by Sergey
In total silence, Sasha’s classmates let her pass. She walked through their formation toward the entrance of the dormitory.
Snow fell in November. Early mornings, before sunrise, Sasha would leave the dorm and jog around the yard, leaving a chain of footsteps. Around and around. Stepping into her own footsteps. Just like a year ago.
No one forced her. She simply realized that without those running sessions, without the silence of the deaf and mute morning, without snow under her feet and a cloud of her breath, she would never survive the pressure. Neither physical nor psychological.
At first Kostya ran with her, but then he begged off. He hated getting up that early; he usually slept through the first block (unless the first block happened to be Specialty). Sasha did not mind, though—she needed to be absolutely alone. Complete silence and the sound of snow under her feet, crunchy or squishy, whatever her luck happened to be.
Mom still wore a cast. She assured Sasha over the phone that everything was just fine, that she’d gotten used to the cast, and that her thumb did not hurt anymore. She and Valentin sent Sasha a care package: winter boots, tights, socks, and even a new jacket with a fur-lined hood. The jacket was a bit small.
A wintry atmosphere also reigned in room 21: Lisa ignored Sasha, Sasha took no notice of Lisa. At first Oksana attempted to make them reconcile, but then gave up and got busy with her own life: she had frequent guests, girls from Group B and sometimes even second-year boys.
“Open house,” Lisa murmured through gritted teeth, but no one was listening. Something had fallen through with that rented apartment of hers. Either she could not afford it, could not find a decent place, or perhaps—Sasha could believe it—Portnov forbade her.
On the way to the post office one Sunday, the day Sasha always called home, she saw Farit Kozhennikov and Lisa walking ahead of her along Sacco and Vanzetti. They walked side by side; Kozhennikov was talking, Lisa was listening, and glancing at her face, Sasha felt a great deal of pity for her.
She slowed down. Snow melted during the November thaw, streams of water ran between the cobblestones just like in the spring, and bright yellow leaves swam on the bottom.
Kozhennikov and Lisa separated at the intersection in front of the post office. Kozhennikov nodded and turned left, crossed the street, and disappeared around the corner. Lisa leaned on a naked linden tree.
Sasha longed to go over and say something to her. She took a step; a large puddle made a squelching sound. Sasha leapt aside and went back to reality.
Lisa would not be pleased. Sasha had no power to change anything, at least right now.
She slid behind Lisa’s back and entered the stuffy post office filled with amber warmth. The whole time she waited for her turn in the long-distance booth, she envisioned how some day she would spit in Kozhennikov’s face. How she would gather a mouthful of saliva and spit; the old man in front of her was already finishing up his conversation when Sasha realized—feeling bewildered and discontented—that a fraction of her hatred for Farit Kozhennikov fell on Kostya.
“The son is not responsible for the sins of the father,” she reminded herself. Kostya was just as much a victim of Farit’s as Sasha herself. He had ripped and thrown away the paper with his father’s phone number. Farit wasn’t his real father—just a biological one.
“Are you going to make the call or not?” asked the girl behind the counter.
Sasha went into the booth. But even while speaking to Mom, she could not get Kozhennikov and Kostya out of her mind.
“Haven’t you slept with him yet?” Oksana sounded worried.
She was washing the dishes. No matter who made the mess in the kitchen, Oksana ended up doing the dishes. Sometimes she threw pots and pans against the wall and shrieked: “What a pigsty!” but then did the dishes anyway. Greasy plates piled in the sink drove her insane.
“They are all hypersexual at this age.” Oksana must have been repeating somebody else’s words. “You are going to lose him, you know.”
Sasha bent over a paragraph. Room 21 overflowed with Lisa and Lisa’s friends and acquaintances. They parked themselves all over the place, even on Sasha’s bed. Sasha did not feel like arguing, so she took her books and went to the kitchen, which at that time of night was empty—not counting Oksana and her dishes.
In the past few months of dorm life Sasha had gotten used to sleeping despite loud noises and studying in the middle of an earthquake. But Oksana’s words unsettled her, and she found herself constantly returning to the beginning of the paragraph.
“You are a strange creature,” Oksana mused. Her back was turned to Sasha; Oksana was soaping up a plate and could hear nothing except for the sounds of running water and her own voice. “Are you eighteen yet? In the spring? You’re a peanut. Portnov gave you an automatic pass, the only one out of thirty-nine people. And you are still cramming, like a wound-up toy, morning to night. Kostya is a good-looking guy, and we have tons of pretty girls around here; somebody will steal him away, you know. Even the local chicks are not bad here, the schoolgirls . . .”
The door swung open. One-eyed Victor, the third year, came limping in, still lopsided and strange. His sweatpants formed bubbles on his knees; his plaid shirt had seen better days. Huge leather gloves covered his hands, and his face was hidden behind enormous dark glasses. Sasha shuddered.
“Hey, girls,” Victor croaked. “Will you pour me some tea?”
Oksana turned her face to him. “Don’t you have any of your own tea?”
“I’ll get it,” Sasha put aside her book. She couldn’t concentrate anyway.
The electric teakettle began to hiss; the smell of burned duct tape filled the kitchen.
“Victor, what happened to your hands?” Sasha asked in passing.
Victor looked down at his hands, which were hidden by the gloves. He wiggled his fingers. “Ah, you know . . . The winter finals are coming, girls, the winter finals. Must survive the winter finals, that’s the thing.”
“Must survive the finals,” Sasha echoed.
Victor’s dark glasses turned to her. “What are you worried about? You are only first years—have fun and play games. Celebrate New Year’s Eve. For third years there is a placement exam this winter, ladies.”
Oksana turned off the teakettle. She turned to him, wiping her hands on an already wet dish towel. “Is it difficult?”
Victor inclined his head. “I guess you could put it that way. . . . difficult. After this exam we are moving to another location. Whoever passes it, obviously.”
“It might be easier at the other location,” Sasha suggested without a hint of conviction.
None of the first years had any clue about where the “other location” actually was, or what exactly it entailed. Some people said it was a very advanced institute, equipped with extremely sophisticated technology, with a dormitory recently renovated according to the contemporary European standards, with a computer on each desk. Others said the place was hidden underground, in deep catacombs. It was also said that the other location was in another city.
Some students—Sasha had heard it herself—believed that the other location happened to be on another planet.
Once Sasha suggested to Kostya that the “other location” for the upperclassmen was a mysterious region beyond the grave that no one knew anything about, because no one ever returned from that place. Kostya had had a strange reaction to her joke: he went pale and asked her not to make that kind of a joke ever again.
“It might be easier,” Victor agreed melancholicly. “What can I say, girls. I really meant to be a merchant marine . . .”
Sasha plopped a tea bag into an enamel mug and poured steaming boiling water over it.
“Sugar?”
“Two teaspoons. No, three.”
Sasha placed the mug on the edge of the table. Victor picked it up with both hands—awkwardly because of the leather gloves—and poured the boiling tea into his mouth, like water.
Sasha stopped breathing. Victor put his empty cup
on the table, smiled, and licked his lips.
“Thanks.”
“Wasn’t it too hot?” Sasha asked softly.
He shook his head.
“Nah . . . Well, girls, I should go study. Thanks. And remember me kindly!”
He left the kitchen.
Sasha stepped into her room, a textbook stuck under her arm. The room was dimly lit by a desk lamp and a few burning cigarette ends. Faces were hard to distinguish in the thick smoky air. Lisa sat on the desk next to a stereo system, and about ten people, first and second years, perched wherever they could find a place. Two people sat on Sasha’s bed—a sturdy girl whom Sasha had seen around and her boyfriend. Her name was Natasha; his, Slava. They were making out.
“Lights out,” Sasha said. “Eleven o’clock. Everybody out.”
No one heard or listened to her. She approached the desk and threw the stereo system onto the floor. The top broke off. Conversation died.
“Are you nuts, Samokhina?” Olga, from room 32, asked in complete silence.
Sasha switched on the light. Everyone squinted; Sasha’s eyes were wide open, even slightly bulging.
Maybe she was nuts. But standing in this room, no one could possibly matter because, just a few minutes ago, accompanied by laughter and voices, she had finished exercise twenty-five (even though Portnov gave her only numbers thirteen through seventeen). It just so happened that after she had completed number seventeen, Sasha had read the next one, out of curiosity—and had understood absolutely nothing. But instead of simply closing the book, she had read it one more time. This time, the words were familiar. The images were relatively clear. However, she could not imagine what she was supposed to do with them, and how it was meant to be done.
And that is when the bee in Sasha’s bonnet resurfaced. Perhaps it had something to do with her personality as a straight-A student. Perhaps her investigative instincts had kicked in. Whatever the reason, she had begun pulling a thread from number seventeen to number eighteen, followed it into utter darkness, and a few minutes later she had stumbled upon what she thought of as a “contour” of the new exercise.
And then she was sure.
Truly happy, she had started gently kneading number eighteen. From that one, she had sensed threads stretching to number nineteen, and then to number twenty. And then Sasha had felt an epiphanous illumination of truth, and she had thrown herself into the exercises, one after another, and the light had become brighter, until finally, on exercise number twenty-five, she went blind.
The inner light had flashed brilliantly and then faded. Sasha had rubbed her eyes; she hadn’t been able to see the kitchen or her textbook. For a second she had thought she was inside the exercise. She was a dark contour in a space without upper or lower limits; she did not have a chance to get scared. What had finally snapped her back—at least a bit—was when she heard the door slam, felt a cold draft, and then heard the refrigerator door open.
“Bitches! Who ate my herring?”
“Idiot, did you leave it in the common fridge?”
“I can’t keep it in my room! It stinks!”
“Should have eaten it right away.”
“Morons . . . Whose sausage is this? I’m going to eat the whole bloody thing.”
“Don’t—the sausage is Elena’s, it’s spoiled. It was already going bad when she got it.”
Sasha had heard the voices very near her. She had sensed the draft on her face, perceived smells.
But had seen nothing.
She had felt the textbook sliding off her lap. She had managed to catch it. There had been no fear: Hadn’t Portnov said something about this, that vision may change?
What if her vision was lost forever?
Sasha had swallowed her terrified howl. She had rubbed her eyes, as if trying to gouge them out, and a few seconds later she could discern the white blur of the fridge. And one more minute later she had detected the head of a herring on the tiled floor, somebody’s feet in slippers, fragments of a broken cup . . .
Her vision had returned.
Reeling, Sasha had shuffled off to her room. Something was happening to her. Something serious. She could not—and did not wish to—stop it. So when she had flung open the door, had become aware of the burning ends of cigarettes and a necking couple sitting on her bed, she had not thought about anything and acted on pure instinct.
“Everybody out. Are you deaf?”
“Too much studying, sweetheart?” the guy on her bed asked her softly.
He looked into her eyes.
It seemed to her that only a few seconds had passed. In reality, when she came to, the clock showed half past eleven, and she was alone in the room. Cigarette butts lay on the floor. The tobacco smoke made her nauseated: she moved to the window, ripped off the paper she and Oksana had taped on the frame, plucked out the foam, and threw open a panel, gulping the icy November air.
“You know, I am getting to be quite scared of you,” Kostya said. “Sometimes you have this look on your face . . .”
They sat on the windowsill in the corridor near auditorium 38. Kostya had come out of his individual session ten minutes ago; Sasha had five minutes to wait before hers.
“Sasha . . . what exactly did happen in the kitchen? Something happened, and none of them would admit it, as if they were ashamed.”
“Nothing.” Sasha waved her hand without much enthusiasm. “They can all go to hell.”
“You have changed,” Kostya said.
“We’re all changing.”
“Yes, but you . . . Maybe you are a genius. Or something worse than that?” Kostya attempted a joke.
“I gotta go,” Sasha said.
Actually, she still had a couple of minutes—she just was eager for her one-on-one. That feeling was definitely a first.
She stopped in front of the auditorium. Portnov’s voice was sharp and loud behind the door. It sounded as if he were flogging someone, or hammering in nails. Sasha thought that today he would definitely not yell at her. Today she brought not five, but thirteen exercises. Twenty-three . . . She felt anxious and happy, like when she was a little girl riding a Ferris wheel.
Zhenya Toporko left the auditorium, strangely hunched over, holding back tears. Probably deserved it, Sasha thought without pity. She entered the auditorium.
“Good morning, Samokhina. Have you finished?”
Sasha nodded. She leaned over the straight-backed chair and began the mental process starting from exercise number thirteen.
She lost it on number fourteen and began again. Made a mistake on number fifteen and went back to the beginning. Portnov watched her, his lips pursed skeptically. Ready to panic, Sasha started again and lost it on number thirteen. Portnov was silent.
“Give me a minute, I just need to concentrate.”
“Then concentrate.”
“I . . .”
Sasha stumbled. She remembered last night. Oksana and her dishes. Victor and his gloves. “Haven’t you slept with him yet?” Scalding tea . . . Flashes of cigarettes in the dark.
She started number thirteen—and felt the exercises glide. One after another. Like the links of a chain. Like familiar thoughts. Insane. Alien.
She passed number sixteen. Seventeen. Immediately merged into number eighteen. Nineteen. Her heart seized; Sasha felt like a tightrope walker, dancing on a wire over a screaming crowd, she could almost hear their ecstatic shrieks—although in reality the auditorium was quiet, somewhere in the hallway students spoke to one another, and she stood grasping the back of the chair, staring into space, and across from her Portnov sat and watched her, and somehow—how?—he knew and saw her dance on the wire, and he was her only spectator. Or listener? Accomplice? What was happening to her, and how could he sense it? And what exactly about her thoughts and exercises did he see?
Right after the twenty-fifth exercise, she went blind. Just like last night in the kitchen. A flash of light—then darkness, like a closed container. Obscurity.
And stillness. Por
tnov did not move.
“Sit down.”
Holding on to the chair, she walked around it and sat down. The seat squeaked.
“Which numbers were you supposed to study?”
“Thirteen through eighteen.”
“Then why the hell did you touch the twenty-fifth?”
Sasha swallowed.
“Answer me!”
“I wanted to.”
“What?”
“I wanted to!” Sasha was ready to snap and talk back at him. Had she still had her eyes, she would get up and leave, and slam the door behind her. However, she was blind and afraid to appear ridiculous by running into the door frame on her way out.
“What can you see?” Portnov asked an octave lower.
“Nothing.”
“Nothing at all?”
Sasha blinked a few times.
“Nothing,” she said finally, her voice barely audible. “The same thing happened last night. But it went away almost immediately.”
“How many times did you do number twenty-five?”
“Twice. Last night and this morning.”
She heard Portnov get up and approach her. She rose; Portnov took hold of her chin and sharply, almost cruelly, jerked her face up. There was a flash of light; Sasha blinked.
Right in front of her eyes was Portnov’s ring. Its green light dimmed little by little.
Portnov removed his glasses. He looked at Sasha—perhaps for the first time in her life, he looked not above his lenses, but straight at her. His pupils were tiny, like poppy seeds. They reminded Sasha of the eyes of the hunchback, Nikolay Valerievich, who once treated Sasha to a restaurant dinner of sandwiches and pork chops.
“Listen to me, girl. If I say something, that means you have to do it exactly as I say. You may not do less. You may not, should not, do more. If you want to do more, come to me first and ask. And here is something else: You have two exams coming up. You are missing a lot of classes. I checked attendance—you’ve missed almost as many classes as Pavlenko. Have you made peace with her yet?”
Sasha was silent for a moment. The last question caught her off guard.