Juliet Butler - The Less You Know the Sounder You Sleep

‘Girls?’ says Vlad again, still leaning in, like we’re in his living room or something. There’s complete silence in the studio, as if everyone’s holding their breath. They clapped as we walked in, they actually clapped. And now they’re listening.

‘W-we’ve been kept in institutions all our l-l-lives,’ I start. ‘H-hospitals to start off with, then a s-school in Novocherkassk. Everyone was very k-kind. We hoped to w-work. But when we were eighteen we were s-sent to a Home, for V-veterans of War and L-Labour.’ A sort of collective gasp goes up in the audience, I’m not sure why. Don’t they know that’s where the Reject children go to from orphanages?

‘At eighteen?’ says Vlad, edging a bit closer. ‘Teenagers? To an Old People’s Home?’

‘That’s because we’re D-Defective. There aren’t any homes for D-Defectives.’

‘Of course, of course, because the official line has always been that we have no invalids in the Soviet Union. But now, of course, we’re finding out that there are. There most certainly are – but they are still kept out of the public eye. So you two sisters were kept hidden away all your lives?’

‘Y-yes. We’ve been living there for n-nearly t-twenty years. B-but it’s being reprofiled into a Psycho-neurological Home for the insane now, and w-we’re not insane. S-so we don’t w-want to s-stay there. We w-want to go to…’ I don’t finish because there’s a little ripple of applause which gets louder and louder, and Vlad’s sitting there, looking out at the audience and nodding slowly in this Aren’t they just great? way and Masha’s nodding hard at me too. Encouraging me.

The applause dies away and Vlad asks: ‘You want to go where?’

‘Anywhere. Anywhere but the Twentieth.’

‘The Sixth,’ says Masha quickly. ‘It’s Open Regime and looks over a lake.’

‘I see. And that’s why you’ve decided to come here tonight? To appeal to the Russian people,’ Vlad waves at a camera with a red light on, not the audience, ‘to help you escape from this life worse than death? This terrible injustice?’

‘Y-yes.’ I swallow. ‘P-people have always thought w-we’re not right in the head, j-just because we’re T-together.’ I look at Masha, who’s nodding again and fiddling with the button on our trousers. This is her line and she says it along with me. ‘All our lives we’ve had to prove we’re normal, but if we stay there, we’ll have lost the battle.’ When she speaks along with me, I don’t stutter.

‘Of course, of course.’

‘And as for her,’ Masha suddenly adds, ‘she only stutters because she got savaged by a dog. When she was little. That’s the reason she stutters. People stutter all over the place.’

‘Of course,’ says Vlad encouragingly.

‘She got top marks in her school diploma.’

‘I’m not at all surprised,’ he says. ‘It’s a travesty to have been locked away like convicts all your lives as punishment for having been born physically different.’ He looks out at the audience again, which gives another little collective sigh of agreement. I can scarcely believe this is happening. Where are all the people who shouted at us outside the gate at SNIP? Or the ones at the zoo in Novocherkassk? Perhaps it’s because Vlad accepts and likes us? And I like him. He’s not asking how we’re going to die or how we have sex. He’s asking about us. It’s as if he understands us. ‘And so, girls, tell us how it is that you were able to come on our show tonight? How have you been able to escape the Twentieth?’

‘It was M-Masha’s idea,’ I say. ‘We g-got ourselves into the S-Stomatological Institute for dental treatment, but w-we’re being sent back to the T-twentieth in three days. We’re being sent back. And then we’ll never get out. Please help.’ I steel myself then and glance quickly out at the blackness. ‘Please, please help.’

There’s a sort of sucked-in silence in the room. And it’s then that I panic. They don’t want to help. Of course they don’t. They hate us. Like everyone does.

‘And how can we help, Dasha? How?’

‘W-we want to be sent to a Home with our friends. W-we want… to be treated like everyone else, that’s all.’

‘And what does that mean for you?’

I pause, thinking. There’s still no sound from the audience. The cameras are swirling around the stage on wheels. My mind goes a blank. Vlad lowers his glasses on his nose and looks at me over them and I know Masha’s staring at me, willing me to talk.

‘We w-want our own sheets,’ I say. ‘C-clean sheets.’

I feel Masha tense then, but Vlad nods understandingly. ‘You want to be rescued, so you can finally live a normal life with that small luxury the rest of us all take for granted. Your own sheets.’

I nod.

‘Thank you, girls.’ He stands up then and looks out at the audience.

‘I think we can give these two very brave girls a big round of applause.’ We stand up too, but there’s still silence. He starts clapping his hands slowly, still looking out at them. And then there’s this sound, like the patter of rain in the distance, which gets closer and closer until it’s all thundering in my ears. They’re applauding. They really are, all of them. But why? What for? I feel as if I’ve only been talking on that sofa for two minutes. I didn’t say enough. I should have told him about how our lives have been good compared to other Defectives in orphanages or asylums like the one in Novocherkassk. I shouldn’t have just talked about us. I should have spoken up for Little Lyuda, Sunny Nina and Big Boris. Or told them about Stupino and the Isolation Hut. I feel stupid. But Vlad takes my arm and starts guiding us off the stage, waving his arm and smiling a huge smile at the audience. I want to go back – I didn’t even mention Aunty Nadya and all she’s done for us… and how there are people like Olessya, fighting for invalids’ rights. As I turn in the wings, to look back, without the light in my eyes, I can see them all standing on their feet, clapping and clapping like they’re about to burst. And then I think of Slava. I remember him telling me to stand up for myself. And now I have. Not against Masha, but with Masha. Yes, I think Slava would be proud of me.

‘One hundred million viewers? One hundred million ?’ Sanya’s in our new room in the Sixth, sitting on our bed with her mouth open, repeating the viewing figure over and over again. If I’d known, I’d never have been able to go on. Never. It was bad enough facing the hundred-odd people in the audience.

‘Yes, yes, that’s what they said,’ says Masha, pulling our fancy net curtains closed and then swinging them open again with a flourish. ‘ Vzglyad ’s the most popular TV show in the country. We’re celebrities, we are. Famous!’ She swooshes the curtains closed and open again, then looks out at the frozen lake beyond the fence bordering our grounds, as if to make sure it’s still there.

‘You are!’ agrees Sanya. ‘I was in the hairdresser’s the other day and everyone was talking about it. They were talking about you at the bus stop too, and I could hear them behind me when I was standing in line for fish.’

‘Fish! We can buy fish now – we can buy sturgeon , if we want. They’ve been sending money to us like there’s no tomorrow. Sending money to poor little Mashinka who needs her caviar. Meow…’ We all laugh at that. It’s so nice of them.