Vita Nostra

by Sergey

  The train attendant brought in the sheets. Sasha sloppily set up the mattress and lay down again, covering herself with a sheet. The train would arrive at the station in Torpa at four thirty in the morning. She had plenty of time.

  At two in the morning everyone was asleep.

  Coals smoldered under a barrel of hot water.

  On the table in the staff compartment lay a set of keys. The train attendant carelessly dozed off, leaving the door slightly ajar.

  Sasha walked out on the platform between the carriages and closed the door behind her. Outside the windows, protected by the stripes of iron bars, pines rushed by.

  She opened the door and choked on the wind. The warm spell did not reach that far from the city: sharp clumps of snowflakes fell from the sky, white and motionless, frozen-looking stars peeking through the ripped clouds.

  She tiptoed back to the carriage and returned the keys to the table. After all, it was not the attendant’s fault.

  She stood in the doorway feeling the harsh wind on her face. Her skin burned and her eyes teared up—a normal, quite human sensation.

  She stretched out her hand. Gold coins scattered and disappeared.

  Sasha stood for a few moments, breathing with all her might, filling up her lungs. Then she unclenched her fingers, let go of the railing, and stepped forward. At least she imagined taking a step . . .

  She imploded.

  A gust of wind tore off her jacket, threw it over Sasha’s head. Her sweater disintegrated into threads, the T-shirt ripped apart. To the right and left of her spine, a couple of inches above her bra clasp, two hot jet pipes burst open.

  Sasha thought she saw the train from a distance, watching its long back with short pipes through which smoke rose in various stages of concentration. She saw all of it, realizing how dark it was outside; she sensed the air currents. She trailed along, shifted in space, or perhaps she glided as the shadow of an aircraft slides over the land.

  Shadow knows no obstacles. Over water, land, snow; shadow easily falls into precipices and just as easily climbs back to the surface. Clouds hung in two lacy layers, one above the other. Above the clouds was a pearly-white layer of stars. And underneath was the dark forest, full of life. The unhurried snake of the train broke into the open space, into a field darkened by thawing patches. Water stood still under a tender coat of ice in a deep ditch. The ground was still sound asleep, still wintery, but already pregnant with spring.

  Sasha wanted to sing.

  She also wanted to own all of this. This pearly sky. This cold, helpless land. These seeds hidden deep under the melting snow. These hills . . .

  She opened her arms. Every invisible seed in the frozen soil appealed to her as the shadow of a large, unbearably enormous word, “Life.” Each root waiting for warmth. Each drop of moisture. Life, the center of all in the universe.

  The only thing that had meaning.

  “Mine!” Sasha shouted.

  She was tossed like a wood chip in a whirlpool. Gray haze bore down on her. Sasha could no longer see the train, the sky, and the forest. She pushed upward, but the haze thickened. Then, hugging her knees with both arms, she fell downward, broke through into the light, saw half of the sun rising over the smooth horizon and did not recognize the landscape.

  Then she disintegrated into letters. Into short, simple thoughts. A hundred years had passed, and a hundred more, and Sasha merged again—back into herself.

  She lay facedown on the roof of a moving train.

  She wore a sweater ripped into rags and an old pair of black jeans.

  “Excuse me, which carriage is this?”

  A short red-eyed man who was smoking on the platform between two carriages staggered back and almost fell. A girl hanging upside down looked at him through the slightly open window—on the outside.

  “Which carriage?”

  “Get thee gone!” shouted the little man, and Sasha realized that he’d drunk a lot last night. And perhaps the night before as well.

  The carriage doors were closed. The railings were covered with frost. Sasha’s palms flattened against the metal, stuck, and anchored her to the train, but it hurt to tear them off. She found carriage number 7; the door suddenly gave in and opened. For a second Sasha hovered over the entrance like a curtain, and then dove into the warmth—directly onto the wet, dirty floor.

  The corridor was stuffy. A striped neutral carpet stretched along the carriage and looked long, like an airplane runway. The passengers were asleep.

  Sasha slipped into the bathroom, looked at herself in the mirror—and started crying.

  “Miss! Miss, we reach Torpa in fifteen minutes . . .”

  Sasha only pretended to be asleep.

  The night before she’d gutted her suitcase and put on everything she owned. All her sweaters and cardigans. A warm jacket. Hat and gloves. She’d wrapped a scarf around her face. Put on dark glasses.

  It was dark when the train attendant let her out onto the Torpa platform—the train stopped for one minute.

  When the train started moving again, Sasha sat down on her suitcase. She did not feel the cold. Her entire body was covered with a stiff crust, reddish-brown like polished wood. Chitin plates rubbed onto one another, cracked and squeaked with each movement.

  The clock registered ten minutes to five. February snow drifted along the platform, and the next bus to Torpa was not coming for another two and a half hours.

  Sasha took out the CD player. She put on her headphones, pressed a button—and closed her eyes.

  “Samokhina, this class started ten minutes ago.”

  “I know.”

  “It’s very bad that you know and still allow yourself to be tardy. I just informed your group that our first testing session is tomorrow at five thirty, according to a separate schedule. Sit down, please. Numbers one through eight on page five must be completed by tomorrow. Kozhennikov, hand her the textbooks.”

  Sasha shuffled over to her usual spot.

  She’d almost decided not to go to Specialty. Almost. On the bus people had stared at her like at a leper, and no one was brave enough to sit next to her. She kept her headphones on the entire way, and by the time she turned the key in the lock of room 21, she’d regained her human likeness.

  She’d had to throw away her tights—they had been cut up by the chitin plates. The jeans squeaked in her hands, covered with disgusting dust particles that resembled brown starch. Half naked, wrapped only in a towel, Sasha had proceeded into the shower room, shocking first years with her appearance. In the shower room she’d found someone’s forgotten cake of soap and used it all up until it became a thin wafer. Still wrapped only in a towel, she’d returned to her room and pulled on her one intact outfit—a jogging suit.

  Then she’d got into her bed, looked at the clock, and swore to herself that she would skip Specialty. Let them do what they want.

  With a minute left before the class began, she’d cracked. She’d thought of Mom. She’d thought of baby Valentin—those minutes when he smiled at her. She got up, carelessly brushed her hair, and, as she was, in a stretchy jogging suit, she’d shuffled off to class.

  “Now, second years, Group A, listen carefully.”

  Portnov’s straight hair had grown even longer in the last few months. His blond ponytail now reached the middle of his back.

  “What we call integral consciousness has done enough work for you during the previous semesters; now we require from you an intricate execution, but also a deep understanding of fairly complex concepts. Kozhennikov, am I supposed to wait for you?”

  Kostya stood in front of Sasha’s desk with a thin stack of books in his hands. It seemed as if he couldn’t decide which books to hand to Sasha and which to keep for himself.

  “Whatever you want to say to Samokhina, you can say after the class. Give her the Textual Module, the set of exercises, and the Conceptual Activator, that one, with the yellow cover.”

  Slightly turning her head, Sasha noticed that Zhenya Topork
o had gained some weight. Not a lot, but enough to be noticeable. She shouldn’t have worn that blouse, it was too tight. Lisa, on the other hand, had slimmed down; she wore a severe black sweater and wide-legged trousers, and a silver pendant sparkled on her chest—she looked stylish. Sasha suddenly realized that she was sitting in the auditorium in a wrinkled jogging suit, with her hair barely brushed, with no makeup on. And that everyone saw her looking like this, when she came in late. She shrugged it off.

  “Meanings are manifold. They may estrange themselves from the willpower they originated from, they can encase themselves in a shell, decompress, and transform.” Portnov strolled around the auditorium, chin held high. He lingered by the window behind the students’ backs. He strode back, pressing his fists onto the teacher’s desk; the winter light bleached his glasses for a split second.

  “Considering that at this point of your development you are capable of perceiving only information presented in the traditional fashion, we will begin with the simplest concepts. In front of everyone here is a Conceptual Activator. Open to page three.”

  Paper rustled all through the auditorium. Indifferently, Sasha opened the thin textbook with the yellow cover. No author’s name, no editor’s credentials, no publisher’s data: on the inside cover, on the clear white space, was a large phallus, in the state of arousal, and quite artfully depicted.

  “What is the matter?”

  Sasha wasn’t planning on giggling like an idiot. Her lips stretched into a snigger all by themselves. The drawing was a challenge—rude and desperate, the escapade of someone who “encased” his “meaning” into the only accessible shell.

  Portnov took the book out of her hands. He sniggered skeptically. “I see. Of course. You will stay after the class, Samokhina.”

  “What did I do?”

  Without any response, Portnov strode over to his desk, slipped Sasha’s textbook into the desk drawer and took out a similar book with a yellow cover, a slightly newer edition.

  “Here you go, Samokhina. Now, page three. In front of you is a diagram that unfolds in four dimensions, which may present a certain difficulty for you. In general, the activator is one large interactive system that allows you to detect connections between informational fragments. By the end of this semester, assuming, of course, that you study rather than twiddle your thumbs, this book will seem to you a living being, a perpetuum mobile, a generator, and an absorber of great meanings. Then you may even stop drawing idiotic pictures on its margins. Now: in the horizontal row—line fifteen, depth one—you will see notational conventions. In the first diagonal column concepts are expressed verbally for your convenience. Open the notepads. In the next fifteen minutes, you must recognize the principle and write down as many verbal definitions for each symbol as you can.

  “Starting now.”

  The bell rang.

  Sasha was bent over her notepad. The date, February 14, was scribbled in the corner margin. Below it a pattern of flowers and leaves—and, inexplicably, of bare human feet—curled around the page, fitting neatly into the graphed paper. Not a symbol, not a word.

  “For tomorrow: paragraphs one and two from the Textual Module. Conceptual Activator, the diagram on page three. Class is dismissed, all but Samokhina.”

  The door shut behind the last student—Kostya. On his way out he threw a quick backward glance.

  “I can see you’ve worked diligently on this,” Portnov said benevolently, looking at Sasha’s masterpiece over her shoulder.

  Sasha did not bother lifting her head. Unhurriedly, Portnov picked up a chair, placed it in front of her, and straddled it, leaning onto the straight back.

  “You do realize that Nikolay Valerievich had absolutely no obligation to pull you out of the mess you plunged yourself into?”

  “I knew you were going to say that.”

  “Such acumen! I fail to understand where this rebellious temperament is suddenly coming from when, in my opinion, you should be meek as a lamb. But just in case, you should know: every wasted minute of the time that should be spent studying will cost you a whole lot more than last year. These cute little flowers”—he pointed toward Sasha’s notepad—“have already been charged to your account. I will expect you tomorrow at the individual session, and you will report on the completed exercises, one through eight, in case you forgot.”

  “I haven’t forgotten.” Sasha got up.

  Portnov narrowed his eyes. “You are way too eloquent lately.”

  “You can’t make me shut up!”

  “One through ten,” Portnov informed her evenly.

  Kostya was waiting for her in the vestibule, in front of the concierge’s glass booth. The recess was almost over: first years buzzed around the staircase and the hallway and Group B congregated in front of auditorium 1. Third years were no longer there, and as usual, after the winter exams the institute seemed empty.

  “Hey,” Kostya said.

  “Hey,” Sasha responded.

  “Zakhar flunked.”

  “What?”

  “Portnov told us before the lecture.”

  “He knew it,” Sasha murmured. “He came to say good-bye to me . . .”

  Kostya’s Adam’s apple twitched.

  “Why . . . why him, do you know?”

  Sasha stood motionlessly, her arms hanging by her sides. She was supposed to go up to the third floor and change into her gym uniform. The bell would ring in five minutes . . .

  “Kostya, can you tell Dima Dimych I won’t be there?”

  “Portnov said he’s instituting a penalty for missing gym classes.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “Sasha . . .”

  “Sorry, I have to go.”

  “Hello.”

  “Hello,” Sasha said and coughed to clear her throat. “Hi, Mom.”

  “Hi,” Mom responded after a short pause. Sasha could hear the baby crying on the other end of the line.

  “How are you doing?” Sasha asked quickly. “How’s . . . how’s the baby?”

  “He’s fine,” Mom said. “He’s fidgety. Probably gas.”

  “Well,” said Sasha and faltered. “I’m doing well, too.”

  “Sorry,” Mom said. “He’s crying, I can’t talk right now.”

  Then she hung up.

  Sasha entered auditorium 14 at three twenty sharp, according to schedule. Sterkh sat behind the teacher’s desk; in front of him were stacks of books, thick notepads, and scattered sheets of paper. He did not lift his head when Sasha entered and did not acknowledge her greeting.

  She closed the door behind her and remained standing on the threshold.

  A fringe of icicles decorated the window. The sun shined through them, drops of water grew heavy on the sharp ends, fell off, and, sparkling, disappeared below. A minute passed. Then another. Sasha leaned on the door frame. Her knees felt weak.

  Sterkh’s sharp chin was almost touching the wide knot of his tie, gray-blue with a metallic sheen. Inclining his head, he was making notes in his notebook, as if Sasha were not standing there at all. Perhaps he wanted her to apologize. Or he was punishing her by this long silence. Or maybe he felt so much disdain toward her that he did not even want to acknowledge her presence.

  Sasha stared at her hands. Her nails grew with each passing second. The skin on her cheeks was becoming tighter—something was changing there as well. The blood vessels pulsated, and each one of her heartbeats echoed with a dry click in her ears.

  “You were lucky your brother is still very young. Had he been only one week older, the full rehabilitation would have been impossible. The child would have been an invalid with no chance of recovery.”

  Sterkh spoke without looking at her, still concentrating on the page of his notebook.

  “Take the next disc. Work on the first track. Only the first one.”

  Sasha took a few steps toward the desk. She reached out with her hand; her nails, ugly, black, were curled into hooks. She squeezed the envelope with the disc between her palms an
d, pressing her hands together, stepped back.

  “You are dismissed.”

  Sasha left without saying a word.

  And yet she loved to learn. This almost unnatural passion saved her that night, when Portnov’s ten exercises surrounded her like a pack of assassins, and not one of them would give up without a fight.

  At first, she tried to convince herself: one more step, and I’ll take a break. One more mental metamorphosis. One more. Vector, another vector, and here we have connecting threads, and now two mental streams have been associated, and now the first exercise is almost done . . .

  A while ago she’d attempted to understand which part of her organism was responsible for completing these exercises. Brain? Yes, of course. Imagination? At top speed. Intuition? Yes, quite possibly. But all these things were parts of a larger mechanism, and not the most important ones; when this mechanism warmed up and started working at full force, it seemed to Sasha that she, Alexandra Samokhina herself, was only a fragment of the mechanism. A rear wheel.

  It was a quiet February evening. A long crimped icicle hanging from a tin awning peeked into the window of room 21. A boom box was turned on somewhere—she could hear the rumble of the drums and a low sensual voice crooning something in English; then even the stereo got tired, the streetlights were switched off, the windows went dark, and the snow-covered lawn in front of the dorm was now pitch-black. Sasha cornered exercise number five and started number six.

  Recognize associations. Compose a picture out of separate pieces. Take apart a mechanism, use the parts to compile a new one, then accidentally notice new possibilities, and, jumping over to a different orbit, discover an infinite field of operation. Sasha was carried away; at times she would come back, repeat first semester exercises from memory, reaching a dead end, bypassing everything in a roundabout way, and suddenly run into a simple solution—she sat over the book until six o’clock in the morning.

  Exercise ten. Done.

  Sasha stood still, feeling as if she, her body, were an old tower at the ocean shore, a heavy stone building, over which centuries flew. Inside, wind danced and sand rippled. Frightened by the authenticity of the sensation, Sasha moved—and came back to reality. Her arms felt numb. She was very thirsty and had to use the bathroom.