I choke, cough, and it turns out that Birds didn’t vanish completely. Two appear out of nowhere to pat me on the back. Shadow’s ghost laughs on the stool next to me, also coughing. No one’s patting him.
The conversation drifts peacefully toward Santana. I’m ready to melt and dissolve in the nearest coffee puddle. It’s so pleasant that it gives me the creeps. For an inhabitant of the Nest, a conversation with someone who knows how to talk is a rare pleasure indeed. We’re yammering away. Shuffle is cleaning his travel bag. He keeps his finger picks in it, and it is, frankly, filthy. Scratching at it won’t help, it’s time for a washing machine. And Shuffle himself would benefit from being thrown in after it. I smile at my cup and fiddle with the ring on my finger.
The smell of the nearby toilet filters into the Coffeepot and spoils the mood. That’s sad. A learned discourse is a necessity. Especially for this one Bird I know. Poor thing . . . I pity him dearly sometimes.
Bald One finishes the coffee, or whatever passes for it in the Coffeepot, bids us good-bye, and leaves, taking care to step around the mess left by the young Rat cutter.
“So how about it? Are you coming tonight?” I ask Shuffle.
Doghead pales and fiddles with the crutch.
“Eh . . . I mean, I’d love to, but . . . Your place . . . You know, it’s kind of . . .”
“Disgusting,” I say. “Sure. If we’re so revolting to you, you don’t have to come.”
I climb down from the perch and take off. I am positive that he’s coming.
I hobble lively. The House is in the throes of spring madness. It’s contagious. You can come down with it in every nook and at every corner. I’m running from it as fast as I can, but they still manage to slither into the memory, the stupidly content faces with the winking slits of the eyes, the beautiful dazed faces smiling at each other. The soft jangle of chains on the girls’ slender necks, in lieu of the collars. The wheelers whispering to each other, locking fingers and wheels, reading palms, divining their wingless fates. This is not a good time to be abroad alone. The House belongs to them. All of it, the cracks and the leaking pipes, the walls and the writings on them, acquiring another, mystical meaning . . .
Sad. I’m hobbling, lame as that unfortunate devil. The leg starts to heat up. We’re in store for a night of torture, with my own bones doing the honors. It’s rare indeed to have such a strong stimulant at one’s disposal. Let’s be grateful for what we’ve got.
I take off the glasses and wait. I know that in another moment the White Rabbit is going to sneak by at the end of the corridor, galloping at full speed, late for his Carrollian shindig. And there he goes. Flashing for a fraction of a second. You just have to know where to look, or you’d never catch him. I rest for a bit longer and then crawl forward again . . .
TABAQUI
DAY THE SEVENTH
—Lewis Carroll,
Winter is the time of the great cat migration. They don’t come one by one; no, they arrive all at once, each taking their posts by the familiar doors, waiting for permission to enter. When Noble and I wheel out of the dorm in the morning, the first thing we see is a rat’s corpse. The one offering the bribe is sitting unassumingly beside it. An extremely skinny, extremely mangy ashen-striped tigress in white socks. Mother to countless offspring and a bane of rodents everywhere.
“Hey, Mona Lisa!”
Noble reaches down excitedly to pet her. Mona vaults onto his knees and rubs her scrawny side against his sweater.
“Whoa, that’s a big one,” Lary remarks from somewhere behind. “King sized.”
Meaning, of course, the late rat. We let Mona in the room and proceed to the canteen. The basic arrangement is repeated in front of the Third. Two more rat carcasses and cats waiting over them. There’s only nine of us at breakfast. Whenever it is snowing, Tubby goes into hibernation. He doesn’t do breakfast or lunch, snacking on whatever morsels we bring back, and only if we manage to shake him awake. Winter’s here.
Ginger comes in after classes, returning my socks and Noble’s sweater, and then she, Noble, Humpback, and I go down to the yard. It’s empty and snowy. The House dwellers do not like to frolic in full view of the Outsides, so the snow battle, if it’s to be at all, is postponed until darkness. We make a crumbly snowman and take it back inside. It drips sadly in the middle of the room, becoming a puddle with clumps of snow in it. Humpback declares that such is life.
