Sasha wanted to say something else, but instead she broke down sobbing, terrified, vulnerable and ashamed.
“Quiet,” Farit said. “Calm down. Didn’t I say I would never ask you to do the impossible. Ever.”
Sasha wept. Tears dripped on the typed lines on the yellow paper.
“What is wrong with you,” Farit said tiredly. “Do you really need your University? No. It’s really not important. Are you enjoying living in a one-bedroom hole with the newlyweds? A new stepdaughter? No, Sasha. But you insist on keeping to the beaten path. Are you afraid of changing things?”
“She must be… She’ll be fine!” Sasha screamed through her tears.
“Obviously. She’ll be healthy and even happy. Because you’re an intelligent girl, and you will do everything as I tell you. Don’t ask me what will happen if you do not.”
He rose gracefully.
“Keep the money, bring it with you. The address of the Institute is on this form. Try not to lose it. Sasha, are you listening to me?”
She sat, hiding her face in her hands.
“Everything will be fine,” said the man who called himself Farit Kozhennikov. “You can take the University entrance exams if you’d like. If you don’t want to enjoy your summer—that’s up to you. One condition: by September first, you must be at Torpa. You will be assigned to a dorm. The meals are free. You will be getting a stipend, a small one, but enough to buy some chocolate. And stop crying. I’m ashamed of you, honestly.”
Sasha remained on the bench until her tears dried up and her breath grew steady. The rain stopped, then started again. Raindrops struggled through the leaves of the linden tree. Sasha opened her umbrella.
She did not ask what sort of special technologies were taught at the Torpa Institute. Frankly speaking, she was not at all interested. She was seventeen years old; most of her life has been wasted, especially this last year. Notes, textbooks… What for?
She had no friends. Mom switched her love onto Valentin, the same way railroad points are switched from one track to another. She had no one to talk to, no one to complain to about a man in dark glasses who called himself Farit Kozhennikov.
She got up. The rain had stopped a while ago, the sun was shining again, but Sasha still held an open umbrella, unaware of the surprised glances. She stepped up to the entrance, stood in line with the other applicants, handed in her application form, high school diploma, medical records. Just as she had planned all along.
She returned home, gathered all her textbooks and notepads, admired the heap for a few minutes and stuck it deep inside her desk.
Then she pulled it out again. What could she have done, if this—all this!—had been her life for many months? The man who called himself Farit Kozhennikov was right: she could not get off the beaten path. She would sit and study, knowing that all her efforts were in vain, but hoping deep inside that someday it would come in handy, perhaps while learning the “special technologies…”
She found a list of places that offered higher education, a reference book for prospective students, and studied it from cover to cover. No town of Torpa, no Institute of Special Technologies.
She was not surprised.
All her life she had been a good student. Letting things slide during the entrance exams turned out harder than she thought.
Around her, everyone acted nervous: kids hid cheat sheets in their pockets, their mothers sucked on Valium. Dust floated around in huge echoing rooms, the air smelled of old libraries, and outside it was hot, a real scorcher. Sasha did not care. She felt translucent and indifferent, like a Christmas ornament.
The written essay was easy. Taking the oral history exam, she nearly died of shame: she confused all the dates and completely blanked out on one of the questions. She got a B. Leaving the classroom, surrounded by sweaty throngs of people, she asked herself, astonished: What am I doing here? Why do I still care about the Kulikov Battle?
Mom enquired about the grade and, having heard, was visibly disappointed.
“What do you mean, a B? In oral history, of all things? But what about the preparatory courses? You went there for an entire year…”
“There is no point in applying without a bribe,” Valentin shared a profound thought.
Mom’s eyes turned fierce.
“Without a bribe… she hasn’t opened a textbook in the last few days! As if she could care less! She skulked around somewhere from morning to night… Were you at the beach? I passed the exams without a bribe, and you did, and we all did it the first time around!”
“The times were different,” Valentin said philosophically. “And now…”
“In the worst case scenario,” Sasha said, surprising herself, “I’ll just apply someplace else.”
“What do you mean, ‘someplace else’?”
“The world is full of good colleges,” Sasha blurted out and withdrew quickly to her room.
Mom and Valentin continued talking for a long time. They were arguing.
Of course, she failed the entrance exams. It’s not like anyone was surprised. When the lists of the accepted students were posted, Sasha’s name was not included.
Mom was not caught off-guard. It was clear from the beginning that Sasha was not going to get a passing grade, and that her straight-A high school diploma made absolutely no difference.
“You were right,” she said to Valentin with stoical bitterness. “No matter how much you spend on a tutor… We should have bribed someone. It’s my fault. I should have. The times have changed.”
“It’s not like she has military duty,” answered Valentin with histrionic optimism. “She’s not a boy. She’ll get a job for a year, get a taste of grown-up responsibilities….”
Sasha opened her mouth and inhaled deeply—and said nothing. She decided to wait a few more days.
August came. The heat was replaced by rain. Mom took a few days off; she and Valentin had finally decided to get married.
“Just a small ceremony,” Mom said, brushing her hair in front of the mirror, her eyes sparkling. “We’ll get married, and then go to the resort for a few days. We’ve been there before, remember, they have these wooden cabins and a river very close, a forest…”
“Rain,” said Sasha
“Well, not all the time. Plus, it’s kind of nice there even in the rain. They have these canopies. And you can use the fire pits, have a barbecue.”
“Mom,” Sasha said, as if plunging into the icy waters. “I’ve been accepted to this college. It’s called the Institute of Special Technologies. It’s in the town of… Torpa.”
Mom turned to face her. Two hair pins stuck out of her mouth, like thin vampire fangs.
“I’ve already been accepted,” Sasha repeated. “Since things did not work out with the University. I’ll stay in Torpa for a year. And then maybe I’ll transfer.”
She came up with the transfer just then, staring into Mom’s darkening, wide open eyes.
“What town?” Mom spat out the pins.
“Torpa.”
“Where is it?”
“It’s not far,” Sasha lied. “The room and board are free. And I’ll have a stipend.”
“The Institute of what?”
“Special Technologies.”
“What technologies? You wanted to be a philologist!”
“Specialized… Mom, it’s a normal decent college. It’s not in the capital, fine, it is in the provinces, but…”
Sasha faltered. Mom stared at her like an ant would stare at a burning anthill.
“Sasha, tell me you’re joking.”
Sasha took out the yellow printed letter, sometime ago warped and wrinkled by rain and tears, but since then smoothed out with a warm iron. Mom glanced over it and looked at Sasha.
“Listen, it’s dated last June. Where did you get it?”