Vita Nostra by Marina Dyachenko, Sergey Dyachenko Read Free Book Online

no hope that he would leave. She did not feel too optimistic about Mom chasing him away. Plus, how could she make any decisions regarding Mom’s fate according to her own desires?
    “You can call her at the office,” she said frostily. And added, a little too late, “How are you feeling?”
    ***
    She woke up at four twenty-nine, turned off the alarm clocks, shuffled over to the kitchen, gulped some tea from a thermos. She got dressed and went into the hall; she locked the door.
    Last night Mom and Valentin stayed up in the kitchen, talking softly for a long time. Sasha went to bed early (she always did these days, the lack of sleep was getting to her), covered her head with a pillow to avoid inadvertent eavesdropping, shut her eyes and tried to fall asleep. But sleep evaded her. Sasha thought of life as a collection of identical days. To her, existence consisted of days, and each day seemed to run like a circular ribbon, a bike chain, moving evenly over the cogs. Click—another change of speed, days become a little different, but they still flow, still repeat, and that very monotony conceals the meaning of life…
    She was probably falling asleep. Never before she had thoughts like that, not in a conscious state.
    A long time ago, when Sasha was little, she wanted to get herself a daddy. Not the one who left and now lives someplace else, without a care in the world, but a real one, one who would live with them, in the same apartment. Audaciously, Sasha tried to convince her mother to date any one of the more or less suitable men; life “with mommy and daddy” to her symbolized a true happiness.
    That was years ago. Sasha’s heart ached when she thought of her mother and Valentin. He lied to her once, he would probably do it again. Mom realizes it, but she still speaks softly to him in the kitchen over a cup of cool tea; they sit, heads almost touching, and talk, even though it is already past midnight…
    Nocturnal frost made the puddles sparkle. Through her woolen socks and the soles of her sneakers, Sasha could feel how cold the ground had become overnight. Her daily training made running easy. A lone streetlight burned near the park entrance. The old man with the dog lingered, and Sasha nodded to him, as if greeting an old acquaintance.
    Somebody was in the park. That somebody stood on the path, shifting from foot to foot, wearing a jogging suit, a windbreaker, and sneakers, like Sasha herself. She had to come almost face to face before she recognized him.
    It was Ivan Konev, Kon, her classmate.
    “Hey. Shall we run?”
    Sasha did not reply. Kon fell into step with her, almost touching her sleeve with his own. When their jacket sleeves did touch, the fabric made a harsh swishing sound— shhikh-shhikh.
    Sasha ran, skillfully skirting the familiar puddles. Ivan slipped a couple of times; once he broke through the thin ice and stepped into the water, but kept up.
    “Do you run every day?” he asked, panting. “My grandpa, he’s got insomnia, he walks the dog early, and he says, ‘A girl from your class runs every day like crazy, at five in the morning.’ oh!”
    He stumbled upon a tree root and almost fell down.
    “Are you into sports now? I’ve never thought that about you. Or are you training your willpower?”
    “Training willpower.”
    “That’s what I thought…” they completed only two circles, but he already seemed out of breath.
    “And you?” Sasha deigned to ask. “What are you training?”
    “Willpower,” Kon said seriously. “I could be in my nice warm bed right now, sleeping soundly.”
    He slowed down.
    “Think it’s enough?”
    Sasha stopped.
    The sky was peppered with stars, bright like crystals illuminated by spotlights. Red-cheeked and out of breath, Ivan looked at her with unabashed humor.
    “You’re a strange creature, Samokhina. A transcendental object. A closed book. Now you’re running. My grandpa says, every day, five in the morning. Are you some kind of a coded