The Less You Know The Sounder You Sleep

The Less You Know The Sounder You Sleep
Juliet Butler

‘Do yourself a favour and read this wonderful book’ ScotsmanBased on the true story of conjoined Russian twins, Masha and Dasha Krivoshlyapova, The Less You Know the Sounder You Sleep is a tale of survival and self-determination, innocence and lies.No one expects Dasha and Masha to live beyond childhood. Not the Soviet scientists who study them, the other ‘defective’ children who bully them, or the ‘healthies’ from whom the twins must be locked away.But they don’t know Masha like her sister does. While Dasha is gentle and quiet and fears everything, her twin is fearless and irrepressible and determined they will survive. Whatever the cost.Through the seismic shifts of Stalin’s communism to the beginnings of Putin’s democracy, the sisters strive to be more than just ‘the together twins’, finding hope – and love – in the unlikeliest of places.But strength can come in many different forms and if Dasha is to live more than half a life she must find the courage to emerge from her sister’s shadow.

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Copyright (#u0246ad18-8fbb-5131-a946-452b57ee433a)

4th Estate

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.4thEstate.co.uk (http://www.4thEstate.co.uk)

This eBook first published in Great Britain by 4th Estate in 2017

Copyright © Juliet Butler 2017

Cover design by Heike Schüssler

Cover images © plainpicture/Cavan Images

‘You’re My Heart, You’re My Soul’, Words and music by Steve Benson © copyright 1985 Blue Obsession Music OHG. Universal Music Publishing MGB Limited. All rights reserved. International copyright secured. Used by permission of Music Sales Limited, Universal Music Group and Universal Music Publishing Group Australia. Also reprinted by permission of Hal Leonard LLC.

This book is based on the author’s experiences. Some names, identifying characteristics, dialogue and details have been changed, reconstructed or fictionalised.

Juliet Butler asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008276096

Ebook Edition © May 2018 ISBN: 9780008290481

Version: 2018-04-20

Dedication (#u0246ad18-8fbb-5131-a946-452b57ee433a)

To David Llewelyn – literary consultant – without whose persistence Dasha’s story would never have been told.

Epigraph (#u0246ad18-8fbb-5131-a946-452b57ee433a)

‘A happy life consists not in the absence, but in the mastery of hardships.’

Helen Keller

Contents

Cover (#u216d57cb-c66d-5257-a0e4-93a43a569767)

Title Page (#ub9fbdb7c-eaf1-51a7-b605-d02787cbaa40)

Copyright (#u8bcdf9e1-bae9-5ea0-866a-949c697b6bcd)

Dedication (#u2d7ede47-b7ca-5416-bed8-13e63cd70f55)

Epigraph (#u24a5e570-62fd-54ae-aa01-cb10b49708fc)

THE END (#u3f44af2a-079e-5cb3-8b48-97008990998c)

PAEDIATRIC INSTITUTE, MOSCOW (#u1e6cd199-3035-5676-91da-6b499b9e54bf)

SCIENTIFIC NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF PROSTHETICS (SNIP), MOSCOW (#u78edac33-665e-5e89-bb1c-56a3aa766d40)

SCHOOL FOR INVALIDS, NOVOCHERKASSK (#litres_trial_promo)

TWENTIETH HOME FOR VETERANS OF WAR AND LABOUR, MOSCOW (#litres_trial_promo)

SIXTH HOME FOR VETERANS OF WAR AND LABOUR, MOSCOW (#litres_trial_promo)

Afterword (#litres_trial_promo)

Characters (#litres_trial_promo)

Acknowledgements (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)

THE END (#u0246ad18-8fbb-5131-a946-452b57ee433a)

12 April 2003, 12:05

I know I’m dying. I just don’t know how.

The ceiling rushes past me in the First City Hospital as we’re pushed down the corridor in a white-coated swirl of medics. First City; we’ve been here before. Masha, my Mashinka, you’re here with me. But this time it’s different. This time I’m alone.

Two nurses are running along with us, one on each side. They’re talking, their voices muffled through their surgical masks.

How long has she got?

God knows!