Vita Nostra

by Sergey

  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 disc, 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 would 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 had come true . . . and tomorrow had come.

  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 had 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 them, 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’d promised, and then this whole scandal with Zhenya, which 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 was a first-year student. He had no idea what it was like to take winter exams. More important, he 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’d beaten 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 goddamn 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. And she should have opened it! Should have opened the door and taken off her clothes! So that he would understand.

  But that’s not what she’d done, and she couldn’t relive this moment like she had yesterday for all those weeks.

  Maybe Kostya would come. Ask her what happened. Or had Zhenya’s actions last night made him wary 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 her 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 and 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 of the streets with yellow hieroglyphs. Sasha saw the eye of a raven perching on a naked linden tree. She saw each cigarette butt stomped into the mud in front of the institute. Turning her face, she saw air currents of different temperatures: warm streams rose out of the windows, moist haze trembled above the roof. A warm spell.

  Answering a few random hellos, registering quizzical glances, she entered the institute. About to pull the door handle, she realized that she’d never even read the paragraph for Portnov.

  She had no way out. So she walked in.

  Zhenya Toporko was finishing her session. She was the very last person Sasha wanted to see at that moment—which was saying something, considering how many people she didn’t want to see.

  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.” At the same time, Portnov took out a cell phone, pressed in a number, 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 shone 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.

  “Very funny,” Portnov said in a hollow voice.

  The door opened without a knock. Sterkh walked in and immediately locked the door. He was very pale, his ash-colored hair tangled as if he had taken a long stroll in windy weather. The hump on his back was more pronounced than usual.

  Sasha unbuttoned her jacket and dropped it on the floor. Pulled her sweater over her head, then took off the other one, leaving only a dark blue T-shirt. She glanced at her forearms and shoulders; her skin had a bluish tint, was uneven, and in some places covered with purple feathers.

  Portnov whistled and took off his glasses. His face had a different expression. If Sasha had not known Portnov so well, she would have thought it was fear.

  “Are
you pleased?” Sasha asked Sterkh. “Did I do a good job?”

  “Yes, Sasha. I am very pleased.”

  Sterkh looked nothing like himself. Where was the delicate, slightly absentminded Nikolay Valerievich? The hunchback stood in a predatory stance, watching Sasha the same way a whale hunter watches his trophy prey. And Sasha had no eyes to respond to this stare with dignity.

  “Thank you,” Sasha said. “You have achieved your goal. You turned me into this.”

  The auditorium swam. Sasha watched it through her itchy skin, saw the wall behind her back, a key in the keyhole, a round tag with the number 38, a nick on the door handle. The Institute of Special Technologies reprocessed her, digested her as it desired.

  “That’s it,” Sasha whispered. “I’m done. I can’t do this anymore.”

  The hunchback caught her mid-fall. He held her close. It was so unexpected and so bizarre that she froze, afraid to struggle.

  “I was right, Oleg. You see, I even underestimated her. You are a gift, Sasha. A talent. You broke out of your shell, you hatched. Have you ever seen baby chicks? They need time to get comfortable, to get acquainted with the new world and their place in that world. Stop, my dear. Everything is fine. You have broken through to the main road. Now you will walk along it, step-by-step, you will study and you will learn. And you will understand everything. But, oh, what a gift!”

  And Sasha, who was watching the hunchback through the skin of her cheeks, saw tears in his eyes.

  He escorted her down the corridor, and students parted to let them through. Sasha, in her jacket with the hood pulled down low, in dark sunglasses and woolen gloves, walked under escort, cringing, eyes low to the ground. Sterkh held her elbow—to prevent her from falling. Or maybe from escaping. It was quite possibly from both.

  They reached the first steps of the staircase that led to the administration wing, when Kostya ran out from underneath the bronze hooves of the equestrian statue.

  Sasha struggled to get free. Sterkh caught her by the hood.

  “Kostya!” Sasha shouted. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t come to English!”

  Kostya stopped, looking from Sasha to the hunchback and back.

  “What have you done to her?”

  “Tomorrow,” Sterkh suggested, smiling. “You will meet tomorrow and discuss everything you want. I apologize, Kostya, we are very pressed for time.”

  And he led, almost pulled, Sasha downstairs, into his office. She wanted to tell Kostya “Thanks.”

  But she couldn’t say it.

  By eleven thirty that night she was back at the dorm, barely alive, but at least she once again looked human. Sharp flashes still ran along her skin, and her spine was still sore, but her eyes once again had pupils and irises, and her arms, while still oddly white, had ceased to resemble prosthetic devices.

  Sterkh had spent a long time with her; she thought it would never end. She’d sat at the table wearing headphones, a ream of paper in front of her, and a pencil in her gnarled hand. Sterkh drew symbols, one after another, complex and unfamiliar signs that at first sight appeared to be completely random, and Sasha was supposed to insert missing lines, and the silence pressed on her eardrums, and Sasha, giving in to the unavoidable, somehow knew what was missing, and pushed her pencil over the paper, and the stack of pages covered by her writing grew in front of her. Sterkh himself had replaced the CD in the player and changed the tracks.

  During those hours Sasha had learned a lot about silence. The silence of a two-thousand-year-old tomb differed from the vacuum of an ice desert in a distant galaxy. Sasha had stopped feeling pain and time—she had been suspended like a fly in amber—and only a sharp ray of light from Sterkh’s mother-of-pearl mirror had made her regain consciousness.

  “All right, please look at me . . . Terrific. Now this is a completely different ball game. I am truly blown away by how much can be done here, and what kind of work lies ahead of us. You have a rare gift. An extraordinary one.”

  Behind the small door was a tiny bathroom with a full-length mirror. Sasha looked at herself and saw a haggard-looking girl, disheveled, with terror-filled eyes, but absolutely normal. She saw a human being.

  “Are you chilly? Put on your sweater. Good. So here it is, Sasha—from now on, you will work according to a special schedule, you and I will meet every day except for Saturday and Sunday. You have a propensity for an indiscriminate metamorphosis, and we’re going to deal with it first. Are you hungry? Would you care for some tea? Easy, Sasha, easy, this is your victory day, it is a cause for celebration. I know you must be tired.”

  Tired didn’t even come close to describing how she had felt. She’d staggered back to her room holding on to walls. Of course, Lena and Vika were still awake over their textbooks.

  “Where were you?”

  “I had a one-on-one.”

  “They are really tough with you second years,” Lena said with sympathy.

  “Like they are so gentle with us,” Vika grumbled. “And so much to look forward to . . .”

  Both bent back over their Textual Modules; Sasha got into her bed and passed out.

  She woke up early, around five in the morning, because it was time to get up and go for a run. She sat up in bed, utterly confused, shook her head, and only then realized that she was no longer required to run in the mornings, that she was a student at the Torpa Institute of Special Technologies, and that yesterday she had turned into a monster.

  She remembered about offending Yegor. She had promised to stop by—and then never showed up. He’d asked her to let him in—she had not opened the door. And then there was the scene with Zhenya, which by now was surely part of the dorm’s folklore.

  Her roommates breathed heavily in their troubled sleep. Sasha got up, switched on the desk lamp, and only then noticed that her wrists were covered with scales, and so was her neck.

  She found a mirror. Yes: pinkish, tinted mother-of-pearl, soft, but growing harder every minute—scales.

  She took the CD player out of the bag. She hoped the batteries still worked; she inserted the disc given to her last night by the hunchback. She sat still for three minutes, absorbing the silence like a sponge absorbing water.

  The scales morphed into skin, rough, windblown. Everything was going according to Sterkh’s predictions. “Remember: relapses are possible, especially in the mornings. When you are sleeping, your body may get out of control in its unconscious state. Don’t be alarmed. I am giving you this disc. It will not affect your development, and its only task is to stabilize you in your human body. When you get up in the morning, when you use the bathroom, brush your teeth—listen to the disc. Even if you feel perfectly well and everything seems normal, listen to the disc. And don’t be afraid, Sasha—the worst is already behind you!”

  Sasha rubbed her neck, massaged her wrists, lay on the bed, and stared at the ceiling.

  Time to take stock. She had broken out of the time loop. She had her human appearance back. She felt normal, even well: she was wide awake, clearheaded, and able-bodied—she could easily go for a run right this minute. So . . . now what?

  Yegor. Sasha felt obligated to atone for her involuntary crime. She had to explain what had happened. Although . . .

  Sasha bit her tongue.

  If Yegor found out that his marriage proposal had sounded to Sasha like a broken record, and that she’d never told him about the recurrent day . . .

  But he’d never asked! Kostya had noticed that something was wrong, but Yegor . . .

  Yegor had other priorities. He needed to concentrate, to focus before saying: “Let’s get married.” Or did he just blurt it out? After so many times, it was hard to remember.

  Only one thing was crystal clear: if Yegor found out that yesterday was only a duplicate for Sasha, one of many identical days, he would feel like a complete idiot, and—due to his fragile male ego—there would be absolutely no chance of maintaining a decent relationship. That meant she had to keep quiet. She would have to ask Kostya not to sa
y anything. It was in his interest as well as hers.

  Sasha took a deep breath and lowered her eyelids. She listened to her body: everything seemed normal. She was a little hungry. Here were her arms, her toes—she could move the toes. Here was the bed . . .

  Sasha’s eyes popped open.

  The bed was now part of her body. The sheets itched—they should have been washed a long time ago. The metal feet of the bed felt the linoleum; it turned out to be pliable, warm, even. Sasha swallowed; several feet of the floor under her bed were now also incorporated into her body. That part of her was a little rough, not particularly clean, but spacious and hard. And it was becoming more and more spacious.

  Sasha gasped and pressed her fists to her chest. Here was her body. The bed existed separately from her. The room existed separately. And separate was Sasha herself.

  A minute passed in total silence. A car drove along Sacco and Vanzetti.

  I’m not going to try that again, Sasha said to herself. And was immediately surprised: Why not? Was it unpleasant? Was there any shame in it?

  She relaxed a little and again possessed the bed. A little bit of the floor. The entire floor in the room. The walls. She became the room. She lightly shook the white dorm lamp shade and wrinkled her nose because of the dust. She banged the windowpane, as if slapping her knee with the palm of her hand.

  A shard of glass fell on the floor. Sasha flinched with unexpected pain; the sensation was similar to breaking a nail. The sound of broken glass woke up Vika, who sat up in bed.

  “Dammit . . . what is it? Did the wind break the glass? Damn, I remember shutting it last night!”

  Sasha did not respond. Once again she returned into herself, two arms, two legs, sweat on her upper lip, and heart beating wildly. Silently, Lena helped Vika stuff a pillow into the empty window frame.

  “Now what are we going to do? Use cardboard? It will be impossible to get them to replace the glass. And it’s so windy . . . Oh well, it’s only half past five, let’s go back to sleep.”