Sergey Dyachenko - Vita Nostra

“Panopticon,” Kostya murmured. “Where do they get these people from?”

Sasha gave him a fleeting look.

“The first years seem normal,” she said dryly.

“Hmm,” Kostya twirled his spoon in the bowl of soup. “Yeah. I’m all set. D’you want to go?”

The post office smelled of sealing wax; a young mother with a stroller was mailing a large package tied up with string. There was only one post-worker on duty, so Sasha waited until she helped the young mother, and then she asked the middle-aged purple-haired woman to connect her with a long-distance phone number. She entered an echoing phone booth, and, stifling her heartbeat, listened to the long beeps, then jumped with joy when Mom picked up the phone.

“Hello!”

Mom was yelling into the receiver, probably having trouble hearing. Sasha yelled too:

“Mom! It’s me! Everything is fine! I’m all settled in! They feed us here! Tomorrow is the first day of school! How are you?”

She screamed it out, like a team’s fight song, and listened to Mom’s reply: Everything is good, Valentin called from Moscow, everyone is healthy…

“I’ll call from the post office, bye!”

Sasha browsed through the postcards and chose one, “For you, from the ancient Torpa.” The postcard pictured the fountain square, swans swimming in the water. Sasha bought the postcard and an envelope, wrote the address, and tossed it into the huge blue box with a mail symbol on top. The envelope hit the tin bottom with a dull thud.

The post office was located about fifteen minutes walking distance from the dorm. The weather got worse, it started to drizzle. Sasha pulled her head into her shoulders and ran up the concrete porch, yanking the squeaky door.

An unfamiliar boy was walking along the first floor corridor. He took a couple of steps, and then froze in the middle of his move, like a captured video frame. He stood still for a few seconds, then, with a visible effort, forced himself to move and continued walking. Then he turned and walked into the wall near the door. He stepped back. On the second try he grabbed the doorknob and pulled the door open…

Sasha flung herself up the stairs.

Lisa and Oksana smoked, sitting on their beds. The window was open wide, but the smoke refused to leave; instead, cold wind burst into the room, adorned with the shiny beads of rain.

“Could you possibly smoke in the bathroom?” Sasha asked hesitantly.

All she got in response was ice-cold silence.

“Good morning, first years.”

The assembly hall was a large dusty room. Only the last three or four rows were occupied. Dark curtains covered the windows, letting in half of the necessary light. A screen glowed white behind the stage. Looks like a community center, thought Sasha.

“The coolest people sit in the back of the bus, like in middle school?” A man stepped up onto the low platform and glanced around the room. “That’s not going to fly.” He added in the same low voice: “Light, please.”

The chandelier was lit immediately, and now the room was filled with bright lights, like an opera theatre during an intermission.

“Everyone move to the front of the room,” the man on the stage commanded. “Hurry up.”

The first years began to move, exchanging glances, slowly creeping up closer to the stage. Sasha and Kostya found a spot at the end of the second row, and everyone trying to get to the center seats kept stumbling over their feet.

The man on the stage waited. He looked nothing like Sasha’s image of a college professor: instead of a suit, he wore jeans and a striped sweater. His straight blonde hair was pulled into a ponytail, and he wore glasses, long and narrow like razor blades, that seemed especially designed to allow him to look above the lenses.

“My name is Oleg Borisovich. Oleg Borisovich Portnov. Young man in the fifth row, yes, you. Don’t be shy, come closer. There are not that many of us, we have plenty of space. I would like to extend my congratulations to you, ladies and gentlemen, on this significant event in your lives: your admission to the first year of Torpa’s Institute of Special Technologies. You are to expect an interesting life and plenty of hard work. Miss,” his finger pointed at Lisa who leaned over to whisper something to Oksana. “When I speak, everyone else is silent. Please remember that in the future.”

Lisa choked. The room was very quiet. Portnov took a few steps along the platform, his eyes traveling from face to face, slowly, like a ray of a flashlight.

“Thus, you are students. In honor of your initiation, the student hymn will be performed. If you know the words, please sing along.”

A triumphant chord burst out of the sound system. Portnov motioned for everyone to rise. An invisible chorus sung with an appropriate solemnity:

Sasha quickly observed the audience. Only a few people were singing along. Lisa stood with her lips tightly shut. Oksana strained to hear the words—her Latin did not seem very strong. Sasha herself knew the text, she learned it a while ago in her prep course. The translation of this seemingly joyful song never struck her as happy:

Such a lovely beginning.

This part she particularly disliked: in this verse, all men were promised an imminent death that spares no one. Vita nostra… “Our life is brief, /It will shortly end; /Death comes quickly.” Maybe the medieval students didn’t give a hoot, Sasha thought darkly. Maybe if I were listening to Gaudeamus at home, at our university, I wouldn’t give a hoot either, and I wouldn’t have any of these thoughts. But I am in Torpa.

The song ended. The students sat down, as if ending a minute of silence. Portnov stood at the very edge of the platform, hanging over the first rows, studying their faces. Sasha caught his gaze and lowered her own.

“And now we’re going to watch a short film—our school’s official presentation. I would like to ask you to pay attention, refrain from talking and interrupting your neighbors’ viewing. Enjoy the film.”

The light went out. The dark curtains on the windows twitched and moved closer. Behind the stage, a light rectangle appeared on the screen, reminding Sasha of newsreels of her early childhood: something very archaic was in the black and white image displayed on the screen.

“Welcome to the ancient town of Torpa,” announced the deep voice of the narrator. “The Institute of the Special Technologies salutes you!”

A bright logo swam out of the darkness, a rounded symbol, the same as on the front of a gold coin. Sasha stopped breathing.

Last night she analyzed everything. She whispered: “I want it to be a dream,” squeezing her eyes shut. She lay staring at the ceiling. She seriously believed that she’d been taken into a secret laboratory, where young boys and girls are subjected to experiments that turn them into cripples. Then she calmed down and was able to see some benefit in her situation: what if she were to be taught something amazing, what if Farit Kozhennikov was an alien, and she would have a chance to see other planets…