Vita Nostra by Marina Dyachenko
“Meanings are manifold. They may estrange themselves from the willpower they originated from, they can encase themselves in a shell, decompress and transform.” Portnov strolled around the auditorium, chin held high. He lingered by the window behind the students’ backs. He strode back, pressing his fists onto the teacher’s desk; the winter light bleached his glasses for a split second.
“Considering that at this point of your development you are capable of perceiving only information presented in the traditional fashion, we will begin with the simplest concepts. In front of everyone here is a conceptual activator. Open to page three.”
Paper rustled all through the auditorium. Indifferently, Sasha opened the thin booklet in the yellow cover. No author’s name, not editor’s credentials, no publisher’s data: on the inside cover, on the clear white space was a large phallus, in the state of arousal, and quite artfully depicted.
“What is the matter?”
Sasha wasn’t planning on giggling like an idiot. Her lips stretched into a snigger all by themselves. The drawing was a challenge—rude and desperate, the escapade of someone who “encased” his “meaning” into the only accessible shell.
Portnov took the book out of her hands. He sniggered skeptically:
“I see. Of course. You will stay after the class, Samokhina.”
“What did I do?”
Without any response, Portnov strode over to his desk, slipped Sasha’s textbook into the desk drawer and took out a similar book in a yellow cover, a slightly newer edition:
“Here you go, Samokhina. Now, page three. In front of you is a diagram that unfolds in four dimensions, which may present certain difficulty for you. In general, the activator is one large interactive system that allows you to detect connections between informational fragments. By the end of this semester, assuming, of course, that you will study rather than twiddle your thumbs, this book will seem to you a live being, a perpetuum mobile, a generator and absorber of great meanings… Then you may even stop drawing idiotic pictures on its margins. Attention: in the horizontal row, line fifteen, depth one, you will see notational conventions. In the first diagonal column—concepts expressed verbally for your convenience. Open the notepads. In the next fifteen minutes you must recognize the principle and write down as many verbal definitions for each symbol as you can. Starting now.”
***
The bell rang.
Sasha was bent over her notepad. The date, February fourteenth, was scribbled in the corner margin. Below a pattern of flowers and leaves—and, inexplicably, of bare human feet—curled around the page, fitting neatly into the graphed paper. Not a symbol, not a word.
“For tomorrow: Paragraphs one and two from the textual module. Conceptual Activator, the diagram on page three. Class is dismissed, all but Samokhina.”
The door shut behind the last student—Kostya. On his way out he threw a quick backward glance.
“I can see you’ve worked diligently on this,” Portnov said benevolently, looking at Sasha’s masterpiece over her shoulder.
Sasha did not bother lifting her head. Unhurriedly, Portnov picked up a chair, placed it in front of her, and straddled it, leaning onto the straight back:
“You do realize that Nikolay Valerievich had absolutely no obligations to pull you out of the mess you plunged yourself into?”
“I knew you were going to say that.”
“Such acumen! I fail to understand where this rebellious temperament is suddenly coming from at the point, when, in my opinion, you should be meek as a lamb. But just in case, you should know: every wasted minute of the time that should be spent studying will cost you a whole lot more than last year. These cute little flowers,” he pointed toward Sasha’s notepad, “have already been charged to your account. I will expect you tomorrow at the individual session, and you will report on the completed exercises, one through eight, in case you forgot.”
“I haven’t forgotten,” Sasha got up.
Portnov narrowed his eyes:
“You are way too eloquent lately.”
“You can’t make me shut up!”
“One through ten,” Portnov informed her evenly.
***
Kostya was waiting for her in the vestibule, in front of the concierge’s glass booth. The recess was almost over, first years buzzed around the staircase and the hallway, Group B congregated in front of auditorium one. Third years were no longer there, and as usual, after the winter exams the Institute seemed empty.
“Hey,” Kostya said.
“Hey,” Sasha responded.
“Zakhar flunked.”
“What?”
“Portnov told us before the lecture.”
“He knew it,” Sasha murmured. “He came to say goodbye to me…”
Kostya’s Adam’s apple twitched.
“Why… Why him, do you know?”
Sasha stood motionlessly, her arms hanging by her sides. She was supposed to go up to the third floor, change into her gym uniform, the bell would ring in five minutes…
“Kostya… Tell Dima Dimych I won’t be there.”
“Portnov said he’s instituting penalty for missing gym classes.”
“I don’t care.”
“Sasha…”
“Sorry, I have to go.”
***
“Hello.”
“Hello,” Sasha said and coughed to clear her throat. “Hi, Mom.”
“Hi,” Mom responded after a short pause. Sasha could hear the baby crying on the other end of the line.
“How are you doing?” Sasha asked quickly. “How’s… how’s the baby?”
“He’s fine,” Mom said dryly. “He’s fidgety. Probably gas.”
“Well,” said Sasha and faltered. “I’m doing well too.”
“Sorry,” Mom said. “He’s crying, I can’t talk right now.”
Then she hung up.
***
She entered auditorium fourteen at three twenty sharp, according to the schedule. Sterkh sat behind the teacher’s desk; in front of him were stacks of books, thick notepads, scattered sheets in A4 format. He did not lift his head when Sasha entered, and did not acknowledge her greeting.
She closed the door behind her and remained standing on the threshold.
A fringe of icicles decorated the window. The sun shined through them, drops of water grew heavy on the sharp ends, fell off and, sparkling, disappeared below. A minute passed. Then another. Sasha leaned on the doorframe. Her knees felt weak.
Sterkh’s sharp chin was almost touching the wide knot of his tie, gray-blue with a metallic sheen. Inclining his head, he was making notes in his notebook, as if Sasha were not standing there at all. Perhaps he wanted her to apologize. Or he was punishing her by this long silence. Or maybe he felt so much disdain toward her that did not even want to acknowledge her presence.
Sasha stared at her hands. Her nails grew with each passing second. The skin on her cheeks was becoming tighter—something was changing there as well. The blood vessels pulsated, and each one of her heartbeats echoed with a dry click in her ears.
“You were lucky your brother is still very young. Had he been only one week older, the full rehabilitation would have been impossible. The child would have been an invalid with no chance of recovery.”
Sterkh spoke without looking at her, still concentrating on the page of his notebook.
“Take the next disk. Work on the first track. Only the first one.”
Sasha took a few steps toward the desk. She reached out with her hand; her nails, ugly, black, curled into hooks. She squeezed the envelope with the disk between her palms and, pressing her hands together, stepped back.
“You are dismissed.”
Sasha left without saying a word.
***
And yet she loved to learn. This almost unnatural passion saved her that night, when Portnov’s ten exercises surrounded her like a pack of assassins, and not one of them would give up without a fight.
At first, she
A while ago she attempted to understand which part of her organism is responsible for completing these exercises. Brain? Yes, of course. Imagination? At top speed. Intuition? Yes, quite possibly. But all these things were parts of a larger mechanism, and not the most important ones; when this mechanism warmed up and started working at full force, it seemed to Sasha that she, Alexandra Samokhina herself, was only a fragment of the mechanism. A rear wheel.
It was a quiet February evening. A long crimped icicle hanging from a tin awning peeked into the window of Room 21. A boom box was turned on somewhere—she could hear the rumble of the drums and a low sensual voice crooning something in English; then even the boom box got tired, the streetlights were switched off, the windows went dark, and the snow-covered lawn in front of the dorm was now dark. Sasha cornered Exercise number five and started number six.
Recognize associations. Compose a picture out of separate pieces. Take apart a mechanism, use the parts to compile a new one, then accidentally notice new possibilities and, jumping over to a different orbit, discover an infinite field of operation. Sasha was carried away; at times she would come back, repeat first semester exercises from memory, reaching a dead end, bypassing everything in a round-about way, and suddenly run into a simple solution—she sat over the book until six o’clock in the morning.
Exercise ten. Done.
Sasha stood still, feeling as if she, her body, were an old tower at the ocean shore, a heavy stone building, over which centuries flew. Inside, a wind danced and sand rippled. Frightened by the authenticity of the sensation, Sasha moved—and came back to reality. Her arms felt numb. She was very thirsty and had to use the bathroom.
She drank half a bottle of mineral water. Shuffled to the bathroom and back. Got back into bed and reached for the CD player and headphones on her nightstand.
Numbers lit up on the tiny display. Track one...
“The child would have been an invalid with no chance of recovery.”
Track one, one more time. Again. Then track two. Then three.
“The child would have been an invalid with no chance of recovery.”
Track five, track eight. Sasha melted in the darkness like a sugar cube. She disintegrated. She stretched in long pliable threads from herself to Mom. She whispered something in her ear, and Mom tossed and turned in her uneasy slumber; the baby slept, his fists spread over the pillow. And Sasha stretched and stretched like telegraph wires, and she knew she could not hold out much longer, that she was about to break. It was too far…
And too late.
She made an effort and ripped off the headphones. The player rolled soundlessly down on the floor. No crunch, no thud. The round cover opened and fell off, the whirling disk caught the reflection of a streetlight and stopped. No wind, no squeak, no habitual fuss of the sleepy dormitory; the foreign silence continued.
She shouted—and could not hear herself.
Tangled in her blanket, she dropped off the bed, but even the pain in her bruised knees could not break the Silence. She jumped on her feet, realizing that she was about to choke on the silence, but at that moment the alarm went off.
A simple electronic device played an old nursery rhyme melody. As soon as that sound broke into Sasha’s consciousness, the silence departed. She could now hear the wind, the distant radio, and shuffling of someone’s slippers in the corridor, and someone’s disgruntled voice: “Mikhail, any idea who’s yelling?”
***
The first block was gym class.
It looked as if no one had slept that night: second years, Group A sat and lay on the windowsills, on the mats and on the naked floor, no one had any desire to look into anyone else’s inflamed tortured eyes. Only Denis Myaskovsky was preternaturally cheerful; he ran around the gym and every now and then he jumped up and dangled from the basketball hoop.
Grim Lisa sat on the bench, looking from her sneaker-clad foot to a piece of broken shoelace in her hand. Dima Dimych forced everyone to line up and gave them a long lecture on how gym classes were as precious to second years as the air itself, because the study load would prove to be harmful unless they took care of their health.
“Dmitry Dmitrievich, I can’t jump today,” Sasha said. “My leg hurts.”
“There is always something wrong with you, Sasha. And meanwhile your class is behind on the regulatory requirements!”
“I’ll do the requirements later.”
“You all keep promising. Short distance, long jump, triple jump…”
He fell silent, looking at Sasha with concern.
“Sasha… what’s wrong?”
“Why?” she touched her cheeks. “Fish scales?”
Dima looked upset.
***
She closed the auditorium door behind her. Said a barely audible hello, not hoping for an answer. She froze, staring at the cracks in the brown floor.
“Did you work on track one?’
Sterkh sat behind the teacher’s desk, the curtain across from him was pushed aside, and in the stream of light from the outside all Sasha could see was his dark silhouette.
“Come closer.”
Sasha approached. Sterkh rose, walked around his desk and stopped in front of her: shockingly tall, hunched over, lightly smelling of expensive cologne. A flash—a reflection of the sun on the metal plate of his bracelet slashed her eyes. At the same second Sterkh emitted a short sound—not quite a hiss, not quite the sigh of an asthmatic.
“Which track did I tell you to work on?”
“I started working on track one. It’s not my fault that…”
“I said to work with which track?!”
“It happened by itself! It’s not my fault!”
The slap in the face startled the air like a shot from a starting pistol. Sasha flew off and hit her back on the desk.
“When you opened Fragment number one hundred without permission—’it happened by itself?’ When you decided to experiment with a baby—also ‘happened by itself?’ Have you created your own academic program? All ‘by itself?’”
“I did not ask you to teach me!” Sasha screamed back. “I didn’t ask to be accepted here! You decided to teach me! It’s your fault! You…”
A release of energy. Transformation from one state to another. The insight was sudden like a flash of light—Sasha sensed within herself the power to make a part of herself, to absorb Sterkh, and Kozhennikov himself, and the entire Institute. Moreover, she felt a pressing need to do it right this minute.
She detonated herself like a grenade, ran all over in a stream, and enveloped the entire auditorium in a thin fog. A split second, and the fog thickened and charged at Sterkh, storming into his nostrils, pouring into his throat, catching the foreign breath.
A scent of cologne flashed. It became dark.
One more second. Sasha lay crumpled like a wet rug. In heavy drops she poured onto the wooden floor, flowed into the wide cracks between the planks, collected into a puddle. A new second; Sasha lay limp, her clothes soaked through, gelatinous like a jellyfish, without a single muscle, without a single thought. The unseasonably warm February sun beat into the windows of the brightly lit auditorium fourteen.
“Finish me off.”
Sterkh paced back and forth. Not quite controlling himself, he kicked a chair, which hit the wall and toppled over with a loud thud. Sterkh mumbled something, paced some more, then stopped.
“Aren’t you ashamed of saying things like that?”
She pulled her knees to her stomach and cried like a punished mutt.
“Sasha?”
His voice contained no more ice. Only worry.
“Let’s get up. It’s the rule: when you fall down—get up. Hush. That’s it.”
Clutching his cold white hand, she
Sterkh lowered himself down next to Sasha and held her. He patted her gently on the head:
“You are growing. With dangerous speed. You’re growing as a concept. Your potential power is ripping you apart. And since you have not yet matured enough, your own, still human, conflicts add more complexity to the problem. This shall pass. You need to be patient, Sasha, control yourself and avoid making stupid mistakes.”
“Why do I… why am I doing this?” Sasha sobbed.
“You cannot yet control yourself. When you feel like fighting—you throw yourself into a fight. As if you were three years old.”
“No! What did I, why did I do that—with the baby? I can’t live with it… I can’t!”
“I see…”
Sterkh softly embraced her wet shoulders, pulling her to himself. Sasha did not resist..
“Get up. You shouldn’t sit on the floor. You are at this stage of development, Sasha, when you desire a lot, a lot of external information, and not the crude, streaming information, but more sophisticated, organized, structured data. You want everything your eyes can see, and luckily they don’t see all that much just yet. A newborn, a blood-relative, a carrier of analogous information sequences—such a tasty treat. I should not have allowed you to leave, Sasha, but I could not imagine how strong you have become. Never, not once have I seen anything like this. You are a phenomenal student. And a phenomenal idiot. Don’t be upset with me. “
“Mom won’t forgive me.”
“She will. You are her child too. Don’t exaggerate. The baby will be happy and healthy…”
“What if he grows up mentally retarded?”
“No. He will not. And do you know whom you should thank for that? Farit; he reacted instantly, and there was such a lucky chain of probabilities… The child has been restored as an autonomous information system. As a personality. And enough torturing yourself, Sasha. Last night, for instance, you could have run into much bigger troubles. Get up, I want to take another look.”