Vita Nostra

by Marina Dyachenko

  Kostya did not respond.

  Sasha hopped off the windowsill clumsily.

  “Anyway, thanks for your sympathy, but if I don’t go back to work right now, tomorrow, I mean today…”

  “Hold on,” Kostya said. “Show me what you are doing for Sterkh.”

  ***

  At half past nine she remembered her promise to Yegor to stop by at nine. She thought about it and decided it was not worth worrying about. In the morning Yegor will not remember that she never showed up. They will perch on the pile of mats at the gym, and Yegor will say again: “Let’s get married.”

  Why did this sentence bother her more and more every time?

  Sasha and Kostya sat in Sasha’s room, three white dots in the middle of a black page rushed at her like the headlights of a moving train, then shifted back like a constellation on the opaque sky. Sasha attempted to work on Fragment twenty-four, but every time her concentration broke when she counted to seventy.

  “I don’t understand what is going on,” Kostya admitted. “It’s like a musical introduction that keeps repeating, but the song itself is not there. Maybe I should try it myself… maybe if I look at this fragment, I’ll have some thoughts? An idea, a hint on how to help you?”

  “No,” Sasha said quickly. “We shouldn’t. It’s not your exercise. Sterkh will kill both of us.”

  “I can talk to him,” Kostya offered. “To Sterkh.”

  “Tomorrow.”

  “Yeah, but tomorrow may be too late.” Kostya pulled lightly on his hair. “Have you thought of going back to those tracks on the CD, to the player?”

  Sasha shuddered in revulsion.

  “I think Sterkh was wrong when he gave you the album,” Kostya said.

  “You think so? Are you taking over his teaching position?”

  “Don’t laugh. He was wrong in the psychological sense. He decided the problem was the disk, and the problem is you! If he gives you a printout like mine, or a notebook like Zhenya’s… it won’t work anyway, because you do not want it to.”

  “But you see how much I want it to! I’m climbing the walls here!”

  Kostya shook his head stubbornly.

  “You are resisting. You are fighting for yourself.”

  “Sterkh said the same thing,” Sasha remembered. “You are fighting for your own conventional image, two arms, two legs…”

  “Yes. And you are right. I could not fight it myself.”

  “Yes, but you have a normal life, and I…”

  “I have a normal life?”

  His words made them very quiet, and the silence continued for fifteen long minutes. Sasha did not dare to speak: Kostya, son of his father, grandson of his dead grandmother, husband of Zhenya Toporko who refused to take his last name to avoid being Zhenya Kozhennikov… Kostya, second-year student of the Torpa Institute of Special Technologies…

  “Forgive me,” Sasha said.

  “I’m sorry too,” Kostya slumped. “I want to help you, but I don’t have enough anger in me. I’d beat you up,” he gave her a crooked smile, “but I can’t hit you. I guess, he is right.”

  “Who?” Sasha asked, already aware of the answer.

  “He,” Kostya repeated. “He has a very low opinion of me, you know. I tried to get my mother to open up… to talk about him. How did it even happen that he is my father?” Kostya slapped the windowsill in frustration. “How did I manage to be his son? Who is he, anyway?”

  “What did your mom say?”

  “Nothing. She does not want to talk about him at all. She starts crying hysterically—after all these years!”

  “Then how did she allow you go to Torpa?”

  “How did your mother allow you to go? I am sure she had her reasons. My mother, as far back as I remember, has always been paranoid about the army. I think a gypsy told her that if I were drafted, I’d certainly be killed. Whenever she saw me playing with a wooden pistol, all hell would break loose!” Kostya sighed.

  “He used her fear,” Sasha said.

  Kostya looked up at her:

  “He uses everyone’s fear. Yours. Mine.”

  Sasha did not answer. They sat next to each other, their heads hanging low and almost touching.

  “Someday, Sasha, I would love to get up—and realize that I’m not afraid of anything. I am tired.”

  “Of being afraid?”

  “Yes. Every second…”

  “Even now?”

  “I feel afraid even now.”

  “What are you afraid of now?”

  “Of going to class tomorrow. What’s the first block, English? And you wouldn’t be there. You wouldn’t exist at all, because you stayed…”

  Kostya did not finish. With an almost maternal instinct, Sasha placed her hand on his shoulder:

  “Don’t be afraid. I will try. Tomorrow you will come to class, and I will thank you…”

  Steps rang out in the corridor, and the door flew open. It was not Vika, and not Lena—Zhenya stood at the threshold, red as a tomato, wearing a bathrobe, eyes white with hatred.

  ***

  The town of Torpa was dusted with snow. Buildings were covered with light-colored hoods pulled down low onto the tin awnings; the air was moist and warm. Sasha remembered that a warm spell was expected tomorrow. Warm spell and gusty winds.

  She bought some batteries at a kiosk near the post-office. All the batteries they had. A hundred of them; the salesperson had to run down to the storeroom to get more, and Sasha spent every single coin she had left after the last stipend.

  She went back to her room. Put on the headphones. Placed the pack of batteries under her bed. Pulled out the dusty envelop with the golden disk, clicked shut the CD player, started the first track.

  Then the second track.

  Eighteen tracks of different lengths. Eighteen fragments of unfamiliar silence. Oppressing. Indifferent. Detached. Eighteen varieties of quiet, a musical score of complete silence.

  Dead batteries fell on the floor. Sasha replaced them with new ones; the silence was growing denser. Her ears popped. Sasha stared into the darkness.

  In the middle of the night she was convinced she now had three arms. The third one grew somewhere around her sternum. Her body lost its outline; it distended and was now barely contained by the bed; her body tried to escape its frame as rising dough escapes from the bowl. She endured it, grinding her teeth; the sequence of eighteen tracks repeated over and over, hours had passed…

  She was not aware of falling asleep. She slept deeply and serenely, still wearing her headphones.

  ***

  Sunlight beat into the curtain-less window and fell onto the dusty linoleum floor. The sheet looked like an old sail made out of tiny squares of intertwined threads. The blanket slipped, the square opening of the duvet made it look like an ace of diamonds. Sasha was surprised at how much she could observe at the same time.

  She turned her head. Her neck felt stiff. The room twitched slightly like a reflection in the water caused by a light wind. Her roommates’ beds were empty, blankets thrown over haphazardly. First block was English.

  What time was it? What day was it?!

  Time, units of time, symbols. On her nightstand was an old notepad; it contained important information, binary code, time of day, four symbols one after another… Individual session with Portnov in the evening….

  Because today was Tuesday.

  Sasha turned on her side, moved toward the nightstand—and saw her arm.

  She screamed. She managed a croak rather than a scream. Something in her throat was making her wheeze. Sasha sat up in bed; something cracked audibly. Both her arms resembled mechanical prosthetic devices made out of ivory and semi-transparent, dazzling-white skin. She lifted her right palm to her face and squeezed it into a fist: gears turned, ripped through the skin and stuck out in jagged shards. There was no pain.

  Sasha rose with difficulty. The floor did not shake under her feet, but her head felt enormous. Sasha was afraid to touch her head with her n
ew white mechanical hands. What if she broke something?

  She couldn’t bend her knees. Her feet seemed made out of wood. Sasha hobbled over to the desk and found a mirror. She screamed—croaked—again.

  Her eyes no longer had pupils or irises. Only the whites with red streaks. Sasha threw aside the mirror but continued seeing herself; now she realized that she saw with something other than her eyes. She saw with the skin of her face, her elbows, neck; shaking, she pulled off her tee-shirt and saw the room through the skin of her back. She took off the sweatpants she forgot to take off last night, and with the sweatpants she pulled off her underwear. Now each spot on her body saw the entire picture, and combined, all these pictures constituted the world-without-Sasha. Her body—white, skinny, shaking in the middle of a messy dorm room—was the only entity outside this world.

  Sparks ran along her skin. Shy little fires like rolling drops. Tiny flashes of lighting. Underneath the skin membrane, in nearly transparent places, she could see her veins, blood vessels and tendons—a mysterious forest. Her back itched like crazy—something was going on with her spine—it crackled, was nimble, alive, full of its own existence.

  She heard steps in the corridor and realized it was really late. The two first blocks had ended, and lunch was almost over.

  Two blocks and lunch of the new day! She broke out of the loop, she did something… and something was done to her.

  Someone was approaching her door from the outside. She grabbed a broom with her white hands and stuck its handle into the door. At the same moment came a knock on the door—it was Yegor’s knock, quick, confident: knock. Knock-knock. Knock-knock.

  “Sasha?” Yegor’s voice barely contained his anxiety and concern. “Are you at home?”

  The broom lock twitched: he tried to open the door.

  “Sasha? Hello?”

  “I…”

  Her voice sounded eerie. Sasha cleared her throat.

  “Are you sick?”

  “Yes,” Sasha said. “I am sick. And I’m sleeping.”

  “Listen,” said Yegor, and it sounded as if he put his lips right next to the keyhole. “We need to talk.”

  “I can’t… I don’t look well.”

  “Who cares,” Yegor said impatiently. “I’ll survive. Open up.”

  “I can’t. Later.”

  Pause. Yegor was probably looking around, feeling like a complete idiot—standing there in the middle of the corridor, in front of a locked door.

  “Let me in. Why am I standing here like a moron?”

  “I can’t…” Sasha croaked. “I’m sleeping.”

  “With whom?” Yegor asked after a minute pause.

  She backed away from the door. She knew that right at this moment she should say something funny, make a joke in response. But she felt completely lost and couldn’t come up with anything appropriate.

  “I see,” Yegor said softly.

  She heard his steps moving away from the door.

  ***

  She wore gloves to hide her hands. She put on her most opaque pair of black tights and her thickest pair of jeans. Two sweaters, one over another. Now she saw the world only through the skin of her face, and the picture was familiar, albeit incomplete.

  Her dark glasses were not dark enough to conceal the whiteness of her eyes. She used markers to draw eyes on her eyelids. Walking around with her eyes closed was difficult and uncomfortable, but she could not come up with a better idea.

  Hiding this way—primarily from herself, since no one else was in the room—Sasha sat at the desk and opened the textual module. It was simply a force of habit, because she wouldn’t be able to read anyway.

  Things were no longer at an impasse. The silence, or whatever it was on that disk, entered and acceded to the throne. Sasha’s body continued to change; she felt her skin tauten up and then go limp, a gelatinous lump in her chest pulsate, and her spine twitch like a pipe pushing along masses of hot water.

  Nothing will ever be the same again. Mom… Yegor… Kostya… Petrified at her desk, Sasha thought that perhaps yesterday was better, and maybe she should have left things as they were yesterday?

  Outside it was snowing. Warm spell, wet snow, wind! Everything they promised came true… and tomorrow came.

  And Kostya went to class—and did not see Sasha!

  She got up. Threw on her jacket. Sat back down. Kostya now remembered everything she said… And everything that happened yesterday had already been entered into the history of their lives. The windowsill. And these batteries. They rolled all over the room, cheap Chinese batteries, but there were so many of these things, she could not have gone through all of them in one night. Or maybe the night repeated itself as well—another loop, and one more, and one more?

  Sasha darted from one corner to another. She opened the window. Closed it again. She should have gone to the first block! But how could she let herself be seen this way? How was she going to show herself to anyone?

  She sat behind the desk and thought of Yegor. Was it love that led her to his bed, or the kind advice of the hunchback? “Your sensual experience makes a difference, your hormonal status…” She could lie to herself as much as she wanted, say that love snuck up on her and it was so timely, such a perfect coincidence…

  Yesterday Yegor said: “Let’s get married.” No, no! Sasha held her head: yesterday, exactly yesterday she cut him short in a bout of irritation: “Just don’t tell me we should get married!” She never thought that this day, this angry reply would remain in her life… and in his life. She’d lost control of her emotions. Then she did not go see him, even though she promised, and then this whole scandal with Zhenya, that was now written in history. Good for Kostya—he never apologized. But Yegor…

  What was she thinking about while turning into a monster, perhaps dying?

  Yegor is a first year student. He has no idea what it’s like—to take winter exams, had no clue what really connected Sasha and Kostya. It was not a vulgar story about a boy who loved a girl, and the girl wouldn’t put out, so he found himself another one, one who was willing. They were connected by Kostya’s makeup exam last year, those slaps on the face that hurt Sasha’s hands—she beat him so that he would study, would pass, would survive.

  They were connected by last night, when Kostya could not get up enough courage to hit her… but still paid her back what he owed. Because he wanted Sasha to survive. And god damn those anchovies in tomato sauce, vodka and Pepsi, grimy sheets and the door locked with a broom. Everything could have been different for them. Everything.

  Yegor was possessive; his girlfriend had to open the door always and under any circumstances. She should have opened it! Should have opened the door and taken off her clothes! So that he would understand…

  Maybe Kostya would come. Ask her what happened. Or did Zhenya’s actions last night make him weary of coming up to the second floor without a legitimate reason?

  Sasha was alone. Absolutely alone in the cosmic sense of the word. And the reason happened to be not this terrifying metamorphosis, but someone’s jealousy and someone’s pride. The common things. One could even say ordinary.

  The day outside was getting darker. It was time for her session with Portnov. Sasha got up with effort. Forgetting the open book on her desk, she put on the jacket. Coins jingled in her pockets.

  She pulled down the hood, fixed the dark glasses on her nose. She left the room. The world swayed; Sasha watched it through the skin of her cheeks, it made her feel as if she were a few inches shorter.

  Two first years were chatting at the end of the corridor. When they noticed Sasha, they stopped talking at once, their eyes nearly popping out of their sockets. She passed them with a clumsy nod, as if her head twitched. The first years stared in horror.

  Let them tell Yegor, Sasha thought apathetically.

  The snow outside was stamped with footsteps. Homeless dogs decorated the corners with yellow hieroglyphs. Sasha saw the eye of a raven perching on a naked linden tree. She saw ea
ch cigarette butt stomped into the mud in front of the Institute. Turning her face, she saw air currents of different temperature: warm streams rose out of the windows, moist haze trembled above the roof. A warm spell.

  Answering somebody’s hellos, registering quizzical glances, she entered the Institute. About to pull the door handle, she realized that she never even read the paragraph for Portnov.

  She had no way out. She walked in.

  Zhenya Toporko was finishing her session. She was the very last person Sasha wanted to see at that moment.

  Sasha’s black scarecrow image, complete with the hood and the dark glasses, made an impression on Zhenya. Shocked, she forgot to close her lipsticked mouth.

  Portnov turned around, about to say something—and fell silent. For the first time in her life, Sasha saw his expression change.

  “Toporko, you may go. Hurry up, you’re taking up someone else’s time.”

  Zhenya closed the book deliberately slowly, placed it into her bag, jerked the zipper—the zipper did not work. Zhenya glanced at Sasha and then back at her bag. She made a concerned face—how could she close that bag?

  “Toporko! Out!”

  Portnov’s voice had a magical effect. Zhenya flew out of the auditorium like a crumpled piece of paper caught in the wind.

  Sasha stood motionless.

  “Come here.”

  “I did not read the paragraph.”

  “I see. Sit down.”

  Portnov took out a cell phone and barked:

  “She’s here.”

  He stuck the phone back into his pocket.

  “Is there coverage in Torpa?” Sasha asked quietly.

  “There is now,” Portnov said shuffling his papers. “Progress is irrepressible. How do you feel?”

  Sasha swallowed. Underneath two sweaters and a t-shirt tiny crackling sparkles rolled over her skin like drops of sweat.

  “Take off the glasses. And get rid of this entire masquerade, Nikolay Valerievich should be here any minute.”

  Using her teeth, Sasha pulled off the woolen gloves. Her hands had evolved even further: her skin was now almost transparent, the white metal of the gears that replaced her joints shined brightly, and golden, viscous-looking liquid flowed in the pipes of her veins. Portnov leaned forward, looking almost as stunned as Zhenya. Sasha took off her glasses. Opened her eyes. Then closed them again, demonstrating the drawn pictures on her eyelids.