ISBN 978-5-0067-1392-5

      Создано в интеллектуальной издательской системе Ridero

      «Hermit, you’re going to your own place! Your path leads you beyond you and your seven devils.»

      AFTER LOVE (part one)

      1

      Forty men, wearing eighty tarpaulin boots, walk in place. Eighty tarpaulin boots, with forty men sticking out of them, beat the heartbeat of her heart on stage. The heart that beatsся in the chest of a heavy and almost sloppily dressed woman sitting in the fifth row and snapping seeds. Her name is Eva and she is forty-five years old. She doesn’t look very well because she hasn’t slept and isn’t feeling well. Eva’s fingernails are marked with a black seed patch, and a black moustache appears on her upper lip under the tray, because Eva has something wrong with her male hormones. There are too many of them, probably because Eva has a masculine personality. But that doesn’t bother her, she’s more concerned with how the men on stage carry out the mission assigned to their feet and shoulders.

      Eva has breast cancer, she found out about it quite recently. Eva herself is quite calmabout her illness. She doesn’t talk about it, making it nonexistent for those around her and partly for herself. It even seems to her that the realization of her own imminent end will benefit the art in which she is engaged, because she will put on a performance as if for the last time. Eva was out of work for a long time, so the energy of talent was translated into illness. And now art can’t cure her, but now she can give to art what she couldn’t give before.

      «Think about it,» Eva says softly, «my dear men, stomp like real brutes. I want more passion, more energia! Bolshe sex, comrades, more sex! Why are you chewing snot like suckers? Be steady, comrades, don’t let us relax, «she says, not even looking at them and spitting out the husks of sunflower seeds on the newspaper from yesterday spread out on her lap. «Give me more fire, or there’ll only be smoke for now.» «Everyone says I have a man’s voice,» Eva says, launching into a very long argument that is very characteristic of her. «It’s beautiful,» she smiles. «I might even want you to haveeverything like a man.» For example, a member. But, apparently, I’ve only ever had a voice with the almighty, «she laughs hoarselyм смехом at her joke.

      Everyone is already used to suchоjokes. Eva has a low, smoky voice, which is also called the voice from the bedroom. She sounds like that because раньше she used to smoke a lot. But now, due toher illness, she does not smoke, she has replaced smoking with clickingm seeds, the husk of which leaves everywhere. Eva quit smoking so that she could finish the show and see how the audience would take it. That’s why she wants to live longer. This is very important to her.She quit smoking not for the sake of her health, but for the sake of a theatrical production, which she must certainly complete and show to the audience.

      Eva is the best theater director in the provincial city of K*, and she can do anything. You can click seeds in the theater and spit the husk on the newspaper. She can be littered and cursed anywhere and anytime, because she knows how to create. She knows how to create something enchanting and memorable on stage. Eva has the ability to create a theatrical performance that goes back to art. And this is very much liked by the management of the theater, which should show its performance in Moscow at the festival and thus provide itself with additional funding. This performance, which Eva creates, should become the hallmark of the city and pave the way for new funding and a higher status of their ordinary theater.

      Eva hasn’t figured out what the show is going to be about yet, she’s still just thinking. And Eve thinks, snapping the seeds. She used to smoke godlessly and drink a lot, but when she was offered a job, she gave up both and switched to sunflower seeds. Ten years ago, Eva lived in St. Petersburg with her husband Igor, also a theater director, but something between them got upset, and Eva moved to the city of K*, where she was born. And my husband became a very famous theater director. No one knew why they’d split up after fifteen years of marriage, and Eve didn’t like to talkabout it. But she cherished the memory of him in her heart and communicated with him in her mind. Eva refused to cooperate with all the theaters, no matter how much she was offered. But when she was told that in Moscow she would compete as a director with her ex-husband, she agreed. Until then, Eva had eked out a miserable existence on the royalties of several films made about fifteen years ago, and she had had enough.

      «Art begins with hate,» Eva says ironically to Pavel, who is sitting next to her, still cracking seeds. «It’s me, my soul, anticipating your question aboutwhy I’m swearing at the cast and why I’m sitting with a sour face,» she says to Pavel.

      Eva prefers to be ironic in order to hide from the world, so as not to be invulnerableto those who want to touch her to the quick. Paul is an old friend of Eve’s, already fifty years old. He had once been in love with Eve, but that was a long time ago, before she was еще eighteen. He visits her periodically, because he still can’t forget her. But both he and she understand that nothing can happen between them.

      «I didn’t ask anything,» Pavel replies, looking at the stage. – Have you already decided, what the show will be about?

      «No,» Eve says, still cracking the seeds. – I haven’t figured it out yet.» – But I have already managed to wave the «intellectual phallus» in front of the noses of the theater management, so I can think as much as I want.

      «You’re thinking sunflower seeds?» Pavel asks, smiling.

      – Yes, it’s the only way to get away with spitting while looking at the stage.

      – Why did you stop smoking and switch to sunflower seeds? Pavel asks.

      – At my age, smoking is no longer appropriate, you need to smoke young people toshorten your life. And I feel like I don’t have much time left, «Eva laughs. «Yes,» she says in a more serious tone, «I’ve given up drinking and smoking, and mostly eating, but hopefully not for long. My body wasn’t made for art. The soul is made for art, but the body is not made. для искусства, а тело не создано, такая вот I take a cigarette from my silver cigarette case and light it, gasping for breath. Apparently, twenty years of continuous smoking had done the trick. I pour a glass of goodred wine and asIdrink it, I realize thatI’m going to have a fit soon. Belching or heartburn. Often they come to me together. Stomach and lungs deny me the right to enjoy the art of smoking and watch the smoke rings melt in the air. I can’t even get drunk with impunity anymore. So now all that’s left for me are seeds and emptiness. The healthy and the young will soon displace me from my director’s chair, from my miracleapartment, and from this vast planet. Okay, I wrappedit up, didn’t I? Eve smiles.

      «Very life – affirming,» Pavel replies.

      Hehates to listen to Eva’s self-deprecating ironyand look at her pitted face, because she was once a beauty and many people vied with her, including him. But Eva’s heart was beating exclusively for art, so sheеwent to St. Petersburg to «study as a director». And then she contacted her classmate, with whom they lived soul to soul for about fifteen years, they did not have children, because they had a passion for art. Ten years ago, Eva returned to her provincial town. She came back completely different, she was still good, but there was no fire in her eyes anymore. Eva began to drink a lot, and in ten years she went from a blooming woman to a в bloated woman who started the day with champagne and ended with red wine. Eve was getting drunk, and there was nothing she could do about it. She had gained more than twenty kilograms of extra weight, and her hair had turned gray and thinned, which was very noticeable. At first, she didn’t want to work for as long as she wasn’t offered. Pavel himself came to visit her, but she is no longer likethat – something broke in her, she was rapidly sinking, and she did not need to be rescued.

      «I like it myself,» Eve smiles. – Talent, as they say, can