'm moving,” he says darkly. “What kind of life is it when those guys loiter here constantly? I've seen them in my dreams tonight, so I've just about had enough.”

Humpback sits down next to Sphinx, propping his elbows on the backpack, and peers owlishly at the windows of the House.

“What's with the ropes?”

“They're not ropes, they're cables,” Sphinx says. “You’re not the only one to have bad dreams.”

Humpback frowns, trying to discern the relationship between bad dreams and cables wrapped around the window bars.

“And over there?” he says, pointing at the window of the Coffeepot. To the empty frame with soot spread around it like a palm frond.

Sphinx looks at Humpback in surprise.

“That's from the fire,” he says. “Where were you yesterday evening? You mean you didn't see anything?”

Humpback doesn't answer. Instead he takes out his pipe and silently fills it.

“Tell me, who does this winged youth remind you of?” Sphinx says, kicking the battered booklet.

“Solomon,” Humpback says after the briefest of looks. “Who else? When he was still Muffin, I mean.”

“Me too. And they,” Sphinx says, nodding at the tents, “are sure that it looks like Alexander.”

“It's not funny,” Humpback says.

“No, it's not. And the one who thinks so most is Alexander himself.”

Humpback turns to look at the gate, where by now four shaved heads are nodding and leering obsequiously.

“You mean they dragged themselves over here for him?”

“They think so. But at the same time they carry the image of Muffin with them, so I'm afraid they're not entirely clear on who it is they need.”

Humpback falls silent. Puffs on his pipe, sneaking sideways glances at Sphinx.

“Why aren't you wearing rakes?” he finally asks.

“Rakes got damaged in the fire. We buried them yesterday, right under your oak. don't tell me you missed that too.”

“I was in the Not-Here.”

“You know, I figured as much.”

They are both silent for the next ten minutes. The shaved heads crowded around the gates are desperately trying to attract their attention. The air smells of the coming storm. The sky is almost orange now, and the swifts are flying low. Sphinx takes his foot off the booklet, and it is immediately whisked away by a gust of wind. He starts whistling the Rain Song. The missing eyelashes and the red burns on the cheeks and forehead make him look almost festive. Like a country lad kissed by the sun. Humpback, on the other hand, is sullen.