The Gray House

by Mariam Petrosyan

  Noble, pulling the blanket over sleeping Ginger. Black, in a cloud of smoke on his bed. Not much of him visible, just one eye and the cigarette, everything else covered by the crisscrossing white stripes of tape. Blind nodding to his own song. He’s grayish blue, the color of faded jeans. This must be how Lazarus looked right after having been told to rise up and walk. Still in the remains of the white sweater, reeking of wine and alcohol pads. Hunched over the guitar, twanging the strings, mumbling indistinctly. Something about a forest, empty paths, and the streams made bitter by the grass growing along them.

  Ginger, sleeping with her hands tucked between her knees, curled up in the pillows. Hair like the scarlet feathers of a woodpecker shot through the heart, and everything else mundane and commonplace in comparison. Her lying there also feels routine, like something that’s always been thus, no one gives her a second look except for one person, who’s wrapping her in the blanket, like a miser hiding his treasure from prying eyes.

  Lary picks up a bottle and shakes it indignantly.

  “So that’s what they’ve been doing here, while we worry about them and stock up on provisions there!”

  “Don’t waste your breath,” Black says. “It’s not worth it.”

  I listen. I listen very carefully to the tone of his voice, almost gloating, and I wonder what could he, beaten, tired, and hungry, be gloating about. Then I look at Blind and understand what it is that’s making him gleeful there under the bandages. His happiness looks like Blind’s face with a swollen eye and a split lip. That on the day when they found a corpse. On the day when any scratch is a mark of involvement. Involvement and guilt. He doesn’t care that he’s completely covered with those marks, the important thing is that Blind’s got them.

  Forest . . . Dark and fragrant, smelling of mint . . . Sweet songs, lures for the strangers . . .

  Black stubs out his cigarette against the six-pack abs of the bodybuilder on a poster above his bed.

  “What do I say to Ralph when he asks about the shiners?”

  Beaten, tired, he earnestly solicits his packmates’ opinion regarding correct behavior in a tight spot. Not a reason at all for someone to break out in hives from the cheeks all the way down to the navel, the kind that are going to still itch a week later, yet I feel them coming, the tiny burning gnats spreading like wildfire, bitey and sticky-footed, as if someone has thrown a handful of them under my collar.

  “Say whatever you were planning to when you kicked off the hysterics,” I suggest. “Or don’t say anything at all. Both of those choices work fine for your purposes.”

  The sparks of rage directed my way seep through the strata of tape.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Nothing. Just that I wouldn’t be in such a rush to return to normal after a bout of insanity, if I were you. Didn’t you go nuts, Black? As recently as yesterday, if the memory serves. So hold on a bit with the reasonable questions. That would definitely look more natural.”

  I talk and talk, can’t stop talking, my speech sounds more and more like a sermon, and I even remember it being eloquent and not simply protracted. But then again, maybe that’s just wishful thinking, because I also vividly recall a finger that I waved in front of Black’s Band-Aided nose, and where would I have found a thing like a finger on my body? I presented a broad outline of the classic descriptions of madness, from Ophelia to Captain Ahab, discoursed on pig tails peeking from under the skirts and on lovers jumping out of windows to escape jealous husbands while leaving their pants behind. I expounded extemporaneously and convincingly, interrupted only by Tabaqui’s rapturous applause and the attacks of my biting gnats, and when I was finished Black asked, “What was that crap supposed to mean?”

  Tabaqui advises Black to “let the sleeping dogs lie,” because “it’s obvious he’s extremely, and I mean extremely, tense, isn’t that enough for you?”

  “Listen to the voice of the people,” I say to Black. “You, Ophelia who somehow stopped just short of the river.”

  Upon hearing the mention of a river, the actual candidate for the madhouse, our beat-up Leader and Forest pilgrim, nods and imparts, “Rivers are a tricky substance . . . You never know if you can drink out of them. Best bet is to lie down and listen for a while, until you’re sure that there are frogs in it. Then drink all you want, it’s not going to be poisonous.”

  “Thank you,” I say to Blind. And then to Black, “There. Learn from the masters.”

  Then, without listening to his aggressively barking repartee, I leave, the scratchy bugs having almost finished eating me alive. I bump into Ralph on the way out, also grayish in color from the sleepless night, and also wearing surgical tape on his face.

  What happens next is easy to predict, and I do predict it. The Cage for Blind and Black, where they quite probably are going to tear each other to pieces from boredom and mutual antipathy; interrogations and investigations into the circumstances of Crab’s death; state of confusion among Rats temporarily left without their Leader; and many other things, both related and unrelated to those mentioned above. What I totally fail to predict is that, after a long time spent in the Cage, Black and Blind are going to come to an agreement regarding the Sixth. I can’t imagine either how bored they were for Blind to come up with an idea like that, or how much Black loathed returning to the pack to accept it. It’s possible that if they had spent a little more time in there, Blind would have thought of something even better. The Cages are conducive to introspection, unless you’re stuck there for too long. The longer you sit in them, the harder it becomes not to give in to fear, and that kicks all the thoughtfulness right out of your head. But that’s if you’re alone; for two it wasn’t unheard of to last a week. The detention of Black and Blind smashed all Cage records—eleven days and change. Good thing I’m bald, or my head would have acquired that exact number of snowy-white hairs, one for each day of their absence. We have Ralph to thank for it, or rather his concern for the Rat runaways. He got it into his head that Blind was going to squash them as soon as he had a chance, so he did his best to make sure Blind didn’t get that chance, leaving Blind with plenty of time for all kinds of novel ideas. He’d discuss them with Black, and the rest of the time they spent playing chess and peeling the upholstery off the walls, looking for the secret cigarette stash. That was a traditional endeavor for visitors to the Cage ever since that time when Wolf had announced publicly that he’d sewn a carton’s worth into its walls somewhere. It was most likely a joke and treated as such by everyone. Except that after two days in the Cage, the sense of humor is usually the first thing to go, and then people start looking. That’s why the chintz featured rips and gashes, marking the places where the prisoners’ fingernails and razors had gone to work. There already wasn’t an untouched patch more than four inches square. It was customary to sew back up the checked-out places, for which purpose there was always a threaded needle left stuck right above the door. Black and Blind didn’t need it, because they went past the upholstery, past the foam, and even past the plasterboard, all the way to the brickwork.

  Shark sincerely suspected them of trying to tunnel into the Outsides. After Squib, Solomon, and Don, he became very jumpy in that regard and spent a lot of time questioning Black about where they would have gone if they had managed to get out. He must have imagined that this way he’d be able to track those three, as if the Grayhouse folk, like spawning salmon, were only capable of moving in one direction. I haven’t personally witnessed the devastation the merry couple wreaked, but judging by how long the repairs took, the Cage sustained some serious damage.

  I realize with a start that I’ve been talking for a while now without hearing any response, and look suspiciously at Mermaid’s head, which has slipped down from my shoulder.

  “Hey. You didn’t doze off, by any chance, great lover of stories? I’ve been full of sound and fury especially for you, you know . . .”

  “Of course not,” a pointedly alert voice replies, slightly muffled by
the sweater sleeve. “I’ve been listening all this time. And thinking.”

  “What exactly were you thinking about, sleepyhead?”

  She gently pushes away, and I again see that she “remembers everything” in the gaps of her vest.

  “I’m thinking how the same story comes out completely differently depending on who’s telling it. And for all that, none of you is really lying.”

  “Because whoever’s telling the story creates the story. No single story can describe reality exactly the way it was. I told you that I personally prefer Tabaqui’s version.”

  “And I prefer to listen and compare.”

  Groaning, she straightens her legs. The sneakers, in service for so long that they’re now uniformly gray, have been darned with thread where the canvas meets the rubber. Baby shoes. So touching I can’t look at them without misting up. When Mermaid shifts, the knots on the vest shift too, exposing a different slogan. Hate to the grave!

  “What’s with the hate?” I ask.

  “I don’t know. Just in case. I thought I needed something sinister too.”

  “And I don’t think you do. At all.”

  The Hate to the grave slides back under the knots, and my mood lightens. I know it’s all child’s play, but I take these things seriously. Maybe because I happen to know that the games are never just games in the House.

  Mermaid pulls up her knees and hugs them. No slogans, no shape anymore, just a flowing mass of hair.

  “You think that I’m not cut out for strong feelings. That they don’t really suit me, right?”

  I’ve trodden on the favorite toe. I keep forgetting the Gray Mouse Complex.

  “You see, I don’t have a personality. I’m so dull inside. Faded . . .” It’s no use fighting it, and it drives me mad with the unassailability of its tenets. “Take Ginger, for example . . .” That is, take someone for whom controlling her emotions is a daily losing battle, who bursts into fireworks at the slightest touch or even without it, jumps from laughter to tears and back with nothing in between, wears all her loves and hatreds on her sleeve: now that’s beautiful, that’s feminine, that’s attractive, like bright patterns of a butterfly’s wing, it’s a whirlwind, a torrent, a trap; but very few people can stand Ginger’s flamboyant personality for more than a couple of hours at a time, even when her feelings are directed not at them but elsewhere. Long live Noble, Noble’s patience and everything else that he has and I don’t, I guess this is something that he knows and understands, because he used to be that way too, until he went in for a stint where the real crazies live, and yes, they do look great together, this couple always at the point of combustion, fire-haired Isolde and sapphire-eyed Tristan, both on the edge, both wide open, breathe in deeply and hide the breakables, but one thing I don’t understand in all of this is why should anyone envy it and agonize about it, I could never understand this and in my attempts to convince Mermaid rose almost to the Noble-Gingerish heights of passion, except it always ended up the same. “It’s nerves, simply nerves, and in this case they hang out like live wires, so anyone passing by trips them; it’s got nothing—nothing—to do with personality and its richness, you silly little girl!” But instead of a reply I get only pursed lips, and all my gnashing of teeth and banging of head against the wall do nothing, the matter is closed and not subject to negotiation.

  And then there’s Rat, a predator, as like Blind as a twin sister, except less friendly, no comparison with Mermaid, thank God, except that my sincere “thank God” is a cold comfort for Her Mousy-Walking Grayness.

  I look at her, hidden under hair all the way down to her shoes, then close my eyes and embrace her tightly with my nonexistent arms. Mermaid readily leans on me as if I really did that, and I am struck again by her sensitivity. She always responds to the touch of my ghostly hands, even when she’s upset and has other things on her mind. Like now.

  “We’re not going to discuss exceptional personalities, right? Remembering them one by one, marveling at how beautiful and special they are?” I whisper to her. “If you don’t mind, of course. Do you mind?”

  “Of course not.”

  She shifts, throwing back her head to better read the expression on my face, but I move my chin to block her view, again and again, until she abandons her attempts and curls up in a tender catlike knot, so familiar to my touch. “You must hate me for constantly bringing this up. You had such a miserable voice just now. I’m talking about it too often.”

  “No. Often is not the problem here. It’s just that I detest this entire subject: ‘Wouldn’t you like it if I were more like . . .’ No, I wouldn’t like it. And I never will. It’s possible that sometime, on a beautiful day filled with divine wisdom, you’ll understand this. Then I’ll go to Tabaqui and ask him to commemorate it by adorning me with festive ribbons and colorful tattoos.”

  She pulls a long cord out of her vest, or maybe it’s a thread, and brings it to her mouth. Now she’s going to gnaw on it until it almost dissolves into a sloppy mess.

  “I guess I’ll have to give this shirt to you now. You’ve got people to hate until the grave, so it should be yours by rights.”

  “Who are you talking about?” I say suspiciously, lightly tapping my chin against her part. “It’s not Black again, is it? Would you like to tell me something I don’t know, or is it just that his manly charm has you in its grasp? I don’t remember us ever spending so much time discussing him.”

  “What if I do want to tell you something? About him?”

  Now it’s my turn to crane my neck, trying to look her in the eye.

  “Just promise me you’re not going to say you’re madly in love with him. Everything else I think I can handle.”

  She pushes away, shaking her hair.

  “Picture him in your head. It shouldn’t be too hard.”

  “Why?”

  “No reason. Just get the picture of him as you remember.”

  I straighten up and dutifully imagine Black. In all the shiny glory of his splendid muscles. It really is not hard.

  “All right. Now what?”

  “Now tell me, who is he trying to look like?”

  “He’s trying to look like an idiot. Who else?”

  “No, that’s not it. Someone you are very familiar with. You’re going to be surprised when you get it.”

  I am already surprised by what she’s saying, so I carefully study the image of Black in my head. My imaginary Black is a carbon copy of the real one. I’ve lived side by side with him long enough to get full measure of the man.

  “I don’t understand,” I have to admit. “He looks like only one man, himself. There are no others like him.”

  “I’m not talking about his looks. It’s about his style. Like, for example, the way he started dressing after becoming a Leader. Did you notice any changes in that?”

  Black did change his style since assuming the responsibilities of the Alpha Hound. He abandoned tank tops, shaved his head, and stopped wearing suspenders over baggy pants. Those made me want to throw up for many long years. You could even say that his taste in clothes underwent a marked improvement. It didn’t help to make him look like anyone other than himself, of course. All that I relate to Mermaid.

  “All right, then tell me who else, among those now living in the House, shaves his head, drapes jackets over his shoulders, wears bandanas, and wraps the ends of shoelaces around the ankles?”

  “Jackets—only me. As for the shaved head . . .” I suddenly get what she’s driving at. “You’re crazy! I do not shave my head! And I only started wearing a bandana because you gave it to me! You can’t be serious. He hates me with a passion! He’s made it a point never to go in the shower after me!”

  “Maybe so.” Mermaid shrugs. “It’s just that all this jumps out at anyone who cares to give an unbiased look. He imitates your walk, your attire, he even started talking like you. And all of that began when he moved to the Sixth. That is, to where you can’t see how he looks and what he does every day.”


  “And what does that prove?” I ask dumbly.

  Mermaid is silent. Eyes like two green grapes with the pips showing through the semitranslucent skin. Very somber and serious eyes.

  “Oh god, that’s horrible!”

  I cringe and glance up at the windows of the Sixth, shining silver in the reflected sun. Almost fearing that behind each of them hides Black, a grotesque facsimile of me, shaven headed and frowning, in a pirate-like head scarf covered with skulls and bones. It’s a nightmare.

  “And besides, my bandana is unquestionably more beautiful, tending as it does more to floral motifs. But it’s a matter of taste, naturally.”

  “You should be ashamed, Sphinx.” Mermaid laughs. “Next thing, you’re going to be saying your legs are longer . . .”

  “And they are! You mean they aren’t? And my head is of a much more dignified shape. He can’t even dream . . .”

  “Stop being such a baby! Or I’ll have to get you a bib and a onesie. You’d think he’s doing something bad to you.”

  We go silent and study the surrounding landscape for a while. No, that’s not a fight at all, we never fight, just a sensible time-out for processing of new information. Usually people smoke in pauses like this one, but Mermaid is a nonsmoker and I don’t have any on me, so I bravely do without, only allowing myself to sweep the ground with my eyes, because it’s in places like this where the good cigarette ends like to hide.

  “Should we go now? I think I’m getting sunburned on my nose,” Mermaid says. “Was it very upsetting, what I just said?”

  “No. But I need some time to adjust. Let’s go find cigarettes and something for your nose before it starts peeling.”

  We get up. Mermaid looks at me, squinting a bit. How long was I here, on this bench? Not too long. Why does it seem like hours, then? Could be that it’s bewitched, this innocuous-looking bench. Someone has placed an enchantment on it, and now it provokes anyone who sits on it to speak their mind.