Sergey Dyachenko - Vita Nostra

Blocking out every thought but the one about Mom, Sasha grabbed the book. She caught herself right before leaving the auditorium and nodded a curt goodbye to Portnov. She walked out; Kostya took long strides, almost running in front of her.

“Come on, hurry up, the attendant said she’d wait. It’s a restricted office phone, actually…”

Sasha was not listening.

Here was the hallway with the gigantic equestrian statue. Here was the glass booth of the guard; here was a custodian in a blue robe, and here was the black plastic receiver next to the phone, and a spiral cable…

Sasha clutched the receiver, put it next to her ear, and listened to the silence. Mom was waiting; helpless, Sasha turned to Kostya. He seized the receiver from her and yelled, for some reason very loudly:

“She’ll be right there! She’s fine, she is a good student, the dorm rooms are heated!”

Sasha heard Mom’s voice changed by cables and distance. Mom was saying something to Kostya, her words fast, ringing and anxious.

“No!” Kostya shouted. “She… she’s lost her voice a little. You know, I don’t think she can leave the class right now, we have one-on-ones right now… Did something happen? You can tell me, I’ll pass it along…”

Mom began speaking again. She sounded high-strung and on edge; Sasha took a step forward and snatched the receiver from Kostya.

“Mom, what is going on? What happened?”

“Sasha, sweetheart, is that you? Why didn’t you call? Those telegrams of yours… I haven’t heard your voice in a month! Why didn’t you call, you nasty creature?”

“So everything is good?” Sasha asked, bewildered.

“No, it’s not good! Because you have not called! Valentin and I are going crazy! I had such a tough time reaching you… Are you healthy? What do you eat? What was this kid telling me about you losing your voice?”

Kostya stood in front of her. The attendant on duty kept throwing worried glances at Kostya and Sasha.

“I haven’t lost my voice,” Sasha tried not to cry. “Everything is fine.”

Portnov stopped her near the back entrance. It was clearly against his rules: meeting his students in the hall; he usually did nothing more than nodding curtly.

“Samokhina, come with me.”

“I have table tennis.”

“You just got your speech back, and your nose is already growing.”

Sasha lowered her eyes. She hadn’t had a chance to sign up for tennis.

“I thought you’d still be silent for a couple of months,” Portnov murmured. “Although… Come on, I need someone to see you.”

Sasha obeyed. They went to the basement, passed the dining hall, closed at this hour of the day, and then went even lower. Sasha had never been in this area of the school before.

“My colleague’s name is Nikolay Valerievich,” Portnov said. “He’ll be working with you later in the process… I hope.”

They walked down a wide corridor, following a row of doors upholstered in brown imitation leather. Portnov stopped in front of one such door, the one with a Reception plaque. Without knocking, he peeked in, nodded to someone and gestured for Sasha to enter.

Indeed, it was a reception area, just the way Sasha imagined it. A large desk, several bookcases, a switchboard, a selection of office supplies. A young woman—secretary?—in a revolving chair.

Sasha was still breathing heavily, and her eyelashes stuck together like arrows. On one hand, she experienced tremendous relief. On the other, she had an acute sense of guilt about her mother. On the third hand—and there was a third hand—she was aggravated and deeply offended by Portnov.

“Is Nikolay Valerievich available?”

The secretary nodded, pushed a button and whispered:

“Nikolay Valerievich, Oleg Borisovich is here to see you.” She motioned to the door covered with black leather.

Portnov entered, leading Sasha in front of him, like a miner pushing a coal wagon. Sasha moved to the middle of a spacious, windowless office—and stopped.

A man with a gray, ashy face was sitting behind a large desk, facing a lit table lamp. Long gray hair fell onto his shoulders. His smoothly shaven chin looked sharp enough to cut his owner’s chest at any sudden movement. Besides, he had a hump. His black suit jacket folded into ridges on his curved back.

“Nikolay, I want you to take a look at her,” Portnov said without any preamble. “Just in case.”

The man rose from behind the desk. He threw back his shoulders, stretching out his numb back. He took a few steps toward Sasha: she went still, like a frog in front of a heron.

The hunchback had grey eyes almost without pupils. Only tiny black dots, like poppy seeds, in the middle of enormous, blue-grey like a storm cloud, irises.

“Alexandra Samokhina,” the hunchback had a low, dullish voice. “Seventeen years old. Ah, to be seventeen again…”

Hitching up his left sleeve, the hunchback uncovered a bracelet on his wrist. It was not a watch, as Sasha thought at first. It was a convex metal badge on a leather band. Its instantaneous burst of light flashed into Sasha’s eyes and made her squint.

“Samokhina,” the hunchback repeated; for a second, Sasha thought his voice quivered. “My dear, please wait in the reception room for a few minutes.”

Sasha left. The secretary was openly busy with her knitting, something pink and fluffy. Silently, Sasha sat down on the leather sofa near the window.

Even a short while ago she’d probably have said something to the secretary. She’d want to signify her presence with some simple words that resemble taillights: I am here because of this, and need that, and will be leaving at this time…

The prolonged silence that ended only half an hour ago made her personality more somber than could be expected. Or, perhaps, it was not only about the silence?

Portnov came out in fifteen minutes, not five. He nodded to the secretary and escorted Sasha along the corridor back up the staircase, and one more staircase into the hall; Kostya was sitting in the shadow of the enormous equestrian. There was absolutely no one else in the huge empty space. Even the guard’s glass booth was empty.

“Go and work hard,” Portnov said, addressing Sasha but looking at Kostya. “You have a great deal of outstanding work to do, mountains of work, an entire ocean. If I were you, I wouldn’t waste precious time on any nonsense.”

“Good bye,” Sasha said.

Portnov glanced at her sharply over his glasses. He smirked and departed. Only then Sasha realized how exhausted she was. And how heavy was the bag on her shoulder. And how all she wanted to do was to lie down, close her eyes and think about nothing at all.

She sat down on a granite pedestal next to Kostya and leaned back into the bronze hoof.

“You know what I don’t get?” Kostya mused. “This thing, this horse, I mean, it wouldn’t fit into any door. Which means that first they made the statue, and then they built the school around it. How is that possible?”

Sasha shrugged silently.

“What did he want from you?” Kostya asked softly.

Sasha took her new textbook out of her bag. It looked worse for the wear, bright-red, worn out.

“What is it?” Kostya asked.

Sasha opened the book. There was no introduction, no author’s name, no explanations. “Exercises, Stage One.”

“That’s better,” Kostya noted. “At least, the words are familiar.”

“Number One. Imagine a sphere, in which the exterior surface is red, and interior surface is white. Maintaining the continuity of the sphere, mentally distort the sphere so that the external surface is on the inside, and the internal on the outside…”

“How?” Sasha asked helplessly.