Vita Nostra (16 page)

“Miss, post office closes at eight.”

“Please try dialing again.”

“There is no answer. Perhaps they went to the theatre?”

Sasha walked out into the rain and darkness. Two rows of buildings on Sacco and Vanzetti Street hovered over her: empty balconies, peeling plaster, glistening cobblestones. Naked linden trees. Of course, Mom and Valentin could be at the theatre. Or at a party… And it was absolutely nothing terrible that Mom was not home when, out of the blue, Sasha felt like calling her…

She walked along the edge of the sidewalk, umbrella hanging by her side. Raindrops beat on her hood. Fallen leaves turned slimy and musty, losing all their poetic beauty. Water flowed between the stones in the pavement.

A car drove by toward the center of town, a Zhiguli stained by moist dirt. The yellow hands of the headlights snatched the tree trunks and walls for a split second, reflected like flames in each cobblestone, drowned in the darkness, and disappeared. Darkness fell again, and only occasional lit windows and distant streetlights illuminated the road for Sasha.

A gust of wind made the nearest linden tree shake and toss raindrops and its last few leaves on the ground. Sasha shivered and pulled her hood further down on her head. For some reason, she thought of that warm starry night when Lisa flew out of the window. Why did she think of that? Maybe the sensation was similar… The same gust of wind, as if something dark flew over the sky. Sasha thought that, in its despair and helplessness, Lisa’s “suicide” was analogous to her and Kostya’s “love…”

“Good evening, Sasha.”

She turned her head. A second ago she was alone in the street.

“Why aren’t you using an umbrella? Is it some sort of a new fad with young people—soaking down to their bones?”

It took Sasha a few seconds to recognize the man. Nikolay Valerievich, a very tall man with a hump, long gray hair tumbling from under his hat, stood next to her, wearing a dark coat and carrying a large black umbrella.

“Hello,” she said, more nervous than polite.

“You must be freezing. Would you like a cup of coffee?”

***

She’d never been in this restaurant before, even though she passed it a few times and even noticed the sign. The restaurant was definitely not geared toward students; Sasha’s wet jacket was removed by a cloakroom attendant in a black sports coat. A fire burned in the room separated from the common area with heavy drapes, and Sasha immediately held out her hands, red from the cold.

“Will you have anything to eat?”

“Just coffee…”

“Perhaps, a sandwich?”

“Well…”

“Caviar, salmon, ham?”

“Ham,” Sasha chose, thinking ham might be cheaper.

Nikolay Valerievich moved his shoulders. The gesture was typical for him; Sasha couldn’t stop thinking that his hump makes him uncomfortable, as if something was folded awkwardly, rolled up, and crumpled on his back, under his jacket,.

“Sasha, tell me about your parents.”

She did not expect this question. Actually, she had no idea what to expect.

“Mom’s a designer. I have no father.”

“Is he dead?”

“No. They divorced, and… we haven’t communicated in many years.”

“Who sent you to the Institute? Farit?”

Sasha swallowed.

“Yes.”

The waiter placed a cup of coffee in front of Sasha and a large snifter of cognac in front of her companion. A few inches from Sasha’s nose appeared a platter filled with tiny sandwiches; caviar and ham, cheese and salmon crowned by leafy greens leading an intricate dance under the yellow sails of lemon slices.

Sasha realized that she was ravenous. And had been for a while. She missed today’s lunch, and she hadn’t even tried to eat breakfast. Everywhere she looked, she saw those bloody anchovies in tomato sauce.

“Lean college years,” Nikolay Valerievich murmured to himself. “How about a main course? Cutlets? Pork chop? Soup?”

“Pork chop… Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it. Sasha, do you have any idea what sort of Institute you have been accepted to, and what are you being taught?”

Sasha swallowed.

“No.”

Her companion nodded.

“No one even asked me!” Sasha said bitterly. “No one wondered whether I even want to study here, or not… I was forced. We’re not being taught, we are being trained, or brainwashed, humiliated, and…”

She stopped short. Nikolay Valerievich was smiling, as if she said something very funny, amusing, and extremely enjoyable.

“That’s a perfectly ordinary situation, Sasha. You don’t want to learn? But what do you want? Look into your soul, and you will realize: all you really want is fun and pleasure. Any instance of learning is coercion. Any form of culture must be enforced, alas. You are immature internally, and you must be forced, and forced cruelly. All of you hate Farit… and without a good reason.”

Sasha was no longer hungry. She sat at the table, her head hanging low.

“Well, well,” the hunchback said softly. “Don’t be upset. You’re one of the best, Sasha. And you have a bright, interesting future ahead of you. A really big future. Now take another bite, will you?”

Sasha forced down a sandwich. She chewed half of her pork chop, leaving the sides untouched. She drank the cooling cup of coffee and then one more cup, fresh and hot, and then a large cup of tea with lemon. Nikolay Valerievich sipped his cognac and watched her across the table. His pupils looked unnaturally narrow, like poppy seeds, both in the light and in the semidarkness.

“I will be teaching you next year,” said the hunchback. “And then during third year as well. I am really counting on you, Sasha. It will be very interesting to work with you. Does Oleg Borisovich give you a lot of homework?”

Sasha gave him a sardonic smile.

“You see, it is really necessary,” Nikolay Valerievich said seriously. “It is difficult, but you must try hard, Sasha. Try not to pay any attention to this way of life, the disorder, the unsettled state of everyday affairs. Work hard. And you and I shall meet again. In a while.…”

***

Leaving the restaurant, Sasha strolled along the streets. The rain ended, the wind died down, and stars peeked through the shredded clouds; this blazing magnificence was worth taking a little time before going back to the stuffy room. She returned late. To her enormous joy, both Oksana and Lisa were already in bed.

Sasha turned on her desk lamp, sat down, folding her legs under her, wrapped herself in a blanket and opened the exercise book.

***

On Monday, after classes ended, the entire first year body congregated in the assembly hall. Portnov paced up and down the stage; an irate-looking superintendent occupied one of the corners.

“What is this?” Portnov demonstrated a book in a soft gray cover.

No one knew the answer. The audience fidgeted on squeaky chairs, chewed gum and spoke softly to each other.

“This is a set of additional exercises for first years. In this case, it is a set of penalty exercises.”

The audience ceased fussing.

“In the last few weeks I have received too many complaints about the first year students, who behave abominably in their dormitory, their drinking binges and debauchery. Why did you come here? For unlimited vodka consumption? Or are you here to smash windows, break doors, dismantle faucets? Copulate with whoever is available?

“Tell them to turn on the heat,” said a grim voice from the back row.

“You’ll have your heat, Komarov. After the meeting take this textbook and do exercises one through three. Your deadline is your individual session on Saturday.”

The auditorium was absolutely still.

“Starting today,” Portnov informed them wearily, “consumption of alcoholic beverages is strictly forbidden in this dormitory. Any type of alcoholic beverages. Raids will be conducted regularly. If I find half a bottle of beer in anyone’s room, I will be assigning ten exercises, and don’t even think of not completing them.”

Sasha was sitting at the edge of the first row. Kostya sat behind her, in the third row, diagonally. She sensed his presence. Portnov’s every word resonated in her head like the growl of a low-flying airplane.

“Is everybody clear on this?”

Silence.

“Return to the dormitory and check your rooms. All the alcoholic beverages are to be emptied into the sink, the bottles are to be returned to recycling center. If anyone gets drunk tonight, I guarantee he will not have a free minute up until the New Year’s Eve. Even more so, he will not have any time for sleep. That’s all, you are dismissed.”

The hall filled with the slapping sounds of emptying seats. Sasha picked up her bag from the armrest and moved toward the exit, avoiding eye contact.

This time there was no line at the post office. Sasha listened to one or two beeps, and then Mom picked up the phone—Sasha’s unexpected phone call had really surprised her. Of course, they were just fine. Yesterday they went to Irina’s birthday party and took a cab back home; it was late, after midnight. Was anything wrong?

Sasha listened to her unconcerned voice, thinking that Mom must have looked younger these days. She and Valentin were happy together. As strange as it was, Farit Kozhennikov was right: three’s a crowd, Sasha would have been in the way. Nothing happened, no accidents, no catastrophes, no illnesses; all of it existed only in Sasha’s feverish mind…

She walked and ran through her exercises at the same time. Her feet tripped upon each other. An old woman glanced at Sasha suspiciously: she must have thought the girl was plastered. Sasha stopped to rest and leaned on a wrought iron bench. The sun was setting; orange flames burned in the windows in the building across the street.

“Take the mental formation you accomplished as a result of Exercise seven and reconfigure it so that its projection on any imagined surface is shaped as a circle…”

And this text, underlined in red, impossible to commit to memory, which must be memorized.

Darkness came early. A desk lamp was lit in the room smelling of stale cigarette smoke. A book was open in front of Sasha. The dormitory was unusually quiet. Oksana busied herself with transferring moonshine from its container to a hot water bottle purchased at a nearby drug store. Lisa ran out of cigarettes, took a trip around the dorm and came back with half a pack. Pulling a second (or third?) all-nighter in a row, Sasha was cranking the sequence of exercises in her head. In a cloudy broth of insomnia she was beginning to feel that she was thinking somebody else’s thoughts. The thoughts felt so foreign to her that they didn’t even fit in her head. Sasha imagined that processing these thoughts was just as difficult as picking up a pen with a horse’s hoof.

She was afraid of falling asleep over the book, but the exercises kept her awake, like bright lights or loud music. Swollen eyelids itched, and every now and then she had to stretch her aching back. Tomorrow (actually, today already) was Tuesday—Portnov was going to check her knowledge of the paragraphs; at four in the morning, Sasha put aside “Exercises” and opened Textual Module 2. In this one, the paragraphs were longer that in Module One, and each one of them ended in almost a full page underlined in red.

I can’t read this, Sasha thought, staring at the yellowing page scattered with the discordant nonsensical words. I cannot commit this to memory. Let Farit do what he must.

Many hours of studying did something to her head. She felt like a crystal, transparent, fragile, and perfectly calm, like an icicle. Like an apathetic chunk of glass. She tried to cry, as a child tries riding a scooter after a long winter break. She managed. Large tears rolled down her cheeks, but Sasha felt neither sadness, not despair, no emotions whatsoever—as if her tears came out of an open faucet.

She stopped crying—again, simply by willing herself to stop. Wiped her cheeks. She harnessed herself into the text and pulled it; she felt as if she were untangling a knot of barbed wire with her eyes.

“… fear of death and did not find it… There was no fear because there was no death….”

She kept going. That first time, in the library, the erupted meaning was bright blue. This time, it was gray, with a dull shine, steely. Very disconnected. Sasha understood almost nothing aside from “fear of death.” She continued reading, hoping for another eruption, but the lines stretched like rusty centipedes, leaving footprints in her brain, and their meaning eluded her.

At seven in the morning an alarm clock went off under Oksana’s bed.

***

In the bathroom mirror, a monster with a wrinkled pale countenance and red inflamed eyes stared back at Sasha. Her pupils contracted oddly and seemed very small; she blinked several times trying to figure out what was so wrong with her own reflection. Her pupils went back to normal about ten minutes later.

She skipped Math and English. Put some makeup on to look a bit more normal. She walked the school corridors, head low to the ground, avoiding her classmates. Today’s schedule of individual sessions was posted on the bulletin board: Sasha had the three thirty slot. She hid in a far corner, hopped onto the windowsill and stretched her tired legs.

Seventy two hours without sleep. She’d never thought she was capable of that. But she did not even feel sleepy. Forty-five minutes remained until her time with Portnov; she leaned on the wall to run through the underlined text one more time and lowered her lids for just a moment.

When she opened her eyes, the window was dark. And the hallway was dark. Around the corner only a day lamp was on.

Sasha jumped, covered in cold sweat. She looked at her watch—ten minutes before six; the individual sessions had ended an hour ago.

She ran. Her steps resonated in the empty corridor. The door numbered 38 was locked; Sasha tugged it a few times, hoping for a miracle. She looked around. Alexandra Samokhina was the only human being in the entire long dimly lit corridor. Silence prevailed within the Institute, and only somewhere above her, laughter and screaming could be heard: table tennis players congregated at the door of the gym.

Sasha adjusted the bag on her shoulder and went down the hall. She did not know why. She probably should be going to the dorm. She probably could not change anything at this point. Perhaps as early as tomorrow she would have to explain to Portnov… At the very thought of explaining anything to Portnov, Sasha started crying, this time for real, out of pity for herself.