We land with a crunch and come out of the room into a big space with green walls. The porter carrying us keeps banging through more and more doors until we’re on the real Outside. I look up and try to breathe, but my mouth gets filled with icy air that rushes down inside me like a freezy tube, and I feel like my cheeks are being slapped.
‘Quick, get this thing into the car,’ gruffs the porter, talking to a nurse. ‘Dressed in frills as it is.’
The door of a black car opens and he pushes us into it, pulling my fingers off his neck. The nurse gets in too, but we’re all tumbled as it’s not flat like a cot so our other leg is all in the way.
‘Gospodi! It’s like trying to get ten cats in a bag,’ hisses the nurse, and she pushes us on to our tummies so we have our faces in the seat. I think of kittens being drowned, and want to cry, but can’t find the air to breathe.
The car makes a roar and starts shaking. I turn my head a bit and can see a man dressed in black holding a round bar in the front seat. He has a little white tube in his mouth, which makes smoke and smells prickly and hard.
‘God, what a stink,’ he says and sucks so hard his cheeks pop in.
‘What do you expect?’ says the nurse. ‘They can’t hold it in. And they’re shit scared.’ She says nooka to us then, like the nice nannies do, and starts picking us up and plonking us the right way round.
‘You’ll suffocate, you two will,’ she says, ‘before we get you there – and then I’ll be for it.’
Get us where though? A bucket? A hole? I wish Masha would ask, but I can feel her tummy turning right over and bumping into mine turning over too. I’m yelling inside, yelling for help. I can hear me, loud as anything, but it’s not coming out. Help, Masha! Don’t let them drown us! But she won’t even look at me, she just takes my hand and holds it tight as tight can be, while all the buildings rush past through the windows, like they’re running away as fast as they can, turning the world in a spin.
‘Here it is, thank God. I need some fresh air,’ says the man, and stops and makes the window go down so that another man in a hat can stick his head in and look at us.
‘You got the urod?’
‘Yeah. I wouldn’t look at it, mate, it’ll give you nightmares for weeks,’ says the man in the front. I sit right up then and I can see eyes with no head, staring at me out of a shiny bit of glass in the front. I shut my eyes tight, because it’s a monster, and hold Masha’s hand even tighter.
‘OK, take it round the back. They don’t want anyone to see it.’
‘Not fucking surprised.’
The car goes off and we go through hundreds of blobs of snow. I can see a building with a long red strip on the top telling people what to do, but there’s no picture of our Father Stalin here.
We stop. The door opens, and a porter pulls us out into the cold and carries us up a curly, dark staircase, round and round, then through doors and into a big room with shiny green walls and long windows, as tall as the wall. There’s a cot with no bars, pushed against the wall and there’s no Box. It’s got a dry white sheet on it, not a sticky one, but he puts us down on it anyway and leaves, booming the door closed. My heart’s banging like it’s jumped into my head and so’s Masha’s. We try and breathe and listen. Really hard.
Boom. The door opens and two nannies come in with a trolley. No masks.
‘Well, well,’ says one, ‘you’ll need a bit of cleaning up.’
I see then that Masha’s been sick on her blouse, and it’s over her mouth, too, and hair. The nanny goes to wipe Masha’s face with a cloth but Masha hits her.
‘Fuck off!’ yells Masha. She’s scared we’re going to be drowned. The nannies gasp. ‘Fuck off, urodi!’ Masha yells again. She’s so scared, I can feel her trembling coming all through to me.
‘Yolki palki! These two are like rabid dogs! Nooka … we’re here to feed you and care for you. Look, look, see? Here’s some nice soup for you both.’ She takes two bowls with spoons off the trolley and gives it to us and I can smell it’s yummy cabbage soup, but I’m holding my breath because they don’t have masks and I’ll get their germs. Masha always, always, eats so she takes the bowl and pours the soup in her mouth. Then she takes mine and pours that in her mouth too. Then she sicks it all up over the bed. The two nannies don’t shout, they just make lots of tuts, and clean up, then go out.
We don’t say anything for a bit.
‘Where’s Mummy, Masha?’ I say after we’ve been sitting, looking at the door for hours and hours.
‘Don’t know.’
‘Is this our new home?’ I ask.
‘Don’t know.’
‘There’s no glass Box here. I want a glass Box to be in.’
We look over at another door, like the one in our own room, which goes into the Laboratory. It’s white too. I go cold and look at the window instead, and the snowflakes.
‘Big window,’ I say.
We both think that’s maybe good, but I want Mummy here anyway. I want her here so much that the wanting is bursting inside me, pushing everything else out and making me cry again.
BANG! The door opens and a woman comes in with a white coat and cap, like all the staff at the Pediatriya. She’s not wearing a mask though, and she has big red floppy lips like sponges. She walks up near to us. Not too close to hurt us, but I still hold my breath against the germs.
‘I’m Nadezhda Fyodorovna. You can call me Aunty Nadya, if you like.’ She crosses her arms and puts her head on one side. ‘Tak tak, you needn’t look so frightened. We’re going to look after you now. You’re here to learn to walk.’
I swallow lots of air in surprise. Walk! Like the children on the Outside? Will they wait ’til we get single first? Or maybe they’ll make us single? I want to ask her everything, but my voice is all buried inside still and won’t work. I nod.
BANG! The door opens again and another woman in a white coat and white cap comes in, and walks right up to us. She sticks her head in Masha’s face and then mine. I put my hands over my eyes because she’s got thick eyebrows like Nastya, and grey skin, and looks cross. I start hiccupping so I put one hand over my mouth and keep the other over my eyes.
‘Tak,’ says this other woman in a big voice. ‘What do we have here, hmm?’ She takes my hands off my eyes and my mouth, and looks at me. I try to say I’m Dasha, but my voice is still all swallowed up, so I just nod. She looks at Masha then, but Masha’s got her fingers in her mouth and is all frowny.
‘You do understand plain Russian, don’t you?’ says the grey woman, and I nod again, to be polite. ‘You certainly speak plain Russian, so I’ve heard. Very plain. Hmm.’
She touches the other woman’s arm. ‘Come along with me, Nadya, into the nurses’ room. Let them settle in for a bit, while we wait for Boris Markovich.’
They walk across our big room and open the other door, but it’s not bright white with lots of lights like inside the Laboratory. It’s a small dark place with a desk and two chairs. My heart stops being all tight at that. We’re still up in the corner of our cot with no bars, as we’re afraid we might fall right off the edge. I like bars better. I can see Aunty Nadya through the crack in the half-closed door. I can see her put her head in her hands and start shaking and crying all over the place.
‘She’s crying, Masha,’ I whisper. But Masha just sniffs.
‘Stop this at once, Nadya!’ says the other woman in a crunchy, bad voice. ‘One would think you’d never seen Defective children before. Pull