Lara Vapnyar - The Scent of Pine

“As I ran, I was becoming more and more sure that it was one of our kids. Sveta—she had always been a time bomb, or Sasha, or maybe Myshka.

“The first person that I saw was Inka, all disheveled, red-faced, and teary. She was screaming at the top of her lungs:

“ ‘Lena!’

“ ‘What?’

“ ‘Sasha’s missing.’

“ ‘Sasha! For how long?’

“ ‘I don’t know. I went out for ten minutes, no more. I didn’t even go very far. Grisha came here, and we just sat at the picnic table. And when I came back and checked on the kids, his bed was empty. It was an hour and a half ago. Where were you?’

“ ‘I was with Danya!’

“ ‘Danya? Why?’

“ ‘Did you look inside? In the bathroom? In the closet?’

“ ‘Of course I did, you idiot!’

“ ‘In the cafeteria, in the headquarters?’

“ ‘Yes, yes, they did, they checked everywhere. They sent Grisha down the main road in case the little shit decided to walk home to his mommy. They’re even searching the woods.’

“ ‘The pool?’

“ ‘We checked the pool. Thank God nobody’s in there.’

“I sat down on the bench and tried to think. I couldn’t think of anything.

“ ‘Let’s just go to the woods,’ Inka said.

“We ran to the clearing by the pool when we heard a weak high-pitched cry not so far away.

“We stopped and listened, but the cry stopped. And then it was hard to distinguish amid all the yelling and screaming around us.

“ ‘Sasha?’ Inka yelled.

“Nobody answered. We climbed over the wire and headed to the woods. Then we heard it again.

“ ‘The phone booth!’ Inka said.

“We rushed back to the phone booth. On the way there we heard the sound again. We were now sure that it was coming from the booth.

“We started yanking on the door, but it was locked from the inside. We heard another cry, high-pitched and pained.

“ ‘Sasha, are you there?’ I yelled.

“There was a pause. Then he said ‘Lena?’ in a tiny voice. Yes, it was Sasha.

“ ‘Are you hurt? Can you open the door?’

“There was some scratching on the other side, and the door finally opened. Sasha sat in a corner of the booth, trembling. We pulled him out. He had wet his pants, but other than that he wasn’t hurt.

“ ‘What happened?’ Inka yelled.

“ ‘I went to call my mom. The operator told me to wait. I waited and waited, then I fell asleep. Then the aliens came.’

“His eyes were wide open, brimming with horror.

“ ‘What are you talking about?’

“ ‘There were bright lights and shouting by the pool.’

“ ‘And you thought that was aliens?’

“ ‘That was us looking for you, you little idiot!’ Inka yelled.

“Sasha started to cry again, but this time it was relief.

“I took him back to the unit. And Inka ran to the headquarters to report that Sasha was okay.

“ ‘I locked the door of the booth with a stick so the Black Sausage wouldn’t get me. And I started to sing in a high-pitched voice, because aliens can’t stand high-pitched noise,’ Sasha told me on the way back.

“ ‘You did a smart thing,’ I said. ‘If there were aliens, it would’ve helped.’

“I helped Sasha to change and get into bed, then went into my room and just slumped onto the bed in my clothes.”

Lena sat up in bed and reached for a mug. Her throat was parched.

Ben got up and went to the stove.

“It’s quite a striking image,” Ben said, having poured water into the teakettle and put it on the stove.

“What image?”

“A terrified little boy in a phone booth. I can’t shake the feeling that I’ve seen it before. Doesn’t it seem familiar? Anyway, what happened with you and Danya? Did you see him the next day?”

“No. Grisha came and said that Danya was being transferred someplace else. I kept asking him where and why, but he seemed reluctant to talk about Danya. Then I asked Grisha to give Danya my home address. He said that he would. Neither of us had paper or a pen. Grisha rummaged in his pockets and pulled out a piece of newspaper and a pencil. I scribbled my address on the margins. Grisha folded the piece of paper and put it back in the pocket of his pants.

“After he was gone, Inka said that she was certain that it was Vedenej who made the soldiers disappear.”

“The camp director?” Ben asked.

“Yes.”

“How did she know that?”

“She didn’t. We just pieced all the information together.”

The water in the kettle started to boil. Lena watched Ben take out two mugs, put the teabags in, and pour the water over them.

“Go on,” Ben said.

“Well, Inka’s theory was that Vedenej had a crush on me from the very beginning. That was why he loved to stop me and chat, and that was why he threw me into the pool, and that was why he was touching my legs in the car. Apparently, he was too scared of Yanina to act on it. But he couldn’t tolerate other guys dating me either. So since he had the power to transfer soldiers to other bases, that’s what he did. Anyway, we didn’t have a chance to talk more about that, because I was fired the next day. For losing Sasha Simonov. Or rather for going off to the woods that night.”

“Wow, I had no idea that’s where this all ended. You were fired ? But who took care of the kids?”

“Inka had to do it alone. But there were only a few days left until the end of the term.”

“Did you stay in touch with her after camp?”

“I tried, but it was difficult. She found out that she was pregnant in the fall, and she married Grisha and got a leave of absence from our school. And after I left for the U.S., we lost touch.”

“What about Danya? Did he ever write to you?”

Lena wrapped herself in a blanket and shook her head: “I’m sorry. I don’t really want to talk about Danya.”

Ben carried the steaming mugs over to the bed and said, “So you were a femme fatale after all.”

“No. I don’t think about it like that. I don’t want to think about it like that. You know, it’s pretty easy to accept that love hurts. It makes you feel so helpless, unprotected. But at least you’re not to blame. It’s harder to accept that you can hurt other people. That you might be responsible for the bad things that happen to them. You spend so much time feeling weak, knowing you can’t make other people happy, and yet you also have this power to hurt people, and you can’t do anything about it.”

“Yes, I know. I know exactly what you mean.”

Lena reached for her tea, but it was still very hot, so she just blew on her mug.

Lena turned to her side and ran her hand against the wall. Chipped, splintery wood, rough against her fingers. A drop of water fell on her cheek. She wiped it off. Then another drop of water. She sat up and turned her face up.

“What?” Ben asked.

Another drop fell.

“The ceiling’s leaking!”

Ben stood up in bed and reached for the boards in the ceiling.

“Fuck!”

He looked very funny like that. A little awkward. It always seemed to Lena that naked men looked more awkward and more exposed than naked women. His penis drooping to the right side, dark and delicate. She was suddenly flooded with so much affection for Ben that it made it hard to breathe. She couldn’t remember when she had ever felt that way about Vadim.

Ben found the hole between the boards and closed it with his finger.

“Are you going to stand like that forever?” she asked.

“Um. Maybe. You know what? Hand me a piece of bread.”

She got off the bed and broke off a piece of baguette.

“Smaller than that. And no crust, please.”