Juliet Butler - The Less You Know the Sounder You Sleep

‘Stop dreaming, for fuck’s sake!’ Masha pulls at my arm. ‘I said, let’s get down. How can I get down without you?’

‘Oh… sorry, sorry, Mash. I was thinking.’

‘You’re always thinking. Stop thinking and start moving, otherwise we’ll be up here all night, and Uncle Tima will have our arses for dog food.’

‘Mwaah! It’s like being in Africa today…’ Masha wipes her face, which is all wet with sweat.

‘It’s only May, you wait ’til it’s July! Then you’ll be dripping into a puddle,’ says Slava. He rubs the palms of his hands over the cobbles in the courtyard. He has nice hands. I don’t know why, they just are. Brown with white, flat nails.

‘Bit stupid that you’re not coming,’ Masha says to him. ‘To Summer Camp.’

He shrugs.

He’s not coming. I thought he would be, so I’ve spent ages and ages thinking about what we’d do when we were all alone, us kids, in the woods, in Summer Camp, with the wood fires and the river and swimming and boating and everything. All the kids say that the Educators who are sent to look after us there are drunk most of the time, so you can do what you want. The kids get together and Do It a lot because you’re not watched like you are in school. That’s what they said anyway. We’ve never been before because we get sent off to a Sanatorium in Crimea every summer. We hate it there. It’s for Defectives and it’s by the sea but none of us are allowed down to the beach, of course, and there’s nothing to do there except stupid exercises in the high-walled courtyard. It’s more like a prison camp than a Sanatorium and all the staff there want to do is take photos of themselves sitting with us, one by one, to show their families. So we just stay in our room all the time and play cards or stare out of our window at everyone swimming in the sea. Masha calls it the Crematorium. I don’t even like to think about it. I don’t know why we get sent there instead of Summer Camp, but this year it’s different. Slava always goes to Summer Camp, but this year, the one year we’re being allowed to go, he’s not.

I don’t want to be sitting here at all, waiting for Slava’s mum to come and get him. We’d all of us been looking forward to Summer Camp like mad, every single day for months, and then Slava said, two days ago, on Tuesday, that his mum and dad wanted him home for summer, so he was going home instead. I don’t care. I really don’t. If he’s stupid enough to want to stay at home with his mum and dad, instead of with us, then I’m not going to be stupid enough to care. That’s what Masha says, and she’s right. She’s always right.

Anyway, Masha’s so excited about going she’s ready to burst. She wanted Slava to come because he’s a laugh. But she’s got Vanya and Petya and Little Lyuda and all the others. And I’ve got Olessya. She’s coming to camp too. So that’s all right. It’ll be healthy.

‘Here’s my mum then,’ says Slava as his mother walks through the gates. They’ve boarded the gates up now, so people can’t see through. His mum waves, but Slava doesn’t look that happy. She runs up and hugs and hugs Slava, and tries not to cry. I look away. Masha spits.

‘So, girls,’ she says, looking at us, after all that hugging and trying not to cry, and starts wiping her tears away with her sleeve. ‘I’ve brought you some marmalade sweets.’ I don’t want her stupid, sticky marmalade sweets at all, but I thank her, and she gives them to Masha, telling her to save them. She won’t though. I think marmalade sweets would make me sick. I feel sick just looking at them. ‘Are you looking forward to Summer Camp then, girls?’ Masha’s already eating them and can’t talk as her mouth is all gummy and gooey. It’s going to be ninety-eight days until we get back. I counted.

‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Yes. I can’t w-wait.’

‘Bye then,’ says Slava. It’s so hot, I can’t even move.

‘Bye, Peanut,’ says Masha, with her mouth all full of marmalade. ‘See ya.’

I don’t even want to look at him. He could have come to Summer Camp if he’d really wanted. He always went before. He could have said to his mum that he’d rather go to Summer Camp with us lot than go back to his stupid village.

‘Bye then, Chimp,’ he says, because that’s what he calls her, but he doesn’t move. He might even change his mind, right now, and get on the bus with us instead. I would. I wait. I’m looking down at the cobbles. ‘Bye, Dasha. Have a nice time.’ I just nod and pretend I’m trying to dig one out. One of the cobbles, that is. With my fingernails. I have this great ball in my chest, the one that’s always there somewhere, waiting for the right moment to push up into my throat and make me cry, and if I look up at him, it’ll do it, and I’ll just start crying all over the place. And I won’t do that.

I don’t look at him at all as he goes.

We get up then. I’d really like to go and find Olessya and talk to her, but Masha doesn’t like me talking to someone else about feelings. I don’t need to talk to Masha about them. She mostly knows how I feel anyway. Without me saying.

We go off to the place behind the laundry room in the shade, and sit down.

‘If he doesn’t want us, we don’t want him,’ says Masha, and tucks my hair back behind my ear.

I nod, but I can’t talk because the ball has just popped up, and I can’t do anything about it, I start crying like an idiot. Like I’m never, ever going to stop. And Masha just keeps on tucking my hair back behind my ear.

‘Look, look!’ Masha’s bouncing up and down on the front seat of the bus, on the road to Summer Camp. ‘Watermelons! A whole mountain of watermelons! Stop, stop, I want one!’ The bus driver’s used to her telling him to stop every five minutes, and ignores her. Olessya’s sitting behind us with her boyfriend Big Boris and she laughs. I do too. Little Lyuda’s on our lap and she keeps nearly falling off every time Masha bounces, so I’m holding her tight.

This is the first time we’ve been outside the school since we got here, and everyone’s so happy, it feels like the whole bus is bouncing. I don’t feel that happy, myself, because every kilometre post we pass is leaving Slava further behind, and each one makes me ache more, right down in my stomach.

The little kids in the back are singing the Pioneer Song, ‘ Let there always be Sunshine, Let there always be Blue Skies, Let there always be Mummy, Let there always be Me! ’ It’s a stupid song, but they keep on singing it over and over again. It’s driving me mad. Why is every single song for kids about their stupid mummies?

‘Look! Look! It’s the Don! I was first to see the River Don!’ says Masha, jumping up and leaning over the driver’s shoulder, tipping Little Lyuda on to the floor. He bats her away. You can’t help being a bit happy though, when Masha is. And the Don looks so beautiful – it’s so big and blue, like the sea in the Crimea. We can see it through clearings in the trees now.

‘The camp! There’s our camp!’ she shouts. Everyone crowds to the windows and looks out. There’s this big, white, stone archway that leads along a pink, paved pathway, down to a round flowerbed, just bursting with all sorts of flowers, and in the middle there’s a white statue of a Young Pioneer blowing a bugle. I can make out rows of neat little red-brick blocks in the woods, with red pennants flying on top of them.

‘Not yours, love,’ says the driver, swinging the bus past the archway and going on down the road. ‘That’s for the Healthy kids.’