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‘That’s right, good, good, let’s get you all dressed up,’ says Mummy in the same high voice, like she’s not her, but someone else. I’m not as excited as Masha, because she really does sound like she’s someone else. ‘Look at the frills on the front, and the buttons. How many buttons, Dashinka?’ She holds out the blouse, so I take it.
It’s all soft, not like our nappy or our night sheet, which scrapes my skin.
‘Can I have a yellow blouse, not a white one?’ asks Masha, still bobbing around as she tries to get it on, but can’t, because she needs one arm to keep sitting up.
‘Of course not. Goodness, what a spoilt little princess you are.’ She turns away then, and has her back to us.
‘I’ll help then, Masha,’ I say. But I don’t know how to tie buttons up, so I pull through the bars to catch Mummy’s coat and get her to help. She turns round, but her nose is all red and her eyes are shining. It’s almost like she’s crying, like some of the nannies do when they see us for the first ever time. Sometimes they cry and cry and cross themselves and don’t stop forever. And Masha and me just watch them and don’t talk, but we sit there thinking it’s funny how some grown-ups cry even more than we do. Then she puts my blouse on too, and ties the buttons up. She tells us to lie flat and puts our legs in all the sleeves of the trousers, and ties them up at the front with two big buttons.
‘Well, well, yolki palki, you’ll look as pretty as two bridesmaids in this when you go to your new home. Yes, as pretty as two little—’
‘New home?’ I stare at her. ‘What new home?’
Masha stops playing with the frills and stares at her too. Then we both push ourselves away into the corner of our cot.
‘Don’t be silly. Nothing to be afraid of. Now then, are we all ready? The porter’s waiting to take you away.’
‘Porter?’
‘Away?’
‘Nyet!!’
‘We want to stay here!’
‘This is our home!’
‘You’re here.’
‘I’ll be good, Mummy!’
‘We won’t ask any more questions.’
‘Don’t let us go!’
‘When?’
‘Are you coming with us?’
‘MUMMEEEE!’
Masha and me are talking all over each other, but Mummy has her eyes closed and is shaking her head from side to side, and holding tight on to the top of our cot as if it’s going to roll away.
‘Stop this at once!’ She opens her eyes all of a snap, lets go of the cot and goes out of the Box to open the door to our room. ‘You may take them away now,’ she says. ‘They’re ready.’
A porter walks in, but not Doctor Alexeyeva’s one. He’s different. He smells different and has no mask but has a moustache like Father Stalin. But it’s not Father Stalin. This man doesn’t have kind, smiley eyes. He looks at us for a bit, then goes all yukky like he’s going to be sick. I feel like I’m going to be sick too.
‘Go away!’ shouts Masha as he bends to pick us up, and she starts hitting him with her fists.
‘Stop that at once, young lady, and do as you’re told!’ shouts Mummy. ‘Just do as you’re told! Do as you’re …’ she chokes, like she’s swallowed a fish bone, so Masha stops hitting him.
He smells like old mops as he lifts us out of the cot, but we have to hold him tight round the neck to stay on. We’re both scared as anything and crying.
Mummy kisses us both on the tops of our heads, like she does always, every night after she’s sung to us, and then she opens the door to the Box. Klyak. He pushes out through it sideways.
‘Nyyyyyyet!’ I’m holding his neck with one hand and leaning to Mummy with the other, I’m screaming for her to take me back. Masha’s doing the same.
The porter staggers a bit. ‘Hold still, you little fuckers, or I’ll drop you on your heads, and then you’ll be going nowhere!’
Then Mummy opens the door to our room as well, to let us out for the first time ever. She’s swallowing and coughing and her face is all blurry and wet. ‘I’ll visit you, girls. I’ll come and visit. I promise.’
‘Mummeeeee!’ I scream. ‘Mummeeee!’
She’s holding on to the door handle now, tight as tight, not saying anything. As he takes us away from her, I look at her over his shoulder, getting smaller as she stands in the door to our room, not moving to run and take us back. Until I can’t see her at all because of all the tears in my eyes.
Then I hear her voice. ‘You’ve got each other!’ she calls as we go through another door. ‘Always remember – you’ve got each other …’
SCIENTIFIC NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF PROSTHETICS (SNIP), MOSCOW (#u0246ad18-8fbb-5131-a946-452b57ee433a)
1956–64
‘Stalin often chose the path of repression and physical annihilation, not only against actual enemies, but also against individuals who had not committed any crimes against the Party and the Soviet Government.’
Nikita Khrushchev – General Secretary of the Communist Party 1955–64, in his Secret Speech denouncing Stalin; 25 February 1956
Age 6
February 1956
Being brought to our new hospital and told we can walk
I’m still holding on to the porter, taking us away from Mummy, and I can feel Masha’s fingers round the back of his neck, holding on too, but I can’t see her. He takes us down a long thin room that goes on and on, to some gates, which pull open with a crashing, banging, into a small box room with a woman sitting in it who says, ‘What floor?’ The gates crash again, and I’m just thinking we’re taken to be drowned because the scientists are all finished with us, like Nastya said, but then the little room shakes and my tummy whooshes up and out of my head.
We land with a crunch and come out of the room into a big space with green walls. The porter carrying us keeps banging through more and more doors until we’re on the real Outside. I look up and try to breathe, but my mouth gets filled with icy air that rushes down inside me like a freezy tube, and I feel like my cheeks are being slapped.
‘Quick, get this thing into the car,’ gruffs the porter, talking to a nurse. ‘Dressed in frills as it is.’
The door of a black car opens and he pushes us into it, pulling my fingers off his neck. The nurse gets in too, but we’re all tumbled as it’s not flat like a cot so our other leg is all in the way.
‘Gospodi! It’s like trying to get ten cats in a bag,’ hisses the nurse, and she pushes us on to our tummies so we have our faces in the seat. I think of kittens being drowned, and want to cry, but can’t find the air to breathe.
The car makes a roar and starts shaking. I turn my head a bit and can see a man dressed in black holding a round bar in the front seat. He has a little white tube in his mouth, which makes smoke and smells prickly and hard.
‘God, what a stink,’ he says and sucks so hard his cheeks pop in.
‘What do you expect?’ says the nurse. ‘They can’t hold it in. And they’re shit scared.’ She says nooka to us then, like the nice nannies do, and starts picking us up and plonking us the right way round.
‘You’ll suffocate, you two will,’ she says, ‘before we get you there – and then I’ll be for it.’
Get us where though? A bucket? A hole? I wish Masha would ask, but I can feel her tummy turning right over and bumping into mine turning over too. I’m yelling inside, yelling for help. I can hear me, loud as anything, but it’s not coming out. Help, Masha! Don’t let them drown us! But she won’t even look at me, she just takes my hand and holds it tight as tight can be, while all the buildings rush past through the windows, like they’re running away as fast as they can, turning the world in a spin.
‘Here it is, thank God. I need some fresh air,’ says the man, and stops and makes the window go down so that another man in a hat can stick his head in and look at us.
‘You got the urod?’
‘Yeah. I wouldn’t look at it, mate, it’ll give you nightmares for weeks,’ says the man in the front. I sit right up then and I can see eyes with no head, staring at me out of a shiny bit of glass in the front. I shut my eyes tight, because it’s a monster, and hold Masha’s hand even tighter.
‘OK, take it round the back. They don’t want anyone to see it.’
‘Not fucking surprised.’
The car goes off and we go through hundreds of blobs of snow. I can see a building with a long red strip on the top telling people what to do, but there’s no picture of our Father Stalin here.
We stop. The door opens, and a porter pulls us out into the cold and carries us up a curly, dark staircase, round and round, then through doors and into a big room with shiny green walls and long windows, as tall as the wall. There’s a cot with no bars, pushed against the wall and there’s no Box. It’s got a dry white sheet on it, not a sticky one, but he puts us down on it anyway and leaves, booming the door closed. My heart’s banging like it’s jumped into my head and so’s Masha’s. We try and breathe and listen. Really hard.
Boom. The door opens and two nannies come in with a trolley. No masks.
‘Well, well,’ says one, ‘you’ll need a bit of cleaning up.’
I see then that Masha’s been sick on her blouse, and it’s over her mouth, too, and hair. The nanny goes to wipe Masha’s face with a cloth but Masha hits her.
‘Fuck off!’ yells Masha. She’s scared we’re going to be drowned. The nannies gasp. ‘Fuck off, urodi!’ Masha yells again. She’s so scared, I can feel her trembling coming all through to me.
‘Yolki palki! These two are like rabid dogs! Nooka … we’re here to feed you and care for you. Look, look, see? Here’s some nice soup for you both.’ She takes two bowls with spoons off the trolley and gives it to us and I can smell it’s yummy cabbage soup, but I’m holding my breath because they don’t have masks and I’ll get their germs. Masha always, always, eats so she takes the bowl and pours the soup in her mouth. Then she takes mine and pours that in her mouth too. Then she sicks it all up over the bed. The two nannies don’t shout, they just make lots of tuts, and clean up, then go out.
We don’t say anything for a bit.
‘Where’s Mummy, Masha?’ I say after we’ve been sitting, looking at the door for hours and hours.
‘Don’t know.’
‘Is this our new home?’ I ask.
‘Don’t know.’
‘There’s no glass Box here. I want a glass Box to be in.’
We look over at another door, like the one in our own room, which goes into the Laboratory. It’s white too. I go cold and look at the window instead, and the snowflakes.
‘Big window,’ I say.
We both think that’s maybe good, but I want Mummy here anyway. I want her here so much that the wanting is bursting inside me, pushing everything else out and making me cry again.
BANG! The door opens and a woman comes in with a white coat and cap, like all the staff at the Pediatriya. She’s not wearing a mask though, and she has big red floppy lips like sponges. She walks up near to us. Not too close to hurt us, but I still hold my breath against the germs.
‘I’m Nadezhda Fyodorovna. You can call me Aunty Nadya, if you like.’ She crosses her arms and puts her head on one side. ‘Tak tak, you needn’t look so frightened. We’re going to look after you now. You’re here to learn to walk.’
I swallow lots of air in surprise. Walk! Like the children on the Outside? Will they wait ’til we get single first? Or maybe they’ll make us single? I want to ask her everything, but my voice is all buried inside still and won’t work. I nod.
BANG! The door opens again and another woman in a white coat and white cap comes in, and walks right up to us. She sticks her head in Masha’s face and then mine. I put my hands over my eyes because she’s got thick eyebrows like Nastya, and grey skin, and looks cross. I start hiccupping so I put one hand over my mouth and keep the other over my eyes.
‘Tak,’ says this other woman in a big voice. ‘What do we have here, hmm?’ She takes my hands off my eyes and my mouth, and looks at me. I try to say I’m Dasha, but my voice is still all swallowed up, so I just nod. She looks at Masha then, but Masha’s got her fingers in her mouth and is all frowny.
‘You do understand plain Russian, don’t you?’ says the grey woman, and I nod again, to be polite. ‘You certainly speak plain Russian, so I’ve heard. Very plain. Hmm.’
She touches the other woman’s arm. ‘Come along with me, Nadya, into the nurses’ room. Let them settle in for a bit, while we wait for Boris Markovich.’
They walk across our big room and open the other door, but it’s not bright white with lots of lights like inside the Laboratory. It’s a small dark place with a desk and two chairs. My heart stops being all tight at that. We’re still up in the corner of our cot with no bars, as we’re afraid we might fall right off the edge. I like bars better. I can see Aunty Nadya through the crack in the half-closed door. I can see her put her head in her hands and start shaking and crying all over the place.
‘She’s crying, Masha,’ I whisper. But Masha just sniffs.
‘Stop this at once, Nadya!’ says the other woman in a crunchy, bad voice. ‘One would think you’d never seen Defective children before. Pull yourself together!’
People think we can’t hear. I don’t know why. Maybe other children can’t hear so well as us? But if we couldn’t hear really, really well, we wouldn’t know anything at all, because we don’t get told anything. I can see Masha’s listening to them too.
‘Ai, ai, ai! It’s the state of them, Lydia Mikhailovna. It’s not that they’re together, it’s not that at all, it’s the state of them. They’re like two frightened wild animals – that’s what they are. What did they do to them in there?’
I make a humming noise. I don’t know why she thinks we’re like wild animals when we’ve never been on the Outside before. I’ve seen wild dogs on the street from the Window; they’re thin and mean.
‘I’m told by Comrade Anokhin that his scientists merely observed their behaviour, Nadya. I have no reason to disbelieve a member of the Academy of Medical Sciences, and neither should you.’
‘But just look at them,’ she’s sobbing and sniffing now, ‘they flinch as soon as you look at them, they can’t feed themselves, and if they do speak, it’s in the worst common language of the cleaners.’ I squish up my nose. That’s not fair. I don’t swear like Masha does. Mummy told us not to. It’s Masha that swears. I try and stop listening and think of Mummy instead, coming to take us back home. But all I can see of Mummy in my head is her holding on to our cot hard as if she’s going to be blown over, and that makes me want to cry again. Masha feels my crying bubbling up, and pinches me hard so she can keep hearing them.
‘Oh, do stop snivelling, Nadya. You’re a physiotherapist whose job is to treat them, not a simple peasant woman to sit and weep over them. You’ll be praying next! Your task is to rehabilitate them.’
‘But, Lydia Mikhailovna, how am I to do that? Did you see their legs? Completely withered. And their arms, too – the muscles are non-existent. It’s a terrible thing, just skin and bone … ai, ai ai, how am I to work on that, Lydia Mikhailovna? How am I ever to get those little stick legs …’
‘None of that talk. You will get them to walk. You are the best physiotherapist in this hospital. And this is the best Prosthetics Hospital in the USSR. And that means the best in the world. As for Comrade Anokhin, his job was to observe them, in whatever way he desired. As a student of Dr Pavlov, he is pushing back the boundaries of Soviet scientific achievements and that is why his observations will continue while they are in our care. At least for as long as they survive.’
Survive? I look at Masha, just at the same moment she looks at me. Her eyes are open wide. Survive means not being dead. Yet.
She pinches me again to stop me crying, but then the door goes Boom again and a thin old man comes into the room. His face is nearly all nose and big glasses. He’s smiling and his teeth are yellow as old garlic cloves.
When they hear the door, Aunty Nadya and the other woman come quickly out of their room. He nods at them and walks over to us.
‘Nooka! Well now! What’s all this then? So they had enough of you two bedbugs in the Paediatric Institute, did they?’
He lifts his eyebrows and pushes his glasses up his nose with a finger so his eyes grow big and they gawp at us through them. After a bit I stop thinking of crying, and look at his gawpy eyes instead, like great big popping fish eyes.
‘That’s better,’ he says. ‘Right, so we’re going to get you two on your feet, are we?’
Aunty Nadya shakes her head. ‘It’ll take an eternity, Boris Markovich, to get those bony little legs to support them – completely atrophied, they are. I’ve seen a lot of children in my time, but this, this … Aaakh nyet, an eternity …’
‘We don’t have an eternity, Nadya, as you know. We have Plans. Five-Year Plans, new Targets, new Thoughts. So there’ll be no going back for them, thank God, only forwards. And I’ll wager, if anyone can get those two trotting along these corridors of ours, it’s you. We both know that …’
Aunty Nadya sucks her spongy lips in. The gawpy-eyed man leans towards us. ‘I’m the Director of this …’ he waves round the room ‘… um, hospital. SNIP. That’s easy, isn’t it? It stands for the Scientific National Institute of Prosthetics – Snip for short. This is your home now.’
‘Snip!’ says Masha. ‘Snip!’
