Наталья Соколова – LIMBO (страница 14)

The silence that fell in the classroom hit the ears no less than a gunshot.

"It's not the book that's empty, but your heads!" the elderly professor exclaimed pathetically. "Apologize to it – and open it again! Strive, study, thirst to know the essence! Ask, and its invaluable contents will be revealed to you!"

"But…"

"For our next lesson, I ask everyone to prepare a retelling of the first paragraph. Don't waste precious time, start reading right now."

The tall window – floor to ceiling – creaked. Nodding contentedly in response to some thoughts of his own, the philosopher tapped his white cane on the windowsill, stepped over the "threshold" and was gone.

"Mr. Wordsworth!.."

One of the phoenixes – Edwards, I think – jumped up and flew to the window. Getting tangled in the curtain, he crumpled it and threw it aside. Leaned out in surprise. Moved his head left and right. Scratched his crown.

The prof, apparently, had disappeared without a trace. Just as the letters from their family textbook had once disappeared. But were they ever there at all?..

The students split into those who really took on the absurd task and opened the empty books again, and those who decided to mind their own business. Someone crunched on chips, someone put on headphones, someone was chatting, someone was playing on the phone. I tried to at least pretend to be a decent student, but the white pages only drove me further into a panic. The philosopher was partly right. Such a clean slate was now in my own head too. I didn't know what to do.

It seems I have no choice. Yes, of course, my new friends will probably think I'm crazy and tap their fingers to their temples. Maybe our friendship will even end altogether, but I can't keep all this to myself anymore. Otherwise, I'll burst any day now.

Turning so that I could see both Jake, who was turning the textbook at all possible angles, and Liz, who was refreshing her eyeliner, I uncertainly began:

"Guys, I need to tell you something…"

Jake closed the useless book, and Liz snapped shut her pocket mirror. Both stared at me. My heart, anticipating the approach of something inevitable, began to beat very quickly, chaining my throat:

"The night before September first, I saw something very, very terrible!" I whispered. "Something I shouldn't have seen, you know?.. It's related to one of our teachers, and I can't figure out what to do now…"

The door slammed. Could it be that the philosopher had returned and this time, for variety's sake, entered the classroom like all normal people?.. Turning to the noise, I froze.

"Mr. Wordsworth, don't worry, I won't bother you for long," a cold, deep voice that had been haunting me for the past two days, both in my dreams and in reality, rang out across the hall. A pause. Then calmly. "Oh, what a wonderful coincidence, he won't bother me either."

Ascending onto the podium, Mr. Black adjusted his tie. The silver chain hanging over it clinked.

"Dear first-year students, I have a most unpleasant organizational announcement for you. From now on, we'll be seeing each other more often."

I think at that moment I didn't just stop breathing – even my pulse stopped!

Taking the chalk, the violinist started writing something next to the remains of the reproductive organ without embarrassment. My gaze slid over the back of his head. Over the ashen ponytail tightly bound with a medical rubber band. Over his earlobe with an earring on which an inverted Catholic cross swayed. Lower on his neck, under the collar of his shirt, he had a round tattoo hidden. Now I could only see a small half of it – the outline and sharp tops of what looked like either symbols or letters.

Squinting, I tried to "complete" the missing part of the drawing in my imagination, but Mr. Black barely noticeably shuddered and ran his hand over his neck, flattening and shaking off my gaze like an annoying mosquito. And then he turned to the hall altogether, demonstrating what was written on the board.

Tall, narrow, broken symbols – as if scratched with a nail on glass. No, this was not the Scandinavian alphabet, not runic ligature, and not even an ancient Latin spell. Plus seven, Moscow operator code, three sixes, thirteen…

"I strongly advise you to save my phone number. Call and text anytime, don't be shy. From this day on, I am the curator of your cohort."

Locking myself in the institute's restroom, I opened the window half-painted with gray paint, leaned out and eagerly took several deep breaths of fresh air. The mobile got a signal. My nail tapped on the screen, dialing a number from memory. The number that, by a disgusting coincidence, began with the same digits as Mr. Black's.

"Mom, I want to go home!" I burst into tears as soon as I heard the familiar "Hello?". "Get me out of here! They're all crazy!"

"Or maybe it's us, common people, who are crazy?" she replied philosophically and added. "Hang in there, daughter, it'll get easier in a month."

"A month?! I won't last a week here! What phoenixes, what serpents?! What immortality! Is this a joke? Or did you put me in a reality show? Or in an experimental madhouse?!"

"These people will help you."

"I don't need help!!! And our curator… he… he…" I was choking on tears.

"I'm sure you'll soon make friends with the curator."

"How much?.. How much did they pay you?!" I moaned. "They 'bought' me out, right? I don't believe you gave me up here of your own free will!"

Mom sighed:

"No one bought you out, Niki. Quite the opposite. Almost eighteen years ago, kind people gave you to me on credit."

"What?!"

"Having you was my only chance to have children. You see, Uncle Roman from the FSB – he…"

Not another word! I don't want to hear anything more! And especially – to know how Uncle Roman from the FSB was involved in the fact of my birth!..

The phone flies out the open window from the third floor. It will surely smash to smithereens.

Oh God, what if this is true?! If that "Volga" under our windows on that last summer Saturday morning wasn't a coincidence?

It turns out… I sat down on the cold tiles. It turns out that invitation letter to LIMBO was really brought by Uncle Roman?..

"Antipova, why are you throwing expensive devices around," Jake's voice came from outside. He knocked on the restroom door. "Take it back. And don't do that again."

"You caught it?!" looking out into the corridor, I stared in surprise at the phone, safe and sound. "How did you manage?!"

"Well, not that I managed… More precisely, yes, I did, but not on the first try…"

"You jumped back in time for it?!"

"About ten times. Until I caught it," he looked at me reproachfully again. "And it seemed that the headache was almost gone!.. Charm, don't stare at me like that! Well, I can't calmly watch the latest Apple models breaking!"

His long, stretched-out palm opened and handed me the "apple of discord". The yellow snake eyes with thin thread-like pupils flashed brighter than the silvery bitten logo.

"Jake, sorry," I touched his damp, cold hand, taking back the mobile. "I won't do it again."

"Uh-huh," the guy didn't seem to believe me much. "By the way, what did you want to tell us?..

"Listen, I don't even kno-ow…" Liz drawled thoughtfully.

We shamelessly skipped the third class after the long break. Went out of the institute to talk, and ended up sitting in the square opposite the Admiralty building. I told them everything, in the smallest details. The guys listened without interrupting. Jake was cracking the pistachios that I had treated him to in the morning, Liz was sipping orange orgone, thoughtfully looking somewhere ahead, through the monument to Gogol16. Both were silent, but as soon as I finished, they immediately "burst out."

"Mr. Black seems like a decent guy overall," Charm started arguing. "Well, informal, of course. With his own quirks. But at least he's not senile like Bartholomew. Not a bastard like Zauberstein. And he won't have PMS. Ooh, you should see how our Agatha loses it before her critical days!.."

Having dumped a pile of shells in the trash can, Jake interrupted her:

"Niki, are you sure all this was actually in reality?"

"I'm not sure of anything anymore," I groaned.

"Maybe you had a vision? What if you foresaw the future?"

"Past or future – it's easy to check," Liz took out her mobile and started flipping through browser pages with a long raspberry nail. After a portion of orgone, she noticeably became prettier. Her cheeks turned pink, her eyelashes lengthened, red strands coquettishly curled, and even the blue lenses sparkled in a special way, making her look like a doll. Guys in the park started throwing meaningful glances at her, then at me, then at Jake, trying to figure out whose boyfriend he was.

"We need to look at the news from the last few days," Liz explained in a low voice, flirtatiously smiling at another passerby. "Such a murder, if it really happened, reporters wouldn't have missed!.."

"He could have covered his tracks," I argued uncertainly and quietly, "hidden the bodies somewhere."

"Even if he, like a predatory monster, ate them," the redhead chuckled, "some evidence should still have remained! Blood on the asphalt – you say it was gushing like a fountain. The knives, the bat… The abandoned car, after all!"