Real and Phantom Pains: An Anthology of New Russian Drama. John Freedman
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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 got a promotion. We were out celebrating that. And nobody ever celebrated big events like that without me. I ripped off my stripes and I said, leave me alone – I’ll just be a regular soldier. But they changed their minds later. Before the army I studied agriculture in college.
BUSHY-TAIL: Isn’t that something
(The office. People walk around and leave. Five people sit at five desks, working at their computers. SNOWSTORM keeps dancing. He’s wearing silver headphones. People are drinking coffee and tea, others feed the gold fish. SNOWFLAKE and BLIZZARD are having their make-up done. ORANGINA takes photos as someone is hooking wires up to something. Maniac signs pieces of paper as others come and go.)
SNOWFLAKE: If a man and a woman come to an agreement, then, yes, mutual understanding of some kind is possible
MANIAC: Nobody understands anybody. Everybody only understands their own desires
BLIZZARD: Eat, drink and sleep
SNOWSTORM: It’s hard for anyone to see beyond the end of his own nose
LENOCHKA: The only thing anyone knows well is what he wants
SNOWFLAKE: If someone can clearly define his desire, then something may come of it
MANIAC: What if he wants sex? Does he get it?
SNOWFLAKE: What if he wants a fairy tale?
LENOCHKA: Rules are what we want
SNOWFLAKE: We don’t do things by consensus, we just follow our feelings
LENOCHKA: Irrationality is a woman’s only logic
BLIZZARD (To ORANGINA): Admit it. That’s true
MANIAC: Let’s go to my place and watch a movie
LENOCHKA: That’s the second “yes” a woman says: If a woman agrees to go to the movies, then that’s all she wrote
MANIAC: If only
BLIZZARD: For love a woman must have three things
SNOWFLAKE: What?
BLIZZARD: First, a stopwatch
LENOCHKA: Why’s that?
BLIZZARD: So as not to open her mouth for more than six seconds
MANIAC: Forget all that la-la-la bla-bla-bla chicky-chicky sis-boom-bah
BLIZZARD: Remember: you have only six seconds. Men understand only short, unambiguous commands
MANIAC: And don’t back a man into a corner
BLIZZARD: Family life is just like life on the job. Right-left, gimme your hand, sit, when, how much, and where. Wednesday evening, Tuesday. I can make it Wednesday, Wednesday at five, all right
LENOCHKA: What’s the second?
BLIZZARD: The second is a black belt
SNOWFLAKE: Karate?
BLIZZARD: A classic black belt
ORANGINA: What’s the third?
MANIAC: The third is that there is only one foreign language. And you have to learn it
BLIZZARD: That language is called the male language. You have to learn to speak to men in their own language
LENOCHKA: How do you learn it?
BLIZZARD: You simply have to forget Russian. And learn three phrases. These three phrases are very difficult to pronounce. (Counts off on his fingers.) I’ll wait for you. I love you. I kiss you. And then in the opposite order. Kiss you. Love you. Waiting for you.
MANIAC: And no philosophical, psychological or religious conversations
LENOCHKA: Why not?
MANIAC: It’s forbidden
BLIZZARD: One way or another, they lead to fights
LENOCHKA: What do you talk about then?
MANIAC: You have to understand each other without words
SNOWFLAKE: But understanding is very difficult
MANIAC: There’s a lot of zeroes on the end
SNOWFLAKE: A man and a woman can understand each other on an animalistic level, that they want each other, that they want tenderness and understanding
LENOCHKA: They themselves don’t know what that means
SNOWFLAKE: It’s all very mystifying
(BUSHY-TAIL and VOLODYA walk down the street.)
VOLODYA: I was christened when I was sixteen years old. I was big. I believe everything that has anything to do with God. Do you?
BUSHY-TAIL: Yes, I do believe
VOLODYA: I went into the army and I had this cross. I lost it in combat training. I lost my cross. Basically all we did was beat each other’s faces in. And then a week later at five in the morning we get into formation in the yard in full combat dress and they do the roll call and say, “You’re going to Chechnya.” You don’t question orders. On the runway at the airport this guy approached us. He says, “You guys are going on a mission and I’ve got crosses for you. Only I don’t have enough for everybody.” It goes without saying that I didn’t get one. There were 54 of us. We didn’t have enough ammunition to go around. Naturally, there wasn’t enough for me. They passed me over. But all I could think of is that I didn’t have a cross. And with no ammo all that stuff just starts to overwhelm you. Bad, bad thoughts.
BUSHY-TAIL: How could you not have ammunition?
VOLODYA: They gave me some later. Later on there was plenty of everything. One day we were cleaning out one house. It was obvious Russians lived there. There was a small icon right where you’d expect one to be in the corner of the room. The place looked like a hurricane hit it. We went in, looked around and I sat down on