Juliet Butler - The Less You Know the Sounder You Sleep

‘Fuck. Poor Olessya. I need a fag,’ says Masha when we get back to our room.

‘You put them in the tea caddy. Here. Have one quickly and then spray that antiperspirant around.’

She digs out the hidden packet, covered in tea leaves, shakes it, and we go out on to the balcony, looking down at the early snow powdering the grounds.

‘Why was she sounding off about this Mother Russia stuff then? What was all that about?’

‘She’s angry. Angry that Garrick’s gone and that they lied to him. Mensha znaesh .’

Masha leans on the balcony while she sucks on her cigarette. She throws the butt over the edge and sighs. ‘ Krepcha speesh. ’

We’ve just gone back inside and Masha’s spraying the antiperspirant over her clothes and then mine when there’s a knock on the door and Doctor Lazareva, the narcologist, comes in. She holds her hand out with a big smile.

‘So, it’s great to meet you at last. I mean, it’s been hard to get to you, to be honest. Like trying to get through to the Kremlin! My name’s Ksyenia, but you can call me Kisska. That’s what my friends call me.’

She has short blonde hair and a sweet smile. She doesn’t seem too put out by the way we look and we both like her immediately. We all sit down and chat for a bit about the Sixth and her Narcology Centre in Moscow. She says she’ll give us after-care, which is vital apparently, and we’re all nodding and happy until she digs down into her nice leather bag and brings out a bottle of vodka.

‘Yes, so this might seem a bit odd, but I’ve brought vodka.’

‘Vodka?’ I frown.

Masha starts bouncing up and down. ‘That’s the sort of narcologist I like!’

‘Well,’ she says, ‘in our practice we like to see how you react to it, you know, and then we can work on your particular case. So let’s all have a bit, shall we?’ She puts the bottle down on the table. It’s a whole litre.

‘I don’t th-th-ink…’ I say, ‘I don’t th-th-ink that sounds like a g-good idea…’

‘You have to trust me, Dasha,’ she says, leaning forward. ‘You really do have to trust me, if I’m to help you.’

She’s brought glasses too. Tumblers. I look at the thick, sickly fluid when she hands it to me with an encouraging nod.

‘I feel nauseous, Kisska, at the very thought,’ I say to her. ‘I hate vodka.’

‘Yes, yes, interesting. And you, Masha?’

‘Well, what can I do, Kissinka? She’s been drinking since she was fourteen… what can I do?’

‘Drink up then, Dasha.’ She pulls a tape recorder out of her bag. ‘I’ll need to record what you say. Meanwhile, Masha, why don’t you tell me a bit more about your life? Do you have the same thoughts? Do you have identical dreams at night? What’s it like to be together? Psychology is all-important when curing alcoholism.’

I look at the glass, then look away. I’m not going to drink it. I look at it again. But I want to drink it. It’s calling to me. No I won’t, I don’t want to drink it. If I start drinking I can’t stop. She’s still holding the tumbler out to me with her nice, encouraging smile. She’s a doctor. Trust her. Trust Authority. No. No! But I need to drink it. I have to drink it.

I drink it.

We’re standing with the fridge door open, wondering what to have for a snack when the door bursts open and Zlata hurls herself at us, waving a newspaper.

‘Have you seen this? Have you?’ She pushes it into Masha’s face.

‘ Sluts, Drunkards, Losers – Degraded Duo! – that’s just the title of the article. Two full pages. It was that little bitch Lazareva, she was a journalist masquerading as a doctor, writing for that trashy rag Moskovskii Novostii. Pozor! You’ve brought shame on us with your stupid drunken gossip!’

We shrink back into the open fridge, knocking over a bowl of borscht which empties on to the floor in a spreading deep-red puddle at our feet. We don’t move.

‘You’re disgusting, the two of you, that’s what you are, disgusting! How dare you slander the Sixth! How dare you! That woman was a slimy tabloid hack and you couldn’t see it? You took her vodka and then you vomit up this… this… filth?’ She shakes the newspaper in our faces again. ‘You will pay for this. Oh by God, you will pay for this!’ Her eyes are flashing as she towers over us, almost trembling with rage, spitting out the words in our faces as we cringe away from her, bewildered by her rage. Then she throws the newspaper on to the floor at our feet and stalks out, slamming the door behind her.

We stand there panting for a bit, our hearts racing, not understanding what’s going on, then I turn, quietly close the fridge door and lean down to pick the newspaper out of the spilt borscht. It’s sodden and red but still legible.

We walk over to the sofa and open it. The front page has a photo of us lying on the floor, dead drunk, Masha’s laughing and I’m almost unconscious. I don’t remember anything of the interview after I started drinking.

The Rise and Fall of Our Famous Conjoined Twins, Masha and Dasha!

Despised by Everyone!

Dasha orgasms with men paid for sex while Masha weeps into her pillow!

What? What did Masha say to her? What on earth did she say?

I read on.

Dasha was too drunk to talk. In a recorded interview, it was poor Masha who, with tears in her eyes, told me of her terrible life. They fear journalists will betray their trust, but Masha opened up with her most treasured secrets to your MN reporter. Their mother fled from them at birth and spent the next two years in a Madhouse, while their tortured father begged the doctors to care for his little girls. He had no choice but to leave them – for he was the personal chauffeur of Stalin’s henchman Lavrenti Beria.

Neither of us speak. I wipe some beetroot off the next paragraph.

The weak, degenerate Dasha began drinking at the age of fourteen in their school in Novocherkassk where they were bullied constantly by the cruel, taunting pupils and isolated by uncaring teachers. There was nothing Masha could do to stop Dasha – she could only try and support her disgraced, unpopular sister who thought of nothing but sex and where to get the next drink.

I blink, not quite believing my eyes.

One boy, Slava, tried to sleep with her for a bet. The other boys brought in townspeople to look at them for the price of a bottle of vodka.

‘What the fuck?! ’ exclaims Masha, making me jump. ‘She lied to us! That two-faced bitch lied to us!’

I stare at her with my mouth open. ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘And you fucking lied to her , didn’t you?’ Masha looks at me, startled, and I see an odd flicker of fear. How could I swear at her? I never swear at her. But I feel hard with horror. Everyone will be reading this. The children and teachers from the school, Valentina Alexandrovna, everyone in SNIP who knew us. Everyone.

I look back at the article.

Strong, serious Masha did everything in her power to save her sister, but now she realizes it is far too late to save either of them. Dasha has an endless supply of sexual partners and she orgasms in an ecstasy of quick lust, while Masha buries her head in shame in the pillow.

My hands are trembling.

‘It disgusts me,’ says Masha. ‘I’ve never been attracted to men. I should have been born a boy.’ Yet with one vagina she is subjected to sex with hobos who Dasha pays for, from the profits of their autobiography. Men who Masha despises and who pass on the clap. Yet incredibly, she doesn’t despise her depraved sister. Blood is thicker than water. And theirs, after all, is shared…