Vita Nostra (29 page)

Sasha looked around in panic—the beach was deserted. A hundred feet away stood a concrete wall covered by graffiti.

“Help!” Sasha yelled, even though it was abundantly clear that help was nowhere to be found.

In the state of sheer panic she took off her sneakers. The wet sand was cold as ice, and just as hard. Sasha dashed to the water, staring at the drowning people in terror and realizing that she could not possibly save either of them; she had no chance—they would have taken her along with them.

The scream was cut short. One of the drowning people did something to the other one: choke him? Held him under water? The convulsive splashing was replaced by measured strokes: one of them swam to the shore, dragging the other one along.

Sasha thought he swam for a really long time. The current carried both of them lower down, where the ground was swampy and marshy, where it would be impossible to climb out. The swimmer turned onto his back and worked his free arm; the person he pulled along resembled a pile of wet rugs.

Reaching the shallow waters, the swimmer got up, and Sasha recognized him. It was the first year named Yegor: blonde hair was plastered over his head, his eyes were red, and lips blue. The drowned guy was also a first year Sasha had seen around the Institute, but did not know his name. He looked much worse: face swollen and bluish, lips nearly black.

Yegor took a wondering look around the area and saw Sasha:

“Got a cell phone?”

She shook her head.

“Go find a phone booth. Call an ambulance, hurry.”

Sasha ran. She stepped on a shell with her bare foot, gasped with pain. Came back and pulled on her sneakers, hopping on one foot, not bothering with the socks. She had enough time to watch Yegor place the drowned boy on his stomach, and, muttering something, press braced palms on his back; after that she had no more time left.

She found a phone booth not far from the bridge, across from the last house on a quiet, almost rural road. Sasha tore off the receiver and was relieved to hear a distant beep; she had a fleeting memory of last winter, of pushing tiny buttons with her bloody fingers, and the bodies lying behind her in the snow, the bastards she’d mutilated herself…. People.

A chill settled over Sasha, but at that moment a voice came on the line.

“Someone just tried to kill himself!” Sasha shouted. “He drowned! He was pulled out, but now he’s not breathing!”

“Address?”

“It’s by the river!”

“The river is long. What’s the address? Where are we supposed to go?”

Sasha looked around. A few squiggles were painted on the fence across from the phone booth, vaguely resembling letters and numbers.

“Lugovaya, seven dash one!”

“Got it. Sending a car over.”

***

The ambulance arrived thirty minutes later. By then, thanks to Yegor’s resuscitation skills, the drowned first year not only started breathing, but opened his blurry eyes and started writhing and struggling. He screamed, spewed profanities and seemed to be completely deranged.

“Did he drown, or is it delirium tremens?” asked a grim nurse in a gray uniform, when the student was finally stuffed into the van.

“He jumped off the bridge—he was drunk,” Yegor explained. “He’s really a normal kid.”

“Normal,” muttered the doctor, exhausted, with black circles around his eyes. “We have two ambulances in the entire town. Right now someone’s child may be dying, or there could be a heart attack somewhere, and here we are, messing with these drug addicts… Bloody students…”

The doctor spat on the ground.

“Where do you see… What drug addicts?” Sasha cried.

Indignation enveloped her, like a wave covering a sand castle. Strangers, alien indifferent faces, Yegor saved someone’s life, and no one expressed even a word of thanks!

An icy-cold hand grabbed her elbow; Yegor stopped her and pulled half a step back.

“He drowned,” he looked into the doctor’s eyes. “He had water in his lungs, and there is sand and mud…”

“Any other learned advice?” scowled the doctor. “Is that all? Let’s go.”

The ambulance tore off and disappeared, leaving behind a cloud of malodorous exhaust fumes. Yegor and Sasha watched it for a few seconds. Then Yegor let go of Sasha’s hand; he was beginning to tremble.

“Thank you,” Sasha said.

“What for?”

“I can’t get angry. When I get mad…” Sasha hesitated. “You know what—you need to have some vodka.”

“Let’s run,” Yegor said, trying to stop his teeth from chattering.

He jogged up the street away from the river, Sasha following him.

Her body still remembered the once-regular daily jogging sessions; she ran steadily, keeping up with Yegor. He stomped his feet, dripping water, and the cadenced squelching of his wet sneakers in turn merged with Sasha’s steps, and then formed a dissonance. Neither of them spoke; as always, running helped Sasha think.

First years. Hysterical fits, depression. Bouts of drinking. What was this kid’s name? What if he really did drown? No, that couldn’t happen: it was too ineffective, too ostentatious… He knew Yegor was nearby. Perhaps, he didn’t stop to think, but was simply really drunk to the point of delirium tremens, weak in the head from Portnov’s exercises?

She fell behind somewhere along Sacco and Vanzetti. Yegor did not turn around, and when Sasha ran up the dorm steps, breathing heavily, he was nowhere in sight.

She came up to her room. Both roommates were out. The room was an unholy mess: clothes piled up on the beds, shoes lying underneath in disarray, crumbs covering the papers on the table, a dirty jam jar and used plastic dishes all over the place. Sasha felt nauseous: she was certainly not a clean freak, but the excessive disorder of the room created by her roommates aggravated her more and more.

She opened the window and tossed someone’s right-foot shoe, right-foot sneaker and a stiletto sandal down on the lawn. Perhaps that would make them think twice next time.

She changed into sweats and pulled on a pair of warm socks. She did not want to eat lunch, had absolutely no appetite. Individual sessions with Portnov were scheduled for the third and fourth blocks, but Sasha’s time slot was for four fifteen, so she had plenty of time.

She sat down at her desk. Opened the textbook drawer and saw the CD player; immediately, the memories flooded her brain. The conversation with Kozhennikov:
Steal a wallet… I am very sorry about the way things worked out between you and Kostya…

She buried the player in the depths of the drawer and picked up Textual Module 4. Paragraph thirty-six: she read the text three times from the beginning to the end, when she heard a knock on the door.

“Come in,” Sasha said without turning around.

The door creaked.

“I’m sorry… Are you studying?”

Yegor stood in the doorway. He’d changed into a thick warm sweater and a pair of dark blue sweatpants. In his hands were a right-foot stiletto sandal and a right-foot shoe.

“Sorry… this was lying under your window. Was it supposed to be there?”

“Yes,” Sasha said. She got up, took the shoes from Yegor and tossed them back out the window. She wiped her hands.

“I am working on some pedagogical character building with your classmates,” she explained to the surprised Yegor. “See what they have done to my room?”

She pointed to the mess in the room with a wide sweep of her arm. Yegor’s embarrassment over a display of women’s panties on the beds was obvious.

“Don’t be angry with them. You see, the first years…”

“You don’t think I was a first year once?” Sasha narrowed her eyes.

“Was it the same thing with you?”

“Of course. And as you can see, we’re still alive.”

Yegor sighed.

“I wanted to talk to you… Sasha.”

“Sure,” Sasha smiled. “Do you want me to make some tea? Let’s go to the kitchen, at least there is no loose underwear kicking about…”

She followed Yegor out of the room, locked the door and put the key into her pocket. Let the silly goats scamper around looking for the key.

“I gathered some linden blossoms on Sacco and Vanzetti this summer. Have you ever seen linden trees in bloom? Bees go crazy for it… they get so loud. And the smell of it… All over the street, and your room smells of linden blossoms when you leave the windows open…”

“Didn’t you go home for the summer vacation?”

“I did for two weeks. And the rest of the time we had summer internships. Nothing really special, we harvested cherries.” Sasha spoke easily; at this moment it seemed to her that last summer, with its linden blossoms and the cherries, was simple and carefree, a true summer vacation of a college student. “I couldn’t even look at cherries afterwards. And I have an entire tin of dried linden leaves. It’s just what you need after the cold water.”

She put the tea kettle on.

“What were you doing by the river?” Yegor asked, wiping the oilcloth-covered table with a dish rug.

“Just walking,” Sasha said curtly. She lifted the top of a large tin can and inhaled the scent of linden leaves. “I saw you two flopping about in the water… How did that blind drunk goofball manage to get up on the bridge, anyway?”

“He wasn’t all that drunk,” Yegor said. “It’s just… Well, you understand.”

“Shame,” Sasha said sharply and thought that only a few minutes before the incident on the river she was considering that bridge herself. Hot water bubbled in the teacups, the linden blossoms began to expand, and a lovely smell drifted over the kitchen.

“That’s awesome.” Yegor sniffed, his nostrils twitching. “Sasha… Why did you take off your sneakers? There, by the river?”

Sasha put the teakettle back on the stove and took a sugar bowl with a broken handle off the shelf.

“To tell you the truth… What else was I supposed to do? I think I was going to dive in after you… to rescue you.” She twisted her face into a smile, avoiding Yegor’s eyes.

“Thanks,” Yegor said after a pause.

“What for?”

Yegor moved the teacup closer and held its warmth between his palms.

“It’s Stepan. He is killing me with his hysterics. Every day he packs his suitcase and says he’s going home. And then every morning he unpacks it again. He sent a telegram once to his mother… She must have been nervous, thinking about him, probably got distracted crossing the street, got run over by a car, and now she’s at the hospital with a concussion. Stepan has an older brother—I spoke with him on the phone. He says, Stepan has been throwing fits since childhood, scaring his mother. When he was at a summer camp, he sent a letter telling her they get rat meat for dinner… He’s like that. His brother thinks that Stepan is playing games again, making things up, that he just does not want to be independent, wants to crawl back under Mommy’s skirts. And I… you see, Sasha, I was listening to Stepan’s brother… and I was playing along! I told him, yeah, we have this great Institute, terrific living conditions… Obviously, living in a dorm is not the same as living at home... And then I said to Stepan, ‘What are you doing, you idiot. Don’t you at least feel sorry for your mother?’ And he… see what he did then?”

“I see,” Sasha said. “Is he doing his work?”

“Are you kidding? Our Specialty professor, Irina Anatolievna, yells at him every single class, threatens to send a report to his advisor.”

“She threatens him…” Sasha repeated bitterly. “I missed one class, by mistake, and Portnov wrote a report right away. And then…” Sasha sighed. “Tell this moron that if he does not pass the winter exams…”

She hesitated, not wanting to say out loud what was on the tip of her tongue.

“I was really impressed with how you got him out,” she smiled, changing the subject. “And your CPR skills are better than any ambulance technician. Where did you learn all that?”

***

They stayed in the kitchen for two and a half hours. Yegor skipped Philosophy and Math. People came in, left, smoked, laughed, the kitchen smelled of burnt milk; Yegor assured her that only the linden blossoms could possibly save him from an imminent cold, so they had another cup, and then another, and then another.

Both his parents were emergency medical technicians. He was going to become a doctor himself. He even went to medical school for two years, when Liliya Popova, his advisor, appeared and crossed out all his plans for the future.

Sasha listened and nodded. According to Yegor, it sounded as if Popova was not any better than Kozhennikov. Over the course of a single summer she’d managed to convince a mature, confident Yegor that the world is structured very differently from what he thought. And that he had no other choice but to drop out of medical school where he was a straight ‘A’ student for two years, and go to an unknown town, and enroll as a freshman at an odd institute.

“My parents were in shock… But there was this one thing: my father has this project… If everything works out, he will have his own private clinic. He’s in Germany right now, he left back in August, and they are trying to figure out the financing. It’s almost settled. It’s his dream, you know. And what happened to me—he thinks of it as childish antics. Like I was just acting out.”

“My mother got married,” Sasha said. ‘She’s having a baby.”

“Seriously?”

“Uh-huh,” she looked down. “You know what I think? Our families get some sort of an advance payment when we get here. Good luck… happiness. They stop caring as much.”

Yegor did not respond for a long time.

“Well,” he said finally. “I put so much effort into making sure they didn’t figure it out… I can’t say that my parents don’t care about me!”

“Of course,” Sasha said in a reconciliatory tone. “Same thing with my Mom.”

Zhenya Toporko walked into the kitchen. She gave Sasha and Yegor a very distrustful look, took two glasses off the shelf and left, with a backwards glance.

“What do they want from us?” Yegor asked softly. “What are they teaching us, do you know?”

“I don’t,” Sasha said. “Last year I also thought that second years must know that. No, we don’t. And third years don’t know either. At least until the placement exam. And then they leave, and there is no one left to ask.”

Yegor smiled suddenly: