Six #2
It was a worldview Klaudia could not conceive of, but she did respect it. And she never ceased to feel fortunate that the
housing lottery system had assigned them as first-year roommates. If not for Jane, Klaudia would have eaten every meal alone.
“It was fine,” Klaudia replied, sliding into her chair. “How was yours?”
Jane grimaced. “I hate cryptography. Did you know LEAP128 has a proprietary design procedure? Auric holds the exclusive rights.
I used it in one of my assignments and got docked a whole letter grade for it.”
“That doesn’t seem fair,” said Klaudia. “The CIA and DOD collaborate enough with Auric that I highly doubt they would disallow
its use in a real professional setting.”
“Probably not. But Professor Kitt is such a purist.” Jane sighed so emphatically that strands of her black hair fluttered.
She always wore two minibraids to frame her face, while the rest of her hair hung down in perfectly straight, glossy sheets.
“At least he gave us a list of patented ciphers so I won’t make the same mistake again. ”
Jane’s kindness and openness did not detract at all from her intelligence—and neither did her obvious beauty. She was pretty
in an effortless way that Klaudia found herself secretly envying. She didn’t covet beauty for its own sake, though; she wanted
it to make her imperceptible. Her physical form was an impediment. She wanted to be pure mind.
A girl with a face like Jane’s garnered a baseline level of respect that allowed her to be more than her looks. A girl with
a face like Klaudia’s would always be seen as unattractive first, at best unusual. Her looks would never go without remark. For as long as Klaudia could remember, she had hated the impudence of her body,
the breasts and hips that even her many efforts at weight loss couldn’t seem to shrink. It would have been a privilege to
believe that her appearance did not matter.
Unfortunately, Klaudia was not the only one to be taken in by Jane’s charms. In as casual a tone as she could manage, Klaudia
asked, “Is Mikhail coming?”
Jane shook her head. “His new roommate arrived this morning. Mikhail is giving him a tour.”
“Right,” said Klaudia, quietly relieved. It wasn’t that she hated Mikhail—she tried to remain above such sentiments—but she
felt uncomfortable being audience to his and Jane’s flirting. And, truthfully, she thought Jane could do better.
“I’ve been practicing my Russian,” said Jane, unlocking her tablet and tapping open Valeran’s proprietary language-learning
app. “Soon I think I’ll be ready to show Mikhail.”
Klaudia felt even more uncomfortable bearing witness to Jane’s dewy-eyed dreams. She talked excitedly about how she and Mikhail would build their lives together after Valeran; she was learning Russian in hopes of impressing his parents.
Klaudia did not try to disabuse her, even though she thought Jane was being slightly naive.
If Mikhail’s parents were anything like her own, they would not be dazzled by some conversational Russian.
They were more likely to be disappointed that Mikhail had not brought home a thoroughly American girl.
Assimilation trumped tradition, especially now that a third Red Scare was on the horizon.
Or maybe she was entirely wrong in her assumptions. Maybe Mikhail and his family didn’t have the same neuroses. It would have
horrified Klaudia to have been caught reciting the Shema during a particularly convincing duck-and-cover drill, but Mikhail
had shrugged off the whispers and stares.
“I told you I would teach you,” said Klaudia. “There are bugs in the conjugation code.”
“I don’t want to put more on your plate. You’re the busiest person I’ve ever met. Third-year surgery residents probably get
more sleep than you.”
“I get enough sleep,” Klaudia said.
“If you say so.” Jane was silent for a moment, and then a smile quivered onto her face. “I’ll make you a deal—if you sleep
past six tomorrow, I’ll give you the privilege of teaching me about the perfective aspect.”
Jane was the only person who could make Klaudia laugh uninhibitedly. They passed the rest of the lunch hour in animated conversation,
and Klaudia felt as close to normal as she believed she ever could.
Klaudia only had one class that afternoon, National Security Decision-Making, which went by without incident.
The simulation from earlier was still preying on her.
She had been too impulsive. She had almost allowed herself to slip.
The top students were ranked so closely together that even something as small as a single loss could cause her to be overtaken.
No mistake at Valeran went without consequence or reprisal.
She decided to peruse some of the physical books in the reading room. Her mistake, she had come to realize, had been because
she had let the fundaments of the discipline fall by the wayside in favor of more granular, tactical thinking. She could use
a refresher on theory. Maybe she didn’t need to abstract her way back to Hobbes or Thucydides, but a bit of Morgenthau would
set her mind in order again.
Satisfied with this solution, Klaudia made her way to the reading room. April was already too warm for the fireplace to be
lit, which was the main appeal of the antiquated, stuffy space. Once the heat scattered the mist of the mountains, the room
would be deserted for months at a time, making it one of the most private places on campus. Aside from her own dorm room,
it was Klaudia’s favorite refuge.
So she had every reason to expect it to be empty. And at first she thought it was. But once she stepped inside and approached
the shelves, she heard a muffled sound. She paused and listened more closely. It was only after a few more moments that she
identified it as crying.
Who could possibly be crying? Klaudia thought, with a vague flicker of irritation. Surely anyone who ended up at Valeran was smart enough to know what
a grave mistake it would be to have anyone overhear them. The humiliation would follow them for their entire sentence. Their
fellow students would never let them forget it.
It seemed cruel and voyeuristic to listen, and it occurred to Klaudia that she could confront them, warn them about the repercussions
of being caught in such a vulnerable position. But the notion evaporated as quickly as it had appeared. She didn’t want to
get a reputation for kindness. That was almost worse than crying.
Admittedly it was a perverse sense of curiosity that had Klaudia tiptoeing closer, until she caught sight of him at last. The boy was half-hidden in one of the alcoves, elbows braced on his knees, and hands shielding his face, so that she could only see the blond crown of his head.
Even hunched over he looked tall, though perhaps more lean than muscular.
Surprise froze her in place. She didn’t know anyone at Valeran who matched his looks.
The boy lifted his head and showed his face. It was tear-streaked and flushed. Behind his glasses, his eyes—a surprisingly
vivid green—glimmered with wetness. There was an obvious pain in his gaze that made her heart skip.
Immediately, Klaudia regretted approaching him. His eyes met hers, and she knew at once that this was a boy who did not belong.