Мариам Петросян - The Gray House

I told Guppy about this. I didn't want to bother Sphinx.

“Tabaqui?” Guppy asked, frowning.

I swear, it took him two full minutes of racking his brain to figure out who I was talking about. So I was a little surprised when I found that my diary still contained Jackal's musings, and the little figurine he made from a walnut and gave to me was still in my bag.

“A present stays back,” Sphinx said. “And if he considered what he wrote in the diary to be a present, it would also stay.”

I went through the diary and saw that only Vulture's cactus notes had disappeared. In their place there was nothing. Clean paper. It became a little clearer what had reduced Dearest to the state he was in, and why Guppy would periodically call Lizard “Leader.”

My insights, doubts, and fears were spread over the four days of our vigil, dulled by the discussions and the waiting. I felt like a fish in a tank that hadn't been cleaned for a while. Everything was murky, uncertain, and unexplained, and it seemed that the ability to be shocked had been lost somehow.

The weather was beautiful. Not hot, not cold, no rain, no wind, no withering heat. The air remained clean and clear. Lizard whiled away the hours playing solitaire, mumbling under his breath, or else incessantly pumping the weights he'd hauled in. Guppy and Dodo played cards. Dearest, before he was taken away, just sat in the corner scowling angrily.

When I said that we who remained in the House became closer, I didn't include Sphinx. With him it was the other way around, like he was fading in the distance with each passing day, becoming even more withdrawn and emaciated. I was afraid that if this kept on he too would simply disappear. He slept in his clothes, and I never noticed him eating, drinking, or going to the bathroom. It was better when Mermaid was around, but in her absence I tried not to look in his direction. Because when I did I always ended up trying to help somehow, and then he would tense up, thank me, and leave. He behaved the same way with Guppy and Dodo, to say nothing of Lizard, but they unexpectedly hit it off with my father. Held long discussions through the night. My dad, whom I'd always known to have a single mode of behavior with anyone younger than twenty, and that is hooting and slapping them on the back, suddenly opened up as a great listener, a philosopher even, demonstrated a sharp sense of humor and generally amazed me to no end. He also managed to force Sphinx to take a shower, and afterward put clean clothes on him, so neatly you'd think he'd spent all of his life practicing. Pity that he could only come in the evenings, after work.

Then they announced the new graduation date, and our life in suspended animation came to an end.

It was Sunday, so my father didn't have to go anywhere. We had a peaceful breakfast in the canteen, freshened up, and went down to the first with our bags. The lecture hall was packed with the departing students and their parents, the parents being somber and businesslike, in a rush to leave, and compared to them, those who had stayed with us for the four-day vigil looked almost like slackers and layabouts, I didn't know why. Viking's mother kept pushing hair out of his eyes, giggling moronically; the glasses on Rabbit's mother appeared absurdly large, making her nose stick out from under them like a button in an elevator: Guppy's father was wearing a suit that didn't fit, like he took it off someone; and my dad inexplicably turned into an aging hippie, and even started talking in an absurd drawl. Women threw him sideways glances, like he was a bum who had sneaked in somehow. I wanted to sink through the floor, I was so ashamed—for him, and for myself for being ashamed.

I don't know who came for Sphinx, except that it wasn't one of his parents. Could be his personal driver. Or maybe a distant relative. Sphinx regarded him as no more than a porter for his suitcase. He himself wasn't letting Mermaid out of sight even for a second. Her parents turned out to be quite elderly. Small, dressed all in black, as if plucked out of some remote village and brought to the House by a magical twister. I noticed them writing diligently on the sheets of paper they tore out of a notebook, or rather the father was writing what the mother dictated. They passed the sheets over to Mermaid, and she folded them and stuffed them in Sphinx's breast pocket. I knew then that he wouldn't have any trouble finding Mermaid in the Outsides. He hadn't asked for my address, but my father stalked the driver (or the relative who looked like one) until he managed to obtain some kind of information from him, and only then said we could go.

And we went. With no farewell hugs or kisses, because we had already said our good-byes more than once.

No one could say he had it easy. In the bed of his pickup truck there were twelve little mattresses, a box with clean baby clothes, a bag with the dirty ones, another bag, this one with disposable utensils, a boombox lashed to the side with wire, and eleven kids, aged one to three. At least he got lucky with Rat Fairy. She drove while he busied himself in the back with the children, and sometimes spelled him for a short time in this capacity, so he could get some sleep. Not too often, because it meant that the truck wasn't moving. She looked more like an evil enchantress than a good fairy, but she was neither evil nor good, she was just fulfilling the task she had been charged with.

With the children he was also lucky. They were all smarter than their age, and almost all of them endured the trip quietly and patiently. But they still would get carsick from time to time, they needed to eat and drink, many were not toilet-trained yet, those who were still couldn't do it sometimes in the shaking truck bed, and no matter how he tried, each day it became harder and harder for him.

People who saw this strange family were surprised that many of the children were of the same age while not being twins, and that none of them looked like their father. Also suspicious was the father's relative youthfulness, the crow ensconced on his shoulder, and the wide-brimmed black hat adorned with a ring of the yellowed skulls of some small animal.

“Gypsies, I’ll bet,” they said, glowering. “And the kids are stolen.”

“They are not all mine,” he would explain self-consciously, when the questions became particularly probing. “Half of them are my sister's.”

And he pointed at the raven-haired girl behind the wheel. She chain-smoked, resting her sharp elbow on the edge of the window, and her shoulder featured an unusual tattoo: a scowling rat. As soon as people had a good look at it, even the most inquisitive of them thought it best to walk away, and the questions tended to end abruptly.

The truck rolled around seemingly without purpose, but Rat Fairy did, in fact, constantly check the map. Some houses were marked on it with a red cross. They tried to reach them at dawn and without disturbing the neighbors. Each time they were met there, usually by a man and a woman, but sometimes only by women and once by a single man. A brief hushed conversation ensued, one of the children would be transferred from the truck to the house, and they left as quietly as they came. Other houses were marked with green crosses. These they visited openly, at any time of day or night, and picked up boxes of baby food.

And even though there were fewer and fewer children, they grew more and more tired, and their journey became more arduous. They started forgetting days and dates, talked less and less, confused the kids they'd already fed with the ones who were still hungry. Twice Rat Fairy lost her way, making the quest longer by many hours.