The Less You Know The Sounder You Sleep. Juliet Butler

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СКАЧАТЬ Union of Soviet Socialist Republics!’ we all chant – even Masha.

      ‘And where is that?’

      ‘In the Best of All Possible Worlds!’

      ‘Tak tochno! Any questions? Hands up.’

      ‘How do you launch a dog into space, Galina Petrovna?’ asks Masha. ‘With a catapult? Does she float? Will she drop back?’

      ‘I said hands up, Masha … How many times …’

      She holds up the front page of Pravda to show us a photo of a dog inside a metal kennel with cushions. ‘She’s called Laika and she was sent up in this capsule in a big space rocket. Soon we will send a man into space. The first man in the history of mankind. Then we will put the first man on the moon and perhaps soon, in our lifetime, everyone on earth will be living on a Soviet moon.’

      She looks round at us, smiling as proud as can be of this first Space Achievement. I’m proud as can be too, but I don’t want to be fired up in a rocket and go whizzing through blackness from star to star forever, or even live on a Soviet moon. I’d always be afraid of falling off it into space. Masha would though.

      Then I think of another question and put my hand up, quick as quick, before Pasha can. ‘Where did Laika come from?’

      ‘Ah. She was a stray on the streets of Moscow. Scientists take strays for their experiments because they’re zhivoochi, they’re survivors, and don’t belong to anyone.’

      ‘Like the dogs kept in cages on the top floor?’ asks Masha.

      Galina Petrovna nods. We’ve never seen the dogs up there, but we can hear them sometimes at night, howling. They’re used by the scientists in SNIP. Aunty Nadya told us that Doctor Anokhin started out working with Doctor Pavlov, who’s famous all over the world for working with dogs in laboratories. She says Pavlov built the best laboratory ever, called the Tower of Silence where they experiment on them. I wouldn’t like to be one of his dogs in a Tower of Silence. It sounds scary. There’s rabbits up on the top floor of SNIP too but we never hear them. I wonder what noise rabbits make?

      ‘Why will a man be next? Can I go up next instead, Galina Petrovna?’ asks Masha, and the kids giggle all over again, and I do too.

      ‘Well, I’m not sure Dasha would like that …’ She’s smiling too.

      ‘She can stay here and watch me go zoooom!’ She shoots her hand in the air. ‘I want to go into space. I’m zhivoochi too.’

      ‘Will the dog Laika come back down again?’ I ask, with my hand up.

      ‘No, I’m afraid not. The technology to de-orbit hasn’t been developed yet so she’ll just be flying around looking at the stars out of the window for a few days.’

      ‘Will she die?’ That’s Pasha again.

      ‘Yes, yes. She’ll be painlessly put to sleep, ah … killed, that is … after one week of umm … flying …’ she coughs, ‘round and round in space.’ There are no hands up now because it’s a bit sad to think of her being killed up there, all on her own. ‘But she doesn’t know that now, does she? So she’ll be looking out at earth all beautiful and blue, and thinking what a lucky Laika she is.’ Galina Petrovna smiles a big smile at us and we all smile a big smile back.

      Age 11

      March 1961

      We have our weekly bath and meet Lucia

      The best day ever in the week is Saturday. It’s bath day in the bannya down in the basement of SNIP. We get a whole tub for just us and one other kid. We’re at the front of the line. We’re always at the front. We’ve been here a million times longer than anyone else, so Masha’s the boss of everyone, even if they’re older than eleven, which is what we are.

      ‘Yolki palki! Stop shivering,’ says Masha. ‘You make me shiver too.’

      ‘It’s cold …’

      I hug myself to see if I can stop, but it doesn’t help. I keep hugging myself anyway.

      Tomorrow’s Sunday, which is Visiting Day, so we all need to be soapy clean for parents. We don’t have any parents, of course, but Aunty Nadya says we need to be soapy clean all the same, in case the other kids’ parents see us. But they wouldn’t ever do that, because we have to stay stuck away in our room all day on Visiting Day so we don’t traumatize the Healthies.

      The door to the bannya’s open and we can see the rows and rows of free-standing tubs, all being filled up with steaming hot water from jugs. I’m so excited I almost forget to shiver.

      ‘Hey, I’m first in, see?’ It’s a girl, loads taller than us. Her head is shaved so she’s from a State Children’s Home, not a family home, and she thinks she can get right to the front where Masha is, because she’s new and doesn’t know Masha.

      ‘Get lost,’ says Masha.

      ‘Get lost yourself, midget.’

      ‘This is my place. Get to the back of the line, shit-face. Don’t want you making my bath stinky.’

      ‘Who are you calling shit-face?’

      I shrink back, away from them. No one messes with my Masha. Last week we were walking down the stairs from Ward C and there was this gang of boys at the bottom, waiting to beat us up, and Masha got her skewer out, the one she’d stolen from the kitchens when I was talking to the cooks on purpose so they wouldn’t notice. She keeps it stuck down our nappy. It’s almost longer than anyone’s chest and she pushed the point into the skin of the neck of the first boy and said ‘Just try it, fucker’ and then walked on right through all of them without looking back or anything. I swear I’d die without Masha.

      But she’s got no skewer now. We’re all naked so it’s only her.

      ‘How long you been here?’ she says to the girl.

      ‘Week.’

      ‘Well, I’ve been here five years and this is my hospital and my spot and everyone knows it, don’t they? So get the fuck to the back of the line.’

      ‘Yeah, you, get lost.’ All three of us turn. It’s Pasha who’s in line behind us. He keeps coming back to have more prosthetic legs that fit as he grows. I haven’t seen him for ages and ages though. He’s got a deep voice now but it’s still him. I can tell easily. I didn’t even know he was back.

      ‘She’ll come and skewer you to your bed if you don’t,’ he says and laughs. It comes out all deep again but it’s still his Pasha laugh. The girl looks back at Masha and shrugs, but stays where she is.

      I didn’t know Pasha was right behind us. Right there, behind us, only half a metre away, but I didn’t know. I hug myself again and wish we’d get called in right now. There are loads and loads of us here, all standing naked, waiting forever, and Pasha is older than us. I wish he wasn’t right there behind us.

      ‘Yeah? Try it and you’ll get stuck first,’ says the new girl.

      ‘That’s СКАЧАТЬ