Lara Vapnyar - The Scent of Pine

“I liked Yeltsin. He was like an older Bill Clinton. Bill Clinton is my favorite president. My husband hates his guts, though. He’s a Republican. I don’t understand how anyone with half a brain could be a Republican. And you know what, I loved, loved Gorbachev. Such a sweet, smart man.”

Lena said that she loved Gorbachev too. And Bill Clinton.

“Are you married?” Marty asked.

Lena nodded.

“Kids?”

Lena nodded again. Marty reached and patted her hand in a compassionate gesture, then leaned close to whisper something, but then changed her mind.

She kissed Lena on the cheek when they parted. Sticky lip gloss kiss, and the smell of her perfume seemed to creep after them into the car.

Their next stop was at a supermarket to get the necessary provisions for the cabin.

Lena felt ridiculous strolling down the supermarket aisles with Ben.

Normally, she went to the supermarket with her husband and kids. She hated supermarkets, so each time she would devise ways to spend as little time there as possible. She would make a list and then tear it in four pieces and give each member of the family a piece—some easy items for her younger son. When making the list, she tried to put the foods in the order of supermarket aisles, so there wouldn’t be darting back and forth. “We get a cart each, and then we meet by the cashier in ten minutes and put all the food together,” she would say. She tried to make it sound like fun, like a scavenger hunt, but she always looked so annoyed that it would ruin the cheerful mood.

And once they got to the store, her strategy never worked. Each of them would become distracted by various items that weren’t on the list and forget about the ones that were. Misha would leaf through the issues of National Geographic and Pokemon guides in the magazine section. Borya would concentrate on discreetly stocking up on junk food. Vadim would get lost among the latest models of grills, even though he’d never grilled anything in his life. And she would be glued to the shelves in the International Foods section, reading the cooking instructions on the packages of Thai noodles and curry sauces. And then each of them would rush to the cashiers to look for the others and, not finding them there, dart back and forth among the aisles.

“So, what are we getting?” Ben asked.

“I don’t know. Anything. I don’t care.”

Ben sighed.

“Okay, so you won’t help me. Well, let’s just walk down the aisles and grab what we think we need.”

They bought coffee, bread, apples, cheese, salad mix, lemons, water, eggs, oranges, olive oil, a pound of potatoes, foil, paper towels, tissues, a flashlight, and biscotti. Then she ran into the pharmacy next door, where she bought Excedrin Migraine, mosquito repellent, and a pack of Pirate’s Booty cheese puffs—those she bought automatically, simply because she was used to getting them for her kids every time she went to a big pharmacy. Ben emerged from a liquor store with a bottle of expensive tequila, looking unsure of his choice and possibly even embarrassed by it.

Their purchases looked even more ridiculous as they were putting them in the small trunk of his car. Bigger things, smaller things, bottles. Or perhaps, it was they who looked ridiculous, engaged in this domestic activity. Ben leaned over his trunk, contemplating the most secure position for a carton of eggs. He had to move the boxes with his books and utensils to make the groceries fit. Past making space for the urgent needs of the present. The juicer fell out. He picked it up and shoved it back.

Lena climbed into her seat and felt strangely comfortable, at home. After all this travel the shape and surface of the seat felt familiar and pleasing, and even the mess on the back seat had a homey feel about it. She thought that Ben’s car was starting to feel more comfortable to her than the one parked by her home in Brookline.

Lena realized that she was also starting to feel just as comfortable in the world of her story. Telling it in Ben’s car now seemed like the most natural thing in the world.

“The next Monday after that lambada weekend, Yanina was late for the morning assembly. She arrived in the middle of the roll call, but stood apart from the others, leaning against the flagpost. She looked tired, and she didn’t walk up onto the platform even for her announcement.

“ ‘Something horrible happened last night. I want all the counselors and staff in my office after breakfast. Take the kids back to your units—we’ll dispatch soldiers to watch them—and come to my office right away.’

“And of course, this was the most exciting breakfast ever. Everybody kept whispering and exchanging ideas. Counselors asked kitchen help. Older kids asked younger kids. Younger kids asked counselors. Kitchen help asked the kids. Everybody had heard something, but nobody knew anything for sure. There were hundreds of different ideas, the most popular being these:

“1. A kid ran away.

2. A kid ran away and was killed.

3. Gorbachev was killed.

4. The U.S. finally dropped that nuclear bomb on us.

5. Vedenej ran away with Natasha the nurse (neither had been seen at the assembly).

6. Vedenej ran away with ten boxes of salami and caviar.

7. Aliens came.

“For once, we couldn’t wait to get to Yanina’s office. By the time Inka and I got there, all of the chairs were taken. Many people crowded by the walls. Inka and I stood by the door next to Nadezhda. Yanina sat slumped behind her desk. I thought that she seemed both intimidating and frightened. She didn’t say anything for a while, waiting for everybody to arrive. There was a single window in the room. It was closed. Right when I started to sweat myself, the room filled with a strong stench of sweat. For a moment or two I worried that I was the one who stank, before I realized the other girls were sweating too, as well as Yanina herself.

“ ‘Guys,’ she finally said. ‘Last night, two people from our camp were seen engaged in a perverse sexual act.’

“The room reacted with a collective gasp. I was convinced that Yanina was referring to what Inka and I had done on my bed the night before. I stared at my knees, and I thought that Yanina must be pointing in our direction, and everybody was turning to look at us, and in a second she would ask us to step forward. I thought maybe I could squeeze past Nadezhda and out the door. I felt the blood draining out of my entire body and going to my head to thump there in heavy merciless strokes. I peeked at Inka and saw that she was thinking the exact same thing. She was staring at her hands, her face bright pink.

“ ‘One of the counselors . . .’ Yanina continued (and I thought yes, yes, one of the counselors, not two, Inka started it, she jumped onto my bed, it wasn’t my fault!). ‘One of the counselors saw the couple in the woods by the pond. Neither was identified.’

“Yanina looked each of us over.

“ ‘Look at her,’ Nadezhda whispered. ‘The eyes of a she-wolf. She is looking for her. Trying to sniff her out.’

“ ‘Do you think it was Vedenej, with someone?’ I whispered back.

“ ‘Oh, yeah. At least Yanina thinks so, or why would she make such a fuss?’

“She concluded the meeting by reading the list of urgent measures, which ranged from fixing the fence separating the camp territory from the woods to an even stricter hands-over-the-blankets policy.

“Volodya said that he had a question. ‘What was the perverse act?’

“Somebody snickered. But Yanina just glared at Volodya.

“She looked us over and said: ‘You know, you might think that sex is something funny, but it can ruin your life. It can!’ Her voice broke when she said that. She looked as if she was close to tears. The expression on her face reminded me of my mother’s, the way she had looked the whole year before she threw my father out. The two sharp lines that would sprout in the corners of her mouth from time to time. Years later I understood that these lines appear when you try to keep your mouth from quivering, when you try to appear tough, while feeling frightened and lost.