Lara Vapnyar - The Scent of Pine

Ben kept going. “We’ve known each other for a hundred years, we have history together, we have common interests, we have common friends. And then again, how do you define ‘happy’? How do you even answer that question? Can you answer that question? Are you happy with your husband?”

“Yes, I can. I’m not.”

Lena turned away and stared out of her window. What was so difficult about admitting that you weren’t happy? Why did people think they needed to come up with all these complicated explanations, excuses, justifications? Or perhaps they just didn’t want to admit it to themselves? Lena knew she wasn’t happy. She had known it for a long time. There was a time when she blamed herself for being unhappy. She saw it as some kind of character flaw. She didn’t believe happiness was an acute state, as Ben said. She never confused it with the euphoria of being in love. For her happiness was more like peace, contentedness, feeling that you were in the right place. She’d never had that with Vadim. Even when they first got married, she couldn’t shake off the feeling that they weren’t right for each other. She did feel affection for him, and she was moved by the very fact that he was so familiar, that they’d known each other so many years. She would pass him as he sat at his desk and inhale his smell—she always imagined that he smelled like freshly sawed wood—and her eyes would fill with tears, because this was the most familiar smell in the world for her. She never felt peaceful or contented around him, though. She kept telling herself that happiness was a luxury. She felt Ben’s hand on her shoulder, but she couldn’t turn. Her eyes were filling with tears, and she was terrified that he’d notice.

“Why don’t you go back to your story?” Ben asked. “Who was the second guy who disappeared? Danya?”

Lena sighed. Her story had obviously acquired this new function of saving them from awkward silences.

She drank some water and made an effort to collect her thoughts.

“The second guy was Vasyok.”

“Who is Vasyok? Weren’t you supposed to have a date with Danya?”

“The date with Danya didn’t work out. And Vasyok was a soldier who worked in the kitchen. A very nice guy. He disappeared after he seduced me with Hungarian salami.”

“Was he Hungarian? Is that as dirty as it sounds?” Ben offered a self-deprecating laugh.

“No! Hungarian salami was considered a great delicacy and was very hard to get. The Ministry of Defense was powerful enough to provide the camp with it, only the kids never got to enjoy it. The camp management ordered some salami for the kids along with red caviar and bananas and other delicacies, but when all those treasures made it to the camp, the staff just divided the food among themselves according to their ranks. Vedenej, the camp director, got the most, of course. Then came Yanina, and after Yanina, the camp plumber, the kitchen staff, some of the senior counselors. The soldiers weren’t supposed to get any salami, but Vasyok worked in the kitchen, so I think he simply stole some.”

“Stole? Some nice boyfriend you had! Salami thief,” Ben said.

He seemed to enjoy hearing about Vasyok much more than about Danya. And for Lena, talking about Vasyok came more easily too.

“You don’t understand. Stealing was considered perfectly fine. Everybody stole. It would have seemed strange and even indecent if you didn’t. But of course everybody stole on their own level. Vedenej and Yanina could steal something really big, like camp funds. Senior counselors stole electronic equipment. Junior counselors mostly stole bedsheets, office supplies, and toys.”

“Didn’t they count bedsheets?”

“They did. They counted everything, even soccer balls, but there was a way to get past that. You see, each unit was given a certain quantity of items, and we counselors had to sign for them. If an item was reported lost and/or missing, they would deduct its cost from our salary. At first, I took it very seriously—after the kids in my unit came back from a walk outside, I made sure to search the grounds for all the forgotten toys so that I didn’t have to pay for them. One time, I couldn’t find a soccer ball. I looked for it and looked for it, but I couldn’t find it. One of the older counselors, Galina, was passing by, and she asked me what I was doing. I said that I needed to find a soccer ball because I didn’t want to pay for it. She laughed and told me to follow her into a storage room. There she picked up a soccer ball from the shelf, took large scissors from the drawer, sliced the ball open and cut it in two. ‘See, now you have two soccer balls,’ she said, as I stood flabbergasted. ‘Go show the pieces to the inventory girl, and she will write them off as two “damaged” soccer balls. Nobody ever checks if the pieces come from a single ball or two different ones.’ I stared at the pieces in awe. We didn’t have to pay for damaged items, only for missing ones.”

“That’s brilliant! Did you steal something yourself?”

“Yes, sure. As soon as I discovered the art of damaging, I stole plenty of things. Felt pens, paints, big sheets of white paper, and a couple of pillow cases—scissors worked especially well on pillow cases. I wanted to steal an iron. I found the handle from some other iron in the garbage so I could report our iron as damaged, but Inka managed to steal it before me. Technically the iron was mine to steal, because I signed for it, but apparently Inka didn’t feel the same way.”

“That was rotten of her to steal your iron.”

Lena smiled at Ben and said, “Thank you. I thought so too.

“So back to Vasyok. We danced together at the dance, and afterwards he asked me out. I agreed, because I was upset about Danya, and because I didn’t know how to say no, but I didn’t really want to go on a date with Vasyok. He was supposed to pick me up at nine-thirty the evening after the dance. In the morning, I told Inka that I didn’t want to go.

“ ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘He seems kind of stupid.’

“All morning I couldn’t decide if I should refuse Vasyok or not, and then we had a power outage. It happened around lunchtime, and they couldn’t prepare lunch, because everything in the kitchen and the cafeteria was down. After a while they sent some guys from the kitchen to distribute dry biscuits and buttermilk to the kids. Vasyok came to my unit with a box full of biscuits and a crate with buttermilk containers. He unloaded that in the lounge and then asked if he could talk to me in private for a second. There was some commotion—kids didn’t want biscuits or something—but I left Inka to handle it. We stepped outside and he led me to the bushes. There, he looked around and started unbuttoning his shirt. I was about to yell ‘What’re you doing!’ but he took out a long newspaper-wrapped package tucked under his belt. ‘This is for you,’ he said. The package had a faint smell of garlic, and something else, something smoky—my stomach rumbled.

“Vasyok asked me if we were seeing each other at nine-thirty. I said yes, because it would’ve felt too awkward to say no.”

Ben started to laugh.

“I can’t believe you sold yourself for a salami.”

“It wasn’t because of salami! The guy was nice to me, he took a big risk in stealing that salami for me. I didn’t want to hurt his feelings.”

“Right! The next thing you’d say would be that you didn’t even enjoy that salami.”

“Oh, I enjoyed it!

“When I got inside, Inka had just finished pouring the buttermilk for the kids. I motioned to her to come with me upstairs. I could hardly wait to unwrap the package. There were four slices of rye bread, two small cucumbers, a bunch of chives, and a large chunk of salami. Inka actually squealed with delight.”