The Cult in my Grandmother's House. Анна Сандермоен

only those whose parents wouldn’t cause trouble, that is, who were the most blinded by the collective’s ideology. Of course I was among this group of children.

      Up to 20 people would live in a two- to three-room apartment. We slept on the floor under communal blankets with communal pillows, without any bedlinen. Everyone took turns to cook. Our rations were very meagre, usually just porridge and packet soup.

      It was considered that the poorer the living conditions and food, the stronger would be the spirit.

      MY SECOND YEAR OF SCHOOL

      When the first school year started in Dushanbe, all the children from the commune went to one school in the centre of town. I was in the second year, in the second class. There were several of us in this class, and we all lived together for a time. There were three teachers in charge of us who read us books and made sure we did our lessons.

      By this time we were all so well trained that we would spy on each other, children on children. We thought we were doing the right thing, that we had to help each other so we didn’t fall prey to schizophrenia.

      One time a girl from the commune ate a whole apple at breaktime and didn’t share it with anyone. One of our group noticed and quickly ran round telling everyone. We decided to meet after class and have words with that girl. We met, gave speeches, and then hit her in the face, like the adults did with us. She couldn’t even fight us because then she would have got even worse from the teachers. We weren’t even doing it out of envy for her apple, but because we didn’t want to see her ruined by schizophrenia and whoredom.

      We were sincere soldiers.

      ~

      “How do you rate your anger?”

      “8”

      “And resistance?”

      “6”

      “Prepare for the procedure. Wait, looks like we forgot to take your pulse…”

      THE CASE OF THE PAEDOPHILE

      When my daughter was 10 years old, we were already living in Switzerland. Once a policeman came to her class and told everyone about paedophiles: why they are dangerous, how to recognise them; and together with the teacher got everyone to practice saying “No!”. Later I asked my daughter whether she remembered everything and from her answers I understood she’d totally got it.

      It reminded me of my own run-in with a paedophile, in Dushanbe, in the same school where I was in the second class. I was eight. I was sitting on the first floor in the cloakroom, probably waiting for someone. Just then a man came in and asked where classroom 3B was. I started to explain, and he asked me to take him there. I agreed, of course, thinking it was someone’s dad. On the way, he suddenly forced me into a corner, yanked up my smock, yanked down his pants, took out his penis, masturbated and ejaculated on my panties. I had frozen out of fright and shock and couldn’t give out a single sound, although I could hear a Tajik cleaner mopping the floor behind the columns right near us. Then he left and that was that.

      I went home on the trolleybus with stiffened legs and wet pants, then ran home to the commune and told the adults about it. They just told me that I had “dirty sexual fantasies and lots of wrong and bad thoughts”. “Still so young, and already has such fantasies!”

      Needless to say, never again did I tell adults about my problems or concerns.

      Then I cleaned myself up, and washed my child panties myself. We always washed our own clothes.

      Soon after that incident the skin around my mouth came out in cold sores. Now I know it was a type of herpes, because it has periodically resurfaced throughout my life. But then, as a little girl, I found it painful and frightening. No one told me how best to deal with it, and my dirty hands spread the infection everywhere until practically my whole face including my eyes was covered with awful itchy sores. For a while I couldn’t even go to school. The adults intensified their layering and, as you might guess, told me at the same time that skin problems are the psychosomatic expression of fear, and the fact that the sores appeared right next to my lips showed my “dirty attitude towards men”.

      ~

      “How do you rate your anger?”

      “9”

      “How often do you have dirty thoughts?”

      “I don’t know…”

      “Don’t take the piss, you animal. How often do you have dirty thoughts?”

      “Often…”

      BECHZOD

      For some reason all the groups of the commune moved out of their separate apartments and into a half-derelict two-storey building that was ready for demolition. It may have been a school or kindergarten; we called it by the strange name Bechzod. For some time we lived there all together. The building was so old it seemed the walls might crumble at any moment. The floors and ceiling shook even from children’s steps, and the plaster flaked down on us. Sometimes it even fell in whole chunks.

      My small group in the second class continued going to school from there.

      It was at Bechzod that I started stealing.

      SUGAR

      True, the very first time I stole something, I didn’t even understand it was stealing. All us kids from the commune had been taken to an exhibition of national economic achievements, and in the display of eastern confectionary I saw an illuminated bowl of navat – a central Asian delicacy of large transparent sugar crystals. Ever since I had become part of the collective, I had had no toys, and this bowl looked so enticing. All I had to do was reach out my hand, and this exotic fairytale would be mine.

      There were signs hanging everywhere saying not to touch the exhibit, but I spotted a moment when the attendant of the hall had turned away, grabbed a handful of the sugar crystals and only then realised I had nowhere to hide them. I was wearing only a short summer dress, open sandals and panties. I thought for a moment and stuffed the whole contents of my fist into my pants and, moving clumsily so the sugar didn’t spill out, followed the others to the exit. In contrast to the exhibit hall, it was ridiculously hot outside and after literally a few steps I could feel a disgusting stream of melted sweets running from my panties down my leg into my sandals. I jumped into the nearest bushes and tried to wipe the half-melted lumps out my pants. Nobody had noticed.