by Lara Vapnyar
“The woods were quiet. No creepy noises. Whatever sounds we heard were so soft and unaggressive—the dull rumble of a plane far above, a rising rustle of wind in the trees, a mosquito buzzing—that they strangely seemed to be part of the general silence.
“Something small darted off a log and into the bushes. I shrieked. ‘It’s only a squirrel,’ Danya said. I wanted to tell him about my phobia of squirrels. I wanted to tell him many things. I desperately wanted us to talk, because I was scared of what might happen if we didn’t talk. I was much more scared of that than squirrels.
“And then we heard some distant shouting. Danya stopped and listened. ‘It’s coming from the camp,’ he said.
“Back the way we’d come, I saw flickering lights in the distance, as if people were brandishing flashlights.
“I had a momentary ridiculous thought that all the commotion was because of Danya and me, and that they were coming for us. I looked at Danya in a panic.
“He said, ‘Something happened, we should go back.’
“We ran most of the way, stumbling over the roots. I even fell once and cut my knee against a sharp rock.
“When we got closer to the camp, we could see that there were people with flashlights looking for something in the woods. I recognized Galina. I asked her what had happened, and she said, ‘Some fucking kid ran away.’ I asked her if she knew who, and she said that she didn’t, but she thought it was one of the little ones.
“I turned to Danya.
“He said: ‘I need to report to headquarters now. I’ll be at the base tomorrow, but I’ll come by the day after tomorrow, okay?’ I nodded and ran to my unit.
“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.”
Lena tore out a soft piece from the middle. Ben stuck it into the hole and waited. There were no more drops.
“Let’s hope for the best,” he said, and climbed back into bed. Lena gave him his mug and snuggled against his shoulder.
“Listen, that image of a little boy in the phone booth—” Ben said.
“Sasha?”
“Yes. I’m positive I’ve seen it somewhere.”
“Where?”
“Wait, let me think.”
He put his mug down and covered his face with his hands. Then he dropped his hands and looked at Lena.
“I think I know where. I bought this graphic novel about five years ago. It was published somewhere in Europe. London, I think. It was about a Soviet summer camp. A mildly pornographic horror story. Some of the art was amazing, but overall I don’t think it was very good. I’m pretty sure there was the same crazy shit about that black sausage of yours. Only it was called purple sausage and it was drawn as a cock.”
Lena’s heart was thumping like crazy. Could it be that there was a book about her summer camp out there? A real, published book?
Lena sat up in bed and clutched the edge of the blanket: “I have to see it! Do you have it here?”
“I might. Leslie packed up most of my graphic novels, except for the ones I need for my class and a few famous ones. And since that one wasn’t famous and I never used it for my teaching, there is a very good chance that I have it here.”
“Look for it! Please, look for it!”
“Yes, sure.”
They climbed out of the bed, put on their clothes, and went over to the cold corner of the cabin where Ben had dumped the boxes.
There were hundreds of books, mostly old, yellowed, well worn, with greasy pages, but some of them new.
“What does it look like?” Lena asked. “Is it big? Small? Hardcover?”
“I think it was softcover, but rather large. Dark cover.”
Lena had two fears. First, that they wouldn’t find the book at all. And second, that they’d find it but it wouldn’t have anything to do with her camp or her story. That this would be just some weird coincidence.
“Here it is!” Ben said, holding up an oversized album in a dark brown cover. He carried it back to the bed.
Lena felt a terrible surge of nausea. She wished now it wouldn’t have anything to do with her camp or her story. She was terrified of whatever they might find.
Ben plopped onto the bed with the book.
“Yep. Hands over the Blankets—just as I remembered. Okay. Now, who is the author? Simon Alexander. Does that ring a bell?”
Lena shook her head. No, she didn’t know anybody by that name. She walked to the bed and sat down on the edge next to Ben.
“How about his photo?”
A gloomy-looking man in his late twenties or early thirties. Glasses. Thinning hair.
She shook her head again. Perhaps this was only a coincidence.
“Let’s look at his bio,” Ben said.
“Simon Alexander grew up in Moscow, Russia. He lives in London and works at . . . Hands over the Blankets is his first book.”
London? Was this book that “amazing thing” that Sveta Kozlova wanted to show to her? And Inka? Inka mentioned that she’d met up with Sveta Kozlova.
The description claimed that this was one of the most striking debuts of recent years and one of the most “haunting stories of sexual oppression,” where “a melodrama of first innocent love unfurled through mad jealousy and escalated to a dizzying climax,” where it ended “in sabotage, shame, and despair,” but was somehow told with “delightful humor.”
“Should we read it?” Ben asked.
Lena took the book from him and opened it in her lap. On page 1 there was a whole-page drawing of a little boy caught masturbating. The caption read: “They would storm into our room at night and yell: ‘Hands over the blankets!’ ”
The drawing was pretty realistic—tiny limp penis squeezed in the child’s hands. There was horror in the child’s eyes.
Lena recognized those eyes.
“Sasha Simonov?”
Lena closed the book and peered into the author’s photo. She could now see some resemblance. Sasha who’d always wanted to become an artist. His full name was Alexander Simonov. He simply switched his last and first names to make his alias. How did he end up in London? But then so many people had left Russia, it was probably easier to meet some old acquaintance abroad. Anyway, none of it mattered.
“Yes, that was him. That’s not true, though,” Lena said.
“What’s not true?”
“We never yelled anything like that.”
“Well, perhaps, this was his artist’s imagination at work.”
Lena turned to the next page. The whole page looked like a tribute to the idyll of Sasha’s family life. His father was in the center as a framed portrait. Large and square, he looked nothing like Sasha. He was wearing a military uniform with huge golden stars on his shoulder straps.
“Is he supposed to be a general or something?” Ben asked.
“I don’t know. But I guess he must have been a big shot. I had no idea.”
Sasha’s mother was a pretty petite thing sitting in an armchair next to the portrait. Sasha, himself, was a tiny faceless figure by her feet. The family belongings took up the rest of the space in the drawing. There was a huge TV, a cabinet with gleaming porcelain, an enormous stereo system, and an opened fridge with a pineapple and a bunch of bananas as a centerpiece, and several jars on different shelves, each labeled CAVIAR.
“Yep, the dad must have been a big shot,” Lena said.
“We were a happy family. We owned things nobody’s even dreamed of,” the caption read.
The next frame featured the same room with the portrait, armchair, and fridge filled with caviar. But the mom was drawn tiptoeing out of the apartment with a suitcase, where a man in a hat was waiting for her, and the dad in the portrait looked forlorn and lost.
“They thought summer camp would be a nice distraction. Or perhaps they were too busy to deal with me,” the next caption said.
There was a ramshackle bus in the center going down the dusty road. Sasha was in the back of the bus. Looking out onto the road. Crying.
The next series of frames depicted the kids’ daily activities at the camp. Morni
ng assembly. Meals. Playtime. Bathroom. All of these frames showed ugly screaming women and kids looking terrified.
“The days were filled with horrors, big and small.”
On the next page was a close-up of one of the horrors. A little boy, who looked like the masturbating boy from the first drawing, made some kind of a mess in the cafeteria, and the woman with huge boobs and teeth was yelling at him. And in the next frame the boy was throwing up. Supposedly from horror.
“As were the nights.”
The next page was done as a series of four frames. A boys’ bedroom in sinister moonlight in each of them. The boys lying in bed. Hands above the blankets. A woman sitting on the windowsill with speech bubbles coming off her face—apparently telling the kids a story.
“And then he took her to the woods.”
Sasha’s face stricken with horror.
“And then he tied her to the tree.”
Sasha’s face stricken with horror. A small bright yellow spot on his bed.
“And then he killed her.”
The yellow spot spreading over the bed.
“And then he ate her.”
Sasha’s bed turned into an enormous yellow puddle. He is drowning there.
“That wasn’t true!” Lena said. “Our stories weren’t that scary!”
The other kids in the drawings looked pretty scary as well. Most of them had murderous expressions. And the games that they played all appeared to be pretty violent.
“Brueghel,” Ben said. “Don’t you see the resemblance?”
“I don’t know, kind of,” Lena said.
“This boy managed to pull it off.”
In some of the pictures Sasha was drawn next to a husky little girl, about twice his size.
“Sveta was my only friend.”
“She would protect me from other kids.” (Sveta drawn pounding on some vicious-looking boys.)
“But more often than not she would beat me up herself.”
(Sveta pounding on Sasha.)
The following page was flooded with blue light. There was a teenage girl in the center, with dark messy hair and huge anime eyes stroking the crying Sasha on the head. The boy was smiling, even though his clothes were covered in vomit.
“Her name was Lena,” the caption said. “It was love at first sight.”