Sergey Dyachenko - Vita Nostra

“You were alone in the locker room. My jacket was hanging there. A hundred dollars in the pocket.”

“In the right pocket?” Sasha asked.

Kostya’s eyes widened. Boys exchanged glances.

“In the right one,” Lisa agreed softly. “A bunch of thieves around here. Give it back.”

Sasha closed her eyes. She was sleepy. And simultaneously she was hungry for more exercises. Just like she would normally get hungry for food.

“Your money is behind the lining. Just check.”

The bench stood under a linden tree, the leaves had fallen off and were collected by the janitor. One or two remaining leaves still twitched, clawing to the illusion of life, the branches beat upon each other, scratching and rustling. Aside from that sound, the silence was absolute. It was quickly getting dark. The windows in the main building were lit. A streetlight went on in front of the dorm.

“Go ahead, check,” Kostya said nervously.

Lisa stuck her hand into her pocket. She took a long time. Then her delicate face reddened in the dusk, darkened like a ripe fruit.

“And how did you know that?” she twisted toward Sasha. “How did you know? You checked my pockets, didn’t you?”

Sasha shrugged:

“No. I just guessed. And now you need to apologize. Say: I’m sorry, Sasha.”

“What?!”

Again, Sasha lowered her eyelids for a second. The feeling she experienced during the first block was about to make a comeback.

“Apologize. Now, in front of everyone. You accused me of theft.”

“Buzz off,” Lisa suggested.

Sasha took a step forward. Streetlight illuminated her face.

“You heard me, Pavlenko. Don’t push it.”

Lisa stared into Sasha’s eyes. Very quickly, like a slideshow, emotions alternated on her face: anger, surprise, embarrassment, and finally, a flash of fear.

“What do you want?” Lisa mumbled.

“Apologize.”

“Fine, I apologize…”

In total silence, Sasha’s classmates let her pass. She walked through their formation toward the entrance of the dormitory.

Snow fell in November. Early mornings, before sunrise, Sasha would leave the dorm and jog around the yard, leaving a chain of footsteps. Around and around. Stepping into her own footsteps. Just like a year ago.

No one forced her. She realized that without those running sessions, without the silence of the deaf and mute morning, without snow under her feet and a cloud of her breath, she would never survive the pressure. Neither physical, not psychological.

At first Kostya ran with her, but then he begged off. He hated getting up that early; he usually slept through the first block (unless the first block happened to be Specialty). Sasha did not mind, she needed to be absolutely alone. Complete silence and the sound of snow under her feet, crunchy or squishy, whatever her luck happened to be.

Mom still wore a cast. She assured Sasha over the phone that everything was just fine, that she got used to the cast, and that her thumb did not hurt anymore. She and Valentin sent Sasha a care package: winter boots, tights, socks, and even a new jacket with a fur-lined hood. The jacket was a bit small.

A wintery atmosphere reigned in Room 21: Lisa ignored Sasha, Sasha took no notice of Lisa. At first Oksana attempted to make them reconcile, but then gave up and got busy with her own: she had frequent guests, girls from Group B and sometimes even second-year boys.

“Open house,” Lisa murmured through gritted teeth, but no one was listening. Something fell through with that rented apartment of hers. Either she could not afford it, or could not find a decent place, or perhaps—Sasha could believe it—Portnov forbade her.

Once on the way to the post office (it was Sunday, the day Sasha always called home), she saw Farit Kozhennikov and Lisa walking ahead of her along Sacco and Vanzetti. They walked side by side, Kozhennikov was talking, Lisa was listening, and glancing at her face, Sasha felt a great deal of pity for her.

She slowed down. Snow melted during the November thaw, streams of water ran between the cobblestones just like in the spring, and bright yellow leaves swam on the bottom.

Kozhennikov and Lisa separated at the intersection in front of the post office. Kozhennikov nodded and turned left, crossed the street and disappeared around the corner. Lisa leaned on a naked linden tree.

Sasha longed to go over and say something to her. She took a step; a large puddle made a squelching sound. Sasha leapt aside and went back to reality.

Lisa would not be pleased. Sasha had no power to change anything, at least right now.

She slid behind Lisa’s back and entered the stuffy, post office filled with amber warmth. The whole time she waited for her turn in the long-distance booth, she envisioned how some day she would spit in Kozhennikov’s face. How she would gather a mouthful of saliva—and spit; the old man in front of her was already finishing up his conversation, when Sasha realized—feeling bewildered and discontented—that a fraction of her hatred for Farit Kozhennikov fell on Kostya.

“The son is not responsible for the sins of the father,” she reminded herself. Kostya was just as much a victim of Farit’s, as Sasha herself. He ripped and threw away the paper with his father’s phone number. Farit was not his father at all, maybe just the biological part.

“Are you going to make the call or not?” asked the girl behind the counter.

Sasha went into the booth. But even while speaking to Mom, she could not get Kozhennikov and Kostya out of her mind.

“Haven’t you slept with him yet?” Oksana sounded worried.

She was washing the dishes. No matter who made the mess in the kitchen, Oksana ended up doing the dishes. Sometimes she threw pots and pans against the wall and shrieked: “What a pigsty!” but then did the dishes anyway. Greasy plates piled in the sink drove her insane.

“They are all hypersexual at that age,” Oksana must have been repeating somebody else’s words. “You are going to lose him, you know.”

Sasha bent over a paragraph. Room 21 overflowed with Lisa and Lisa’s friends and acquaintances. They parked themselves all over the place, even on Sasha’s bed. Sasha did not feel like arguing, she took her books and went to the kitchen, which at that time of night was empty, not counting Oksana and her dishes.

In the past few months of dorm life Sasha got used to sleeping despite loud noises and studying in the middle of an earthquake. Oksana’s words unsettled her, and she found herself constantly returning to the beginning of the paragraph.

“You are a strange creature,” Oksana mused. Her back was turned to Sasha; Oksana was soaping up a plate and could hear nothing except for the sounds of running water and her own voice. “Are you eighteen yet? In the spring? You’re a peanut. Portnov gave you an automatic pass, the only one out of thirty-nine people. And you are still cramming, like a wound-up toy, morning to night. Kostya is a good-looking guy, and we have tons of pretty girls around here, somebody will steal him away, you know. Even the local chicks are not bad here, the schoolgirls…”

The door swung open. The one-eyed Victor, the third year, came limping in, still lopsided and strange. His sweatpants formed bubbles on his knees; a plaid shirt had seen better days. Huge leather gloves covered his hands, and his face was hidden behind enormous dark glasses. Sasha shuddered.

“Hey, girls,” Victor croaked. “Will you pour me some tea?”

Oksana turned her face to him:

“Don’t you have any of your own tea?”

“Hold on,” Sasha put aside her book. She couldn’t concentrate anyway.

The electric teakettle began to hiss; the smell of burned duct tape filled the kitchen.