Sergey Dyachenko - Vita Nostra

The sun went down. Sasha’s fellow passengers were having supper, crunching half-sour pickles, peeling lusterless hard-boiled eggs. Sasha took out Mom’s sandwiches and nearly burst out crying again: this little plastic bag held a piece of home. Without touching the food, she put it away again, had a cup of tea and crawled onto the top berth.

“Miss! Are you awake? I’m telling you, Torpa is close.”

“Yes, I’m ready.”

They reached the border between night and morning. It was around four o’clock, maybe four thirty. After so many months, Sasha was used to getting up this early. She knew that morning would bring relief. Now, gathering her things, lacing up her shoes, dragging the suitcase off the shelf (carefully, trying not to wake up the other passengers, and still accidentally touching people’s arms hanging off the berths), she almost forgot last night’s sorrow. The winds of exotic travels, unexpected discoveries—one had to take that into account, this was all part of the journey; she was an adult, an independent person, traveling by herself, without supervision. We’ll see what this Torpa is all about.

She dragged her suitcase into the hallway. The train attendant snoozed on the cot covered by a thin blanket.

“How long is the stop?” Sasha asked.

“In Torpa? One minute. Do you have a lot of luggage?”

The train slowed down. The carriages clanked. In the darkness of the August morning Sasha saw nothing, only a blue streetlight barely visible in the sky.

The train jerked, clanked and stopped. The attendant, yawning, started fiddling with the key.

“I’m not going to make it!” Sasha was terrified. “Please hurry up!”

The attendant swore under her breath.

The train jerked again. The attendant finally unlocked the door. The train started moving slowly; Sasha threw her bag over her shoulder, dragged the suitcase behind her and tumbled down the iron steps. She landed on the low platform and saw the train attendant yawn and lock the door behind her.

This is it.

The train was gathering speed. Sasha hauled her suitcase farther away from the edge of the platform. The last car rambled by, and two lights on its tail end quickly melted away in the dark.

The green light of the semaphore turned red. Sasha stood alone at the empty platform…

But she was not alone. Out of the darkness appeared a scrawny shadow with a large suitcase. The shadow stopped in front of her. A boy Sasha’s age, pale, sleepy, bewildered.

“Hey,” he said after a moment’s silence. “Is this Torpa?”

“Hey,” said Sasha. “So they say.”

“I’ve never been here before,” said the boy.

“Me neither.”

The boy paused, and then asked tentatively:

“The Institute?”

Sasha, who was fervently hoping for this very question, nodded enthusiastically:

“Uh-huh. You too? Special Technologies?”

Visibly relieved, the kid smiled:

“Is there another one in this dump?”

“I don’t know,” Sasha admitted. “Do you see any kind of town around here?”

The kid looked around and put his hands over her eyes, imitating binoculars.

“A kick-ass megalopolis. An impressive train station. And there, look, a shed with a huge potential!”

Sasha laughed.

The situation was immediately reversed. Hauling their suitcases and trying to overdo each other in wittiness, the new students walked over to the “shed with a huge potential,” which turned out to be the actual train station. In a spark of inspiration, Sasha called it a “chicken coop refurbished to the highest European standards.” Sasha’s new acquaintance appreciated the joke and laughed uproariously.

The station was completely empty. All the cashier windows were locked. Elongated blinking ceiling fixtures lit up the empty cafeteria table, wooden chairs with graffiti scratched here and there, a self-service storage unit with six compartments, all open. The floor, relatively clean, was covered with white and black tiles.

“Looks apocalyptic,” said Sasha, glancing around her.

A cloud of August flies flew off of one of the lighting fixtures and filled the small room with optimistic humming.

“Hello!” the boy called out. “Is there anyone here?”

The only reply he got was the droning of the flies.

‘I don’t like it here,” Sasha said.

They stepped outside on the platform. It was getting a little lighter. Under the lone streetlight they found a “Train Station – Center” bus schedule, blurry from the rainwater. If the schedule was to be trusted, the first bus would depart for the mysterious “Center” in one hour.

“We’ll wait,” the boy said decisively. ‘And if we get lucky, we may grab a cab. I have money.”

His name was Kostya. Perhaps in Sasha’s presence he felt especially manly, or maybe it was just his personality, but he kept trying to take charge. Sasha did not protest. Kostya’s energy, and even his amateur vigor gave her an illusion of safety.

They left their suitcases in storage (the compartments did not require tokens, just a code) and found a comfortable bench on the platform, then unwrapped their provisions. Sasha’s sandwiches, which had made her so sad the night before, disappeared within minutes. She shared with Kostya, he shared with her; a bottle of mineral water was opened, Kostya brought out a thermos almost full of coffee. Sasha’s nostrils quivered; breakfast put her in a very good mood. A freight train rolled by the station, the rumble died down in the distance. Silence reigned, disturbed only by the birds.

“The bus is coming in half an hour,” Kostya said with certainty. “The address of this place is twelve Sacco and Vanzetti Street.”

“Do you know who they are, Sacco and Vanzetti?”

Kostya shrugged:

“Italians, I think.”

Another freight train rolled by in the other direction.

“Can you please tell me,” Sasha began carefully, “what made you decide to apply to this… Special Technologies thing?” Who gave you this… this idea?”

Kostya’s face darkened. He looked at her suspiciously, folded dirty napkins and oily paper, and dropped it into an empty trash barrel next to the bench.

“I’m just asking,” Sasha added quickly. “If you don’t want to tell me, don’t, and accept my apology.”

“I was forced,” Kostya admitted reluctantly.

“You too?!”

For a minute they stared at each other, both waiting for the other one to speak.

‘That’s strange,” Kostya said finally. “You’re a girl. You don’t’ have military duty.”

“What does it have to do with military duty?”

“Everything,” Kostya said harshly. “Do you think every man should serve in the army?”

“I don’t know,” Sasha said. ‘I guess so.” And, just in case, she added: “But if someone doesn’t want to serve, then he shouldn’t have to.”

Kostya sighed and shook his head.

“My own father gave me an ultimatum. I didn’t get accepted to law school, for the second time already. I was supposed to get drafted this fall. But my father…” Kostya fell silent. He gave Sasha a side glance, as if wondering why he was sharing intimate details of his life with a chance fellow traveler, whom he’d known for about an hour.

“So you didn’t want to go to this Institute?”

Kostya shrugged.

“Whether I wanted or not… it doesn’t matter anymore.”

They fell silent. The platform was still deserted; not a single person showed up, not an equipment inspector, not a street cleaner, no one. The reddish August sun was rising from the bushes. Birds were chirping. The high blades of grass along the railroad were covered by morning dew, each drop a colorful gem.

“And you don’t even have to serve in the army…” Kostya said pensively.