“Stop the charade,” he said. “You got my meaning.”
“Was it the previous snitching candidate who scratched you?”
He felt the shiner with his finger and said that he didn’t want to quarrel with me. That was how he put it.
“I also don’t want to quarrel with anyone. So why don’t you tell me up front what’s going to happen to me if I refuse? So that I know.”
I was sure he’d tell me that I was going to be stuck here in the Sepulcher until graduation. That really was worse than being sent home, because it was much more dull. But apart from that, he didn’t have anything else with which to threaten me.
He stood up. Took a thick notebook out of his package, put it on my bed, and went over to the window. Looked out, then came back.
“Nothing is going to happen to you,” he said. “Either way you’ll be discharged tomorrow.”
I couldn’t understand what the catch was. That didn’t sound threatening at all.
“What would be the point of me agreeing to snitch, then?” I said. “For the sheer joy of it?”
He was silent for a while. Then sat back on the chair. Took the notebook and thumbed through it. It was completely blank.
“I’m not very good at stories,” he said. “But I’d like to tell you the story of the last graduation. And the one before that. If, after hearing them, you still refuse to help me, I’m not going to insist. You’ll go back to the Fourth and try to forget we ever had this conversation.”
He didn’t ask if I agreed to listen. Simply started to talk. Without going into detail, pointedly detached and tedious, but it made what he was talking about even scarier. Like an article in the paper—no emotions, just facts.
“Is that true?” I said when he finished.
I already knew that it was. It was all true. I saw Blind kill Pompey. I saw Red on the night when they tried to kill him. And I saw how everyone reacted, or rather did not react, in both cases. I knew that no one in the House called Blind a murderer, because no one thought of him that way. Except me. No one stopped talking to him, no one felt uneasy being next to him. I made myself look like an idiot when I refused to put on his shirt the night of the murder. A lot of things that were beyond the pale for me, they took completely in stride. So yes, I believed that those who had been here before them, who were a bit like them, really could massacre each other in the grand finale of their Great Game. I haven’t abandoned that word, just acknowledged that the Game is not a game, that it is for real, and a “for real” ending for it would probably look something like what Ralph described.
“It is true,” he said.
And then asked if I kept a diary.
Everyone kept a diary in the First. Reading them must have been even more of a chore than writing in them.
I said that I still had my old diary, but I only used it for drawing.
“You can draw in this,” he said. “Except you’ll have to write some too. No one would be surprised when they see that you picked up the diary again in the Sepulcher. It can be pretty boring in here.”
“But I haven’t agreed yet,” I said.
“No?” He felt his cheekbone again. “And here’s me thinking that I was reasonably persuasive.”
I took his notebook.
I am sitting in my old place, between Tabaqui and Noble. The lights are out, the boombox is moaning on the other end of the bed, and everyone’s silent. That’s how it’s been for two hours already. Maybe that’s a silent Fairy Tale Night. How would I know? Or are they all simply enjoying the music? It’s better not to ask questions, because either you’re one with the pack and know everything about everything, or you aren’t and you don’t, in which case you’re just getting on everyone’s nerves.
So I am dutifully listening to the music, admiring the blinking red lights of the boombox, and smoking. I’ve already smoked more this evening than in all of my days in the Sepulcher combined.
One of the indistinct shadows slinking around the bed sits down next to me.
“How are you feeling, Smoker?”
It’s Blind. Unusually courteous.
“All right. I mean, pretty good,” I say.
“What happened to you, exactly? If you don’t mind, of course.”
I do, that’s the problem.
“My parents asked them to run a full checkup on me,” I say. “Since classes are over and there’s going to be no exams. And I had this low blood count, so . . .”
At that moment someone switches on the lights. When I open my eyes, everything I was planning to say goes right out of my head.
Because this is my first good look at Blind after my return from the Sepulcher and he looks like someone enthusiastically took a sander to him. To his cheeks, his chin, his neck. In short, it’s me who should be asking how he’s feeling, not the other way around. Which I don’t, of course. I collect the tattered remains of my thoughts and pick up the story about the blood count, but Blind gets up in the middle of the sentence and leaves. As in leaves the room. If he didn’t care about getting an answer, why ask at all? Or is it that he suddenly remembered he was contagious? I light up again, to calm the nerves.
Noble closes his eyes as he yawns and doesn’t open them again. The yawn bounces off him and goes around the room, alighting on the faces. When it reaches me it multiplies, spawning an entire clutch. Must be the nerves. I yawn and I yawn, until my eyes start to water. Through the curtain of tears I look at Sphinx. He’s down on the floor, sitting propped up against the door of the wardrobe. For him to inquire about my health would be too much of a bother. But he is, in fact, looking back at me. With that faraway look that Humpback calls “fuzzy.” When you’re the target of the “fuzzy” there’s always the feeling of a draft somewhere. You’re just lying there, smoking, and there’s all this cold air streaming over you mercilessly.
I decide that I’ve had enough of the yawning and shivering, and ask, “What happened to Blind? Allergy?”
Tabaqui lazily puts away the knitting needle he’s been using to excavate his ear.
“Actually, it’s the Lost Syndrome,” he says. “But you can call it allergy if you’d like.”
I wait.
He also waits. For my questions.
He doesn’t get them, so he picks up the needle again.
“LS is this thing that only we can get. The House people. If we suddenly find ourselves in the Outsides and get lost there. They say it’s a mark the House puts on its own. On those who have no business being in the Outsides.”
I fall for it hook, line, and sinker, and open my mouth to beg him for the details, but Noble is quicker.
“That’s new,” he says, frowning. He had to open his eyes for this, and he’s not happy about it. “You never told me about this.”
“You never asked.” Jackal shrugs. “Or you’d get the same answer.”
Noble furrows his brow, assembling a spider’s web of creases on his forehead. An ominous sign for anyone familiar with his habits. But not for Tabaqui.
“I personally witnessed LS only twice. One time was when Bison went chasing some Outsides kid who was teasing him and then couldn’t find his way back, and the other when Wolf sleepwalked out of the House and something out there woke him up suddenly. All other cases I know are hearsay. Spiders have their own opinion about it, and if anyone’s interested they can drive over and ask them, but I wouldn’t bother. They’ll just present you with a booklet saying, ‘If you have a cat allergy stay away from cats,’ and what do cats have to do with it, or where have they seen an allergy that looks like that, it’s useless even to ask, they’re not going to answer anyway.”
“Wait,” I interrupt Tabaqui’s soliloquy. “How did Blind end up in the Outsides? Does he sleepwalk too? What happened to him?”
“Ralph happened to him,” Tabaqui sniggers. “This is the most heartrending story of the last six months, believe you me. I couldn’t even bring myself to make a song about it, I was so scared.”
He holds a cruel pau
se before continuing.
“Imagine, if you will, Smoker, one fine day, or rather night, good old Ralph, whom we all held to be a person of certain decency and composure, bursts in, grabs our Leader, and whisks him out of the House. And then, somewhere in the depths of the Outsides, conducts a cruel interrogation. I’d even say torture. Because LS is a very scratchy thing. And when you give in and start scratching it, it’s a very bloody thing.”
I look back at Sphinx. Should I believe Tabaqui or not? Sphinx shrugs. Signs point to yes is how I read it, so I turn back to Jackal, who can’t be stopped now, even by a direct shotgun blast.
“You are going to ask, what could have prompted this barbarity, this inhuman violation of the human rights of our Leader? And I am going to answer: I don’t know. Because Ralph’s true motives have remained a mystery to us. The stated reason was the resignation of counselor Godmother. The girls had her for a while. So she resigned and left, and R One imagined for some reason that we were somehow involved in this, risible as it may seem. We didn’t even know her that well.”
“Then why would he think . . .”
“Exactly,” Tabaqui says. “Why would he?”
“If she only worked with the girls . . .”
“Exactly. That’s what I’ve been saying!”
“But could it . . .”
“It couldn’t!”
I finally blow up.
“Are you going to let me finish the question?”
“No! I mean, of course.”
“Her car was found a couple of blocks from here,” Sphinx joins in. “Then it turned out that no one has seen her since she left the House. So now she’s officially listed as missing.”
“Where does Blind figure in all that?”
“Go ask Ralph.”
“Once a nutter, always a nutter,” Tabaqui summarizes. “I guess he just needed an excuse to torment someone. That’s what nutters do.”
I stealthily pull my bag closer. My snitching diary is in there. Could it be I’m working for a madman now? Or did they really do something to that woman? But hard as I try, I can’t think of a reason why they would. Tabaqui’s right, Blind and the girlie counselor don’t mix. Maybe it was the girls who did something to her?
I lower my head so that no one can see my face and hunt for the cigarette pack in my pocket. When I light up I immediately break out coughing. Should have quit long ago.
That’s the House for you. In all its splendor. You sit staring at the wall. Or the ceiling. Listening to music, or not listening. Going crazy with boredom and chain-smoking to have at least something to distract you. While at the same time Leaders roam around covered in bloody scales, the House puts or doesn’t put its mark on you, the only normal-looking counselor suddenly turns out to be crazy, the air is full of viruses unknown to medical science, and all this could very well be Jackal’s fevered imagination, since he’s well known to enjoy scaring people with his stories.
“Was it Blind who prettified Ralph’s face?” I say.
Noble nods reluctantly.
“What did you expect?” Tabaqui jumps in. “You are kidnapped. Subjected to interrogations and torture. It’s only natural to fight back. And it’s only natural that someone can get hurt as a result. By the way, Ralph has opened himself up for liability in court, for unlawful imprisonment. And for premeditated interference with a Leader on the eve of graduation. Because what kind of life is that, when the Leader sleeps and sleeps, like a groundhog or something, and when he’s not asleep all he does is scratch at himself, and can’t even put two words together.”
“Or won’t,” Blind corrects Tabaqui from behind the door that’s slightly open. “Maybe he prefers to leave it to someone who’s better equipped for it.”
“Thank you,” Tabaqui says, not in the least concerned about Blind’s presence in the conversation, and then asks why is it that the voice of his beloved Leader seems to be coming from somewhere below.
“Because I’m lying on the floor. I have this bath towel here and I’m lying on it. Carry on, don’t mind me. Just imagine I’m not here at all.”
Alexander offers me a glass. There’s something dark sloshing in it. Definitely not tea.
“Mountain Pine,” he whispers. “Drink carefully.”
That’s when I remember the diary again. Isn’t it time to start filling it, beginning with Jackal’s stories? I thumbed through some diaries of famous people while in the Sepulcher (Ralph hauled in an entire stack of those from the library for me), and one thing I noticed was that they often skipped days and sometimes even weeks. I don’t have that luxury, because the day after tomorrow I am supposed to present my first report. Which means it’s time to accustom the pack to the sight of me writing in it. The sooner, the better.
Despite Blind’s invitation to continue, everyone’s silent. I put the glass with the brown liquid smelling of pine needles on one of Tabaqui’s plates and take out the hallowed notebook. I open it, write today’s date—and freeze. So here I am, back in the Fourth sounds unbelievably corny, but I can’t think of anything else. I turn it this way and that in my mind and finally write it down, my ears burning with shame. Then I add: The reception was less than enthusiastic.
Tabaqui is reading as I write, snuffling and breathing into my ear.
“Ah, you’ve started a diary! Was it that boring in there?”
“Actually it’s pretty useful,” I say. “In a couple of years I’m going to open it, read the things I wrote today, and remember everything that happened. I mean, not everything, but at least the important events of the day.”
“Like the reception being less than enthusiastic.” Tabaqui nods. “A major event, and what’s more important, one that’s pleasant to remember.”
“It’s a diary, so it’s supposed to be honest. If there’s no enthusiasm, then that’s what you write.”
“What if there were, but hidden deep inside the heart?” Tabaqui persists.
“I write what I see, not what someone’s hiding from me somewhere.”
“Got it. Were you planning to write up my theory? About the Syndrome?”
“I’ll try.”
“You’re going to bungle it. Definitely. You’re going to twist it the way it suits you. Scribblers always do that. Not a single word of what was, only what they thought they saw.”
I shrug.
“I’ll do my best.”
“Nonsense!” Tabaqui grabs the notebook. “You can’t. I’ll do it myself. That’s the only way I can be sure the wisdom survives intact.”
“Hey! Wait! At least let me finish the introduction!”
“What for? You think you won’t be able to figure out that it was me who took it? Were you planning not to open it until you go totally senile?”
The snitching diary is dragged to the other side of the bed, where Tabaqui is free to properly expound on his creepy theories, but not before hiding from me behind a pillow.
That’s surprise number one for Ralph.
I take a swig from the glass and choke. The liquid burns my lips, it’s bitter as wormwood, and it does indeed stink of mutilated pine. It takes me a while to get my breath back.
Noble is swilling the piney concoction like it’s water, with a placid look on his face. Sphinx sips his through a straw the size of a fire hose. Either their Mountain Pines are diluted, or they’re already habituated to the effect.
“Where’s Humpback?” I say.
“He took residence up in the oak,” Noble says. “It’s been a week that he’s living there with Nanette. They call him Druid now, and there’s an established pilgrimage.”
“They leave offerings under the oak,” Jackal adds. “Some of them tasty. Baskets of seeds and stuff.”
“Seeds?” I say. “He lives on seeds now?”
“Of course not, silly, it’s for Nanette. Even though she prefers sausage. So the top two bunks are free now, and we have girls sleeping there.”
This saddens me. I have nothing against Mermaid, but the second night gu
est is most likely Ginger, and her I can barely tolerate. I take another sip—the Pine really does become less offensive as you go—and add another stroke to the insane pastiche that is the House. Humpback, cast as Tarzan.
There’s a scratching at the door, then knocking, and in comes Ginger with a gray cat under her arm. One of the three that are completely indistinguishable from each other.
“Hi,” she says to me. “Welcome back.”
She drops the cat on the floor with a thud and sits down next to Sphinx.
“What was Blind doing outside the door?”
“Listening in,” Noble explains. “It occurred to him that all the interesting conversations happen while he’s absent. So now he’s kind of here and not here at the same time.”
“Oh, I see. So I probably shouldn’t have noticed him.”
“True,” Noble agrees.
Cat strides back and forth on the blanket, thick tail up in the air, sniffing at our legs. A huge tomcat, the color of ash. Or of backs of mice. The Pine makes the outline of Noble sitting across from me blur suspiciously, while the cat begins to resemble a giant rat. Those cats, all three of them, give me the creeps. I always feel uneasy in their presence.
The door slams again and Vulture stumbles in, with Beauty in tow.
Vulture is holding a pot with a cactus in it. Beauty is armed with a pole, its top swaddled in rags. Blind comes next, carrying his towel.
“Here we are!” Vulture declares coyly. “Four of us this time.”
Noble tosses two pillows down on the floor. Vulture takes one of them. Beauty leans his pole against the wardrobe and remains standing. Vulture has pulled his hair back in a ponytail so hard that his eyes take on an elongated shape. To emphasize that shape he’s put on eyeliner highlights all the way to his temples. It makes him look unfamiliar, like he’s dressed up for a masked ball. Beauty, on the contrary, is wearing slippers.
As soon as everyone settles down and Alexander turns off the lights, Tabaqui screeches that he can’t see squat and that it interferes with his writing. A wall light is switched on for him. I’ve already forgotten that he’s still hard at work over my diary. Pity R One. Crazy or not, deciphering Tabaqui’s chickenscratch is no easy task.
The Gray House Page 76