Vita Nostra

by Sergey

  “Samokhina, go eat something. The dining hall closes in fifteen minutes.”

  “In this brilliant red flower was collected all the evil existent on earth . . . all evil. It flourished on all innocent bloodshed (which was why it was so red), on all tears, and all human venom.”

  The flashes of meaning ceased, and only muddy waters remained. Sasha would finish the paragraph. She placed the bookmark on the page: the sheep’s smile reminded her of something, but she had a tough time figuring out what it was exactly. Sasha would close the textbook, put it into her bag, locate the door frame (the library doors were especially nimble and slippery). She would walk out; the corridor would seem very dark, then, filled with extremely bright lights that made visible every parquet plank, every crack, every cigarette butt on the bottom of a tin urn.

  I am walking along the corridor. Dining hall is over there. I must eat. Here is my lunch ticket.

  “. . . what in particular he was called upon to perform on earth . . .”

  Every second the world around her altered. Some connections strained and grew, others broke. The process resembled convulsions. Every now and then Sasha would stand still, listening to herself: inside, an invisible thread would tauten, cutting and rehashing, weakening and twitching again. Occasionally, she saw herself from the outside: a small lake of melted ice cream, and in the coffee-colored slush swam a tiny acrid nubbin—Sasha’s fear. Sasha did not like looking at her fear. It looked like a half-digested chunk of meat.

  But she was not afraid, because she could not see anything that would frighten her, and she could think only of things she was able to see. Time stretched and tightened, until it was time for summer finals.

  “Samokhina, what are you thinking regarding the summer internship?”

  Brilliant rays of sun beat on the window of auditorium 38. They seemed nearly as dazzling as the reflected beam of the pink stone of Portnov’s ring.

  “Nothing.”

  It was true. The fragile thread of Sasha’s thoughts was gradually turning into a dotted line. She observed things—the dust particles in the sunbeam, that desk with a deep scratch, and those green tops of the linden trees outside the window. Yet she did not think about them.

  “Listen carefully, here’s what needs to be done. The summer finals will be over on June twenty-fifth. Internship starts on the twenty-sixth. Don’t forget to notify your parents.”

  Sasha was silent.

  “In August you can spend two weeks at home before school starts again.”

  “Fine,” Sasha said, watching the sunbeam.

  “Good for you,” Portnov said. “And now show me exercises fifty-two through fifty-four. Simultaneously, don’t forget. Three branches of the process must be led in parallel, with a half-measure step between them. Concentrate.”

  In the middle of July, on the anniversary of her meeting with Farit Kozhennikov, Sasha balanced on a branch of a large cherry tree. Her summer internship responsibilities included going up a ladder into the thickness of tree branches, locating red berries amid the light and shade, taking hold of them with her palm, carefully picking them off, and placing them in the basket that hung on her chest.

  The orchard was enormous. The cherry branches intertwined; the berries hung in clusters and could be picked from the ground, but the real magnificence started on top of the trees.

  Sasha swallowed so many cherries that her mouth was sore. Cherry juice covered her white T-shirt. Her lips seemed huge, as if blown up. Cherry juice collected under her fingernails. Sasha was happy. The only thing that upset her was having to return all her textbooks to the library. Sasha told Portnov that she’d lost the Exercise book, but he’d simply gone into her room and pulled the textbook from the crack behind the radiator—apparently, she wasn’t the first student to try this. Since then Sasha had stopped studying. Neither did she think. She just watched. And felt: warmth, light wind, her palms touching the tree bark, cherries caressing her face.

  It was a summer day—very warm and bright; leaves protected Sasha from the blazing sun. In the morning, trucks brought the first years—no, second years already—to the garden. At midday they would be given food. Yet time stretched, lacquered cherries reflected the sun—and Sasha’s face. Lunch hadn’t arrived yet, but the day had already passed. And here was a whole week, even though this day hadn’t yet ended. Time resembled a neat bow.

  Then the weather changed. Clouds crept all over the sky, predicting a thunderstorm. Sasha spread the branches over her head and watched the sky, as if trying to commit it to memory: the edge of a cloud moving over the sun and the resulting color of mercury. A brim of a cloud, reddish like a jellyfish. A flat whirlwind in the sky, resembling a thumbprint. Thunderstorm, Sasha thought, the rain is going to be heavy, I need to hide under an awning . . .

  She was still thinking of what she could see. Yet she was beginning to feel anxious: it seemed she was starting to look into the future. Predicting what was going to happen in a few minutes.

  “It is going to rain,” she said out loud.

  No one answered. The orchard was too big. The interns had lost track of one another a long time ago.

  Sasha slid down her tree. Carefully transferred the cherries from her basket to a box. To be on the safe side, she covered the berries with a piece of plastic that lay nearby on the grass.

  Then she lay on her back and stared upward. Stillness descended upon the orchard, like during Portnov’s lectures; the leaves froze. Sasha stared straight ahead.

  A thin layer of hot air surrounded her face. Above she detected another layer, filled with whirling flies. Higher still was the thick top of the cherry tree; to Sasha it seemed transparent. Above that—frozen masses of air, and beyond—a thick layer of clouds. Higher, still higher, the stratosphere . . .

  The clouds swirled into a funnel, and simultaneously Sasha fell into the sky. This used to frighten her. In her childhood, at a summer retreat, she had lain on a field just like that, stared up, and had been afraid of tumbling into the sky.

  And now it was happening, but she wasn’t scared.

  Wind tore the plastic sheet off the box, and the cherries stared out of it in a multitude of dark eyes. Sasha saw herself from their point of view: the picture would splinter, then collect into a whole, and that would cause a stereo effect.

  She was caught and pulled up like a kite, while her body on the grass remained inert. A thread that connected her to this anchor helped her soar, yet also kept her close. She felt the trees as her arms, and the grass as her hair. Lightning struck, torn leaves flew by, and Sasha laughed with pure joy.

  She knew herself to be a word spoken by the sunlight. She laughed at the fear of death. She understood what she was born for and what she was destined to carry out. All this happened while the lightning remained in the sky, a white flash.

  And then it began to rain, and she came to her senses—soaking wet, her T-shirt stuck to her body, a lacy bra, coquettish and pitiful, peeking through the wet fabric.

  “Greetings, second years.”

  Specialty lectures were still held in the same auditorium 1. Second-year students of Group A sat behind the same tables that looked like high-school desks.

  Sasha looked around, surprised to see many familiar but entirely forgotten details. Here was a blackboard, just like in high school. Here was a dent on a painted wall. Here were the people who had stayed close to her almost the entire summer . . .

  At some point, all of these things had ceased to mean anything, had become transparent like soap bubbles. But now the second year was starting—and everything was gaining new meaning.

  Sasha herself had changed. It felt as if she had been taken apart—and then put back together again, but at first glance she seemed exactly the same. Sometimes even she herself thought that she was exactly the same as last fall, when they had listened to “Gaudeamus” in the assembly hall.

  Portnov opened the thin paperbound attendance journal.

  “Biryukov, Dmitry.”

&
nbsp; “Here.” Dmitry covered his face with his hand, as if the sunlight blinded him.

  “Bochkova, Anna.”

  “Here.” Anna blinked, too often and too fretfully.

  “Goldman, Yulia.”

  “Here.” Yulia sat lopsided, doodling in her notepad. Every now and then her head twitched.

  “Korotkov, Andrey.”

  “Here.” For some reason, during the summer Andrey had shaved his head and now resembled a very young suntanned army recruit.

  “Have you decided to save money on hairbrushes?” Portnov squinted at him. “Not bad, not bad, it suits you. Kovtun, Igor.”

  “Here.”

  “Kozhennikov, Konstantin.”

  “Here.” Kostya raised his head. His hair was bleached by the sun and stood on end. He sat next to Zhenya Toporko, but not right beside her—an empty chair remained between them.

  “Myaskovsky, Denis.”

  “Here.”

  It was abundantly clear that the entire group was present, but the roll call continued, a solemn ritual. Sasha breathed deeply. The very smell of the institute, the smell of fresh paint, plaster, dust, and linden trees outside reminded her and stressed the point: she was alive, her life was rich and colorful, and everything was back to its normal state—September, learning, auditorium 1, sunlight.

  “Pavlenko, Lisa.”

  “Here,” said Lisa.

  She was wearing exaggeratedly wide jeans with decorative suspenders falling along the pant legs. Unexpectedly, the baggy jeans only emphasized Lisa’s thin, fragile figure; she had a tan that made her blond hair seem even lighter.

  “Samokhina, Alexandra.”

  “Here.”

  Portnov measured her with his eyes, but did not comment.

  “Toporko, Zhenya.”

  “Here.”

  “I can see you enjoyed your vacation.” Portnov squinted. “You look like you spent it at an expensive resort.”

  Zhenya seemed unperturbed. She’d visibly matured since last year; out of a frumpy teenager emerged a sexy, shapely young woman. Her schoolgirl braids remained in the past; this summer Zhenya had cut her hair fashionably short. Her tanned face boasted a gentle blush; sitting near Kostya, she looked at Portnov almost without fear: beautiful, yes, I am fully aware, now what?

  Roll call completed, Portnov gave the group one more glance over his glasses.

  “We all had a good rest and are now ready for new accomplishments. This semester, as usual, we prepare for hard work. You will have another Specialty subject: Introduction to Applied Science. Your professor is Nikolay Valerievich Sterkh. He is an excellent teacher—try not to disappoint him. With that addition, you will have fewer subjects on general education. Physical Education remains a mandatory subject, though. Has anyone yet spoken with the first years who just moved into the dorms?”

  A light whisper ran through the rows.

  “I have,” Sasha said. “I got two new first-year roommates this morning. Am I not allowed to?”

  “You are allowed. However: if anyone here has a discussion with a first-year student regarding the profile of our institute, its specialization, education program, or educational style—that person will answer to his or her advisor. Therefore I suggest you restrain yourselves.”

  The murmur of voices in the auditorium became louder.

  “But what should we tell them?” Korotkov asked. “In case they ask?”

  Portnov smiled unexpectedly.

  “Give them good advice. Convince them to study hard and attend all their classes. Comfort them in case of hysterics. You are mature people—come up with something. Remember how last year the former third years gave you moral support.”

  “We’ll support them,” Denis said.

  Sasha glanced back. The entirety of Group A was watching their professor; some people sat leaning to one side. Some had a tough time focusing their eyes. Some twitched, some giggled uncontrollably. A gathering of freaks.

  “Some of you are still going through the deconstructive stage,” Portnov said, as if addressing her thoughts. “Which is not surprising, considering your laziness and lack of energy. I want to remind you: only those who study hard have a short and easy path to normality . . . to the state that you deem normal at this point, that is. Reminder: alcohol is forbidden on the premises. The first years are going to drink, and at first they will not be punished. But if I see even a trace of alcohol in your blood—and I am not even talking about drugs, because those of you who attempt to smoke pot at this point in the process are doomed. If I find alcohol in anyone’s room, I will make sure that you will vomit every time vodka is even mentioned. Is this clear? Any questions?”

  His glasses reflected the windowpanes. No one had questions.

  “That’s it for the administrative issues,” Portnov said. “Prefect, the textbooks are on the table. Please distribute them to the class: Textual Module, Level Four, and the Problem Set, Level Three.”

  “Am I prefect again this year?” Kostya ventured.

  Portnov raised an eyebrow.

  “Group A, are there any other candidates?”

  “Let Samokhina be the prefect,” Lisa said. “She’s our star student and a community leader.”

  Someone giggled, but the sound died down immediately.

  “Samokhina”—Portnov wasn’t looking at Sasha—“has enough work this semester. Kozhennikov, you’ve already taken up two minutes. Just do your job, I beg of you.”

  The textbooks were old and smelled of dust. Sasha couldn’t help herself and peeked at the first page of the book of exercises.

  “Samokhina!” Portnov’s voice lashed at her like a whip. “I did not give permission to open the book!”

  Reluctantly, she closed the book. But the first lines of the very first exercise had already caused her to sink into delicious ecstasy.

  Back in Torpa, she no longer felt the enormous pressure of living at home. The two weeks that she’d spent with Mom and Valentin had turned out to be harder than she’d thought: she had been constantly forced to check herself, listen, hear, give appropriate answers, and smile at regular intervals. Sasha had done her best, but Mom had kept getting more and more worried.

  “Sasha,” she had said one morning when they were alone in the apartment. “You know what . . . Show me your arms.”

  At first Sasha had had no idea why she was asking this. It had turned out Mom was looking for needle marks, but, not finding any, had not completely relaxed.

  “Mom, that’s just silly. What made you think that?”

  “You are acting so strange. You answer out of turn. You look . . . detached. What is happening to you, can you tell me? What’s going on? Do you smoke? Sniff? Are you taking pills?”

  “I swear to you,” Sasha had said tiredly. “I’ve never tried anything like that in my life. I don’t even drink vodka.”

  Yet Mom had not seemed convinced. She had seemed anxious herself, at first high-strung, then cheerful, she would look preoccupied, then forget about her worries, and finally Sasha had ended up asking her:

  “Is something going on with you? What happened?”

  “Can you tell?” Mom said after a pause, and she blushed.

  “Tell what?” Sasha blinked.

  “I am expecting,” Mom had said simply. “We are—Valentin and I.”

  “How?”

  “The usual way,” Mom had said, trying to be unflappable, even sarcastic. “I am not as old as you may think.”

  “I don’t think that,” Sasha had mumbled. “I meant something different. But . . .”

  “But when a man and a woman love each other, it is perfectly natural that they want to have a child. Valentin wants a baby.”

  “And you?”

  “And so do I!” Mom’s laugh had sounded a bit tense. “Don’t you want a baby brother? Or a baby sister?”

  “I don’t know,” Sasha had admitted, having considered the possibility. “It’s all sort of transcendental.”

  At that moment she’d und
erstood Mom’s state of mind, and she also had known why the subject of drugs and Sasha’s unusual reactions had not developed any further. Sasha had no idea what she would have done had Mom pressed her against the wall with questions like: What do you do in Torpa? But Mom was too busy. She was growing a baby, and that unborn baby, and not grown-up Sasha, was getting all her attention.

  Sasha thought about it, realizing her own unfairness. Mom was not indifferent to her fate. Mom was torn between her new family and Sasha, and Sasha felt torn in half herself: she desperately wanted to return and for her mother to release her from Torpa. She knew perfectly well that her latter wish was unattainable and criminal. She was terrified that one day Mom would learn the truth and would attempt to free Sasha—and would perish in the struggle, because she had absolutely no chance in the fight against Farit Kozhennikov.

  “If only you went to a normal school close to home,” Mom had said the night before Sasha’s departure. “You would have enough time . . . and you would want to . . . and you would see the baby grow up, you would help me . . . It would be good for you; someday you will have children of your own. Have you thought any more about transferring?”

  “It would be too crowded for the four of us,” Sasha had said. “The apartment is too small.”

  “But this is the only apartment we have! Perhaps a bit later we’ll find a bigger apartment, but for now . . .”

  “For now I will stay at Torpa,” Sasha had said. “They have a really nice dorm.”

  Mom had sighed. At that moment she had desperately wanted to believe that the dorm was indeed very nice.

  “I’m going to pack.” Sasha had gotten up. “The train’s tomorrow and I haven’t even started packing.”

  She had gone into her room, sat down on the couch, dropped her shoulders, and imagined that soon nothing familiar, kind, or old, would exist. The next time she came home, everything would be different. A new life, a new childhood would begin. Sasha’s room would change, and the cold draft would blow the memories that lay on dusty bookshelves out the window. Yes, Sasha was selfish, she was used to having Mom all to herself. But now there was Valentin, and soon there would be somebody else who would own the informational space of this home. And Sasha, back on the periphery, would be slowly transforming into a new creature herself. Into an unknown entity. Perhaps into something life-threatening. She would transform silently. And it was a good thing that Mom had Valentin and that she would have that baby, because the girl who had been born and grown up in this home no longer existed . . .