Мариам Петросян - The Gray House

I stripped away the leather biker jacket, like the ones so beloved by Logs, and shook off the face powder. Then picked the poor bat off the collar, bearing in mind that its name was Suzy and that its days were numbered. What was left looked... ordinary. A handsome guy, but nothing special.

I couldn't understand before why a guy like Pompey would pretend he was a walking corpse. Now I knew it was all in accordance with the rules of the Game. Leaders needed to be pale and ominous. Pompey was naturally swarthy, so he must have gone through a lot of face powder to maintain the standard. The image of Pompey with the puff in his hand, putting the last touches of deathly paleness on his face, made me swoon and giggle.

The script accounted for everything. Every detail. Which way the part in Pheasants' hair went. How black was the underwear of a true Bird. What books were allowed for Hounds. Maybe Rats would have liked to skip the hair coloring once in a while, but they forced themselves, for those were the rules of the Game. It was even quite likely that Birds secretly loathed anything that grew, pots or no pots.

The final insight was a very simple one. I was leading up to it through all the preceding ones, deliberately, slowly, leaving it for last, so that in the end I could place it on top flamboyantly and be done with the whole thing.

The overthrow of Blind by Pompey—or rather, the widely advertised intention thereof—must have been a part of the Game as well. To always run the same tired script wasn't much fun. From time to time the play needed some variety. The war declared by Pompey provided just such variety. Hound Leader scares the Logs, practices throwing knives, generally behaves “in a not entirely satisfactory manner,” to quote Jackal. The audience shivers, Log spies run between different camps with the latest dispatches. People have something to discuss. Everyone's engaged and no one's afraid. Except Lary, but Lary is a simpleton taking everything at face value.

I looked around the canteen again. It was all so obvious! And so stupid!

I wanted to laugh out loud and scream that I was onto all of them now. All of their bats, throwing knives, coups, face powders, and scorpions in oil.

It must have somehow manifested itself on my face, because Tabaqui suddenly threw down his fork and demanded to know why the hell was I looking so smug and stupid.

“This,” I said and stuck out my tongue at him. Just the tip. I immediately remembered how Jackal could not stand being mocked, but it was already too late.

He went livid faster than if someone had dumped boiling water on him. Coughed the half-chewed piece of food out on his plate and asked Noble to hold him as fast as he could.

“Did you see that? Did you see that feathered bastard disrespect my advanced age? Everyone see that? I'm going to see the color of his guts!”

He was saying all of this between coughing fits, but it sounded deadly serious.

Noble took the butter knife off Tabaqui and remarked that my guts being spread out on the floor of the canteen would put everybody off their food.

“He thinks that he's received enlightenment!” Tabaqui continued through bouts of coughing, even turning slightly blue. “That he understands it now! Is there life after death, is there life on Mars, and is the Earth round! Look at him, sitting here all bloated!”

“He's been kind of puffy ever since your speech,” Humpback said. “I guess he's just not used to it all.”

“I'm not bloated!” I protested. “I'm not bloated, I’m not puffy, and I'd appreciate it if you all left me alone!”

“Hear, hear,” Black said from the other side of the table. “Tabaqui, why are you at his throat all of a sudden? Can't a guy just think whatever it is he thinks in peace?”

“Peace!” Tabaqui shrieked. “Is that what you call peace now? When one of your packmates fills up with self-importance, turns into a complete bastard, and on top of that squints at you contentedly? And I'm supposed to just shut up about this? To live alongside this disgusting mug? Not likely! If he thinks he can walk around with that kind of face, he should get himself a veil. I personally am not going to let it slide!”

“Look, he's just pissed off now,” Sphinx said. “See for yourself. And calm down, will you.”

But it took quite a while for Jackal to calm down. He would chew his food looking away and then suddenly turn around, throw me a wicked stare, and turn back. It was not at all funny, even though it seemed so to Noble.

I tried to look stone-faced while wheeling out of the canteen. I wasn't mad at Tabaqui. Not even a bit angry. If anything, I was admiring his sharpness. Who would be happy if someone were to debunk their favorite game? Tabaqui's reaction confirmed that I really was on to something. I just had to learn to keep it to myself.

Black patted me on the shoulder as he passed.

“don't let it get to you,” he said. “They're all nuts, some more than others.”

“They're not nuts,” I blurted out. “They're players.”

Black gave me a surprised look.

I couldn't understand what was more surprising to him: my words, which he didn't understand, or my insightfulness.

They lived in filthy cages, and they ate raw eggs by sucking them out through cracked shells. Their ears were sharp and rough to the touch and their claws were like curved swords. No disease could ever befall them, except colds and scabies, from which they died ...

... it shined its purple eye on me and I understood that it was her, the Great Hairy, the one who lives under the beds in the places where the dust collects, the one who turns the floorboards over in search of mold. I asked her to tell me my future, but she never did that. “There is nothing more horrible than knowing what awaits us tomorrow,” she said and gave me one of her fangs in consolation ...

And within that castle dwelt a knight renowned throughout the land for his prowess. They called him Dragonslayer, for he had killed the last dragon, and that was no mean feat since it was very hard to find. Those who would speak ill of him maintained, however, that it wasn't a dragon at all, just a large lizard from the Southern Realm ...

It looks like a small black cylinder. It cannot be seen by sunlight, and it definitely cannot be seen in the dark. One can only bump into it by accident. Every night it hums softly as it steals time ...

I was lying in the dark and listening. It was hot. My head was swimming from the cocktail, in which I could vaguely discern vodka, lemon juice, and something like pine-scented shampoo. The boombox, buried under the layers of blankets, was playing organ music. Everywhere around me were someone's arms, legs, pillows, and bottles. It was the first time that I'd experienced the room with all the lights off. The stories kept coming. Some were interrupted just when they got going, others started instead, and then the earlier ones returned when I'd already lost the sequence of events, and the overlaying snippets wove themselves into fanciful patterns that were very hard to keep track of. I tried, though.

... it is the hour when the bighorns venture out on the glistening paths leading down to the water, and they bellow. Trees bend from their calls. And then the hour comes when all the fools are placed in boats and sent up the moon river. It is said that the Moon takes them. The water near the shore becomes sweet and remains sweet until sunrise. Those who catch this hour and manage to drink the water turn into fools themselves . . .

I laughed and spilled some wine on my shirt.

“Why would anyone want to drink it,” I whispered, “if it's so dangerous?”

“There is none happier than a true fool,” the invisible storyteller said.