Vita Nostra (17 page)

“Where have you been?”

Kostya leapt at her out of the shadows, from underneath the bronze belly of the horse.

“Where the hell have you been? I tried… I went everywhere, chased everyone down, changed the schedule, made sure somebody took your slot, and then more people… more changes… I kept thinking you’d show up… I waited until the last possible moment! Where were you?”

“I fell asleep,” Sasha said, letting her tears flow. “I memorized everything. Last night. I fell asleep.”

“Shoot,” Kostya said after a pause. “You should have seen… He totally lost it. He yelled at me, at everyone else… because you did not show up.”

Sasha sat down on the granite pedestal and wrapped her arms around herself. Kostya sat next to her. The way he was sitting there, silently, his side touching her side, the way he was sniffling and staring directly in front of them made Sasha catch her breath and momentarily hate herself. She hated herself for staying away from him. For the anchovies in tomato sauce. For avoiding eye contact and missing classes. For everything.

“I wanted to go twice,” Kostya said. “For myself and then for you.”

She broke down sobbing. Going to the individual session with Portnov twice was equivalent to dying twice; Kostya was ready to do it for her, and she ran out of his bed, threw up all over his room and thumbed her nose at him for nearly a week!

“Is he gone yet?” she asked through her tears.

Kostya shrugged.

“He’s still at school. I’ve been here for a while, since the one-on-ones finished up. He hasn’t left yet. Listen, what if I go tell him that I found you, and you are sick? Passed out… Why not?”

Sasha shook her head. Lying to Portnov equaled suicide. Kostya’s volunteering to be the messenger equaled self-sacrifice.

“I’ll go see him myself.” She was conscious of her tears causing her mascara cover her face in black streaks; but it was all that damn snot that made her nose swell up and redden. “Before he leaves. Let him do what he wants.”

“He’s livid! Don’t go now—let him cool down a little bit.”

“Cool down? Portnov?”

Sasha got up. The concierge in the glass booth gaped at her with bewilderment and sympathy.

“Just wait for me,” Sasha said feebly. “It’ll be easier for me if I know you’re waiting.”

Kostya nodded.

Sasha went downstairs, toward the dining hall door, closed by now. Across from the entrance was a full-size mirror. Sasha did not pay much attention to her overall reflection, but she cleaned up the black streaks around her eyes as well as she could. She took a deep breath and went further down, to the corridor with brown imitation leather doors. The first one, wide, double-paned, bore a sign: “Teachers’ Lounge.”

Sasha knocked softly, and the sound drowned in the leathery thickness. She knocked on the door knob.

“What’s the matter?”

The voice was harsh. It was Portnov’s voice.

Sasha tugged on the door handle.

She saw a long, softly lit room, furnished with several couches along the walls, a coat hanger with a few raincoats, and a completely naked plastic mannequin. Further away from the door Portnov sat behind an old writing desk. He stared at Sasha over his glasses, his eyes ice-cold and immobile.

Kostya is waiting for me, she reminded herself and swallowed.

“What do you need, Samokhina?”

“I learned it,” Sasha said, trying not to show her fear. “I learned everything. I’m ready for the one-on-one.”

“What time is it?”

“Six thirty.”

“What time was your individual session scheduled for?”

“For three thirty… But I am ready! You can check…”

“Why do I need to spend my own personal time on you?”

Sasha was taken aback.

“You missed your session, Samokhina. The ship has sailed.”

“But I had a legitimate reason!”

“No, you did not. No reason is legitimate when missing an individual session. I’m writing a report to Kozhennikov, let him take disciplinary action.”

“But I have memorized everything!”

“I am no longer interested. Our next meeting is in class this Thursday. Good night.”

Portnov pointed at the door.

Sasha left. Then she came back, unable to believe the injustice of the situation.

“But I memorized everything! It’s only fifteen minutes! Just check…”

“Close the door, Samokhina. From the other side.”

Dragging her bag behind her, she went up the stairs. She stopped in front of the dining hall entrance. The tears had dried up, and her face now seemed white and long, like a bandage.

“What happened?” Kostya waited for her. Kostya flew to meet her.

For an entire minute Sasha could not speak. She remembered that conversation in the summer, almost a year and a half ago:
My alarm did not go off... It’s very bad, but not terrible… it’s even good for you—it’ll teach you some discipline. The second such blunder will cost you a lot more, and don’t say I didn’t warn you
.

“Just tell me, what happened?!”

“Do you have… do you know how to reach your… your father?”

Kostya recoiled.

“What for?”

“I need to speak to him,” Sasha said hopelessly.

Kostya was silent.

“Do you?”

“He gave me his number, but I threw away the piece of paper.” Kostya took a deep breath. “Listen… You didn’t do anything horrible, right? Sasha?”

***

Sasha managed to get hold of Mom the next day. The voice in the receiver sounded dull and tired. At first Mom made excuses, and only then admitted that last night on her way home from the office, she fell awkwardly and broke her right thumb. It was not anything terrible. Just annoying. It was her right hand after all. As it turned out, it could have been much worse. If she hadn’t slipped, she would have fallen into a manhole, somebody had stolen its cover, and it was dark, and the streetlights were out—the open manhole was only two steps in front of her! On the sidewalk, at night! So it was a blessing in disguise. We’re fighting with the regional administration, might even go to court. But the thumb will heal. Don’t worry. Everything will heal.

After her conversation with Mom, Sasha took a long walk around Torpa. The first snow fell and melted immediately.

***

On Thursday the heat was turned on. Almost immediately a pipe burst in the next room, and the heat was turned off. Plumbers stomped in the corridor, swearing and clanging metal instruments.

By nighttime, the windows turned sweaty in their room. It became warm; the radiator was decorated with freshly washed socks, tights and underwear. Sasha went to the kitchen, poured some boiling water over a bouillon cube in an enamel mug and, sipping the hot liquid, started the exercises.

She felt as if she had just avoided an enormous tragedy. Actually, it was the same feeling she’d experienced two summers ago, when she saw her dazed Mom next to the stretcher, on which then-still-a-stranger Valentin lay. It was almost joyful—instead of a big tragedy, she faced a relatively small, easy to survive trouble.

“Why is he doing this?” Kostya asked, dunking a moist cracker into his cup of tea.

“You didn’t ask how he is doing this.”

They fell silent. Sasha was almost happy, because the torrent of events completely washed that night, those anchovies, that wrinkled sheet, and those coins on the floor out of their relationship. Incidentally, she collected all those coins, up to the very last one. She hid them in her suitcase, knowing that sooner or later Kozhennikov senior would want to settle the bill.

“Kostya,” Sasha asked softly. “What if you… What if you wanted to drop out of school? Just get up and leave. Won’t he let you go?”

Kostya darkened.

“He and I had a discussion about that,” he said, attempting to fish out wet pieces of his cracker with an aluminum teaspoon, “and in two words or less, I’m not even going to try. My mom is not the healthiest woman, and my grandma’s old… I will stay at school.”

“Right,” Sasha sighed.

Nighttime came. Lisa roamed around somewhere. Oksana fidgeted at her desk for quite a while, trying to memorize the paragraph, then threw the book aside, gulped some moonshine from the rubber hot water bottle all by herself, and went to bed. Sasha hunched over her textbook, honing one exercise after another, climbing up a precipitous icy wall. Read Exercise nine, fall into utter despair for a couple of minutes: no one could accomplish this, it is simply impossible… Rub your eyes, go back to Exercise eight, force yourself to repeat it; re-read Exercise nine. Try it. Squeeze your temples with both hands. Repeat Exercise eight a couple more times; again, attempt Exercise nine and realize that an outline exists, it’s palpable, you just need to be very careful… concentrate very-very hard… get as far as half of the exercise and lose it. And again—lose it right at the beginning. And again—almost get to the end. And again—finish it, but recognize that you will not be able to repeat it. Go back to number eight, run through it, repeat number nine, wincing from the tension. Repeat again. And again. Catch your breath, wipe your tearing eyes, allow yourself a minute of rest, take a sip of cold tea. Read Exercise ten… and again fall into despair.

Friday passed this way. And Friday night through Saturday morning went the same way. At eleven ten, right on schedule, Sasha walked into Auditorium number 38. She contained no fear, no anger. The world around her was dark, and Sasha’s vision narrowed down to a round window the size of an automotive tire.

Instead of Portnov’s face, she saw only his hand with a ring.

“I’m waiting, Samokhina. Full set of Exercises, from one through twelve. If you make a mistake, start again from the very beginning.”

She placed a chair in the middle of the auditorium, steadied herself against its high back, and began.

“Imagine a sphere… mentally distort the sphere so that the external surface is on the inside, and the internal on the outside…”

Twice she lost her place. Once, while transitioning from number seven to number eight, and then on twelve, the trickiest one. Both times she stopped and started all over again. On her third try she finished the entire series without a single pause—like a song, or a dance. Like a tongue twister. Like a long balance beam exercise sequence….

The bright window in front of her eyes narrowed even further. She couldn’t make out Portnov’s face. She saw his desk, the edge of his notebook and his hand with the ring, clenched into a tight fist.

“Good,” his voice sounded hollow. “For this Tuesday: Paragraphs eighteen and nineteen. For next Saturday—Exercises thirteen through seventeen.”

“Good bye,” Sasha said.

She stepped out of the auditorium, nodded to Kostya, blindly found her way to the dorm. She lay down on her bed and switched off her consciousness.

***

“Samokhina, get up. First block is Specialty. Get up, do you hear me?”

Lisa was wearing expensive but very exotic and harsh perfume. Sasha opened her eyes.

“What?”

“It’s Monday morning! Get up, the class starts in half an hour! If you miss one more class, Portnov will burst!”

“Isn’t it Saturday?” Sasha inquired.

“Not anymore! You snored through the entire weekend!”

Mom, Sasha thought. I promised to call her every weekend. I never called… And what about Kostya?

Lisa thrashed about the room half-dressed, pulling on a pair of tights, then stepping into her jeans.

“Oksana! Did you take my pads?”

“I did, the package is in your desk.”

“Idiot, what the hell are you doing, stealing my stuff?”

“Stop screeching, there are some left. I’ll buy you some more.”

“Yeah, sure, you’ll buy me more. If I see you stealing them again, I’ll stick those pads where the sun don’t shine!”

Sasha slipped on her bathrobe and shuffled into the bathroom. In the mirror, a pale, haggard, but calm and even handsome face looked back at her. Sasha blinked: her pupils unfolded and snapped shut again, like black photo diaphragm, then went back to normal.

She took a shower and washed her hair; only then did she discover that her hair dryer had burned out.

“Who broke my hair dryer?”

“Wasn’t me,” Lisa was ready to leave. “The bell is in ten minutes, and I’m not going to listen to Portnov’s hysterics because of you!”

“You’ll have to deal with it, thanks to whoever broke it! Oksana, let me borrow yours.”

“I lent it to Luba from Room 19, she hasn’t returned it yet. Just wrap your hair in a towel, you’ll be fine!”

Sasha dried her hair with a towel as well as she could. She pulled on a knit cap, scrambled into her jacket, threw some books and notepads into her bag and ran across the yard toward the main building. She burst into Auditorium number 1, plopped into her seat next to Kostya; the same second the bell rang.

A minute had passed. Portnov was not there. First years exchanged glances and began to talk softly.

“Think he might be sick?” someone asked hopefully.

“Yeah, right…”

“Keep dreaming…”

The door flew open. Conversations stopped mid-sentence. Portnov walked in, tossed a quick hello, sat behind his desk. He inclined his head and gazed at the students above his glasses. The silence in the auditorium felt sterilized.

“Half of this semester has come and gone,” Portnov stated. “Winter finals are fast approaching. You will have two graded exams: Philosophy and History. And pass-fail exams in all other subjects. Obviously, one of them is Specialty; those who do not pass the first time, will have an unpleasant conversation with your advisors.”

A pencil rolled off Zhenya Toporko’s desk, fell on the floor with a thump, but she did not dare pick it up.

“Today, I must tell you something,” Portnov continued. “I told some of you today during your one-on-one sessions, and now I will tell all of you. The exercises that you are working on, overcoming your tunnel vision and your laziness, change you from the inside. Perhaps you have already noticed. If you have not, you will notice it later.”

He paused. Sasha longed to look at Kostya, but she restrained herself.

“We stand at the very beginning of the road,” Portnov spoke in short, staccato sentences. “Preliminary work is being done. Considering the rate we’re going at, I can swear: in many years, I have never had to teach a more undisciplined, indolent group of students. The only group worse than you is Group B, but they are way below any expectations, and I highly doubt half of those students will be attending the graduation ceremony.”