23. Disgraceful shame or how to break the psyche of Grant Circul

After dinner, we would usually gather in the living room and play cards with Midi for chores. In such a big house there was always something to do: washing the windows, vacuuming the carpets, watering the flowers, mowing the lawn or laundering curtains.

I don't know what devilish way Midea managed to make us work, but not a day went by without her winning smile as she towered over us in a posture of observation while we did all the dirty work for her.

Just kidding, of course, the reason we obediently followed her instructions when we lost at games was trivially simple. She refused to cook for us unless we cleaned the house. And after three meals of sandwiches, we begged her to come back into the kitchen.

When we weren't playing Durak, we had a chess or draughts championship.

The housekeeper also taught us to play Go, but after a few moves Grant and I argued, proving that our opponent had broken the rules. Midi laughed, found a corresponding pattern in the book and we fell silent in shame, but only until the next argument. It could go on indefinitely.

In the evenings we would listen to the old radio, eat sunflower seeds or watch films on the phone when the internet came along. Each time the net appeared, it was like a breath of fresh air. Accustomed to living in a consumer culture, we were addicted to information.

But the few snippets of news we managed to read were disappointing. There were protests all over the country, people quitting their jobs, fleeing to a neighbouring realm and demanding the return of Virtul. There have been several assassination attempts on Risor Circul and some high-ranking officials, so far unsuccessful.

“Stop looking so glum, Grant,” Midi patted the president's son on the shoulder. “It takes a lot of time to expect trouble, to wait for trouble, and to have trouble, and as a result, your whole life. You're too young, stop frowning, you'll get wrinkles before you know it.”

For as long as I had known her, the housekeeper had never indulged in anxiety.

“All right, I'll go to the security post, the food's just arrived. You two clean up in here.”

And humming a happy song, she disappeared behind the door into the garden.

I stared at the mountain of crockery; Grant also looked around at the unwashed porcelain groves, then turned a thoughtful glance to me. I rushed to suggest.

“How about a game?” I passed the cards from one hand to the other. “The winner doesn't wash anything.”

The guy smiled favourably. “I heard that Midi ordered ice cream today.”

“What are you trying to say?” A bad feeling crept into my heart.

“The winner takes all.”

“Sure you can win? Want to skip the dishes and eat all the ice cream by yourself, slyboots?”

“So? Are you going to risk it?” Grant challenged me.

“I will deal the cards.”

Heaven seems to have stopped loving me completely. The alarm bells had gone off when, instead of dying, I'd been caught up in an incomprehensible scam involving a bomb and the president's family. Today, the last drops of my luck had run out.

“I won!”

Grant was just painful to look at, his dazzling smile cutting through my heart.

“......” Silence was the only thing I could come up with in this situation.

While I furiously soaped the plates and pans until they squeaked, Circul walked around, jingling a chain, looking in drawers and rearranging spice jars.

His next opening ended in disaster. The door of the top cupboard fell off, kissing the corner of the chopping table, the toe of his slipper and the long-suffering tile, the latter still reeling from the flying saucers I'd accidentally dropped last time.

“Midi will kill us.”

“We need to fix it,” Grant has always been an optimist.

I had to follow the guy into the back room, where we struggled to find a toolbox.

Circul spent about five minutes trying to figure out how to get the cabinet back to its former state, but the hinges would not budge.

“I thought all boys knew how to hammer nails.”

“I thought all girls knew how to cook,” Grant responded irritably.

Yeah, stereotypes bloomed in our hearts.

“Okay, give me that.”

I took a very thin, barely visible nail, aimed and nailed the door to the bottom of the cupboard; the top of the kitchen unit suffered the same fate. Now it couldn't be opened at all. It was nailed shut.

“I hope Midi doesn't need the stuff in this cupboard any time soon. But you owe me half an ice-cream.”

“We agreed that I would get all the ice cream…”

“That was before I had to go on a crime spree and mangle the poor furniture instead of you.”

“Fine, Siri. Good, I'll do the rest of the dishes.”

I almost liked this life, where the biggest problem was not to be caught by Midi when she discovered our mischief.

I even learned to ignore Grant's singing as I sat by the bathroom door. Suffered and endured, counting the minutes to the end of my captivity, thinking of ways to kill the president.

And when I was in the shower, Circul Junior was always grumbling at me and nagging me to do things faster. Sometimes he had no sense of tolerance, just a big egoist. Although, I have to admit, I was no better.

I rarely cared about the feelings of the person next to me. Especially when, in the middle of the night, I suddenly needed a drink of water or to go to the toilet. I had to wake Grant. Eventually he put the water jug on the bedside table near me and told me not to drink too much water at night, so that I wouldn't disturb his sacred sleep with such ‘silly things’.

A few times, of course, I've pushed this ‘little delicate flower’ off the bed. When, unknowingly or knowingly, who knows, he'd put his grasping hand on my territory ‘with a heightened military situation’.

But there was nothing we enjoyed more than puzzling each other. Watching Circul's reactions as he sometimes went mad at what I said or did was the most wonderful entertainment in the world.

So our daily routine went on until one morning I woke up and realised that there were seventy-eight days left until the end of the three-month term.

I stretched, smiling as I realised I didn't have to rush into anything. After I'd decided to die, my life had been surprisingly unhurried. I turned to a stunned Grant. With a mixture of horror and confusion, he stared at his fingers.

“Blood?”

A sudden pain in my lower abdomen knocked me out of my pleasant morning mood. Circul lowered his eyes to the red stain on the sheets and I swallowed and wrapped myself in the blanket.

I peered out from under my pillow, cautiously. The world had ended in my head as I watched the man's silent hysteria.

It was the greatest disgrace in the history of shame.

Oh heavens, why have I been so punished? Where, holy dumplings, did I go wrong and now I have to suffer here?

“Wh-what the hell is this?” Grant pulled the blanket away from me and gave me a startled look.

“It's... well, it's something that all women have...”

Circul has finally got it.

And that awkward moment when everyone is awkward.

Grant swallowed hard, not knowing where to look, and I, blushing and burning with shame, shouted across the house, “Midi, I need your help!”

And in my mind, to escape reality, the cockroaches in my head were singing a soothing song:

♪ I'll walk sadly off into the sunset. ♪

♪ I'll buy a raccoon, I'll buy a scooter. ♪

♪ I'll go crazy, find a hoard ♪

♪ And live happily ever after ♪

♪ Live happily ever after~ ♪

♪ Just like wine grapes ♪

♪ Yeah, just like wine grapes… ♪