Мариам Петросян - The Gray House

The other section of the poem related the story of some records being given to someone. And of a book THAT YOU HAVE SO GRACEFULLY DROPPED ON MY HEAD, WITH NARY A SHRUG OF YOUR SHOULDERS ...The only place where one could drop a book on someone's head would be in the library, standing on a stepladder. And girls never went to the common library.

The more I thought about this, the more intrigued I became. I remembered an episode that I'd witnessed in the yard once, in my very first month of being here.

Beauty, from the Third, and a wheeler girl, whose nick I didn't know, were playing with a ball. This must have been the weirdest game I'd ever seen. The petite, dark-haired girl, with a little face as white as a china cup, threw a tennis ball down from the porch. Then, by miracle (with the role of the slightly clumsy miracle performed by Beauty), the ball would find itself back on the porch. Actually, Beauty missed more often than not. Then the girl had to wheel down and search for her toy in the bushes. In over half an hour, Beauty managed to throw it accurately, so it landed at her feet, only four times, and I'm not sure those weren't just accidents. But each time she would smile. It certainly seemed that she was smiling at her own happy thoughts, because neither she nor Beauty ever looked at each other. Only at the ball. Watched it appear in front of them, time after time, as if from some other dimension. The girl was much better at it. Beauty kept losing his concentration and trying to trace the ball outside of his territory, but the girl... I could have shot a gorgeous short film starring her: The Girl and the Ball: Playing with Shadows . I was mesmerized by this spectacle. I didn't realize that I was watching two lovers, and that this game was the closest they could allow themselves to be to each other. Back then I just figured that they didn't know each other too well and were a bit embarrassed about it.

I was thinking about that time when Black appeared. Sleepy, surly, in a pajama top and untied sneakers. He'd put them on like slippers, flattening the backs. He approached, limping visibly, and inquired if I knew what time it was.

I didn't. Like every other inhabitant of the Fourth I no longer had a watch. I mean, actually I did. Buried deep in the bottom of my bag.

“Quarter to midnight,” Black said. “The hallway lights are going to be out soon, and I doubt you thought to bring a flashlight along. You are going to get personally acquainted with every wall on your way back.”

“I was reading this poem,” I said, pointing at the barrel. “Very unusual. It's about this girl. Can't figure out who wrote it. Can you believe it, it says that she was dropping on him—that is, on the guy writing all this—some books, and also giving him records. Who could that possibly be? Do you know?”

Black glanced briefly at the barrel.

“It's old stuff, from six years ago,” he said indifferently. “They graduated. Can't you see, it's all blackened and stuff.”

“Oh! I see! Boar, Poplar, Saurus—they're all from the previous class.” I was a little disappointed in the mystery being resolved in such a mundane fashion. “So that's why I couldn't find a single familiar nick.”

“I think you managed to dig up just about the only place where their scribblings are still visible. Beats me how you found it,” Black grumbled, lowering himself onto the sofa. His face contorted as he did it, and he gingerly straightened his leg once seated.

“It was so quiet in the dorm. It felt... different. Alien, somehow. You were asleep, and anything I touched made an awful racket for some reason,” I said, trying to explain why I'd scrambled out of there.

“Yeah.” Black shrugged. “You think I don't understand? I woke up and it's, like, all dark and silent. Like I was in a coffin. I could hear my own heart beating. All I could do not to scream.”

I had a really tough time imagining Black screaming because he was scared. So I laughed.

“Really,” Black said. “You don't believe me?”

He took a pack of Lucky Strikes out of his pocket and lit up. I was completely floored. I was sure he didn't smoke.

“I don't, usually,” Black said. “Only when the day is particularly shitty. Like today.”

He smoked in silence and with great concentration. Like everything he did: eating, drinking, reading... Every action he performed possessed this thoroughness, as if announcing to the world: “Now this is how it's supposed to be done.” Probably that was why no one ever interrupted him while he was doing something. When he found himself in need of an ashtray, Black rummaged under the sofa with the same absorbed look on his face and hauled out a flat copper saucer in the shape of a maple leaf. The old-timers would do magic tricks like that sometimes, producing unexpected objects out of the most unlikely places.

“Listen,” he said, installing the leaf on the sofa's arm, “I wanted to ask you something. How come you stayed? Why didn't you go with them?”

I paused. It was not an easy thing to explain. In all honesty, I didn't want to leave Black alone. After his conversation with Sphinx in the morning, when I saw the way they looked at him, or rather, avoided looking at him... It all had this horribly familiar feel. Familiar and unpleasant.

“I'm not sure,” I said. “I guess I'm still too much of a Pheasant. I can't even imagine how this could work—turning up at the hospital wing, at night, without permission, carrying supplies. For me that would be the same as, I don't know, busting into Shark's office and stealing his fire extinguisher. I thought I would be out of place there. And it's not because I'm scared. I just don't see the point.”

Black nodded.

“I get it. It's the same with me. I wouldn't have gone even if this whole thing with Noble hadn't happened. In times like this someone has to stay back and secure the base.”

It seemed that, despite the approaching lights out, Black wasn't in any hurry to leave. He was, if anything, open for a discussion. Or maybe it was just that his leg hurt and he was simply resting it. I decided to go for it and clear up some things that had been bothering me ever since that talk with Sphinx.

“I'm sorry if this is not a comfortable topic,” I said, “but why is it that Sphinx dislikes you so much?”

Black choked on the smoke.

“Sorry!” I repeated hurriedly. “It's just that the impression I got—”

“It's not an impression,” he interrupted. “And that's a mild way of putting it. It's not just that he doesn't like me. He hates me. But generally that wouldn't be any of your business, agreed?”

“Sorry,” I mumbled again. “Of course it isn’t.”

Black disgustedly crushed the cigarette stub against the ashtray.

“When Sphinx first got to the House, I did kick him around. It's been nine years already, but he never forgot. Good memory, for that kind of thing. He's so cool and tough now, but back then he was a spoiled mama's darling. Crying into his pillow every night, tailing Blind's every step. You know, everybody's little pet. All of them fussing around him, wiping the snot off his nose.”

I remembered the photo out of the Moby-Dick . Where I couldn't find Sphinx. Maybe he hadn't arrived at the House yet. Or maybe he was somewhere else, crying into his pillow, as Black put it.

“So,” Black said, shoving the ashtray back under the sofa. He bumped into something there, pulled out a pink rubber bunny, and stared at it in apparent surprise. “What was I talking about? Oh, right. It's a long story. Everything was fine until he came in. And then it all went screwy. First he wanted a separate room. Then he wanted separate friends. And whatever he wanted, he always got. Half of my pack defected into that damn room of his. All drawn in by his pretty smile.”