Sergey Dyachenko - Vita Nostra

“Girls, excuse me, are you students here?”

The group separated.

“Yes, we are,” a beautiful tall girl in a very revealing outfit, more appropriate for a beach, replied cautiously.

“Do you know Sasha Samokhina?”

“Is she a first year?”

“Third.”

The girls exchanged glances.

“We don’t know any third years yet… almost no one. We’ve just started.”

“I see. I’m sorry.”

Mom marched over to the entrance of the Institute and took hold of the door handle. She disappeared inside.

Sasha bolted toward the alley. Flew into the yard and over to the dorm: please let him be home. Let him be home…

She banged on the door number three with her fist. This double room was given to the newlyweds Kostya and Zhenya last semester.

“Come in,” said Zhenya’s annoyed voice.

Three minutes remained until her session with Sterkh. The pink phone hung on her neck.

“Sasha?”

She turned. Kostya was walking down the corridor, two steaming mugs in his hands.

“I need your help,” she said without preamble. “I have a session with Sterkh at twelve oh five. And my mother just arrived.”

“Your mother?!”

“I forbade her… Without warning… What am I going to do?! Go see Sterkh, please, and I’ll take your slot…”

Kostya placed the cups on the floor and looked at his watch.

“My slot is right after yours. Twelve fifty five.”

Without looking back, he rushed to the exit.

The door opened. Zhenya peeked out, dressed in a bathrobe, sleepy-looking. She glared at Sasha:

“Samokhina?!”

“Kostya made you some tea,” Sasha said pointing to the floor.

Then she beat a hasty retreat.

Mom stood in the middle of the vestibule, skeptically observing the bronze equestrian under the dome. The dome lit up when the sun came out and faded when a chance midday cloud floated by.

“Hello, Mom.”

Sasha’s voice made Mom jump.

“Sasha?”

Mom was uncomfortable. She clearly felt guilty, and at the same time she was very happy to see Sasha.

“Who are you looking for?”

“For you,” Mom’s cheeks flushed.

“Did something happen?”

“No… it’s just…”

“You decided to check up on what they are teaching me here?”

“No,” Mom looked away. “It’s just… I wanted to see you.”

“Then should we go to my place?”

Students watched them with curiosity. Sasha led Mom out of the Institute and further down the street; they passed the lions. She used the lighter key to unlock the front door, the darker one to unlock the door to her loft.

“Come in.”

Mom looked around. A tiny, almost doll-like apartment, an antique bureau, ivy outside the window.

“Nice place you’ve got yourself here.”

“Make yourself comfortable,” Sasha maintained the casual, confident tone with ease. “You can rest after your trip. How was your journey?”

“Sweetheart…”

Mom faltered. Sasha gazed at her, simply and guilelessly, without offering any assistance.

“We said so many things to each other… so much… I know you did not want me to come. But I simply cannot live with all this—with everything we’ve said to each other.”

Sasha stretched her lips in a polite smile:

“Mom, it’s just words. They don’t cost anything. La-la-la, blah-blah-blah. We said some words, we threw them away, we forgot them… I’m sorry, I have to go to class. There is a teakettle, biscuits, kefir… Wait for me, will you?”

Mom’s eyes followed her to the door. Only now Sasha noticed how bloodshot, anxious and haunted her eyes were.

She ran up to the Institute’s porch, jogged up to the fourth floor and higher, to the attic. She stopped in front of the dusty round window and considered the situation.

How much of a problem was Mom’s visit?

Actually, it was not that threatening. Not that Sasha could see. Sasha did not break a single rule dictated by Kozhennikov. Maybe only her session with Sterkh… Sterkh always makes the schedule himself, and hates it when students shuffle things around. But then Sterkh does not normally write reports because of small indiscretions. Sasha would explain the situation to him; it was a force majeure , a special circumstance, after all.

She did the right thing by leading Mom away from the Institute. But theoretically, what would Mom see there? What sort of compromising thing? Limping, wretched-looking second years? But don’t cripples have rights to higher education?!

The Institute was encased in a thick layer of informational cotton-wool, and in two years Sasha had had plenty of chances to be sure of that. A protective layer of stable living conditions, tangible provincial mediocrity. A casual bystander wouldn’t see anything suspicious. Just like Kostya’s mother came for his wedding and saw nothing unusual. Students, lectures, exams. Love, the wedding. The difficulty of getting the superintendent to assign a room to the newlyweds. Striped mattresses in dorm rooms. A student dining hall…

Gradually, thickening with every year, the same informational vacuum enveloped everyone who ended up here for a long period of time. It was simple, ordinary, provincial: “A student in Torpa.” And no one cared. The world is full of someone’s acquaintances and relatives who exist—and yet they don’t. People don’t write or call for years, and no one really cares, but they do exist—somewhere.

Sasha drew a deep breath. Mom came—this was out of character; no one expected this turn of events. Of course, there was nothing tragic about it…

But Mom had to return home tonight!

She waited. Kostya was with Sterkh in the fourteenth auditorium. She hoped his session was going well… the first session this year. Kostya took off immediately, without asking questions, just took off at a run—to cover for Sasha.

But what about Mom?

Sasha squeezed the pink phone in her hand. She could see the street out of the round window: if Mom decided to sneak out of Sasha’s loft and turn up at the Institute to hold some sort of an inspection, Sasha would notice.

A minute before her—or Kostya’s—official time slot, she went down to the auditorium. Kostya came out; Sasha scrutinized his face, trying to discern: were things normal? Good? Did everything work out?

Kostya was smiling:

“Everything is fine.”

“Thank you,” Sasha whispered gratefully and, holding onto the phone case on her chest, she entered the auditorium:

“Good afternoon, Nikolay Valerievich, I apologize for rescheduling, it’s my fault, there are circumstances…”

“Calm down, Sasha, no need for such excitement…. It’s all perfectly fine, Kostya and I had a terrific session. Just don’t do it again. What happened?”

Sasha sat down and laced her fingers together:

“My Mom came to Torpa.”

Sterkh raised the eyebrows. His triangular face remained impassive, but Sasha could tell right away that her news made a much bigger impression that she anticipated.

“She’s leaving tonight,” she rushed to say. “I’ll take her to the station.”

“But… why, do you know?”

“We had a fight in the summer, before I went back. She… Well, I convinced her to change her mind, at least I think so, but she really wanted me to drop out, to transfer,” Sasha lowered her eyes.

“Why did she come—for what, exactly? Did she tell you?”

“She wants to make sure that I haven’t been involved with some religious cult,” Sasha admitted after a pause.

“It is strange,” Sterkh said pensively. “Are you two very close?”

“Yes. I mean, no. I mean… it’s different… it used to be. She got married, had a baby…”