Vita Nostra

by Marina Dyachenko

  “Hold on… we’ll get through this. We can do it.”

  Sasha squeezed his hands, claiming Yegor, making him a part of herself.

  “Listen to me, only to me. We progress from human being to word, and right now you are at the steepest point of the road. When you overcome this obstacle, when you finally realize what you are being taught, you will become absolute. Do you understand? You will be eternal. You will become Word and will accomplish your mission. You are a tool of Speech, an instrument of divine harmony. You are a participant of Creation… you will be. And right now you are a little human being. And you must fight your fear. I will go to your test with you, I will wait… And I will help you.”

  ***

  The second years took a long time to reappear. Sasha waited under the hooves of the bronze horse.

  She was a lousy teacher, but she “claimed” Yegor so deeply as she’d ever dared to claim another human being. Now she knew him better than her own mother. She understood him like no one else; but this morning, when Yegor convulsively embraced her and found her lips with his own, Sasha pulled away.

  “Not right now,” she said in Portnov’s voice. “Focus.”

  She spurred him on, pushed him and urged him on; like a blood donor, she transferred her confidence and her own will to win into Yegor. She brought him to the exam, nearly leading him by the hand:

  “There is nothing impossible. There is no reason you can not pass! Go!”

  An hour passed since the door closed behind him. Then another hour. Students came out one or two at a time, some immediately lit up a cigarette, others threw their arms around their friends, somebody was laughing hysterically; gradually the corridor became noisy, second years chased around in the hallway, and Sasha recalled the half-forgotten: ““What are the sparrows singing on this last day of chill? We live, we breathe, we made it, and we are living still!”

  They resembled small funny critters at a veterinarian’s office. Sasha had no idea where this comparison came from. Animals don’t understand what is happening around them, they are controlled by animal fear. And then, when they are let go and allowed to roam free, they express their joy just like that.

  One more year has to pass before the grey fog in their consciousness is dispelled, and they see Hypertext in all its splendor and perfection. Then they will understand their place in it, and will be overwhelmed by their ecstasy.

  Sasha closed her eyes. Joy, ecstasy—the human emotions were too shallow; what she experienced facing Hypertext could only be expressed by the word of true Speech. This word, sharp and dazzling, emerald-green and opal, and graphically… Where were her pencil and paper?

  Keeping in mind the limitations, she would only draw sketches. Only the most elementary ones, not the ones that could be manifested, only drafts of words and concepts. She became so involved that she nearly missed the end of the exam.

  Yegor was the last student to come out of the auditorium. He took a few steps along the corridor and stopped. Sasha saw his face and knew right away.

  “Makeup exam is the day after tomorrow,” he stared straight ahead. “But I cannot. I cannot.”

  ***

  “Time is a grammatical concept. Is that clear, or do I need to explain?”

  Sasha left an anchor in “happening right now” and rushed into “happened today.” As far back as she could.

  … The second years took a long time to reappear. Sasha waited under the hooves of the bronze horse. Let’s see: she leapt only one activity back. If we assume that one “exam” equals one “activity.”

  Students came out one or two at a time, some immediately lit up a cigarette, others threw their arms around their friends, somebody was laughing hysterically; gradually the corridor became noisy. “What are the sparrows singing on this last day of chill? We live, we breathe, we made it, and we are living still!”

  Watching them, Sasha pulled a pencil and a piece of paper out of her bag. She drew a few graphical concepts. It is difficult for a human being in a human body to process thoughts using words of true Speech. They transform into bulky images, breathtakingly beautiful, but that has a fatal influence on the speed of cogitation…

  Yegor was the last student to come out. He walked a few steps along the corridor and stopped. Sasha saw his face and bit her lip.

  “Makeup exam is the day after tomorrow,” he stared straight ahead. “But I cannot. I cannot.”

  ***

  Now. Then.

  Again Sasha sat by the hooves of the bronze horse. She must have done something wrong with the concept of “activity:” perhaps whatever was happening to Yegor was more intricate than a regular exam with a starting point of ten o’clock in the morning and an estimated ending point at two o’clock in the afternoon. Or perhaps Sasha simply lacked the experience and skill: returning to the past again and again, she kept showing up in front of a closed door.

  “Sasha, what are you doing?”

  Sterkh came in through the front entrance. The tails of his long black coat were whitened by the snow. Sasha was well aware that Sterkh was not present in her initial “tests.”

  Did that mean that the false hunchback lives—exists—outside of general time limits?

  “Sasha, I did not teach you to operate grammatical tenses just so that you could float like a flower in the ice hole…. Please take that into consideration: no independent acts during the exam. Do only what is written on your examination sheet. Are you guarding this boy, Yegor Dorofeev?”

  “Yes. He…”

  “Verbs in the subjunctive mood often suffer from a weak will power,” Sterkh looked concerned. “And in our line of work lack of will is a death sentence.”

  “Nikolay Valerievich,” constant time iterations made Sasha dizzy. “Can you help him? Right now? Just let him pass this test? Just this one?”

  “A verb in a subjunctive mood is a possibility,” Sterkh unbuttoned his coat, and drops of melted snow fell on the dark parquet floor. “Occasionally a brilliant possibility. But more often than not it is a lost possibility, Sasha. I wanted to tell you before… but—I just didn’t have the heart to upset you.”

  ***

  Sterkh left. Sasha watched him walking away.

  She already knew what she had to do. Up to the minute detail; the pink phone on her neck probably would have prevented her. However, Farit Kozhennikov took away her phone, thus letting her loose.

  She flipped over a page in the half-filled notepad. And one more empty page. A white field.

  This is where she made a mistake. She should not have considered an “activity” equal to taking the exam; an activity was a lot less obvious, intermittent, a dashed line.... It was fractioned and simultaneously viscous. And that was not called love, not at all; this activity had its own verb, its own symbol, and its own notation.

  As long as the pencil did not break.

  ***

  Now. Then.

  In the morning, around half past seven Sasha looked out of the window and saw Yegor sitting right on her porch, between the stone lions.

  He was just as still and white as the sculptures. Two white piles of snow lay on his shoulders.

  “What’s wrong?” Sasha opened the door; the drifting snow licked her fur-lined slippers….

  For the first time in her life she stepped that far into the past. A few hours. She felt a little frightened.

  She let Yegor into her apartment, opened the fireplace, placed an old crumpled newspaper onto the coals:

  “We’ll take care of everything. Don’t worry.”

  She put a couple of dry logs onto the newspaper and lit a match:

  “We’ll get warm in a minute. Just wait.”

  She picked up her bag that was left on the coat hanger overnight. For a second she was confused: it was the same notepad, only the page that was supposed to be covered by signs and symbols, was still white and empty…

  She should sharpen her pencil to make sure it does not break.

  “Yegor, don’t be surprised, p
romise? I know what you want to tell me. I know you will pass this exam. I know how you will pass it. Look at me. Look at me…”

  She placed a piece of paper on the table. Don’t forget to sharpen the pencil… So. “Will.” One of the essential symbols with multiple meanings, everything depends on the nuances, on the added meanings. In five dimensions, plus an occasional glimpse of the sixth. Perfect.

  “Sasha…”

  “Be quiet and keep your mouth closed. I am working on something important, just be quiet…”

  Projection of will onto the identity: will-dash, plus Yegor’s own will power, which she must take into account, will-two dashes…

  The symbol glimmered unfolding in time. She planted the fourth dimension within the time loop—no one had ever taught her that, she’d never even heard of this complicated paradox, but now it was too late to back out, no matter what the side effects would be.

  The clock’s tick-tock slowed down. The pendulum hung for a second, then swayed again. Sasha smiled happily.

  She could.

  Taking Yegor’s hands she claimed him, merged with him. He was such a nice, strong, kind man. This is what the Institute has done with him; Sasha fought a sudden and unnecessary feeling of pity. On the way to becoming a carved sculpture wood goes through the esthetically displeasing stage of being a stump; half-finished work is not usually displayed in front of half-wits, but lately Sasha was anything but a half-wit.

  Here is the second-year Dorofeev. And here is his folded-in entity. Like a letter in an envelope. Receive and sign for it.

  Yegor’s hands twitched in her own:

  “Sasha…”

  “Don’t be afraid,” she said softly. “Let’s go, it’s time. It’s already half past nine… Time went so quickly! And the same two logs are still burning… Let’s go, do not worry. It is my imperative. It is my command.”

  ***

  An hour passed since the door closed. Then another hour. Students came out one or two at a time, some immediately lit up a cigarette, others threw their arms around their friends, somebody was laughing hysterically; gradually the corridor became noisy, second years chased in around the hallway: ““What are the sparrows singing on this last day of chill? We live, we breathe, we made it, and we are living still!”

  Yegor was the last one to come out. He staggered. Grabbed onto the wall with his hand.

  “Well?!”

  He stepped forward and embraced her. He staggered holding onto Sasha like a drunk holding onto a tree. Sasha gritted her teeth and re-planted her feet firmly on the ground.

  “How did you do it? How did you manage? How?!”

  Tears rolled down his unshaven hollow cheeks.

  “You did it… You… thank you. Thank you. Thank you.”

  Yegor’s classmates slowly tightened the circle around them. Sasha’s “anchor”—the one she planted in “now”—was approaching with every minute, and she suddenly realized with dread that she had no idea how to get out of the loop. Time is a grammatical concept; in a few minutes Sasha will again look out of the window and will see Yegor sitting on the steps between the stone lions. And everything will repeat itself again, only this time Sasha, burnt-out and frazzled, will not be able to replicate her heroic deed, and Yegor will fail yet again… And fail again… and again.

  “Everything is fine,” she whispered. “You need to rest. Go, wash up…”

  Her gentle voice exuded power over Yegor. He straightened up and, squeezing Sasha’s hand one more time, shuffled through the crowd of his classmates towards the men’s bathroom. Sasha did not have to look at her watch to sense the “anchor” drawing closer.

  The front door opened. Sterkh stepped into the hall; snow melted on the long tails of his black coat.

  “Hello, Nikolay Valerievich.”

  “Hello, Alexandra. Congratulations, you are in the loop with variations. In the old times it was used as a punishment for disobedient slaves.”

  Sasha was silent. Everything that had happened in the last few hours (or minutes?) took so much of her strength that she was now ready to fall down—or burst out crying.

  “I am kidding,” Sterkh’s voice was a little softer. “Get some paper. Concentrate. If a sum of realities is expressed through a subjunctive mood, then, in order to come out of the loop, we must first of all define the actual reality, the current one, then express it through the narrative and lock it in with a command. Go ahead! If you make a mistake, I’ll write a report to your advisor.”

  ***

  Next day, on January twelfth, Sasha carried the fir tree outside and fixed it in a snow pile across from the stone lions. The tree looked alive; the wind stirred its gold tinsel.

  Portnov and Sterkh held a consultation from noon to two in the afternoon. Sasha returned from the Institute, lay down over her comforter and, surprising herself, fell asleep.

  She dreamt of Zakhar. He was sitting in an underground vault filled with gold coins with a round symbol on their faces. In her dream he seemed very happy to see Sasha: “Are you here as well? That’s cool. I’m bored here all by myself. I have been sitting here for a thousand years, cleaning sticky dirt off of these words. Help me.”

  And Sasha sat down—in her dream—next to Zakhar, picked up a small moistened rag and began to clean the dull coins, one after another. Her efforts would alter the zero on the face of the coins—change it into fives, tens, eights, and when the figure eights fell down on their sides, Sasha would detect the sign of infinity…

  “Have you been here long?” she asked Zakhar. And he answered, “There is no such thing as the fourth dimension here. And no third dimension, either.” And then Sasha realized that the coins, and Zakhar, and she herself were drawn on a flat surface, and the time in the picture was not moving…

  She woke up when it was already dark. Snow fell outside her windows. Somewhere on Sacco and Vanzetti a street cleaner’s shovel made scraping sounds.

  Less than twenty-four hours remained until the placement exam.

  ***

  That night Sasha said good bye to her landlady and called Mom. Baby Valentin was sick again, and Valentin senior had left for a business trip and not returned yet. Mom’s voice sounded tinny, detached, as if from another planet. “Everything will be fine,” Sasha said, knowing perfectly well that Mom did not believe her.

  The suitcase was half-packed. Sasha thought that she had no clue where she would unpack it, and whether she would have to do it at all. With pleasure she realized that this thought did not frighten her in the least.

  She gathered the trash—old drafts, notes, slips of paper—and made a fire in her fireplace for the last time. Paper covered with ink did not burn well.

  Someone rang the doorbell. Sasha saw Farit Kozhennikov in the window—and for the first time in her life she felt no fear.

  He walked in and looked around. Straddled the chair. Sasha had not finished cleaning up; plastic bags lay around, in the corner stood a broom, a dust pan and a mop.

  “Ready for departure?”

  “Farit,” Sasha said dryly. “I’m very busy. If you have something important to say—say it. If not… As you can see for yourself, I’m not exactly relaxing right now.”

  He swayed back and forth:

  “Important… yes, I guess you can say that. What do you think… How many of your classmates would decline taking the exam if they had the option?”

  “All of them.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Absolutely. Of course, we can cheer each other up, we are sure of our success… We are words, we must reverberate, must fulfill our destiny… But if somebody could slip out, scamper, do a vanishing act with impunity—he would flee so fast only a clean pair of heels would show.

  “And how about you?”

  “What about me?”

  Kozhennikov adjusted his glasses on the bridge of his nose:

  “As your advisor, I am officially offering to release you from the placement exam. To release you from your tenure at the Insti
tute. Officially. According to the “It was only a dream” method.

  The fire burned in the fireplace. Old notes, papers and drafts were dying down. Sasha sat at the table—her back very straight.

  A minute passed.

  “Were you joking?”

  He took off his glasses. Sasha met his ordinary, average brown eyes.

  “No.”

  “Farit, are you making fun of me?!”

  “No. I will tell you right away: none of your classmates has received such an offer, and none of them will.”

  “Why me…”

  “Because.”

  Sasha squeezed her hands. A second ago she was sure of herself, calm, even detached. A second ago she was a grown-up, devoid of fear and looked straight into her destiny’s face…

  “Once again you will be sixteen years old. Everything that happened later would turn out to be a dream and shall be forgotten.”

  “That’s impossible.”

  He sniggered.

  Sasha stared at him. His face was hazy before her eyes. Sasha hadn’t cried in a long time. She had forgotten how to cry. She did not believe something could shake her so violently before the placement exam.

  “Think about it. ‘It was a dream.’ Say it—and you will wake up. Back there. And nothing will happen again. There will be no me. There will be no Institute. You will be accepted at the school of philology—if you don’t fail the entrance exams. Well, have you decided?”

  Sasha bit on her fingers.

  Mom… Valentin… and the baby. They won’t be there… and what will be… possibly… completely different. Absolutely different. Will Mom be happy? Of course she will, she has Sasha… even without Valentin, without the baby. Mom will have Sasha! She will do everything to…

  Word. A verb. Harmony of Speech. A crystal termite nest of meanings. Inhuman beauty. Infinite cognition. Page after page, and the book does not end, the most fascinating book, is it possible that Sasha would not know what happens next?

  Minus three and a half years, difficult, terrifying… it was a dream, how simple, it is only a dream…

  Kostya. He won’t be a part of her life, that is for the best. Yegor… they have no choice, they will never have to choose…