Vita Nostra

by Sergey

  “I thought it was decided,” Valentin said.

  “Yes, but there could be all sorts of circumstances. Who knows what could happen.” Disconcerted, Sasha squished a piece of the cake on her plate. “What if some official wants to transfer his relative to the third-year group, for example? And then there is no vacancy left for me. It’s not all that easy, is it?”

  Mom was silent.

  “Don’t you want to leave Torpa?” Valentin asked mildly.

  “Well.” Sasha swallowed a piece of cake with effort. This was not the right time, not a good time at all for this conversation; she so desperately wanted to relax peacefully and not think of sad things, so desperately wanted to push this discussion to a later time . . .

  “Well, I guess . . . I think it’s better for me at Torpa. I have friends there . . . and I’ve formed connections with the professors, informal ones. I have an enhanced stipend. And I’m not even talking about the apartment . . . I mean, in Torpa I’m a star, and here I’d be just a dog’s tail.”

  Mom was silent. Sasha did not dare look up.

  “Aren’t you exaggerating?” Valentin asked.

  “No.” Sasha glided her finger along the edge of her teacup. “I miss you, of course, and I would like to live with you. But I’ve gotten used to it in two years . . . and it’s school, you know. I’m nineteen years old. It would be a pity to have to start all over again.”

  “Do you have a boyfriend there?” Valentin smiled encouragingly.

  Sasha hesitated. This was a perfect opportunity to lie. They would believe in love.

  “Well . . . what can I tell you . . . sort of. Yes.”

  “And what did you say your specialty is called?” Valentin asked, throwing a sideways glance at Mom.

  “Professor of Philosophy.” Sasha had made up this lie in advance. “And Theory of Culture. On a college level. Secondary academic institutions . . .”

  “Is that what you wanted?”

  “I’m nineteen—who knew what I wanted,” she said with an easy laugh. “But why not? It’s a good profession. And I might be asked to do some graduate work.” Sasha tried to speak effortlessly and at the same time self-confidently.

  Silence descended upon the kitchen. It was so quiet that she could hear the rustling of the bubbles rising in the glasses of unfinished champagne.

  “I see.” Mom’s voice was hollow. “I’m going to bed. Good night.”

  She rose and left the kitchen. Sasha stared at the uneaten cake.

  Sasha opened her eyes. Mom was standing at the door of her room, silent and still.

  “Mom?”

  “Shhhh . . . Did I wake you up?”

  “No,” Sasha said automatically. “What happened?”

  Mom took one step. And one more tiny step. As if she did not dare getting closer.

  “Nothing happened. I got up . . . I didn’t want to wake you. Go back to sleep.”

  She turned to leave. Then stopped again in the doorway. “I had a dream. Remember how we went for a boat ride?”

  “What boat ride?” Sasha propped herself up on one elbow.

  “The boat ride around the lake. Don’t you remember? We had these oars, bright yellow, plastic ones . . .”

  “No. What time is it?”

  “Half past twelve. You wouldn’t remember, you were only three years old. I’m leaving, go back to sleep.”

  She left, closing the door behind her.

  Sasha lay on her back. A boat ride? She had clear memories of herself at three years old, remembered the cubbies in her day care center, remembered the merry-go-round in the park . . .

  But not the boat ride.

  Mom must have dreamed it.

  At half past two, still unable to sleep, Sasha tiptoed to the balcony. She struggled through the drying coverlets and swaddling blankets and stood in the fresh wind. She leaned over the railing.

  She had two days left at home, and Mom had yet to find out.

  Sasha desperately longed to walk into Mom’s bedroom, hold Mom in her arms, and cry. She wanted it so much that she even took one step.

  Then she stopped.

  She looked down. She swung her legs over the balcony railing and perched on top, kicking her feet in midair. The pink phone stayed in her room, on the rug next to her bed, and Sasha knew—even though the evening was warm, and ascending streams rose up from the earth, and there, up above, the air was infinitely fresher and cleaner than here on this balcony—that she was not going to leap, was not going to soar, not going to rise above the city . . .

  She felt sorry for Mom. She couldn’t care less about Valentin; chances were he wouldn’t be all that upset about Sasha’s decision, but she felt so sorry for Mom that the pity made it hard to breathe. Her ribs hurt.

  She closed her eyes. No, she was not going to fly, not going to allow for the temptation. But was she forbidden from sending up a tiny projection of herself? A reflection of Sasha Samokhina in the mirror of the August sky?

  She did not have a chance to decide whether her actions were out-of-bounds. Everything happened by itself. She sat clutching the balcony railing, and she rose high above the linden trees; the street stretched into a yellow ruler, and only every other streetlight burned along the road. Billboards opened up like windows, brightly, even harshly lit. Sasha’s shadow drifted, drawing slow circles in the sky.

  “I’m sitting on the balcony, I’m not flying. I don’t manifest anything, and I don’t read forbidden books. I don’t listen to extra tracks. I am not doing anything wrong . . .”

  The dark spot of the park lay underneath her feet. Sasha inhaled its scent of grass and freshness through her widening nostrils. She slowed down, wanting to linger in that fresh stream, but the stink of hot asphalt and old exhaust gas made her suffocate, especially after the clean air of Torpa.

  August. A sea of stars. A dull, dusty city below. One of the many shadows of the Eternal City that perishes and is reborn every second. Sasha’s shadow circled and circled, and she herself sat on the balcony, as if hypnotized by the light of the distant flames.

  She was Word; she was a verb in the imperative mood—no! Not yet. She was still human. But then . . . how could she fly?

  Baby Valentin’s smile.

  He’s also a word. Mom says gently: “Sunny baby.”

  And somebody says: “Moron, creep, idiot!”

  And that is what will happen.

  And somebody says: “Get up! It’s already half past seven!”

  And somebody says: “Go away.”

  There are words that are simply trash, refuse, they turn into nothing immediately after they are spoken. Others throw shadows, hideous and pathetic, and sometimes gorgeous and powerful, capable of saving a dying soul. But only a few of these words become human beings and pronounce other words. And everyone in the world has a chance of encountering someone whom he himself spoke out loud . . .

  The sun was rising.

  Sasha sat on the balcony railing like a parrot on its perch, and stared straight ahead with unseeing eyes.

  “When are you planning to return to Torpa?”

  “I have a ticket for tomorrow night.”

  The answer burst out of her with suspicious ease. Perhaps Sasha’s shadow still soared over the city and park, while Sasha herself sat in the kitchen, smearing a pat of butter on a slice of white bread.

  “What do you mean tomorrow night?”

  Mom’s face looked exactly the way Sasha feared it would look last night.

  “You got tickets for tomorrow—in advance?”

  Sasha pressed the butter onto the smooth wheat fabric, flattened it out, and then pressed it again.

  “I have extra classes, the summer sessions. Even during vacation.”

  “You are lying,” Mom said sharply.

  Sasha looked up in surprise. “I’m not lying. I know it sounds strange, but it’s true.”

  Or, at least, partially true, she added to herself.

  Mom seemed pensive, as if she were calculating somethi
ng in her head. Coming to some sort of conclusion, she said, “When you are done eating, could you please run out and get some milk?”

  “Sure.” Barely containing her relief, Sasha placed her tortured slice back onto the plate. “Be right back.”

  When she came back, her brother was already awake and lying on his back, thoughtfully studying the merry-go-round horses that swam slowly over his crib. Mom had already cleaned up the kitchen and was now pushing her iron over the ironing board. Steam rose over the baby’s blue shirt.

  “I’m coming with you.”

  “What?” Sasha almost dropped the bag of groceries.

  “I’m coming with you. Valentin can watch the baby for a couple of days.”

  “But what are you going to see? It’s vacation time right now. There is no one at the institute.”

  “Then who is going to teach the extra classes?”

  “My professor . . . Mom, wait—are you going to check up on where I live, who my friends are, what I do there?”

  “That’s exactly what I’m going to do. I want to see with my own eyes who’s teaching you, and what is going on there.”

  “It’s a typical learning institution.”

  But Mom shook her head. “No. You’re hiding something.”

  The iron pressed into the shirt stretched over the board aggressively, like a tank. Mom kept pushing the iron over the same perfectly smooth spot.

  “At first I didn’t want to humiliate you with my nurturing: beginning of independence, friends, boys. Then, to tell you the truth, I had other priorities. But now . . . Sasha, tell me: Have you been threatened, and now you are afraid of confessing?”

  “What am I supposed to confess?”

  “Is it a cult? Do they make you pray?”

  “No, of course not!”

  “I am going to Torpa.” Mom’s voice was full of metal. “I am going, and . . . if need be, I will raise hell. I’ll get the police involved, the public prosecutor’s office. I will find out what’s going on, and they will have to answer to me!”

  A year and a half ago Sasha would have wept upon hearing such words and thrown herself into her mother’s arms. She would have asked, begged, her to come to Torpa, to help her, to save her. Back then she would have believed that her furious mother had power over Farit Kozhennikov. But now . . .

  “Kind of late, don’t you think?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Mom, I don’t want to change anything. I like it there . . . and I’m not going to allow you to interfere.”

  “What?”

  Mom let go of the iron. It stayed on the ironing board, steam hissing underneath the platform, making the iron resemble a steam train.

  “So it is a religious cult?”

  “No. I just don’t want to change anything.”

  “You promised to return!”

  “I never promised anything.”

  “What have they done to you?”

  “Nothing.”

  “I’ll write a statement for the police.”

  “On what grounds? I’m over eighteen. And there’s nothing going on, besides.”

  “Have they drugged you? Hypnotized you? Is it some sort of conspiracy?”

  “Mom, it’s been going on for two years. In all that time, you’ve never said anything. Didn’t seem to care. Two years, and you haven’t been concerned about anything until now?”

  Mom stepped back. A few minutes ago she was ready to attack, fight, defend. Now she looked as if she had been hit on the head with a stick.

  “Two years,” Sasha repeated ruthlessly. “Nothing can be done now.”

  Mom stared at her as if through wet glass. As if the outline of Sasha’s face wavered in front of her, melting and flattening.

  Black smoke rose from underneath the iron’s platform. Sasha forced the iron off the board; a burned hole gaped in the blue baby’s shirt.

  “You have a new life,” Sasha continued without remorse. “A new husband, a new baby, new happiness. And I have a new life, too. I’m not leaving forever, but you should not try to force anything on me. Don’t try to find out what’s going in Torpa. Some things I will share, but some things need to be all my own. But things are perfectly fine, believe me.”

  The baby cried in the bedroom. Perhaps Sasha had spoken too loudly. Perhaps little Valentin felt the tension filling the apartment. Mom flinched, but continued staring at Sasha.

  “I feel badly about the way things worked out,” Sasha said, looking at the hole in the baby’s shirt. “But Torpa is where I belong, and there is no way back. I am sorry.”

  “Miss! Torpa in fifteen minutes!”

  “Yes, thank you. I’m awake.”

  She’d never before returned to Torpa this early in the summer. The night was stuffy, windless. The train departed. Sasha walked ten meters along the platform and found herself knee-deep in fog.

  The birds began waking up. The bus came on time.

  The linden trees were green on Sacco and Vanzetti.

  Sasha dragged her suitcase up to the third floor and unlocked the door of her loft. She placed the suitcase by the door, poured some water into a cup, and watered the ivy in the flower box outside her window.

  She lay down on her bed, stretched out—and realized she was home. She knew that the dark shadow circling over the city had melted. And she, Sasha, was once again a singular entity.

  “Greetings, third years.”

  September first in Torpa was always filled with sunshine. For the third time Group A was greeting the new school year, and for the third time outside the windows of auditorium 1 Indian summer showed itself in the green linden trees, in the dark shadows on the pavement, in the heat and dust.

  Portnov remained true to himself: a wrinkled checkered shirt, old jeans, straight blond hair pulled into a ponytail. His glasses, long and narrow like razors, were designed to allow him to look over the lenses.

  “Biryukov, Dmitry.”

  “Here.”

  “Bochkova, Anna.”

  “Here.”

  Once he called a student’s name and heard his or her answer, Portnov would allow for a short pause in order to bestow a significant glance upon the student. Occasionally the glance would last three or even four seconds.

  “Goldman, Yulia.”

  “Here.”

  Somewhere in the assembly hall terrified first years listened to “Gaudeamus.” The dorm, filled with new residents, smelled of paint and fresh whitewash.

  “Korotkov, Andrey.”

  “Here.”

  “Kovtun, Igor.”

  “Here.”

  “Kozhennikov, Konstantin.”

  “Here.”

  Kostya sat next to his wife. Clean-shaven, ascetically skinny, slouching slightly. Sasha’s heart skipped a beat when he walked into the auditorium; they said hello as if they’d parted only last night, but did not say another word to each other.

  “Myaskovsky, Denis.”

  “Here!”

  Denis was smiling. The euphoria he experienced after he’d passed Sterkh’s test had put a stop to his prolonged depression. Sasha noticed that Denis looked suntanned and that he sat sprawling at the table, one leg thrown over the other. Judging by his looks, he was not afraid of anything.

  “Onishhenko, Larisa.”

  “Here.”

  “Pavlenko, Lisa.”

  “Here.”

  Dressed in a black T-shirt and black jeans, completely devoid of makeup, Lisa resembled a monochrome photograph. Smooth blond hair appeared to be glued to her head.

  “Monastery style,” Portnov said. “You’re missing a wimple.”

  Lisa did not reply.

  “Samokhina, Alexandra.”

  “Here.”

  They glared at each other for five seconds or so—Portnov over his glasses, Sasha straight back at him. Portnov was the first one to look away.

  “Toporko, Zhenya.”

  “Here!”

  Zhenya had gained some weight, and Sasha thought that her f
ace had grown harsh. Zhenya pushed her pencil over an empty page in her notepad, as if scared of looking up at her professor.

  “Very good.” Portnov leaned back in his chair. “Congratulations on the beginning of your third year. This semester we will concentrate on studying Speech as a multilevel system of efforts that either alter the world or prevent it from changing.”

  The third years of Group A resembled a garden of stones. No one moved. It seemed that no one even blinked.

  “The starting pistol has just gone off, and the date of your placement exam has been made public: January thirteenth. During the exam each one of you will have a chance to apply the knowledge you have absorbed in these two and a half years, as well as demonstrate the practical skills built upon that foundation. In case you successfully complete your mission—and I am convinced that will happen—you will face a radical change to your existence: you will have an opportunity to become a part of Speech . . . Yes, Pavlenko?”

  “Will we be using Speech in practice? Are we going to use Speech?”

  “No.” Portnov stared at Lisa over his lenses. “Speech will be using you. Any more questions?”

  Yegor stood in front of the bulletin board, tilting to the side, pressing his right hand to his chest, swaying as if losing his balance—and regaining it at the last moment.

  “How are you?” asked Sasha, just as a simple greeting.

  Yegor’s hair was bleached by the sun, and his eyes appeared even darker and deeper. He stared at Sasha for a long time, and once she stopped expecting a reply, he finally moved his lips.

  “I had a practice session. Just now.”

  “Did you succeed?”

  “You were right,” Yegor said. “Listen . . . I’m scared.”

  “Nonsense,” Sasha said. “Just study, and don’t be afraid. You’ll learn things, pass the exam, get your diploma, then you’ll become a Word. Perhaps, you will even become a fundamental concept. They say it’s a big honor—”

  “I’m a verb,” Yegor said.

  “How do you know?”

  “I was told. Irina Anatolievna, she said that I’m a verb in the subjunctive mood. I express a wish, or a condition, the ‘if it were true . . .’ Do you understand?”