Мариам Петросян - The Gray House

One after the other, Pheasants' backpacks spill their frighteningly uniform contents on the table before the counselors. Packs of tissues, first-aid kits, daily organizers. Every backpack is then turned inside out and shaken repeatedly. The pockets are turned out separately, yielding only handkerchiefs and combs, neatly numbered.

“The way this is going, might as well settle in for the night,” Noble says. “Not that I relish the opportunity. How about letting Tabaqui go first? He's got that evil backpack.”

“don't do that. That’ll just make them mad,” Humpback says.

Sphinx looks around the canteen. It brings to mind the aftermath of an explosion in a pigpen even more than usual. The shards are still glinting by the door. The oilcloth snatched off Rats' table lies crumpled on the dirty floor. Curtains have been stripped off the windows, and several people pretend to be sleeping now wrapped in them. One corner is occupied by anxious Logs holding an emergency war council, in the other Birds are constructing a screen for a makeshift latrine, harried by Elephant squeaking miserably, “Want pee-pee! Want pee-pee!” at regular intervals. When Sphinx imagines the stench of urine added to the overall conditions in the room, he flinches disgustedly. And all the while the Leader of this entire joint is dozing off contentedly under the serving window, with his frock coat for a bed. As Sphinx observes the peaceful scene he imagines himself screaming, shaking Blind, kicking and trampling him. He starts walking, overflowing with these emotions.

He walks past Tabaqui, busily forcing something into his backpack that would make it even more deadly. Past the flowerpot containing an acid-green plant, made of plastic but still visibly gnawed on. Past the conspiratorial Logs watching the door warily. He's almost there when Blind speaks without opening his eyes.

“Sphinx. You're stalking me like a hungry tiger stalks a lamb. If you want to catch people unawares you’ll need to make your walk less expressive.”

Sphinx pushes the urge to scream and kick deeper down and sits next to him.

“Let's talk. I have a lot of questions.”

“Let's. Where do we start?”

Blind's unruffled attitude should be infuriating to Sphinx, but instead it saps the fight out of him. The fight and the desire to discuss anything at all.

“Black's bus. I don't like this business with the fake license. He can't be any good at driving. Even if he did take a couple of lessons, that still isn't enough. He has no experience. He's going to kill himself and everyone else stupid enough to join him.”

“I don't think so. He's a very responsible person. Besides, it's not like I can stop him from doing something after graduation. I can't even stop Lary after graduation.”

“But you wouldn't even if you could.”

Blind shrugs.

“That's right. I wouldn’t. It's his decision. He's a Leader. Why in the world would I want to stop him?”

“I see. I had the feeling that this was going to be useless.”

Blind opens his eyes, sends his arm under his shirt, and scratches himself furiously.

“I thought you said you also had a lot of questions,” he reminds Sphinx.

Sphinx looks at him probingly.

“I did. It's just that I'm not sure anymore if I should be asking them.”

“Try me,” Blind suggests.

“Do you know why they are being so thorough with the searches?”

Blind straightens up.

“I do.”

“And?”

“They're afraid of the graduation. They are making sure no one's assembled a stash of explosives, poisons, and so on.”

“Then why today? The graduation is not until ...”

“Tomorrow. All we have left is this evening and this night. And also a bit of the morning, but I wouldn't count on it.”

It is now Rats' turn at the inspection table. The Pheasants have been checked and cleared, along with Elephant. It is likely that he managed to reach the toilet before it was too late.

“Where...,” Sphinx begins, but has to clear his throat. “Where did you get that information?”

He speaks very softly, his outward appearance is completely serene, he does not make a single sudden movement, but the heads of those sitting at the table slowly turn in his direction. Tabaqui. Noble. Humpback.

Counselors extract condom packets by the fistful from Red's backpack. It appears to hold an inexhaustible supply of them. The melancholy smirk of Rat Leader quivers and floats in Sphinx's eyes, as if he were looking at it through a thick layer of water.

“Tomorrow morning they will call another all-hands,” Blind says. “Assemble everyone in the lecture hall and declare it. And about ten minutes after that the parents will start arriving.”

Sphinx is silent. He is counting the days that have been stolen from them, from him... from all of them. Seven. No, six and a half. A pittance. They would've flown past quickly. But now, robbed of them, he is so shocked that he's unable to speak or react to what Blind is saying.

A lamp inside a pink shade switches on above them. The shade has the form of a glass flower, and there is a crack across the translucent bell. There's something dark attached to the winding stem. Sphinx looks closer and realizes it's a switchblade, hidden there to avoid the search. It's an ingenious spot. He sees the knife, and also something on top of the frame around the locked serving window, something that's been left there. He suspects that were he to stand up and look around he'd be able to see everything that's been concealed around the canteen, all the invisible objects, dangerous and not, valuable and worthless, everything that counselors are trying and failing to discover. He is doing his best to avoid looking at people. Looking at them the way he used to, the way Ancient taught him to. Now is not the time. But when did he stop doing that? Simply looking. Simply seeing. Simply living in the present day. Not yesterday and not tomorrow. When did his hours and days grow diminished with the fears and regrets?

“How long have you known?”

“Since they settled on the date. Last Monday.”

The pink reflections of the lamp in Blind's eyes, two tiny pink flowerlets. Under them, the somber grin. His fingernails tease and scratch the palm of the other hand. The hands are as restless as the face is calm. He used to know to look at Blind's hands first, and only then at his face. There are a lot of things he used to do right, and doesn't anymore.

“We have a Fairy Tale Night ahead of us,” Blind says. “It will also be Long. And then it will be morning. All things come to an end.”

Sphinx slumps against the wall and closes his eyes. He's out of practice of seeing everything at once, and it's tiring for him. Anyone who looks at him now would assume he's dozed off, but even through the closed eyes he still feels the alarmed glances of the pack. Even Smoker's, seemingly.

“I wonder if they are ever going to leave me alone,” Sphinx whispers.

As he opens his eyes he sees the canteen wobble in and out of focus. The wind is howling through the fence he's sitting next to, as if playing on the harp with strings of rebar. The battered road overgrown with weeds, the telephone poles stretching out to the horizon, the sunset sky splashed purple—all of that combines into a semitransparent hologram through which he still distinguishes the shape of the canteen and the spectral figures ambling aimlessly around it. This overlapping of the two worlds, the real one and the ghostly one, makes Sphinx nauseated. He knows that if he concentrated on seeing one of them, the second would immediately blink out of existence, but something is not letting him choose between them, so he tries to keep both pictures going, even as the nausea and the vertigo grow more intense.