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‘Can Marusya have her legs massaged too?’
‘Yes, Dasha, you can do her, and I’ll do you. Now then, we must work extra hard because I have some very exciting news.’ Her eyes pop at us like she’s trying to keep them in, but the exciting news is pushing them both out of her head.
‘What? What?!’ We shout together.
‘We are going to be visited in a month’s time by a Very Important Guest. He wants to see what progress you’ve made since you left his care in the Paediatric Institute, so you must make me proud of you. It’s the great Doctor Anokhin himself! Pyotr Kuzmich Anokhin!’ Her eyes are all bright and sparkly.
We don’t know who he is and where his care was, but she’s so happy about him coming that we’re all happy too. I want to make her proud of us lots. Perhaps she’ll love us then. And take us home with her. That’s if Mummy doesn’t come for us first.
Age 7
September 1957
The great Doctor Anokhin comes to see us with his lesser doctors
‘They’re here! The cavalcade has arrived. They’re here!’ Aunty Nadya is standing by the window. She’s been standing by the window for hours. ‘Now then, just do as you’re told and try your very hardest.’
‘How Very Important is he again?’ asks Masha, bouncing up and down.
‘Well, he’s the successor to the Great Doctor Pavlov …’
‘So more important than a Professor and a Hospital Director, like Boris Markovich …’ I say.
‘Or even a Tsar …’ laughs Masha, still bouncing.
‘Well, I don’t know about a Tsar, I’m sure,’ Aunty Nadya laughs back. ‘But he’s not quite as important as our First Secretary. Nearly, though! He’s very famous. And he’s bringing people to film you for a documentary for the Soviet Academy of Medical Sciences. That’s why we’ve got flowers and this nice rug in your room, and pink ribbons in your hair.’
I pat my own pink ribbon on top of my head, which must be the same as Masha’s, and feel it all puffy like a butterfly. They don’t shave our heads any more so we have two little plaits each. Aunty Nadya said Anna Petrovna (Mummy, that is) worked with Doctor Anokhin and that she might come to see us too. That’s what I’m more excited about than anything in the world: seeing Mummy again. Because I miss her all the time, every minute and second. And most of all at night. Even after all these months.
Marusya got stolen from me. One of the nannies here said it was the night nurse who took her from my folded arms when I was sleeping because there’s a shortage of East German dollies like her, and they can’t be bought for love nor money, the nanny said. I cried for days and days, because I hadn’t even said goodbye or told her she’d been taken away and that I’d never, ever have given her away. Not ever. And now I don’t know where she is, and she’s probably crying too and thinking I don’t love her. And all I want in the world is for her to know I didn’t give her away, but that she was stolen from me.
But I won’t think of that now.
Boom! My heart jumps like a frog, but it’s only Lydia Mikhailovna opening the door, looking cross as she whooshes into the room.
‘Take those ridiculous ribbons out of their hair, Nadya. We’re expecting scientists, not school boys!’
‘I thought … for the filming …’
‘Take them out.’ Masha grabs on to her bow and holds tight, but Aunty Nadya pulls them out anyway, tugging so hard it hurts. ‘Right!’ says Lydia Mikhailovna. ‘They’re here. Everything in the entire hospital is scrubbed and clean. The children are all quiet in their wards. Boris Markovich is outside meeting them. They’ll be here in a moment.’ She pulls down at her lab coat and goes all straight and starched. ‘You have the corsets and the pole ready, Nadya?’
‘Of course.’
Everything’s ready! Everyone’s been going crazy all morning, running outside our room, up and down, and bringing stuff in like posters of Young Pioneers blowing trumpets, and lots of flowers and more red rugs and other pretty things. But now it’s quiet as a stone everywhere.
We wait. Then we can hear voices and steps in the corridor. Lydia Mikhailovna’s still standing up all straight, like she’s blowing a trumpet too, and Aunty Nadya keeps tucking her hair back under her cap, and I can hardly breathe for waiting for them to get closer and closer and then Boom!
The door opens.
A man in a suit comes in and says: Nooka? It must be Him. He’s in front and he holds out his arms to us like he’s known us forever.
‘My little girls!’ He’s smaller than all the other people crowding into the room behind him and has a smiley, crinkly face that looks kind and not Very Important at all. He’s got no moustache or golden uniform or faraway eyes like Father Stalin. His eyes are like apple pips and his suit is all floppy. ‘My little girls!’ he says again. His girls? Why are we his girls?
‘Well now, Comrade Doctor, and here they are indeed.’ It’s Boris Markovich. I didn’t even see him. ‘Your little charges. I believe you’ll see an improvement. I shall leave you in the capable hands of Doctor Voroboiskaya.’ He waves at Lydia Mikhailovna, who’s standing by our bed, and then pushes out through everyone, and leaves.
‘Yes, yes. So here we are again, my little berries. How time flies,’ says the Great Doctor.
I don’t remember him a bit. Neither does Masha. I keep trying to look through all the people crowded in our room to find Mummy. ‘And here are your old friends Doctors Alexeyeva and Golubeva.’ He turns to two women behind him and my heart goes all shrunken like a nut because I do remember them. They’re two of the ones we always shut off for in the Laboratory. Doctor Alexeyeva nods at us and we back up on to the corner of the bed and squeeze into the wall. Lydia Mikhailovna tuts with her tongue crossly. Masha puts her fingers in her mouth and sucks so hard that Lydia Mikhailovna tuts again, even louder.
‘Now don’t you worry!’ says the Great Doctor, laughing as if we’ve done a joke. ‘Doctor Alexeyeva won’t be working on you today. Haha.’ Then he comes and sits on our bed where I’m nearest and brings two green, shiny things out of his pocket in crackly paper. ‘Here we are. Two sweeties. Chocolate sweeties. Had any chocolate before?’ We both shake our heads. ‘Haha! Thought not.’ He gives them to us and Masha unwraps hers and pops it in her mouth, then reaches round and takes mine to unwrap and pops it in her mouth too.
‘Haha!’ He laughs again, and everyone smiles a bit with him but I don’t think it’s funny. I wanted to taste chocolate too. ‘Nothing changes with these two, I see!’
I’m looking and looking at all the faces and men putting up big lights on poles with round, black cameras with glass in them, but I can’t see Mummy anywhere in the room at all.
‘And what have you lost, Dashinka?’ he says, looking behind him.
I want to ask if she’s come, and I try and say it, but it doesn’t come out of my mouth loud. It doesn’t really come out at all.
‘What’s that?’ He leans into me with his ear and I can smell something sweet, like he’s had lots of chocolates already.
‘Has Mummy come?’ I say again and this time he hears and looks round at the doctors with a frown.
‘Mummy?’ he asks.
‘Ah, yes, that must be the … late Anna Petrovna,’ says Doctor Alexeyeva in a quiet voice and shakes her head all sadly. I nod and nod like mad. That’s her! And if she’s just late we can wait a bit.
‘Hmm. Anna Petrovna, eh?’ He looks back at me. ‘No. She couldn’t come today, I’m afraid. Not today. But she’ll be sure to visit before long, eh? In a twinkle. We’ll see to that.’
‘Tomorrow?’
‘Yes, yes, Dasha. Tomorrow. Definitely tomorrow. Right, let’s see what you two little berries can do then, shall we? Cameras at the ready? Yes? Off you go!’
Aunty Nadya nods at us and we start undoing our pyjama tops, every button by ourselves, having a race, and all smiling because of Mummy coming tomorrow and because we want to show off too. When we’re all naked we lie back on the bed and Aunty Nadya slides the metal pole under us, flat on the bed, so we can hold on to it with our four hands, pulling higher and higher up the pole to squeeze us closer and closer. That’s because we have to be close as anything in order to walk. Like scissors cutting. Masha’s laughing, all excited at showing off, which makes me laugh too. I bet I get closest to the pole, because I always try the hardest to be good.
‘And now show your coordination, girls.’ It’s Lydia Mikhailovna. Coordination means lifting our two legs together for ten times and then lifting them one at a time for ten times. I could do hundreds of times, but we can’t count that far. We’ll be able to count when we walk though, because then we’ll go to the SNIP schoolroom and get taught writing and reading and counting, like real children. I bet Mummy will be surprised as surprised when she sees us really walking. I can’t wait to see her face.
Then Aunty Nadya dresses us in the two corsets and ties the laces tight as anything between the two of us until we’re nearly pulled right together. She stops when Masha squeals. It hurts.
‘Wonderful, wonderful.’ He claps his hands. ‘Now then, we’ve brought your old friend the electroencephalogram to see what’s happening in here.’ He taps our heads with his two fingers. Doctor Golubeva steps towards us with two metal helmets and all the wires like sizzling, biting snakes coming out of them, plugged into a trolley. We both can’t stop from shouting out then and reaching for Aunty Nadya to make her stop it, because of remembering them in the Laboratory. I don’t want to even think of them. Aunty Nadya looks all goggle-eyed at us but doesn’t move, and Lydia Mikhailovna stamps her foot and goes, ‘Tssss!’
Anokhin gets up then, and holds us down so she can put the helmets on. His eyes are still all kind and twinkly, but his fingers are digging into my shoulder.
‘Now, now, girls. There’s no need for this, is there? Done it all before many a time. Same old routine. Sit still. That’s good.’
Doctor Alexeyeva comes over too, to watch us while they stick the helmets on, and I remember her dead fish eyes and sharp smell and get some sick in my mouth, which I swallow, and I’m trembling with being scared as anything of her. More of her than Doctor Golubeva even, who’s pushing buttons now. The helmet starts buzzing like stinging wasps and squeezing my head like it’s going to be cracked open like an egg. I try to look at Aunty Nadya to get her to help us, but I can’t see because of my shaking eyes and we both can’t stop from yelling with the hurting. But Aunty Nadya doesn’t stop them.
When it’s over, I feel like my head is all buzzed to bits and has come off my neck, and I’m crying and so’s Masha, even though Lydia Mikhailovna is stamping at us not to, as she wants to be proud of us, and I want that too, but I just can’t stop crying and shaking. I hate myself.
Aunty Nadya has her hands all tied in knots in front of her, twisting them.
‘Pyotr Kuzmich,’ she says, ‘I’m sorry, but was that necessary?’ There’s a Big Sucked-in Silence in the room except for me and Masha sniffling.
‘Now don’t you worry about them, Nadya, it doesn’t really hurt … simply squeezes a little. All necessary in the name of Soviet Science, I’m sure you’ll agree?’
There’s another Big Silence as they wait for her to agree.
‘It’s just …’ she starts.
I look up at her because she’s still talking but she’s all blurred with my tears.
‘It’s just that we were told you simply observed the girls … in the Paediatric Institute.’
‘Yes, yes.’ He’s rubbing his hands like he’s washing them. Like they’re sticky. I’m glad I didn’t eat his nasty chocolate sweetie now. ‘Active Observation is what we choose to call it. Active Observation of the brainwaves in this case. Anything else?’ He looks round. ‘Thought not. Well, good work, comrades. In six months’ time they’ll be trotting around like ponies – an achievement to show the whole world.’ He gives a little salute. ‘Until the next time then.’
After they all go out Aunty Nadya stays to dress us in our nappies and pyjamas and says we did really well not to leak, which just shows we can, if we try.
She then holds my face in her two hands and kisses my nose and does the same to Masha before she leaves because her shift is ending. She closes the door behind her.
‘Didn’t like him,’ says Masha, after a bit.
‘Didn’t like him too. I’m glad Mummy sent us away from there with him, to here,’ I say. ‘She’s coming tomorrow, Mummy is. To see us.’
‘Mmm …’
‘Masha. Why’s he going to show us to the whole world?’ I ask after another bit. ‘What’s the whole world?’
‘Don’t know,’ she says. ‘No one tells me anything.’
She puts her head on her pillow, her end of the bed, and I put my head on my pillow, my end of the bed, and wish I had Marusya.
I’d hold her so tight I could hear her heart and I’d kiss her all over. Not just the tip of her nose.
3 November 1957
We walk to the schoolroom and learn about Laika the space dog
‘What’s the date today? Dasha?’ Galina Petrovna, our teacher, points her stick at me. I have my hand up.
‘It’s November the third, 1957!’
She asks us this every morning and I always know what the exact right date is. Masha doesn’t. She keeps forgetting. I know the months and the four seasons and what’s a vegetable and what’s a fruit. The only fruit I’ve seen in real life are apples and oranges. We’ve had an orange twice. But there are lots of other ones too.
‘Yes, yes, Dashinka,’ she says. ‘And what’s the day, Masha?’ Masha screws up her eyes and I put my hand up high as high again because I know it’s Tuesday. She keeps looking at Masha though, who just puts her pencil up her nose while she’s thinking and makes the others laugh.
We sit right at the front of the classroom, which is really the canteen and smells of cabbage and fish. I know almost more than any of the other children, because the most they ever stay in SNIP is three months, but we’ve been here for more than seven times three months now, so that’s seven times longer than anyone else.
‘Well, it was Monday yesterday, so today is …’
‘Tuesday!’ grins Masha.
‘Exactly. And I want you to remember this day forever and rejoice because this is the day of a Great Soviet Achievement.’ Masha yawns. There are lots of Great Soviet Achievements going on all the time. Like dams and bridges being built and quotas being fulfilled and Five-Year Plans being met. I think me and Masha were a sort of achievement too, when we first walked, but I don’t think anyone rejoiced except Aunty Nadya. She fell in a pile on the floor as if getting our legs to work had stopped hers from working. I keep thinking how much I wanted Mummy to see us walking. She’d be so amazed she’d fall off her chair! But she never did come the day after Anokhin visited. We waited all day with our hearts beating so fast I thought mine would burst in two. But she didn’t come at all.
I won’t think about that. We had to use crutches to start off with and then we learnt to walk by just putting our arms round each other and balancing like that. And then once we’d started we couldn’t stop, we could go everywhere all by ourselves. We went running in and out of all the wards and bumping down the stairs to see Lydia Mikhailovna in her office and into the schoolroom-canteen, and even down to the kitchens.
Galina Petrovna looks round now, with her eyebrows up to make sure we’re all listening. She looks like a bird with a beak for a nose and big ringed glasses and smooth black hair. She’s my favourite (apart from Aunty Nadya) of all the grown-ups we know – that’s the doctors and nurses and nannies and cleaners. She’s so happy at this Achievement, whatever it is, that she’s almost dancing in one place. I’d like to see the People rejoicing in the streets about it, but we’re still a Big Secret so we don’t go Outside. If I can never, ever, ever go Outside I want to do schoolwork hard, as well as I can all the time, so I can be a doctor, and work in here when I grow up. Masha wants to work in the kitchens so she can eat oranges all day.
‘Yes, Pasha?’ I look back at him with his silly hand high up. He’s ten and we’re seven so it’s not fair when he knows stuff and I don’t.
‘Our scientists have launched a dog into space, Galina Petrovna.’
‘Exactly! We are the only country in the world advanced enough to do this. And what country are we in, children?’
‘The 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.
