Real and Phantom Pains: An Anthology of New Russian Drama. John Freedman

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СКАЧАТЬ has left, but he comes back.)

      SNOWSTORM: I forgot my case

      BUSHY-TAIL: I thought I saw someone forgot a case

      SNOWSTORM (Picking up his case): That was me

      BUSHY-TAIL (To SNOWSTORM): I forgot, what’s your name?

      SNOWSTORM: Blizzard

      BLIZZARD: Blizzard – that’s me. He’s Snowstorm. “There once lived two fine friends – Snowstorm and Blizzard.” You know that song?

      BUSHY-TAIL: No

      BLIZZARD: That’s about us. He wrote the lyrics. I wrote the music

      SNOWSTORM: But we’ll sing that for you another time

      BUSHY-TAIL: How come you have such funny names?

      MANIAC: Because they’re homosexuals

      BLIZZARD: He’s joking

      SNOWSTORM: Does that bother you?

      BUSHY-TAIL: I don’t care

      SNOWSTORM: Somebody gimme a smoke

      BLIZZARD: Here

      MANIAC: You like to dominate?

      BUSHY-TAIL (Remaining alone. Looks over the business card): In the Far North there’s never anything to do. There’s nothing except theater. And in the Far North women really dress up beautifully to go the theater. It’s not like here. People here just wear whatever they wore to work when they come to the theater. Where I come from, women put on evening gowns and jewelry, and they never fail to put on heels. When you walk to the theater the fresh sea air comes in and it smells like fresh-cut cucumbers. That means the fishermen are beginning to sell their day’s catch of smelt – that’s a kind of fish. It smells like fresh cucumbers.

      (The six are out on the street. They head in the direction of the office, slowly, deliberately, taking their time, chewing their gum, looking around, sometimes just stopping and standing there. Once again, someone forgot something, so they went back to get it. Someone puts on glasses, someone else takes something off and asks another to try it on. They exchange clothing and laugh, looking at their reflections in storefront windows and car windshields. Someone pulls out a make-up case, someone else steps off to the side and talks on their cell phone.)

      SNOWSTORM: Unlike you I simply have no talent for talking to women. For some reason I start lying immediately

      BLIZZARD: You just have to think that they have nothing you want

      SNOWSTORM: But that’s not true

      MANIAC: Just pretend it is

      BLIZZARD: Coffee, ice cream with mint and don’t look ’em in the eye

      SNOWSTORM: I do just the opposite. I look deep into their eyes

      BLIZZARD: She’ll think, “how come he’s not looking at me”

      MANIAC: You look at ’em later

      SNOWSTORM: I made a date for dinner with this one girl. I call her up and confirm and then I come to pick her up and call her and she hangs up on me

      MANIAC: What the hell are you confirming? Dinner dates aren’t office jobs, you know

      BLIZZARD: Did you talk to her about love?

      SNOWSTORM: What’s there to say about love on the phone?

      LENOCHKA: Women don’t accept commands

      ORANGINA: Women only understand presents and aromas

      MANIAC: Women have to listen to everything all the time, to convince themselves and others that they are wanted 24/7. That used to be done by letters, now it’s telephones and text messages

      BLIZZARD: People have started hiding behind text messages

      MANIAC: Orgasm. Sex only in words, only in text messages. Without that you’ve got a temper tantrum

      BLIZZARD: Her underwear didn’t match her eyes

      MANIAC: And she already wore that dress last time

      BLIZZARD: To another restaurant

      MANIAC: And not with him

      LENOCHKA: You are exceedingly cynical

      MANIAC: I can’t deny what’s true

      (They ascend in a transparent glass elevator, shake off the snow, take off their gloves, mittens, caps, and scarves and wipe off their foggy glasses.)

      LENOCHKA: Sex for men is a sport

      MANIAC: The kind of sex where you go and come – that strikes me as something savage. You kind of want something more

      ORANGINA: Everyone dreams of happiness

      MANIAC: Or of sex

      SNOWFLAKE: Is there anything sacred in your life, Maniac?

      MANIAC: No. You can’t serve God and mammon. You can’t sit on two chairs at once

      LENOCHKA: Snowstorm, are you married?

      SNOWSTORM: No

      LENOCHKA: Why not?

      MANIAC: When the evaluations begin – all these “are you married, I’m not married” – that’s it. From there on even the slightest minus becomes a huge tragedy. Everything should be absolutely ideal

      SNOWSTORM: I’ve got some numbers in my cell phone belonging to girls who send me messages sometimes. Most of them are exes, women I’ve been involved with. Sometimes I have sex with them

      BLIZZARD: It can happen to anyone

      ORANGINA: But not everyone

      BLIZZARD: Sometimes it’s really hard to jive different sex drives

      ORANGINA: You’ve got to understand them to do that

      (The café. VOLODYA drinks an espresso. BUSHY-TAIL eats pistachios out of his bowl.)

      BUSHY-TAIL: So what was she afraid of? You were telling

      VOLODYA: She was ashamed of me because she said I was just a sergeant

      BUSHY-TAIL (Impressed): You’re a sergeant?

      VOLODYA: First I was a junior sergeant. Then, after 14 days, I made senior sergeant

      BUSHY-TAIL: That fast?

      VOLODYA: For service to my country. When I was out on a mission. True, they wanted to discharge me later, ’cause I wasn’t the only one who СКАЧАТЬ