Real and Phantom Pains: An Anthology of New Russian Drama. John Freedman
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there. So, you see? I found one. I haven’t taken it off since.
BUSHY-TAIL: They say you shouldn’t wear someone else’s cross.
VOLODYA: Yeah, I’ve heard that; about taking on somebody else’s sins. But I found that one there and I’ve had no problem. After that luck was on my side. A grenade blew up three feet from me and I didn’t have a scratch. I don’t know if that was a fluke or what. Everybody thought I was dead meat but it didn’t even touch me. Except I went deaf for awhile. Not a scratch. And now I’ve met you.
(VOLODYA and BUSHY-TAIL stand at the entrance to her apartment building. BUSHY-TAIL says goodbye and goes in. VOLODYA continues to stand there as if he’s waiting for something.
The six stand in a parking lot. Snow is falling and all of them are gesturing in different directions as they discuss who will ride with whom in whose car. Everyone approaches his or her own car. MANIAC invites everyone to pile into his; BLIZZARD invites all to join him in his. The women laugh as they decide which car to get in and the men try pulling them in their direction. BLIZZARD and MANIAC clean the snow off their cars. MANIAC’s car is red, BLIZZARD’s is white. The doors are now open, music can be heard from the cars and everybody is dancing in the snow as they wait for the engines to warm up. It emerges that MANIAC’s car is an Alpha-Romeo, BLIZZARD’s is a Lexus. SNOWFLAKE and LENOCHKA get into the Alpha-Romeo, ORANGINA and SNOWSTORM get into the back seat of the Lexus. They drive off.
BUSHY-TAIL’s apartment. BUSHY-TAIL pulls a box out of her closet – in it is a new pair of black shoes, a white dress and fancy earrings. She looks over SNOWFLAKE’s business card. Makes a telephone call. Somewhere on the other end of the city the music from The Umbrellas of Cherbourg can be heard.
The Lexus. BLIZZARD, SNOWSTORM and ORANGINA.)
BLIZZARD (Turning up the music): What do you think of this?
ORANGINA: I like it
BLIZZARD: The female organism also differs from the male in that speakers affect it differently
SNOWSTORM: Women feel physical pleasure from this music
ORANGINA: I had this terrible dream that I was dancing all wrong
BLIZZARD: You dance and you dance and there’s no point to it
SNOWSTORM: Except that it feels great
ORANGINA: Will you teach me how?
BLIZZARD: Just stand in front of the mirror and dance
SNOWSTORM: You have to make friends with your body. Your own. Since you’ve been given a body, you might as well live in harmony with it. It’s so cool to be able to glide across the floor
BLIZZARD: I used to have a great body. I wanted to be a bodybuilder and compete in competitions with the Arnold Schwarzenegger technique. No anabolic steroids. I loved looking at myself in the mirror. I looked like that statue of Apollo
SNOWSTORM: It’s hard to move well if you don’t love yourself
BLIZZARD: And if you don’t like the way you are when you dance
ORANGINA: When I dance at least I stop thinking
BLIZZARD: So what is it you think about all the time?
ORANGINA: I’m constantly haunted by thoughts that maybe I’m not living right
(SNOWSTORM’s knee accidentally comes to rest against ORANGINA’s knee. She pulls her leg away.
The Lexus catches up with the Alpha-Romeo and begins to pass it. ORANGINA’s knee falls against SNOWSTORM’s knee. BLIZZARD sees this in the rear-view mirror and ORANGINA tries to pull away. As the car turns ORANGINA falls over into SNOWSTORM’s lap.)
BLIZZARD (Smiling): Are we lacking excitement in our lives?
SNOWSTORM: Excitement can appear only when you don’t expect it. When you chill out and just live, boldly, putting nothing into parentheses
(The Alpha-Romeo. MANIAC, SNOWFLAKE and LENOCHKA.)
MANIAC: The most exhilarating moment in my life was when my brother took me up in a supersonic jet. Now that was something.
SNOWFLAKE: Wasn’t it scary?
MANIAC: It was thrilling. It made me want to sing. But everything inside me was all churned upside down as if I was no longer me and my body wasn’t mine. The only thought I had in my mind was – God, I hope I don’t barf
SNOWFLAKE: And you call that the most exhilarating moment in your life?
MANIAC: Nothing can compare to it
LENOCHKA: Music sometimes does that to me
MANIAC: There was this time when I had just returned from a BASE jumping competition and it was my mother’s birthday. She asked me to bring over a video of it to show the guests. So I do. And this one guy comes up to me and he asks, “Why do you do this?”
SNOWFLAKE: Really
LENOCHKA: Why do you?
MANIAC: Well, this is what I say to him: “See, when I come right to the edge and I look down from the top of a cliff or a skyscraper with my toes hanging over, my heart stops and my breath stops and I think – now I’m going to go and jump
SNOWFLAKE: Why would you do that?
MANIAC: That’s just what he asked me
LENOCHKA: Adrenalin rushes, the psychological wounds of childhood and inferiority complexes all take on extreme forms
MANIAC: I wondered about it myself for a long time. Everybody has dreams of a material kind, hopes to achieve material prosperity. But why do you live? Take a step out there on the edge and you instantly understand why
(The Lexus is caught in a traffic jam.)
BLIZZARD: This world is so chaotic and futile, you have to know how to distance yourself from it. There are so many things to do in life that you waste all your energy on everything at once instead of focusing on one specific thing. But life was granted to us so we could extract the maximum enjoyment from it. Comfort is the true fetish of the 21st century. So when you fall in love you have to do it with comfort in mind. You have to be relaxed together.
ORANGINA: Every person strives for harmony in life
SNOWSTORM: Or at least for inner tranquility
BLIZZARD: The Japanese know the secret of love. It’s comfort. I dream of having a Japanese woman
SNOWSTORM: Me, I like plump women with glasses and a young kid
ORANGINA: Every woman in the world wants to lose weight
(The Alfa-Romeo. Also stuck in a traffic jam.)
MANIAC: Look around at people. Why do you think they jump? Because the most awesome high a person can get is to rise above his own self. Lenochka, conquer that wild beast in you that arises from savage fear! The sensation you get when you jump is like turning somersaults
LENOCHKA: Where did you learn to do that?
MANIAC: I used to be really fat and I weighed 300 pounds. Blizzard and I started taking private lessons in acrobatics. We wanted to fly freely and sublimely. And I lost weight.
SNOWFLAKE: How many times have you jumped?
MANIAC: I’d guess about 80
LENOCHKA: You’re kidding?
MANIAC: Oh, that’s no big deal
SNOWFLAKE: Some countries have banned it as suicidal
MANIAC: Every person who jumps from four different objects gets his own number. Maybe I’ll get my own number soon. By the time I get to 835...
LENOCHKA: Orangina lives in apartment number 835
MANIAC: Maybe 834