Мариам Петросян - The Gray House

He goes to the door, pushes it with his shoulder, and goes out without looking back.

Smoker, distraught, wheels after him.

Black said: “Try talking to him seriously. You’ll see him start hemming and hawing. You just haven't had a chance to observe it. I have.”

Smoker scans the corridor for signs of Sphinx, but he's already lost in the sea of people walking and wheeling the other way.

Was he hemming? Hawing? The sleepless night stings his eyelids, the countless cigarettes scratch at his throat.

Sphinx walks quickly. At the entrance to the hallway he stops and lets his eyes find the familiar whitish spot on the floorboards.

You should have seen it, Smoker. Seen what they had wrought when their time came. If you'd have seen that, then for the rest of your life you would've kept your mouth shut about the Outsides, about open and closed doors, about chicks in their shells. If only you could have seen.

“Young man!” the bitter woman in an apron calls after Smoker. “I would thank you not to smoke in the canteen ever again. And give me your name. I shall have to report you to the principal.”

Smoker turns around.

The hag is holding a tiny cigarette butt between her finger and thumb. Left there by Sphinx. Smoker regards it closely. Did she wait on purpose until I was out here, to have an opportunity to yell at me in front of the entire House? The headache comes on suddenly, gripping his head in a vise.

“Your name!” the narrow, slit-like mouth demands again.

“Raskolnikov!” Smoker shouts back.

The woman nods, satisfied, and disappears behind the door to the canteen. Smoker continues on his way, wondering whether she would have dared to threaten Sphinx in this fashion. And why nothing had been said about this in all the time the two of them were sitting inside.

When he passes the Coffeepot, where Logs sway amid the clouds of smoke, he sees Lary waving at him from his perch at the bar and wheels in.

“What's with staying back in the canteen? Secret talks?”

Horse picks his ear with a sharply filed fingernail.

“Lary, tell me, who's more free, an elephant stomping across the savanna or an aphid sitting on the leaf of whatever plant?”

Lary scratches his chest under the numerous crosses, nuts, and bolts hanging on it.

“How should I know, Smoker? I guess that would be the eagle who's flitting about over all of that. Why?”

“Eagles don't flit,” Bubble from the Third jumps in. “They soar. They plow the sky. They own it and have it in all possible respects.”

“Idiot,” Lary spits back. “Never talk about things you don't understand. It's the ships that plow the oceans. And plows plow the earth.”

Black-vested Logs sigh in unison.

Smoker continues along the hallway. He sees a poster, bordered in black: In loving memory of Ard. Ghoul, our dearly departed brother. Memorial service for the deceased. Classroom 1. Poems, songs, dedications. Everyone who knew and loved him is invited to join the First on the 28th of this month at 18:00 hours.

Smoker recalls the sallow face with protruding horselike teeth, and the interminable harangues on the dangers of smoking and the attending illnesses tied to this nasty habit. Who knew and loved him... What about those who knew and hated him?

The piggy little visage of Pheasant Sticks peeks from behind the poster.

“Are you coming?” it says. “You especially are invited.”

Sticks is holding the poster up by means of two wooden handles. It's made of heavy-gauge cardboard, too heavy for him, but he's so proud of the task entrusted to him he's positively glowing.

“As someone who knew him. Even though you're in that other group now. You should come.”

Smoker can't restrain himself in time.

“Isn't that supposed to be ‘drive,’ not ‘come’?”

Sticks's face contorts in a grimace.

“You're a mean one. Good thing they threw you out.”

He yelps and lets go of the poster. Then leans over, grabs one of its ends, and quickly wheels off. The flapping end rattles against the floorboards.

Smoker regards his fist thoughtfully. The knuckles are skinned in one place. He licks the raw pink spot.

What is it to which the person in question is trying to draw attention? It would seem that it is just his footwear ... advertising his handicap, putting it in everyone's face. Therefore he is accentuating our common unfortunate condition ...

Smoker starts laughing. Very softly.

Tiny spots everywhere, aphids spread over the leaves, the leaves are covered with multitudes of aphids, the leaves, the trees, the forests.

He laughs. He drives along.

You should come. How should you come? Go on wheels, but never mention it.

A MESSAGE, the wall cautions. Smoker stops to read it.

BOYS, don't BELIEVE THE TALK ABOUT THERE BEING NO TREES OR PINECONES IN HEAVEN. don't BELIEVE IT's ONLY CLOUDS UP THERE. BELIEVE WHAT I TELL YOU. FOR I AM AN ANCIENT BIRD, AND MY BABY TEETH FELL OUT SO LONG AGO I CAN NO LONGER REMEMBER THEIR TASTE.

Trees. Pinecones. An old bird with teeth. Looks more like a pterodactyl.

By the time he wheels into the dorm, Smoker is hooting hysterically.

“That's no leaf!” he shouts at Sphinx. “And no savanna either! Aphids, elephants, and toothy pterodactyls! What kind of savanna would hold all of that together, huh?”

Sphinx stares. Smoker is extracted from the wheelchair and deposited on the bed. His laughter gradually becomes more subdued. Then he just lies there looking at the ceiling. A wet rag plops on top of his forehead. It smells of spilled coffee. I think they wiped the table with this thing before putting it on me.

“Smoker, what's wrong?”

He's silent. Sniffing at the rag.

“That's just the autumn blues. It’ll pass.”

“Or it won’t.”

“The siren call of home,” Jackal sighs. “He misses his birthingplace. Wait, that can't be the right word.”

“He's just realized that he's the dregs of society,” Humpback proclaims thoughtfully. “It was a flash of lightning illuminating his entire existence. Zap! And down he goes.”

“Are you doing this on purpose?” Smoker says. “So that I'd have to throw up?”

The rag slithers down to his nose.

Blind noodles on the guitar, his hair touching the strings.

“Boys, don't believe the talk,” Tabaqui and Sphinx sing in unison.

“There being no trees or pinecones,” Humpback's voice carries upward to the ceiling, clear and precise.

“In Heave-e-e-e-n!”

Smoker closes his eyes.

The bed groans under the bulk of Black, who just lowered himself on it. His face is of a more livid hue than usual, and his breath is heavy. He's drunk. This makes Smoker nervous.

“Was I right or was I right?” Black says.

Smoker sits up.

“don't know,” he says. “Can't say.”

“Right about what?” Jackal inquires. “Who was right and about what?”

Black turns to face Sphinx.

“I bet you talked for a long time, but then it turned out he never said anything. He's good at that. Flapping his gums for hours, and then you can't remember a single word for the life of you.”

Smoker lies down again. He's hoping that if he manages to lie absolutely still, his head will stop aching. Humpback comes closer and shakes an enormous striped knit stocking at him.

“Hey, Smoker. This is where the Christmas presents are going. What would you like? Make up your mind in advance, in case we need to order something from Flyers.”

“A working pair of legs,” Black responds for Smoker. “That's what he really needs. Is it going to fit in your festive sack?”