The Less You Know the Sounder You Sleep

by Juliet Butler

  We can hear the black and white crows of Moscow cawing outside in the first snow squalls of winter. Cologne had birds that chirped in the branches of the cherry trees, tiny little songbirds. All we have in Moscow is crows. Slava said they had sparrows in his village, and cuckoos.

  ‘So … anyway, Olessinka, how’s Garrick doing?’ asks Masha, trying to change the subject. ‘We haven’t seen him around much recently. Is your cockerel up and running?’

  ‘Garrick died,’ she says flatly, and opens the newspaper again. ‘Didn’t you hear? Seems he had lymphoma but they told him it was flu. Until he died. Now it turns out it was lymphoma.’

  Meeting the narcologist

  ‘Fuck. Poor Olessya. I need a fag,’ says Masha when we get back to our room.

  ‘You put them in the tea caddy. Here. Have one quickly and then spray that antiperspirant around.’

  She digs out the hidden packet, covered in tea leaves, shakes it, and we go out on to the balcony, looking down at the early snow powdering the grounds.

  ‘Why was she sounding off about this Mother Russia stuff then? What was all that about?’

  ‘She’s angry. Angry that Garrick’s gone and that they lied to him. Mensha znaesh.’

  Masha leans on the balcony while she sucks on her cigarette. She throws the butt over the edge and sighs. ‘Krepcha speesh.’

  We’ve just gone back inside and Masha’s spraying the antiperspirant over her clothes and then mine when there’s a knock on the door and Doctor Lazareva, the narcologist, comes in. She holds her hand out with a big smile.

  ‘So, it’s great to meet you at last. I mean, it’s been hard to get to you, to be honest. Like trying to get through to the Kremlin! My name’s Ksyenia, but you can call me Kisska. That’s what my friends call me.’

  She has short blonde hair and a sweet smile. She doesn’t seem too put out by the way we look and we both like her immediately. We all sit down and chat for a bit about the Sixth and her Narcology Centre in Moscow. She says she’ll give us after-care, which is vital apparently, and we’re all nodding and happy until she digs down into her nice leather bag and brings out a bottle of vodka.

  ‘Yes, so this might seem a bit odd, but I’ve brought vodka.’

  ‘Vodka?’ I frown.

  Masha starts bouncing up and down. ‘That’s the sort of narcologist I like!’

  ‘Well,’ she says, ‘in our practice we like to see how you react to it, you know, and then we can work on your particular case. So let’s all have a bit, shall we?’ She puts the bottle down on the table. It’s a whole litre.

  ‘I don’t th-th-ink …’ I say, ‘I don’t th-th-ink that sounds like a g-good idea …’

  ‘You have to trust me, Dasha,’ she says, leaning forward. ‘You really do have to trust me, if I’m to help you.’

  She’s brought glasses too. Tumblers. I look at the thick, sickly fluid when she hands it to me with an encouraging nod.

  ‘I feel nauseous, Kisska, at the very thought,’ I say to her. ‘I hate vodka.’

  ‘Yes, yes, interesting. And you, Masha?’

  ‘Well, what can I do, Kissinka? She’s been drinking since she was fourteen … what can I do?’

  ‘Drink up then, Dasha.’ She pulls a tape recorder out of her bag. ‘I’ll need to record what you say. Meanwhile, Masha, why don’t you tell me a bit more about your life? Do you have the same thoughts? Do you have identical dreams at night? What’s it like to be together? Psychology is all-important when curing alcoholism.’

  I look at the glass, then look away. I’m not going to drink it. I look at it again. But I want to drink it. It’s calling to me. No I won’t, I don’t want to drink it. If I start drinking I can’t stop. She’s still holding the tumbler out to me with her nice, encouraging smile. She’s a doctor. Trust her. Trust Authority. No. No! But I need to drink it. I have to drink it.

  I drink it.

  Zlata Igorovna brings us today’s news – all about us

  We’re standing with the fridge door open, wondering what to have for a snack when the door bursts open and Zlata hurls herself at us, waving a newspaper.

  ‘Have you seen this? Have you?’ She pushes it into Masha’s face.

  ‘Sluts, Drunkards, Losers – Degraded Duo! – that’s just the title of the article. Two full pages. It was that little bitch Lazareva, she was a journalist masquerading as a doctor, writing for that trashy rag Moskovskii Novostii. Pozor! You’ve brought shame on us with your stupid drunken gossip!’

  We shrink back into the open fridge, knocking over a bowl of borscht which empties on to the floor in a spreading deep-red puddle at our feet. We don’t move.

  ‘You’re disgusting, the two of you, that’s what you are, disgusting! How dare you slander the Sixth! How dare you! That woman was a slimy tabloid hack and you couldn’t see it? You took her vodka and then you vomit up this … this … filth?’ She shakes the newspaper in our faces again. ‘You will pay for this. Oh by God, you will pay for this!’ Her eyes are flashing as she towers over us, almost trembling with rage, spitting out the words in our faces as we cringe away from her, bewildered by her rage. Then she throws the newspaper on to the floor at our feet and stalks out, slamming the door behind her.

  We stand there panting for a bit, our hearts racing, not understanding what’s going on, then I turn, quietly close the fridge door and lean down to pick the newspaper out of the spilt borscht. It’s sodden and red but still legible.

  We walk over to the sofa and open it. The front page has a photo of us lying on the floor, dead drunk, Masha’s laughing and I’m almost unconscious. I don’t remember anything of the interview after I started drinking.

  The Rise and Fall of Our Famous Conjoined Twins, Masha and Dasha!

  Despised by Everyone!

  Dasha orgasms with men paid for sex while Masha weeps into her pillow!

  What? What did Masha say to her? What on earth did she say?

  I read on.

  Dasha was too drunk to talk. In a recorded interview, it was poor Masha who, with tears in her eyes, told me of her terrible life. They fear journalists will betray their trust, but Masha opened up with her most treasured secrets to your MN reporter. Their mother fled from them at birth and spent the next two years in a Madhouse, while their tortured father begged the doctors to care for his little girls. He had no choice but to leave them – for he was the personal chauffeur of Stalin’s henchman Lavrenti Beria.

  Neither of us speak. I wipe some beetroot off the next paragraph.

  The weak, degenerate Dasha began drinking at the age of fourteen in their school in Novocherkassk where they were bullied constantly by the cruel, taunting pupils and isolated by uncaring teachers. There was nothing Masha could do to stop Dasha – she could only try and support her disgraced, unpopular sister who thought of nothing but sex and where to get the next drink.

  I blink, not quite believing my eyes.

  One boy, Slava, tried to sleep with her for a bet. The other boys brought in townspeople to look at them for the price of a bottle of vodka.

  ‘What the fuck?!’ exclaims Masha, making me jump. ‘She lied to us! That two-faced bitch lied to us!’

  I stare at her with my mouth open. ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘And you fucking lied to her, didn’t you?’ Masha looks at me, startled, and I see an odd flicker of fear. How could I swear at her? I never swear at her. But I feel hard with horror. Everyone will be reading this. The children and teachers from the school, Valentina Alexandrovna, everyone in SNIP who knew us. Everyone.

  I look back at the article.

  Strong, serious Masha did everything in her power to save her sister, but now she realizes it is far too late to save either of them. Dasha has an endless supply of sexual partners and she orgasms in an ecstasy of quick lust, while Masha buries her head in shame in the pillow.

  My hands are trembling.

  ‘It disgusts me,’ says Masha. ‘I’ve never been attracted to men. I should have been born a boy.’ Yet with one vagina she i
s subjected to sex with hobos who Dasha pays for, from the profits of their autobiography. Men who Masha despises and who pass on the clap. Yet incredibly, she doesn’t despise her depraved sister. Blood is thicker than water. And theirs, after all, is shared …

  I grab the newspaper then and crumple it up into a tight ball, refusing to read any more. The soup trickles through my fingers as I squeeze it, staining my hand red. I feel a hard rock of resentment rising up inside me, of anger and strangely – of a new-found power. I keep the balled-up newspaper in my hand, lift my fist up into the air and look slowly across at Masha. Her head is down and she won’t look back at me.

  ‘She lied …’ she says weakly, in a small voice, still with her head down. ‘I thought she was a doctor …’

  ‘Of course I am an absolute, pure democrat. But you know the problem? It’s not even a problem, it’s a real tragedy. The thing is that I am the only one, there just aren’t any others in the world … After the death of Mahatma Gandhi there’s nobody to talk to.’

  Vladimir Putin, President of Russia, 1999— (in response to a Spiegel journalist who asked if he considered himself a democrat)

  Age 50

  6 January 2000

  Our fiftieth birthday

  Everything that happens in life is a stepping stone to success. That’s what Olessya keeps telling us. After that article, everything changed. Everything. I was never, ever going to drink again. Just like when I was six and decided I was never, ever going to fight back. And I was going to take control of my Masha. That article is online now, word for word. If anyone wants to research Masha and Dasha Krivoshlyapova, they get taken to that link. If they look for an image of Masha and Dasha Krivoshlyapova, they get taken to the photo on the front page. And whenever I want, desperately, to drink, I go to that link too: a link that will be there for ten years, twenty years, a hundred years.

  It’s ironic really. Kisska Lazareva, star journalist for Moskovskii Novostii, did for us what no real narcologist had succeeded in doing. She stopped us drinking and she made me strong enough to stand up to Masha.

  I wasn’t too angry with Kisska. She was only doing her job. You’ve got to admire her in a way for her persistence and for fooling Zlata. And it was all recorded, word for word, on her tape recorder. She didn’t make anything up. I’m at fault too. If I hadn’t been drunk, I wouldn’t have let Masha say all that. Slandering everyone we’ve ever known. Slandering me. But I mind that Masha lied to Lazareva about our mother abandoning us and going mad. I mind that she lied about the teachers. And I mind that she lied about Slava. His mother may still be alive. But then, in Masha’s mind, it wasn’t lying. It’s what Johann called her ‘biological neuro-disorder’. So I forgave her too in the end. But I never forgave myself. I never drank again. And I never let her force me to drink again. I finally found the strength I needed to break our addiction.

  ‘Fifty years old! Fifty! We’re in the Guinness Book of Records, look, look, here we are!’ Masha’s laughing and dancing about holding the glossy silver book that Joolka has given us for our birthday. ‘Have you got all the food? Did you make your English salads?’ Masha’s still jumping up and down like a seven-year-old and I laugh. We’ve only got Aunty Nadya, Olessya and Joolka coming to our celebration. But that’s enough. Those three are our trusted friends. Joolka got us medication, which really helps with the White Fever. She got us pills too, which make you so sick if you do go back to alcohol that you never want to do it again. It was hard. It is hard. But now we’re sober.

  ‘So what do you think of your new President?’ Joolka says, pulling a bottle of children’s non-alcoholic champagne from her bag. ‘That was a turn up for the books, wasn’t it?’

  Masha grabs a shrimp and pops it into her mouth without peeling it. ‘Putin? He looks like Tintin,’ she says and spits the shell into her hand. ‘What we need is a Stalin, not a Tintin-Putin. He won’t last long.’ She grabs the Guinness Book of Records again. ‘Oldest living conjoined twins. Older than those Americans, Ronnie and Donnie, our betrothed. Haha! Aunty Nadya! Aunty Nadya!’ Masha jumps up as Aunty Nadya walks in with two heavy bags bulging with food.

  ‘Calm down, calm down, you’ll knock me over. Well, where’s the table? Let’s get these pies and salads all laid out. Get away from me, Masha. Get away this minute!’

  The door pushes open and Olessya comes in, holding a bunch of big ox-eye daisies.

  ‘Where did you get those, Olessinka?’ asks Masha, laughing. ‘Been rummaging in the hedgerows?’

  ‘Molchee! These cost me my pension, these did!’

  ‘Do stop bobbing about like a rubber ball, Masha, and put those flowers in a vase,’ says Aunty Nadya crossly. ‘Come along, davai, davai!’

  Masha obediently grabs the flowers and sticks one in her hair. Masha likes being told what to do. All the women she respected and liked were strong: Mummy, Lydia Mikhailovna, Aunty Nadya and even Baba Iskra, who brooks no argument at all. And she despised those who were weak, like Mother and me. So now I’m becoming strong too. It’s easier than I thought, because when I really stand up to her, her chortik flickers out. Just like the stammer monster.

  Ten minutes later, the five of us are seated around the table with a feast of caviar, sliced sturgeon, and stolichni salad. Our Modern Talking tape is thumping out the beat of ‘You Can Win If You Want!’ on our cassette player and Joolka’s bought a cake with five blue candles on it. One for each decade.

  ‘Shall I light them twice, for each of you to blow out separately?’ she asks.

  ‘No,’ we say together. ‘We’ll blow them out at the same time.’

  ‘You’ll have to make a wish each, though,’ she says.

  ‘I know what I want,’ I say. ‘But it won’t come true if I say it aloud.’

  I want to turn the tide. I don’t want to suffer from Masha’s whims any more. I want to be in control. I want us both to realize that she’s not always right. She’s tough, but I’m wise. We can work together to be happy together. Happier than we’ve ever been. I deserve a life too.

  ‘I’ve got a million wishes – I don’t know where to start,’ laughs Masha.

  ‘We haven’t got time for all of those! Give us one. A toast to your wish.’ Joolka raises her glass.

  ‘To the next fifty years!’ says Masha, raising hers. I roll my eyes and we all laugh again.

  When we’ve finally finished and everyone’s leaving, Joolka turns at the door.

  ‘Ooh, I almost forgot, I’ve got something here. I keep meaning to give it to you, but I haven’t seen you in ages.’

  It’s been two months since she last came because she’s getting ready to move back to England. The day she told us she was leaving Russia, she came with all three of the children. Anya went straight to our dressing table, took my lipstick out of the drawer and started painting her face. Sasha, who’s twelve now, asked if we had any cheese balls (which she loves as much as Masha does) and sat with a can of them in front of the computer playing games with Masha. Both of them were popping them into their mouths one by one and shrieking at the video. Two children. And Bobik, who’s six, crawled into my lap and said he didn’t want to go to England because they didn’t have the Noddy cartoons in Russian there. I don’t know who Noddy is, but it made me sad. Because I didn’t want him to go to England either. I didn’t want any of them to leave. It was like they were family and they were leaving me.

  That’s OK, though. I’m used to loss. Life goes on.

  ‘It’s just that things are getting so dangerous here,’ Joolka had said, folding her legs up on the armchair and taking Bobik back. ‘I sent Sasha out a month ago, after she got back from school, for some sweets from the local bootka kiosk up the road, and while she was out this big black jeep pulled up into our courtyard and gunned down two of our neighbours who were walking across our courtyard. By the time Sasha came back with her gummy bears it had been cordoned off by the militia and she couldn’t get into the flat. She was just, you know, wandering up and down the street in th
e dark, not knowing what to do, until I went out and found her. And there are all these car bombings and the shootings in restaurants … it’s, it’s like you never know in Moscow, nowadays, when you’re going to get caught up in the crossfire. So with these three’ – she gestured round at the children – ‘we need to go.’

  I didn’t say anything. Neither did Masha. We just kissed all the children on the tops of their heads.

  She’s standing at the door now, rummaging in her bag.

  ‘Yes,’ she goes on, ‘sorry I haven’t been able to visit for so long, but here we are, I’ve got something. You know the Sunday Times Magazine want me to do another feature on you – a where-are-they-now type thing? Well I was going through my old documents folder, and I found this envelope that Anna Yefimovna, the doctor from the Paediatric Institute, had given to me. I didn’t take much notice at the time, it’s only a photo of people in white coats, but then I looked on the back and it says that it’s a photo of your two researchers, you know, the scientists who carried out all the experiments. Not a very cheery birthday present, I know, but I thought you’d like to have it since I’m leaving soon.’ She puts the photo down on the table. ‘Here we are, T. T. Alexeyeva and A. P. Kryuchkova. ‘I’ve got some other stuff you might like too …’ She goes back to rifling through her bag.