‘Pregnant? That’s a laugh. They sterilize all Defectives in Institutions as soon as they get the chance. Can’t be having any more little Defectives, can we? Not in the Best of all Possible Worlds.’
‘Sterilize?’ I stare at her.
‘Of course, gospodi! You two are so naïve, it’s like you’ve been living in a hole … well, in a way you have. But yes, we all have sex, but we never get pregnant. Remember the summer camps at school when everyone was Doing It? And almost no pregnancies – unless you were really young? You two might have had it done when they took your appendix out in SNIP. Or maybe even when they amputated your leg. They never tell you. Why should they? It’s none of your business. It’s the State’s business. And if they don’t do the op, they give you birth-control injections. They inject us all the time anyway with sedatives and vitamins and stuff, so how would we know?’
I stare at her.
‘Wait …’ says Masha. ‘So how do you know?’
‘I asked the nurse back in the Thirteenth why I never got pregnant; why none of us ever get pregnant, and she told me. Very proud of herself she was too. “So you have nothing to worry about,” she said. “It’s all taken care of for you.”’
I want to sit down, right there in the snow. I feel weak. Am I never to have children? Never? We’re thirty-eight, we have periods, I still have a school group photo with Slava (Masha says it’s hers, but I can look at it) and I sometimes fantasize about him when I feel that throbbing and pounding down there. Somehow I thought that I’d have sex again with someone, anyone really, just to have a baby. And now there are Defectives my age, in the next block … I want to be a mother to someone who loves me more than anyone else. I thought it was still possible … a little baby …
‘What’s wrong with you? You’ve gone limp as a dishcloth.’ Masha squints at me.
‘I … I just thought …’
Olessya understands and leans over to hug me but Masha starts trying to slap some sense into me, cuffing my hat right off my head. I don’t try and stop her. I feel winded and helpless, as if the child I always wanted has just been snatched from me.
‘For fuck’s sake, that’s all we need, a yobinny babe-in-arms in this hellhole. Are you mad?’
‘Even if they didn’t do it, and they might not have done, and you did get pregnant, Dashinka,’ says Olessya softly, ‘they’d make you have an abortion … And if somehow they didn’t notice, and you had it, they’d take it away.’
‘And if they didn’t,’ says Masha angrily, ‘I’d bash it on the head and shove it down the rubbish chute. So you can stop dreaming about your unborn child and get real. Who do you think in a million years is going to father your sprog? The King of Spain? None of the old goats in here could get it up, and I’d not let anyone within a hundred metres of you anyway, even if it was the King of Spain. No. We’ve lived here twenty years, just you and me, and we’ll live here another fifty, so get used to it.’
‘No, you won’t,’ says Olessya. ‘You won’t be living here forever – I’ve got news!’
‘What?’ we both say together. I use my scarf to wipe my face and start hiccupping. Masha’s right … I’d never find any man. And Olessya’s right too. A baby would be taken away. I’m being stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid. I have my little Lyuba and Marat in my other world. I’ll always have them …
‘Well, Rita the nurse told me this morning that the Twentieth’s being reprofiled. It’s being turned into a psykhooshka – Psycho-Neurological Home.’
‘A Madhouse? What? When?’ Masha leans forward and tugs at Olessya’s scarf. ‘When, Olessya? Are you sure? When?’
‘Yes, I’m sure. They’re bringing in a Medical Sanity Commission to assess all the inmates next week. It’s happening fast. If you pass, you get transferred to another Old People’s home – away from Barkov and Dragomirovna – and anywhere’s got to be better than being here with them!’
‘Medical Commission?’ I swallow nervously. I remember the last one, where they didn’t even let us speak. ‘What happens if you don’t pass?’
‘Then you stay here with the crazies. But don’t worry, as long as you can say your name and know which country you live in, you’re fine. I mean, you have to be certified mad to stay in a psykhooshka. Shrieking mad. Or anti-Soviet, of course.’
‘Leave? We’re leaving the Twentieth?’ Masha shouts, hardly able to believe it. She’s so happy that I look across at her and start laughing, and then we all start laughing. ‘Let’s just make sure we stay together, Olessya,’ says Masha. ‘You and us, and your cockerel – we’ve only just found you!’
‘Yes, they say we can even apply to whichever one we want, instead of just being assigned. There’s a new one, the Sixth, which has a view of a lake and everyone gets their own room. Imagine! Everyone! Forwards to the Communist dream at last!’
I nod at her, still laughing now, instead of crying. Yes, I’ll imagine, all right. I’m good at imagining.
We go before the Sanity Commission
‘OK, calm down, you’d think we were lining up before a firing squad, not a Sanity Commission.’
We’re sitting in the anteroom to the hall where the interviews are taking place. It’s full of other inmates muttering to themselves or chattering about what questions are being asked.
‘I’m worried I’ll stutter. Why do you want me to do the talking, Mash?’
‘Cos you’re the clever one. How many times do I have to tell you? What if they ask us what fifty-seven divided by three is? I can barely manage two times five.’
‘I just keep remembering the last commission …’
‘That was a lifetime ago, and it was assessing us physically. They thought being Together was as bad as it gets, so we got a One. This is only to check we’re not crazies.’ She taps her head. ‘And we’re not. Olessya said the hardest question was, what season is December in? And everyone’s passed so far, even the daftest dandelions. They tell you straight away.’
‘Maria and Daria Krivoshlyapova.’ A voice comes from the interview room. My heart flutters like a trapped bird as we get up and walk in. We’ve washed and brushed our hair and have clean shirts on. There’s three of them, a defectologist, a psycho-neurologist and a speech therapist, sitting behind a long desk. They have little signs in front of them saying which ones they are.
‘So, good morning, girls. Which one of you shall we start with then?’ says the psycho-neurologist who’s in the middle. I put up my hand. ‘Very well, and what is your name?’
‘D-D-Daria K-K-Krivoshlyapova.’
‘How old are you?’
‘Th-th-thirty-eight.’ It’s getting harder to get the words out. I can feel it. Masha’s stiffening by my side. She’s angry and that makes me stutter even more.
‘And in what year were you born?’
‘N-n-n-nineteen f-f-f-f …’ I can’t do it. I feel like bursting into tears, it’s like I have a splinter of wood in my tongue.
The speech therapist is tapping her pencil on the table, and interrupts me, asking: ‘Why do you stutter?’
‘Be-be-be-be-c-c-c …’ I still can’t get anything out. I look like an idiot. I sound like I’m mad. I should be in a Madhouse. The speech therapist takes off her glasses and looks at me. She’s got grey hair and quite a kind face so I try again, but this time I sound even worse so I just stop.
‘Hmm … Do you both stutter?’
‘No!’ Masha’s voice is high and angry and it rings around the big hall. Their eyes swivel across to her then. ‘No. I don’t stutter, and she only does it because a dog jumped out at her when she was little, and bit her, that’s all.’ I gawp at her. She’s always making stuff up. ‘She does it when she’s nervous,’ goes on Masha, ‘and she’s nervous now because we don’t want to end up in here, once it’s re-profiled. We have to battle every single day to prove that we’re sane, just because we’re Together, but if we’re left in here, we’ll have lost that battle. No one would believe us. We’d be driven insane in here.’
/> None of the three women say anything. Masha’s got her arm around me, and mine is around her, like we always do when we’re standing. She pulls me to her with a squeeze and the wooden floorboards creak as I lean into her.
‘She does it because she’s soft, that’s all, like a peach. She bruises at anything. That’s the only thing wrong with her. And that dog, it almost killed her, it did, almost savaged her to death in front of my very own two eyes, and she had to have all these rabies injections in her stomach afterwards.’ I think the speech therapist is smiling but the other two just look a bit amazed. So am I. She’s making the whole thing up. ‘She’s clever, she is,’ goes on Masha, glaring at them all, ‘she got top marks in her diploma, she got one hundred per cent, you can check, you can, and her tutors here said she could have been an atomic physicist or … or a professor if she wasn’t Defective … they said—’
‘Thank you, thank you, that’s quite enough, Maria, we do have others to see, you know,’ interrupts the psycho-neurologist, holding up her hand. Then she glances across to the speech therapist on her right and the defectologist on her left and they nod. I can scarcely breathe. What has Masha done? What have I done? They’re going to say no …
‘That’s fine, girls, I think we can safely say you’re as sane as any of us.’ She smiles. ‘You’ve passed. You may leave.’
We’re crazy happy then suffer a setback, but my Masha never gives up
‘This is the best news ever, the best ever,’ says Masha, bouncing up and down on our bed. Olessya’s sitting across from us in her wheelchair because everything’s going crazy in the Twentieth with the changes and she’s allowed in our Walking Block. Van Vanich, who’s been reinstated as the guard on reception, after the other one got drunk on duty, let her in. It’s so wonderful to have him back, we couldn’t stop hugging and kissing him, and he joked that his wife would leave him if she ever caught sight of the three of us all in a huddle like that.
Barkov has gone off to some conference today for a week, and Dragomirovna is off sick. Masha thinks they’re having an affair and have run away together to the Crimea. That’s what she’s telling everyone anyway. Masha’s crazy. Sanya’s here, too, leaning on the balcony door. She and Masha made up in the end because Masha got bored without her to talk to, although it’s never quite been the same. But that’s OK. As Masha says, Friendship stays green with a hedge in between.
‘The Sixth has got grounds with flowerbeds in it that the inmates are allowed to walk in,’ Olessya’s saying. ‘Not like here, where the garden is only for foreign delegations. And they’ve got two hundred and fifty rooms, single rooms with toilets, all empty. I’ve already got a place. You should apply as soon as you can, I bet they’re filling up like water in a bath.’
‘It’s OK. We put in our f-formal request for a transfer to the S-Sixth straight away, the very next day,’ I say.
‘I got my confirmation two days after I put the request in,’ says Olessya. ‘Almost everyone got passed by the commission. The babas are all dithering around like sheep in a pen.’
‘Well, I’ve applied for a job at the Sixth too,’ says Sanya. ‘Gotta give the Director there a bribe, of course; but a box of chocolates, if I can find one, should do it. I’m not staying here to mop up after dribbling loonies, I can tell you that.’
‘I’m not staying here either,’ says Masha. ‘No yobinny way. Mashinka’s off out to dance in the flowerbeds by the lake!’
Just then the door opens and Nina from Administration hands us a yellow note.
‘It’s the confirmation,’ says Olessya.
Masha grabs it and starts reading it out loud:
Dear Comrade Inmates!
We confirm receipt of your request for transfer, which is refused.
With Respect,
Administration of the Twentieth Home for Veterans of …
Her voice trails off.
‘What?! You’ve read it wrong.’ I stare at her. It’s one of her stupid jokes. I take the note of confirmation from her. We confirm receipt of your request for transfer, which is refused.
‘It can’t have been refused,’ says Olessya. ‘On what possible grounds? No one’s been refused. Not one person. Why would they?’
‘Why would he, you mean,’ says Sanya putting her hands on her hips. ‘It’s Barkov, isn’t it? He hates your guts.’
‘We know he does. He always h-has,’ I say, ‘so why k-keep us h-here?’
‘To make your life a misery. He’d love that,’ says Sanya. ‘It would give him a little kick every day to know you’re both festering in here with the crazies. I know that man. He’d rather wish for his neighbour’s cow to die than have his own cow brought back to life. It’s peasant mentality.’ She pushes back her headscarf complacently. Masha’s still staring at the little yellow note. ‘What can we do?’ she says eventually in a small voice, and looks up at Olessya. ‘Olessinka, what can we do?’
‘Ask Aunty Nadya to talk to Barkov?’
‘You could try. But I don’t think that would help,’ says Sanya firmly. ‘He’d just love to see her humiliating herself, begging to let you go. He’d make her squirm for a century. And besides, she’s got this strange respect for him, hasn’t she? She never disagrees with him about anything, just sort of bows and scrapes like a serf before the master. I’ve seen her. He has that effect on people.’
We sit there then, not saying anything. I feel icy cold.
‘What about writing to the Ministry of Protection?’ says Masha slowly. ‘We’ve got to do something. He can’t be allowed to do it. The commission passed us. Olessya? Can we write to the Ministry?’
‘I’m not sure … they’re all in cahoots now, aren’t they, these bureaucrats. And the deeper you two are buried away, the better – they don’t want you out and about, dancing round flowerbeds, I can tell you. But you can try …’
‘I will, I will! We can’t stay here, we can’t!’ shouts Masha. ‘I won’t! What about all this Openness?’
‘Yes, yes, what about that organization you t-talk about, Olessya – the D-Defence of Invalids Group?’ I look at her pleadingly. It was set up a few years ago by Healthies who’d had an accident and ended up crippled and were shovelled aside like compost at the bottom of the Socialist garden, as Olessya puts it. ‘You said they have this campaign against the incarceration of invalids. Can’t they help us?’
Olessya shakes her head again. ‘They can’t even get themselves out, Dasha. They organized a breakout from the Homes and marched down to the Town Hall in protest a few years ago, remember? And what happened to them? They’re all in Stupino. Even a Madhouse is better than that …’
‘Chort! You’re powerless, girls,’ says Sanya. She sits down on the bed next to us and looks at us as if we’re already dead and buried.
‘Anokhin?’ asks Olessya.
‘He died years ago,’ we say together.
Anokhin. He came to visit us, unannounced, here in the Twentieth, not long after Slava died. We weren’t expecting him, we were just sitting on our bed with our box of pipettes when we heard the tacks on the floor clicking and we looked up and saw him standing there, all shrivelled and crumpled in a suit. He didn’t stay for long. He sat down on our creaky chair and looked at us. We didn’t say anything. What were we supposed to say? So after a while he said, ‘I thought I’d come, girls, to see how you are … We had good times, didn’t we? You and I?’ Masha just glared at him, but I nodded, because I thought we ought to be polite. ‘Yes, yes, good times,’ he went on, shaking his head. Then he looked around our room for a bit, like there was a nasty smell somewhere, and got up. He put a hundred-rouble note (we’d never seen one before) on the bedside table. ‘Just for old times’ sake, girls. Buy yourself some chocolate,’ he said. And then he left.
Two months later Aunty Nadya came in with a copy of Pravda, dated 8 March 1974. There was this big photo of Anokhin above a headline: Pyotr Kuzmich Anokhin – Soviet medicine has suffered a great, irreparable loss. And then it went on for pages
and pages about how he had won the Lenin Prize and was a Hero of the Soviet Union or something, and had studied under the great Doctor Pavlov and how wonderful and revered and wise he was. Masha tore it into strips, and we used it for toilet paper. No one needs heroes like that, she’d said.
‘He can’t help us from the grave,’ says Masha now.
‘He wouldn’t have h-helped us anyway,’ I add.
‘Then there’s only one thing more I can think of,’ says Olessya. We all turn and look at her.
We look for our mother
I tried to get Masha to look for our mother a few years after Slava died, once I’d stopped trying to kill myself and resigned myself to living instead. But Masha just kept saying she’d abandoned us, and if she didn’t need us, we didn’t need her. Masha’s proud like that. Or stubborn. So that was that. But now we do need her. We need her desperately.
‘OK, will you two stop pacing up and down like tigers,’ says Sanya. ‘You’re going to give me a heart attack just looking at you.’
We’re down in reception on a Sunday when no one from the Administration is around. There’s only Van Vanich, who’s outside sucking on a papirosa. Sanya’s going to call her up. Our mother. She’s going to call our actual mother up on the phone in reception.
‘It’s her doing the yobinny pacing, not me,’ says Masha angrily. ‘I’m the one who’s gonna get the heart attack.’ It’s true, I can’t stand still, my heart’s leaping around like a cat in a bag. Masha doesn’t get nervous like me, and she’s cross when I do, because she says it gives her palpitations. But I can’t help it.
Sanya was right, Aunty Nadya refused to go with us to Barkov to ask him to change his mind. She said it was probably for the best that we stayed here after it was re-profiled. For the best? In what world could it possibly be for the best? Neither of us could understand it at all. Sanya says Aunty Nadya often goes in for meetings with Barkov when she comes to visit. We never knew that. There was this one time when we were down in reception waiting for her and as she was coming in, he was walking out through reception, like a Tsar sweeping past the peasants. He’d stopped and talked to her though, by the door, and it was odd the way she stood there and smiled and nodded, wringing her hands. It’s the salt on a slug effect he has. She’s always done everything in her power to help us, and now she’s telling us he’s right. But as Olessya always says, ‘Obstacles are stepping stones to success.’ If Aunty Nadya hadn’t refused to help us, we wouldn’t be calling up our mother now. Masha would never have done it.
The Less You Know the Sounder You Sleep Page 28