Chapter 19: Zoobnaya Pasta

Edgbaston and Warwick

Three weeks after Jennifer reappears

Today I have another appointment with Dr Malvern, Laura, as she likes me to call her, but I prefer 'Dr Malvern.' I think it might make it easier to tell her ... things. Things I might not want Joe and Mummy and Daddy and friends to know. About who I am now. 'Dr Malvern' puts them in a neat and tidy place. A clean place. Somewhere not full of all sorts of bits of me. So, I begin to talk about what I did yesterday and how it was for me.

"Yesterday, Joe had to go in to work early; he was out by 6:30 and I was left alone. In bed. I drifted into and out of sleep and then, when I looked, it was almost 8am. Now that I am home, I find it difficult to motivate myself. It's hard to do things in the way that I feel I ought to. Actually, it's hard to do things in the way that I have been trained to. I suppose my motivation will come back. Eventually."

"So, what did you do then?"

"I could not bear to stay in bed any longer. I got up and began to wash. I started by cleaning my teeth. I was caught by surprise at the colour of the toothpaste. It was white, not pink. The taste was minty, not sweet. The tube had the brand name and details printed brightly. It carried all sorts of technical claims. It's very different from what I used, well, back then."

"Oh? So tell me how it felt, yesterday? Maybe take me back there with you. I will stand by you, to keep you safe."

"The toothpaste I got used to was pink and sweet. It comes in a tube decorated with a picture of Cheburashka. Cheburashka is a small brown furry happy creature with large ears. (1)

"When I was given this toothpaste, at first I was so angry. It was obviously toothpaste designed for a child. The colour. The smell. The taste. All carefully contrived to appeal to little children."

As she begins to explain her feelings to Laura Malvern, in the privacy of her mind, Jennifer is suddenly Vyera again and back at the Dacha. Perhaps back where she belongs? The trigger of the toothpaste is all it has taken. Gaspazha Neena is standing over her and Jennifer is on her knees looking up at Neena.

Jennifer feels so frightened. After she was examined by the doctor, she thought they would let her go, but they haven't! The woman who calls herself Gaspazha Neena is now standing right over her. When she came into the cell, Jennifer stood up. Neena slashed Vyera across her thigh with a riding crop. Once. Again. Again. It stings horribly. Neena really meant the blows to hurt and they do. Jennifer jumps back with alarm, but there is nowhere to go.

Neena advances towards her and points to the floor and says "Kneel." Jennifer's thigh is still burning. Neena points to the floor once more. Jennifer hesitates. Neena raises her arm to hit Vyera again, but now she kneels. And waits. And Neena smiles. The tension of the moment begins to evaporate.

"Vyera," she says, "as part of looking after yourself, you have to pay careful attention to your teeth. How often do you brush?"

This is bizarre beyond belief. Nightmarish, even. Jennifer has just been assaulted. By raising her arm, Neena makes it clear that she will do it again if Jennifer does not kneel in front of her, and now Neena starts an interrogation about oral hygiene.

"Twice, each day," replies Jennifer.

"When?"

"After breakfast and last thing at night."

"Anything else?"

"No. Look, what is this to you? That's my business, thank you." The bullying girl takes a step towards Jennifer. She is wearing tall black boots and the sound of her step echoes in the small room.

"Everything about you is my business. I am your Trainer and your Supervisor. At this moment, I am going to teach you how to look after your teeth."

"There is nothing wrong with the way I look after my teeth, thank you. The Hygienist at my Dentist's said so." Jennifer is beginning to cry. She is desperate to hold on to something that she has always done.

"Did she?"

"Yes." By now, Jennifer is really weeping. The tears are streaming down her cheeks.

"Well, she is wrong, or your memory is playing tricks with you. Either way, it does not matter anymore because you are not achieving my standards for you. This is what you are to do: you will brush just before you sleep at night; you will brush as soon as you awake; you will brush after your breakfast. Each day, before you sleep you will use these inter-dental brushes. Push them gently into the spaces between your teeth at gum level. They will slide in between. Each day after breakfast, you will use a fluoride mouthwash. If you do not work at this to my satisfaction, I will whip you. Do you understand?"

For a moment — it's such a long moment — Jennifer is left with no words to say. She is astonished at the way she has been spoken to, dismayed at the instructions handed out to her as if she was a little child. She begins to feel cold and begins to shake with fear at the situation she is in. She stares up at her and opens her mouth. From somewhere, she manages to say, "Yes."

"That's better," replies Neena. "Here is a brush, the inter-dental brush. You will receive a new one each week. Here is zoobnaya pasta; that is the proper name for toothpaste and it is the name you will use from now on. Your mouthwash will come with your breakfast."

The toothpaste is obviously intended for a child. The tube has a picture of a little furry cartoon animal on it. Anger begins to bubble up inside Jennifer again. "This is children's toothpaste!"

"Yes. The little creature is Cheburashka."

"But I am an adult."

"NO, you are a slave and slaves are treated like small children. Now, you will use it and I will watch you. Do it now." The girl Neena is close to Vyera now. She rubs her crop along Vyera's thigh. It reignites in Jennifer the stinging memory of the strokes she laid onto her and the message is clear: "Do as you are told or I will hit you again."

The details of the memory are too painful for Jennifer to articulate and, in any case, she is too frightened to do so because she has not been given permission. Instead, she continues to talk about her feelings.

"I pop open the cap and squeeze out the toothpaste onto the brush. It is a baby pink colour.

"I can hear someone telling me: 'Open your mouth and brush your teeth.'"

"I hesitatingly open my mouth. I feel embarrassed to do it. Humiliated. For some reason, it feels like a sexual violation. As I slide the brush into my cheek, it touches my tongue. It feels as if they are reaching right inside me.

"I begin to brush, with their brush and their toothpaste in my mouth. The paste is sweet, and actually pleasant in a little child sort of way. It's always going to feel like this. Every time I do this, I will feel them putting themselves inside my body. Leaving their after-taste in my mouth, a constant reminder of being violated.

"Suddenly, I am back home. Staring at the wash hand basin. Looking at the drool of white, sharp-tasting, minty toothpaste from my mouth. This taste tells me I am home. The taste tells me I am not where I should be. Each time I go through the routine, it reminds me I am still following orders. Still the obedient... (Jennifer searches for the right word. She was going to say 'slave, ' but that is too precise. She has, after all, not been given permission to say who she is and exactly what she is now) ... person they made me. I may be Jennifer again, but will I ever escape from who I became, even in these innocent, intimate moments?"

"Well done!"

"What?"

"I said 'well done, ' for reliving that memory for me."

"Oh."

"How do you feel now?"

"About brushing?"

"Well, all right, start with that. About brushing?"

"I am still doing as I have been told."

"Does this memory make you want to change?"

"Not really, because it's obviously the right way it should be done and, when I do it in the way I was told, I know I am doing the right technical thing, but I also know that I am still following instructions. If I do the right thing, I always end up following orders I have been given before. They were always doing this sort of thing to me. Whichever way I turned, it was always another step down the road they were taking me and the road always led to the submission of my will to theirs. In the end, I realised there would never be anywhere to run. Whichever turn I took, the road always took me to where other people wanted me to go."

"Like a nightmare?"

"At first, it was like a nightmare. I used to get panicked. I used to try desperately to assert myself, but however hard I tried to find something I could do, there were other people always there, correcting me, punishing me, making me into the person they wanted me to be. Eventually, it became reassuring. If I did what I was told, I would not be punished. So, as time went on, I stopped fighting. I used to say to myself, 'Don't think, just do. Nice things will happen to you if you just do what you have been told.' So, that's what I did and, then, I really seemed to be rushing headlong towards the person they wanted me to be. When I was alone, at night, when I had the chance to look back, Joe and Mummy and Daddy were getting smaller and smaller and I knew that before long, they would be so small that I would not be able to see them anymore and I would be totally alone."

"How did that make you feel?"

"At first, I just could not believe what was happening. I used to think it was some sort of horrible dream and soon I would wake up. But I never did wake up and it just went on and on and on and then I became desperate and sad that I had not been able to explain to Joe, and Mummy and Daddy, what had happened to me. Actually 'sad' is not a big enough word. Later, I used to feel storms of anger coming over me..."