Vita Nostra

by Sergey

  In two weeks Sasha’s classmates would enter this assembly hall and never return to their previous lives.

  She left before the concert ended. Among piles of coats and jackets in the coatroom she found her own, the little hanging loop already missing. She got dressed and left, planning to get home and go to sleep, but the evening over Torpa was clear, quiet, and not too chilly. Sasha decided to take a walk; she strolled down Sacco and Vanzetti away from the center of town, toward the outskirts.

  Fireplaces and woodstoves had been lit. Smoke rose over the roofs, white in the moonlight, and went straight up in promise of good weather. Sasha’s back itched: she imagined how lovely it would be to fly in this transparent world between snowy roofs and the sky propped up by the silvery pillars of smoke.

  The moist cobblestones made the pavement black. A car rode by—Sasha moved to the side. A holiday garland noiselessly blinked on the facade of a dark—closed—café, alternating red and yellow and blue and green flashes.

  And nearby stood a man, so still that Sasha had not noticed him right away. Only when he said “Yes, I understand that,” did Sasha flinch and stop.

  The voice was familiar to her.

  Kostya stood leaning over the pink brick wall, pressing a cell phone to his ear. He stared at the lights without blinking and did not see Sasha.

  “I understand that as well. Yes, you are right, it does not matter. But is there anyone who is not afraid of that? I mean, anyone human?”

  Pause. Sasha stepped back, about to leave.

  “I got it. Yes. It’s a deal. Good. Good-bye, Dad.”

  Sasha moved to turn around, but she slipped and fell into a snow pile pushed over to the edge of the sidewalk by the street cleaners. Kostya turned sharply.

  “I’m sorry,” Sasha said. “I was just walking.”

  Silently Kostya gave her his hand and helped her up.

  “Did you know that I’m a pronoun?”

  “You? No . . . I didn’t.”

  The garland blinked. Kostya put the phone inside the pocket of his jacket.

  “And you are a verb?”

  “Yes.”

  “I knew that. Guess who I was just talking to?”

  “I heard you say good-bye to him.”

  “Of course. You were right: in his own way, he’s a good father. Rational. Strict . . .”

  “You remembered my stupid words?”

  “Why wouldn’t I? And they weren’t stupid. Anyway, I asked him once: How did he, not at all human, and not even close to a protein-based entity, manage to produce a son? I suspected something was off, but do you know what he said to me?”

  “What?”

  “Do you really think that controlling the informational space of Hypertext is easier than producing one effective sperm cell?”

  They faced away from the blinking garland and walked back along Sacco and Vanzetti toward the humming, singing, celebrating New Year’s Eve institute.

  “What did he say to you?” Sasha took the risk of asking. “What were you talking about?”

  Kostya exhaled a long cloud of smoke.

  “I think he was trying to cheer me up before the exam. And the funniest thing is that he’s succeeding.”

  “Really?”

  “There is nothing impossible. When he says it, I believe it. And then it turns out that only I am at fault for my grandmother’s death.”

  “Kostya,” Sasha said softly. “Unlike words, people actually die . . .”

  “I noticed,” he replied drily. “What kind of verb are you?”

  “Imperative mood.”

  “No way!” Kostya stopped for a second. “That explains why they’ve spent so much effort on you lately, Portnov and Sterkh. A verb in the imperative mood . . . Of course you are! I’m a pronoun. A substitute. My place has not been chosen yet. Or perhaps it’s the other way around, it’s been chosen in advance. Unlike words, people actually die, but Farit Kozhennikov is not a word! He’s a rule, a grammatical rule. When he—his external shell—becomes old and dies, I will become him.”

  Sasha gasped. “Is that what he told you?”

  “No. It’s . . . forget it. I never said that.”

  They continued walking in silence, passed the institute and in about fifteen minutes they came out to a square where a fir tree market was open—exactly the sort that Sasha remembered from her childhood. A green fence, old pictures on plywood poster boards: decorated trees, gigantic bunnies, red-and-white Father Frosts. Hundred-watt lightbulbs painted different colors and soldered into a single garland. Stomped-upon snow, red-cheeked customers, children with sleds—a small, animated crowd.

  “All of them are words,” Kostya said behind Sasha’s back. “All people have been manifested out loud some time ago. And they continue saying words, having no idea about their true meaning.”

  Sasha thought that Kostya repeated almost identically what Farit Kozhennikov had talked about before. But she did not say anything: somewhere in the depths of Hypertext her unspoken words turned into gold coins with a round symbol on their faces.

  “Should we buy a tree?” she thought out loud.

  Kostya glanced at her—and marched determinedly toward the market.

  An antlered fir tree with floppy wide branches touched the white ceiling; it rested in a pail in the corner, at the lowest point of the room. The tree had no decorations aside from a single gold garland. The tree appeared to be holding the gleaming train of a nonexisting dress with its many hands.

  Fire burned in the tiny fireplace.

  Sasha and Kostya lay close, arms and legs intertwined. Kostya dozed off. Sasha watched the sparkly reflections of the fire dance on the gold tinsel.

  Two weeks remained until the placement exam. If she was sorry about anything, it was about words that lingered unspoken. And especially sorry about the others, the ones that had flown off her tongue.

  If somewhere, at some point in time, in a different text, her words became human beings, they had a reason to reproach Sasha. But then they had a reason to thank her as well.

  At least, that was what she wanted to believe.

  In the morning she got up to make a fire in the cold room. Kostya was asleep. Sasha couldn’t go back to sleep; slipping a jacket over her nightgown, she sat at her desk.

  She opened Textual Module 8. As she was accustomed to. Without thinking.

  . . . when they had suddenly obtained a sight of the land and seas and sky, and had marked the vastness of the clouds, and the force of the winds, and had beheld the sun, and had marked not only its size and beauty, but also its power, since by diffusing light over the whole sky it caused day,—and when, again, after night had overshadowed the earth, they then perceived the whole sky studded and adorned with stars, and the change in the light of the moon as it alternately waxed and waned, and the rising and setting of all these bodies, and the fixity and unchangeableness of their courses through all eternity,—when they saw those things, they would assuredly believe that . . . *

  Noise. Rasping sounds. Similar to the breathing of air full of whistling and music, conversations, radio news, frequencies and waves, overflowing and dissolving.

  The fire was flaring up and warmth filled the room.

  A week before the examination Sasha stopped sleeping. Every day she thought that her fear and anxiety had reached it pinnacle, but one more sleepless night would pass, and Sasha would discover that her pre-exam fever jumped another two or even three degrees.

  “Sasha, calm down.” Sterkh reassured her. “You are too emotional. In combination with certain peculiarities of your gift all this passion evolves into a rather explosive mixture. Calm down, relax—you will pass with an excellent grade.”

  It was easier said than done.

  On January eleventh, second years were taking their Introduction to Applied Science exam. In the morning, around half past seven, Sasha looked out the window and saw Yegor sitting on her porch, between the stone lions.

  He was just as still and white as the scu
lptures. Two white piles of snow lay on his shoulders.

  “What’s wrong?” Sasha opened the door; the drifting snow licked her fur-lined slippers. “What are you doing here? Did they kick you out of the dorm?”

  “I was reading the Module,” Yegor rose awkwardly from the steps. “Has it ever happened to you . . . Have you ever read your future in the Textual Module?”

  “Yes,” Sasha said, stepping back inside the entrance hall. “Come in, I’m freezing.”

  Yegor stepped in. A yellow lightbulb burned on the landing of the first floor.

  “I am going to fail the test,” Yegor said.

  “Wait. Did you read it in the Module? But it refers to the most probable future, not the one that’s been established absolutely and irrevocably!”

  Yegor shook his head. Two small snowballs fell on the floor.

  “I’m going to fail. The test is at ten. I won’t pass!”

  He stood in front of her, hunched over, small, and pitiful. Sasha analyzed her sensations: she was sorry for Yegor and a little uncomfortable on his behalf. As if a child, scared, crying, came to tell her about a boogeyman who lived in the closet.

  Yes, he used to be her man. She’d worn his sweaters and shirts, she’d walked around with him, never letting go of his hand. Only a year ago . . .

  A year ago, Yegor had come out of the examination room and she’d held him, congratulating him on his success. He’d smelled like someone close to her, but his arms had hung lifelessly along his sides, and his response to Sasha’s muddled words had simply been, “I’m sorry. I have to get ready for the English exam.”

  Sasha had survived that day, and many days that came later. And now she looked at Yegor and felt only compassion. And a little awkwardness. He was still a human being, and Sasha was not. She knew what they were taught. And he was stumbling around in the dark, like a frightened puppy.

  She held his hands gently.

  “Listen. It’s only fear. It’s your materialized fear: get rid of it. You can do it. Farit . . . I mean, Liliya Popova. It does not matter what he’s called, but he never asks for the impossible. Concentrate. You will pass the test. In the worst-case scenario you can have up to three makeup dates.”

  Yegor blinked.

  “I have a mother, my dad . . . a younger brother. Three makeup dates, you say? Three makeup dates?”

  He wept.

  On the way up the stairs she had a brilliant idea. Letting Yegor in and shutting the door, she looked around in search of a shiny object.

  She shook the puff out of a powder compact and wiped the mirror.

  “Turn your face to the light.”

  And when Yegor silently complied with her request, she sent a flash of light into his eyes.

  His pupils did not contract as a normal human being’s, but widened. For a split second a dismal, dwindling, airless world opened up to her. Then Yegor squinted.

  “Don’t close your eyes!”

  She tried again, and this time she saw him from the inside: man-word halfway to his actualization, highly complex transformation processes, and everything was drowned by sticky gray goo. Fear? Despair? But no matter how hard she tried to see, it was clear that she, a third-year student who still hadn’t passed her placement exam, wasn’t going to be able to figure it all out right there and then.

  “Hold on . . . we’ll get through this. We can do it.”

  Sasha squeezed his hands, claiming Yegor, making him a part of herself.

  “Listen to me, only to me. We progress from human being to word, and right now you are at the steepest point of the road. When you overcome this obstacle, when you finally realize what you are being taught, you will become absolute. Do you understand? You will be eternal. You will become Word and will accomplish your mission. You are a tool of Speech, an instrument of divine harmony. You are a participant of creation, and that means you will be. But right now you are a little human being. So you must fight your fear. I will go to your test with you, I will wait . . .

  “And I will help you.”

  The second years took a long time to reappear. Sasha waited under the hooves of the bronze horse.

  She was a lousy teacher, but she’d “claimed” Yegor more deeply than she’d ever dared to claim another human being. Now she knew him better than her own mother. She understood him like no one else; but this morning, when Yegor convulsively embraced her and found her lips with his own, Sasha had pulled away.

  “Not right now,” she’d said in Portnov’s voice. “Focus.”

  She’d spurred him on, pushed him and urged him on; like a blood donor, she’d transferred her confidence and her own will to win into Yegor. She’d brought him to the exam, nearly leading him by the hand.

  “There is nothing impossible. There is no reason you cannot pass! Go!”

  An hour had passed since the door closed behind him. Then another hour. Students came out one or two at a time. Some immediately lit up cigarettes, others threw their arms around their friends. Somebody was laughing hysterically. Gradually the corridor became noisy, second years chased one another around in the hallway, and Sasha recalled the half-forgotten, “What are the sparrows singing on this last day of chill? We live, we breathe, we made it, and we are living still!”

  They resembled small, funny critters at a veterinarian’s office. Sasha had no idea where this comparison came from. Animals don’t understand what is happening around them, they are controlled by animal fear. And then, when they are let go and allowed to roam free, they express their joy just like that.

  One more year had to pass before the gray fog in their consciousness would be dispelled and they would see Hypertext in all its splendor and perfection. Then they would understand their place in it, and would be overwhelmed by their ecstasy.

  Sasha closed her eyes. Joy, ecstasy—the human emotions were too shallow; what she experienced facing Hypertext could only be expressed by the word of true Speech. This word, sharp and dazzling, emerald-green and opal, and graphically . . . Where were her pencil and paper?

  Keeping in mind the limitations, she would draw only sketches. Only the most elementary ones, not the ones that could be manifested. Only drafts of words and concepts. She became so involved that she nearly missed the end of the exam.

  Yegor was the last student to come out of the auditorium. He took a few steps along the corridor and stopped. Sasha saw his face and knew right away.

  “Makeup exam is the day after tomorrow.” He stared straight ahead. “But I cannot. I cannot.”

  “Time is a grammatical concept. Is that clear, or do I need to explain?”

  Sasha left an anchor in “happening right now” and rushed into “happened today.” As far back as she could.

  . . . The second years took a long time to reappear. Sasha waited under the hooves of the bronze horse. Let’s see: she’d leapt only one activity back. If we assume that one “exam” equals one “activity.”

  Students came out one or two at a time. Some immediately lit up cigarettes, others threw their arms around their friends. Somebody was laughing hysterically. Gradually the corridor became noisy. “What are the sparrows singing on this last day of chill? We live, we breathe, we made it, and we are living still!”

  Watching them, Sasha pulled a pencil and a piece of paper out of her bag. She drew a few graphical concepts. It is difficult for a human being in a human body to process thoughts using words of true Speech. They transform into bulky images, breathtakingly beautiful, but that have a fatal influence on the speed of cogitation . . .

  Yegor was the last student to come out. He walked a few steps along the corridor and stopped. Sasha saw his face and bit her lip.

  “Makeup exam is the day after tomorrow.” He stared straight ahead. “But I cannot. I cannot.”

  Now. Then.

  Again Sasha sat by the hooves of the bronze horse. She must have done something wrong with the concept of “activity.” Perhaps whatever was happening to Yegor was more intricate than a regular exam with
a starting point of ten o’clock in the morning and an estimated ending point at two o’clock in the afternoon. Or perhaps Sasha simply lacked the experience and skill: returning to the past again and again, she kept showing up in front of a closed door.

  “Sasha, what are you doing?”

  Sterkh came in through the front entrance. The tails of his long black coat were whitened by the snow. Sasha was well aware that Sterkh was not present in her initial “tests.”

  Did that mean that the false hunchback lives—exists—outside of general time limits?

  “Sasha, I did not teach you to operate grammatical tenses just so that you could float like a flower in the ice hole. Please take that into consideration: no independent acts during the exam. Do only what is written on your examination sheet. Are you guarding this boy, Yegor Dorofeev?”

  “Yes. He . . .”

  “Verbs in the subjunctive mood often suffer from weak willpower,” Sterkh looked concerned. “And in our line of work, lack of will is a death sentence.”

  “Nikolay Valerievich, can you help him? Right now? Just let him pass this test? Just this one?” Sasha struggled to speak, dizzy from the nonstop time iterations.

  “A verb in a subjunctive mood is a possibility.” Sterkh unbuttoned his coat, and drops of melted snow fell on the dark parquet floor. “Occasionally a brilliant possibility. But more often than not it is a lost possibility, Sasha. I wanted to tell you before . . . but—I just didn’t have the heart to upset you.”

  Sterkh left. Sasha watched him walking away.

  She already knew what she had to do. Up to the minute detail. The pink phone on her neck probably would have prevented her. However, Farit Kozhennikov had taken away her phone, thus letting her loose.

  She flipped over a page in the half-filled notepad. And one more empty page. A white field.