“No. Often is not the problem here. It’s just that I detest this entire subject: ‘Wouldn’t you like it if I were more like . . .’ No, I wouldn’t like it. And I never will. It’s possible that sometime, on a beautiful day filled with divine wisdom, you’ll understand this. Then I’ll go to Tabaqui and ask him to commemorate it by adorning me with festive ribbons and colorful tattoos.”
She pulls a long cord out of her vest, or maybe it’s a thread, and brings it to her mouth. Now she’s going to gnaw on it until it almost dissolves into a sloppy mess.
“I guess I’ll have to give this shirt to you now. You’ve got people to hate until the grave, so it should be yours by rights.”
“Who are you talking about?” I say suspiciously, lightly tapping my chin against her part. “It’s not Black again, is it? Would you like to tell me something I don’t know, or is it just that his manly charm has you in its grasp? I don’t remember us ever spending so much time discussing him.”
“What if I do want to tell you something? About him?”
Now it’s my turn to crane my neck, trying to look her in the eye.
“Just promise me you’re not going to say you’re madly in love with him. Everything else I think I can handle.”
She pushes away, shaking her hair.
“Picture him in your head. It shouldn’t be too hard.”
“Why?”
“No reason. Just get the picture of him as you remember.”
I straighten up and dutifully imagine Black. In all the shiny glory of his splendid muscles. It really is not hard.
“All right. Now what?”
“Now tell me, who is he trying to look like?”
“He’s trying to look like an idiot. Who else?”
“No, that’s not it. Someone you are very familiar with. You’re going to be surprised when you get it.”
I am already surprised by what she’s saying, so I carefully study the image of Black in my head. My imaginary Black is a carbon copy of the real one. I’ve lived side by side with him long enough to get full measure of the man.
“I don’t understand,” I have to admit. “He looks like only one man, himself. There are no others like him.”
“I’m not talking about his looks. It’s about his style. Like, for example, the way he started dressing after becoming a Leader. Did you notice any changes in that?”
Black did change his style since assuming the responsibilities of the Alpha Hound. He abandoned tank tops, shaved his head, and stopped wearing suspenders over baggy pants. Those made me want to throw up for many long years. You could even say that his taste in clothes underwent a marked improvement. It didn’t help to make him look like anyone other than himself, of course. All that I relate to Mermaid.
“All right, then tell me who else, among those now living in the House, shaves his head, drapes jackets over his shoulders, wears bandanas, and wraps the ends of shoelaces around the ankles?”
“Jackets—only me. As for the shaved head . . .” I suddenly get what she’s driving at. “You’re crazy! I do not shave my head! And I only started wearing a bandana because you gave it to me! You can’t be serious. He hates me with a passion! He’s made it a point never to go in the shower after me!”
“Maybe so.” Mermaid shrugs. “It’s just that all this jumps out at anyone who cares to give an unbiased look. He imitates your walk, your attire, he even started talking like you. And all of that began when he moved to the Sixth. That is, to where you can’t see how he looks and what he does every day.”
“And what does that prove?” I ask dumbly.
Mermaid is silent. Eyes like two green grapes with the pips showing through the semitranslucent skin. Very somber and serious eyes.
“Oh god, that’s horrible!”
I cringe and glance up at the windows of the Sixth, shining silver in the reflected sun. Almost fearing that behind each of them hides Black, a grotesque facsimile of me, shaven headed and frowning, in a pirate-like head scarf covered with skulls and bones. It’s a nightmare.
“And besides, my bandana is unquestionably more beautiful, tending as it does more to floral motifs. But it’s a matter of taste, naturally.”
“You should be ashamed, Sphinx.” Mermaid laughs. “Next thing, you’re going to be saying your legs are longer . . .”
“And they are! You mean they aren’t? And my head is of a much more dignified shape. He can’t even dream . . .”
“Stop being such a baby! Or I’ll have to get you a bib and a onesie. You’d think he’s doing something bad to you.”
We go silent and study the surrounding landscape for a while. No, that’s not a fight at all, we never fight, just a sensible time-out for processing of new information. Usually people smoke in pauses like this one, but Mermaid is a nonsmoker and I don’t have any on me, so I bravely do without, only allowing myself to sweep the ground with my eyes, because it’s in places like this where the good cigarette ends like to hide.
“Should we go now? I think I’m getting sunburned on my nose,” Mermaid says. “Was it very upsetting, what I just said?”
“No. But I need some time to adjust. Let’s go find cigarettes and something for your nose before it starts peeling.”
