Vita Nostra Read Online Free PDF Page B

summer fling, such a cliché. What was he thinking? And why would he bother with a nice respectable woman, when he could have had any of those girls—a navel ring, jeans cut off right up to the butt cheeks.
    “It would be better if he were dead,” Sasha thought glumly.
    “Very bad, but not terrible.” And Sasha did believe that something awful would happen to her mother; her premonition was tangible. That fear… From the first moment she saw the man in the dark glasses, fear gripped her and held her in its fist, just like she herself held her gold coins. It would let go for a minute—and squeeze again. “This will teach you some discipline.” That’s for sure. From now on she would get up without any alarm clocks, and always at half past three. Or maybe she just wouldn’t sleep at all. Because at the moment when she saw the ambulance in front of the main beach entrance, she had a feeling that all in the world was lost forever, all of it…
    She took a deep breath. Tomorrow morning she would swim out to the buoy, and the day after tomorrow, right before their departure, she would do the same. And then she would return home and forget everything. School, routine, senior year of high school, college entrance exams…
    She sat on the bench, staring at the handful of coins in her hands. Twenty-nine disks, with the same round symbol, with a zero on the reverse side. Heavy and small, their diameter was the same as the old Soviet kopeks.
    ***
    On the train, Sasha spilled the coins on the floor.
    She was lying on the top berth staring out of the window. The pocket of her denim shorts must have been unbuttoned; the coins spilled out and rolled around the entire carriage, clanking joyfully on the floor. Sasha flew off her berth in a split second.
    “Wow!” said a little girl from the compartment across from Sasha’s. “Look, money!”
    Kneeling, Sasha gathered the gold disks, picking them from underneath somebody’s suitcases, and nearly collided with the train attendant who was carrying a tray of tea.
    “Careful there!”
    The little girl picked up one of the disks and examined it with interest.
    “Mommy, is it gold?”
    “No,” answered her mother still staring at her book. “It’s some kind of an alloy. Give it back.”
    Sasha was already standing there with her hand outstretched. The little girl returned the toy reluctantly. Facing the window, Sasha counted the coins; she was supposed to have thirty-seven, but had only thirty-six.
    “Excuse me, have you seen any of these coins?”
    People in the neighboring compartments shook their heads. Sasha ran up and down the carriage, again nearly collided with the attendant; a man in a red warm-up suit sat at the very end of the carriage, right near the exit, studying the round symbol on the missing disk. Staring at the symbol long enough made it seem three-dimensional.
    “It’s mine,” Sasha stretched out her palm. “I dropped it.”
    The man lifted his head and gave Sasha an estimating glance. He looked back at the coin.
    “What is it?”
    “A souvenir. Please give it back.”
    “Interesting.” The man was in no hurry. “Where did you get it?”
    “It was a gift.”
    The man smirked.
    “Listen, I want to buy it from you. Is ten dollars enough?”
    “No, it’s not for sale.”
    “Twenty dollars?”
    Sasha was nervous. A woman sitting right next to them was listening to the conversation.
    “It’s my coin,” Sasha made her voice sound determined and hard. “Give it back to me, please.”
    “I had a friend,” the man glanced from Sasha to the coin and back. “He was a tomb raider. He did some illegal stuff. Dug up some things in the Crimea. And then someone stabbed him. You see, he probably dug up something he wasn’t supposed to.”
    “I didn’t dig anything up,” Sasha stared at his hand. “It was a gift. It’s mine.”
    They stared at each other. The man wanted to say something, in the same measured and patronizing manner, but he bit his