The Gray House

Raptor and Shark came bursting into the canteen together, hooting and hollering as they saw Ralph there. Godmother entered quietly and unassumingly, and took her place at the next table.

“You bastard, making me sit and wait for your notice! Do you care at all?”

Shark dragged a chair over, plopped on it, moaned, and loosened his tie.

“Then we run to your damn office and see that damn notice on the desk! You couldn’t even be bothered to bring it over for me to sign! Planning to split on the sly, weren’t you?”

“You said you weren’t signing it.”

Shark noted Ralph’s duffel under the table, made a face, and told Raptor to get some pie for him too.

“Two slices. No, one slice and some scrambled eggs. And a coffee. I urgently need sustenance.”

Raptor went over to the serving window.

Godmother pulled her chair closer to their table.

“You have surprised and disappointed us. Couldn’t this public display of disapproval have been avoided?”

Ralph shrugged.

“It could. I’m just not used to being manipulated.”

She sighed.

“No one was manipulating you. Your perception of the situation is prejudiced.”

They were silent when Raptor returned with a tray. They were silent while Shark shoveled food in his mouth. Godmother’s hands rested on the table, palm to palm, the pristine cuffs setting off the grubbiness of the tablecloth, which had looked perfectly clean until she appeared. Ralph knew that Godmother wasn’t going to move until he finished his tea, until Shark was satiated, until Raptor stopped fidgeting. Like a statue. She didn’t need to engage her hands, to shift her pose, to busy her mouth with idle conversation. She could simply wait. It was unbearable.

“You would make an excellent sniper,” Ralph said.

“Pardon?”

Shark pointed his fork at Ralph.

“Let it be noted that you haven’t proposed anything. Anything! And when the people who were desperately seeking a solution made suggestions, you went on a crusade against them and then washed your hands of the whole thing! How’s that fair? What is your problem with the decision to move up the date? Because I seem to have noticed it wasn’t to your liking either.”

“Then you probably also noticed that I wasn’t arguing with that one. I don’t like it, true, but it certainly has a chance.”

“Aha!” Shark said. “So what you didn’t like was not being among the elect, right?”

“Wrong. I don’t care about the exact date. Especially considering that it would be fairly easy to calculate.”

“Then what precisely do you object to with regards to that proposal?”

“Its cruelty.”

He was unprepared for the indignation that flashed in Godmother’s expression.

“Cruelty?” she repeated, and her voice trembled with suppressed emotion. “Do you mean to suggest that this is more cruel than what happened six years ago?”

“No. Which is why I didn’t argue.”

Godmother pursed her lips. Ralph again was overwhelmed by a suspicion that this was all a performance. At this particular moment she was playing the indignation that she wasn’t feeling. He didn’t understand why she would need to do that, just as he didn’t understand why she’d come here to persuade him to stay, now that she’d done everything in her power to make him leave. He didn’t understand too much of what this woman was doing, and the sheer volume of that ignorance was starting to affect him. Shark and Raptor were so engrossed in their exchange that they forgot all about the coffee. They looked like a pair of Bandar-Logs, only older—the same naked, shameless, prying curiosity.

“The first suggestion is simply dishonest. But the second is abusive. I will not tolerate my students being abused.”

Godmother’s face was a mask of equal parts weariness and disgust.

She blushes from the neck up, Ralph thought. And it makes her look older. What is she after? Power? A position on top of the pecking order? In a place where there’s soon going to be no one left to peck? Or is she in such a panic over the graduation that she’s honestly searching for ways out of the tight corner she’s been placed in, and the methods she’s employing are simply what come naturally to her?

He didn’t believe any of that. Not her panic, not her sudden desire to rule the roost, and least of all her selfless, breathless service to the principal. Godmother wasn’t cowardly, servile, or stupid. He did not understand her motives, and that made him vulnerable. He didn’t know what he was fighting against.