Sergey Dyachenko - Vita Nostra

“The starting pistol has just gone off, and the date of your placement exam has been made public: January thirteenth. During the exam each one of you will have a chance to apply the knowledge you have absorbed in these two and a half years, as well as demonstrate the practical skills built upon that foundation. In case you successfully complete your mission—and I am convinced that will happen—you will face a radical change to your existence: you will have an opportunity to become a part of Speech… Yes, Pavlenko?”

“Will we be using Speech in practice? Are we going to use Speech?”

“No,” Portnov stared at Lisa over his lenses. “Speech will be using you. Any more questions?”

Yegor stood in front of the bulletin board, tilting to the side, pressing his right hand to his chest, swaying as if losing his balance—and regaining it at the last moment.

“How are you?” asked Sasha just as a simple greeting.

Yegor’s hair was bleached by the sun, and his eyes appeared even darker and deeper. He stared at Sasha for a long time, and once she stopped expecting a reply, he finally moved his lips.

“I had a practice session. Just now.”

“Did you succeed?”

“You were right,” Yegor said. “Listen… I’m scared.”

“Nonsense,” Sasha said. “Just study, and don’t be afraid. You’ll learn things, pass the exam, get your diploma, then you’ll become a Word. Perhaps, you will even become a fundamental concept, they say it’s a big honor…”

“I’m a verb,” Yegor said.

“What?!”

“I was told… Irina Anatolievna… that I’m a verb in the subjunctive mood. I express a wish, or a condition, the “if it were true…” Do you understand?”

“Yes,” Sasha said. “Your professors have quite a technique. Ours dragged their feet up until the last possible moment, they never told us anything.”

“But I didn’t get it,” Yegor said. “ If I bought those skis—then everything would have turned out differently, right?”

Sasha took a step back:

“I don’t think so. You see…”

She fell silent.

A horde of first years showed up, stunned by their first lecture. They gathered around silently, hesitant to get closer to the bulletin board, made nervous by the spooky crippled second year and the Third Year Girl, normal-looking on the surface and thus even more terrifying.

“I am a verb as well,” Sasha said. “But I’m a verb in the imperative mood. I suppose nothing would have worked out for us anyway…”

She was silent again. She didn’t want to continue this conversation surrounded by a bunch of frightened children. There was really no point in continuing it—she had told no one about the “loop” that Farit Kozhennikov put her in for pedagogical reasons, no one but Kostya.

“Hey, what do you want? Do you need to copy your schedule? Then go ahead, copy it down, the bell is about to ring, do you know what happens if you are ever late for class?!”

Pencils began to rustle. Girls started whispering to each other. Sasha took hold of Yegor’s sleeve and pulled him aside; they hid in the shadow of the bronze equestrian, but Sasha was not in a rush to let go of his sleeve.

“You see, Yegor, one’s own experience is an individual method. When you understand something, when you know it for sure, but cannot explain it to someone else who has not had the same experience… It’s a very unpleasant feeling. I can only imagine how Cassandra felt.”

“I don’t understand,” Yegor said. “I’m a little slow these days… after this summer.”

“It’ll pass. Everything will pass, in the grand scheme of things. Where is that girl Irina, the one who lent me her sweater?”

“She failed the summer finals.”

“How?!”

“She failed Specialty. She took it three times. And failed. Where do you think she is now?”

“Same place as Zakhar,” Sasha’s voice sounded hollow.

“Who’s that?”

“You won’t remember him… Yegor, but how are you? How do you feel… after all this? And who’s teaching Introduction to Applied Science, how is it?”

“You sound like my mother,” Yegor said.

Sasha smiled wistfully:

“Is that bad?”

“It’s weird… But if we are Words, we couldn’t have had a relationship anyway.”

“Except for a grammatical kind,” Sasha forced a smile.

Yegor looked down:

“Forgive me. When I was still a human being… I was wrong.”

All of them are to blame, and everyone has admitted his guilt, and now I’m drowning in their apologies, Sasha thought grimly, sprawled on her bed and thumbing through the textual module. She learned to scan the paragraphs, skimming the surface, without diving into the grinding chaos of words. This method did not replace her usual meticulous study technique, but its value was undeniable. Unlike Portnov’s exercises and Sterkh’s trials, no restrictions were imposed on the paragraphs: Sasha was allowed to read the entire textbook, if she wanted to, which is exactly what she was doing at the moment with a sense of serene pleasure. In moments like these a magnificently curved fragment of a sphere that enveloped the planet appeared in front of her eyes, so very close; the sphere was pearly-grey, the color of smoke, it teemed with ideas and meanings, images, bits and whole impressions. All was accidental and all was interdependent, and it seemed that all she needed to do was to reach for a fresh meaning, grab it, process it, comprehend it—and everything would change, and the world would change as well….

This is where geniuses scoop up their ideas, Sasha thought, almost without envy. They don’t understand how it works, they rely on intuition: reach out with your hand—and here it is, your idea…

She had ten minutes left until her lesson with Sterkh, the first one this year. Sasha closed the book and put it in her bag, then checked to make sure she had her pens and pencils.

She sighed, put the pink case with her telephone around her neck, locked the door, went outside, took two steps in the direction of the Institute…

And froze, as if her feet had been glued to the cobblestones.

Mom was walking down Sacco and Vanzetti. She swiveled her head, peering at the numbers of the buildings. For an entire minute Sasha wanted to believe that it was a mistake, that the woman moving along the paving stones only resembled Mom, but was really somebody completely unfamiliar…

Two alien worlds collided. Torpa, the Institute, Sasha’s metamorphosis, words and meanings. Mom, home, previous human life. The worlds that never before came into contact now overlapped, and Sasha felt a dull pain in her temples at the thought of how this meeting would turn out.

Her initial impulse was to run over to Mom, shout, curse, scream in her face: “Leave! Go away from here!” Sasha restrained herself; her second impulse was to hide. Bury her head in the sand like an ostrich. Once she managed to overcome that temptation, she realized that there was nothing she could do. She had no idea what action to take, and the time before her lesson kept shrinking, Sterkh was expecting her in seven minutes… no, in only six.

Mom stopped in front of the Institute. A cluster of first year girls whispered among themselves, heads close together, throwing quick glances at the second-story windows. Mom had to ask them a question, and she also wanted to know what the students were saying. Sasha could understand that: sometimes you can understand more about a school by listening to a chance conversation….

Mom stepped from foot to foot. She clearly felt lost and stupid: she took a long time to make the decision to come to Torpa, she had no idea what she was going to see, and here she was: a charming provincial town, strange but very beautiful. A four-story institute building on Sacco and Vanzetti Street. The girls, perfectly lovely on the outside, clearly anxious, but what young students wouldn’t be in the beginning of September?