The Gray House

SMOKER

ON CERTAIN ADVANTAGES OF TRAINING FOOTWEAR

It all started with the red sneakers. I found them at the bottom of my bag. The personal-possessions bag, that’s what it was called. Only there was never anything in it with any touch of personality. Two standard-issue towels, a bunch of handkerchiefs, and dirty laundry. Same as everyone else. All bags, all towels, socks, briefs—all identical, so that nobody would feel slighted.

It was an accident that I found them. I’d lost sight of them long ago. An old present from someone forgotten, from the previous life. Bright red, wrapped in shiny plastic, the soles striped like a candy cane. I tore open the package, ran my fingers over the flaming laces, and quickly put on the shoes. My legs looked funny. I forgot they could look like that. They acquired this unfamiliar walking feel.

That same day, after classes, Gin took me aside and said that he didn’t approve of my behavior. He pointed at the sneakers and told me to take them off. I shouldn’t have asked why, but I did.

“They attract attention,” he said.

This was normal for Gin in terms of explanation.

“So?” I said. “So let them.”

He didn’t say anything. He adjusted the cord on his glasses and wheeled off. That night I received a note. Only two words: Footwear discussion. I was in trouble, and I knew it.

Scraping the fuzz off my cheeks I cut myself, and then broke the toothbrush glass. My reflection in the mirror looked completely terrified, but I wasn’t really afraid. Well, I was, but at the same time I didn’t care. I even left the sneakers on.

The assembly was held in the classroom. Someone had written Footwear discussion on the blackboard. Three-ring circus with clowns, except I wasn’t laughing, because I was tired of these games and the oh-so-clever people who played them, and of the place itself. So tired that I almost forgot how to laugh.

My place was at the board, so that everyone could see the subject of the discussion. Gin sat at the desk to my left sucking on his pen. To my right, Kit loudly knocked a steel ball bearing around a plastic maze until he got the reproachful looks.

“Who would like to contribute?” Gin said.

Many would. Almost all of them. To start it off, they called Gyps. The quicker to get rid of him, I guess.

We learned that everyone who tried to attract attention to himself was an egotist, a bad person, capable of anything and full of himself while at the same time completely empty inside. A jay in peacock’s plumes. Gyps recited the fable of the jay. Then he recited the poem about the donkey that wound up in the lake and drowned because of its own stupidity. He also tried to sing something to the same effect, but no one was listening anymore. Gyps puffed his cheeks, started to cry, and stopped speaking. He was thanked, given a handkerchief, and shunted behind a textbook, and the floor was given to Ghoul.

Ghoul was barely audible. He never lifted his gaze, as if reading something off the surface of the table, even though there wasn’t anything there except the scratched veneer. His white bangs were falling over his eyes, and he was sticking it back up with his saliva-moistened finger, but as soon as he fixed the pale strand to his forehead, it crept back over his eyes. You needed nerves of steel to look at Ghoul for long. So I didn’t look at him. My nerves were in tatters already. There was no need to fray them further.

“What is it to which the person in question is trying to draw attention? It would seem that it is just his footwear. However, this is not so. By means of his footwear he is drawing attention to his legs. Therefore he is advertising his handicap, putting it in everyone’s face. Therefore he is accentuating our common unfortunate condition without consulting us or soliciting our opinions. In a sense he is mocking us all . . .”

He chewed on this for quite a while. The finger traveled up and down the bridge of his nose, his eyes were getting bloodshot. Everything he could say I knew by heart—everything that was fit to be trotted out for the occasion. Every word emanating from Ghoul was just as colorless and desiccated as he was, as were his finger and the nail on that finger.

Then it was Top’s turn. Basically the same speech, and about as engaging. Then Straw, Sticks, and Bricks, the triplets. The Little Pigs. They would talk all at once, cutting each other off, and this I actually watched with great interest because I had not expected them to take part in the discussion. I guess they didn’t like the way I was watching them, or they got self-conscious and that only made it worse, but they ripped into me the hardest of all. They dragged out my habit of folding page corners (even though I was not the only one reading books), the fact that I had not contributed my handkerchiefs to the communal pool (even though I was not the only one with a nose), that I occupied the shower for longer than was allowed (twenty-eight minutes on average, when the norm was twenty), bumped my wheels while driving (and wheels need care!), and, finally, arrived at their main point—that I was a smoker. If you could call someone smoking one cigarette every three days a smoker.

They asked me if I knew the extent of damage caused by nicotine to the well-being of others. Of course I knew. I not only knew, I could easily give a talk on the subject, because over the last six months they’d stuffed me with enough booklets, articles, and pithy quotations on the dangers of smoking to comfortably feed a multitude. I was lectured on lung cancer. Then, separately, on cancer in general. Then on cardiovascular diseases. Then on some additional horrible ailments, which was when I stopped listening. On topics like these they could go on for hours. They would shudder, horrified, eyes lit up with excitement—like decrepit gossips discussing the latest murder or accident, drooling happily. Neat little boys in neat little shirts, so earnest and wholesome, but hidden underneath their faces were old hags, skin pitted with acid. This was not the first time I saw through to those wrinkled old crones, so it was not a surprise. They got to me so badly that I started dreaming of poisoning them with nicotine, all together and each one separately. Pity I couldn’t do that. To smoke my paltry once-every-three-days cigarette I went to hide in the teachers’ bathroom. Not even our own bathroom, god forbid! If I poisoned anyone or anything it could only be the cockroaches, because only the cockroaches ever ventured there.

The stoning had been going on for half an hour when Gin rapped his pen on the table and declared the footwear discussion closed. They’d just about forgotten the topic by that time, so the reminder turned out to be quite appropriate. They stared at the damned sneakers. They loathed them in silence, with dignity and with contempt for my childishness and tastelessness. Fifteen pairs of soft brown loafers against one fire-red pair of sneakers. The longer the stares continued, the brighter the shoes burned. Soon everything except them became gray and washed out.

I was just admiring them when I was told it was my turn to speak.

I don’t know quite how it happened, but, for the first time in my life, I said to the Pheasants what I thought of them. I told them that this classroom and everything in it were not worth one pair of gorgeous sneakers like these. That’s what I said to the Pheasants. Even to poor, cowed Top. Even to the Little Pigs. And I really felt it at that moment, because I can’t stand cowards and traitors, and that’s exactly who they were—cowards and traitors.

They must have thought they’d scared me so much that I’d gone crazy. Only Gin didn’t look surprised.

“So now we know what you actually think,” he said. He wiped his glasses and pointed his finger at the sneakers. “This was not at all about those. This was about you.”

Kit was still waiting at the board, chalk in hand. But the discussion was over. I just sat there with my eyes closed until they all wheeled out. And I continued sitting like that long after they did. My tiredness was flowing out of me. I had done something out of the ordinary. I’d behaved like a normal person. I’d stopped conforming to others. And, however it all ended up, I knew I would never regret that.

I looked up at the board. It was supposed to say: Footwear discussion. 1. Self-importance. 2. Drawing attention to collective disability. 3. Thumbing nose at collective. 4. Smoking. Kit had managed to make at least two mistakes in every word. He could not write for sour apples, but he was the only one who could stand, so he ended up at the board for every meeting.

For the next two days no one spoke to me. They all behaved like I did not exist. I had become a ghost. On the third day of this silent treatment, Homer told me that the principal wanted to see me.

The First’s counselor looked more or less like the whole group would look were they not masquerading as teenagers for some reason. Like the hag sitting inside every one of them, waiting for the next funeral. Decay, gold teeth, and failing eyes. At least he wore it all out in the open.

“The administration has been made aware already,” he said, looking like a doctor giving a patient the news of an incurable disease.

He continued to sigh and nod and look at me pityingly until I started feeling like a corpse, and not a very fresh one. Once assured of the proper effect, Homer left, snuffling and groaning as he went.

I’d visited the principal’s office twice before. Once when I had just come in and once when I was submitting a painting for the exposition with the idiotic theme of “I Love the World.” It was the result of three days’ work and I titled it The Tree of Life. Only when you stepped back a couple of feet from the painting could you discern that the Tree was teeming with skulls and hordes of maggots. Up close, they looked kind of like pears in among the crooked boughs. Just as I’d expected, no one inside the House noticed anything wrong. My dark sense of humor was apparently only discovered at the exposition itself, but I’ve never found out how it was received. Actually, it was not even a joke. My love for the world at the time looked more or less the way it did in the painting.

During my first visit to the principal’s office, the worms had already started wriggling inside the worldly love, though we weren’t quite ready for the skulls yet. The office was clean but still somehow untidy. It was obviously not the hub of the House, the place everything flows in or out of. More like a guards’ shack at the gates. A rag doll in a festooned dress had been sitting on the sofa in the corner. It was the size of a three-year-old. Memos and notes, stuck with pushpins—on the walls, the blinds, the sofa, everywhere. But most of all I was struck by the enormous fire extinguisher over the principal’s desk. It was so mesmerizing that I could not quite pay attention to the principal himself. Anyone who chose to sit under that antique fiery zeppelin must be somewhat counting on that. The only thing you could think about was that monstrosity crashing down and flattening him right there in front of your eyes. There was no space left in your head for anything else. Not a bad way of becoming invisible.

The principal was talking of the school policies then. Of the way forward. “We prefer tempering those who have already been forged.” Something like that. I wasn’t listening too closely. Because of the fire extinguisher. It was getting on my nerves. Everything else was as well. The doll, and the notes. Maybe he’s an amnesiac, I kept thinking, so this is just his way of reminding himself of everything. And when I’m gone he’s going to write me up and pin that information somewhere close.

When I tried to tune in for a while, he was just getting to the alumni. The ones who “did well for themselves.” Those were the faces in the framed photos on both sides of the fire extinguisher. Irritable and mundane, all possessing trophies or diplomas that they paraded sourly before the camera. Even a photograph of some headstones would have been more fun. Perhaps they should put at least one of those up there, considering the school’s mission.

It was very different this time. The fire extinguisher was still there, as were the notes on every available surface, but something had changed in the office. Something not directly related to the furniture and the missing doll. Shark was sitting under the extinguisher and going through papers. Shriveled, mottled, and shaggy, like a lichen-covered stump. His eyebrows, also shaggy and mottled, fell over his eyes like filthy icicles. There was a file in front of him. I glimpsed my own photo between two sheets of paper and realized that the file was full of me. My grades, performance reviews, snapshots from different years—all the parts of a person that could be distilled onto paper. I was partially on the desk, bound in cardboard, and partially sitting before him. If there were any difference between the flat me on the desk and the three-dimensional me in the chair, it was the red sneakers. They were no longer just footwear. They were who I was. My bravery and my folly, a bit faded after three days but still bright and beautiful like fire.

“It must have been something really serious for the boys to lose all patience with you.” Shark waved a piece of paper at me. “I’ve got this letter here. Fifteen signatures. What’s this supposed to mean?”

I shrugged. It meant whatever it meant. I wasn’t about to explain about the sneakers to him. That would be ridiculous.

“Yours is the model group.” The mottled icicles drooped, obscuring the eyes. “I really like that group. I cannot ignore their request, especially seeing as this is the first time they’ve asked such a thing. So, what do you have to say for yourself?”

I wanted to say that I was going to be happy to be rid of them as well, but decided not to. What good would my lonely voice be against fifteen of Shark’s exemplary pets? Instead of offering pleas and explanations, I just studied the surroundings.

The pictures of the “well for themselves” were even more disgusting than I remembered. I imagined my own pitted, crumbling mug among them, with paintings behind me, one more hideous than the next. “He was dubbed the next Giger when he was just thirteen.” It made me sick.

“Well?” Shark waved his spread-out fingers in front of me. “Are you asleep? I am asking if you understand that I have to undertake certain actions.”

“Of course. I’m sorry.”

That was the only thing that came to mind.

“Me too. Very sorry,” Shark growled, snapping my file shut. “Sorry that you were so brainless as to manage to lose the trust of the whole group at once. Get out and get your things.”

Something jumped inside me, like a toy ball on a string.

“Where are you sending me?”

He was enjoying my fear immensely. He basked in it for a while. Shuffled things around, inspected his fingernails, lit a cigarette.

“Where do you think? Another group, of course.”

I smiled. “You must be joking.”

It would be easier to drop a live horse into any other House group than somebody from the First. The horse would have a better chance of fitting in, size and manure notwithstanding.

I should’ve kept my mouth shut, but still I blurted out, “No one would have me. I’m a Pheasant.”

“I’ve had enough of this!” Shark spat out the cigarette and smashed his fist on the desk. “What’s this Pheasant stuff? Who invented all that crap?”

The papers scurried from under his fist, and the cigarette butt missed the ashtray.

I was so scared that I yelled back at him, even louder, “How should I know why they call us that? Ask those who started it! You think it’s easy, remembering all those idiotic nicks? You think anyone explained to me what they mean?”

“Don’t you dare raise your voice in my office!” he screamed back, leaning over the desk.

I glanced at the fire extinguisher and immediately looked back.

It was still hanging there.

Shark followed the direction of my gaze and suddenly whispered, as if taking me into confidence, “It won’t. The bolts are this thick.”

Then he showed me his disgusting thumb. This was so unexpected that I was stunned. I just sat there ogling him like an idiot. He was smirking. It dawned on me that he was simply bullying me. I hadn’t been living in the House long enough to easily address everyone by their nicknames. You had to be pretty open minded to call someone Sniffle or Piddler to their face and not feel like a complete jerk. Now I was being told that the administration did not approve of it either. What for? Just to have a good yell and see how I’d react? And then I realized what had changed in the office since my first visit. It was Shark himself. The unassuming body hiding under the fire extinguisher had turned into a real shark. Into exactly what his name was. The nicks were given for a reason.

Shark lit up again while I was considering all this.

“I don’t want to hear any more of this nonsense,” he warned, fishing out the remains of the previous cigarette from my file. “Of these attempts to disparage our best group. To deprive it of its rightful status. Understood?”

“You mean you too consider the word to be an insult? But why? How is it worse than simply Birds? Or Rats? Rats. I think that sounds much worse than Pheasants.”

Shark blinked at me.

“That’s because you know what those who say it actually mean, correct?”

“Right,” Shark said severely. “That’s enough. Shut up. Now I understand why the First can’t stand you.”

I looked at the sneakers. Shark was much too generous toward the Pheasants’ motivations, but I decided not to say so. I only asked where I was being transferred.

“I don’t know yet,” he lied. “I need to think about it.”

No, he wasn’t called Shark for nothing. He was precisely that. A blotchy, slit-mouthed fish with eyes looking in different directions. It was getting old, and the hunting was not what it once had been, which is why it was entertained by chasing after minnows like me. Of course he knew. He had even just been about to tell me, but then decided not to. Just to make me squirm. He overdid it, though, because the group didn’t really matter. They all hated Pheasants. Suddenly it came to me that this might not be so bad after all. I now had a chance to escape. The First threw me out and the others were going to do the same, whether right away or not. If I really applied myself I could make it as quick as possible. Think about how much time and effort I’d spent trying to become a good Pheasant. Convincing another group that I didn’t belong there would be much easier. Besides, they were all sure of it already. It was even conceivable that Shark thought so himself. This was me being expelled in a roundabout way. And afterward he could say that I wouldn’t fit in anywhere, no matter how hard they tried. Because heaven forbid any blame would attach to Pheasants.

This calmed me down. Shark caught that moment of enlightenment and didn’t like it.

“Go,” he said with visible disgust. “Go pack your things. I am coming tomorrow at half past eight. Personally.”

As I was closing the door to the principal’s office behind me, I knew that he was going to be late tomorrow. An hour, maybe even two. I could see right through him now, him and his petty shark pleasures.

“The students just call it Home, succinctly combining in this word everything that our school means to them—family, comfort, care, and understanding.” This was what it said in the promotional booklet. I was planning to frame it and put it on the wall once I was out of there. Black frame. Maybe even gilded. It was quite a piece of work, that booklet. Not a word of truth in it, but also not a word that was a direct lie. I don’t know who had written it but he was a genius, in a sense. It was House, though, not Home. But we did succinctly combine a lot of stuff into this word. And it was quite possible that a Pheasant really was comfortable here. And that other Pheasants were a family to him. There are no Pheasants in the Outsides, so I could not say for sure, but if there were, the House would be the place they would all fervently seek out. But there aren’t any, and I had a suspicion that they were created by the House itself, which meant that before getting here they all might have been normal people. A very disconcerting thought.

But back to the booklet, page three: “More than a hundred years of history and lovingly preserved tradition” are all present and accounted for. One look at the House is enough to realize that it started falling apart in the last century. There were also bricked-in fireplaces with a complex network of flues. When it was windy the walls moaned like in a medieval castle. Total immersion in history. Oh, and traditions, it’s certainly right about those. The absurdity that is the House was definitely a product of several generations of not-quite-right people. Those who followed needed only to “lovingly preserve” and reinforce.

“A massive library.” There was one. Game room, swimming pool, movie screen . . . all there, but each “there” came with its own little “except,” and then it turned out that actually using those luxuries would be impossible, dangerous, or unpleasant. The game room belonged to Bandar-Logs. That meant no Pheasants allowed. The library was the card players’. You could wheel up there and take out a book, but you were unlikely to want to return it. Swimming pool? Under construction for the past couple of years. “And it is going to be at least two years more, the roof is leaking,” as the Little Pigs had kindly clarified. Oh, they had been very kind for a while. Answering questions, showing and explaining. They were sure that they lived full and interesting lives in an uncommonly wondrous place. This had me completely floored. I shouldn’t have tried to convince them otherwise, I guess. Then maybe we’d still be friends. But as it was, the kindness was soon over, together with the budding friendships, and the three almost identical signatures appeared at the bottom of the letter demanding my transfer. They had still managed to teach me a lot. Almost everything I knew about the House I had learned from them. The life of a Pheasant was not conducive to new information. To anything new, really. Life in the First was rationed minute by minute.

In the canteen, think about food. In the classroom, think about learning. At the doctor, think about health. Shared fears, of catching a cold. Shared dreams, of a mutton chop for dinner. Uniform possessions, nothing extraneous. Every gesture automatic. Four parts to the day, divided by meals—breakfast, lunch, dinner. Movies once a week, on Saturdays. Assemblies on Mondays.

“Should we?”

“I could not help but notice . . .”

“The classroom is undoubtedly not aired out enough. It affects all of us.”

“That odd scratching noise . . . I am afraid it is rats after all.”

“Lodge a protest regarding the unsanitary condition of the premises, potentially leading to the spread of vermin . . .”

And slogans. Endless painted slogans.

In the classroom: When in class, think about class. Everything else—out of the way! In the dorm: Maintain silence, respect your roommates and Noise contributes to nervous disorders.

Steel cots in neat rows. White doilies on the pillows. Keep it clean! Cleanliness begins with your pillowcase! White nightstands, one for each two beds. Remember where you put your glass. Mark it with your number. Folded towels on the headboards, numbered as well. From six to eight the radio is on. Nothing to do? Listen to music. All those wishing to play chess or bingo, move to the classroom. When a television was installed in the classroom, there was a drop in the number of people in the dorm after classes. The television was moved. The blue rectangle now shines in the dorm until night, which for a Pheasant begins at nine, by which time he must be in bed, pajama-clad and ready to drift off to sleep. If you suffer from insomnia, seek medical help.

And it all begins anew in the morning. Calisthenics, sitting up. Making your bed. When dressing, help your neighbor and he will help you. Ablutions. Six sinks, rust rings around the plugholes. Wait for your turn, then be mindful of others waiting. Distorted faces in the puddles on the tiled floor. Breakfast. Classes. Lunch break. Homework. Quiet time. And so on, ad infinitum.

As I wheeled into the dorm, it turned out that I was no longer a ghost. The First knew of the transfer, I could see it in their faces as they stared at me. There was something slightly depraved in their curiosity. As if they were planning to eat me. It was all I could do not to turn around right there at the door. I wheeled to my bed instead and looked at the TV. A woman in a checkered apron was explaining how to make honeycakes. “Take three eggs, separating the whites . . .” Such programs were very beneficial before dinner. They stimulated the appetite. By the time the bell rang I knew how honeycakes were made, how they were served, and what kind of smile you were supposed to wear when serving them. I was, however, alone in possession of this new knowledge. Everyone else was ogling me, participating in the preparation of a completely different dish.

The departure from the dorm was organized three-in-a-row, as usual, so as to be able to take positions in front of the sinks without jostling and wash hands before the meal. I did not fall in. This was duly noted, with knowing glances all around.

I began shaking at the table. I was feeling the Pheasants’ stares on me. Which way would they turn once they’d had enough? But they couldn’t turn away. Or maybe they really didn’t know where I was being transferred.

Time stretched out into eternity.

Mashed potatoes. Carrot fritters. The fork with a bent tine. The lady in the white apron pushing the food cart, plates clanking as she goes. White walls. Deep arches of the windows.

I like the canteen. It’s the oldest place in the House. Or, rather, the least changed. Windows, walls, and the cracked tiles were quite probably the same as seventy years ago. And the tiled hearth, taking up one of the walls, with the locked cast-iron door. It’s beautiful. The only place where the exhortations stop, where you could tune out, look at the other groups, and imagine yourself being a non-Pheasant. That was my favorite game once. Right after I arrived. Then it got boring. And now it occurred to me that I could play it for real, that it wouldn’t be a game anymore.

Mashed potatoes and carrot fritters. Tea. Bread. Butter. Our table is in black and white. White shirts, black pants. White plates on black trays. Black trays on white tablecloth. The only colors are in the faces and hair.

The next table belongs to the Second. It’s the rowdiest and the most colorful. Dyed mullets, sunglasses, and beads. Thumping earphones. Rats, a cross between punks and clowns. There’s no tablecloth, no knives, and the forks are chained to the table. If a day passes without one of them pitching a fit, trying to tear off his fork and stab his neighbor with it, for a Rat that day is wasted. This is purely for show. Everyone in the Second always carries a switchblade or a razor, so all that fuss with the forks is just a way of showing respect for traditions. A little entertainment for the benefit of the dining public. At the head of the table sits Red. Enormous green shades, shaved head, a rose on the cheek, and a constant stupid smirk. Rat Leader. The second one already, that I’ve seen. Rat Leaders don’t last long.

The Third has its own show. They all wear huge bibs with kiddy designs and always lug around the pots with their favorite plants. Considering their perpetual mourning and sour countenance, this also looks like a circus, albeit a sinister one. Probably only Birds themselves are entertained by it. They grow flowers in their room, do embroidery and cross-stitching, they are the quietest and politest after us, but to even think that I might end up among them is horrifying. When I was still playing my favorite game I always skipped them over.

I suddenly have a vision, so palpably ghastly I can almost touch it.

I see myself in the dank and gloomy dorm of the Third. Ivy-covered windows let in very little light. Plants and more plants, in pots and tubs. The center of the room is occupied by the crumbling fireplace.

Birds are wielding needles, all in a row on low stools. On the mantelpiece sits Vulture, seemingly mummified and clad in moth-ridden ermine robes. He is puffing on a hookah and sending clouds of smoke our way.

From time to time one Bird or another gets up and demonstrates his handiwork to Vulture. I feel sick. Both from the heat and from the fact that my stitching looks hideous. The threads are all tangled, bunched, and tattered, I can’t even find my needle in that mess, but I know that sooner or later it is going to be my turn to go and present it, and I am deathly afraid. One careless movement and my elbow upends a pot standing nearby, it jumps off and breaks into pieces. The enormous geranium falls down, clods of earth and shards of pottery everywhere.

In the middle of the carnage on the floor—a very white, very clean human skull. The lower jaw is missing. Everyone freezes. They look at me, then at the skull. I hear a disgusting cackle.

“Why yes, Smoker, you are exactly right,” Vulture says, hopping down from the mantelpiece to hobble toward me. “That’s our previous transfer, may he rest in peace!”

He laughs, demonstrating his unnaturally sharp, almost sharklike teeth . . .

Here I snapped out of it, because I felt my real self in the center of attention, not of Birds but of my own dear Pheasants. They were watching me with great interest. Vulture’s sharp-toothed rictus withered down to Gin’s lopsided grin, turning my stomach. I bent down to my fritter, hating them so much I nearly threw up. My daydream was just that, a dream. The real scavengers were sitting right here, scanning my face in search of traces of sweat, wetting their lips in anticipation. I suddenly realized that I would rather become a Bird, right this moment. Wear black, learn embroidering, dig up a hundred skulls hidden in flower pots. Anything, just to leave the First. What really upset me was that these feelings could also look from the outside like a panic attack. “That’s it,” I told myself, “no more games. Wait until tomorrow. Only thirteen hours left.”

Once, when I was smoking in the teachers’ bathroom, flinching at every sound, Sphinx came in there. I was so spooked I threw away the cigarette.

“Look at that, a Pheasant smoking!” Sphinx said, staring at the cigarette butt at his feet, starting to get soggy on the damp tiles. “Wouldn’t have believed it if someone told me.”

Then he laughed. Gangling, bald, armless. Eyes as green as grass. Broken nose, sarcastic mouth, always lifted at the corners. Black-gloved prosthetics.

“Got any more smokes?”

I nodded, astonished. He had actually addressed me. No one talked to Pheasants. It just was not done. I almost expected he was going to say next, “Mind if I have one?” but no such luck.

“That’s nice” was all he said.

And then he left.

I hadn’t assumed for a second he’d say anything to anyone about this. I was wrong.

When people started calling me Smoker a couple of days later, I did not put two and two together at first. He was not the only one who knew. The Little Pigs enlightened me again. Turns out, Sphinx had given me a new nick. Became my godfather. The House nearly collapsed, because that had never happened before. No one had ever christened a Pheasant. Much less someone like Sphinx. Above him there was only Blind, and above Blind there was only the roof and the swallows’ nests.

All this made me a kind of celebrity among non-Pheasants and made all Pheasants hate me, without exception. The new nick sounded to them slightly worse than Jack the Ripper. It annoyed them. It marred their image. But they could not undo it. They didn’t have the authority.

I decided not to imagine myself in the Fourth. My snitch of a godfather was there, along with crazy Noble, who’d knocked out one of my teeth when I accidentally locked wheels with him. Also Tabaqui the Jackal, who once sprayed me with some stinky crap from a canister marked Danger, and Lary the Bandar-Log, who coordinated all assaults of Logs on Pheasants. Imagining myself among them didn’t help. I had enough trouble as it was.

I finished the soggy fritter. Drank my tea. Ate the bread and butter. Sketched out in my head two separate plans for running away. They were both utterly unworkable, but it still cheered me up. Then dinner ended.

I didn’t return to the dorm. I had a smoke in the teachers’ bathroom and went back to the canteen. The landing in front of it was usually empty. There weren’t many places like that in the House. I parked the wheelchair by the window and stared at the darkening tops of the trees outside until the lights switched on in the hallway. They made the trees too dark. I wheeled away and started going back and forth in front of the notice boards. There wasn’t anything else I could look at. I read them all again for the hundredth time and for the hundredth time found that they never changed. It was the ones behind the boards that changed, all right. They were made in marker, crayon, and paint, and they changed so quickly that those who wanted to leave a message had to paint over the old ones, wait for it to dry, and write on top. Some things were too important for the House denizens not to do properly. I didn’t usually read the writings. There were too many of them, and most were too silly. But tonight I had nothing better to do. I parked the wheelchair alongside the boards and peeked into the space between them.

HUNTING SEASON IS OPEN.

SHOOTING LICENSES AS PER PRICE LIST.

THURSDAY. SQUIB.

I tried to imagine whom or what one could shoot here. Mice? Stray cats? And what with? Slingshots? I sighed and went on reading.

Scores, day bef. yesterday.

Morn. Laundry.

Astrological services. Experienced practitioner.

Cof. Daily. 6 to 7 pm.

HOW TO ACKNOWLEDGE SHORTCOMINGS.

SHALL IMPART OWN PRICELESS EXPERIENCE.

THE ENLIGHTENED ONE.

SCORES, YESTERDAY. MORN.

THRD BUFFALO LEFT OF ENTR.

Half pound of Roquefort. Cheap.

Whitebelly.

“EXPAND THE BOUNDARIES OF THE UNIVERSE!”

COF. THUR.

BAR MGR., RQST. MOON RIVER #64.

NONSTANDARD FOOTWEAR REQD.

This notice stopped me cold. I reread it. Looked above it. Looked at it again. Looked at my sneakers. Coincidence? Most likely. But I loathed going back to the dorm. I knew what “Cof.” was and where it was. I also knew that I would not be welcome there, and that no sane Pheasant would ever try to get in. On the other hand, what did I have to lose? Why not expand the boundaries? I buffed the sneakers with my handkerchief a bit, to restore the luster, and wheeled off to the Coffeepot.

On the second floor, the hallway was long like a garden hose and had no windows. The only windows were in front of the canteen and on the landing. The hallway started at the stairs, was then interrupted by the anteroom to the canteen, and then went on to the other stairs. Canteen at one end, with the staff room and principal’s office opposite. Then our two rooms, a disused one, the biology classroom, the abandoned bathroom that everyone called “the teachers’ bathroom” and that I used as a smoking hideaway, and then the common room that had been closed for interminable renovations since before my arrival. That was all familiar territory. It ended at the lobby, a gloomy expanse at the crossroads, with windows looking out into the yard, a sofa in the middle, and a broken TV in the corner. I’d never ventured beyond it. There was an invisible boundary, and Pheasants did their best never to cross it.

I boldly crossed to the other side, went through the hallway beyond the lobby, and found myself in a different world.

It looked like an explosion in a paint shop. Several explosions. Our side had the drawings and scribbles too, but this side did not simply have them, it was them. Enormous, human-sized and bigger, leaping off the walls—they flowed and intertwined, scrambled on top of each other, fizzed and jumped, extended to the ceiling and shrank back. The walls on both sides swelled with murals until the corridor started to seem narrower. It was like driving through a maniac’s nightmare.

The doors of the Second bristled with blue skulls, purple thunderbolts, and warning signs. It was obvious whose territory this was, so I cautiously veered toward the opposite wall. These doors could suddenly disgorge anything, from razors and bottles to whole Rats. The area was already thick with broken glass and general detritus, and this mess crunched underwheel like brittle old bones.

The door I was looking for was slightly ajar, and a good thing too or I would have missed it. Coffee and tea only, proclaimed the plain white sign. The rest of the door was painted in bamboo patterns, indistinguishable from the surrounding walls. I peeked in to make sure this really was the Coffeepot. A dimly lit space, lots of round tables. Chinese lanterns and Japanese origami hanging from the ceiling, horrifying masks and framed black-and-white photos on the walls. And a bar by the door, assembled from parts of lecterns and painted blue.

I pulled the door a bit wider. A bell clanked and I saw faces turn toward me. The nearest were two Hounds in collars. Farther in I could see Rats’ colorful mullets. I decided not to look any more closely and wheeled to the bar.

“Sixty-four, please!” I blurted out, as the notice had said, and only then looked up.

Rabbit, plump and bucktoothed, also in a collar, was gawking at me from behind the counter.

“Say what?” he asked, astounded.

“Number sixty-four,” I repeated, feeling very stupid. “Moon River.”

There were sniggers at the tables.

“The Pheasant’s going places!” someone shouted. “Did you hear that?”

“A Pheasant suicide!”

“No, that’s a new breed. Jet Pheasant!”

“It’s their king. Emperor Pheasant.”

“This can’t be a Pheasant. It’s a changeling.”

“And a sick one too, otherwise why would he want to change into a Pheasant?”

While the customers were cracking jokes at my expense, Rabbit solemnly stepped out from behind the counter, went around to my side, and stared at my feet. He studied them intently for what seemed like an eternity and finally said, “No good.”

“Why not?” I whispered. “The notice said nonstandard.”

“Don’t know anything about any notices,” Rabbit said sternly and went back to his nook. “Come on, get out of here.”

I stared at the sneakers.

They no longer looked like flames. There were too few windows in the Coffeepot, and no Pheasants at all. It was a stupid thing to have done. I shouldn’t have come up here to be ridiculed. The sneakers were perfectly ordinary to everyone except Pheasants. I’d somehow managed to forget about that.

“They are not standard,” I said. Mostly to myself, I wasn’t trying to convince anyone. Then I turned toward the door.

“Hey, Pheasant!” I heard from the farthermost table.

I wheeled around.

There, over the intricately decorated coffee cups, sat the wheelers of the Fourth. Noble, he of the fair hair and gray eyes, beautiful as an elven king, and Tabaqui the Jackal—pint-sized, frizzy-haired, and big-eared, like a lemur in a wig.

“Tell you what, Rabbit,” Noble said, keeping his chilly gaze on me, “this is the first time that I’ve seen a Pheasant whose footwear does not adhere to what I would call a certain standard. I am surprised you didn’t notice that.”

“Exactly right,” Tabaqui jumped in excitedly. “That’s exactly what I noticed, too. And then I said to myself: He’s a goner. They are going to peck him to death. Rabbit, you give him the Sixty-Four. That may just be the only bright spot he has left. Drive over here, babe! We’ll have your order filled.”

I was unsure whether to accept the invitation, but Hounds pulled in their legs and chairs, making a path wide enough for an elephant to drive through, so I had no choice.

Tabaqui, the one who’d called me babe, looked no more than fourteen himself. But only from a distance. Up close he might as easily have passed for thirty. He was clad in three vests, and under them he had on three different T-shirts, in green, pink, and blue, and still you were struck by how skinny he was. All three vests were equipped with multiple pockets, and all of them bulged. He was also bedecked in beads, buttons, amulets, neck pouches, pins, and little bells, all looking either very worn or slightly grubby. Noble, in his white shirt and blue chinos, appeared almost naked by comparison. Naked and squeaky clean.

“What do you need Moon River for?” Noble asked.

“Nothing much,” I said honestly. “Just wanted to try it.”

“Do you even know what it is?”

I shook my head. “Some sort of cocktail?”

Noble’s stare filled with pity. His skin was so fair that it seemed to glow. His eyebrows and lashes were darker than the hair, and his eyes were now gray, now blue. Not even his sour scowl managed to spoil the impression. Not even the zits on his chin.

I had never met anyone else so beautiful it hurt just to look at them. Noble was the only one. About a month ago he had knocked out one of my teeth when I locked wheels with him, coming out of the canteen. I’d never seen him up close before. I hadn’t even had time to think. I’d just stared and missed what he was saying. Next thing I knew the beautiful elf swung for my jaw, and that was the end of the rapture. For a week after that I tracked close to the walls, shrank from passersby, spent untold hours at the dentist’s office, and couldn’t sleep at night.

Of all people, Noble was the least likely to be my tablemate in the Coffeepot and, if it were up to me, the least likely to have a conversation with. But that’s how it turned out. He was asking questions, I was answering them, and his damned looks started to work their magic again. It was very hard to constantly keep in mind what he really was while being so close to him. Besides, I developed a nagging feeling that this Moon River thing wasn’t exactly a harmless drink. Rather, it was something I shouldn’t have been drinking at all.

Just as I was fretting about it, there it was. Rabbit put the tiny cup on the table and pushed it toward me.

“This is going to be on your conscience,” he warned the other wheelers.

I peeked inside the cup and saw an oily smear on the bottom. There wasn’t enough there to fill a thimble.

“Wow!” I said. “So little.”

Rabbit sighed loudly. He did not go away. He was standing there waiting for something.

“Money,” he said finally. “Are you gonna pay?”

I panicked. I didn’t have any on me.

“How much does it cost?” I asked.

Rabbit turned to Tabaqui and said, “Look, it’s all your fault. I wouldn’t have given him anything. He’s a Pheasant, he’s got no sense at all.”

“Shut up,” Noble said, thrusting a hundred at him. “And get lost.”

Rabbit took the bill and left, but not before giving Noble a dirty look.

“Drink up,” Noble said. “If you really want it.”

I looked into the cup again.

“Not really. Not anymore.”

“And you’re right!” Tabaqui exclaimed. “What for? You don’t have to, and besides, why that, all of a sudden? Have some coffee instead. And a roll.”

“No. Thank you.”

I was extremely embarrassed. All I wanted to do was go away as soon as I could.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t know it was so expensive.”

“Nonsense. So you didn’t, so what? The less you know, the longer you live,” Tabaqui squeaked, before suddenly screaming, “Three coffees!”

And then he spun the wheels and went spinning himself. I didn’t notice how he did it, when he pushed what, but he was spinning like crazy, shedding morsels of food, beads, and other stuff, like a trash bin whirling on the end of a string. A small feather settled on my shoulder.

“No, really, thank you,” I said.

The carousel stopped.

“Why not? Have you got other plans?”

“I haven’t got money.”

Tabaqui blinked like an owl. His hair was standing on end from all that spinning. He looked really deranged now.

“What money? It’s Noble’s treat. We invited you over, after all. The price is trifling, by the way.”

Rabbit brought a tray with three cups of coffee, cream in a pot, and some mangled rolls. No one was listening to my protests.

“You don’t have to treat me,” I tried again. “I don’t want anything.”

“Oh, I get it,” Tabaqui drawled and sat back in his wheelchair. “See, Noble? Who would want to have coffee with you after you broke his face? No one, that’s who.”

I felt my face flushing. Noble was drumming his fingers on the table and did not look at us.

“Why don’t you go ahead and apologize,” Tabaqui said. “Or he’ll just go away. And you’ll get what you always get. Nothing.”

Noble went red. Very quickly and very visibly, as if someone had slapped his cheeks.

“Why don’t you stop telling me what to do!”

Now I didn’t want to just go away, I wanted to fall through the floor. That would’ve been faster. I turned the wheelchair around.

“I’m sorry,” Noble mumbled without looking up.

I froze. My wheelchair half-turned, my head between the shoulder blades. That didn’t make any sense at all. In all of my dreams of revenge, Noble never apologized. I could not imagine him doing that. I would knock out all of his teeth, fracture his jaw, make him slightly less beautiful, make him swear and spit blood, but we had never gotten as far as an apology.

“I wasn’t myself that day,” Noble went on. “Behaved like a total jerk. If you were to go to the Spiders I’d have problems. You have no idea how big. I couldn’t sleep for two days straight. Waiting for them to come knocking. And then I figured you hadn’t told anyone. I wanted to apologize but couldn’t. It just wouldn’t come out. It only came out today because of Jackal here.”

Noble finished and finally looked at me. It was not a kind look.

I didn’t say anything. What could I say? “I forgive you” would have sounded stupid. “I’ll never forgive you” was even worse.

“I don’t understand,” I said.

“What is it you don’t understand?” Tabaqui the Jackal interjected immediately.

“Anything.”

“But would you have some coffee with us now?” he asked coyly.

Really persistent, he was.

I wheeled back to the table and took the cup off the tray.

“This isn’t right,” I said. “This isn’t how it goes. You are breaking the rules. No one ever apologizes to a Pheasant. No one. Not even after knocking his head off.”

“Where is that written?” Tabaqui said. “I have never heard of this rule.”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. Same place as all the other rules, I guess. But it’s there, whether written or not.”

“That’s rich!” Tabaqui was looking at me with what seemed almost like awe. “Look at him! He is teaching me the House rules. Me! The nerve!”

Noble was fiddling with the cup of Moon River, studying it.

“What do they make it from?” he asked. “What’s in it?”

“I don’t know,” Tabaqui snorted. “Some say toadstool extract, others, Vulture’s tears. I guess it is possible that Bird Daddy cries bitter green poison. Who could really tell? But it is poisonous, all right. Those of a romantic persuasion insist that it’s just midnight dew collected at a full moon. But dew is unlikely to have sickened so many people. Unless it’s been collected in the sock of a Bandar-Log, of course.”

“Give me a bottle or something,” Noble said, putting out his hand.

Tabaqui frowned.

“Want to off yourself? Get some rat poison instead. It’s more certain. And much more predictable.”

Noble was still waiting with his hand out.

“Oh, all right,” Tabaqui grumbled, digging in his pockets. “Go ahead, drink whatever you want. Who am I to say anything? I’ve always been one for freedom of choice, you know.”

He handed Noble a tiny vial. We observed Noble carefully transferring the contents of the cup into it.

“What about you?” Jackal turned to me. “You’re awfully silent. Tell us something exciting. They say that all the recent Pheasant assemblies were dedicated to you.”

I sprayed a mouthful of coffee on my shirt. “How did you know? I thought no one cared what we did.”

“You thought a lot about us that is strange.” Tabaqui giggled. “We strut like stuck-up peacocks, never noticing anything that’s going on around us. From time to time we knock someone’s head off but never notice that either. Our shoulders are heavy with the White Man’s Burden and our hands are weighed down with this thick tome of House Rules and Regulations, where it is written, Attack the weakest, kick a man when he’s down, spoil what you cannot get, and other such useful advice.”

That was actually pretty close to what I thought of them, and I couldn’t help smiling.

“There,” Tabaqui sighed, “just as I thought. I was not far off, then. But if you had even a smidgen of tact, you wouldn’t have demonstrated it so openly.”

“What are those assemblies you’re talking about?” Noble said and tossed a pack of Camels over to me. “I’ve never heard of them.”

Tabaqui went momentarily speechless with indignation. I laughed.

“See! This is how you and those like you besmirch our image!” Jackal screeched and snatched the cigarettes from under my nose. “It is because of you that we are perceived as stuck-up peacocks! You have to be a complete nitwit not to know of the Pheasant assemblies. Please don’t judge us by him,” he said, turning to me. “He hasn’t been here for more than a couple of weeks and is really quite ignorant.”

“Two years and ninety days,” Noble said. “And he still calls me a newbie.”

Tabaqui reached over and patted his arm.

“Sorry, old man. I know this grates on you. But if you were to compare your two with my twelve, you’d understand that I have every right to call you that.”

Noble scrunched up his face as if all his teeth had started aching at the same time. Tabaqui seemed to enjoy that. He even pinked up a little. He lit a cigarette and looked at me with the all-knowing smile of a veteran.

“So . . . We haven’t really learned anything new except how much learning Noble has ahead of him. And still you’re silent.”

I shrugged. Good coffee. Funny Tabaqui. Friendly Noble. I relaxed and decided that it wouldn’t be too dangerous to tell them the truth.

“They threw me out,” I confessed. “By a unanimous vote. They drafted a petition to Shark and he agreed. I’m being transferred to another group.”

The wheelers of the Fourth put their cups down and exchanged glances.

“Where to?” Jackal said, trembling with anticipation.

“I don’t know. Shark never said. Claims it hasn’t been decided yet.”

“Asshole,” Noble spit out. “Lives like one and will die like one.”

“Now wait a minute!” Tabaqui frowned, made some quick calculations in his head, and gaped at us. “It’s either us or the Third. No other way.”

They exchanged glances again.

“That’s what I thought too,” I said.

We were silent for a while. Rabbit must have really liked saxophones. The boombox on the counter was wailing continuously. The paper lanterns swayed in the breeze.

“So that’s why you went asking for Moon River,” Tabaqui mumbled. “I see now.”

“Have a smoke,” Noble said in a pitying voice. “Why aren’t you smoking? Tabaqui, give him the cigarettes.”

Jackal absently proffered me the pack. He had very long fingers, like spiders’ legs. Very long and very dirty.

“Right,” he said dreamily. “Either/or. Either you find out the color of Vulture’s tears, or we all witness the lamentations of Lary.”

“You think Vulture’s going to cry?” Noble said.

“Of course. Copiously! Just like Walrus when eating the Oysters.”

“You mean he’ll eat me,” I clarified.

“But with deep sympathy,” Tabaqui said. “He in fact possesses a very gentle and tender soul.”

“Thank you,” I said. “Very comforting.”

Jackal wasn’t deaf. He sniffled and reddened a little.

“Well . . . That was by way of me exaggerating. Slightly. I like scaring people. He’s actually a nice guy. A bit out of his head, but only a bit.”

“Thanks a lot.”

“You know what? We should invite him over to our table!” Tabaqui exclaimed suddenly. “Why not? It’s a good idea. You can get to know him better, have a little talk. He’d like that.”

I looked around nervously. Vulture wasn’t here in the Coffeepot. I knew that for certain, but I still got scared that I might have been mistaken, or that he’d appeared while I wasn’t looking, and now Jackal was going to ask him over to meet me.

“Why are you so jumpy?” Tabaqui chided me. “I told you, he’s really nice. You get used to him quickly. Besides, he’s not here. I meant to invite him over through Birds,” he added nodding at the next table, where two of the sour-faced mourning brigade were playing cards.

“Tabaqui, stop it,” Noble said. “Leave Vulture alone. Our chances to land a new one are much better than the Third’s, so if you are really in a hurry go invite Blind.”

Tabaqui scratched himself, fidgeted, grabbed a roll, and swallowed it whole.

“Drat,” he said with a full mouth, showering himself with crumbs. “So much anxiety . . .” He picked up all the dropped pieces and stuffed them in too. “I am so anxious! How, oh how would Blind react?”

“Same as always,” Noble said. “He won’t. Whenever has he reacted to anything?”

“You’re right,” Tabaqui admitted reluctantly. “Practically never. You see”—he winked at me—“our Leader, may his Leadership days last and last, is blind as a bat and so has some trouble reacting. He usually entrusts it to Sphinx. ‘Do me a favor, react for me,’ he says. So poor little Sphinx ends up reacting double. Maybe that’s why he went bald. It must be very tiresome, you know.”

“You’re saying he wasn’t always bald?” Noble said.

Tabaqui sent him a withering look. “What do you mean, ‘always’? Like born with it? Maybe he was born bald, but by the time I met him, Sphinx had ample hair up top, thank you very much!”

Noble said he could not imagine it. Tabaqui countered that Noble always had trouble with his imagination.

I finally lit a cigarette. Tabaqui’s antics made me want to laugh out loud, but I was afraid it would sound like hysterics.

“And besides!” Tabaqui remembered suddenly. “Sphinx christened you. How could I forget? You see how nicely it all fits together? Since you are his godson, he’s going to react to you like he’s your loving mommy. Happy ending all around.”

I seriously doubted that a bald snitch like Sphinx feeling motherly toward me looked like a happy ending, and I said so.

“Your loss,” Tabaqui said crossly. “Really your loss. Sphinx would make a decent mother. Trust me.”

“Right. Especially if you ask Black.” Noble presented a fake smile. “There he is, by the way. Call him over. He can tell Smoker what kind of mother Sphinx makes.”

“You’re twisting my words,” Jackal protested. “I never said for everyone. It goes without saying that as far as Black is concerned, Sphinx is more like a stepmother.”

“An evil one,” Noble said sweetly. “From those German fairy tales that make children scream at night.”

Tabaqui pretended not to hear that.

“Hey! Over here, old man,” he shouted, waving his arms. “We’re right here! Look this way! Hello-o! I’m afraid his eyes are completely shot,” he said with concern, grabbing the last of the rolls. “That’s because of all those weights. Pumping iron is not as healthy as it’s cracked up to be, you know. And what’s more important,” he continued after consuming the roll in two gulps, “he needs to watch his calorie intake. So it would be a good thing not to leave too many carbs lying around. Isn’t that right, Black?”

Black, a morose fellow with a blond buzz cut, approached with a chair that he swiped on the way, placed it next to Noble, sat down, and stared at me.

“What’s right?”

“That you shouldn’t overeat. That you’re heavy as it is.”

Black said nothing. He really was heavy, but certainly not from overeating. He appeared to have been constructed that way. Then he had bulked up his muscles on various pieces of equipment and become even more imposing. A tank top left his biceps exposed, and I was studying them appreciatively while he was studying me. Tabaqui informed him that I was being transferred, and most likely to the Fourth, to them.

“Unless it’s the Third, except it’s not, because it’s obvious that when you have a choice you always choose where there’s more free space.”

“So?” was the extent of Black’s response. His arms looked like hams, and his blue eyes seemed unblinking.

Tabaqui was crestfallen.

“What do you mean, ‘so’? You are the first to get an exclusive scoop!”

“And what am I supposed to do with it?”

“You’re supposed to be astonished! Surprised, at the very least!”

“I am surprised.”

Black got up, bumping a paper lantern with his head, and went to sit at an empty table two spaces over from us. There he proceeded to extract a paperback from his vest pocket and transferred his attention to it, blinking myopically.

“There,” Tabaqui fumed. “And to think we were denigrating Blind’s responses. Compared to Black, he is vitality incarnate!”

He was exaggerating about vitality. I’d first met Blind in the hospital wing. We were roommates. In the three days we spent there, he didn’t say a single word. He also almost never stirred, so I came to regard him as just a part of the landscape. He was gaunt, but not tall, his jeans would fit a thirteen-year-old, and both of his wrists together made one of mine. Next to him I was the picture of health. I did not know who he was then, so I just figured he was being bullied a lot. And now, watching Black, I thought that if anyone looked like a Leader in the Fourth, it was certainly him, and not Blind.

“It’s so weird,” I said. “I don’t get it.”

“Yep. See, you caught it as well.” Tabaqui nodded. “Of course it’s weird. You look at Black, this tower of power, and even he is walking in the shadow of Blind. That’s what you meant, right? He’s such a commanding presence. Regal, even. Right? We’re all amazed. We live side by side with him, and all day, every day, we are amazed. How come—here he is, and yet he’s not the Leader? And the one who’s the most amazed is Black himself. He wakes up at dawn, casts his gaze about, and inquires, ‘For why?’ Day after day after day.”

“Can it, Tabaqui,” Noble said. “That’s enough.”

“I am angry,” Tabaqui explained, draining his coffee. “Can’t abide those apathetic types.”

I finished my coffee as well, along with my second cigarette. It was clearly time to go. I didn’t want to, though. It was so nice in the Coffeepot. To sit here, to smoke openly, to drink coffee—which, for the denizens of the First, was a kind of mild arsenic. The only thing nagging me was the thought of Tabaqui telling someone else of my transfer. I figured I should leave before that happened. Tabaqui, in the meantime, took out a pad and started scribbling in it with a pen that formerly rested behind his ear.

“Right . . . Right . . . ,” he was mumbling. “Of course . . . And don’t forget this . . . Naturally. Now that is completely out of the question.”

Noble was spinning the lighter on the edge of the table.

“I think I’d better go,” I said.

“Just a sec.” Tabaqui scribbled for a while longer, then tore out the page and handed it to me. “It’s all here. The basics, at least. Study it, remember it, use it.”

I stared at his chickenscratch.

“What’s this?”

“A guide,” Tabaqui sighed. “The essential information. Survival rules for a migrant. On top: in case of transfer to us. Underneath: to the Third.”

I looked closer.

“Something about plants . . . Watches . . . And what do the linens have to do with it? Don’t you get them as well?”

“We do. But it’s best not to leave behind anything that bears your imprint.”

“What imprint? It’s not like I smear shoe polish on myself before going to bed.”

Tabaqui gave me that look again—of a grizzled veteran aggrieved by much wisdom.

“Look, it’s simple. Everything that’s yours you take with you. Whatever you cannot take you destroy. Nothing that belonged to you must remain. What if you were to die tomorrow? Would you like a black ribbon tied to your cup, accompanied by a disgusting note along the lines of The memory of you is forever in our hearts, O prodigal brother of ours?”

I shuddered.

“All right. I get that. But . . . watches?”

A transferee to the Fourth is strongly advised to rid himself of any and all devices designed to measure time: wristwatches, stopwatches, alarm clocks, precision chronographs, etc. Any attempt to conceal such an item shall be immediately uncovered by the resident expert and, to prevent reoccurrences of this highly provocative behavior, the offending person shall be assigned a penance devised and approved by said expert.

For anyone being transferred to the domain of the Third, a.k.a. “the Nesting,” it is advisable to acquire the following items: a set of keys (provenance unimportant), two flowerpots in good condition, no fewer than four pairs of black socks, an amulet against allergies, earplugs, a copy of The Day of the Triffids by J. Wyndham, and an old dried plant collection.

Irrespective of the above, anyone being transferred anywhere is advised not to leave in the quarters being vacated: clothes, linens, personal effects, items created by the person himself, and any traces of organic matter—hair, nails, saliva, semen, used bandages, Band-Aids, or handkerchiefs.

I didn’t sleep that night. I listened to the breathing of those who did and stared into the darkness of the ceiling until it started lightening up and revealing familiar cracks. Then I thought that this was the last time I was seeing them and counted them all again. Then the dial of the big clock on the wall became discernible, but I purposefully avoided looking at it. This was the most unbearable night I’d ever spent in the House. By the wake-up bell I was already half-dressed. It took me all of ten minutes to gather my things. I packed a change of underwear, pajamas, and textbooks, making sure not to take anything that was bearing a number. Just as I had suspected, Shark did not appear at the assigned time. The group left for breakfast without me. They returned and wheeled off to class, and still he hadn’t come. Not at ten, not at eleven, not at twelve.

By half past twelve I had gnawed off all my fingernails, wheeled around the dorm a couple hundred times, and realized that I was going to crack soon. I took out Tabaqui’s “migrant’s guide,” reread it, then stripped the linens off the bed. I packed them too, then gathered all tissues in the vicinity of my bed and nightstand. Stopped my watch and buried it at the bottom of the bag. Took the cigarettes out of the secret place, lit up, and started figuring out how to assemble a plant collection from materials at hand. That’s when Shark arrived, with a surly Case in tow, for help with carrying, and Homer, for help with seeing off. Homer was not able to perform his duties with dignity, though. The cigarette proved too much for him. He bolted as soon as he saw it. He didn’t even say good-bye. Shark ignored the cigarette but inquired what the hell did I take off the linens for.

“They’re fresh,” I said. “Only changed yesterday. Why use an extra set?”

He looked at me like I was mental and grumbled something about “those Pheasant tricks,” even though he himself had come down on me yesterday for using the word. I told him I could leave the linens behind if it was such a big deal. He told me to shut up.

Case maneuvered my wheelchair, bumping it against the beds, and wheeled me out to the hallway, where he entrusted me into Shark’s care and returned for my bag. Then Shark was rolling the wheelchair while Case was lugging the bag. We covered the familiar ground quickly and then, no matter how I tried to catch a glimpse of something identifiable, I couldn’t recognize anything. It was as if all the drawings and markers had changed since last night. I missed both the Second and the Coffeepot and realized it only when we stopped in front of the door with the enormous 4 outlined on it in chalk.