Vita Nostra

by Sergey

  “Mom?”

  Mom turned her head.

  “It’s so beautiful here. The pavement, these buildings, even the lanterns are so picturesque. Did you have your class?”

  “Yes.”

  “What did you do?”

  “The usual student stuff. Textbooks, notes. Let’s go downstairs to the café and get some food.”

  “I am not hungry. I had some tea, washed my cup. Sasha . . . you are doing so well; everything looks so neat. Such a nice apartment.” Mom spoke while looking at Sasha—and at the same time not seeing her.

  “Did you call home?”

  “Yes. Everything is fine, but it’s hard for Valentin, obviously. He has some issues at work, he’s missed quite a few days, and taking time off right now is not very convenient. And I feel so anxious.”

  Sasha took the opportunity that presented itself. “You should go home tonight. I will take you to the station.”

  “Sasha . . .”

  “You came to see how I live and where I go to school, right? Well, now you have seen that I live well, and I study like any normal student. Or are you planning a full inspection?”

  “Sasha . . .” Mom faltered.

  “Let’s not fight anymore,” Sasha said firmly. “Forget everything I said—it’s all nonsense. Just words. You should go tonight, otherwise who knows what could happen while they are at home by themselves.” She smiled, hoping to indicate she was joking.

  Mom took a deep ragged breath. Not letting her say another word, Sasha picked up her overnight bag. “Come on—let’s go. It takes time to get to the station, then we have to get you a ticket, get some supper at the café . . .”

  Sad but determined, Mom shook her head.

  “Sasha, I made a decision. You are coming with me.”

  Sasha dropped the bag on the floor and exclaimed, “I can’t! I’m a student here. I have classes tomorrow!”

  “Who are you trying to deceive?” Mom asked gently. “Your endless and very complex studies, additional lectures—even in the summer—all for what? To prepare you for teaching philosophy at some vocational school?”

  Sasha found herself at a loss. She had an unshakable belief in the informational “fog” surrounding the institute and everything connected to it. Mom’s calm logic practically disarmed her, because she wasn’t wrong: What was the purpose of Torpa? And, even if she could explain it, would it even make sense to Mom?

  “Sasha, I bear all the guilt here. But you are my daughter, and I am not leaving you here. I don’t know what is going on at this school, but I feel that something is wrong. I don’t want you to have anything to do with Torpa. If it is necessary, I will find a lawyer. Or a doctor. If I need to, I will sell our apartment, I will withdraw all our money from the savings account, but if you are in trouble, I will help you!”

  The pink phone on Sasha’s neck rang sharply.

  She had never heard its ring tone before. “Pop goes the weasel . . .” It was loud, shrill, reedy.

  It was the most terrifying sound she’d ever heard.

  Mom stopped talking and looked at Sasha in surprise. The ringing continued. Finally Mom said, “Answer it. What’s with you?”

  Everything had already happened. Everything just happened. Holding on to the edge of the bureau, Sasha lifted the phone to her ear. “Hello?”

  “Sasha! Sasha, it’s Valentin!”

  The screaming voice was full of terror.

  “Is your mother there? With you? I can’t get ahold of her!”

  “She’s here,” Sasha said. At least she tried to say it.

  “Hello! Can you hear me?”

  “Yes,” she said, firmly. “She’s here.”

  “Give her the phone!”

  Moving her dead fingers, Sasha pulled the pink cord off her neck and gave the phone to Mom.

  “Hello, Valentin? My battery went . . . What? What!”

  Sasha clutched the bureau with both hands.

  “There were nine! I took one yesterday . . . yes . . . God, how could you . . . Nine, count them, there should be nine pills . . .”

  Mom choked. Her face went white in the light of the setting sun. Sasha shut her eyes.

  “Nine,” Mom exhaled. “Did you count them? Nine . . . I’m sure. Yes, I took one, I am positive. There were only nine. Are you sure? Oh God . . .”

  Mom caught her breath. Inhaled deeply—exhaled. And one more time. Valentin kept talking, rapidly, almost choking.

  “Calm down,” Mom said finally. “I’m leaving now. Relax, everything is fine. You can explain in the ambulance. It’s a lesson for both of us. I left it there . . . I just didn’t think he’d reach as high as the shelf. It’s all right, wait for me, I’ll be home in the morning . . . I love you.”

  The pink phone fell onto the bed. Mom sat down next to it and went limp like a snow pile in the spring.

  “Mom?”

  “The baby got hold of my sleeping pills. They are so brightly colored, you know, those pills. He tried to pluck them out, one after another. And then he put them in his mouth, but Valentin caught him. He did not know how many of the pills were in the jar, and he called the ambulance right away. The baby just didn’t have enough time to swallow any, thank God. Simply not enough time. It was sheer luck. I’m leaving, Sasha, leaving right now.”

  Sasha bought a compartment carriage ticket and refused to take money from Mom.

  At the station cafeteria they bought hot dogs, two portions of cabbage salad, and a couple of pies that were still hot and smelled really good. Mom called home a couple more times using Sasha’s phone. Baby Valentin was doing great. The ambulance team reprimanded his father for being absentminded and confirmed that the baby was just fine. “Shaken but unhurt,” Valentin said, making an attempt at being lighthearted.

  Sasha and her mother came out of the waiting room toward the platform and sat down on a bench. The night was warm, filled with a cool wind and the scent of grass and moisture—an autumn and at the same time summer night.

  “How are you getting home? It’s so late . . .”

  “Cars go back and forth here,” Sasha said with as much confidence as she could muster.

  “It must be expensive . . .”

  “Don’t worry about it, I’ll be fine. Trust me, I’m all grown up!”

  Sasha made a feeble attempt at smiling.

  She was still shaking, though, and she worked hard to conceal the tremor. The fear refused to back down. Sure, everything was fine—Mom repeated every ten minutes—but the phone was still there, hanging from her neck, and the little stylized globe rotated on its display.

  The fear suspended over the universe.

  It’s impossible to live in the world where you exist. It is impossible to live in the world where I do not exist.

  Although it’s hard to resign oneself to my existence, I understand that.

  Crickets sang.

  A freight train rolled by drowning out all the sounds, but as soon as the roaring subsided, the crickets started up again.

  “You were right,” Mom said. “They need me. It’s as if you knew. ‘Who knows what could happen while they are at home by themselves . . .’”

  Sasha looked down.

  “It looks like I jinxed them.”

  “Nonsense.”

  “But everything is fine now, right?” Sasha nervously touched the phone on her neck.

  “Everything is fine.”

  Forty minutes remained until the train’s departure. Mom spoke in short declarative sentences.

  “It is a very nice town. I didn’t expect it to be so old. It is strange that no one really knows about Torpa. Although there is a tourist center. I saw it. There is a tourist center. And the little shop sells landscape photos . . .”

  A local train arrived. The doors opened and women with large checkered bags came out, then an old man with a sheathed scythe. The train started and melted into the dark.

  The semaphore went green.

  Three bright lights came on in the darknes
s: the long-distance train was approaching the station.

  “Mommy,” Sasha whispered. “Don’t leave them alone for long. Don’t leave them alone at all. Stay with them, I will be fine. I . . . I will come and visit during the break.”

  The train stopped. The locks slid open with a grating sound, the doors opened one after another, and the train attendants stepped down onto the platform, pushing back the curious passengers.

  “Standing for five minutes! This stop is five minutes only! Don’t let children get off the train! Don’t go too far!”

  A man in sweatpants and a wife beater looked around, inhaled deeply, murmured “Such air!” and immediately lit up a cigarette.

  Mom handed her ticket to a fat uniformed train attendant, who nodded. “Come in . . . Seat number fifteen.”

  Sasha stepped inside with Mom. For one minute she dove into the smell, the life, the temporary nature of the train—but this time the train was somebody else’s. It was transitory, this ghostly, dreamlike way of life was about to take off, and Sasha would remain here.

  Here where she belonged.

  They went back onto the platform and stopped, not knowing what else to say.

  “Departing in one minute,” the train attendant rushed them. “Take your places.”

  Then Sasha hugged Mom’s neck just like she had when she was a little girl.

  “Mommy, I really, really love you.”

  The cursed pink phone, stuck between them, cut into Sasha’s chest.

  “The train is departing! Everyone back on the train!”

  They did not let go of each other’s hands. They could not let go.

  “Ma’am! The train is leaving.”

  “I love you,” Sasha whispered, choking on her tears. “I love you . . . Good-bye . . .”

  The train started moving. Sasha ran alongside it, waving, and for a long time she kept up with the train. Mom waved out of the open window in the corridor, and Sasha saw her hair flowing in the wind. The train gathered speed, Sasha ran faster, Mom leaned farther out of the window, and kept waving, and shouted: “Good-bye!”

  And then the platform ended.

  The windows of the moving train merged with the faces. The roaring was replaced by a distant noise. Sasha watched the train until she could no longer see the last of its lights.

  Then she walked over, moving her aching feet, and sat down on the tracks.

  “Sasha?”

  The moon was high up in the sky. Farit Kozhennikov stood over Sasha.

  “It’s late. You have classes tomorrow. Shall we?”

  “Please, Farit . . . Leave me alone.”

  “You need to control yourself. You have to get back to town somehow. It’s very late and very cold. Let’s go.”

  He spoke so calmly and with such authority that Sasha could not resist. She got up and followed Farit, dragging her feet slightly. The heels of her shoes broke, the heel taps were lost. The shoes would have to be thrown away. No matter.

  Kozhennikov opened the door of his white Nissan for her. Sasha shrank into the seat.

  “Are you cold?”

  “Why, Farit? What did I do wrong? Did I break any rules? Why?”

  “You could not solve the problem on your own. I agree, it is not your fault, or at least not entirely. But remember: the baby did not swallow the pills, he only played with them. It’s only fear, Sasha. Fear the General. Fear the Emperor who shapes the reality. You should buckle up.”

  The car rode onto the highway surrounded on both sides by the forest. The road signs flashed in the lights and rushed backward, like smeared spots of white fire.

  “Fear is a projection of danger,” he continued, “genuine or imagined. The thing you wear around your neck is a phantom fear, the kind you get used to . . . kind of like a familiar sprain. Nothing happened. But you believe in trouble, and that is why you lived through these minutes as if through a real tragedy.”

  “You taught me to be afraid,” Sasha said, gripping the phone.

  “No. You knew how to be afraid without me. Everyone knows that. I simply directed your fear, like an arrow toward the target.”

  “And you have achieved your goal?”

  “Yes.”

  Sasha turned her head. Kozhennikov watched the road, the speedometer arrow inching toward 120.

  “The first years,” Sasha said slowly. “Do you select them somehow?”

  “Yes.”

  “Don’t you feel sorry for them?”

  “No. They are Words. They must realize their preordained purpose.”

  “And other people? They . . .”

  “They are different. Prepositions, conjunctions, interjections . . . expletives.” Kozhennikov smiled. “Every man carries a shadow of a word, but only Word in its entirety, firmly imprinted into the fabric of the material world, can return to its beginning and grow from a pale projection to an original entity.”

  “And your instrument is fear?”

  “Sasha.” Kozhennikov slowed down at the turn of the road. “For a while now you have been working hard not because somebody forces you to, but because you are interested in it. You have tasted the honey of that knowledge. To be Word—do you understand what it means?”

  Sasha didn’t answer. She was silent until they reached Torpa; finally the Sacco and Vanzetti cobblestones clattered under the tires. The car stopped near the porch guarded by the stone lions. The streetlights were on, but none of the windows were lit.

  “Thank you,” Sasha said in a strained voice. “Good-bye.” She opened the car door.

  “Sasha?”

  She froze.

  “Give me the phone.”

  Sasha turned to face him. A streetlight reflected in Kozhennikov’s glasses made it look as if two burning white eyes stared at her.

  With difficulty she pulled the pink cord off her neck. Kozhennikov weighed the phone in his hand.

  “Do you understand what it means to be Word? The verb in the imperative mood? Do you know what it is?”

  Sasha was silent, having lost the gift of speech.

  “Good.” Kozhennikov carelessly dropped the phone into the glove compartment. “Good night, Sasha.”

  He drove away.

  “Yegor, may I speak with you for a minute?”

  The dining hall was full of noisy conversations and the clanking of dishes. Students carried hot borscht, in which floated white commas of sour cream. Sasha waited until Yegor finished eating; when he was walking out with a bunch of his classmates, pulling his cigarettes on the way, she placed herself in his path with determination, but without theatrics.

  “I’ll catch up with you,” Yegor said to his classmates.

  They went up to the hall. First years sat in the row near the bronze equestrian’s hooves. Sasha led Yegor a bit farther—toward the deep window niche.

  “Here’s the thing. Are you having problems with Applied Science?”

  “I wouldn’t put it that way. I mean, everyone is having some issues, and so am I, but—”

  “I don’t care about ‘everyone.’” Sasha’s voice was harsh. “You are a verb in the subjunctive mood, and that makes you special. If you don’t study hard, then . . . Do you have any idea what could happen?”

  Yegor stared at her with empty, static eyes.

  “Don’t you understand what I’m saying?”

  “I understand. They say this to us in every class. ‘If you don’t tie your shoelaces, you will fall down. If you don’t eat your oatmeal, you will grow up a loser. . . .’”

  “Yegor—”

  Sasha stopped herself short. Yegor was clearly at the most complicated stage of the informational reconstruction: he had almost completed his deconstruction period as a person, but he had not yet formed himself as a word. She remembered herself a year ago: they had met around the same time, and back then Yegor was a confident, strong, and kind man. Yegor had pulled his classmate Stepan out of the water; back then Sasha would freeze in the middle of a movement, staring at a point in the distance, and she
had been convinced that she was going to fail the Applied Science exam . . .

  She held Yegor’s hand. One more second—and she would have claimed him, making him a part of herself.

  She restrained herself, remembering her tragic experience.

  She carried a tray of dirty dishes to the sink. Kostya pushed aside a stack of plates, freeing up some space on the long white zinc table. Sasha nodded gratefully.

  “You can’t help him,” Kostya said. “And stop thinking about it; it’s their business, let them work at it. Like we had to work.”

  “We helped each other,” Sasha said softly.

  “We are classmates. And they—he won’t understand you. It’s not time yet.”

  Kostya went toward the exit, and Sasha thought that he was right. Certain things could not be explained. Isn’t it what Portnov and Sterkh had been saying from the very beginning?

  Fall came suddenly in the middle of September, and it became very cold very fast. The rain continued up until the arrival of the first snow. Sasha made a fire in her tiny fireplace using coals from a paper bag and wood that she bought at the market. The kindling crackled, sending sparks flying; Sasha spent hours in front of the fireplace with a book in her lap. She went to bed, covering herself with a sheet; in the middle of the night she would pull a blanket over, and in the morning she would wake up because the room would get cold, and, yawning convulsively and wearing a jacket over her nightgown, she would make another fire in the fireplace.

  Smoke rose over the roof. The first snow fell softly, landing on the heads of the stone lions, burying the town of Torpa.

  “Mom?”

  The landlady’s phone stood on a shelf on the first floor near the front door. An antique telephone apparatus with tall horns for the receiver. Sasha leaned over the brick whitewashed wall.

  “Hello! Mommy! Can you hear me?”

  “Hello, Sasha darling. I’m so glad you called . . .”

  A distant voice. A deliberate vivacity, even vigor.

  “How’s the baby?”

  “He’s well. He’s coughing a little. In the summer we tried to boost his immune system a bit, but it’s not working all that well. It’s one obstacle after another. But everything else is fine. We want to change the wallpaper in your room, the old wallpaper is simply atrocious. I might go back to work, just part-time. Not yet, of course, in about six months or so. I miss working. We may get a nanny; pay her by the hour . . .”