The Gray House

“A dozen of them,” he says. “I need someone they would follow. Run and drive after. Someone who is capable of walking them over. The Pied Piper. He must love children and animals. He must be one of those who always have homeless puppies and hungry kittens tagging after them. His playing needs to assure them that a warm home and tasty food await where he’s taking them.”

Humpback sits back down.

“This is crazy,” he mumbles. “Complete nonsense! Do you even understand what it is you’re babbling, Blind? I’m not the Pied Piper. He only exists in fairy tales! And I am not him! I don’t believe in all this, anyway!”

“Believing is not a requirement.”

Nanette drops some debris on Humpback’s head and caws coyly. Humpback shakes the adornments out of his hair.

“Go away,” he says. “Please.”

Blind steps down onto the next branch, but before he is able to slide down the trunk, Humpback grabs his sleeve.

“You can’t know these things about me,” he says. “You just imagine that I am the one you need.”

Blind takes the sleeve away.

“I do sometimes become a changeling,” he says. “And it’s a lot like being a dog. I’m sorry, but I happen to know for sure whom I’d follow if I were a pup. That’s about the only difference between us: I’m a little bit more of a dog than you are.”

“You’re a little bit more of a whole bunch of things,” Humpback mutters. “And a little less of a human. No space for him, with so much other stuff in there.”

“But you like dogs.”

“They’re better than humans.”

“Then I am better, too.”

“I don’t like you.”

“That’s only because I don’t eat out of your hand or wag my tail.”

Humpback is silent. Blind feels that he’s chewing on something. An oak leaf, too?

“I was not going to shoot again,” Humpback says reluctantly. “I almost threw up after the first shot anyway. They said you’d eaten the rabbit. You know, the one that disappeared from the cage. The one we looked for all over the House. Rex showed me its bones and skin. They said that you’d eaten it raw. At first I just wanted to beat you up, but then I took the crossbow and made a hunt out of it. Like in the movies . . . the dark avenger . . . all because of a rabbit!” Humpback giggles nervously. “Defender of Nature . . .”

“I didn’t eat it. Do you really think I would kill a rabbit and then keep its bones under my bed?”

“How do you know where they were?”

“I found them. I thought they were rat bones and threw them away.”

“You could be telling the truth,” Humpback sighs. “I have no way of knowing. I’m sorry I said all those things. And I lied about the song. Of course I remember it. I just hate it when people listen in on my playing. I hate it when they listen in, period. Read my poems. See my dreams. I need to have something that’s mine, where no one else can sneak in.”

He sighs again.

“How is it, when you see other people’s dreams?”

How is it? Sad. Agonizing. The dreams never speak of anything you need to know. Nothing is really the way it looks in someone’s dream. There everything is too shaky, the transitions are too fast, and if you try looking closer at a face it immediately disappears. Only by picking the tiny pieces, by noticing the barely noticeable similarities, by threading familiar paths through many, many dreams can you assemble the picture of someone’s world. You could even try looking for yourself in it. You will start spotting your own face, or rather your white mask, more and more often, until one day you look into your own eyes and see how limpid they are. I am beautiful! will be your rapturous thought, your smugness will bleed through and become visible to everyone, and they will all turn away from you, but you won’t care anymore. Your happiness will last for a spell, you’ll even begin brushing your hair. Until your next encounter with yourself, where you’ll have the deathly-white eyes of a boiled fish, and your face will be covered in disgusting pustules. You’ll shrink back in horror, and from that day you’ll hide your eyes behind long hair and dark glasses, become an outcast, believing yourself too ugly to be close to other people. Until the next dream encounter. This time you’ll have no eyes at all. You will grow resentful of those who have been seeing you as that eyeless monster, and stop visiting their dreams. Only later will you realize that everything is deceitful in the dreams of others, including your own face, and the only thing that matters is that you understand now how the dreamers look when you’re not looking at them.

Blind attempts to explain all this to Humpback but fails. Humpback doesn’t hear him. He still thinks that it must be fascinating—to see someone else’s dream. Blind says to himself that it doesn’t matter. That he didn’t climb up here to ask forgiveness. Or to persuade. Why is it important what you see when watching someone’s dream? Why would Humpback refuse to share pieces of his dreams?

“All right,” Blind says. “I’m going.”

“Wait!” There’s panic in Humpback’s voice. “I need to ask you . . . lots of things.”