Juliet Butler - The Less You Know the Sounder You Sleep

‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Look – he’s got his hand on the back of her neck. He’s not bad-looking, is he?’

‘She could do better, but a starving dog makes do with scraps. And just look at him standing there like the king of the farmyard.’

‘I’m pleased for her.’

‘Wonder if she’s Doing It with him?’

‘Well, why not? There aren’t many pleasures in life…’

By the time we finally get close, they’ve all rolled back indoors except Olessya, who’s sitting waiting for us, rubbing her nose with her mitten to warm it up.

‘So who’s the cockerel then?’ cackles Masha.

‘Him? Garrick. He’s OK, we have fun.’ She smiles her slow, white-toothed smile, showing her dimples.

‘Good in bed?’

‘Good enough, Masha, thank you for asking, good enough.’

‘Aren’t you afraid of… you know…’ I bite my lip, not sure if I can really ask her about getting pregnant, but it’s still our Olessya, so I do.

‘Pregnant? That’s a laugh. They sterilize all Defectives in Institutions as soon as they get the chance. Can’t be having any more little Defectives, can we? Not in the Best of all Possible Worlds.’

‘Sterilize?’ I stare at her.

‘Of course, gospodi! You two are so naïve, it’s like you’ve been living in a hole… well, in a way you have. But yes, we all have sex, but we never get pregnant. Remember the summer camps at school when everyone was Doing It? And almost no pregnancies – unless you were really young? You two might have had it done when they took your appendix out in SNIP. Or maybe even when they amputated your leg. They never tell you. Why should they? It’s none of your business. It’s the State’s business. And if they don’t do the op, they give you birth-control injections. They inject us all the time anyway with sedatives and vitamins and stuff, so how would we know?’

I stare at her.

‘Wait…’ says Masha. ‘So how do you know?’

‘I asked the nurse back in the Thirteenth why I never got pregnant; why none of us ever get pregnant, and she told me. Very proud of herself she was too. “So you have nothing to worry about,” she said. “It’s all taken care of for you.”’

I want to sit down, right there in the snow. I feel weak. Am I never to have children? Never? We’re thirty-eight, we have periods, I still have a school group photo with Slava (Masha says it’s hers, but I can look at it) and I sometimes fantasize about him when I feel that throbbing and pounding down there. Somehow I thought that I’d have sex again with someone, anyone really, just to have a baby. And now there are Defectives my age, in the next block… I want to be a mother to someone who loves me more than anyone else. I thought it was still possible… a little baby…

‘What’s wrong with you? You’ve gone limp as a dishcloth.’ Masha squints at me.

‘I… I just thought…’

Olessya understands and leans over to hug me but Masha starts trying to slap some sense into me, cuffing my hat right off my head. I don’t try and stop her. I feel winded and helpless, as if the child I always wanted has just been snatched from me.

‘For fuck’s sake, that’s all we need, a yobinny babe-in-arms in this hellhole. Are you mad?’

‘Even if they didn’t do it, and they might not have done, and you did get pregnant, Dashinka,’ says Olessya softly, ‘they’d make you have an abortion… And if somehow they didn’t notice, and you had it, they’d take it away.’

‘And if they didn’t,’ says Masha angrily, ‘I’d bash it on the head and shove it down the rubbish chute. So you can stop dreaming about your unborn child and get real. Who do you think in a million years is going to father your sprog? The King of Spain? None of the old goats in here could get it up, and I’d not let anyone within a hundred metres of you anyway, even if it was the King of Spain. No. We’ve lived here twenty years, just you and me, and we’ll live here another fifty, so get used to it.’

‘No, you won’t,’ says Olessya. ‘You won’t be living here forever – I’ve got news!’

‘What?’ we both say together. I use my scarf to wipe my face and start hiccupping. Masha’s right… I’d never find any man. And Olessya’s right too. A baby would be taken away. I’m being stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid. I have my little Lyuba and Marat in my other world. I’ll always have them…

‘Well, Rita the nurse told me this morning that the Twentieth’s being reprofiled. It’s being turned into a psykhooshka – Psycho-Neurological Home.’

‘A Madhouse? What? When?’ Masha leans forward and tugs at Olessya’s scarf. ‘When, Olessya? Are you sure? When?’

‘Yes, I’m sure. They’re bringing in a Medical Sanity Commission to assess all the inmates next week. It’s happening fast. If you pass, you get transferred to another Old People’s home – away from Barkov and Dragomirovna – and anywhere’s got to be better than being here with them!’

‘Medical Commission?’ I swallow nervously. I remember the last one, where they didn’t even let us speak. ‘What happens if you don’t pass?’

‘Then you stay here with the crazies. But don’t worry, as long as you can say your name and know which country you live in, you’re fine. I mean, you have to be certified mad to stay in a psykhooshka . Shrieking mad. Or anti-Soviet, of course.’

‘Leave? We’re leaving the Twentieth?’ Masha shouts, hardly able to believe it. She’s so happy that I look across at her and start laughing, and then we all start laughing. ‘Let’s just make sure we stay together, Olessya,’ says Masha. ‘You and us, and your cockerel – we’ve only just found you!’

‘Yes, they say we can even apply to whichever one we want, instead of just being assigned. There’s a new one, the Sixth, which has a view of a lake and everyone gets their own room. Imagine! Everyone! Forwards to the Communist dream at last!’

I nod at her, still laughing now, instead of crying. Yes, I’ll imagine, all right. I’m good at imagining.

‘OK, calm down, you’d think we were lining up before a firing squad, not a Sanity Commission.’

We’re sitting in the anteroom to the hall where the interviews are taking place. It’s full of other inmates muttering to themselves or chattering about what questions are being asked.

‘I’m worried I’ll stutter. Why do you want me to do the talking, Mash?’

‘Cos you’re the clever one. How many times do I have to tell you? What if they ask us what fifty-seven divided by three is? I can barely manage two times five.’

‘I just keep remembering the last commission…’

‘That was a lifetime ago, and it was assessing us physically. They thought being Together was as bad as it gets, so we got a One. This is only to check we’re not crazies.’ She taps her head. ‘And we’re not. Olessya said the hardest question was, what season is December in? And everyone’s passed so far, even the daftest dandelions. They tell you straight away.’

‘Maria and Daria Krivoshlyapova.’ A voice comes from the interview room. My heart flutters like a trapped bird as we get up and walk in. We’ve washed and brushed our hair and have clean shirts on. There’s three of them, a defectologist, a psycho-neurologist and a speech therapist, sitting behind a long desk. They have little signs in front of them saying which ones they are.

‘So, good morning, girls. Which one of you shall we start with then?’ says the psycho-neurologist who’s in the middle. I put up my hand. ‘Very well, and what is your name?’

‘D-D-Daria K-K-Krivoshlyapova.’