The Less You Know The Sounder You Sleep. Juliet Butler

Laika she is.’ Galina Petrovna smiles a big smile at us and we all smile a big smile back.

      Age 11

      March 1961

      We have our weekly bath and meet Lucia

      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.

      ‘What ward you in, Mashdash?’ asks Lucia.

      ‘None of them. We got an Isolated room,’ says Masha, because Lucia wasn’t talking to me.

      ‘Fuck you. Why? You infectious?’

      ‘Nah. We’re special. Not like you.’

      ‘Fuck you. I’m in Ward D. You a State kid or Family kid?’

      ‘State.’

      ‘Good. Family kids suck.’

      ‘Yeah. They suck. Mummy, Mummy, Mummy, I want marmalade and oranges …’

      ‘Yeah, makes you sick. I’ll come see you tomorrow then.’ She’s dried herself in two seconds flat. Quicker even than us.

      ‘OK. Ask for Mashdash.’

      ‘See ya then.’

      ‘See ya.’ She hops really fast, back to the changing room, and then I see she’s got only one and a half legs.

      We make four wishes because we’re bored

      ‘She was all right,’ Masha says, stuffing a chunk of black bread into her mouth all at once when we’re back in our room. She stole it off the plate of a little kid in the canteen and hid it down our nappy for later. We get all our bread and food weighed out on scales by the gramme. I lie back on my pillow with my leg hanging over the bed and think a bit about what we’re going to do all day, now we don’t go to school any more. It only goes up to primary school in SNIP, so now we’re eleven, it’s stopped. Aunty Nadya has other kids to work on because we can walk, and run, and climb, and if we haven’t leaked in our nappy for more than an hour, we’re allowed to ride our red tricycle round the Physio hall as a treat. It’s Masha that leaks anyway, not me. She can’t be bothered to try not to. But I do. I squeeze down there like mad. Uncle Vasya bought us the red tricycle. Apart from Marusya, it’s the best present in the world.