Vita Nostra by Marina Dyachenko, Sergey Dyachenko Page B

mumbled.
    “I don’t even have any sneakers, just regular shoes…”
    Group B slowly pulled out of the hall. Sasha turned to Kostya.
    “Who’s this Liliya Popova?” she whispered.
    Kostya shook his head.
    “I have no clue.”
    “What do you mean?” Sasha was surprised. “But you are… how did you get here, anyway? You said your father… “
    “My father.” Kostya nodded. “Farit Kozhennikov is my father. Why?”
    ***
    Auditorium number 1 was located on the first floor; off the hall with the equestrian statue. The sun was beating from the outside, the glass dome shined like a projector’s lens. The light was washing over the stallion and equestrian’s sides and rolled off of them like water off a seal’s back. Precise shadows of enormous feet in stirrups lay on the floor.
    “Why didn’t you tell me he was your father?”
    “How was I supposed to know you knew him too? I thought…”
    “If he… if you are his son, how could he stick you into this hole?!”
    “How do I know? I hadn’t seen him for many years. He divorced my mother when… that’s not important. He showed up and gave me an ultimatum, and… “
    “But is he really your father?”
    “Well, I suppose so, considering that my full name is Kozhennikov, Konstantin Faritovich!”
    “Holy cow,” said Sasha, utterly astonished.
    Group A flowed into the small auditorium, similar to a middle-school classroom. A black board with a dusty rag and a piece of chalk made the similarity all the more obvious. They barely had time to choose their seats and place their bags on the floor, when the bell rang dismally in the hall, and immediately—that very second—Portnov entered: a long blond ponytail down his back, glasses perched on his nose, and an intense stare over the narrow lenses.
    He pushed his chair away from the massive teacher’s desk. Sat down. Laced his fingers together in front of him.
    “All right… Good morning again, students.”
    He was answered by dead silence; only a spaced out fly kept throwing itself against the window pane. Portnov opened a thin paper log book and glanced over the list.
    “Goldman, Yulia.”
    “Here,” a voice said from the back row.
    “Bochkova, Anna.”
    “Here,” said a plump girl with a pale, sickly face.
    “Biryukov, Dmitry.”
    “Here.”
    “Kovtun, Igor.”
    “Here.”
    “Kozhennikov, Kostya.”
    A chill moved over the auditorium. Many heads turned. Kostya visibly tensed up.
    “Here,” he croaked.
    “Korotkov, Andrey,” Portnov continued as if nothing had happened.
    “Here.”
    “Myaskovsky, Denis.”
    “Here!”
    Sasha listened to the roll call, doodling on the side of the page. Nineteen people. Her high school class had almost forty students…
    “Pavlenko, Lisa.”
    “That’s me,” said Lisa.
    “Samokhina, Aleksandra.”
    “That’s me,” Sasha breathed out.
    “Toporko, Zhenya.”
    “Here,” murmured a small, very young-looking girl with two long braids.
    “Everyone is present,” Portnov admitted with satisfaction. “Take out your notepads. On top of the first page, write down ‘Portnov, Oleg Borisovich.’ In case somebody missed it, my subject is Specialty.”
    First years fumbled around. Kostya did not have a notepad. Prudent Sasha supplied him with a sheet from her own notepad.
    “In the future you must bring your textbooks and notepads to every class. Regarding textbooks…” Portnov unlocked a wooden cabinet and took out a stack of books. “Samokhina, give these to your classmates.”
    Sasha, an eternal straight-A student, got up before she had time to be surprised. Even the most intelligent teacher usually required a few days to memorize first and last names of his students. Portnov memorized everyone from the first try; or did he pay special attention to Sasha?
    She accepted a heavy stack of books that smelled like an old library. The books looked identical and not very new. Sasha walked through the auditorium, placing two books on each desk.
    The cover had