Lary’s head emerged from the space between the beds and positioned itself with its chin on the edge of the mattress.
“That was the seniors’ undoing,” it announced. “Blasted Moor had forty hooked on Choice. So obviously, not many survived.”
I asked who Blasted Moor was.
“You’re not old enough to know things like that,” Lary responded grimly and hid his head again.
I did not mention that, in that case, it would have been a good idea not to bring him up at all. I decided to continue being polite and to take part in their stupid games the best I could. So I asked Sphinx what he meant when he told Pompey that it was “useless.”
“It was useless to try and talk him out of the fight,” Sphinx explained. “He wouldn’t have understood.”
“Don’t tell me you were going to!” Tabaqui exploded. “You’re out of your mind! How would that look? Just think about it!”
Sphinx sat up.
“I don’t care how it looks,” he said. “I should have tried. He’s still a human being.”
“He’s an idiot! A complete dolt!” Tabaqui screamed.
“That’s not a reason to kill him!”
“That is too a reason!”
They were shouting with their faces right against each other. Their noses almost touched. It was as if they were alone. As if there was nobody else around.
“It is very much a reason,” Tabaqui repeated, a bit softer.
Sphinx looked into his eyes for a while more and then turned away.
I took a deep breath. The Great Game reached unprecedented intensity. They almost managed to convince me that it all was for real, that they weren’t playing. That it was a matter of life and death. The faces of everyone present must have reflected the same appreciation of their talents.
“So?” I said. “That means no one can save Pompey now?”
They looked at me like I was seriously ill. With compassion and concern. This marked the end of my attempts to contribute to the Game. I realized that I’d done quite enough contributing for one day. I was sick of playing a simpleton in need of edification.
So I said thank you. I said that they had now helped me to understand everything and that I was content. Their eyes popped out of their heads, like I’d completely lost my mind.
I drank my coffee and never asked anyone anything.
We were walking and wheeling in total darkness. Slowly, like tortoises. The flashlights weren’t much help. The two pale dots under the wheels and a mass of people bumping into each other both ahead of and behind me. Three packs stumbling together in the dark, and it was a good thing Hounds had already gone downstairs. When we passed the doors of the dorms they cracked open, and we could hear the whispering of those left behind—both those like our own Tubby and the others, a little more aware of the world around them. The poor souls tried to make themselves inconspicuous, but it was still unnerving as hell.
Then we saw someone ahead of us, on top of the stairs, shining an industrial-strength beam down the steps. I was sweating and in desperate need of a cigarette. The Crossroads television resembled a hunched figure. Our progress seemed to be echoing through the entire building, and I was waiting for the invasion, at any moment, of counselors and Cases, running to find out what was going on.
The steps smelled of bleach and mouse droppings. The person in charge of lighting the way was doing a really thorough job. He formed groups of six, went down ahead of them himself, illuminating every step and then returning for the next batch.
The first-floor corridor was much more expansive than ours—four wheelchairs could ride abreast here and still leave enough room for a pair of walkers. We were moving much faster. We passed the locked doors to the entrance hall, the movie room, the video-game arcade, the rows of photographs, the rows of fire extinguishers, the laundry window . . . The gym was open, and all the lights were on inside. We could put the flashlights away.
It was already packed, but more and more were arriving. It was also surprisingly quiet. The conversations didn’t rise above a whisper. Hounds occupied the mats, managing in the time they were here to surround themselves with tea in thermal flasks, pass around the paper cups, and in general assume the air of gracious hosts entertaining troublesome guests.
Sphinx, Black, and Humpback made straight for them. Blind remained standing by the door. I followed Tabaqui around like a shadow, but he apparently decided to renew acquaintances with everyone in the room, so we kept circling and circling the gym, saying hello and engaging in pointless banter with every random person. I finally grew tired of this and fell behind.
Pompey was sitting on a separate mat a little way off from the other Hounds and smoking, dropping ash on the floor. Around his neck he had a colorful kerchief tightly twisted into a slim rope. His leather pants were on the verge of splitting open under the assault of his muscular thighs. He did not participate in the talks with Sphinx, which told me that the details of the Great Battle were being hashed out without input from its participants. Then I realized that I had no idea what the plan was—whether Pompey was supposed to prevail or be defeated. I just knew it had to be agreed upon in advance.
Sphinx returned, with Humpback and Black. Sphinx then went to the door and engaged in a whispered dialogue with Blind. The wheelers of the Sixth remained where they were. The walkers got up but also didn’t go anywhere. Then the walkers of the Second and Third assembled in the center of the floor. They held hands and formed a large circle. Then the wheelers were introduced into it, and then finally Black, Humpback, Lary, and the remaining Hounds. Every one of ours and of Birds was positioned so that he had members of other packs on both sides. Once the guys from the Sixth joined in, the circle grew to the size of a boxing ring. It looked silly, but was done very efficiently, as if the House held weekly drills in creating circles like this. I was marveling at the unusual spectacle, but then someone called me. Turned out I had to go and take my place as well.
“Wake up, will you,” Tabaqui hissed when I wheeled by him.
“Alexander hasn’t gone in either,” I said by way of an excuse.
Tabaqui gave me a withering look, pursed his lips, and turned away. I was stationed between Angel from the Third and Monkey from the Second. The former was intently studying something on the ceiling and yawning. The latter fidgeted, made faces, and smacked his lips. Angel’s hand barely touched mine, while Monkey now gripped my hand, now shook it, now almost pushed it away. I got the impression that neither one of them perceived me as a human being at that point. I was just a fragment of the chain. Nothing more.
Once the movement ceased, Pompey rose from the mat, stretched, and entered the circle, bobbing under a pair of clasped hands.
“Does it always happen like this? Like a kids’ game?” I whispered to Monkey.
He looked at me distractedly, made another face, and said that he had no idea what I was talking about.
Sphinx led Blind toward the circle. Blind then also went inside.
“Why this merry-go-round?” I asked Monkey again.
“What do you mean why? So that everyone can see properly, you fool! And so that nobody’s hands . . .”
Monkey didn’t finish. A collective cry made us startle and crane our necks. The chain broke. Pompey lay prostrate on the floor, kicking his legs and making strange bubbling noises. Sort of like a cooing dove.
Is that all? I thought, stunned.
What I saw next made me sick. Pompey was clutching at his throat, and between his red fingers there was a knife handle. I closed my eyes, and then heard everyone exhale in unison. That could only mean one thing. But I still waited, not able to make myself look again. When I did, Pompey wasn’t moving anymore. Just lying there, a sad bulk in a widening pool of blood. Not a single person among those sitting and standing around could have any doubts that he was dead.
The circle was still standing, even though no one was holding hands anymore. It was very quiet. We all looked at Pompey in silence.
I realized then that I was going to remember this for the rest of my life. The corpse on the glistening green paint, the track lights reflecting in the dark glass of the windows, and the silence. The silence of the place where too many people were silent.
Blind crouched down near Pompey, felt for the knife, and pulled it out. The wet noise almost made me throw up. I waited for the rising contents of my stomach to settle down a little, then turned the wheelchair around and dashed toward the doors. The only thought in my head was to leave this place as soon as I could.
I was speeding blindly down the corridor and definitely would have crashed into something at the very next turn if Tabaqui hadn’t caught up with me.
“Hey! Where are you going? Stop right there!”
He grabbed my wheelchair and forced me to stop.
“Smoker. Calm down. You’ve got to calm down,” he kept repeating.
I told him I was absolutely calm. He produced a flashlight from his backpack and we proceeded along. Very slowly.
Tabaqui was trembling and mumbling, “Not with me, barred from me, find yourself another skin, walk up the river, join with the moon, but never with me, not now and not soon . . .”
I laughed.
“Please stop with the crazy,” he said, “or we’ll have to slap your cheeks and pour water on you. And I don’t think anyone wants to do that at the moment.”
“What is it you want to do at the moment?” I said. “Lots of demands on your time?”
He didn’t answer.
“That’s not a reason to kill him!” Sphinx shouted in Jackal’s face.
“That is too a reason!” Jackal shot back.
“You’re not old enough for things like that,” Lary said.
“So?” I said. “That means no one can save Pompey now?”
And they all stared at me. The way people look at complete idiots.
Which was exactly what I was.
“Oh god!” I said. And laughed. And couldn’t stop myself. Tabaqui stopped and waited out my bout of mirth.
“And that rat,” I said. “Remember the rat? I thought you were going to kill it. Whack it with the broom. But you weren’t planning to, were you?”
I saw the reflections of the flashlight in both of Jackal’s big round eyes. Two yellow dots.
“You were never going to hurt it. The rat? No way. Right? But it was only Lary who was really afraid of Pompey. And you all knew that Blind was going to simply kill him . . .”
Tabaqui was still looking at me without saying a word.
“You all knew,” I said. “When you were joking about his bats. When you were telling stories. When you were singing songs. Sphinx was sure of it when he was talking to him today . . . Now I understand . . .”
“So?” Tabaqui said. “Let’s say we did know. So what?”
He wasn’t disgusted, and he wasn’t sorry. Not a single bit. It was obvious even here in the darkness. And if not for Sphinx . . . if not for his “That’s not a reason to kill him,” I’d have had to assume they were all like this. “That is too a reason,” Jackal had answered. Yes. They kill in this House. And there I was with my “no one can save Pompey now.” Sarcastic. Mocking. Even they were surprised. Of course they were. I’d outcynicked them all.
I laughed again. I laughed and laughed, and then I literally choked on the laughter as it turned into a spasm. I vomited. Right on my legs. I didn’t have time to lean over or turn to the side.
Tabaqui gasped but didn’t say anything.
Alexander, with another flashlight, caught up with us at the bottom of the steps. He looked me over, grabbed the handles of the wheelchair, and ran. Jackal was speeding alongside. I screwed up my eyes very tightly and tried not to think of anything. Least of all, of the Great Game. This silly, amusing game, born out of boredom.
Once we reached the bathroom, Alexander unloaded me on the floor and undressed me down to my briefs. I was sitting on the wet floor, trembling. He took away my clothes and returned to wash the wheelchair, and still I was sitting there, naked. Then he and Humpback shoved me into the shower stall, turned on the water, and closed the door. I stretched out in the little tiled alcove, under the jets of water cascading down my back, and listened to their voices, muted by the frosted glass, mingling with the sound of the shower. Listened to them talk while they were washing my wheelchair.
“Grabbed all the knives and razors and hauled them away,” Humpback said. “Even the nail files. Gone. He has his own hiding places.”
Alexander mumbled something indistinct.
“Used a pillowcase to wrap them. Mine, for some reason. I wonder why.”
Squeaking of the wheelchair. Silence.
“We can give Smoker my pants. At least they won’t be falling down. But I’m all out of clean shirts.”
I closed my eyes and put my face inside the water stream. This way I couldn’t hear anything else. Much better. If only they’d left me alone, I might have spent the night there, numbing myself in the shower, and then maybe feeling a little better in the morning. But they pulled me out. Pushed aside the door and dragged me onto the towel spread out on the floor.
As I was drying myself, in came Lary, took my place in the stall, and started splashing around like a manic seal without even bothering to close the door.
Sphinx entered and froze in the middle of the bathroom with a perplexed look on his face, as if he forgot what it was he needed here.
I emerged from under the towel. There was a stack of clothes on the stool next to me. I saw a gray-checkered shirt on top.
“I’m not wearing that,” I said. “Take it away.”
Humpback looked at me quizzically. As if there was something incongruous about me not wanting to put on that shirt. Blind’s shirt, I’d seen him wear it, not once and not twice. As if it wasn’t obvious that I had no desire to wear anything that was his after what had just happened.
Lary started singing, there in the shower, loudly and out of tune. Singing and slapping his protruding ribs.
“Damned exhibitionist,” Sphinx grumbled. And yelled, so suddenly that I startled, “Close the damn door!”
“All right,” Humpback said and took the clothes away from under my nose. “We’ll figure out something tomorrow. There’s nothing left to do today but sleep, anyway.”
He draped the towel over me, helped me into the wheelchair, and rolled it out. The wheelchair was still wet after the washing. I slid around on the seat and grabbed the handles tightly to prevent myself from falling out.
“You are a really fastidious person,” Sphinx said.
I looked back.
His stare was ice cold.
“I’m not fastidious,” I said. “I’m normal. And you?”
His eyes narrowed.
“And I’m not.”
No one had ever looked at me that way before. With such boundless loathing. Then he closed his eyes. Like he didn’t want to see me at all.
“God,” he said. “You’re not worth half of his fingernail. You . . .”
Humpback quickly turned the wheelchair, rolled me out into the corridor, and slammed the door. There was commotion and hissing on the other side of it, as if both Alexander and Lary had grabbed hold of Sphinx to prevent him from going after me. Humpback galloping all the way to the dorm only confirmed that suspicion. He dumped me on the bed and immediately ran back.
I lay down right away. Still wrapped in the towel. Pulled the covers over my head, screwed my eyes closed, and tried my best not to burst into tears. I held on until all the sounds around me ceased. Until they stopped walking around, talking, shifting stuff, and settling down. Only then did I allow myself to cry. I hoped against hope that no one could hear me. Something ended that night, and it was more painful than an entire life spent among Pheasants.
The next day was the day of interrogations and searches. Surly figures in uniform roamed the hallways. They entered classrooms, asked questions about Pompey, and searched for the knife. They didn’t spend too much time in our dorm.
Rifled through the desk drawers and nightstands, tapped on the walls, and left.
Lary periodically carried out reconnaissance missions and returned with the latest news that nobody cared about. If one were to go out into the hallway he’d be able to see Hounds being brought one by one into the staff room to compare testimonies. That was exactly what Lary was doing, loitering in the hallway. He just liked to call it “reconnaissance.”
Around seven in the evening, all of the outsiders left. Shark assembled the teachers and the counselors in his office for an emergency meeting. At ten, two hours later than usual, they rang for dinner, and we all went to the canteen. The classroom doors were already adorned with black ribbons. Shark was waiting for us. His speech was long and heartfelt, and could be summed up in a single point: anyone who knew anything about the circumstances of Pompey’s death was cordially invited to drop by the principal’s office for a nice private talk.
We went to bed early that night. There were spells scribbled in all four corners of the room to ward off the vengeful ghosts. Tabaqui hung a collection of protective amulets above his head. Humpback jumped up every half hour, directed the beam of his flashlight at the door, exhaled with relief, and crashed back on the bunk.
BOOK TWO
EIGHT DAYS IN THE LIFE OF JACKAL
THE HOUSE MALE STUDENTS
FOURTH
—
BLIND
SPHINX
TABAQUI
HUMPBACK
(NOBLE)
BLACK
LARY
ALEXANDER
SMOKER
(TUBBY)
THIRD
BIRDS
—
(VULTURE)
LIZARD
(ANGEL)
DODO
HORSE
(BUTTERFLY)
DEAREST
GUPPY
BUBBLE
(BEAUTY)
(ELEPHANT)
(FICUS)
The Gray House Page 29
