Мариам Петросян - The Gray House

“I don't. I know nothing about you, but I do know about them. Which people get along with them and which don't. Also I overheard you talking to Elk when he gave you the letter from your friend. Who they may be picking on while you're not there. Who is he, by the way?”

Wolf perked up. He clearly enjoyed talking about life outside the Sepulcher.

“Blind,” Grasshopper said. He knew Wolf would be impressed, and Wolf was impressed.

“You're kidding.”

Grasshopper kept proud silence.

“My hat's off to you,” Wolf said respectfully. “I never would have thought of Blind as friend material.”

Grasshopper was hurt.

“He is too, just like anyone else!”

“Or of him being picked on,” Wolf continued, ignoring the outburst.

Grasshopper turned away. Wolf patted him on the shoulder.

“don't get mad, OK? I can be nasty sometimes. Especially when my back's acting up. Tell me everything from the very beginning. When they brought you in. And from there on. And then I’ll tell you lots about everyone.”

Grasshopper did. His story was interrupted by the nurse who came in to wash his face and tuck him in. After she left, Wolf got out from under the bed and climbed under the covers next to Grasshopper.

“Please go on,” he said.

Grasshopper spoke for a long time. Then they lay in silence for a while. Grasshopper knew that Wolf wasn't asleep.

“I wish I could get away from here,” Wolf said miserably. “It's been six months already. You have no idea ...”

Grasshopper imagined that Wolf started crying.

“You will. I'm sure you will,” Grasshopper said. “don't worry. It just can't be that someone needs to get out of something and can’t.”

“You're really nice.” Wolf hugged Grasshopper and pressed his cheek against him. The cheek was wet. “If I manage to get out, I promise to fight for you to the death. You’ll see. Will you remember me if I don't get out?”

“I swear!” Grasshopper said. “I’ll always remember you.”

In the morning, Nurse Agatha discovered Wolf sleeping in Grasshopper's bed. Her scream woke up both of them. Wolf head-butted the nurse in the stomach and stormed out into the hallway. Grasshopper ran after him and watched, dumbfounded, as Wolf, navigating between the bawling nurses, knocked over the trays with food and medications. His path was marked with broken glass, cotton balls, and scrambled eggs.

They caught him in the side corridor, where Wolf unfortunately bumped into two men at once and was carried off into a private room, to the accompaniment of angry shouts from the nurses. He was soon followed there by stone-faced Spider Jan. The second doctor and the janitor, the ones who caught Wolf, were busy pouring iodine on the bite marks and pulling up trouser legs to inspect the contusions where he'd kicked them. Half of the nurses gathered around and began rehashing the incident, while the rest started picking up the wreckage.

Grasshopper, stunned and wild eyed from the sudden awakening, was standing mutely by his door.

“I thought you were a good boy,” Nurse Agatha said, walking past him. “And you turned out to be a liar. They are taking all this trouble with you, fitting you with prosthetics, and this is how you repay them for their efforts?”

“You can shove your prosthetics!” Grasshopper said furiously. “And your efforts!”

He turned on his heel without another glance at the nurse, who was rooted to the spot, and went inside.

In the room, now empty, he looked at the unmade bed and at the blanket on the floor. Then he hooked the chair with his foot and hurled it against the wall. The sound of the crash, the cup slipping off the nightstand and breaking to pieces, the sight of the overturned chair—all of that calmed him a bit. Nurse Agatha was clucking concernedly in the hallway.

“There,” Grasshopper said at the ceiling. “Now they're just going to chain me up next to Wolf. And he won't be alone anymore.”

But no one chained him up anywhere—not next to Wolf and not by himself. Doctor Jan gave him a scolding in his office. Elk apologized for him and promised to get him out of the hospital wing. Nurse Agatha said that he really was a good boy who just happened to fall under bad influence.

The principal patted him on the head and said, “No harm done. The child was understandably upset.”

“Let Wolf go,” Grasshopper said.

The only one who heard that was Elk.

That evening he was visited by a girl in light-blue pajamas, with flaming hair, like a red poppy. He'd never seen anyone with hair so bright. He never imagined that such a color could exist. Well, maybe on some clowns. The girl came in and approached Grasshopper's window, proudly clutching a bunch of strange fuzzy flowers. Her head was illuminating the white room like a very small, very concentrated fire.

“Hi,” she said.

Grasshopper said hi too and climbed down from the windowsill.

The girl placed the flowers on the nightstand and said, “I am Ginger.”

She had big ears, the skin around her nose was a bit reddish, and her eyes, unexpectedly, were almost black, framed by red lashes. It took some time for Grasshopper to register all that. It was not easy to look away from her hair. Grasshopper was surprised that she thought he needed to be told something so obvious.

“I can see that,” he said. “Hard not to.”

“No,” said the girl, shaking her head. “This is me introducing myself. Ginger. Get it?”

He did.

“Grasshopper,” he answered.

The girl nodded and looked around the empty room.

“It's boring here,” she said. “Clean and boring.”

Grasshopper didn't say anything.

“Want to come with me? That's an invitation,” she said.

“Is that permitted?”

Grasshopper seriously doubted that he would be allowed as far as his room's door, after everything that happened.

“It's not. But no one will say a word. You’ll see. Coming?”

They went out into the shining white corridor of the Sepulcher, which muffled their steps. The frosted-glass doors were opening and closing. Seniors in pajamas lounged in chairs, flipping through colorful magazines. Nurses flew from one room to another like snowballs. Grasshopper was following Ginger, expecting that at any moment someone would shout at him, but no one did. Nobody asked them anything. They walked and, alongside them, their reflections appeared and disappeared in the mirror sides of the cabinets lining the wall, one after the other. Blue pajamas and white ones. And the fire of her hair flaming up and extinguishing itself as they passed.

It's as if we have vanished, Grasshopper thought, astounded. We're walking, but we're not. No one sees us or hears us. This red-haired girl has put a spell on the entire Sepulcher.

Snow still fell outside the windows. They turned down another corridor, where the floor was shiny, and went to the very last door.

“Here we are.”

Ginger pushed the door.

The room was really tiny. Three beds, strewn with clothes. Fully developed piles of magazines, notebooks, paper, brushes, and jars of paint. Drawings adorned the walls, and a green budgie jumped up and down excitedly in its wire cage. The room resembled Stuffage and even smelled like Stuffage. Grasshopper stepped on some orange peel and stopped, a little embarrassed. Ginger jumped onto one of the beds at a run, shook away her slippers, swept off the trash, and introduced her mate.

“This is Death.”

A handsome boy with a mop-top haircut smiled and nodded at him.

“Hi,” he said.

Grasshopper startled when he heard the nick.

“So you must be ...”

Death nodded again, still smiling.

“Have a seat, will you,” Ginger called, pushing another pile off the bed. “You can stare at him later, we have time.”