Vita Nostra

  “Always carry this phone with you. Don’t you dare turn it off. Make sure the battery has been charged. Got it?”

  “Yes.”

  “If you commit any offense, this phone will bring you bad news. You, genie fresh out of the bottle, remember: for each attempt to build yet another castle, you will get some very, very sad news. And you will find out immediately. Carry your telephone with you at all times.”

  Sasha looked down at the phone.

  It was small and delicate. In a pink fuzzy case with—as Sasha now saw—little pig ears. The case was shaped like a pig, with a drawn piggy snout; it was cute, almost childish.

  Everything had just changed.

  As if a genie flying up to heaven had suddenly been jerked by his beard and his face smashed into the concrete wall. And then locked in a cell, three meters by three meters. Without windows or doors.

  Only a few minutes ago she felt omnipotent. Only a few minutes ago she felt how the new reality grew around her—it was slightly uncomfortable and a little terrifying, but the process was preeminently fascinating!

  And now she was withering. Shriveling into a tiny blob. It happens when synthetic fabric is put on fire: a full-size elegant dress shrinks into a miniscule globule of black tar, and it happens in only a couple of seconds. Sasha, omnipotent just a minute ago, Sasha who could fly, who could transform the world—was now turning into a dot on a flat surface.

  The doorbell rang. Kostya came back, carrying a pack of tea, a jar of coffee, biscuits and a chocolate bar; out of the corner of her eye Sasha saw him place the groceries on the shelf, but did not turn her head.

  Kozhennikov said something to his son, who replied in a low voice, then in turn asked something. Sasha did not discern any words.

  The door closed. Kostya left. Sasha remained immobile.

  “I don’t see anything tragic,” Kozhennikov said softly. “You are going to continue all your previous activities, but only under the supervision of your professors. I think they might schedule additional sessions.”

  “I won’t be able to study,” Sasha whispered.

  “You will be able to. On the contrary, you will make a bigger effort. But… discipline, Sasha, discipline and self-control are very important things, sometimes crucial. Tell me, am I wrong?”

  Sasha was silent.

  “It is in your power to make sure it never rings,” Kozhennikov said gently. “All depends on you. As usual.”

  “I saw you,” Sasha said. “When you entered the room. I went blind almost immediately. Farit, it’s impossible to live in the world where you exist.”

  “It is impossible to live in the world where I do not exist,” he said after a short pause. “Although it’s hard to resign oneself to my existence, I understand that.”

  ***

  “Don’t bend your knee, Sasha! Stretch, like this… just a little bit more, and you’ll make it!”

  Lisa Pavlenko stretched into a split, bearing her hands down onto the floor, but maintaining an absent-minded facial expression. Sasha groaned and got up:

  “I can’t. My muscles hurt too much.”

  “Because you must stretch every day!” To strengthen his argument, the gym teacher pressed his hand to his chest. “Lisa stretched—and she did it, see?”

  “I’m delighted for her,” Sasha said.

  Dima Dimych sighed. Yulia Goldman has been standing in a bridge position for the last five minutes, curved like a triumphal arch, and the tips of her hair brushed the wooden floor.

  “Sasha, you must at least pass the somersault. But put away your cell phone, didn’t I ask not to bring the cell phones to the gym?”

  Sasha hesitated but then took the pink cord off her neck. She put the phone into the pocket of her sweatshirt and zipped it up. Dima Dimych looked almost annoyed:

  “Is somebody going to steal it? Can’t you put it down for a second?”

  Sasha’s stare was grim enough to make the young gym teacher shrink in embarrassment.

  ***

  At three forty Zhenya Toporko exited the auditorium thirty-eight. She threw a haughty glance at Sasha and, without saying hello, sailed away down the corridor.

  “Ah, it’s you,” Portnov greeted Sasha.

  She murmured a curt hello and sat down at her table in front of the teacher’s desk—just a regular student. She pulled out the conceptual activator. Then the textual module. She stared at her hands.

  The phone on the pink cord touched the edge of the table, a pink spot in her peripheral vision.

  “At first I thought you were simply the kind of student who crams day and night,” Portnov muttered. “Then I suspected you had a talent… Then I realized you are a verb. It happened when you regained your speech. When I made you silent, and you found the right word in a matter of only few days. Remember?”

  Sasha nodded.

  “Then everything seemed to hang by a thread, and I thought I had made a mistake… and so did Nikolay Valerievich… and then you transformed in a single leap. It became obvious you were a verb, and I strongly suspected,” Portnov leaned forward maintaining an eye contact with Sasha, “that you were a verb in the imperative mood. You are an imperative, Sasha, you are a command.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “You will,” Portnov squinted. “It’s the nature of our specialty: nothing can be explained. One can only achieve understanding on one’s own. You are a command, a part of the Speech of Creation…. A load-bearing structure. I told you once you were a projection. Remember? Here it is: you are a projection of the Word that is destined to reverberate. And every day you get closer to the original. You are a foundation upon which an entire universe can be built. And this cannot be explained, Sasha, it can only be understood.”

  Sasha shut her eyes.

  For a second she ceased thinking in words. Her thoughts seemed to be living creatures that resembled multi-colored amoebas lit up from the inside.

  “You understand everything,” Portnov said. “You are lacking experience and knowledge. Second year… you have just started studying Speech… but already you are a Word, Sasha, a Word, not a human being. A command, an imperative. You have colossal value as a future specialist. We will study in May, June, and part-time in July—every day, and quite seriously.”

  Sasha glanced at the pink phone.

  “Under professional supervision!” Portnov raised his voice.

  He slapped his pocket in search of a cigarette, then said in a different tone, very business-like:

  “Get your pencil and paper. Open the activator. Let’s begin with the minor stuff.”

  ***

  She felt like a balloon straining to go up. Her small pink phone pulled her down like an anchor, preventing her from breaking loose; like this, “at the edge of rupture,” she lived through a long day, perhaps the happiest day of her life.

  She left Portnov’s auditorium filled with the picture of the world, brilliant, spellbinding and terrifying. She carried that image until late at night, trying not to spill it.

  Enlightenment surged over her like a tide and departed again. When Sasha perceived herself as Word, she felt serene like never before in her life. It was the tranquility of a dandelion blossoming for the first time on green pastures. It was a happy moment without wind, without future and, of course, without death.

  Then again she would feel human. She would remember the existence of Farit Kozhennikov, remember the phone hanging from her neck. She would grit her teeth and wait for the word-sensation to sweep over her again, and having reached that point, she would freeze in warm numbness…

  In the evening she had a really tough time. Having finished the module, she went to bed and turned off the light. She closed her eyes—and immediately a magnificent anthill of meanings unfolded under her eyelids.

  Conformities and associations. Projections and reflections. Sasha turned onto her other side, then one more time, and one more. She rumpled the sheets. She sat up: the clock tick-tocked in the darkness. Streetlight
s burned along Sacco and Vanzetti. The accursed pink phone lay on the bureau. And all around her the accursed eide soared, whirled, and teased her: Sasha disliked the expression, but she could not find another word for the spinning colorful amoebas.

  All one needed to do was to manifest. Everything already existed in the world. Everything that was the best and the most suitable. And happiness. The simplest thing—to grab this golden amoeba by its tail and manifest it accurately and clearly, without any distortions. Happiness is what Sasha felt when she perceived herself as Word. Happiness is what a man feels when he matches up his destiny. What would prevent Sasha from doing it? Because she could!

  The human shell aggravated her like a too-tight suit. She longed to—had to—escape, but the pink phone lay on the table, and Sasha got up and went over to the window.

  She opened a small windowpane. It wasn’t enough: she unlocked the entire window frame. The spring night was fairly cool, a raw wind chased the clouds, in turn exposing the stars and then covering them up again. Sasha kneeled in the windowsill breathing deeply and feeling the wind creeping under her nightgown. The cold was fabulous, it sobered her up. Sasha was a human being.

  “I am a human being. But I am a verb,” she said out loud.

  It was impossible to explain. Sasha, a second-year student who lived through a disintegration and reconstruction, who had been forced to alter and who has been transformed, accepted her new status not with her mind, and not even with her intuition.

  She was. She continued. She resided in space and time. She was getting ready to reverberate.

  To be realized.

  The pink phone lay on the table. Sasha wanted to turn it off. Better yet, to throw it down, on the cobblestones. Let it break. Let the battery fall out. Let the display flicker out forever.

  “I can’t,” she whispered. “I must not. I must not.”

  A dark whirlwind flew over the ragged cloudy sky. Sasha recoiled; across from her a shadow nestled on the slope of the tiled roof, shielding the stars like a storm cloud.

  “Sasha, why are you not asleep at this late hour?”

  She gripped the windowsill with both hands.

  ***

  “Let’s take it easy. And keep away from the streetlights; we have no need for sensationalism. We have forty minutes, let’s not waste any time on warm-ups.”

  The cold wind impeded breathing. Below lay springtime Torpa, fog flowed over the streets as if over rivers, and the lights of the street lanterns became hazier.

  “Follow me… don’t rush. Keep calm. And don’t forget to breathe; you are not diving into the water.”

  They landed on the roof of a seven-story building. The fog flooded over the first floor and was creeping up to the second.

  “Are you cold?”

  “N-no.”

  “Sasha, I want you to know: this is not so much academic work, but more of a... um, process of adapting to the given situation. As our mutual friend would put it, we cannot ask for the impossible, and you, in your current state, you require a certain relief, materialization. But as your professor, I emphatically forbid you to do the same when you are alone. And that restriction remains in full force and effect!”

  Torpa was invisible far below, and only the rooftops swam over the cotton-wool surface of the fog.

  “Sasha, we think very highly of you, your capacity for work, and your ethics. We understand how difficult it is for you. You won’t give us a reason… to be disappointed, will you?”

  Sasha opened her wings as wide as she could. For a second she became the town of Torpa—a sleepy town under a blanket of haze, floating in the clouds…

  “I w-will try.”

  Part Three

  “Mom, hello. I am here.”

  “Goodness, Sasha! Are you at the station?”

  “No.”

  “Where are you?”

  Sasha laughed.

  “I’m downstairs, calling from the phone booth.”

  “Are you kidding?!”

  “Dead serious. I’ll be up in a minute.”

  “You are unbelievable!”

  When the elevator doors opened, Mom stood at the landing, happy, fresh, wearing a summer frock:

  “You are insane! Completely out of the blue! Like a terrorist!”

  And Mom hugged Sasha for the first time in six months. Sasha closed her eyes. Behind her the elevator doors closed and opened again, hitting the handle of her suitcase. And closed again. Sasha and her mother stood embracing a while longer, then Sasha reluctantly turned and picked up her suitcase.

  The elevator doors snapped shut with an aggravated clunking.

  “Listen,” Mom said greedily drinking her in. “You look… wonderful. Completely grown up.”

  They entered the apartment, and Mom pulled Sasha into the kitchen, sat her down without letting go of her hand. The steam whirled over the pot, eggs hopped in the boiling water; Mom looked into Sasha’s eyes, smiled and shook her head:

  “So big… so grown up. How wonderful that you came… You’re just wonderful. Why don’t you use your cell phone?”

  “It’s a bit expensive,” Sasha made a point to smile. “It’s really for emergencies only.”

  “I called you a couple of times, but there was no connection.”

  “Yes, that happens in Torpa,” Sasha’s smile became even wider. “Is the baby asleep?”

  “He just conked out, right before you arrived. We had a doctor’s appointment yesterday, received tons of compliments,” Mom was smiling. “It’s so curious. Usually they try to scare you, refer you to specialists… And here we have a baby with the ideal weight, and ideal development, and he kept smiling at everyone… At this age babies are scared of strangers, but little Valentin is such a sunny baby. When he sees someone, he greets them. He sleeps like a bear. Eats like a piglet. And he’s so beautiful! You’ll see.”

  She finally remembered her pot, took the boiled eggs off the stove and settled them under a stream of cold water.

  “Valentin is working. He has so much work right now. But it does bring more money, you cannot imagine how expensive everything is these days… Sasha, have you got a boyfriend?”

  “What makes you say that?”

  Mom sat across from Sasha and touched her hand:

  “I just think so. You’ve changed.”

  “We just haven’t seen each other in a long time.”

  “Tell me,” Mom asked. “While the baby is asleep… we have some time. Tell me: how are you? Do you have friends? Boys are probably after you in herds—you’re so beautiful.”

  “I study day and night. Not so much with the herds of boys.”

  “But still. You must like someone! What kind of boys are there in that Torpa, I can’t even imagine. Are they nice?”

  “They are nice, sure. Different… just like everywhere else. You say it like Torpa is some hole in the middle of nowhere!”

  “It’s not a hole,” Mom caressed her hand. “I fell in love during my second year, I remember… purely platonically. I could not stop thinking about him. It was like an illness, it rolled over me and left just as quickly. But times are different now, aren’t they?”

  “At this point I have absolutely no personal life,” Sasha confessed honestly. “The workload is too heavy.”

  Mom shook her head with a hint of distrust:

  “You are a workaholic… and it’s already the end of the second year.”

  “And I got straight ‘A’s.”

  “Straight ‘A’s… Sasha, let’s start getting you out of there. It’s the best time right now, after the second year. I made some inquiries—our university will accept you with open arms.”

  “Mom…” Sasha took away her hand.

  Mom shook her head stubbornly.

  “Sasha. Let’s forget the past. You lived through… You did not accept Valentin. I mean, you accepted him to be polite, but inside… back then you were still a girl, a teenager. Now you are an adult, I can see it. And we can say all of those things, u
nspoken before, out loud. You can see—we are happy. The only thing missing is you, Sasha. Because you are also our daughter, you are a part of this family, and nothing and no one can replace you. Come home. Please.”

  Sasha’s mouth was suddenly dry. Mom watched her from across the table and smiled.

  “I have come back,” Sasha muttered. “I… you’re right, now I’ve come back for real.”

  Mom got up nearly toppling over her stool and embraced Sasha, pressing her face to Sasha’s shoulder:

  “Your bedroom is still yours, make yourself comfortable. Put your things away. Valentin are I are comfortable in our bedroom, and it’s easier for us to get up with the baby right there. But he sleeps through the night now. He’s such a sunny baby, calm and happy. You’ll see. People used to live in communal apartments, three, four people in tiny rooms, and we do have our own apartment. Tomorrow we’ll go to the university… or maybe you want to go by yourself? And then we’d have to go back to Torpa to get your documents. And pick up your things, you probably left some stuff there?”

  “Uh-huh,” Sasha said. “We can decide that later.”

  “Don’t wait too long. Oh, the sink is clogged. I wanted to make sorrel soup, it’s almost ready. I just need to add the sorrel. Want to do it? It is so cool when sorrel changes its color in the hot broth… Or do you want to take a shower first? Or put away your clothes? A whole night on the train, you’re tired... Do you want to take a nap? In your room?”

  “I’d rather help you,” Sasha said. “Let me cut up the sorrel.”

  ***

  She spent the previous night in a blissful half-dream. Lying on the soft berth of a compartment coach, she listened to the rattle of the wheels and slowly, by sly degrees, she appropriated the train.

  Her head was a diesel locomotive. The wheels spun along her stomach, sonorous and confident. The tracks turned out to be smooth and cool by touch, like marble. In the morning they were covered by dewdrops. Sasha felt the tiny particles fly all over, vaporize and condensate again, felt the fog slink away from her face, felt the wind dash behind her back, wagging like the tail of a dog. Green semaphores rose over the horizon like stars.