Vita Nostra

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Book: Vita Nostra Read Online Free PDF
Author: Marina Dyachenko
question, careful to avoid Sasha’s eyes.
    “You can go to the movies… What’s playing right now, in that theatre on the wharf?”
    “I don’t know.” Sasha fingered the coins in her pocket. “Go ahead. I’ll stay home and read.”
    “But what to do about the keys?” Sasha’s compliance clearly took a load off of Mom’s shoulders. “In case I’m late… I don’t want to wake you up. But if I take the keys—what if you want to go for a walk?”
    “Take the keys. I’ll read,” Sasha repeated.
    “But what about fresh air?”
    “I’ll sit outside on the balcony. With a table lamp.”
    “But tomorrow, maybe tomorrow you will want to go to a club?”
    “No.”
    The next day Valentin took them out to lunch. He seemed like a nice person, with a sense of humor, with a certain charm; Sasha watched her Mom’s happiness and counted the days in her head, twenty-seventh, twenty-eighth. Five days remained. Actually, only four, on the fifth day we’re leaving. And it’ll be all over. I’ll forget everything. Only five more times…
    She swam on the next morning, and the morning after, and then she overslept.
    ***
    The sun woke her up. The sun beat into the window left ajar, Mom’s bed was empty; the alarm clock twisted from underneath her pillow and lay on the rug.
    Refusing to believe, Sasha picked it up. The yellow hand stood on half past three. The coil was disengaged. Why didn’t it ring?
    “Mom! Did you touch my alarm clock?”
    Mom, content, benevolent, and fresh after her shower, brought in coffee on a tray.
    “I did not. It fell down, I didn’t pick it up. I don’t want the landlady to think I broke it. Don’t worry about it, you got practically no sleep in the last few days, and you need rest, you’re on vacation, after all… What is it with you?”
    Sasha slumped at the edge of the cot, laden with the firm conviction that something terrible has just happened. Something unidentifiable, inexplicable, threatening with the unknown—and thus, her terror grew in a geometric progression.
    ***
    The dark man stood next to the tourist booth, studying a photo of the Swallow’s Nest. Sasha slowed her step. Mom turned to her.
    “Go ahead,” Sasha said. “I’ll catch up.”
    Under different circumstances, Mom would argue and start asking questions. But by now, Valentin must have already reserved their lounge chairs; Mom nodded, told Sasha not to dawdle and walked down to the shore.
    The asphalt softened under the morning sun. The tires of passing cars and trucks pressed over a puddle of spilled motor oil and left fancy tracks on the road.
    “My alarm did not go off,” Sasha said, not knowing what she was apologizing for, and to whom. “It fell…”
    His eyes could not be seen through the dark glasses. The lenses reflected nothing, as if they were made of velvet. The dark man was silent.
    “My alarm did not go off!”
    Sasha burst into tears right there, on the street, from fear, from the unknown, from the emotional strain of the past few days. The passersby turned their heads, staring at the weeping girl. Sasha felt as if she’d dived deep into the sea and was watching a school of pale fish through a thick layer of water.
    “It’s very bad, but not terrible,” the man in the dark glasses said finally. “As a matter of fact, it’s even good for you—it’ll teach you some discipline. The second such blunder will cost you a lot more, and don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
    He turned and departed, leaving Sasha sobbing and vigorously shaking her head no to all the questions from the sympathetic passersby. Hiding in a park alley—deserted at this hour— and pulling a handkerchief out of her bag, she was finally able to clean up her tears and snot, but did not manage to calm herself down.
    Her own dark sunglasses, the ones she’s had for over a year, with a thin frame, hid the redness of her eyes and her swollen lids. Pushing her hat low on her forehead, Sasha walked down the street,
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