Colorful

In colorful times, on the outskirts of a small but interesting town, on a street paved with stones of various shapes and colors, in an affluent neighborhood, between two rows of low, rustling trees, stood an apricot-colored house. Not quite a house, because it wasn't small at all. It had a second floor, and below that a ground floor. And a cellar. Large—both wide and tall—windows with brown frames peered from the plastered walls. The roof was covered with red—or rather, reddish—tiles. The four plastered walls were surrounded on all four sides by a closely trimmed, green lawn; a well-trodden brown path led to the door, flanked on both sides by a bed of red and yellow tulips, and beige steps. As you walked from the street to the door—wooden, double-leafed, painted black and brown, and glazed—to cross the threshold, you had to ring a round, red bell beneath a gilded plaque bearing the inscription "CF PORCELAIN."

Behind this door, for a long time, though not always, had lived the Porcelain family. Man, woman, and child. Husband, wife, and daughter.
Porcelain Teapot—the respectable master of the house—was no longer young, and not yet old; serious and respected, dignified in position and stature. In his own home, he had his own office, and there he sat in a burgundy suede armchair, writing and signing small and large pieces of paper in black ink and stamping them with a blue stamp. As he did so, he muttered, squinted his small, black eyes, shook his head, nodded, puffed out, and puffed; He twirled his black mustache and smoothed his black hair, which was slicked close to his skull. His face was round, even puffy, and his body was the same—but not from puffing up, but from sitting more than walking, and eating more than not. And he was as pale as parchment—not because he spent too much time on paper, but because the sun never saw him. A dark green dress coat and a matching bowler hat hung in the corner of the office, but Mr. Porcelain rarely wore anything over his navy blue suit, and even more rarely did he go out.
Porcelain Teacup—the lady of the house and wife of the Teapot—enjoyed similar respect and better health. She loved dressing in blue. In her room, she had a large mahogany wardrobe, stuffed with sky-blue and cornflower-blue dresses, overcoats, and coats; at the bottom of the wardrobe stood a row of navy blue slippers, of which she only ever wore three pairs. She wore earrings in that shade; bracelets, shawls, and scarves; blue eyeshadow. And healthy, rosy cheeks. She would even braid ribbons into her golden curls, if it weren't for the fact that it didn't befit her age or station. But the rollers she used to curl her hair every day, and where no one ever saw her, were her favorite color. So was her nail polish—which didn't wear out too quickly, because Porcelain Teacup didn't bother her hands with cooking, washing dishes, or cleaning. And it wasn't because neither the pots, nor the dish soap, nor the sponge, nor the cloth, nor the broom were blue. Someone else simply did it, because the Porcelain Teapot's wife was too dignified for that.
When the Porcelain Teapot and the Cup—not yet Porcelain, but Blue—came together many years ago—but not so many years ago—they immediately took a liking to each other. He liked navy blue suits, and she liked blue dresses, and they took a liking to each other in them. And soon there was a wedding.
And then a child.
The Porcelain Figurine was entering adulthood with graceful, tiny steps—but not quite there yet. Just as spring sometimes looks its proper self at the beginning of March, and only at the end of March is it entitled to bear that name—the Figurine had long since presented itself as a woman, yet she was still considered a girl. She was seventeen. And many things were no longer allowed to her, and just as many still weren't. It was no longer appropriate to dress up dolls, and not yet herself. No frills or poufs—not to mention the fact that both her father and mother would have dropped dead if a white sweater or cream skirt revealed too much. Her auburn hair was tied in a bun by a maid to keep it from flowing over her shoulders and back—and she did it so tightly that the girl couldn't even frown, her face awash in perpetual astonishment. She pouted and rolled her green eyes at this harsh policy, but she could neither say nor do anything. So she wandered around the large, opulent house, awaiting her longed-for adulthood. To pass the time, she devoured romance novels she bought wholesale, secretly wishing—as she did—that one of the colorful, breathtaking stories would happen to her.
Little changed in this house, except that Figurine grew taller and her parents grew wider. The Teapot always entered the office at the same time each morning and left at the same time, clanking in the lock with the same key as always for years. In the living room, soft, mournful, almost seductive music always trickled from the fancy gramophone, in the background of the Cup's inactivity. At fixed, unchanging times, the whole family gathered at the table with the yellow tablecloth for breakfast on golden toast with white butter and strawberry jam, washed down with warm cocoa in red mugs. For dinner, soup was always served in a white tureen with a blue border, followed by something else—always potatoes and always on beige plates. They talked about everything and nothing. And the next day, it was the same—and the chatter from the past neither affected the present nor did anyone remember it.

***

"And don't ever come back here!
" "I won't!
" "And don't call!
" "CRASH!"
The dinner ritual—the same for years—was disrupted. The figurine, instead of listening in silence to the trivial dilemmas of her mother and father, nodding from time to time to show she was listening, brought up a topic of her own. And if only it were something insignificant—the weather, for example. But no! The figurine declared that she had found a man for life. Her parents first opened their mouths, then began asking questions one by one.
"What? Who? How? When?"
She repeated it helpfully, then told them how she had seen him through the large window in her room, standing in the street and she had just looked up from her book. And then he had waved. And that had been the day before. And that her chosen one was a soldier.
"What's that? What do you mean?" her parents asked.
"I'm getting married! Even tomorrow!
" "And what's that for?" And who is he that a young lady like him should marry?
"The Lead Corporal is a soldier, a brave and honest man."
At that, her parents stopped asking questions. They forbade her. Once, twice, and thrice.
"No, no, and no again!
" "Exactly! I'm going!"
Her father swallowed her words—this reprehensible insubordination, for which he would have subjected the child to a thousand slaps—and shouted after her as she headed for the threshold:
"And don't ever come back here!" "
I won't come back!
" "And don't call!
" "CRASH!
" Through the large window facing the street, her mother watched as her daughter, the Porcelain Figurine, a young lady from a good home, took short, quick steps up the path in front of the house and, on the other side of the street, fell into the arms of the gray soldier, the Lead Corporal.
"And all my life I've been saying that grayness will be the ruin of our family..." she groaned, drawing the curtain and moving away from the window.
And then she and her husband stood over the telephone with worried expressions—as they always do when you tell someone never to call again.
They waited like that all day long. And the next.
Grayness—the undoing of the Porcelain family.

***

"Drrrrr!
" "I'll answer!
" "Drrrrr!
" "No, honey, I'm running!
" "Drrrrr!
" "Oh no! You stamp and sign! I'll answer!
" "Drrrrr!
" "Mom? Dad?
" "CRASH!"
The figurine tore the telephone receiver from her ear, looked at it with disappointment, and placed it back on the cradle. And left the booth.
No one was waiting for her outside. She had had a terrible argument with her little tin soldier the day before yesterday, on the evening of the day she ran away from home. She spent two days at her old aunt's, having first begged her not to tell her parents.
On the third day, she couldn't bear it any longer and called home.
And she couldn't manage to exchange a single word. So she decided to swallow her pride and go home, apologize, promise to stay, listen—and everything would be as it was again. And even better, because she—the Porcelain Figurine—would no longer rebel, puff herself up, or frown.
No one in the house answered the call of the red bell under the gold plaque. Was there no one there? Was the servants having the day off? The figurine walked around the house, walking clockwise. At the back of the building was a patio, surrounded by a garden. The balcony doors were open. Her mother opened them a crack on warm days, stepping out onto the patio. But it looked like no one was there, and it was imprudent to leave the door open when no one was home.
Entering through the half-open door, she noticed her mother's blue slipper lying on the doorstep. She must have been rushing somewhere.
Inside, though the summer day was already turning into a summer night, the lights were off. The room—a large living room—was shrouded in semi-darkness. The little figure had to walk through the darkness to the other end to reach the switch.
Only in the yellow glow did she notice the open door to Teapot's office—which was unusual, since he usually closed it behind him, no matter which way he went through it. A half-written sheet of paper lay in the doorway. Peeking inside, she noticed a pile of official papers scattered in disarray on and beside the desk—as if her father had knocked them over when leaving the office in such a hurry.
Then she looked into the middle of the room, where both her parents lay, badly bruised. They had bumped into each other—either crossing each other's paths or running to the same place.
For example, to the telephone on the mahogany table against the wall.
The Porcelain Teapot and Porcelain Cup shattered into a million pieces—so tiny they couldn't be picked up or untangle from the carpet. Nearby, Father's porcelain shoe gleamed. Someone's porcelain ear. Mother's hand—torn at the wrist—clutched the telephone receiver, from which a faint, continuous tone seeped.
The figurine—pale as a sheet of paper, too shaken to react—placed it back on its cradle. The telephone thumped hollowly.
She looked at it and—despite the tragedy of the situation, and as never before—laughed through her tears. And so she laughed, a loud, pearly, shrill laugh, until she herself broke.
Silence fell.
Then the telephone rang. The receiver bounced on its cradle, but no one answered.
Finally, the telephone on the table fell silent. It was a bit greenish, and in yellow lighting even more green - but most of all...
...gray.