He rose at six every morning, and had already done two hours’ work before breakfast. He ran to and from school—almost the only exercise he took—and while the other boys were in the playground enjoying French cricket, he remained in the classroom, turning another page of another book.
Once the bell sounded at the end of the day, and everyone else had gone home, Sasha remained at his desk and, with the help of Mr. Sutton, tackled yet another past Isaac Barrow exam paper. Finally he would run home and eat a light supper, before going to his room to do his prep, often falling asleep at his desk.
As the day of the exam drew nearer, he somehow managed to work harder still, finding hours even his mother wasn’t acquainted with.
“The exam will be conducted in the Great Hall at Trinity,” the headmaster told him. “It might be wise if you were to travel up to Cambridge the night before, so you don’t feel rushed or under any unnecessary pressure.”
“But where would I stay?” asked Sasha. “I don’t know anyone in Cambridge.”
“I’ve arranged for you to spend the night at my old college.”
* * *
“Perhaps I should take the day off and come up to Cambridge with you,” Elena suggested.
Sasha managed to talk his mother out of the idea, but he couldn’t stop her buying him a new suit that he knew she couldn’t afford. “I want you to look as smart as your rivals,” she said.
“I’m only interested in being smarter than my rivals,” he replied.
Ben Cohen, who had just passed his driving test, drove Sasha to King’s Cross. On the way, he told him about his latest girlfriend. It was the word “latest” that made Sasha realize just how much he’d missed out on during the past year.
“And my dad’s going to buy me a TR6 if I get into Cambridge.”
“Lucky you.”
“I’d swap it for your brain any day,” said Ben, as he turned off the Euston Road and parked on a yellow line.
“Good luck,” he said, as Sasha climbed out of the car. “And don’t come home with a clean sheet.”
Sasha sat in the corner of a packed carriage, staring out of the window as the countryside rattled by, not wanting to admit that he wished he’d agreed to let his mother come with him. It was his first journey outside London, unless you counted away matches, and he was becoming more nervous by the minute.
Elena had given him a pound note to cover any expenses, but as it was a clear fine day when the train pulled into Cambridge station, he decided to walk to Trinity. He quickly learned only to ask people wearing gowns for directions to the college. He kept stopping to admire other buildings he passed on the way, but when he first saw the great gates above which Henry VIII stood, he was transported into another world, a world he suddenly realized how much he wanted to be part of. He wished he’d worked harder.
An elderly porter accompanied him across the court and up a flight of centuries-worn stone steps. When they reached the top floor he said, “This was Mr. Quilter’s room, Mr. Karpenko. Perhaps you’ll be its next occupant.” Sasha smiled to himself. The first person ever to call him Mr. Karpenko. “Dinner will be served at seven in the dining room on the far side of the court,” the porter said, before leaving Sasha in a little study that wasn’t much bigger than his room above the restaurant. But when he looked out of the mullioned window, he saw a world that appeared to have ignored the passing of almost four hundred years. Could a boy from the backstreets of Leningrad really end up in a place like this?
He sat at the desk and once again went over one of the questions Mr. Sutton had thought might come up in the exam. He was just starting another when the clock in the court chimed seven times. He left his books, ran down the stone staircase, and into the court to join a stream of young men chatting and laughing as they made their way around the outside of a manicured grass square, on which not one of them stepped.
When Sasha reached the entrance to the dining room he peeped inside, to see rows of long wooden tables laden with food, and benches occupied by undergraduates who obviously felt very much at home. Suddenly fearful of joining such an elite gathering, he turned around, and made his way out through the college gates and onto King’s Parade. He didn’t stop walking until he saw a queue outside a fish and chip shop.
He ate his supper out of a newspaper, aware that his mother wouldn’t have approved, which only caused him to smile. When the street lights flickered on, he returned to his little room to revise two or three more possible exam questions, and didn’t climb into bed until just after midnight. He only slept intermittently, and was horrified when he woke to hear the clock in the court chime eight times. He was just thankful it wasn’t nine. He jumped out of bed, washed and dressed, and ran all the way to the dining hall.
He was back in his room twenty minutes later. He went to the lavatory at the end of the corridor four times during the next hour, but was still standing outside the examination hall thirty minutes early. As the minutes ticked by, a trickle of candidates joined the queue, some talking too much, others not at all, each displaying his own particular level of nervousness. At 9:45, two masters dressed in long black gowns appeared. Sasha later learned they were not masters, but dons, and that the title of Master was reserved for the head of house. So many new words to learn—he wondered if the college had its own dictionary.
One of the dons unlocked the door and the well-disciplined flock followed the shepherd into the examination hall. “You’ll find your names on the desks,” he said. “They are in alphabetical order.” He then took his seat behind a table on the dais at the end of the hall. Sasha found KARPENKO in the middle of the fifth row.
“My colleague and I will now hand out the examination papers,” said the invigilator. “There are twelve questions, of which you must answer three. You will have ninety minutes. If you can’t work out how much time you need to allocate for each question, you shouldn’t be here.” A ripple of nervous laughter spread around the room. “You will not begin until I blow my whistle.” Sasha immediately recalled Mr. Sutton’s first law of exams: the person who finishes first won’t necessarily be the winner.
Once an examination paper had been placed face down in front of each candidate, Sasha waited impatiently for the whistle to blow. The shrill, piercing blast sent a shiver down his spine as he turned the paper over. He read slowly through the twelve questions, immediately placing a tick by five of them. After considering them a second time, he was down to three. One was similar to a question that had come up seven years ago, while another was on his favorite topic. But the real triumph was question 11, which now had two ticks by it, because it was one he’d tackled the night before. Time for Mr. Sutton’s second law of exams: concentrate.
Sasha began to write. Twenty-four minutes later he put his pen down and read through his answer slowly. He could hear Mr. Quilter’s voice: remember to leave enough time to check your answers so you can correct any mistakes. He made a couple of minor emendations, then moved on to question 6. This time, twenty-five minutes, followed by another read-through of his submission, before he moved on to question 11, the double tick. He was writing the final paragraph when the whistle blew, and he only just managed to finish before the papers were gathered up. He was painfully aware that he hadn’t left any time to double-check that answer. He cursed.
Once the candidates had been dismissed, Sasha returned to his room, packed his small suitcase, headed downstairs, and walked straight to the station. He didn’t look back, fearing he would never enter the college again.
On the journey to London, he tried to convince himself that he couldn’t have done any better, but by the time the train pulled into King’s Cross, he was certain he couldn’t have done any worse.
“How do you think it went?” Elena asked even before he’d closed the front door.
“It couldn’t have gone better,” he said, wanting to reassure her. He handed his mother eleven shillings and sixpence, which she put in her purse.