Grasshopper steps back. He is uneasy. The joy he was feeling is quickly overshadowed by despair. He is stepping closer and closer toward the door, until he’s out of the circle, out of the room, until he can see only their backs, and still he can’t erase the image in his mind, the image of the boy drooping on his crutches, the boy who has taken his place and assumed his horrible designation. Grasshopper is now standing behind everybody else. Farther behind than necessary, to show his noninvolvement. When the ritual runs its course and the boys start to drift off, he doesn’t move. He waits until the last one of them goes away, then waits a bit more and enters the dorm.
THE FOREST
Blind was walking waist-deep in the coarse weeds. His sneakers squelched. He’d managed to take on water somewhere. His heels clung to the wet rubber, and he was thinking of taking off the shoes and continuing barefoot. He decided against it: the grass could cut, there were thorns in it, and also disgusting slugs that, once squashed, were almost impossible to wash off. There were other things too, something resembling soggy cotton balls, and something else, like clumps of tangled hair, and all of that inhabited the noxious grass, ate it, crawled in it, intoxicated by its vapors, gave birth, and died, turning into muck. It was all grass, if you stopped to think about it, all flesh was as grass and nothing more.
Blind took a dainty snail’s shell off a tendril that slashed at his hand. The snails clung to the tops of the weeds and knocked against each other, sounding like hollow walnuts. He slipped the shell in his pocket. He knew the pocket was going to be empty when he returned, but he still took something with him every time, out of habit.
He threw back his head. The moon washed out his face. The Forest was very close now. Blind quickened his step, even though he knew he shouldn’t; the Forest did not like the impatient and could draw back from them. It had happened before: he’d search for it and not be able to find, feel it nearby and not be able to enter. The Forest was moody and fickle. Many roads led to it, but all of them were long and winding. You could go through the swamp or through the noxious meadow. Once he’d ended up in it by crossing an abandoned dump strewn with busted tires, rusting iron, and broken glass; there he gashed his hand on a piece of sharp metal and lost his favorite rope bracelet. That time the Forest grabbed him of its own accord, picked him up in its tree-trunk arms and pulled him inside, into the stuffy thickets of its damp heart.
The Forest was beautiful. It was shaggy and mysterious, and concealed deep burrows and the strange denizens of those burrows. It never knew the sun and never let the wind through, it was inhabited by the dogheads and the whistlers, giant blackcap mushrooms and bloodsucking flowers grew in it. Somewhere, Blind was never quite sure where, exactly, there was the lake and the river feeding it, maybe even more than one. The road to the Forest began in the hallway, at the doors of the dorms behind which boys snored and whispered, on the moaning rickety floorboards, right behind the indignantly squeaking rats scurrying to avoid him in the dark.
Blind was ready to enter it now. The noxious meadow ended. He lingered, inhaling the scent of the wet leaves, and then heard the footsteps. The Forest vanished in an instant and took the smells with it. The footsteps drew closer, it was obvious now that the walker limped. He also reeked of nail polish and mint gum. Blind smiled and stepped forward.
“Hey! Who’s there?” Vulture whispered, shrinking away.
A match flared.
“Oh. It’s you . . .”
“You have frightened my Forest, Gimpyleg,” Blind said lightly, but the voice betrayed his disappointment.
“My sincere apologies!” Vulture sounded genuinely upset. “But there is someone coming through right behind. Heavyweight, too. Why don’t we clear the way?”
“All right.”
They stepped closer to the wall. Vulture leaned on it gingerly, trying not to get the stains on himself. Blind pressed against it from head to toe. Somewhere in the vicinity of the Crossroads, a door slammed. Moonlight pierced the corridor. Then the sound of footsteps and breathing. Something heavy was treading the path. It was pushing through, moaning and huffing, the debris from the tops of the trees cascading over its back. The steam curling from its nostrils brushed their faces, making them press even harder into the wall. The beast stopped, inhaled nervously, trembled, and thundered off, noisily breaking the trunks along the way and leaving a blackened trail of trampled earth in its wake. Blind turned to Vulture.
“That was your Elephant.”
“Come off it, Blind! Elephant is a wimp, he would never go out by himself in the night. Even in the middle of the day he is scared of being alone.”
“Still, it was him. Go see for yourself if you want.”
“I don’t. If you say it was him, then it was. Which is very strange. And not a good sign. Would you like to go and have a smoke now?”
Vulture pulled open the door to one of the disused classrooms. They entered, closed the door behind them, and sat down on the floor. They lit up and made themselves comfortable. Then lay down, propped on their elbows. The smells of the meadow returned. Time rushed past. Gray House lurked within its own mute walls.
“Do you remember, Blind . . . You were talking about this wheel once. The huge ancient wheel, with so much stuff clinging to it that it’s not entirely clear it is a wheel anymore, and it turns. Very slowly, but still it turns. One could get run over, while the other is carried up high. Remember? You said then that it was possible to predict its motion by the squeaking noise, long before it actually completes the turn. Listen to the squeaking and tell.”
“I remember. It was just silly talk.”
“That’s as it may be. But do you hear the squeaking now?”
“No. It is not turning in my direction, if it’s turning at all.”
Vulture coughed. Or laughed.
“Just as I thought. An odd fellow. I wonder what it was that he wanted.”
“Past tense already?”
“So it would appear. He is not one of the old ones, and that’s all there’s to it. Take us, for example. We know things, even if we don’t exactly know what it is we know. He doesn’t.”
“I think the words are getting the better of you.”
“As does everything lately. It’s a weird old thing, the world. And you are saying that it was Elephant rambling past just then, like a rhino with a screw loose. What am I supposed to make of it? You know I’m scared of things like that. Harmless little Elephant goes out at night sniffing, for some reason . . . Now what do I do? I’m upset, you see. I guess I’d better check on him.”
“Of course. Go.”
The door squeaked. Blind traced Vulture’s progress, turning his head as if he really could see, then closed his eyes and sank into a cozy slumber. And the Forest returned. It overtook him, breathing into his ears, tucking him into its moss and dried leaves, hiding him and rocking him to sleep with the soft lullabies of the whistlers. It liked Blind. It smiled at him. Blind knew that. He could sense a smile from a distance. The burning ones, the sticky and sharp-toothed ones, the soft and cuddly ones. Their fleeting nature tormented him, that and his inability to subject them to the probing of his fingers and ears. A smile couldn’t be caught, grasped, examined in minute detail, it couldn’t be replicated. Smiles fled, they could only be guessed at. Once, when he was still little, he heard Elk asking him to smile. He could not understand what was required of him then.
“A smile, my boy, a smile,” Elk said. “The best of the human features. Until you learn to smile you’re not quite human yet.”