Sergey Dyachenko - Vita Nostra

“Did I tell you how important this was? Did I give you a warning?”

“I tried,” Sasha said staring at a half-circle scratch on the desk. “I tried. But I…”

“You owed me five exercises. You barely managed two. That’s less than half!”

“I tried my best…”

“You tried your best? You drank like a horse, and you spread your legs in bed!”

Sasha raised her eyes. Her cheeks, pale just a second ago, now became burning hot, the skin about to burst.

“That’s not true. Why are you speaking like that to me?”

“Because you deserve it, Samokhina. Because you are a little bitch who has a great talent and is flushing it down the toilet. I refuse to deal with you. Now you’re Farit Kozhennikov’s responsibility, you’re his charge, and his responsibility.

Sasha closed her eyes for a second. She thought of Lisa. “I don’t ask for the impossible.”

“Wait,” she said, trying to stay calm. “I will do seven exercises by next Saturday.”

“Ten. Including the first two. Numbers one through twelve.”

Sasha stared at him. Portnov stared back, as usual over his glasses.

“Ten…” she whispered. “Ten…”

“And you will polish the first two. Numbers one through twelve. And every day—a paragraph from the basic textbook.”

Sasha was silent. She no longer cared.

The first thing she did after leaving the school building was to call Mom. She didn’t really know why. She just needed to make sure everything was all right at home, and she needed to hear Mom’s voice. Immediately.

Darkness fell, the rain stopped, then started again. The wind twisted her umbrella inside out. Sasha fixed the warped spokes, shook the water off her boots and her umbrella, and stepped into the warmth of the post office, filled with yellow light and the smell of sealing wax. A couple of people stood in line for long distance calls. Sasha sat down in a corner to wait.

Today she missed three blocks—Philosophy, History and P.E.—the entire schedule, with the exception of Specialty. Everywhere she looked, she saw derisive sneers and meaningful glances, as if everyone knew in minute detail about all the pathetic and hilarious things that had happened last night in Kostya’s room.

And she simply could not face Kostya. She felt humiliated and ashamed, and she had absolutely no idea how her life was supposed to go on. How was she going to deal with him on a daily basis?

The line stalled; a woman in the long distance booth kept talking, nodding, agreeing and laughing into the receiver. Sasha watched her through the dark glass; the woman seemed happy, the illusory telephone connection, wires and cables did not seem to bother her, and only the person on the other end of the line, the one she listened to and probably loved, was real to her.

A week remained until Saturday, her deadline for the one-on-one session. Ten exercises… Unfeasible. “I will not ask for the impossible,” Kozhennikov said. He lied.

She took her textbook out of her bag, opened to the same first page and began Exercise number three:

“Without using projection and hidden mirrors, envision a non-transparent rectangular parallelepiped so that four of its panes are clearly visible. Mentally distort the parallelepiped so that…”

The woman finally left the long-distance booth, her place taken by an old man with gray mustache. The connection was lousy, and the old man was slightly deaf; he kept yelling something about the two hundred roubles that somebody’s nephew owed somebody else, and Sasha could not picture any parallelepiped: not a parcel post, not a package of pasta, not even an ordinary brick.

“Exercise number five: in succession, repeat Exercises one through four, avoiding pauses or any interruptions. Exercise number six…”

Sasha saw Kostya’s face, with its lower lip sticking out like a rim of a pitcher. How revolting that whole thing was, how stupid and disgusting… And those anchovies in tomato sauce… The gold coins were smeared in red, as if covered in blood; Sasha crawled on the floor in her underwear, picking up the coins, overcome by nausea because of that stupid vodka and Pepsi mixture…

A general assembly was scheduled for tomorrow in the assembly hall after the fourth block. There would be no way out of this, she’d have to go with everyone else, and bear the suggestive looks, the laughter, and deal with Kostya’s presence…

“Miss, are you asleep? Are you planning on making that phone call?”

Snapping out of her trance, Sasha bolted to the phone booth and picked up the still warm receiver. Beep… another beep… one beep after another.

“The person you are trying to reach is not responding.”

Sasha checked the time. Half past seven. Mom should have been home by now.

She sat back down. The hour hand on the round clock above the door very slowly approached eight. Sasha read a section from the second textbook. Steel axles and chipped gears rotated inside her head, grinding together. The person she was trying to reach was not responding; somewhere, in an empty flat, the telephone kept on ringing.

“Miss, post office closes at eight.”

“Please try dialing again.”

“There is no answer. Perhaps they went to the theatre?”

Sasha walked out into the rain and darkness. Two rows of buildings on Sacco and Vanzetti Street hovered over her: empty balconies, peeling plaster, glistening cobblestones. Naked linden trees. Of course, Mom and Valentin could be at the theatre. Or at a party… And it was absolutely nothing terrible that Mom was not home when, out of the blue, Sasha felt like calling her…

She walked along the edge of the sidewalk, umbrella hanging by her side. Raindrops beat on her hood. Fallen leaves turned slimy and musty, losing all their poetic beauty. Water flowed between the stones in the pavement.

A car drove by toward the center of town, a Zhiguli stained by moist dirt. The yellow hands of the headlights snatched the tree trunks and walls for a split second, reflected like flames in each cobblestone, drowned in the darkness, and disappeared. Darkness fell again, and only occasional lit windows and distant streetlights illuminated the road for Sasha.

A gust of wind made the nearest linden tree shake and toss raindrops and its last few leaves on the ground. Sasha shivered and pulled her hood further down on her head. For some reason, she thought of that warm starry night when Lisa flew out of the window. Why did she think of that? Maybe the sensation was similar… The same gust of wind, as if something dark flew over the sky. Sasha thought that, in its despair and helplessness, Lisa’s “suicide” was analogous to her and Kostya’s “love…”

“Good evening, Sasha.”

She turned her head. A second ago she was alone in the street.

“Why aren’t you using an umbrella? Is it some sort of a new fad with young people—soaking down to their bones?”

It took Sasha a few seconds to recognize the man. Nikolay Valerievich, a very tall man with a hump, long gray hair tumbling from under his hat, stood next to her, wearing a dark coat and carrying a large black umbrella.

“Hello,” she said, more nervous than polite.

“You must be freezing. Would you like a cup of coffee?”

She’d never been in this restaurant before, even though she passed it a few times and even noticed the sign. The restaurant was definitely not geared toward students; Sasha’s wet jacket was removed by a cloakroom attendant in a black sports coat. A fire burned in the room separated from the common area with heavy drapes, and Sasha immediately held out her hands, red from the cold.

“Will you have anything to eat?”