‘D-did you ask about S-Slava?’
‘Yes, yes, I did. She said they all liked Slava very much. She said he was extraordinary.’ She stops then and gets some papers out of her rucksack and starts shuffling through them. She looks a bit nervous. ‘So anyway, I’ve got her interview here, but it’s still in English so I’ll type it up in Russian and then you can read all of it, but I’ll just give you the gist.’ She’s talking quickly, hardly pausing for breath. ‘She told me where Anyootka was, so I chatted to her too, only on the phone though – she’s moved to Rostov.’
Anyootka. Pretty Anyootka. I can still feel the rip of jealousy. Was she there on his last birthday? Did he spend his last day on earth with Anyootka?
‘What’s she doing these days?’ asks Masha.
‘Well, she’s married to a Healthy and has two children. Here, here’s the interview, but it’s in English, so I’ll read this little bit to you.
It was like having two completely different people living in one body, but Masha was totally in charge. I know that was hard for Slava … He said half the time he just wanted to tear them both apart with his bare hands so he could get at Dasha.
Tear us apart? He didn’t tell me that. But how could he, with Masha there? He could only tell Anyootka.
He told me he wanted to give her a ring before she left the school. It was his babushka’s ring, but he didn’t get the chance.
Joolka looks at me then with her head on one side, but I don’t say anything. What’s there to say? Masha’s about to make a joke about putting a ring through my nose, but she doesn’t.
‘Anyootka said she was like a sister he never had. He said he could talk to her, like he couldn’t talk to his mother and his friends. He told her that he gave you a promise and that he’d keep it. He didn’t tell her what it was, though. Secrets are just for two people.’
Masha snorts. She still doesn’t know our secret. But he didn’t keep his promise, did he? And he didn’t give me the ring. I remember him waiting in the courtyard as we were leaving the school, telling me to be strong, holding something in his fist. The ring. I could have had his ring to keep with his letters. But no, I couldn’t, Masha would probably have thrown it away.
‘Anyway …’ says Joolka, looking back through her notes. ‘Anyootka was lucky to be able to live a normal life. I asked Vera Stepanovna if she and the other teachers were aware that their pupils were pretty much doomed to a living death in homes for the elderly when they left …’
I want to hear about Slava. I don’t want to think about Little Lyuda and Sunny Nina. Masha’s fiddling with her button.
‘… and she said she supposed they did, but they just didn’t talk about it. She never visited the Novocherkassk Home and advised Valentina Alexandrovna against it. She told me that after that visit, Valentina Alexandrovna lost all her passion to teach. Here …’ she starts reading from the interview with her. We wanted to protect them, to give them a childhood with hopes and dreams. But their fate didn’t depend on us. It depended on the grade of disability they received from the Medical Commission. So we hoped for the best. We did our best for them. We still do.
‘And S-Slava?’ I ask.
‘Well, yes, we talked about Slava too. I don’t know if you know, I think you don’t, that Slava was dying.’
Dying? What does she mean – dying? What of? We both stare at her, baffled.
‘He had a lot of … of difficult conditions. Vera Stepanovna listed them all; something like severe kyphosis and scoliosis of the spine, and polio as well, but basically, whatever he had was terminal. No one expected him to live as long as he did. It was like he was … holding on …’ She coughs and shuffles the papers again and doesn’t look at me. ‘Yes, he was in a lot of pain all the time. His parents had a good doctor for him, a family friend, but his body was sort of impacting in on itself. Crushing him really.’
The stupid rain keeps crashing in on the windows so loudly that I can hardly hear her. I clasp my hand on Masha’s knee to try and pull myself closer to Joolka.
‘Vera Stepanovna knew, but she never talked about it with his parents, or him. But she thinks they must have known too. I went to their village; it’s a bit run-down, but still very pretty with rows of painted log cabins, but they don’t live there any more. One old babushka remembered them, but she said they moved after Slava died. She didn’t know where. I looked in the yellow pages but there were no Dionegos. Anyway, Vera Stepanovna said his parents kept him in the school because he loved it so much.’ There’s a lightning flash and the rain pounds down even louder, I can’t hear her ‘… friends and … summer camp … and then after you left he didn’t really want to go to school any more … they thought it would be good for him though … medical care in Novocherkassk …’ The thunderclap comes, rolling right over us, and we all look across at the window and don’t say anything.
Then I ask: ‘Did he know? That he was dying?’
Joolka bites her bottom lip and looks back at the papers. But the answer’s not there.
‘Well, the thing is, Dashinka, I just don’t know. Kids weren’t told anything about their illnesses or prognosis. You should know that, if anyone should. Good God, even parents weren’t told. And the teachers only guessed because of their experience with disabled kids. But I think maybe … he did know … deep down, don’t you?’ I don’t say anything, neither does Masha, but we’re both thinking he must have known. ‘He would have been suffering a lot, I imagine,’ Joolka adds, and looks at me sadly. ‘And there would have been a lot of pressure on his heart and lungs.’
‘Tea?’ asks Masha.
‘OK,’ says Joolka.
We get up and put the kettle on and then strain the tea leaves through the silver spoon strainer, and I think, looking at it, that I can see every tiny hole in the strainer really, really sharply, just like I saw the ladybird on the leaf before I tried to hang myself.
‘Sugar?’ says Masha.
‘Sugar,’ agrees Joolka.
We sit back on the bed with our glasses of tea.
‘So, I’ll come back first thing tomorrow and give you copies of the interviews. We’ve got this deadline to write up your book, so we’d better get a move on.’
I read a medical report on Masha
It’s four in the morning and my mind’s buzzing like a nest of wasps. I’ve taken his letters out from under the pillow and I’m holding them on my chest. If he did kill himself, was it because he didn’t want me to see him die slowly? Or perhaps the pain was just too much? Or he might have died of heart failure after the party? If he did commit suicide, wouldn’t he have written me a note … but he would have known that Masha would read it first. Masha … A suicide note could never have been for my eyes only …
I want to stop thinking and turn over, but I can’t. I can never turn over.
Why, why, why did we have to be born Together?
I look up at the black ceiling, and try really hard to stop thinking. I want a glass of water, but I can’t get up because Masha’s asleep. I could get up, but she’d be angry. And I can’t make her angry. Stand up for yourself. That’s what he said. I want a drink so badly. Vodka. I’m all jittery, I can’t stop twitching. If I’d stood up for myself, then I could have stayed at the school for another year. And then gone to the village. I could have spent those last few years with him. I might even have had my Lyuba and Marat with him. How do I know we were sterilized? I don’t. And I could have done all those things if I wasn’t Together.
Masha stirs in her sleep and I feel like hitting her. No. I couldn’t stand up to her, I just couldn’t. I still can’t. I can’t even bring myself to wake her up to get a glass of water. Asking me to change and be strong is like asking me to look at rail tracks set in cement and tear them up by willpower alone. It’s not possible. We were born like this, we’ve lived forty-five years like this. How does Olessya think I can get Masha to compromise, as though it’s as easy as flicking a light switch? Besides, what’s the point?
St
op! Stop thinking!
I thump the bed and she stirs again. What’s the point of regrets? Tears pour salt on a wound. Masha was strong, Masha got us to the school in the first place. She got us into the Twentieth, and she got us here.
Stop thinking!
I squeeze my eyes closed and take a deep breath. I need to disappear into my world of fantasy in the village, the log cabin, the stove … yes, get up, put wood on the stove … Slava going out to the meadow. But wait, that’s why he couldn’t come and stay with us at the Twentieth, wasn’t it? Because his body was slowly crushing him to death. He needed his family doctor and pain control and medical care … more than he needed me? I would just have been his carer.
Sleep, oh please, let me sleep … Gospodi, I need a drink. Vodka is the only thing that makes everything go away. Vodka is that delightful, black, ink-out paint that stops everything hurting. Vodka gives me black, dreamless sleep. Like death … like beautiful suicide.
‘Up we get then, rise and shine. Greet the new day!’
I must have fallen asleep eventually.
Masha’s pulling me off the bed. ‘Put the kettle on, come on, get a move on. Mashinka wants her sweet glass of tea, and what Mashinka wants, Mashinka gets.’
I asked her, after Joolka had gone, if we could call Anyootka. We were sitting on the sofa, tying the laces on our boots before going down to the entrance hall to talk to Baba Iskra in the cloakroom. ‘Just to chat about old times,’ I’d said. ‘It would be nice. She might even know where Slava’s parents are.’ Masha stood, and picked up our bunch of keys. ‘I don’t need your precious Anyootka and her tearing-them-in-two talk.’ We walked through the corridor to the door. ‘She never liked me anyway. And I bet all that sister stuff was rubbish. She fancied him, anyone could see that. She wanted to take him away from you, and now you want to get back in touch. Foo!’ She opened the door and we walked out. ‘Please, Masha, just one call.’ She closed the door with a bang and I knew what that meant: Nyet.
We’ve put a Modern Talking tape on and Masha’s boogeying to the music while I’m getting our breakfast out of the fridge when Joolka comes in, looking nervous again. She kisses us both on the tops of our heads, like she does.
‘I swear, I’m never going to be able to listen to Modern Talking without thinking of you two,’ she says with a smile as we all walk over to our bed. She sits next to Masha instead of on the floor. That’s odd.
Masha’s pleased though. ‘See? You can’t get enough of me, can you, Maht? You want Mashinka’s kisses.’
‘Bites, more like – I’ve hardly got any ear left after yesterday.’
They laugh.
‘So, here are the printouts in Russian of Vera Stepanovna and Anyootka’s interviews. One for you, Masha, and one for Dasha.’ She bites her lip and won’t look at us. ‘Here, read it and tell me what you think as you go through it. I’d like your reaction.’
Joolka gets up and puts the papers next to me on the bed, then sits back down with Masha. I pick them up and start reading. But I don’t understand. It’s not the interviews at all. It says in small type at the top: Psychological Assessment by Doctor Johann Weber, Cologne. He’s the psychiatrist we met in Germany. I look up at Joolka questioningly, but she shakes her head quickly at me. Masha’s got her nose in her own papers.
I look back down at the assessment.
Having studied Maria and Daria Krivoshlyapova, a pair of ischiopagus tripus twins, my diagnosis is that Maria (‘Masha’) displays all the character traits typical of primary psychopathy – a stunted paralimbic system present from birth, which also entails disorders in …
I put it down. I shouldn’t be reading this. It’s disloyal, it’s deceitful; we have no secrets, me and Masha. But yes, yes we do. Slava’s secret. I pick it back up again. Masha would kill us both if she knew I was reading this.
Primary psychopathy is a deeply ingrained constellation of personality traits and behaviours, the symptoms of which reflect an emotional processing disorder, with a strong genetic foundation. This might seem extraordinary, given that these twins are genetically identical, but I believe that, somehow, ‘genetic memory’ is at work here. From conversations with the twins it appears that their father may well have had psychopathic tendencies and their mother may have been clinically depressed.
‘Haha! See?’ exclaims Masha. I jump, but she’s pointing at her printout. ‘Seems Vera Stepanovna did like me after all. See?’
Joolka laughs too. ‘Of course she did, Masha. Who wouldn’t like you?’
‘Look,’ she goes on, cackling, ‘look – she says I was a bit of a monkey, but that I was one of the most popular kids in school. She says I made everyone laugh. You can put that in the book.’
‘Yes, and see what it says here …’ says Joolka, and they lean in over the papers with their heads together. I’m still reading mine. My heart’s beating fast. I hope Masha doesn’t notice. Psychopath? Masha? A medically certified psychopath? I remember Lydia Mikhailovna calling her that when we were hiding under the desk in SNIP. And Slava called her a psychopath once, but it was just a throwaway word and he only meant she was a bit … controlling. And cruel. Didn’t he?
The vast symptoms of the condition of primary psychopathy exhibited by Masha include the following traits: superficial charm and wit; lack of empathy; callousness; manipulation; pathological lying; arrogance; blame shifting; total control of a partner; persistent devaluation of a partner; aggression/violence; impulsivity; parasitic lifestyle; lack of anxiety but angers easily …
It’s all Masha. Every single one.
She’s laughing at something Vera Stepanovna said about how we balanced each other out perfectly. How Masha was tough and I was soft. How Masha always had a big smile on her face and how I was more thoughtful. How Masha supported me through difficult times …
‘See?’ says Masha, looking across at me. ‘Have you got to that bit?’ I nod and smile, then look back down quickly, leaning slightly away from her.
From my brief interaction with the twins it became clear that Masha displayed every symptom of primary psychopathy. And Dasha, with her suicidal tendencies and persistently bleak outlook on life, displayed symptoms of clinical depression. She was less vocal and therefore less accessible for superficial diagnosis. Depression can be treated by medication, psychopathy cannot.
Psychopaths are unfamiliar with and unempathetic towards the emotions associated with depression. Hence we have a situation where two sisters have inherited the personalities of two warring parents – the father being psychopathic and the mother clinically depressed – yet these two are condemned to share the same body. A psychological tragedy.
A tragedy? Why has Joolka given me this? If Masha is a psychopath, if she really is, it’s untreatable. What am I supposed to do? How am I supposed to feel? I want to give it back to her. To cry, but I don’t. I keep reading.
People who are trusting, empathetic, sensitive and forgiving tend to fare worse in these connections and are often profoundly traumatized by the experience. It is very important that those in a relationship with a psychopath know what they are dealing with. Psychopaths are unable to experience love, which they consider to be a weakness that creates vulnerability.
I need help – not to feel helpless. How will it make me feel better, knowing that she’s, she’s, what? A monster? She’s not. She’s strong, she loves me. Has she ever told me she loves me though? No. Never. She … she doesn’t need to. Do I love her? Of course I do, despite everything, I do.
It is advisable for the victim to leave the psychopath. However, in the case of conjoined twins this is impossible. One of the best approaches for compromise and restoring a balance in the relationship is limited re-parenting, where the therapist – in this case Dasha – takes on the role of a mother figure.
Compromise. Re-parenting. One of the best approaches is to take on the role of a mother figure. The one we never had. Is that possible? Is it? Can I? Do I want to? Aren’t we happy as we are? Am I happy never
being able to make a decision? Being controlled like a puppet on a string?
I fold up the sheet of paper and put it on the bed beside me with my head in a whirl. The interviews, the ones Masha has, were underneath it. Joolka gets up quickly, takes the assessment and pops it in her rucksack.
Then she puts her hand on my shoulder and gives me a little nod.
Age 48
Summer 1998
We go to a Modern Talking concert in the Kremlin Palace
I can do this, I can do this. One foot in front of the other, mine then Masha’s, as we walk over the long, wide pedestrianized bridge to the Kremlin. Olessya’s on one side in her wheelchair and Aunty Nadya’s on the other, holding our tickets. Mind over matter. Face your fears. I have my eyes on the ground. It’s not far now. When Masha heard that Modern Talking were giving a concert in Moscow, she was mad keen to go. I sometimes think the only thing Masha and I have in common is loving Modern Talking. Their music makes us both feel happy at the same time. We sing along to all the English lyrics even though we only know what the words mean because Joolka translated them for us, otherwise it’s all just abracadabra. I didn’t want to go at first, because who wants to take the world’s freakiest body out into the public eye?
I think I could have stopped Masha if I’d really wanted to. It’s working, this mothering thing. It’s slow, like a constant drip, hollowing out a stone, but it’s working. It would be easier if we didn’t drink. Every time we do, I’m not me any more, I lose myself and when I wake up all battered by her, it seems we’re right back to where we started.
But in the end, I decided to do it. I decided to come out to this concert.
The Less You Know the Sounder You Sleep Page 36