look and look at the board, and then take a deep breath and make a move. I hate that Masha’s got to make the next one for us.
‘We were born Healthy,’ says Olessya, looking at the board, ‘but Dad gave us his cold when we were five and we got polio. We had fevers for a week, but when we got better our legs had stopped working. Crippled, and that was that.’
She tips her head on one side, thinking, and then moves another counter.
‘Polio’s a bitch,’ says Masha. ‘SNIP’s filled with Polios.’ She looks back at the board. ‘You both get rejected then?’
‘Yeah. Never saw my parents again. We had a baby brother who was healthy so they had him to raise. I’ve got one eye that strays, so I got sent to an Uneducable place out of town and Marina stayed in Moscow in an Educable orphanage.’
‘Shit,’ says Masha. ‘Separated. That sucks.’
I carefully move my piece and look up at Olessya.
‘Are you g-getting schooling here, though?’ I ask.
‘Yeah. Been here five weeks and I can read and write and do maths now. Healthy! I’d stay here forever. You’re lucky. Good rations and nice staff.’
‘I know. We’re grateful. But we don’t get schooling because we’ve had our f-four years. They don’t do secondary here. It would be n-nice to have more lessons.’
‘Shame,’ says Olessya. ‘I’ve heard there’s a good boarding school for Defectives in the south of Russia somewhere. Galina Petrovna told me. She says I should get myself transferred there. Why don’t you go there?’
We both look at her like she’s crazy.
‘Go to live in a school?’ says Masha, lifting a counter from the board. ‘Oh yeah, why not? Might as well fly to the moon with Gagarin on his next trip while we’re at it!’ We both laugh. But Olessya doesn’t.
‘Everything’s possible,’ she says. ‘Everything. You just need to try.’
Olessya won at draughts because Masha kept making the wrong moves. I knew she would. I was so cross I actually felt like crying, but now we’re standing in the Room of Relaxation for the Young Pioneers ceremony, and it’s so exciting I’ve forgotten all about that and I’m nervous as anything. I wish we had the whole uniform and not just the red scarf to wear with our pyjamas. We’ve been wearing nothing but pyjamas indoors for eight years now and only get dressed if we’re being filmed by the Science Academy or go outside. But never mind that now, I’m going to be part of the Young Pioneers, and then the Young Communist organization – and then a Party member like Doctor Lydia Mikhailovna, Professor Boris Markovich and Doctor Anokhin … You have to be a member of the Party if you want to be a doctor, like I do. Aunty Nadya’s a physiotherapist. I wonder if you have to be a Party member for that? I don’t think so.
We’re a bit behind with joining up because you normally become a Pioneer when you’re ten, but never mind that either. We’ll catch up.
‘Attention!’ We all straighten up as Lydia Mikhailovna walks in to inspect us. She marches up and down the line like we’re proper soldiers on parade. There’s a great big mural all across the wall at the far end, showing Uncle Lenin patting a Young Pioneer on the shoulder. He’s a Healthy Pioneer (there aren’t any Defectives in the posters) and there are mountains, and ships in the sea, and peasants in fields of corn, and new factories with chimneys. There’s everything you could ever want to see out there in our beautiful Russia, and it’s always sunny. Aunty Nadya brought in a conch shell once and held it to my ear so I could hear the waves crashing as if they were right there, caught in the shell. I could really hear them.
‘One, two, three, march!’ Most of the kids are on trollies and can’t march, but we all get ourselves over to the Red Corner to where the big bust of Lenin is, and line up again.
The Komsorg, who’s come in from the local Young Communist Youth Organization, is looking sick and yellow. Aunty Nadya says it’s frightening for the Healthies from the Outside to see us kids when they’re not used to it. The Komsorg keeps looking at her watch as she goes through our oaths. There’s this loud patriotic music coming from the State Radio speaker on the wall, which reminds me of the time that engineer came in to mend our speaker on the wall in G Ward. He kept looking round at us from the top of his ladder, and was trembling so much that in the end he ran out, saying he couldn’t be expected to work under those conditions. I try to understand people, I really do, but I’ve never seen us so I can’t see what they can. I can only see Masha. And she’s pretty.
‘… duty to uphold the great morals of Socialism …’ The Komsorg’s still talking. Now she starts going on about Equality and Justice and Doing No Wrong. It’s a bit awkward, as we’re standing next to the little kid Masha tried to stuff down the rubbish chute the other day. He would’ve gone right down too if he hadn’t held on really hard to the frame. And on the other side is the girl she fed with marbles that we found in the skip (they must have been confiscated from one of the Family kids – we were so excited, but we couldn’t keep them as all our hiding places have been found out). Masha told her they were magic balls, which could make her invisible. She really tried to swallow them too, but they were too big and she coughed them up, but she almost died choking. Masha had to hold her upside down while I slapped her back to pop them out.
‘Young Pioneer!’ I jump. It’s my turn. ‘Are you prepared to fight for the cause of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union?’
‘Always P-p-prepared!’ Chort! I keep stuttering now. It started after I went Outside that time, to play hide and seek, and realized I was a monster. I just can’t get words out any more, unless I’m alone with Masha.
‘I, D-Daria Krivoshlyapova, joining the r-ranks of the Vladimir Ilyich Lenin All-Union Pioneer Organization, in the presence of my Comrades, do solemnly p-promise to love and cherish my Motherland p-passionately …’ Masha looks up at the ceiling, like she’s got nothing to do with me. She hates me stuttering. She says it’s pathetic.
There’s a big poster of the Young Pioneer, Pavel Morozov, on the wall. Masha said she’d denounce her father in a second, if she had one, like Pavel did, and have him sent off to be shot too, for anti-Soviet activity. Then she’d be famous like he is. She keeps on trying to find ways to denounce the Administrator. In summer, when all the staff went, she got into the Administrator’s room and went through all her files to see if she’d forged documents to help bandits, like Pavel’s father did, or was an American spy, or is involved in anti-Soviet agitation, but there was nothing. I was scared to death, but it was healthy fun. I felt like a proper Activist.
‘And now you have been sworn in, we shall sing the USSR Hymn,’ says the Komsorg, and we all go at it, at the top of our voices because we’re all so happy and proud. Actually, I’m so proud to be in the Best of All Possible Worlds I could really burst or something. Defectives are killed at birth in Amerika. Everyone says so. But we’re cared for. Well, maybe the Uneducables aren’t so much … but we are. I almost feel like crying, I’m so proud. Masha’s singing louder than anyone. She’s shouting out, We were raised by Stalin to be true to the People, Inspired by him to heroic deeds of labour!
As we’re filing out, Lydia Mikhailovna taps me on the shoulder at the door. ‘Don’t forget. Delegation tomorrow with Doctor Anokhin.’ Masha sniffs so hard her nose goes all sideways. As if we could forget … ‘And that’s quite enough of that sneer, Masha! You are very lucky to be playing a small part in Soviet Scientific Progress. You should know that, now more than ever. Get a sound sleep.’
A sound sleep is the last thing we’ll get …
July 1964
We perform for Anokhin’s delegation but Popov steps in
‘Not going in.’
‘We’ve g-got to, Mashinka.’
‘Why? They can’t make us.’
‘They