Vita Nostra

  ***

  At six sharp she knocked on the faux-leather door with the sign “Teachers’ Lounge.” She pulled the handle toward herself and peeked inside.

  She’d only been here once before. Long couches were still placed along the walls, a coat hanger with several jackets still stood in the corner, but the nude mannequin was missing. Portnov and Sterkh were talking; Portnov was smoking what definitely was not his first cigarette: blue threads of smoke stretched up to the ceiling.

  “Samokhina, wait,” Portnov said curtly.

  Sasha left. She hugged her shoulders.

  She simply could not control her imagination. Sterkh is trying to talk Portnov into releasing Sasha. Into admitting that she’s professionally inadequate and letting her go. She’s going to walk in, and they will tell her to write a resignation letter.

  On the first day of school Portnov said that no one leaves the Institute voluntarily. But there is no rule without exceptions. There is no such thing! They had such expectations of Sasha, and here they were—a total blunder. Of course, it is not fun to admit one’s own mistakes…

  Time went on, and she still had not been called inside. The scene in which Portnov and Sterkh release her went through her head like a movie, five or six times—and then it became insipid, faded, lost its credibility. Are they stupid enough to lose control over her, give her freedom, when at least half of her has been changed?

  She believed in the impossible. Like a child believes that on New Year’s Eve he will be given a real pony. Chances are these two were arguing over what to do with Sasha, how to utilize this worthless material.

  The underground corridor disappeared in the dark. Doors stretched to the right and the left, some covered with leatherette, some with real leather. Perhaps under the corridor there was another one, and one more; perhaps after the winter exams, third years—and fourth years, and the graduates—live and study underground?

  And maybe, just maybe, she thought, there is no such thing as the fourth and fifth year? Maybe the placement exam is a sacrificial offering? Appropriately primed victims enter the assembly hall—and never come out again…

  She imagined a conveyor, like a subway escalator that pulls third years onto the altar, one after another. Everyone holds a grade book in his hand; rhythmically, a spiked wooden club rises and falls down again. Still alive, bones broken, students roll from the altar down into the meat grinder, and the blood stains on the pages of the grade books transform into words: “Passed. ‘C.’” ‘Passed. ‘A.’”

  The door to the teachers’ lounge flew open.

  “Come in, Samokhina,” Portnov said, stepping into the corridor, a cigarette in hand.

  Adding no further information, he disappeared into the darkness.

  Sasha stood by the door, motionless. These two have made a decision: perhaps she, Sasha, would be asked to take the placement exam right now.

  “Sasha,” Sterkh said from the inside, “Come in, please. It’s already a quarter past six.”

  Sasha entered.

  The hunchback closed the door behind her. He seemed even more melancholy and pale than usual. His hump must have felt really uncomfortable; strolling around the long narrow auditorium, the hunchback kept moving his shoulders.

  Sasha stood still by the door. The hunchback, taking one last stroll to the window and back, stopped as well.

  “So, Sasha. I just spoke on the phone with Farit Kozhennikov… Don’t be scared, we are only discussing how we can help you. You are not making the required progress, the exams are coming, and time is against you. Farit will set you up with a loop, that’s the only way to stimulate you… Encourage you, I suppose. But in reality, everything depends solely on your determination and perseverance. What’s wrong?”

  Sasha was silent. She found it hard to breathe.

  “Sasha,” the hunchback came closer, anxiously looking into her eyes. “What happened? Are you… scared?”

  He was two heads taller than Sasha. A really tall man. His black suit set off his pale face. Sasha took a step back.

  “You didn’t understand what I meant! It’s just a temporary loop, a perfectly ordinary thing, one may even say, routine. Today is December sixteenth, and tomorrow for you will be December sixteenth, and the day after tomorrow… you will stay in this day as long as you need to complete the work. I spoke with Oleg Borisovich—you don’t have to work on the module or the exercises that day. Only Applied Science. Only our session. What’s so frightening about that?”

  “But I don’t want to,” Sasha panicked. “I… what if I never… I don’t even know what you want from me! What sort of result!”

  “I want your most honest effort,” the hunchback looked at her severely. “Just as any other teacher. And when you get the result—you will be the first to notice it.”

  ***

  Yegor was not in the corridor.

  Sasha dragged her feet to the main entrance of the Institute and stopped—no hat, jacket unbuttoned—inhaling frosty air and exhaling white steam.

  A clean cotton strip of snow lay on the molding. Sasha gathered the snow into her hands and rubbed it on her face. Two older women walked by and gave her a strange look—residents of this town think we’re drug addicts, Sasha recalled.

  Her life had shrunk, turning into one difficult, absurd day. This had happened once before: back then she retained the illusion that she, Sasha, controlled the passing of time. “I want it to be a dream!”

  She wished to wake up on a folding cot in the middle of the summer, two and half years ago. She wished to wake up.

  “Sasha! Finally! I thought they must have killed you!”

  Lit up by the white street lanterns, Yegor strode along the street, holding two pairs of skis under his arm— brand-new, narrow, without bindings.

  “Check out what they had for sale at the sporting goods store! And the price was ridiculous! These are old, still made during the Soviet era, but look how cool they are! Do you know how much these things normally cost? Tomorrow I’ll buy bindings and wax…”

  “Why not this morning?” Sasha whispered.

  Yegor was taken aback.

  “Morning? What do you mean?”

  “It’s a pity you did not buy the skis this morning.”

  And she looked up at the sky, at the only star in the slit of white clouds. It could have been a real day… She and Yegor would go skiing, and later he, flushed, would say: “Let’s get married!” If one day must be chosen out of the entire life—why not a day like this?

  Yegor took a closer look at her:

  “What did he want from you? Sterkh?”

  “Can we ski today?” Sasha asked, paying no attention to his question.

  “Today?” Yegor hesitated. “No. Tomorrow. And today… let’s go to my place.”

  Sasha closed her eyes. She leaned into the collar of his jacket. Inhaled deeply the warm air—the steam of his breath.

  “Let’s go,” she repeated sleepily. “Let’s go, Yegor.”

  ***

  In the morning she woke up in her bed, barely alive, wiped out, and immediately asked Vika, who was busy setting her hair with a curling iron, what date it was.

  “Monday the sixteenth,” Vika answered grimly. “And if you feel like shrieking in your sleep, make your bed in the corridor!”

  “Uh-huh,” Sasha agreed.

  Vika gaped at her over her shoulder. The room filled with the smell of burned hair.

  The first block was Specialty. Sasha was the last one to enter the room, five seconds before Portnov’s appearance.

  “Good morning, Group A. Samokhina, you are free for today. Good bye.”

  Her classmates’ faces fell. Sasha gave Portnov an inquiring look: almost an entire day remained until his conversation with Sterkh. Does he already know that Sasha was “set up with a loop?”

  Portnov nodded to her, answering an unasked question and simultaneously urging her to leave:

  “Go, Samokhina, don’t waste your group’s study time!?
??

  Sasha left. She went back to the dorm, took out Sterkh’s black album and focused her eyes on Fragment twenty-one.

  ***

  “Greetings, Sasha, how is your progress?”

  “There is none.”

  “Please don’t be that pessimistic. If I were an eighteen-year old girl, I’d never lose heart, never despair…. Did you work with the twenty-first fragment?”

  “Nikolay Valerievich,” Sasha said. “How do you do that? If today’s the sixteenth, then you don’t know yet what is going to happen tonight!”

  Sterkh shook his head absent-mindedly:

  “Sasha, you are a child who grew up in a beautiful cozy room, you have no idea what is going on outside its walls, you think that the tick-tock of the kitchen clock is an inherent attribute of time as a physical phenomena… Open the album and let us work on Fragment twenty-two together.”

  ***

  “Let’s get married,” said Yegor.

  Celluloid balls noisily jumped on the tables, bouncing off the dense casing of the rackets. Larisa missed a shot, lost the game and swore loudly. Dima Dimych, passing by, read her the riot act. Larisa threw the racket on the ground and went to the locker room.

  “Lack of sportsmanship,” the gym teacher stated grimly. “Sasha, do you want to play?”

  Sasha shook her head.

  “Didn’t you hear me?” Yegor was insulted. “I said…”

  “‘Let’s get married,’” Sasha continued with a heavy sigh. “Let’s.”

  “One would think you get proposed to every day,” said deeply offended Yegor.

  “I’m sorry,” Sasha mumbled. “It’s all Sterkh… You see…”

  ‘What?”

  “Nothing.” Sasha pulled herself together.

  “Come to my place tonight,” Yegor said. “Stepan is out, and we’ll ask Misha to take a walk…”

  Sasha glanced at her arm. The temporary tattoo was bright-red, but what was there to be afraid of since tomorrow was never going to come?

  “I will.”

  ***

  She woke up in her bed, smelling burned hair. Vika overheated the curling iron and was now cursing and trying to rid the metal shaft of the sticky melted hair.

  “The bell is in twenty minutes! Are you going to Specialty?”

  “No,” Sasha said and closed her eyes again.

  When she opened them for the second time, both Vika and Lisa stood by her bed.

  “What do you want?”

  “Aren’t you afraid?”

  “I don’t care,” Sasha said and turned on the other side.

  ***

  “Hello, Sasha. Did you work on the fragment? Let us take a look.”

  The sharp ray of light made Sasha squint.

  “There is a bit of progress,” Sterkh said soothingly. “Just a tiny bit, but still—it’s a step forward. Work hard, Sasha, don’t give up. And right now here’s what we are going to do. Let us go back to the first fragment and let’s go through them again, slowly, one after another. Make yourself comfortable, focus, concentrate on the “anchor.” We have plenty of time, no reason to rush.”

  ***

  “Just don’t tell me we should get married.”

  Yegor blinked:

  “Sasha… what the heck?”

  “Weren’t you going to ask me to get married?”

  “Yes, I was,” Yegor admitted softly. “But… why are you angry?”

  “I am not angry,” Sasha said.

  To herself she thought: I am going mad.

  ***

  Kostya walked into the kitchen when she was pouring cold water on a freshly boiled egg. The kitchen was crowded, people were eating, having tea, washing the dishes, or just hanging out—however, Sasha knew right away that Kostya had come looking for her. And now here he was.

  “You didn’t show up at Specialty today. What happened?”

  “I am sick of explaining it to everyone,” Sasha used a dessert spoon to lift the egg out of the pan. “Pirtnov let me skip today’s class.”

  “Portnov did?!”

  “I don’t see anything weird about that. I’m the best student in the whole class; I can take an occasional break. Why shouldn’t I?”

  She thumped the spoon violently on the top of the egg and peeled off the shell like an enemy’s scalp.

  “What do they want from you?” Kostya asked gently. “What have they done to you now?”

  Sasha raised her eyes. The radio was on at full volume, a warm spell was expected tomorrow, snow, gusty wind. Sasha thought how wonderful it must be—to have “tomorrow.” Listen to the weather forecast. Follow a schedule. Rip off pages of a calendar. Tons of people live this way—and none of them realize their own happiness.

  “I’m in a loop,” she told Kostya, surprising herself. “This day keeps repeating. They did this… he did this to make me learn… to allow me to do this assignment for Sterkh. And I can’t.”

  Kostya sat down as if his legs could no longer hold him.

  “That’s why Portnov let me miss today’s class. Because for me it’s always today.”

  Kostya was silent for a long time.

  “But then,” he said finally, “if I go to class tomorrow… won’t you be there? Tomorrow?”

  “I don’t know. It’s not like you can jump a day ahead, then come back and let me know what happens.”

  The egg on her plate was getting cold. Sasha lowered her chin onto her interlaced palms.

  “I am telling you all this because tomorrow… I mean, this morning… You won’t remember anything anyway.”

  Kostya shook his head, as if refusing to accept such a possibility.

  “That’s right. It all starts again. You will be surprised that I’m not in class. You might even ask me again. And I will think of some explanation. I don’t feel like explaining everything over and over again, to infinity…”

  Kostya used both hands to ruffle his short hair, then rubbed his nose hard with his hand.

  “What are you supposed to do for Sterkh?”

  “It’s a long story. At first, he gave me a CD player and a CD with… tracks. That did not work. Then he gave me an album… with black pages. So now I’m fiddling with this album. It feels as if this something is knocking, knocking, trying to enter… and I’m not letting it in.”

  “And this something wants to break the door,” Kostya added softly.

  “You know what I mean?!”

  Kostya looked around. The kitchen was noisy, filled with the smoke and laughter of the first years. There were no empty stools left.

  “Let’s go someplace quiet.”

  They set off for the very end of the corridor, hid behind the wide open door of the shower room and hopped onto the windowsill side by side.

  “Sterkh gave me a printout,” Kostya said. “On this long roll of paper, like a parchment scroll. Told me to read vertically, by columns. I started to… and the same thing happened. As if something alien is trying to break in. I closed up. And this thing—bam!—broke my door. Or whatever is in there instead of a door. So that’s what happened. Then the disgusting sensation went away, I heard music, it was even kind of nice. Sterkh is pleased with me…” Kostya trailed off. “It’s all because I have weak willpower. And yours is strong. It cannot be broken easily.”

  “He told me I was special,” Sasha murmured. “And later he said he made a mistake, and I was ordinary… Did he say anything like that to you?”

  “No. You know his honey tongue… ‘Very good, Kostya, for tomorrow please do this column, I marked it in red…”

  Kostya’s impression of Sterkh was excellent. Sasha smiled sadly.

  “How can I help you?” Kostya asked.

  “Come over tomorrow… I mean, today… just like you did. And ask me again how come I missed the class.”

  Kostya turned to face her. By the expression on his face Sasha understood—he thought she was making fun of him.

  “I am serious,” she looked down. “I… I have no one to talk
to.”

  “What about Yegor?”

  Sasha was thoughtful for a while. She wasn’t thinking about Yegor. Right now, on this cold windowsill in the draughty corridor, she realized for the first time that no one but she would remember this rough draft of a day… aside, perhaps, from Sterkh and Portnov, but they were not here right now, and they did not care about Sasha’s personal life. This meant that she could tell Kostya anything she wanted. Everything would be erased. All would be deleted. Tomorrow morning Kostya will be surprised and anxious about Sasha missing Specialty.

  “If you had a day that would never count for you, that would never be recorded anywhere, what would you have done?”

  ‘I’d rob a bank,” Kostya murmured. “There was this movie…”

  “Yes, I remember… Mom brought the tape home. And we watched it, just the two of us. Before Valentin. Back then I had no idea… Would never have thought it would happen to me…”

  Anna Bochkova shuffled by and stopped at the entrance of the shower room:

  “Sasha, aren’t you afraid of Portnov? Why didn’t you come to Specialty?”

  “They let me skip it, because I’m the best student,” Sasha glanced at Kostya.

  Anya clucked disapprovingly, proceeded into the shower room and closed the door.

  “She’ll tell Zhenya,” Sasha said.

  Kostya bristled:

  “Tell her what?”

  “She’ll think of something. But it does not matter, because tomorrow everything will start anew, and all of this will play yet again. Listen, you say I have strong willpower. But I can’t seem to take any action. Walk around the Institute naked, scare the English professor with a live rat, or drown myself in an ice hole… Those are the sort of stupid thoughts I’ve been having. And none of them can be realized. Because I must continually deliver new fragments to Sterkh. He says: “There is a tiny bit of progress.” Three hundred sixty-five identical days, and a “tiny bit of a progress” will turn into a “small progress.” Ten repeated years—and I might be allowed to take the first test.”

  “Sasha,” Kostya said quietly. “I owe you. Let me help you.”

  “How?”

  Water rustled in the shower room.

  “Forgive me for saying all that stuff back then,” Sasha said. “I was… I was wrong.”