At this moment the mental dusting off of the childhood pictures arrives at Blind, and I freeze uncertainly. I have a reasonably good idea what Blind’s jealousy looks like. Why didn’t I see any traces of it back then? Why Black, why Humpback even, but not him?
“Was Blind present at that event?”
“Oh jeez.” Black leans back in the chair and bares his teeth. “Blind! You can rest easy as far as he’s concerned. Gods and jealousy don’t mix. It’s a completely separate disorder.”
“What was it you just said?”
“Look, we’re going to come to blows over this,” Humpback says desperately. “It’s all right for you, you’re used to it, but how’s that my fault? I’m going to sit somewhere else.”
I shake my head.
“No, you’re right. We should drop it. I have made my few steps away and looked at it from there. Thank you, Black. It was indeed useful, albeit a tad painful.”
After that we’re silent.
Black is darker than a storm cloud, his meat hooks folded over his chest. Humpback is ruffled and miserable, like a raven that’s been ambushed by a bird catcher. I shudder to think how I look.
Counselor Godmother recites some sort of schedule. Minutes pass before I’m able to figure out what it’s about, and all that time I’m fleeing the image of Elk that keeps catching up with me. Twice every year, at these all-hands meetings, he stood approximately where Godmother is now standing and made short announcements, smiling with his eyes. The same kinds of announcements she’s making. Someone’s achievements or setbacks, someone’s health progressing or not. The physicals calendar. Except unlike with Godmother, everyone listened to him no matter what he was saying. Every single one of us in the audience. With bated breath. Because he was born the Catcher of Little Souls. You could grow up, free yourself, but even those who had gone into the Outsides long ago carried traces of his glances, his touches, may still be carrying them for all I know. Did a man like that have a right to be wrong? He least of all, not with all the hungry, yearning eyes on him. He had no right to make mistakes, to have favorites, or to die.
Godmother reads the list of those who have been prescribed vitamin shots. Then another list, much longer, of those whose body-mass index is not simply low, but shamelessly so. That marks the end of the ceremonies. The departing throngs file past us, walking and riding, rattling the chairs as they go. Up on the podium they cover the lectern and the portable screen that they’d hauled out for some reason. Then we’re alone.
Humpback, Black, and I. We seem to have already said everything that needed to be said, and it’s not entirely clear what we’re waiting for and why none of us left with the others. I mean, I understand why Humpback hasn’t, he’s busy being a lightning rod, but why do Black and I keep sitting here like we’re stuck? Humpback waits, frets, tries to pretend he’s dozed off. Black and I are still silent. Finally Humpback’s patience snaps.
“How about we get going?” he asks plaintively. “Everyone’s left already.”
Tacking between the upended chairs and avoiding the shoals of spit and cigarette butts, we reach the hallway. Huge blue letters stretch along the wall: GOOD NIGHT SWEET TEACHERS! The dot on the exclamation mark drips like a tear.
“Was it really painful? What I told you about Elk?” Black says, keeping pace.
“Not too much. It certainly explained a lot. I could have guessed myself, if only I’d given it enough thought. When you’re little you imagine the grown-ups to be these flawless beings. And then you learn that it isn’t so.”
“Sometimes you learn it not only about the grown-ups,” Black mumbles to himself, without elaborating who or what he means. “I guess you took my bodybuilders off the wall?” he asks suddenly, changing the subject abruptly, and I remember that it used to drive me nuts, this habit of his—jumping suddenly from one subject to the next, as if someone switched him off and then back on, but tuned to a different station.
“No, why?” Humpback says, surprised. “Still there, where you left them. Why would we want to take them off?”
“Revenge, Humpback. Revenge,” I cut in eagerly. “Not only take them off, but also stomp on them and rip them to little pieces. Like you need such simple things explained?”
“Sphinx, sometimes I really want to smack you one,” Black says. “So much that I have to grab myself by the arms.”
We go around a chair that someone sneaked out of the lecture hall but abandoned on the way. Black stops.
“There’s one thing I need to tell you. If you promise not to laugh. It’s about getting out.”
Humpback shrinks and hunches down, tightly gripping his backpack, as if preparing to fight someone who is about to push him into the Outsides.
Black bites his lip, trying to muster the courage. Looks at the walls, then up, then down at the floor, and finally at me.
