Sergey Dyachenko - Vita Nostra

Kozhennikov’s pupils narrowed. Only for a moment. His eyes looked as if they were lit up from the inside. Sasha recoiled.

“Is that your final word?”

She shut her eyes.

“Yes.”

“Good afternoon, third years.”

Both the assembly hall and the stage were brightly lit. Portnov and Sterkh stood below, near the first row of chairs, and two men and a woman sat behind the long table placed near the front edge of the stage. The woman’s name was Irina Anatolyevna, she taught Specialty to Yegor’s year; the men were unfamiliar to Sasha. At least she thought so, until one of them, the one sitting on the far left, raised his head. Sasha’s mouth dropped open: it was the gym teacher, Dima Dimych. Wearing a suit and tie. With an unusual look on his face: his face seemed frozen. As if all the muscles responsible for facial expression has turned into plaster of paris.

The third examiner, blonde, about forty years old, had never been human. Like Portnov, he was a function.

The old wooden chairs squeaked mercilessly. Sasha took a seat in the middle of the second row, with Denis Myaskovsky on her right, and Lisa Pavlenko on her left. Kostya sat in the front row, two seats to the right of Sasha. If she wanted to, she could reach for him with her hand. But Kostya stubbornly avoided looking at her.

“Dear third years!” Sterkh stayed below the stage, not coming up. “The big day has arrived. You will now receive printouts with your assignments. You will have time to prepare. Do not rush and do not be nervous. When you hear your name, approach this table, sign and receive your examination sheet. Is everyone ready? Can we begin?”

Dead silence was his answer.

“Goldman, Yulia. Adjective.”

Staggering in her high heels, Yulia stepped onto the stage. The blonde function sitting at the corner handed her several stapled sheets of paper. Unsmiling Dima Dimych offered her a pen. Yulia managed to sign, her hands shaking; she started reading her assignments on the stairs that led from the stage down, and Sasha saw how the expression of panic on her face was replaced by surprise and then joy.

“Bochkova, Anna. Noun.”

“Biryukov, Dmitry. Noun.”

“Kovtun, Igor. Adverb.”

They rose one after another. The procedure was running smoothly and clearly had been run before; the established routine had a calming effect.

“Kozhennikov, Konstantin. Pronoun.”

Sasha watched Kostya move toward the table. Blond Ivan Mikhailovich handed him the stapled sheets, the former (or false?) gym teacher offered him a pen; Sasha saw Kostya’s eyelid twitch.

Walking down the steps, Kostya tripped up.

“Calm down,” Sterkh said gently, steadying him. “All your emotions stayed outside. All your fears are buried underneath this threshold. Concentrate.”

Sasha watched Kostya read his assignment. At some point he paled, his lips shook; then he relaxed and Sasha felt his instant relief. He will pass; he will get through this. He was confident, he managed to regain this confidence. Pronoun… let it be so.

“Samokhina, Alexandra! Verb!”

Sasha jumped up making the wooden row shake. Already? So fast?

She climbed out stumbling over someone’s feet and knees. She rose up to the stage: the room swayed like a deck of a ship. The eight eyes of the people sitting at the table watched her. The stack of examination sheets under the blond man’s hand became much thinner.

Dima Dimych’s lips formed a faint smirk, so unlike the sincere and sparkly, toothy smiles he so generously gave to all the girls at the gym:

“Good luck… verb.”

“Sign here,” said the blond man.

She picked up the fountain pen with a gold nib. The nib scratched the paper. Sasha barely managed to write “Samokhina” in black ink across from the blue checkmark. She turned and began walking away from the table.

“Sasha, you may want to take the examination sheet—just in case.”

She turned around. Dima Dimych watched her ironically, but without mockery.

She accepted three thin sheets from his hand. Clutched them with her moist hand. Made it back to her seat and only then took a look.

On the top of the first page she saw the round symbol for “Word.” And one more—for “verb.” And the third one, the meaning of which Sasha did not understand and became frightened, but immediately realized that this was not an assignment. It was the header, the legend, the identification symbols; underneath printed text read: “Alexandra Samokhina.” There was today’s date and her crooked signature.

She looked down. Here was the first assignment; Sasha tensed up and immediately relaxed. Piece of cake. She’d done hundreds of these last year.

Second assignment… Yes, Sterkh was right. This is simple, this would make a cat laugh.

The distribution of examination sheets continued, now they had reached Group B. Oksana, Sasha’s former roommate, was walking toward her seat, pressing the papers to her generous bosom…

Third assignment. Sasha turned the coarse paper over.

On the third page a black “fragment” displayed an “anchor” of three white circles in its center.

At first she froze. Then smiled.

She could do it. She’d done it before. She must focus her eyes on the “anchor” and hold her breath. There stands a black city, where a monster lives in the tower. Fragment number one hundred. On the other hand, why exactly one hundred? What if it is number one hundred and one? Two hundred? One thousand?

“…By now all of you have received your assignments. I repeat, you have enough time to prepare. Do not rush. As soon as you are ready I would like to ask you to raise your hand and… what’s wrong, Sasha?”

Not giving herself time for reflection, she cast up her shaking hand:

“I am ready.”

“Already?!”

The three examiners stared at her: the function, dispassionately, the woman, anxiously; only the gym teacher, whose new identity Sasha could not get over, squinted with obvious pleasure.

At the foot of the stage Sterkh nervously moved his shoulders:

“Are you sure, Sasha?”

“Yes.” She got up.

She caught Kostya’s eyes. A long heartrending glance. She recalled the fir tree with a single garland of tinsel, the flames in the fireplace: this is where she should have placed the time loop. She hadn’t thought of it… Or was too scared. Because she had already had a bitter experience, there was already a day in her life when Yegor repeated time after time: “Let’s get married…”

Yegor never found out the truth about the infinite day. Thinking about it made Sasha almost proud.

What am I doing, she thought, making her way along the row. I am a verb in the imperative mood, and I am about to reverberate for the first time. I am going to become a part of Speech. Become a command. And here I am, thinking about… tinsel.

At the foot of the stairs leading to the stage she was met by Portnov and Sterkh.

“Good luck,” Portnov said solemnly, looking above his glasses. “You are the best one.”

“Everything will be fine,” Sterkh offered her his hand helping her up the stairs. “Good luck, Sasha. We will fly together again.”

In front of the table she stopped not knowing what to do next. Dima Dimych rose and beckoned her with his finger. At the far end of the stage stood tables, just like in the auditorium. A cup filled with sharpened pencils, a stack of white paper and a bottle of mineral water surrounded by glasses were placed on each table.

“No need to be nervous, we are old friends,” the false gym teacher moved a chair toward Sasha. “And we will be working together during your fourth year. Then, during your fifth. Then, I hope, you will be accepted to graduate school. And right now we only have a placement exam, and you must pass beyond the limits. Jump over your own head. As usual.”