“If you want to look harmless, get yourself some shades,” Ralph said, surprised at himself.
“The pack becomes nervous if I wear them,” Blind said, his voice tinged with regret. “Sphinx especially. I can’t ignore him.”
“What does he think about Wolf’s death?”
“He tries not to think about it.”
“As far as I know he was rather attached to him, wasn’t he?”
Blind laughed unpleasantly.
“What a strange turn of phrase . . . Attached. Yes, he was. With a steel cable. A very thick one.”
“What happened to this cable that night?”
“I don’t know. And I am not planning to ask him.”
“Are you a heavy sleeper? Would you wake up if someone moaned next to you?”
A shadow of rage flitted across Blind’s face and was gone.
“I would wake up if a mouse scurried next to me. Wolf did not moan. There was no sound from him at all. He had no time to even realize . . .”
“Ah, so that’s how it is!” Ralph straightened up. “Now we’re getting somewhere. How would you know what he did have time for and what he didn’t? To hear you say it, you were fast asleep along with the rest of the pack.”
“I just know. He was also asleep. Or his face wouldn’t have been so peaceful. His fear would have awakened us all. It must have been the most peaceful death in the entire history of the House.”
“If it were Sphinx instead of Wolf, and if I were to tell you of his death using the exact same words you’ve just used to tell me about Wolf’s, would you be satisfied with my story?”
Blind hesitated before answering.
“I don’t know. You’re asking too much of me.”
“Are you glad he died?”
He shouldn’t have said that. Ralph realized it as soon as the words had been spoken. Too late. For a quick couple of seconds Ralph really expected Blind to spit pure poison at him.
“Don’t you think there are things about me that do not concern you? What I feel when someone from my pack dies is my business. Don’t you think?”
Blind closed his eyes, listening to something that only he could hear, and then changed his tone of voice completely.
“I am sorry. I did not mean to offend. If you needed to ask me that, then I owe you an answer.” And then obligingly—Ralph caught that external force, something almost palpable making Blind strip naked in front of him—added, “I was not glad. But there is no one else I’d rather exchange for him. Not one. If this is what interests you. If it’s what you meant when you were talking about me being glad. I am also innocent of his death, if you meant to ask that. And if you meant my dislike of him—yes, that was true. I did not like him. Just as he, me. There were times when I imagined that I would have been glad if he . . .”
“Enough,” Ralph said. “I apologize. That was tactless of me.”
Blind hugged his shoulders. Ralph could not shake off the feeling that he was witnessing Blind being skinned alive. Or having his carapace cracked open. And that Blind was doing it to himself.
“All right,” Ralph said. “Your honesty is even worse than your silence. And if I asked you about Pompey, you’d say that you have no right to be talking about the affairs of the Sixth. Is that correct?”
Blind nodded.
“And you also haven’t the foggiest idea how he died?”
“I do. But I am not allowed to say.”
Ralph sighed.
“Right. So why do you suppose I ask Leaders to come here when I need information? Well, I can tell you, it’s not because I enjoy listening to them brush me off with empty talk. Dismissed. You may leave.”
Blind got up. “You forgot to ask about one more person.”
“I didn’t forget anything. It’s just that I am no longer enjoying this conversation. I’m not in the mood to continue it. Go away.”
Blind did not go anywhere. His face clouded with apprehension, as if he knew he had to undertake a daunting task with no hope of being able to accomplish it.
There, Ralph thought with relief. He’s going to ask for something, and I’ll learn what can make Blind turn himself inside out.
“What do you want to ask me for?” he said.
“Noble. For you to find out something about him. It’s been a month since they’ve taken him, and we haven’t heard anything. Where he is, or how he is.”
Ralph did not answer, trying to hide the astonishment. The nicks on the walls, painted over; the things, distributed; the funeral laments, performed—all this he had seen and heard and known about. Those who left the House were a part of this knowledge, one of the facets he was absolutely sure of. And yet what Blind had just asked for, even the mere mention of someone who was supposed to have ceased existing, to never have existed the moment he was taken from the House, blew that sureness completely out of the water.
Blind waited patiently. Ralph’s cigarette suddenly burned his fingers.
“You’re dismissed,” he repeated. “Go.”
“What about Noble?”
“I said you may go.”
Blind’s face froze. He opened the door and disappeared. Ralph did not hear anything; Blind moved soundlessly.
Ralph remained standing, looking up at the glass panel on top of the door. The letter R, inverted back to front, oozed into the room, a warning and a caution, reminding him that he was but a part of the House.
Maybe that’s the real reason for my return. To find out what happened to one of them now that he’s gone where they can’t reach him. And to bring them the answer . . . They’ve been waiting for me.
TABAQUI
DAY THE FIRST
“His form is ungainly—his intellect small—”
(So the Bellman would often remark)
“But his courage is perfect! And that, after all,
Is the thing that one needs with a Snark.”
—Lewis Carroll, The Hunting of the Snark
I don’t like stories. I like moments. I like night better than day, moon better than sun, and here-and-now better than any sometime-later. I also like birds, mushrooms, the blues, peacock feathers, black cats, blue-eyed people, heraldry, astrology, criminal stories with lots of blood, and ancient epic poems where human heads can hold conversations with former friends and generally have a great time for years after they’ve been cut off. I like good food and good drink, sitting in a hot bath and lounging in a snowbank, wearing everything I own at once, and having everything I need close at hand. I like speed and that special ache in the pit of the stomach when you accelerate to the point of no return. I like to frighten and to be frightened, to amuse and to confound. I like writing on the walls so that no one can guess who did it, and drawing so that no one can guess what it is. I like doing my writing using a ladder or not using it, with a spray can or squeezing the paint from a tube. I like painting with a brush, with a sponge, and with my fingers. I like drawing the outline first and then filling it in completely, so that there’s no empty space left. I like letters as big as myself, but I like very small ones as well. I like directing those who read them here and there by means of arrows, to other places where I also wrote something, but I also like to leave false trails and false signs. I like to tell fortunes with runes, bones, beans, lentils, and I Ching. Hot climates I like in the books and movies; in real life, rain and wind. Generally rain is what I like most of all. Spring rain, summer rain, autumn rain. Any rain, anytime. I like rereading things I’ve read a hundred times over. I like the sound of the harmonica, provided I’m the one playing it. I like lots of pockets, and clothes so worn that they become a kind of second skin instead of something that can be taken off. I like guardian amulets, but specific ones, so that each is responsible for something separate, not the all-inclusive kind. I like drying nettles and garlic and then adding them to anything and everything. I like covering my fingers with rubber cement and then peeling it off in front of everybody. I like sunglasses. Masks, umbrellas, old carved furniture, copper
basins, checkered tablecloths, walnut shells, walnuts themselves, wicker chairs, yellowed postcards, gramophones, beads, the faces on triceratopses, yellow dandelions that are orange in the middle, melting snowmen whose carrot noses have fallen off, secret passages, fire-evacuation-route placards; I like fretting when in line at the doctor’s office, and screaming all of a sudden so that everyone around feels bad, and putting my arm or leg on someone when asleep, and scratching mosquito bites, and predicting the weather, keeping small objects behind my ears, receiving letters, playing solitaire, smoking someone else’s cigarettes, and rummaging in old papers and photographs. I like finding something lost so long ago that I’ve forgotten why I needed it in the first place. I like being really loved and being everyone’s last hope, I like my own hands—they are beautiful, I like driving somewhere in the dark using a flashlight, and turning something into something completely different, gluing and attaching things to each other and then being amazed that it actually worked. I like preparing things both edible and not, mixing drinks, tastes, and scents, curing friends of the hiccups by scaring them. There’s an awful lot of stuff I like.
What I don’t like are clocks and watches.
All kinds.
For reasons too tedious to enumerate. So I won’t.
Today the House saw the return of Ralph. The man of mystery. A fossil of sorts, the only living witness among the counselors of times gone by. It’s not that we particularly missed him, but with him it’s somehow a bit more lively around here. Those who had joined the House in the last three years are picturesquely apprehensive of him, contributing to a unique aura whenever he’s prowling the hallways. An aura of awe. I’ll say it straight. This man is our Darth Vader. Clad in black, horrible, and inscrutable. The only thing missing is the wheezy helmet. And as soon as he returned, things got interesting.
The one to bring in the news was Lary, naturally. At the last period. We didn’t have time to discuss it, since the class had just begun, so we had to stew until the bell. But then it started coming hard and fast. Every five minutes someone else visited us with a special report on the current whereabouts of R One. I suggested pinning a map of the House on the wall and sticking flags in it marking his movements, but no one offered help in making the map. And trying to draw it alone is no easy task. I should know. Pity, though. Ralph would have felt himself flattered by such evidence of attention to his person. It was my considered opinion that, upon return, he sank into a depression and would have benefited from cheering up.
The return in question had been a foregone conclusion, but it’s been foregone for such a long time now that everyone got kind of used to the way things were, and so when Ralph did indeed return we were a bit shaken up. For us it meant that we now had someone who could put out the feelers to find out what had happened to Noble. Which meant that he’d returned in the very nick of time.
“Aha,” Sphinx said, regarding this matter. The “aha” was said in That Sort of Voice, and I immediately and bitterly regretted not saying it myself.
Sometime later it becomes clear that one simple “aha” by itself wouldn’t cut it. We need to somehow make the “aha” known to Ralph.
Humpback suggests we send a delegation with a petition. Sphinx disagrees, because it would—get this—look like intimidation. I suggest we send me. Everyone disagrees, for some reason. Sphinx says that if anyone goes, it should be Blind. With this everyone agrees, except Blind. Blind suggests we write a letter and send Tubby to deliver it, the reason being that Tubby has this sincerity about him. I like the idea. I have my doubts concerning Blind. Concerning his abilities as a supplicant. He’s not the right person to add a good quaver to the voice at the right moment, or to exhibit persistence and even a certain blockheadedness. Whereas I certainly am. And I am flabbergasted that the pack is seemingly unable to appreciate that. Tubby would be the next-best choice, our wingless messenger pigeon, innocence incarnate coupled with an exhaustive lack of any understanding of events around him. But they don’t want him either. And what a subtle move that would have been! Ralph would be drowning in tears in his dusty office.
The majority of votes go to Blind.
In the meantime Lary returns, bearing the latest news. R One had a stopover in the Sixth. He’s still there, and the Sixth is suspiciously quiet. Could he have gobbled up all Hounds in one gulp?
I decide to investigate.
The hallway is bustling. Logs flit hither and thither, bug-eyed, conducting whispered conferences. The door of the Sixth is already jammed solid with investigators listening in. Stuck to it with their ears and starting to turn blue in futile attempts at not breathing. There’s clearly no way to infiltrate them. I drive back, slightly disappointed. On the way I get almost knocked off my Mustang by Lary and Horse, galloping away from the Sixth. Having pushed me and Mustang out of their way, they prance off, neighing happily and not even noticing that they’ve bumped into something. Much less what that something happened to be.
I am back just in time for Blind’s departure. Sour faced, he grudgingly trundles away in the direction of Ralph’s office. Humpback, Sphinx, and Alexander go out of their way to cheer him up and give him useful advice, but for anyone willing to look closely it’s obvious that the Leader is far from enthusiastic. If not for Sphinx’s chirpy “aha,” still lodged in my memory, I really could have become dispirited when faced with this spectacle.
Some part of my doubts must have rubbed off on Humpback.
Looking at Blind’s receding back, he muses, “Are you sure we shouldn’t have sent Nanette instead?”
“To have her crap all over Ralph’s office?” Sphinx says.
I offer that it’s very much uncertain what the effect of Blind’s visit will be on Ralph’s office.
“Blind has a well-developed sense of duty,” Sphinx says by way of response.
This sentence sounds so officious that no one has any desire to argue with it.
And then we wait. I gnaw at my fingers, feeling more and more downcast by the minute. Since Noble’s extraction, the common bed has become disgustingly spacious and desolate. Smoker does nothing to ameliorate the situation. Nor would three or even four Smokers. Noble’s emotions are irreplaceable. They had kept the environment beautifully charged.
Don’t you dare crawl over his covers, or breathe on his pillow, or fart by his ear! And what a pleasure it was to do exactly that, anticipating that his patience was just about ready to blow—and then watch the books, pillows, and general fur go flying. And to observe frightened Smoker. There’s nothing to be frightened of anymore. We don’t have another Noble in our midst.
I take out the harmonica and launch into three Waiting Songs in a row. I loathe waiting, so Waiting Songs are about the gloomiest that I have. I never could stand more than three of them together myself. And people around me usually run for cover after the first one. This time no one says a word.
When it becomes completely unbearable, I put the harmonica away and open a book of Indian fairy tales. I read them often. It’s a very calming experience. I like the laws of Karma most of all. “Whosoever injures a donkey in this life, shall become one in the next.” And don’t even start about the cows. A very neat system. The only problem is, the deeper you get into it, the more you wonder who it was that you injured the last time around.
The fairy tales distract for a while, and then I start fretting again. What’s Noble to Ralph? Nothing. Especially now. Would R One agree to bother looking for him only because we’d like him to? And if he would, would he then let us know if Noble is not doing well wherever he is now? I keep asking myself these questions, more often out loud than not, so by the time Blind finally comes back, everyone is already prepared for the worst. No small feat on my part.
“No dice,” Blind says, leaning against the headboard. “I got no reaction from him at all.”
And that’s it. We are left with the soothing option of observing Blind, who spreads his elbows and stares into the sightless void, and Smoker, who keeps creep
ing farther and farther from him—imperceptibly, as he imagines. Blind’s reticence sometimes verges on pathological. We all wait with bated breath, and he’s just hanging there draped over the headboard, as if that was the full extent of the information he has to impart.
We all look at Sphinx. Sphinx gets the message.
“What did you talk about?” he asks.
“That’s right. Pliers,” I whisper to him. “And hooks.”
Blind shakes his bangs over his eyes and separates himself from the world.
“Wolf,” comes the indistinct reply from behind the curtain.
“And what else?”
“Only Wolf.”
This, I’ll have you know, is a man who is capable of recalling any conversation word-for-word, and acting it out doing voices. Regardless of how long ago it happened.
“What about Noble?”
“I mentioned Noble at the very end, when he told me to go away.”
“And?”
“And I got squat.” Blind hunches still further. Now we have a perfect opportunity to study the back of his head. “It’s like he didn’t hear me.”
“That’s a good sign,” Sphinx enthuses.
I exchange looks with Humpback. Lary’s eyes converge on the bridge of his nose, which for him signifies an increase in brain activity. Even Alexander looks puzzled.
Sphinx sighs.
“It’s never the case with Ralph that he didn’t hear when someone said something,” he explains. “Therefore, he mustn’t have liked what Blind was saying. And why would that be? There was nothing out of the ordinary in what he asked for. But to actually find out how Noble is doing, it’s necessary to get to him first. That is, travel somewhere and then argue with someone to get permission for a visit. I don’t think any counselor would undertake a thing like this happily. But on the other hand, if he knew that he wouldn’t be doing any of that, he would’ve just said so. Ralph is perfectly capable of saying no. So it’s a good sign that he didn’t.”
The Gray House Page 33
