Vita Nostra. Julia Meitov Hersey
down,” Valentin was saying. “Just calm down. Independence …”
“She’s underage!”
“They get older … They want … It’s not at the ends of the earth …”
The voices grew softer, the intensity subsided. Sasha closed her eyes. Everything was coming together beautifully. Mom and Valentin would enjoy being alone in the apartment. Right now they were going to talk it over, and then they would agree to let Sasha go to the unknown Torpa, where who knows what was expecting her …
She felt torn in half. If Mom agreed easily, Sasha would be mortally offended. If Mom put up a fight—and that’s what it sounded like—though …
No. She would not. They were already laughing softly in the kitchen. Now they were having tea. They must have decided: the girl has her own destiny, she’s independent, let her go wherever the hell she wants. They were pleased. Look at us, we’re so modern. What’s wrong with this? Tons of high school graduates move out after the first summer, looking for grown-up life.
Sasha pulled the blanket off her face. Outside her window with its tightly drawn curtains, it was still light. It was eight o’clock. Half past eight. August. Three weeks before school started.
Sasha heard a soft knock on her door.
“It’s me,” said Valentin. “Could we talk?”
They found the town of Torpa in the road atlas. A transparent circle lay right where the faded paper folded in half.
“Town of Torpa.” Valentin chuckled. “I’d say it’s more of a village. What kind of an institute are they supposed to have there?”
Sasha handed him the yellow sheet. He studied it for a while, flipped it over, then frowned.
“Did you apply there?”
“No. I mean, yes, I did.”
“But your documents were submitted to the university!”
“They accept copies. Plus, I didn’t get into the university anyway.”
“Torpa Institute of Special Technologies,” Valentin repeated. “What sort of technologies? And who are you supposed to be when you graduate?”
“An expert in special technologies,” Sasha said.
Valentin glared at her. “Are you making fun of me?”
“No.” Sasha squirmed. “You don’t have to declare your major until junior year. Or senior. I don’t know for sure.”
“You don’t know for sure, yet you insist on going?”
“If I don’t like it, I’ll come back,” Sasha almost whispered. “Honestly. If it turns out to be a bad place, I’ll come back. Just tell Mom not to worry. I need to go there. I really do. It’s not about … I just need to.”
She kept repeating the same thing in different words, and Valentin sat in front of her, confused, disoriented, and for the first time Sasha thought of him as no longer a stranger.
“Get up, miss. We get to Torpa in half an hour.”
“Wha …?” Sasha jumped up and hit her head on the luggage shelf.
She’d spent the entire night in a twilight zone between sleeping and waking, and only just recently managed to fall asleep. The train was old and shaky, and somewhere a teaspoon jingled in an empty glass.
Shadows and lights swam by, transfusing the open-plan carriage, where half-naked bodies dripped with sweat. Bedsheet corners hung from the cots. Somebody snored, somebody rustled a piece of cellophane, and Sasha lay on a top berth and tried to convince herself: I’ll be back in one week. The condition Farit had laid out was to be there when classes start.
No one said anything about staying in Torpa for the entire year.
Valentin had wanted to come with her. He’d insisted, actually, and even gone so far as to buy two tickets at the railroad office. He’d intended to check the accreditation of the Torpa Institute, conditions at the dormitory, make sure everything was normal. And deep inside, Sasha felt grateful for his concern. The dark man who called himself Farit Kozhennikov had not specified that Sasha must show up alone.
But the day before their departure Valentin received a call from Moscow: his son from his first marriage had been run over by a car, and while he had not suffered any serious injuries, the hospital wasn’t cheap, and Valentin’s presence—with his connections in the medical field—was required to work through the bureaucracy. Valentin, having almost immediately forgotten about Sasha’s issues, dashed away to Moscow. Sasha ended up returning his ticket before the train departed, somehow finding a way during that time to convince Mom that she would be perfectly fine.
Mom saw her off. She stood by the train window for a long time, looking through the glass pane, waving, and dispensing last-minute advice. Sasha had wished fervently for the train to start moving. But when the locomotive gave the initial tug, she felt her heart drop down into her knees, and she nearly jumped out of the moving train, into Mom’s arms.
This was her first time traveling alone by train. She kept glancing over at the luggage shelf, where her suitcase was stowed. She palpated the little bag full of coins on the bottom of her purse and checked the documents in the inside pocket—passport, high school diploma, medical records, letter of acceptance, and some other papers, all neatly folded into a plastic envelope. She felt unbearable loneliness; she kept thinking how a while back she and Mom had traveled to the seaside in a train just like this one, and poppies had blossomed outside their windows, and she had been happy, peaceful, and safe.
She cried, hiding her tears from her fellow travelers, and placed a tremendous blame on herself for giving in to the man in the dark glasses that very first time. Even if she were forever subjected to the eternal nightmare, even if she would have had to wake up on the folding cot in the rented room every morning for the rest of her life, Mom would always be there with her. And there would always be the sea. If one’s life were forever to consist of half of the summer day of July 24, it would still be a pretty good life. At least, it would be a life without gold coins, or Valentin, or a long road to Torpa.
The sun went down. Sasha’s fellow passengers were having supper, crunching half-sour pickles, peeling lusterless hard-boiled eggs. Sasha took out Mom’s sandwiches and nearly burst out crying again: this little plastic bag held a piece of home. Without touching the food, she put it away again, had a cup of tea, and crawled onto the top berth.
And now she was almost there.
“Miss! Are you awake? I’m telling you, Torpa is close.”
“Yes, I’m ready.”
They reached the border between night and morning. It was around four o’clock, maybe four thirty. After so many months, Sasha was used to getting up this early. She knew that morning would bring relief. Now, gathering her things, lacing up her shoes, dragging the suitcase off the shelf (carefully, trying not to wake up the other passengers, and still accidentally touching people’s arms hanging off the berths), she almost forgot the previous night’s sorrow. The winds of exotic travels, of unexpected discoveries—one had to take all that into account. She was an adult now, an independent person, traveling by herself, without supervision, and this was all part of the journey.
She’d just have to see what this Torpa is all about.
Sasha dragged her suitcase into the hallway. The train attendant snoozed on a cot covered by a thin blanket.
“How long is the stop?” Sasha asked.
“In Torpa? One minute. Do you have a lot of luggage?”
The train slowed down. The carriages clanked. In the darkness of the August morning Sasha saw nothing, only a blue streetlight barely visible in the sky.
The train jerked, clanked, and stopped. The attendant, yawning, started fiddling