‘You and your stupid nightmares! You’ve woken the whole ward.’
I blink and look around at the beds lined up against the wall in the darkness, but my head’s still full of those faces.
‘It was that dream, Mash, down in the well… the same one.’
‘With me?’
‘I’m always with you in my nightmares.’
‘Thanks a lot… Well, never mind, you’re awake now, and so am I, what with all that screaming. And anyway, Aunty Nadya says, “Bad Dreams – Good Life. Good Dreams – Bad Life.” See? And today’s the best day ever, because we’re going Outside on our Day Trip!’
She jumps out of bed to pull back the curtain. It’s starting to get light. ‘We’re going to be dressed in our new trousers and shirts.’
‘I know.’ I get up and we go over to the window to look out at the weather. It’s icy cold, but there’s an orange sunrise making everything glow red. It’s going to be sunny. I press my nose against the window, reading the big red slogans as hard as I can, to stop the pictures from the nightmare filling my head. To Have More we must Produce More. To Produce More we must Know More. I see it every morning, but I don’t ever know more. I hate that all the other children in the world are going to school and learning all about everything, so they can work to build Communism, and me and Masha aren’t. We’re fourteen now and we should know loads, but we stopped knowing things at eleven. As Lucia would say, it really sucks. (She said she’d write when she left but she never did, just like all the others. Perhaps she ran away again.)
‘Real trousers made from Boris Markovich’s curtains! Lya-lya topo-lya!’ laughs Masha. I stop frowning and smile at her. She’s funny. There’s a shortage of fabric Outside, so they used the curtains from Professor Popov’s office to make them with. And we’re going in his black Volga, driven by his own chauffeur. ‘We’re going to see Lenin! We’re going to see Lenin!’ sings Masha, dancing down the ward and sticking her tongue out at the other kids who are slowly waking up.
The 7 a.m. bell clangs and we run down to the washroom to be first in line.
Two hours later we’re in the car on our way.
‘What’s that? What’s that?’ shouts Masha, bouncing up and down in the back seat.
‘It’s the Red October chocolate factory – see, it says Red October across the top,’ says Aunty Nadya, who’s sitting with us.
‘It’s huge! How come it’s so huge when there’s no chocolate? Where does all the chocolate go?’
‘Well now… there’s a shortage because it has to supply the whole of the Soviet Union, you see. That’s a lot of chocolate.’
The only time we ever get chocolate is when Anokhin comes to visit us in SNIP. None of the other kids have ever tasted it. Not ever. Not even the Family kids.
‘When we build Communism, we’ll eat it all the time!’ says Masha. ‘For breakfast, lunch and dinner! There’ll be chocolate factories everywhere instead of just this one!’
Ivan Borisovich, the chauffeur, winds down his window. ‘You can smell the chocolate fumes,’ he says, smiling into the mirror. We both sniff with our noses in the air and we can, we really can smell nothing but chocolate. Everyone’s happy, even Aunty Nadya is bursting with happiness through her frowny face, I can always tell.
‘Does all of Moscow smell of chocolate?’ asks Masha. ‘All of it?’
‘No,’ he says, smiling. ‘Only here.’
‘Can we go to the Red October chocolate f-factory instead?’ I ask. ‘I don’t think I want to go to the M-Mausoleum.’
‘Now then, Dasha, how many times have I told you that we’ll drive right over Red Square, up to the door, and give you a king’s chair ride with a rug over your laps, so you’ll look like two Healthy girls.’
‘Red Square! Red Square!’ sings Masha, bouncing again. ‘Look! What’s that? What’s that?’
‘That’s a ferry boat which takes tourists up and down the Moskva River.’
‘Can we go on a f-ferry boat instead?’ I ask.
‘No, Dashinka. This is an educational trip, before you join the Young Pioneers. The ceremony’s soon and all the children in Moscow go to the Mausoleum before they join. You know all that. About time you joined the Pioneers. Better late than never…’
I look out, pressing my nose to the window, staring at all the flat-faced, grey blocks of flats, all looking the same, with their hundreds of windows where families live. The pavements are full to bursting with people who’ve just come out of the Metro, walking in black coats and black boots. I’ve never walked on a street before. I’ve never been down in the trains that run through tunnels in the ground. Aunty Nadya says the Metro stations are like palaces, with sculptures and chandeliers and sparkling mosaics. Palaces for the People, she says. They’re lucky. I’d love to walk on a street and go on a train under the ground and be like everyone else.
‘What’s that, with the golden hat?’
‘Cupola, not hat, Masha. It’s a Russian Orthodox church where ignorant people used to pray to their god.’ I stare at it as we drive past, it looks all small and scared, squashed between the big grey blocks, but its gold cupola shines brighter than anything I’ve ever seen before.
‘Is it real gold?’ I ask.
‘Yes, yes, it is.’ She sniffs. ‘Very thin gold leaf.’ Then she shakes her head. ‘Pozor.’
I don’t know what’s disgraceful about it, but I don’t say anything. The road’s wide but it’s empty, like the river, except for some lemon-yellow taxis and some other official black Volgas with chauffeurs like ours.
‘What’s that? What’s that with the spire? It looks like a fairy castle. Is it a fairy castle?’
‘No, Masha, of course not. Gospodi, you are about to join the Pioneers, do stop dreaming. It’s one of Stalin’s towers. There are eight of them. They’re the tallest buildings in Moscow. See, there’s another one over there.’ I stare out to where she’s pointing and see it for myself, all soaring and beautiful. I love Moscow! There are trees and islands and flowers and chocolate factories and People’s underground Palaces. Moscow must be the best city in the whole wide world.
I just don’t really want to go to the Mausoleum.
We drive down a cobbled side street near Red Square. There are still no other cars. My heart’s beating like a drum and I keep wiping my hands on the rug because they’re sweaty. I want to keep driving and driving and looking and looking and never stop.
‘Chort!’ Ivan Borisovich brakes hard and we nearly knock our heads on the back of his seat. There’s a militiaman standing with his hand up right in front of us, on the edge of Red Square. We look past him, across all the cobbles going on and on for ages and ages, across to the little black Mausoleum surrounded by crowds where Lenin is. Ivan Borisovich gets out to talk to him, but we can only hear bits, like only official cars and nyelzya. He gets back in the car and lights up a papirosa.
‘Won’t let us drive across. Now what?’
‘Nyetnyetnyet!’ I grab at Aunty Nadya. ‘I’m not w-walking, there’s a long, long queue, they’ll all be watching us g-getting c-closer! I’m not, I’m not!’
‘Of course not! Outrageous!’ says Aunty Nadya, and gets out of the car leaving the door open. ‘Now then, Comrade Militiaman, I have two girls here who are Defective, but they are about to join the Young Pioneers. You cannot deny them the right to visit the Mausoleum as part of their propaganda education. This car belongs to the Director of the Central Scientific Prosthetics Institute and as such is official. Everything is arranged. I demand that you let us past.’