Juliet Butler: The Less You Know the Sounder You Sleep

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.

‘Yes, yes. She’ll be painlessly put to sleep, ah… killed, that is… after one week of umm… flying…’ she coughs, ‘round and round in space.’ There are no hands up now because it’s a bit sad to think of her being killed up there, all on her own. ‘But she doesn’t know that now, does she? So she’ll be looking out at earth all beautiful and blue, and thinking what a lucky Laika she is.’ Galina Petrovna smiles a big smile at us and we all smile a big smile back.

The best day ever in the week is Saturday. It’s bath day in the bannya down in the basement of SNIP. We get a whole tub for just us and one other kid. We’re at the front of the line. We’re always at the front. We’ve been here a million times longer than anyone else, so Masha’s the boss of everyone, even if they’re older than eleven, which is what we are.

‘ Yolki palki! Stop shivering,’ says Masha. ‘You make me shiver too.’

‘It’s cold…’

I hug myself to see if I can stop, but it doesn’t help. I keep hugging myself anyway.

Tomorrow’s Sunday, which is Visiting Day, so we all need to be soapy clean for parents. We don’t have any parents, of course, but Aunty Nadya says we need to be soapy clean all the same, in case the other kids’ parents see us. But they wouldn’t ever do that, because we have to stay stuck away in our room all day on Visiting Day so we don’t traumatize the Healthies.

The door to the bannya ’s open and we can see the rows and rows of free-standing tubs, all being filled up with steaming hot water from jugs. I’m so excited I almost forget to shiver.

‘Hey, I’m first in, see?’ It’s a girl, loads taller than us. Her head is shaved so she’s from a State Children’s Home, not a family home, and she thinks she can get right to the front where Masha is, because she’s new and doesn’t know Masha.

‘Get lost,’ says Masha.

‘Get lost yourself, midget.’

‘This is my place. Get to the back of the line, shit-face. Don’t want you making my bath stinky.’

‘Who are you calling shit-face?’

I shrink back, away from them. No one messes with my Masha. Last week we were walking down the stairs from Ward C and there was this gang of boys at the bottom, waiting to beat us up, and Masha got her skewer out, the one she’d stolen from the kitchens when I was talking to the cooks on purpose so they wouldn’t notice. She keeps it stuck down our nappy. It’s almost longer than anyone’s chest and she pushed the point into the skin of the neck of the first boy and said ‘Just try it, fucker’ and then walked on right through all of them without looking back or anything. I swear I’d die without Masha.

But she’s got no skewer now. We’re all naked so it’s only her.

‘How long you been here?’ she says to the girl.

‘Week.’

‘Well, I’ve been here five years and this is my hospital and my spot and everyone knows it, don’t they? So get the fuck to the back of the line.’

‘Yeah, you, get lost.’ All three of us turn. It’s Pasha who’s in line behind us. He keeps coming back to have more prosthetic legs that fit as he grows. I haven’t seen him for ages and ages though. He’s got a deep voice now but it’s still him. I can tell easily. I didn’t even know he was back.

‘She’ll come and skewer you to your bed if you don’t,’ he says and laughs. It comes out all deep again but it’s still his Pasha laugh. The girl looks back at Masha and shrugs, but stays where she is.

I didn’t know Pasha was right behind us. Right there, behind us, only half a metre away, but I didn’t know. I hug myself again and wish we’d get called in right now. There are loads and loads of us here, all standing naked, waiting forever, and Pasha is older than us. I wish he wasn’t right there behind us.

‘Yeah? Try it and you’ll get stuck first,’ says the new girl.

‘That’s a laugh. Whatcha gonna stick me with? Babushka’s knitting needle?’

‘OK, children. Come along, come along!’ It’s Aunty Mila the bath attendant calling us in.

‘ Oooraaa! ’ Masha and me go running in, slipping and sliding on the wet tiles and jump with a swish and a plop into the very first tub. The girl runs in with us and jumps into ours too, squealing like anything.

‘Splash!’ laughs Masha and kicks her foot to splash the girl. ‘What’s your name? Besides Shit-Face?’

‘Lucia,’ she goes. ‘What’s yours? Besides Midget?’

‘Mashdash. I’m Masha and she’s Dasha, but we just get called Mashdash.’

‘All right then, Mashdash. I can hold my breath underwater longer than you. Ready?’ She holds her nose and so does Masha, but I don’t. I like floating, not getting all wet in my mouth and eyes and stuff. It makes me scared that I’ll never come up and get air again. Lucia goes down and blows loads of bubbles but Masha doesn’t, she just waits ’til Lucia starts coming up, then she ducks her head in and comes right back up again.

‘I won!’ she shouts. I laugh because Lucia doesn’t know she cheated. Masha’s funny.

Aunty Mila comes to scrub us with a brush and soap and Masha goes miaow like a cat and tells her not to bother with me, as she wants double time. But Aunty Mila does me too and then she does Lucia and pulls Masha’s ear before she goes to the next bath to scrub them. I’m floating in the water like a fish in the sea or green seaweed, and I’m melting away until I’m nothing at all except water too. It’s like being all single in the water, like it’s just me floating away. I’ll be sucked down the plughole and swooshed right out to sea and then get washed up on a warm shore. And there’ll only be Pasha there but that won’t matter because there’ll be coconuts to live off and we’ll learn to climb the coconut trees and swim…

Ding Ding! The bell goes to say our ten minutes is up, clanging like the fire alarm, and we have to get out, quick as anything, and run for our sheets to get dried with, while the next three jump into the bath.