Vita Nostra

by Marina Dyachenko

  HOW LUCKY THEY ARE!

  “Farit, why?! What have I done to you? Why do you constantly… pick on me… Why?”

  “Sasha?”

  “Why do I get to choose? I can’t…”

  By then she was sitting on the floor, hunched over, pressing her palms to her cheeks. Kozhennikov lowered himself next to her.

  “I pick on you? On you?! Not a hair fell off your head! All your relatives are alive, more or less healthy, happy…”

  “I cannot choose! I can’t—like this—I can’t choose, do you understand that?! Why…”

  “Cut it out. Any of your classmates… any of the third years who had ever existed would give their right hand for such an opportunity.”

  “Why? Why like this?” she lifted her tear-filled eyes up to him. “Why through fear? Why not… Why wouldn’t you explain things? I would study… I would work hard if you were nice to me!”

  He shook his head:

  “You wouldn’t have, Sasha. Only a strong incentive takes you over the edge. Only motivation.”

  “But there are… other stimuli. Love… ambition…”

  “There are none equal to fear,” he said almost with regret. “It is the consequence of objective, unyielding laws. To live is to be vulnerable. To love is to fear. And the one who is not afraid— is calm like a boa constrictor and cannot love.” He hugged her shoulders. “Well, have you decided?”

  She pushed his hands aside and got up. She bit her lip. Tears streamed down her face—but it did not matter. What mattered was her jagged breath that made her voice sound so piteous.

  “I have decided. I want to finish the Institute. Become a part of Speech. To reverberate. Be admitted to graduate school… That’s why tomorrow I am going to take the placement exam,” she staggered but stayed on her feet.

  Kozhennikov’s pupils narrowed. Only for a moment. His eyes looked as if they were lit up from the inside. Sasha recoiled.

  “Is that your final word?”

  She shut her eyes.

  “Yes.”

  ***

  “Good afternoon, third years.”

  Both the assembly hall and the stage were brightly lit. Portnov and Sterkh stood below, near the first row of chairs, and two men and a woman sat behind the long table placed near the front edge of the stage. The woman’s name was Irina Anatolyevna, she taught Specialty to Yegor’s year; the men were unfamiliar to Sasha. At least she thought so, until one of them, the one sitting on the far left, raised his head. Sasha’s mouth dropped open: it was the gym teacher, Dima Dimych. Wearing a suit and tie. With an unusual look on his face: his face seemed frozen. As if all the muscles responsible for facial expression has turned into plaster of paris.

  The third examiner, blonde, about forty years old, had never been human. Like Portnov, he was a function.

  The old wooden chairs squeaked mercilessly. Sasha took a seat in the middle of the second row, with Denis Myaskovsky on her right, and Lisa Pavlenko on her left. Kostya sat in the front row, two seats to the right of Sasha. If she wanted to, she could reach for him with her hand. But Kostya stubbornly avoided looking at her.

  “Dear third years!” Sterkh stayed below the stage, not coming up. “The big day has arrived. You will now receive printouts with your assignments. You will have time to prepare. Do not rush and do not be nervous. When you hear your name, approach this table, sign and receive your examination sheet. Is everyone ready? Can we begin?”

  Dead silence was his answer.

  “Goldman, Yulia. Adjective.”

  Staggering in her high heels, Yulia stepped onto the stage. The blonde function sitting at the corner handed her several stapled sheets of paper. Unsmiling Dima Dimych offered her a pen. Yulia managed to sign, her hands shaking; she started reading her assignments on the stairs that led from the stage down, and Sasha saw how the expression of panic on her face was replaced by surprise and then joy.

  “Bochkova, Anna. Noun.”

  “Biryukov, Dmitry. Noun.”

  “Kovtun, Igor. Adverb.”

  They rose one after another. The procedure was running smoothly and clearly had been run before; the established routine had a calming effect.

  “Kozhennikov, Konstantin. Pronoun.”

  Sasha watched Kostya move toward the table. Blond Ivan Mikhailovich handed him the stapled sheets, the former (or false?) gym teacher offered him a pen; Sasha saw Kostya’s eyelid twitch.

  Walking down the steps, Kostya tripped up.

  “Calm down,” Sterkh said gently, steadying him. “All your emotions stayed outside. All your fears are buried underneath this threshold. Concentrate.”

  Sasha watched Kostya read his assignment. At some point he paled, his lips shook; then he relaxed and Sasha felt his instant relief. He will pass; he will get through this. He was confident, he managed to regain this confidence. Pronoun… let it be so.

  “Samokhina, Alexandra! Verb!”

  Sasha jumped up making the wooden row shake. Already? So fast?

  She climbed out stumbling over someone’s feet and knees. She rose up to the stage: the room swayed like a deck of a ship. The eight eyes of the people sitting at the table watched her. The stack of examination sheets under the blond man’s hand became much thinner.

  Dima Dimych’s lips formed a faint smirk, so unlike the sincere and sparkly, toothy smiles he so generously gave to all the girls at the gym:

  “Good luck… verb.”

  “Sign here,” said the blond man.

  She picked up the fountain pen with a gold nib. The nib scratched the paper. Sasha barely managed to write “Samokhina” in black ink across from the blue checkmark. She turned and began walking away from the table.

  “Sasha, you may want to take the examination sheet—just in case.”

  She turned around. Dima Dimych watched her ironically, but without mockery.

  She accepted three thin sheets from his hand. Clutched them with her moist hand. Made it back to her seat and only then took a look.

  On the top of the first page she saw the round symbol for “Word.” And one more—for “verb.” And the third one, the meaning of which Sasha did not understand and became frightened, but immediately realized that this was not an assignment. It was the header, the legend, the identification symbols; underneath printed text read: “Alexandra Samokhina.” There was today’s date and her crooked signature.

  She looked down. Here was the first assignment; Sasha tensed up and immediately relaxed. Piece of cake. She’d done hundreds of these last year.

  Second assignment… Yes, Sterkh was right. This is simple, this would make a cat laugh.

  The distribution of examination sheets continued, now they had reached Group B. Oksana, Sasha’s former roommate, was walking toward her seat, pressing the papers to her generous bosom…

  Third assignment. Sasha turned the coarse paper over.

  On the third page a black “fragment” displayed an “anchor” of three white circles in its center.

  At first she froze. Then smiled.

  She could do it. She’d done it before. She must focus her eyes on the “anchor” and hold her breath. There stands a black city, where a monster lives in the tower. Fragment number one hundred. On the other hand, why exactly one hundred? What if it is number one hundred and one? Two hundred? One thousand?

  “… By now all of you have received your assignments. I repeat, you have enough time to prepare. Do not rush. As soon as you are ready I would like to ask you to raise your hand and… what’s wrong, Sasha?”

  Not giving herself time for reflection, she cast up her shaking hand:

  “I am ready.”

  “Already?!”

  The three examiners stared at her: the function, dispassionately, the woman, anxiously; only the gym teacher, whose new identity Sasha could not get over, squinted with obvious pleasure.

  At the foot of the stage Sterkh nervously moved his shoulders:

  “Are you sure, Sasha?”

  “Yes.” She g
ot up.

  She caught Kostya’s eyes. A long heartrending glance. She recalled the fir tree with a single garland of tinsel, the flames in the fireplace: this is where she should have placed the time loop. She hadn’t thought of it… Or was too scared. Because she had already had a bitter experience, there was already a day in her life when Yegor repeated time after time: “Let’s get married…”

  Yegor never found out the truth about the infinite day. Thinking about it made Sasha almost proud.

  What am I doing, she thought, making her way along the row. I am a verb in the imperative mood, and I am about to reverberate for the first time. I am going to become a part of Speech. Become a command. And here I am, thinking about… tinsel.

  At the foot of the stairs leading to the stage she was met by Portnov and Sterkh.

  “Good luck,” Portnov said solemnly, looking above his glasses. “You are the best one.”

  “Everything will be fine,” Sterkh offered her his hand helping her up the stairs. “Good luck, Sasha. We will fly together again.”

  In front of the table she stopped not knowing what to do next. Dima Dimych rose and beckoned her with his finger. At the far end of the stage stood tables, just like in the auditorium. A cup filled with sharpened pencils, a stack of white paper and a bottle of mineral water surrounded by glasses were placed on each table.

  “No need to be nervous, we are old friends,” the false gym teacher moved a chair toward Sasha. “And we will be working together during your fourth year. Then, during your fifth. Then, I hope, you will be accepted to graduate school. And right now we only have a placement exam, and you must pass beyond the limits. Jump over your own head. As usual.”

  Behind Dima Dimych she saw a highly complex structure, terrifying and powerful—it was hard to imagine that some time ago Sasha had that as her swing partner. She forced the corners of her lips to lift slightly; the examiner nodded, encouraging her:

  “The first two assignments we can deal with quickly, agree?”

  “Yes.”

  “Go ahead.”

  She tested the tip of the pencil with her finger and pricked it. Licked off a drop of blood. Without stopping, without checking herself, she drew a chain of associations on the paper—from memory.

  “Excellent. Next.”

  Sasha took a deep breath. Five cognitive processes begin at one point of time, each is periodical, the periods are multiples…

  “That’s enough, thank you. I knew it wasn’t going to be difficult for you. I am interested in the third sheet.”

  Sasha licked her dry lips.

  “Water?” the former gym teacher opened a bottle of mineral water. He poured some into a glass: the bubbles hissed and stuck to the walls of the glass. “Here you go.”

  Sasha took a sip and coughed. She drank the whole glass. The examiner immediately poured her another one.

  “Keep drinking. I assume you know how to complete the tests with the black fragments?”

  “Of course.” Unintentionally Sasha spoke in the same tone.

  “Good. If you are ready, let us not lose any time. Begin.”

  Sasha pulled closer the page with a black rectangle and three white dots in the center. Took a deep breath.

  Behind her back she heard the anxious rustling of paper. Her classmates were preparing for the test. She wanted to turn around for the last time to see their faces, but she did not dare.

  The stage of the assembly hall smelled distinctly of dust. One of the windows let in a draft. And everything was drowned in sharp light; even through closed eyelids Sasha saw the glow.

  “Right now?”

  “Yes. Verb, you may begin.”

  Sasha focused on the three white dots—three luminous eyes. She held her breath. One, two, three, four, five…

  ***

  One hundred sixty-eight, one hundred sixty-nine, one hundred seventy.

  Out of the blackness emerged—jumped out, revealed itself—a city surrounded by a wall high enough to reach the sky.

  She saw it in minute, most explicit, most authentic detail. The city was the color of coal, graphite, the color of dark steel, faultless in its monochrome harmony. Sasha felt marble under her bare feet. Cool stone, and warm stone, smooth and rough, soaring walls, slender windows, spires rising into the sky…

  It’s happening. She will do everything right. There, in the tower, a monster is waiting for her. Sasha must meet it face to face and not feel fear. A year ago it seemed impossible. But not anymore: having recognized her power, Sasha threw open her arms, unfolded her wings and flew.

  She grew.

  She billowed. She swelled. She absorbed outlines, smells, the texture of stone. In those places where Sasha stretched enough to reach the city, it ceased being carbon black and became softly gray, like an antique photograph. She claimed this life and this happiness; she inhaled the smoke, and the curve of a roof glistening in the rain, and the wisp of fog, and the majestic spire… The more she took the more powerful and multidimensional she became. Multicolored thoughts, so heavy and reluctant in a human brain, now flowed like a stream, no, like the sea.

  She embraced the tower. It flinched, tensed up like an egg a split second before the birth of a baby bird, but Sasha squeezed it softly, buried it under her will like under cement. The tower failed to open, and whatever was hidden inside was now buried forever, and Sasha continued to grow without obstacle.

  She claimed the city. She sensed it within herself like one senses his heart in the moment of powerful joy or fear. She flowed further, claiming the dark sky with two dull stars. These stars were superfluous in her picture of the universe.

  Superfluous.

  Extinguish?

  She appeared—she was—a dark empty space. And she was also sitting at the table on the stage of the assembly hall, and in front of her lay a black “fragment.” Examiner Dima Dimych sat across from her at the table; his face was no longer cast in plaster of paris. He frowned and grew visibly more anxious with every second.

  “What’s happening?”

  Sasha hung between the points of “was” and “will be.” At this moment—for the first time since she opened the fragment—she had the feeling that something was not quite right. Something was wrong.

  But she’s doing everything correctly!

  “Stop her! She’s broken loose again! Stop her, she’s uncontrollable!”

  The door opened with a long screech. Simultaneously the heads of people sitting in the assembly hall turned: a man in very dark glasses walked down the aisle, stepping slowly, heavy-footed, over the old dull parquet floor.

  The suit jacket on Sterkh’s back ripped open along the spine; steel-colored feathers peeked through the jagged slit.

  “What is the matter?”

  “Calm down. Continue the examination.”

  Sasha sensed but did not see them around her. Not people—structures, diagrams of processes and human beings; the examiner who was a function. The matronly Irina Anatolyevna. The gym teacher, Dima Dimych, with his strange and terrifying metamorphosis. Sterkh stood with his angular twitching wings thrown up in the air. Next to Sterkh was Portnov, so tense that he was constantly changing, pulsating like a garden simultaneously undergoing both spring and fall. Something was wrong; she had gone too far. According to the planned examination she was supposed to stop near the tower…

  She felt as if a page from the activator opened in front of her—enormous, multi-dimensional, encompassing all that can be represented in the universe. She saw herself—a mute word ready to reverberate. She saw many layers of reality—bright, textured, dull, vague, they gathered into surreal folds at the edge of her field of vision. Probabilities and rearrangements: she was supposed to stop at the tower, meet the examiner, select a point of application—she is a verb… And reverberate; it’s so similar to throwing a bowling ball into the midst of immobile pins, or swinging a still pendulum… Leave a chip at the neck of an ideal and thus non-existent pitcher… the dominoes would collapse, cars would
run along distant roads, raindrops would fall, and Sasha would materialize for the first time, she, the Imperative, an instrument of Speech.

  But something had gone wrong. She could no longer go back—not because the fourth dimension is irreversible. It was because her nature, her inner essence, led her here, to this dark space with two stars above her head, and here she was subject to different laws that did not fit into any reality known to her. Laws alien to any dimension.

  “Stop!”

  “Stop her! It’s not a verb, it’s a…”

  “Yes. This is Password.”

  Sasha who was the dark space shuddered. Two stars leaned over above her head—they were eyes, very intense, unblinking, and now black lenses no longer remained between them and Sasha.

  “Greetings, Password.”

  That, which came from the darkness, spoke without words, in bare meaning. Sasha knew how to communicate, but she did not answer. She lost her… no, not her tongue. She lost that place in her soul where words are born.

  “…Do you hear me, Sasha?”

  She was still sitting behind the table. In the empty and dim hall without ceiling, without walls. Fog curled above her head. Across from her, in the examiner’s chair, now sat Farit Kozhennikov.

  “Can you hear me?”

  She nodded, overwhelmed for a second by the pain within her enormous heavy head.

  “You are not simply a verb in the imperative mood. You are Password—a key word that opens a new informational structure. Macrostructure. Do you understand what it means?”

  Essences around her shifted, remaining in place, flowing, turning different facets. Meanings followed in a single file. Sasha managed to grab onto the simplest definitions, the ones lying on the surface:

  “Reverberate. Beginning.“

  “Mistake—no. Act of creation—important.”

  “All the subtleties and finesse will be taught to you during your fourth and fifth year, and in graduate school. The introduction to applied science is over; your applied science is here. Your most important applied work.”

  “Password. Name, new essence, Creation. Creator…”

  Concepts moved like a triumphant procession. Like a large ship going by. Sasha recognized them sequentially—and simultaneously.