The Gray House

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?”