The Gray House

SPHINX

I’m climbing up to the attic the only way I know how. From the backside of the fire-escape ladder with my back pressed against the wall. The higher I go, the more unpleasant this way becomes. In theory there shouldn’t be anything particularly hard about it. In practice it quickly turns out that I’ve failed to account for some things. Like nails sticking out of the wall. The first one gets me in the back about fifteen feet up, the second immediately follows the first, and by halfway I’m already bleeding like Saint Sebastian, so I forget about the speed of ascent and concentrate on not meeting with another nail.

Noble—with whom I made a bet about who’d be able to get to the attic faster—evaporates at about the same time without so much as a “See you later.” Tabaqui, our referee, whose cheerful shouts are only marginally less annoying than the nails, remains at his post.

“Hold on, old man! You’re almost there! Just forget you’ve ever had a back, and you’ll see how easy it becomes!”

“Thanks for that!” I shout, dragging my leg over the next rung, pushing myself farther up the wall, scraping a bit more skin off the shoulder blades. “Your advice is, as always, filled with wisdom. And where did Noble get to?”

I look down at Jackal, who’s now casting about forlornly, and can’t stop myself from laughing. Giggles are the last thing a man in my position should be attempting, so I clench my jaw, avert my gaze, and for the umpteenth time count the remaining rungs on the ladder.

“Exactly. Where is he?” Jackal says indignantly. “Could it be his nerves snapped? I despair of this generation. Weaklings all, may I be forgiven. Can’t stand the heat.”

Seven rungs left. Here, two walls of the House come together. This corner used to be an outer wall, but then it was covered and glazed and now it’s just a rectangular space, housing the fire escape and the emergency exit. The wall I’m leaning against is painted baby blue, the opposite wall is exposed bricks, and the one facing the yard is glass, but you can’t see anything through it because of all the grime, so the view is not distracting me.

On the fourth rung from the top my calves start cramping up. I slide up as far as I can, trying to straighten against the ladder so that I barely touch the previous rung with the toes of my sneakers, but instead of putting my heel on the next one I catch my instep on it and hurl myself forward. There’s no way anyone could make me repeat this trick. I stand now without leaning against anything, the way a person with real arms would be standing on a stepladder, doing my best to believe that I have them too. From here on it’s easy. Straighten up again and imagine that there’s a soft pillow a couple of feet down from where I’m standing, which would cushion my fall nicely. I picture it in my head, make a step, and here I am, up in the attic. Or rather my head is. Not forgetting about the pillow, that’s the important thing. I don’t. One more step, and my upper half is in there; another one, and the rest of me follows.

I climb out of the hatch, stretching on the floor, but don’t have time to congratulate myself on the successful arrival before the leg cramp twists me around, making me roll on the floor hissing, risking a fall back through the hatch. I can neither rub nor squeeze my poor appendage, there’s only one remedy available to me, and that’s biting my own calf, and I’m just about to resort to it when it becomes clear that there are two of us up here in the attic.

In the far corner, on a blanket spread under the pitched roof, there’s a ghostlike girl in a long dress. The dress is fiery red, the girl’s hair is green. I recognize that hair, but can’t quite remember the nick, and when I do I’m not sure I have it right until she twists the thin-lipped mouth in a disgusted grimace. Then I say to her, “Hello, Chimera.”

I’m sure I resemble an Ouroboros, but I’d like to see someone get a good grip on their calf with his teeth while looking dignified. True, I don’t think I’ve ever looked more idiotic, but the ridiculousness of my pose is not enough to explain the loathing with which Chimera is looking at me. Her look conveys to me that I’m the most revolting sight she’s ever encountered in her life. Under Chimera’s stare even the cramp begins to subside. I slowly uncoil and make another attempt at establishing contact.

“I wasn’t expecting to meet anyone here.”

“And I wasn’t expecting anyone to drag himself all the way up here to have an epileptic fit.”

There’s enough poison in her words to make each and every one of them deadly.

“I also didn’t know we were such good enemies” is all I can say.

To put at least some distance between us, I walk back to the hatch and assess the situation below. I’m not surprised to find Noble there, confidently heaving himself up the fire escape. Noble is a very persistent guy, far from the touchy and unstable image he likes to project sometimes.

Tabaqui wheels back and forth at the bottom of the ladder, looking up intently. The blue wall bears the bloody trail of my attempt. As I look at it I can feel my back burning and itching again, and I also get another feeling, telling me to step away from the edge. When in dangerous places, one shouldn’t be standing with one’s back to people who look at one in a certain way. I make a half turn. Chimera’s smirk tells me that she’s well aware what made me do that.

“Hey!” Tabaqui shouts. “There you are! I thought you’d fainted up there! Where’ve you been?”

I nod at him.

Noble’s patterned shirt makes him look like a butterfly when seen from up here. A very purposeful and stubborn butterfly, shorn of its wings by some nasty person. He’s successfully navigated the spot where I stumbled because of the first nail and is making nice progress, but even looking at his admirable turn of speed I am still uneasy. I step away from the hatch, as if my not looking is going to make his endeavor less dangerous.

“What’s your deal?” Chimera asks. “What are you doing here?”

“What about you?”

No answer.

High cheekbones, narrow eyes, hair dyed emerald green. A living doll. She’s got a plaster collar around her neck, green eye shadow extends all the way to her temples, lips are the same bright red as the dress, and there’s so much powder that it completely conceals her eyebrows. I recall that as she walks something is always clanking under her clothes and her gait is somewhat stilted, making the image of a broken toy even more apt.

“We had a bet. Who could climb up faster.”

There’s only disdain in her fixed gaze.

“You’re both idiots.”

I happen to agree. That’s exactly the case. I go back to the hatch despite my firm resolution, only a minute ago, not to do that.

Noble is closer than I thought he’d be, but his tempo has slowed markedly and he pauses on each step, recuperating. I feel slightly sick and go to stand as far away from the hatch as I can to prevent myself from peeking in accidentally, counting the seconds in my head. About half a dozen rungs left. I slow down the count. Chimera in the meantime sullenly goes through colorful epithets that are equally applicable to both Noble and me, and can’t seem to choose one and go with that. Apparently none of them fully reflects her opinion.

A short while later, Noble drags himself through the hatch and stretches out near the edge, breathing heavily. Chimera’s voice strengthens. Without paying her any attention and even before he gets his breath back, Noble starts turning out his backpack.

“Self-absorbed morons! Infantile halfwits! Brain-dead steeplejacks!”

Noble lines up a bottle of medical alcohol, cotton wool, a pack of surgical tape, and a flask of water on the floor. Now I understand where he’s disappeared to. He went to fetch the first-aid kit, and then lugged it up here on his back.

“Macho offspring of a middle finger! Snobs with heads up your asses!”

Noble treats the holes on my back. Chimera slowly winds down, and finally the attic is bathed in blessed silence. Goldenhead looks around, puzzled, as if he’s just realized that it was much more noisy up here until now.

“Hello, Chimera,” he says. “Why did you stop all of a sudden?”

Chimera freezes, mouth agape. Not for long.

“God, I’m excited,” she hisses. “I have been benevolently noticed! And by whom! Why, it’s Noble, the most beautiful of the House males!”

“Now that’s an exaggeration, sister,” Noble says, bestowing a smile upon her. “It’s not entirely correct. I mean, of course I’m far from being ugly, but the most beautiful, that’s a bit much. Makes me uneasy listening to that, however close to the truth it might be.”

Chimera gasps for air.

Only someone closely acquainted with Noble can discern, appreciate, and enjoy all the nuances of this game, him playing a vainglorious dreamboat. The alcohol stings like seven hells, Chimera’s fury is flooding the cramped space, splashing through the hatch down to Jackal, and I’m still giggling—because Noble is deadly in this role of Prince Charming, deadly and also completely insufferable.

He casts a condescending look about and says, “It would appear that you’re hiding here to be alone with yourself. Such a familiar feeling.”

“Oh, really,” Chimera snarls. “Who would have thought that you of all people would be familiar with it? And now that we have all admired your perspicacity, get the hell out of here. Leave me alone with myself!”

“Can’t,” Goldenhead says. “The descent for a man in my condition is significantly harder than the ascent. And by the way”—he turns to me—“my time was better, so the bet is decided in my favor. Arms beat legs, it has now been established beyond any doubt.”

There’s horror in Chimera’s glance directed at me.

“How is it possible you haven’t killed him yet?” she asks.

I look around the attic: gray lumber walls, dilapidated cabinets in the corners, broken furniture. Everything is covered with a thick layer of dust—that is, except the blanket on which Chimera is sitting. That looks almost new, as does the coffeemaker on it, even if it has seen some heavy use. Noble notices the coffeemaker too.

“Oh! Would you treat us to some coffee?” he says.

“Get lost.”

I go back to the hatch. All the way down there, Jackal wheels back and forth fretfully on his Mustang. When he sees me he slams into the wall and almost overturns.

“Go bring someone who can help us get down!”

“Who is that there with you?” Jackal asks suspiciously. “Who are you talking to? I am not deaf, I’ll have you know. I hear everything. Sphinx, what’s going on? You’re having a date with someone, aren’t you? By the way, if you’re still interested, you lost.”

“Go get help,” I say and walk away from the hatch, to stanch the stream of questions. I can hear him swearing generously and bumping the wheels against the base of the ladder.

“Who was that?” Chimera asks.

“Little Tabaqui,” Noble imparts majestically. “He was keeping score.”

“He’s not going to barge in here too, is he?”

“It is safe to say that he indeed will not be doing that.” Noble clamps the water flask into my rake. “He has not advanced his abilities far enough.”

Chimera rolls her eyes.

“You’re overdoing it,” I say to Noble. “She’s already on edge, I wouldn’t provoke her further.”

“As you wish,” Noble agrees. “It’s just that I’m slightly at a loss concerning the correct mode of conversation with someone who swears at me blue before I even had a chance to look at her.”

Chimera looks at him, then at me, then bites her lip. It appears to be dawning on her that she’s been behaving somewhat oddly all this time. She shrugs—her dress doesn’t have any straps, it’s a mystery how she manages not to fall out of it—and produces a packet of ground coffee from behind the coffeemaker. Grabs a handful and tosses it in.

“Coffee coming right up,” she says, doing her best to appear gracious.

The graciousness grates.

Noble clears his throat and looks at me askance, in the sense of What did you do to her? Own up.

“Nothing,” I reply aloud. “On my honor.”

Chimera gets up, hobbles to the furniture cemetery in the corner, and switches on the television that’s standing there. In front of the television there’s a procession of empty plastic bottles. She kicks one, sending them scattering.

“Almost out of water,” she says. “We might be a bit tight.”

Her bright dress looks screamingly out of place among all this detritus, while its hem allows a peek at the brutal boots underneath when she walks. A Cinderella who’s not quite completely transformed.

I sit next to the blanket, but not on it. Noble crawls closer. On the screen some bearded guy in an orange safety vest explains something, bobbing up and down on an inflatable raft. It’s impossible to tell what he’s talking about.

“I couldn’t get the sound working,” Chimera says darkly. “I did tap the antenna feed, but there’s no sound. Could be why it got tossed.”

Noble and I exchange glances.

There’s nothing special about the coffeemaker, there’s lots of people lugging them around the House in their backpacks. But attempting to fix an old television is something entirely different. It says that Chimera has spent a considerable amount of time up here.

“Did you have a fight with somebody?” Noble inquires carefully.

“With your ass,” comes the rapid-fire answer. “Keep your nose out of other people’s business, OK?”

“OK.”

We get about half a dose of coffee for the both of us. Chimera gleefully passes a plastic cup with some liquid on the bottom to Noble and says that she’s giving us her share. We each take two sips, and then the cup is pointedly crumpled and thrown away.

Goldenhead is irritated, but you wouldn’t know it looking at him. He lies down, propped by the backpack, and begins advancing conjectures.

“Well, it’s clear that she’s here not because of a quarrel,” he says thoughtfully. “A girl like this would sooner smash the offender’s brains out than run away to the attic to mope.”

“Don’t forget the dress,” I add. “Could it be she has a date up here? That would explain the cheerful reception.”

“A date? That would mean that someone is not in a great hurry to arrive to it,” Noble says, nodding at the bottles. “I’d say, late by a couple of days?”

Chimera has turned to stone. Her hands, seemingly dark in contrast with her face, are clasped on top of her knees. Noble and I don’t even have to look at each other to continue this game. We’ve spent enough time paired up in poker.

“And about that dress, I can’t imagine how she climbed all the way up here in it,” Noble says. “A completely wrong equipment for climbing.”

He does not mention his own legs, also completely wrong equipment for climbing. And good for him.

“She came down from the roof,” I chip in. “You can get there by regular stairs if you obtain the key. Which is not that hard if you really need it.”

“Could she be hiding here?”

“In that dress?”

“Didn’t have time to change.”

“You mean that’s regular daily wear?”

“And someone has been bringing up food.”

“Yup.”

“So at least one other girl would know.”

“We should ask them.”

“Right. Start with Ginger . . .”

“Enough!” Chimera screams, putting fingers in her ears. “Stop this right now!”

We stop and wait silently.

“You’re even worse than I thought,” she says, looking confused. “You are so full of shit. Why can’t you just leave it alone?”

There are plaintive notes in her voice. For Chimera this is tantamount to admitting total defeat, so I am not surprised when she breaks down crying. Noble, however, is shocked, contrite, and ready to yield immediately. I shake my head, and he turns away with a pained look on his face.

Chimera doesn’t notice any of that. She’s busy drowning in tears. The green eye shadow turns out to be of a waterproof kind, it doesn’t run or even smear, but Chimera is a sorry sight anyway.

“What happened?” I ask. So gently that my own voice scares me a little.

Chimera wipes her nose.

“All right,” she says with disgust. “I’ll tell you. You were going to drag it out anyway sooner or later.”

She turns away.

“From our windows you can see the counselors’ floor. And also the roof,” she says, not looking at us. “Some time ago this guy wanted to jump off. He even slid down and hung there, holding with his hands. But he couldn’t let go. I know how that works. Believe me, I know. Then I saw him again. Same place. Standing there and looking down. Just looking down. I managed to get the key, and so when I saw him next time I climbed up here too. And we talked about stuff. He even told me why he wanted to jump . . .”

As I listen to this otherwise ordinary story it rings somehow very familiar. I swear I’m hearing about this for the first time, but the feeling of familiarity is unusually strong. And I don’t understand where it’s coming from.

Chimera’s trembling fingers tease out a cigarette from the pack that’s been sitting on the blanket. The long fingernails are covered in green polish.

“And that’s it,” she says. “We started coming up here. Meeting here. It was our secret. For quite a while. Since before the Law. And then I had this dream. A bad one. So I dragged myself up. And now I sit here feeling like an idiot. Funny, isn’t it. The dress. Me keeping the watch for three days straight, and he still doesn’t come. And I mean, it’s just a dream, right, but I couldn’t stay still, I kept thinking what if this one was really prophetic, and then I might be too late. Now you can laugh all you want.”

Humpback pops up through the hatch. He’s got on his tattered shirt made from strips of cloth and also a miner’s hard hat mounted with a flashlight. The hump, the bare feet, and the shaggy mane peeking from under the hat give him a slightly otherworldly look.

“Don’t forget to tell him everything,” Chimera says, pointing the cigarette at Humpback. “About this painted moron taking residence in the attic. He’ll die laughing.”

“Who is he?” I ask.

“None of your business.”

“Hey, are you coming down or what?” Humpback says. “Because Tabaqui said you wanted to . . .”

I look into the eyes rimmed with green shadow and see in them a rainbow-colored pathway, a corridor leading to . . . But even before I step into that corridor of unsaid words coming at me in a low whisper, I can tell that it ends at a door. A locked door, and behind it, someone whom I know very well. I feel his scent, even without opening that door. I take a step forward . . .

“Don’t you dare sneak into me,” Chimera squeals, and I barely manage to shrink back, avoiding the emerald fingernails flashing not half an inch in front of my face.

“Hey, cool it!” Noble catches her arm. “One Blind is quite enough.”

“Then he shouldn’t be sneaking inside me!” Chimera thrashes, trying to free her hand. “Tell him not to do that! And get out of here!”

“Sphinx, you’d better go,” Noble says, wrestling with Chimera. “While I’m still holding her. Got it?”

I get up and sleepwalk to the hatch, where Humpback is waiting for me in his ridiculous outfit, swinging his bare legs over the drop.

“Going down?” he says, jumping up. Then takes a length of rope out of his pocket and passes it through the belt loops around my waist. “Just insurance. In case I can’t hold on to you.”

I stumble down the hallway, eyes staring fixedly ahead. Something is interfering with my progress. I finally realize what it is and stop, and at the same moment Humpback crashes into me from behind.

“Sphinx! I’ve been calling to you all this time, didn’t you hear? Or are you planning to walk on a leash from now on?”

He takes off the safety rope, loops it around his hand, and stuffs it back into his pocket.

“What happened?”

“Nothing,” I say. “Just thinking.”

“That’s some thinking! All right, I’m going back up to get Noble down before he’s devoured. That Chimera seems a bit unstable. It would be better not to leave them alone for long.”

He disappears and I forge on, all the way to our room, where I sit on the floor just inside the door and observe Tubby wander under the bed, humming and getting covered in dust.

I look at him for such a long time that he manages to traverse the space under the bed, crawl to the center of the room, flip over a chair, and gum everything that fell off it.

Then Noble and Humpback return.

Humpback is just in time to take someone’s sock away before Tubby puts it in his mouth. Noble throws a towel on the table and says that water is out in the whole House.

“Why were you doing that?” he asks. “What did you need her confession for?”

“I have this feeling that it concerns me too,” I say. “I don’t quite understand why or how, but it concerns me. And I don’t like it.”

Noble sidles up on the bed and pulls off the colored smock.

“Forget it,” he says. “Forget the whole thing. Disgusting business.”

“He can’t,” Humpback says. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, but whatever it is, Sphinx is not letting go of it. I can see it in his eyes.”

Nanette angles to drop on his head but slips on the hard hat and flops down on the floor, deeply offended.

“How do you do it?” Noble asks. “I had this impression that she was going to spill it all, whatever you needed to know.”

I close my eyes.

“It was back in the summer,” I say.

Chimera didn’t say that, it’s my own insight. Why is it important that I shouldn’t know who it was? Is it because he too is afraid of me? I’ve almost caught him. I think I can figure it out now even without diving into Chimera’s eyes.

“I’ll go find Blind,” I say, getting up.

“Wait. I’ll go with you.” Noble pulls a knot of shirts out of the dresser. “Except I need to change first. Still, I don’t understand why it’s suddenly so important to you.”

“Neither do I,” I say, and an unpleasant chill down my spine makes me cringe.

Half an hour later, in Black’s giant red-and-white jersey with a number on its back, my back crisscrossed with surgical tape, I scour the House in search of Blind. Noble also has on one of Black’s jerseys, in white and blue. His number is twenty-two. People we meet on the way ogle us in shock, apparently suspecting that this is an advance notice of the new fashion about to be established. The progressive-sporty style. These stares seem to unnerve Noble, but he’s handsome even in a jersey hanging down below his knees. It gives him this edgy hobo flavor with a dash of the dump. Combined with his looks, the effect is simply stunning.

I have to wait for him and adapt to his pace, because he’s much slower on crutches than in the wheelchair. After the second circuit of the hallway, complete with peeking in every door, nook, and cranny, Noble asks for a breather.

“He’s not going anywhere. And my armpits are killing me. And hell’s bells, they’re all staring at us, like we’re a trained monkey show. I’m sick of that.”

“Deal with it,” I say. “You volunteered to tag along. Or have you forgotten?”

“Because I worry. About you, about your wanderings, and about this whole business. I have to be close. By the way, what makes you think Blind knows anything about this?”

“Nothing makes me think that. He either knows or he doesn’t. But if there’s anyone at all who does, it would be him.” I stop for a moment. “Coffeepot! We haven’t checked there!”

I make a beeline for the Coffeepot. Noble shuffles after me, swearing under his breath.

Coffeepot is all dusk and billowing smoke, as usual. The table lamps throw green palm fronds of light on the walls. The curtains are drawn on the windows, but the sun still finds its way in through the cracks here and there, ruining the attempts at coziness.

Blind is there. Perched on a mushroom-shaped stool, in his epauletted black frock coat. Young Dracula hiding from the deadly rays. There are three cups of coffee on the counter in front of him. The next mushroom is occupied by benignly scowling Vulture, except in place of coffee he has a pot with a cactus in it.

I crash on the nearest toadstool, and my body responds with a full-throated wail in a hundred different places.

“Heavens,” Vulture says, emerging from his personal smoke cloud. “What happened to you, boys? You both look . . . er . . . somewhat unusual.”

“The water’s out,” I say. “These are Black’s rags. Blind, I’ve been looking for you. I need to ask you something.”

“I am at your service.”

Blind peers vacantly into emptiness, hands folded on the counter, like a dutiful student in the presence of a teacher.

“Who tried to kill himself last summer by jumping off the roof?”

Vulture whistles and shields the cactus with his hand, protecting it from the unpleasantness. Noble, having climbed onto the counter to give himself a rest from bipedal locomotion, drags his finger along the smear of spilled sugar. Blind is rigid like a marble frieze.

“So, how about it?”

I understand that no answer will be forthcoming, but it’s still worth it to try and drag at least something out of him.

“Come on, Blind. Speak.”

He reanimates and turns his face to me.

“I take it back. I am not at your service, Sphinx. Sorry.”

Short and to the point. And about as disgusting as Chimera’s fear. If not worse.

“It wasn’t you, though?”

“No comment.”

Noble, hunched over, watches us anxiously, clawing at his chin.

“I’m going to find out anyway.”

Blind shrugs. “I have no doubt. But not from me. I think you should go now, Sphinx. You’re starting to get on my nerves.”

I climb down from the plastic mushroom.

“You said enough by not saying anything.”

Blind turns to one of his cups. The conversation is over. I walk out without waiting for Noble and cross the hallway, bumping into people and wheelchairs. Beaten and humiliated.

What is it to Blind that there was this unsuccessful suicide last year? That someone likes walking around roofs? Whoever he is, whatever it is that drives him to the edge, how can I be dangerous to him? There isn’t anything ever in Blind’s empty eyes, there aren’t any corridors or closed doors in his words, but I can read the answer to my question in the solid wall he’s built in front of me. And that answer causes me pain.

I enter the dorm. Tubby stops chewing on the blanket and looks up at me.

“Carry on, old man,” I say to him. “Who knows, by trying to eat everything you can get to, you may one day make an important discovery. Find a new category of food and cover your name in glory forever.”

Tubby doesn’t understand the meaning of the words but recognizes the tone. My voice calms him down, and he stuffs the blanket farther into his mouth. I crouch down before him.

“Have you noticed how we’ve taken to wandering around the House, and there’s never anyone in the room? That we’ve been leaving you here alone more and more often? Life has moved to the hallways, and you’ve been left behind, poor guy. But maybe that’s what’s better for you? The entire room is yours. So many things in it. But you see, the problem here is that it was one of us up there on the roof. Someone who can walk. But not Blind . . . not Humpback . . . and not Lary. Black? Alexander?”

Tubby spits out a loose thread and makes a face.

“It could very well have been Black. After what happened to Wolf, it even could have been me. But it was someone else. Let’s say Black. And this green-haired girl was ready to claw my eyes so that I wouldn’t find out who it was. Curious, no? She was afraid of me. Oh, she wanted to chase Noble away too, but of him she wasn’t afraid. Now riddle me this, Tubby. Who’s afraid of little old Sphinx? And why? What could I have done to cause this? Something very, very bad. That’s the last question I have. And it seems I know the answer to that one. Or maybe I’m just imagining it. Am I lying here in wait for someone who’d answer me?”

Tubby sighs, staring at me with his beady eyes.

“Now I am afraid, Tubby. You see? I’m deadly afraid. Of looking into his eyes and understanding. Why he was stuck up on the roof then and why he keeps going there still. What his guilt is and what his fear is.”

Tubby is clearly waiting for me to tell him the tale about the blue sea and white sand. The threads are hanging down from his puffed lips here and there, like whiskers on a catfish, and he’s trying to groom himself as best he can, but he still listens intently. He looks at me and then at him, who is sitting next to me, or rather also crouching. There are three of us here, in a circle around the chewed-up blanket, and the third is listening closely, because my words are really directed at him, as are my questions, and he knows that.

“What have you done, Alexander?” I ask.

“I think I’ve killed him,” the soft, toneless voice answers.

“Why?”

“I was afraid. My fear could have done it without my knowledge. I never would try to hurt you, you know that. He was horrible inside. I am glad that I said this to you, Sphinx, and that you thought to ask. You can do what you will with me now. If you tell me to go away, I’ll go away.”

Tubby tears open a pack of cigarettes and hoots excitedly at them tumbling out. He grabs two and stuffs them in his mouth, then immediately spits them out in disgust.

I get up and walk out. I have no idea where I’m going. I know only that I must move. Doesn’t matter in which direction.

“Hey, Sphinx, by any chance are those my clothes you’re wearing?”

A figure looming ahead. Must go around. It’s Black, hugging a huge speaker.

“Yes. They are yours. Noble and I had a day of reminiscences.”

I step to the side, but he follows, still blocking my way.

“Sphinx, what’s wrong? You look like hell.”

I just stand there, waiting for him to tire of loitering in front of me. I look at his chin pressed against the speaker. Then the speaker drops away, deposited on the floor. The chin disappears along with it. Black assumes a crooked pose, like his spine is somehow damaged.

“I see,” he says. “You’re a scary sight to behold, but I think I’ll manage. Is there any way I can help?”

“Sure. Stuff me in a crack somewhere and plaster it over.”

“Understood,” Black says, straightening up. “Let’s go. I’ve got what you need. The crack, the plaster, and the gravestone. Just hang on until we reach the first floor.”

He leaves the speaker in the middle of the hallway, as a monument to our momentous meeting. I follow him obediently. We come out to the landing. Go down, continue on. In the lecture hall someone is tormenting the piano rapturously, as usual, and the waves of exuberance crest over the entire first floor. Black leads me to a half-empty room. It seems to be some kind of storage space, with cardboard boxes stacked against the walls. One is ripped slightly, and inside it I can discern a commode in plastic foam. We’re in the graveyard of commodes.

Black grapples inside one of the boxes, mumbling indistinctly. Produces a bottle, and another one.

“It is my opinion,” he says, “that you need a drink. Can you hold this? I don’t have any crystal goblets around.”

“I’ll try,” I say. “What’s in it?”

“Grain alcohol cut with apple-juice concentrate.”

I laugh. Black upends an empty box and arranges the bottles on top of it.

“Your introduction to the Hound tastes. This is their favorite tipple. It’s not that bad once you get used to it. It all depends on the ratio.”

“For all I care,” I say, “this could be pure alcohol.”

“I can see that.” Black sits down on the floor and unscrews the cap off one of the bottles. “Now what’s happened? Want to tell me about it?”

I shake my head.

He passes the other bottle to me.

“As you wish. I’m not going to insist, of course.”

The doggy mix is unlike anything I’ve ever tasted. It’s vile stuff, but after three or four gulps that no longer matters.

“Lay off a bit,” Black cautions. “It really goes to the head.”

“Hounds are strange,” I say. “As are their tastes.”

“Our tastes,” Black notes. “I’m a Hound now too, don’t forget.”

“That’s right,” I say. “Brown. Shaggy. Very big. Have you ever noticed what color eyes Alexander has? Feuille morte. Fallen leaves. Dappled.”

“Never thought to look.”

“Your loss. There’s a lot hidden inside there. Do you know what my deepest secret is, Black? I mean, everyone has their own secret here in the House. And mine is that I can bail out of here anytime. Anytime I want.”

Black chokes and lowers the bottle.

“Where would you go?”

“Also here. But not exactly. The here that’s a little out of here. But it’s a secret, understand?”

“Got it,” Black says. “Inside the bottle with alcohol and apple juice. Looks like you’ve had enough.”

I spread myself across the wall and put up my legs on the box. The clamp on the rake is stuck closed, so I’m now doomed to be holding the bottle of Hound Delight until the day I die.

“Count the fingers for me, Black. I’m going to name for you the parallel universes suitable for hiding.”

“Go ahead,” Black says. “Be my guest.”

The door opens, revealing Noble, swaying elegantly between the crutches.

“Found you!” he says.

“Another one wearing my clothes,” Black says in surprise. “What’s with you today? Noble, come here. Looks like he’s already sozzled. Just started talking about parallel universes.”

“A fascinating topic.”

Noble floats toward us, flops down on an unoccupied box, and drops the crutches with a clatter.

I close my eyes, and open them again.

And find myself in everything at once. The walls, the ceiling, Black, Noble, even Noble’s crutches. I am a vortex into which the world is emptying. The part of me that’s the most intact is alarmed by what I’m doing. It’s alarmed that it revealed the bottle stash to the other me and allowed him, the bald and crazy-eyed one sitting across with his feet up on the box, to partake of its contents.

This part is also the most convenient to operate, and it says, “Damn. I didn’t know he was going to go to pieces like that. What do you think we should do, Noble?”

Yet another part of me, the one slowly crushing the cardboard box (the poor thing contained a bathroom sink once, and is now holding on for its dear life), is also irritated and a bit scared, and says, “Why are you asking me? What was it you gave him?”

I am sloshing inside the bottle, clinging somewhat to the sides, because one of my ingredients is a thick viscous syrup. I am not entirely colorless, and that’s syrup again. There aren’t any others like me, this kind of Me is only made here and exists here and nowhere else. I was stored among the commodes and I seem to remember that this Me is related to dogs in some fashion, as is the Me sitting across, while the other Me, the one looming over, thinks that I am poison.

My armpits are on fire, sending shooting pains down the rib cage, and my neck is stiff and it takes an effort to turn, and the box under me keeps sagging. I should probably get up before it goes completely flat.

I don’t want to become the box too, the feeling of it is too unpleasant.

The Me slumped against the wall says, “The entire world is part of me now, do you understand that?”

I answer to myself, having jumped over to the buckling box, “Honestly, I would prefer not to.”

And immediately soar up and crash back down, expand in all directions and solidify, peek through thousands of tiny apertures with a billion eyes. I like this Me most of all, it’s so peaceful and so enormous, a cube that contains all others. It’s rather more like Us, and we are the foundation of the House, we carry and support it. It takes an effort to keep myself within the confines of this single room, because it is more natural for walls to be joined up with other walls, but for some reason I feel that this would be dangerous, even if I don’t remember why exactly. I lose the sense of hearing. The little scurrying We, restless and much too emotional, move and squeak so fast that I can’t pick up the high-pitched sound they produce. I am closer to being asleep than awake, this state is familiar to me, and only the apprehension of joining up with other walls keeps me from giving in to it entirely. But it becomes harder and harder. I am feeling more strain than the unfortunate box, but the Me perseveres as long as it can, and when its strength starts to fail I concentrate on the point where I am coming in contact with the hairless, metal-handed Me. I flow into him and hear Black say, “What do you say we go find Blind?” and Noble responds, “We can’t leave him here like that.”

I sit slumped against the wall, feeling its smooth, cold surface with my shoulders and with the tape that’s binding them, and recognizing in it an almost kindred spirit.

What I’ve just done is forbidden: dissolving in the environment is too addictive and too dangerous. Dissolving in people is safer, but inanimate objects tend to bind to the dreams and it’s easy to get bogged down for years and not even notice. The trick with the walls saved me once, when I was a kid and life had served up a particularly scary episode. I had barely made it out that time, and gave myself a promise never to do it again. But promises are made to be broken, eventually, the way Alexander has broken his. I still can’t bring myself to think of his words, of what he said about Wolf, but his broken promise I can already start to mull over. The short stint inside the walls calmed me enough for that.

I look back at Black and Noble.

“One of the variations of the Game,” I tell them, “is being in everything. You are in everything and everything is in you. It’s dangerous, though.”

Black and Noble exchange glances.

“Never tried,” Noble says. “You’re an extreme guy, Sphinx. That’s not good.”

“He looks a bit more sober,” Black says hesitantly, pointedly addressing Noble, like a Spider within earshot of a patient.

I nod. A bit, yes. But not completely, because I’m still in the Game. Both Black and Noble look slightly unusual. Black must be forty-something. An imposing figure of a man, naked above the waist, with an axe tucked into his waistband for some reason. Handsome. Head balding in the front, face more lined than might be expected, but still. A Conan the Barbarian in his middle age.

Noble is younger, and not that impressive. A sharp, severe face without any trace of his usual beauty. A slight overbite. The eyelashes white as if powdered with dandruff. He’s clad in disgusting rags that come apart at the seams every time he moves.

The rules of the Game are not the same for everyone. Black is the way he wants himself to be. Noble is the way he feels himself to be.

This might be interesting.

Black gets up, crowding half the room.

“Let’s get out of here,” he says to me. “We’ll take you out for a little spin. Now let go of that bottle, will you?”

I unclasp my long and very human fingers, and the bottle falls down and rolls on the floor. I’d be interested to know what I look like, I mean the whole of me, but there are no mirrors here. Black bends down, bathing me in dog reek, grabs me under the armpits, and hoists up.

“There we go. Easy does it. One step at a time.”

I shuffle to the door obediently. You don’t argue with Conans, now do you? I feel his breath on the back of my head. The Alpha Hound. The door is mossy, overgrown with mold and lichens, armies of ants traverse it, and in place of a handle there’s a splintery branch.

Black’s paw framed by the spiky bracelet grabs it and breaks it clean off. The door flies open and we march out to the abandoned highway under the inhospitable gray sky.

Fields stuck with telephone poles, cracked asphalt, the white dividing line barely visible, half-buried in blowing sand. The wind twists Black’s jersey, which I’m still wearing, tickling my belly with its icy fingers. Noble tries to put up the collar of his coat, but it immediately tears off and remains in his hands. He flings it away in disgust.

“Ready to go?”

Black rushes forward purposefully, shouting, “The speaker! I left it in the middle of the hallway. Better go pick it up before someone swipes it!”

I look back at the door, but it has already disappeared. Of course. Noble hobbles ahead, catching the crutches in the cracks of the pavement and digging them back out, cursing and swearing. Through the rips in his pants I can discern something green and leafy springing up.

The clouds loom threateningly. It’s going to rain soon. Black is already far away. This endless highway for him is just a few feet of wooden floor. That’s the reason he’s moving with such an astounding speed, throwing surprised looks back at Noble and me.

“Where are we going?” I ask Noble.

“How would I know?” he says indifferently. “It’s your Jump, you figure it out.”

He notices something in the grass, stops and pokes it with his crutch. There’s a cigarette end stuck to the rubber tip when he brings it back. Noble peels it off and carefully stashes it in his pocket.

“That’s nice,” he says. “Forgot my backpack. A couple more like that, and there’s a whole smoke right there. You be on the lookout for them too, so that we don’t miss any.”

I peer into the withered grass.

“You’re catching on fast, Noble,” I say. “Like it’s an everyday thing for you.”

Noble laughs, exposing sharp teeth.

“Not every day. But not rare either. Wasn’t it you who explained that there was nothing special about me doing it?”

“It was,” I agree. “But it looks like I’ve bungled the explanation if you keep shuttling back and forth. I should have scared you more thoroughly.”

“Oh, you have,” Noble says. “Don’t worry. But we’re on the boundary, not inside. We can go back anytime we want.”

“Boundary has its own dangers,” I keep pressing.

He looks at me in surprise.

“What dangers? It’s only our own guys here, isn’t it?”

I choose not to argue further.

A purplish bolt of lightning suddenly splits the sky above us.

“We’re going to get wet,” Noble says, looking up and shivering under his rags. “Black must have found his precious speaker by now. Not falling through has its benefits.”

“I’m sorry,” I say.

“I’m not blaming you. It was my idea to follow you here.”

Five or six crumbled milestones later we finally get a bearing. The sugar cube of the roadside diner, still far away. Surprisingly, there’s no rain yet. But it starts to get dark unnaturally fast.

The closer we get to the diner, the more attractive it looks. The white building with a steep-pitched roof and striped awning. There are a lot of cars in front of it, one more ancient than the next. A parade from the dawn of the automobile era. I used to collect cards with cars like that. Here they look decrepit. The most rickety rust-bucket convertible is occupied by two half-naked girls who start to squeal and wave as soon as they see us.

“Hey, big boys, wanna ride? Wind in your hair! We can jump off a cliff, groovy, man!”

One of them has Marilyn’s face, and her breasts under the skimpy faded bikini top bring to mind soccer balls. She parts her pouting lips and licks them expectantly.

“How ’bout it? A ride?”

We make our way around them and enter the diner, diving into the noise, commotion, and beguiling meaty scents. The small square room amazingly manages to fit an entire throng of people. They sit at the wooden tables, but they sit under and on top of them as well.

The tables haven’t been sanded and they are full of splinters; some of them still have patches of bark. The faces around me look unfamiliar. In reality I know all of them, of course. Colorful slogans blaze on the walls. As soon as I concentrate on one of them, it starts swelling, growing in size and obscuring its neighbors.

Noble and I grab a miraculously free table against the wall, under the unchanging woodblock print of a seascape. Someone in a chef’s toque and a golden carnival mask with a long beak drops a couple of plates off the tray as he rushes past.

I look closer. Finely minced meat over something grainy and yellow, like corn mush. Noble unzips his tattered coat and tucks in. He has a huge, glowing heart pendant around his neck, enclosing a flaming lock of hair of truly frightening proportions. I gulp the food in the same greedy fashion as everyone else. There’s a display attached to the wall underneath the print, its screen flashing green numbers, 2 and 2. Two times two. That’s the number of our table.

My plate is almost empty. The next table gets swarmed by a raucous gang of old farts in black leather, with unkempt beards. Their snorting and laughter drowns out everything else. Still, even over the din they’re causing I can clearly hear something angrily banging at the window.

Its insistent knocking finally attracts attention. The window is opened and in flutters a big-eared creature, resembling a half-baked hyena with faceted wings made out of flower petals. It flaps futilely under the ceiling and crashes down on our table, overturning Noble’s plate and sending up a cloud of pollen that makes my nose itch.

“Look at them,” the hyena says indignantly. “I’ve been searching all over for you. Where have you been, you bastards?”

“Nowhere special,” I say. “We’re having a lunch, as you can see.”

“A lunch, huh,” the winged hyena drawls menacingly and breaks into a coughing fit. His open maw drips saliva that crystallizes and cascades down with a glassy tinkle.

“Where’s my grub?” the flyer demands hoarsely. “And after that I’ll deal with you, and it’s not going to be pleasant.”

Noble drums his fingers on the table.

“Hey, Sphinx. You think it’s time we got out of here? Before the rest of them arrive?”

The hyena transforms into a frail, pensive, middle-aged Sikh. No sign of wings. Black suit, snow-white turban. He unfolds the napkin and takes a plate off the tray.

“I am very sorry if I seem intrusive,” he says politely. “But if I were you I would refrain from sudden movements at this time.”

“We will,” I assure him. “I’m waiting for someone. And if that someone isn’t here in the next half an hour we’ll try to scramble out. I just need some time.”

Noble sighs and takes out the cigarette butt he salvaged. The pendant around his neck is pulsating in sync with his breathing. The Sikh, humming softly, produces a gold-plated hookah out of thin air.

Blind’s soft hands rest on my shoulders, giving me a substantial electric jolt. I startle.

“How are you?” he asks considerately.

“Lousy.”

Sightless One sits across from us. He looks exactly the way he always does, no image changes for him. Maybe a little more transparent, that’s all.

“That’s not good,” he says. “Pull yourself together. You’ve got responsibilities.”

“Keep your leadership lectures for another time, will you,” I say. “I’m not in the mood.”

Blind agrees with surprising amiability.

“As you wish. Except there might not be another time.”

The lights blink and switch back on. Twice. The beards in the corner whistle disapprovingly.

“Wow,” Noble says, aghast. “Will you look at that . . .”

I turn around. There’s a strange creature making its way toward us between the tables. It’s naked and skeletally thin, with stubs of wings over its shoulders, covered in sores and welts from head to toe. A rusty iron collar encircles its neck, trailing an equally rusty chain all the way to the floor.

“What kind of sick thing is that?” Noble whispers. “Night of the living dead?”

“Of course it’s not dead,” the Sikh says reproachfully, taking a break from the hookah. “This is our dear Alexander.”

The mangled angel stops in front of us, holding his chains gingerly, and waits. The white feathers that he has on his head instead of hair are hanging down over his face, the remains of the wings expose the bones. It would be better not to look too closely. Every wound is crawling with something that would be better not to notice. The face bears an expression that would be better not to remember. Noble turns away and fumbles for his crutches, taking sharp indrawn breaths.

“Alexander,” I say. “Enough with the crazy.”

He raises his eyes at me. Wine-red eyes on the white face. I see that it’s in fact Ancient. Or that he looks like Ancient.

“Stop this, please,” I beg him. “I’ve already forgiven you. There is no blame on you.”

“Really?” he says in a cracked voice. “You’re not just lying to me out of pity?”

“I never lie out of pity.”

The lights go out again. Screams in the darkness.

I close my eyes, and when I open them I’m back in the canteen. A boombox is blaring under the Rat table, a continuation of the screams that ended my visit to the Not-Here. Lary nods in sync with the music, wiping a plate with a piece of bread. Tubby is dozing next to him, face down in a stained bib. Alexander is busy with his soup, bent low over it so that no one can see he’s crying.

Tabaqui shoots me a withering look.

“Sphinx, what’s going on here? I demand to know what’s going on!”

“Nothing,” I say. “What possibly could have happened here?”

“You hurt Alexander, didn’t you?” Jackal presses on. “Because I’m going to kick the crap out of you if you did!”

“Everything’s fine,” I hiss through clenched teeth, getting slowly steamed by his nosiness. “Calm down and leave me alone.”

“If everything’s fine, why is he crying?”

“And why are you asking Sphinx?” Blind inquires, throwing a crumpled napkin on the plate. “Can’t a member of this pack have a cry in peace without you butting in?”

“Sphinx has promised something to him,” Tabaqui persists. “And now Alexander’s crying.”

I get up and leave the canteen before he has a chance to really get to me.

Right outside the door, I walk into Noble sitting on the floor with a look of someone just condemned to death, hugging his crutch. I sit down next to him.

Noble blows his nose loudly into a handkerchief and says, “You need nerves of steel with this crowd.”

He goes back to cuddling the crutch. I look up at the ceiling, at a snaking line of letters barely distinguishable from down here, and think: There we go, the need for expression has driven them to the ceiling, it’s only a matter of time before ceilings start looking like walls with all the writings and drawings, and whoever would want to read them would need a stepladder, so we’re going to have an infestation of stepladders in the House.

I sit in silence and think about all of this.