MASHKA, NYUSHKA AND PENCILS
Mashka Cow Leg had a helper – the young Nyushka, or as she was called at the orphanage, “Little Nyurka, tender belly”. She was a fat but still green girl, with small darting eyes in the pink softness of her face. Watching the languid walk of the “tender belly” with a cunning eye, Auntie Mashka for some reason addressed me, a pipsqueak, saying: “Look, Nyushka’s flouncing around, looking for a tool, and as our Bolsheviks say, ‘he who seeks will always find.’ ”I didn’t understand everything back then, although I had already realized a lot of things.
The duties of these women included various feats: tidying and cleaning the cells (excuse me, wards), corridors, staircases, toilets, slop pails, the isolation cell, and washing the dishes… Auntie Mashka, because of t
