The Less You Know The Sounder You Sleep. Juliet Butler

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СКАЧАТЬ She hates me stuttering. She says it’s pathetic.

      There’s a big poster of the Young Pioneer, Pavel Morozov, on the wall. Masha said she’d denounce her father in a second, if she had one, like Pavel did, and have him sent off to be shot too, for anti-Soviet activity. Then she’d be famous like he is. She keeps on trying to find ways to denounce the Administrator. In summer, when all the staff went, she got into the Administrator’s room and went through all her files to see if she’d forged documents to help bandits, like Pavel’s father did, or was an American spy, or is involved in anti-Soviet agitation, but there was nothing. I was scared to death, but it was healthy fun. I felt like a proper Activist.

      ‘And now you have been sworn in, we shall sing the USSR Hymn,’ says the Komsorg, and we all go at it, at the top of our voices because we’re all so happy and proud. Actually, I’m so proud to be in the Best of All Possible Worlds I could really burst or something. Defectives are killed at birth in Amerika. Everyone says so. But we’re cared for. Well, maybe the Uneducables aren’t so much … but we are. I almost feel like crying, I’m so proud. Masha’s singing louder than anyone. She’s shouting out, We were raised by Stalin to be true to the People, Inspired by him to heroic deeds of labour!

      As we’re filing out, Lydia Mikhailovna taps me on the shoulder at the door. ‘Don’t forget. Delegation tomorrow with Doctor Anokhin.’ Masha sniffs so hard her nose goes all sideways. As if we could forget … ‘And that’s quite enough of that sneer, Masha! You are very lucky to be playing a small part in Soviet Scientific Progress. You should know that, now more than ever. Get a sound sleep.’

      A sound sleep is the last thing we’ll get …

      July 1964

      We perform for Anokhin’s delegation but Popov steps in

      ‘Not going in.’

      ‘We’ve g-got to, Mashinka.’

      ‘Why? They can’t make us.’

      ‘They can. We’ll be sent away if we don’t, to an orphanage. We must.’

      We’re sitting on our bed waiting to be called into the Conference Hall at 11 a.m. The black Volgas full of delegates from all over the USSR, and this time from all over the world, have been driving up all morning outside the window. We watched. Loads of them. Like cockroaches swarming up to rotting food.

      ‘What’s so bad then?’ Olessya’s sitting with us. ‘About the Delegation?’

      Masha’s twiddling the button on our pyjamas and both of us are jiggling our legs up and down like mad things. I wish those marbles really could make you invisible. I’d swallow them all, however big they were, and disappear right now.

      ‘Dunno,’ says Masha.

      ‘You two get delegations in to see you all the time, don’t you?’

      ‘Yeah, but they’re usually in a little room, for doctors from our Soviet republics,’ says Masha. ‘They lay you out naked as a baby on a slab and get all these pip-eyed medical students in from Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan and Fuckistan to poke at you, and pick at you like a piece of meat, with all their medical jargon. But the ones with Anokhin are different. That’s like being up on the yobinny Bolshoi Ballet stage.’

      ‘Yes,’ I say, ‘the small ones aren’t f-fun but they’re OK. One of the K-Kazakh students asked our doctor, “Can theys tork?” And Masha sits right up and says, “Hey, we can speak Russian better than you’ll be able to in five lifetimes, you illiterate camel!” and he looked like he’d been shot through the heart, d-didn’t he, Mash? D-didn’t he?’ But Masha doesn’t even smile. She just keeps jiggling her leg, making the floor thump.

      Olessya’s sitting on my side. Everyone sits on Masha’s side normally, except Olessya.

      ‘That’s what keeps you in here, isn’t it? The delegations … the research …’ she says slowly.

      ‘Yeah, well, right now I don’t want to be here,’ says Masha.

      ‘Girls!’ It’s Lydia Mikhailovna, come to get us. My tummy turns right over in a somersault. ‘Come along. Everyone is gathered in the Conference Hall.’

      We get up slowly and follow her. Down the corridor, on and on, round one corner and then another and another.

      ‘Come along, stop dawdling.’

      We go round the back of the Conference Hall to where the stage is. It’s dark as anything. There are wooden stairs going up to the stage, which is all covered off by a heavy red curtain with a gold sickle and hammer on it so we can’t see them all sitting in rows and rows of black suits.

      ‘Right. You know the routine. Get undressed.’ Lydia Mikhailovna’s standing over us. I can hear them all buzzing in the hall behind the curtain. Like wasps waiting to sting. We undo our buttons, take off our pyjamas and untie our nappy. Masha’s sick then, and Lydia Mikhailovna’s all cross, saying she should have asked for a bucket if she felt nauseous, not thrown up on the floor.

      ‘Fucking kefir for breakfast,’ mutters Masha, wiping her mouth. ‘Knew it was off.’

      We’re naked now and shivering like anything. Waiting. We can hear Doctor Anokhin on the stage. Very rare example of ischiopagus tripus twins … under our care, quite remarkable that they have survived into their teens … under our care … remarkable … survived … There’s a circle drawn in chalk on the stage that we have to stand in, behind the curtain. I want to swallow marbles. We walk up slowly and step into it. We wait. I won’t fall down, I won’t. Soviet Progress. Grateful. Grateful. Grateful. Best of. I squeeze my eyes shut and dig my fingers into Masha’s neck where I’m holding her. She digs hers into mine. The curtains slowly open. I can’t see anything because the spotlight is on us, bright as anything and blinding me, but I can hear the gasp go up. They always gasp.

      Anokhin comes up on to the stage with a pointer. Two hearts, two brains, two kidneys, two nervous systems, two upper intestines, one blood system, one liver, one lower intestine, one leg each and a shared leg at the back. Turn!

      He taps my forehead with his pointer and we turn. The spotlights come from everywhere.

      I’m glad I’m blinded and can’t see them. I won’t cry. We’ve been told to keep our eyes open and look straight ahead but the light’s so bright my eyes are watering.

      ‘Turn!’ He taps the back of my head. I turn to face them again, blinded by the spotlights, I take my hand off Masha’s neck to wipe my cheek because my eyes are watering. I hope they don’t think I’m crying or anything stupid like that because I’m not crying. I’m not.

      Crash! There’s a noise like a chair falling over and then the door to the hall bangs. I look at Masha. Did we do something wrong?

      ‘Stand on one leg,’ says Anokhin. Masha lifts hers up because I’m stronger. ‘Run to the edge of the stage and back,’ he says. We run to the edge of the stage and back. ‘Hop,’ he says. We hop.

      He talks and talks and talks while we stand in the spotlight, in the chalk circle, doing what he tells us to with his pointer for ever and ever until he runs out of talk and dismisses us. There’s a round of applause as we walk off. Lydia Mikhailovna is waiting for us backstage. We get dressed slowly in our nappy and then our pyjamas and go СКАЧАТЬ