The Gray House

by Mariam Petrosyan

  “Thanks,” he said, looking at Humpback.

  This was where the levee broke. The Case had to jump out of the way.

  When Noble was wheeled out, he resembled a scarecrow. He had on Alexander’s sweater, a veteran of many a general cleanup; Tabaqui’s craziest vest; Lary’s belt with the monkey-head buckle; Sphinx’s fingerless glove on his left hand; and Blind’s seashell on a string around his neck. Also there was Nanette’s feather behind his ear and Tubby’s bib in his pocket. I had nothing I could give him except cigarettes, so I gave him a pack, but then remembered about the amulet, the one allegedly containing basilisk eggshell, and handed it over to him as well.

  No one went out to see Noble off.

  THE HOUSE

  INTERLUDE

  The heat descended on the House, and with it came volleyball fever and vacations. The inhabitants of the House discarded it like a tired shell and hatched out into the sun—anyone who could walk or ride, yell and watch, and especially those who could run and hit the ball. The House was utilized for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and sleep, but the locus of the civic activity moved to the yard, where the opening of the volleyball season was proudly celebrated.

  The court was bisected by the net and framed by the chairs and benches. Those had all been bristling with warning signs since early morning, and by the time breakfast was over there was nowhere to sit or escape from the sun. The elite spectator spots were shielded by a canopy. Everyone else had to make do with parasols.

  The walking boys would rush to claim the crate seats right after breakfast. The Stuffage gang, the Singings from the Nesting, the unfortunates of the Cursed room. Sometimes fights broke out for the best spots. The junior wheelers came out later, together with seniors, secure in the knowledge that the counselors would take care of their seating arrangements. The walking weren’t thus privileged, so they had to wage war for every crate. On the other hand, once the game began they were promptly shooed away, sent to bring water, lemonade, and cigarettes, only to find their places taken up when they returned. They then had to settle down directly on the dirt, but even there they had no respite from demands, since someone soon was parched from shouting too much, another needed sunglasses to cover blinded eyes, and everybody was continually thirsty. For the walking juniors, the games consisted mostly of running errands. Surprisingly, they seemed to enjoy this. They enjoyed everything that had to do with the seniors’ entertainment. The sun, the ball flying up to the heavens, the sunglasses on every face, and the general air of screaming insanity.

  Poxy Sissies were the last to make their appearance in the yard. They therefore had to contend with the worst seats, in the very back, but that did not bother them in the slightest. They were hardly interested either in the game itself or in those seniors who flitted around the court accompanied by the fittest among the counselors. They had their own delights. Blind practiced discerning the fortunes of the teams based on the shouts from the crowd. Beauty gnawed on his fingers and dreamed of catching the ball if it happened to fly in their direction. Magician absorbed the applause and the catcalls, imagining himself on stage. Grasshopper studied the seniors.

  The Moorists and the Skullers divided the yard in half. The watershed was represented by the counselors’ seats in the middle under the canopy of honor. That was where Elk sat as well. “I’m too old for things like that,” Elk told Grasshopper when asked why wasn’t he playing too, like Splint and Black Ralph.

  Moor’s place was sacrosanct. The large multicolored umbrella dominated the landscape. Moor descended to the yard trailed by five attendants. The bodyguard, also wheelchair pusher. The girl with a flyswatter. The girl with the warm blanket. The girl with two thermal jugs. The bologna slicer. Moor settled under the umbrella. The girls positioned themselves on the chairs around it. Nail, the pusher-bodyguard, remained behind the wheelchair. The bologna slicer (a floating assignment) put down a mat by Moor’s feet. This resembled nothing so much as a tribal elder’s preparations for departure from his native village. Grasshopper always thought how much more fun it would be if someone were to sit next to them and bang a drum. And the girls could rattle something. Then the picture would have been complete.

  Skull’s people occupied the opposite end. There were no masters or servants there. Skull himself sat on a simple bench. Not in a hundred years would you suspect that he ruled this place, except everyone knew that he did.

  When Grasshopper looked at him, Skull seemed to radiate an invisible halo. It was not apparent to the eye, but it separated him from the background, made him brighter. Like they do with light in old movies. And the fact that he was just sitting there, lost in the sea of mere mortals, only strengthened the effect. The sun beat down on him, but he became only more bronzed and handsome with each passing day. His skin did begin to peel, but only later, and you couldn’t tell from a distance anyway.

  Next to Skull, but under an umbrella, sat Lame. He was wearing his green blazer, and Babe the cockatoo was sitting on his shoulder. He wasn’t paying much attention to the game, probably finding it not entertaining enough. Babe was watching for both of them, though, becoming very agitated and pulling feathers out of its own breast. On the third day there was a bald spot the size of a coin, and after a week it grew to the size of a hand. Grasshopper waited to see how this would end. Was the bird going completely naked, or was it planning to leave something? Babe stopped when it plucked its belly clean.

  Ancient never went out into the yard. He couldn’t stand direct sunlight. Witch was a frequent guest, though. Witch, Grasshopper’s godmother, whose one glance could curse a person to the very end of his days. Witch always put on a wide-brimmed black hat so that out of her entire face only her mouth remained visible. And still people shunned her. Witch’s occult powers made them nervous.

  Grasshopper observed the seniors until the heat and the noise made him sleepy. Then he closed his eyes and sailed off, along with his crate and with Blind sitting next to him, into the blue sea. The yard became a beach, the spectators turned into quarrelsome seagulls, and then the ghost of the Other House took shape among the sand dunes and imaginary palm trees, took shape and became closer and closer every day.

  Two weeks of the volleyball fever turned the denizens of the House into sunburned savages. Even counselors took to wandering the hallways in T-shirts with lighthearted slogans. The principal, swept along by the general spirit of freedom, barricaded himself in his office and cut his phone cord. There was a feeling in the air of the upcoming exodus, which Grasshopper felt as all-enveloping edginess.

  Then the day came when a modest sheet of paper appeared on the board, proclaiming the date of the departure, in exactly one week, and also warning about “one piece of luggage per person.” The volleyball was immediately tossed aside. The announcement concerning the bag limit was made every year, and was therefore traditionally taken as a personal affront and an infringement of basic rights. Naturally, every infringement required pushback. And push back they did. The seniors acquired bags the size of trunks. The juniors had to improvise, sewing additional pockets and elastic bands to their old ones. The pockets held on tentatively, looked ugly, and didn’t really add any capacity. Which is why both Stuffagers and Poxies spent their entire days packing and unpacking, in search of the precise formula for the contents of a bag before it finally burst at the seams.

  This was a deeply engaging and tense activity. The boots were having their stiff fronts forcibly softened. The clothes got pieces hacked off with scissors. Everything that could not possibly be carried along was hidden and then relocated endlessly between secret places. The bags were sat on, in order to more thoroughly flatten everything that was already in them, because there were always more things that simply had to go inside. Elephant wanted to take his potted begonia. Beauty needed the juice maker; Wolf, the guitar; Humpback, the hamster; and all the useful appliances Stinker was declaring necessary just “for the road” wouldn’t have fit in ten suitcases. Grasshopper wandered among the heaps of clothi
ng strewn on the floor and commiserated with everybody in turns. He tried helping, but soon came to the conclusion that his own methods of packing did not suit anybody but himself. His handful of shirts, shorts, and socks added up to a meager pile that took barely half of his own bag, and he turned the rest over to Stinker and Humpback, who’d run out of space in theirs.

  Blind did not pack. Once again, he wasn’t going anywhere because Elk was staying at the House. The boys’ laments dashed against his cold smirk.

  Uneasy with his own idleness and bored by the commotion in the room, Grasshopper fled into the hallways, but the virus of insanity already had taken hold there too. New roller skates and recreational wheelchairs tested, rubber boats and mattresses inflated, and even tents pitched—a mystery, considering the certainty of having a roof over their heads where they were going.

  The wall calendar slowly filled with fat crosses over the days that remained. Stuffagers walked around in diving masks and rubber fins.

  Grasshopper would seek refuge in Elk’s room, but Elk also had a wall calendar, and the counselors also had to prepare and pack, and the one-bag limit applied to them as well, and the hassle of their preparations spilled out into the corridors.

  Grasshopper went down to the yard. Here he could sit in peace, with his back to the House, listening to the ocean in his head—the shuffling of the waves and the rustle of the faraway citrus trees. The piled-up abandoned crates and benches, the last remnants of the volleyball epic, looked depressing, and he tried not to notice them.

  One day before departure, the House finally was at peace. The bags, each marked with the initials of the owner, were packed and stashed under the beds. Humpback completed the construction of a travel nest for the hamster. Wolf’s begging for permission to take the guitar bore fruit. Stinker hid everything he couldn’t take in inaccessible places. Elephant was persuaded to temporarily part with the begonia. All that remained was the wait.

  In the night, Wolf’s back started acting up. By morning it was much worse. Poxies received a visit from the Spiders. The specter of the Sepulcher was quickly taking shape for Wolf, and the dread of it overcame the longing for the ocean. He spent the entire day in bed, just as he was told.

  Elk came by with encouragements and gifts, the nurses with tests and vague threats. Wolf transferred the permission for the guitar to Magician, along with the guitar itself. He also promised Beauty to take care of the juice maker, and assured Elephant that he’d personally water the begonia daily. The black marker crossed out one more day on the calendar.

  That night no one slept. The screams and singing of the seniors splashed out of the open windows. On the other side of the wall Stuffagers roared, practicing their traveling song. Sissies sat around the imaginary campfire and told horror stories of drownings and stinging jellyfish. It was supposed to cheer up Wolf, and he dutifully pretended that it did.

  Grasshopper again went down to the yard, now free from the crates and chairs, sat one more time with his back to the House, and listened for the waves and the citrus trees. For the groaning of the Other House. Only now, for some reason, those sounds were not getting any closer to him, but instead faded into the distance. He waited until they disappeared completely into the unfathomable void, then jumped up and ran back into the House. The darkness felt suddenly threatening.

  Early the next morning, in the wee hours that usually found the yard empty, with only the first window blinds being raised here and there, Grasshopper was standing next to the porch with everyone else, waiting for the buses. He shivered in the morning chill, tried to keep his eyes open, and avoided sitting down in order not to fall asleep. The wheelers pulled the coats tighter around themselves and coughed meaningfully. The walkers smoked and glanced impatiently at their watches. The bags formed a neat pile against the wall. The junior girls were allowed to sit there, and two of them were already using the opportunity to catch up on some sleep, resting their curly heads on the bloated canvas balloons. The counselors fussed around the junior wheelers, distributing motion-sickness pills and also hygienic bags for when the pills weren’t enough. It was very quiet. Almost the entire complement of the House was outside in the yard, and the silence hung unnaturally and unpleasantly.

  It’s probably because no one slept last night, Grasshopper thought. And also because this day is finally here.

  The seniors had watches, but the juniors didn’t, and they continuously inquired about the time. The seniors barked back lazily. Stinker, bundled up in his wheelchair, glowered at anyone who came close to his bag. Humpback yawned and tried to discern familiar dogs in the Outsides. The dogs were usually excavating the trash cans at this hour, but they hadn’t appeared yet.

  Sportsman went around the yard with his packed fishing rods slung over his shoulder. Whiner and Crybaby, racked by incessant yawns, followed his every step. Grasshopper sighed and fought off sleep.

  The combined yell of a hundred throats startled him. Those who were sitting on the stairs shot up and started waving their arms. The first bus crawled in through the open gates. It was white and blue and resembled a big candy bar. Humpback and Grasshopper shouted “Yay!” with the others and charged.

  They were immediately pushed back to the porch.

  “That’s for the wheelers,” Humpback whispered. “The first one is always theirs.”

  “Why were you running, then?” Grasshopper said indignantly.

  “No idea,” Humpback answered happily. “It just sort of happened.”

  The principal climbed on the first step of the bus.

  “Women and children first!” he shouted and fluffed his beard significantly. “Please make way for the ladies and the juniors in wheelchairs!”

  Stinker giggled. The wheeler girls and juniors began loading. They were rolled up the ramp, unloaded inside, and then their bags were brought in and the wheelchairs folded up and stowed in the luggage compartment.

  This took so much time that Grasshopper got bored watching. Humpback went to say good-bye to Stinker, whose turn finally came. Siamese furtively picked up the cigarette butts tossed away by the seniors. Then the second bus arrived, and the third right behind it, and it was pandemonium. The juniors with their bags darted between the seniors’ legs and tried to squeeze into every available opening. Moor’s people and Skull’s people chose one bus each. The fourth bus, which stopped halfway inside the gates, ended up mixed, and nobody wanted to ride in that one. Counselors reasoned and harangued. The principal shuttled between the two buses, imploring the seniors to stop this silliness. Grasshopper climbed into the Moorists’ bus, took pains to stake out a place, and went back down, only to go into the mixed one. Then he switched to the Skullers’ bus and left his bag there. He insinuated himself into the throng of Stuffagers, brushed by Singings and Curseds, loudly called out to Poxy Sissies, changed seats. Finally satisfied that no one would be able to tell with any certainty which of the buses he boarded, he went around the one standing closest to the trees and squatted down beside it.

  He was trembling, expecting that any moment now someone would call his name. Someone who was paying attention to his meanderings. But the bustle of the loading continued and no one went around the buses looking for this one Poxy Sissy. Grasshopper, still in a crouch, scrambled under the nearest tree. It turned out to be a bad hiding spot. He did not linger there and went straight behind the doghouse. Now this was the safest place in the whole yard. The dog, otherwise busy barking at the departing students, jumped back to sniff at him, but soon got distracted again by the buses. Grasshopper exhaled. He sat on the ground, free from the dog’s probing attention. He couldn’t help himself and sneaked a look out.

  The pile of bags was no more. No juniors could be seen either. The counselors all milled by the steps of the mixed bus. Grasshopper pulled his head back and never peeked again, afraid that someone would spot him out of the bus window. He heard the door close behind the counselors, then a bus revving up and trundling out, followed by the other three, then the gates sl
amming shut, the sound of the engines fading and finally gone. The dog barked through all of it.

  When silence returned, Grasshopper remained in his hideout for a while more, taking stock. He’d pulled it off. There was no way to undo what he’d done. The last bus had left, carrying Poxy Sissies, and with them went away the ocean and the myriad great games that they’d been inventing all spring. It was not easy to let go of all that, but he couldn’t allow himself to even dream of staying back until the very last moment. He just knew that when that moment came, he was going to try.

  A doggy nose buried itself in his hair, paws pushing against his shoulders. He shoved the dog, jumped up, and ran out from behind the shed. The yard, free of the clutter and commotion that had reigned all morning, was now even more thoroughly empty. The spots where the buses stood could still be drawn up precisely, as the cigarette butts, matches, candy wrappers, and other litter marked the boundaries of the three enormous rectangles. Grasshopper threaded his way through, avoiding stepping inside them for some reason, and entered the House. This is where he met the silence.

  The rich, sultry, velvety silence he’d forgotten all about since the last summer. It enveloped and dominated. The few minutes that had passed were enough for the silence to flood the entire House, from the roof down to the cellars. The House felt bigger.

  Grasshopper ran ahead, suddenly afraid that he might be completely alone. He knew it not to be so, but could not overcome the silly, childish dread of stillness and emptiness. The hallway still smelled of seniors, of their anxiety and impatience.