Мариам Петросян - The Gray House

“Los Angeles would be even cooler!” Lary chimed in.

“How did you like Black's tale?”

I did it on purpose, calling it a tale when it wasn't that at all. I wanted one of them to say it. But Mermaid just sighed, Needle mumbled that it was very nice, and Lary got to chomping even louder.

“Nice? You call that nice?”

Needle snuggled up to Lary, and instead of an answer they started kissing, even though Lary's mouth most likely was still full of sandwich.

“don't worry about it,” Mermaid whispered. “It's not that bad, really.”

I tried to explain to her what it was I didn't like in this whole bus business. Mermaid listened very attentively and nodded in the right places, but I got the impression she was doing it only to humor me.

Tabaqui declared the break to be over, and all the thoughts about the bus went right out of my head, because the next to speak was the woman from the tent camp.

She must have been really uncomfortable to be doing this. She was barely audible, and she remained where she was instead of climbing the stepladder. Her story couldn't be called a fairy tale even by someone who's never heard a single fairy tale ever.

She told us about herself—fifty-seven, not married, no kids, no bad habits. She was a veterinarian by trade, working with cattle. She also rattled off a list of her various ailments. I didn't catch all the names. She looked stout and healthy, so it was strange that she had so many things wrong with her. Then she told us how she became a member of this sect that coalesced around the Angel, and how happy she was there, how she realized that she had finally found her place in life, and how the Angel, who had the appearance of a tender youth, had cured her of all infirmities “with a single touch of his heavenly palm.”

Then she started talking about their weekly prayer meetings and all the other great things they got to do, and here her story started to grate on me, because she was now talking in a sonorous, not-quite-human voice, preaching almost, and stuff like that makes me gag, to be honest.

There was also this Holy Elder who was supposedly taking care of the Angel, and also, as I understood, of divesting the “blessed devout” of their money. Then he croaked, and that was the end of the good life. The Angel had been taken away by some “evil people” who claimed to be his parents, and the commune fell apart. But not completely, because some of them desired the continued communion so badly that they resolved to seek the Angel and free him from the evil clutches. It wasn't easy. They were being persecuted, called “fanatics,” even arrested and involuntarily committed.

Her voice began trembling and gave out in some places, and I vividly imagined the man in fatigues clutching her shoulder, and her putting a hand over his and patting it comfortingly, like “it's all right, I can handle it.” Sometimes my imagination runs out of control, but in this case I wasn't even ashamed of it, they were so fake. It was as if they had invented themselves. Badly.

Long story short, they had found their Angel. Those who were the most fanatical. And as a reward for their fortitude and perseverance the two of them had been allowed to witness the Angel ascending to Heaven.

“Testify!” the man interrupted in a resonant baritone, making Mermaid startle.

“Wreathed in fire and light, the divine sword pierced the Heavens and returned as a falling star,” the woman explained. “Does this not prove that he was being sent to us, to those who followed him faithfully, so that he could lead us forth?”

She fell silent.

And everyone else kept silence too.

“Creepy,” Needle whispered.

I said nothing. Because it was. Creepy and scary. I finally put two and two together and got four. Understood who the angel was they were talking about. And why they'd pitched their camp against the fence of the House, and were now sitting on Alexander's bed.

He worked as an Angel, and he got really fed up with it, Sphinx's voice repeated in my head.

I realized that I was shaking. Because I'd been there, right there with him when he “ascended wreathed in fire and light.” If I'd known back then that this was the “divine sword piercing the Heavens,” I'd have probably shaved my head too and joined the Devout. I was pretty close to something like that anyway. It's strange how quickly and easily this all had faded away from memory. Well, not really, just got hidden somewhere. Where normal people hide things they can't explain, to try and preserve their sanity.

And one more thing I understood. That some people in here had it much harder than I. Because if it were me after whom the Devout came to make me lead them forth, I would've hanged myself straight off. Even if I were an angel.

I had a hard time getting into the next tales. I was listening, sure, but did not follow the plots. I tried. There was a lot hidden in those stories, they all had some kind of secret, even the most fantastic of them, I got that, but still I couldn't listen to them with the same attention as the others did. It wasn't just because of the shaved heads. I was too tired, and the darkness, stuffiness, and the smell of wax all combined to mold the tiredness into a kind of torpor. Some stories shared certain details, some involved the same characters, some seemed to happen in the same places. I guess it would have been exciting to trace all of those intricate connections, except for the drowsy lethargy that overtook me.

During the next break I decided to go sit somewhere else where it would be easier to breathe and harder to fall asleep, and made a stupid move—slipped down from the bed. Someone immediately squeezed into the space I had vacated, and I immediately regretted having done that. Crawling on the floor was impossibly difficult. In the places where no one was lying down someone would be sitting, and where no one was sitting there would be backpacks and more backpacks. The candles had burned down to almost nothing and gave out more smoke than light. I didn't go two walker's paces before landing in a plate of sandwiches, bumping my head into the bed leg, and bowling over Whitebelly, who was just climbing down from that same bed. Then someone stepped on me. I figured I'd better get up on the nearest bed before they trampled me, but there was no space on the nearest bed. It was occupied by Shuffle, his guitar, Owl (I think), and someone hiding behind a backpack.

That someone said, “Hey, what are you doing? It's packed here.”

So I crawled on.

In the next three minutes I got stepped on about two dozen times, so by the time the break ended I was hurting all over. Thankfully, when Tabaqui declared the end of the break and everyone took their seats, someone lit the Chinese lantern. Just one, but that was enough to save me. I saw a place for me. It turned out that place was next to Vulture. No one ever chose to sit next to him, but I didn't care anymore.

Angel told about an enchanted house that could move about. Ginger told another one about the same town Noble had been in, and about Noble himself in it.

Then for a while I wasn't listening at all, because Noble squeezed in between me and Vulture and started whispering something in his ear, and then took off some bauble that was hanging around his neck and gave it to Vulture. And then Vulture, I wouldn't have believed it if I didn't see it with my own eyes, Vulture burst out crying. I mean, if it were only my eyes I wouldn't have believed them anyway, but I was sitting so close to him, and he sobbed so hard, that there could be no mistake. I didn't know where to put myself. Then it got even worse, because he suddenly hugged Noble, still crying. And he was crying as if he couldn't breathe. It was painful to listen to. Noble hugged him too, and held tight until Vulture calmed down, and he looked like he didn't give a damn what anyone would think about them, because there was only one thing they could think if they saw something like this. I didn't think anything of the sort, of course, but it upset me greatly that others certainly would. Lizard, and everyone else sitting close enough. I think I was so upset because I realized right away that what had just happened between Noble and Vulture was important, sad and joyful at the same time, something that couldn't be expressed in words, that you could only laugh or cry about. The way Vulture was crying.