Man From the USSR & Other Plays
Page 11
Yeah, I’ll bet they are.
LYUBOV’
Well, when are we going to hear your story?
ANTONINA PAVLOVNA
Oh, never mind. Some other time.
LYUBOV’
Don’t be hurt, Mummy. Alyosha!
TROSHCHEYKIN
I’m standing in for him.
(The doorbell rings.)
ANTONINA PAVLOVNA
No, no—it’s all right: I’ll type it up first, otherwise it’s not very legible.
LYUBOV’
Type it up and then come read it. Please!
TROSHCHEYKIN
Second the motion.
ANTONINA PAVLOVNA
You’re sure? All right, then I’ll be back in a moment.
(On her way out, just beyond the door, she bumps into Ryovshin, who is first heard, then seen: he is a foppish, wriggly fellow with a short black beard and whiskery eyebrows. His coworkers have dubbed him The Hairy Helminth.)
RYOVSHIN
(on the other side of the door)
And is Alexey Maximovich up? Alive and well? Everything fine? Actually, it’s him I’d like to see for a moment, (to Troshcheykin) May I come in?
TROSHCHEYKIN
By all means, good sir.
RYOVSHIN
Hello, luv.... Hello, Alexey Maximovich. Everything shipshape with you?
TROSHCHEYKIN
How solicitous he is, eh? Yes, finances apart, everything is first-rate.
RYOVSHIN
Excuse me for barging in at such an ungodly hour. I was passing by and thought I’d say hello.
LYUBOV’
Will you have some coffee?
RYOVSHIN
No, I thank you. I just dropped in for a minute. Oh, I think I forgot to wish your mama a happy birthday. How embarrassing....
TROSHCHEYKIN
How come you are so nervous and cocky at the same time today?
RYOVSHIN
No, no—what are you saying—? (pause) So that’s the way it is. (pause) Did you stay home last night?
LYUBOV’
Yes, why?
RYOVSHIN
Just asking. So that’s how things are, then.... Are you sketching?
TROSHCHEYKIN
No, I’m playing the harp. Come on, sit down someplace. (pause)
RYOVSHIN
It’s drizzling out.
TROSHCHEYKIN
How very interesting. Any other news?
RYOVSHIN
Oh, no, none at all. I just dropped in. You know, today, I was walking and thinking: how long have we known each other, Alexey Maximovich? Seven years, isn’t it?
LYUBOV’
I’d very much like to know what has happened.
RYOVSHIN
Oh, just trifles. You know, business complications.
TROSHCHEYKIN
You’re right, pet. He is kind of twitchy today. Maybe you have fleas? How about a bath?
RYOVSHIN
You never stop kidding, do you, Alexey Maximovich? No. I was just reminiscing about the days when I was your best man and so forth. There are days when one reminisces.
LYUBOV’
What’s wrong—is your conscience bothering you?
RYOVSHIN
There are days like that.... Time flies.... You look back, and—
TROSHCHEYKIN
Oh, how boring this is getting.... Why don’t you stop by the library, good sir, and brush up on your reading? This afternoon our Venerable Master is coming. I’m willing to bet he’ll arrive in a dinner jacket as at the Vishnévskis’.
RYOVSHIN
At the Vishnevskis’? Oh, yes, of course....You know, Lyubov’ Ivanovna, I think I’ll have a little cup of coffee after all.
LYUBOV’
Thank heavens! You finally made up your mind, (goes out)
RYOVSHIN
Listen, Alexey Maximovich—something sensational has happened! A sensationally unpleasant event.
TROSHCHEYKIN
Are you serious?
RYOVSHIN
I don’t even know how to tell you. Just don’t get excited—and, above all, Lyubov’ Ivanovna must know nothing for the time being.
TROSHCHEYKIN
What is it, some vile gossip?
RYOVSHIN
Worse.
TROSHCHEYKIN
Namely?
RYOVSHIN
Something unforeseen and horrible, Alexey Maximovich.
TROSHCHEYKIN
Well, out with it then, damn you!
RYOVSHIN
Barbashin is back.
TROSHCHEYKIN
What?
RYOVSHIN
Last night. They lopped a year and a half off his sentence.
TROSHCHEYKIN
It can’t be!
RYOVSHIN
just don’t get excited. We must discuss it, and work out some kind of modus vivendi
TROSHCHEYKIN
Vivendi my foot. To hell with vivendi. But ... but... What will happen now? Good Lord.... You must be kidding—you are, aren’t you?
RYOVSHIN
Get a firm grip on yourself. You and I had better find some place to....
(Lyubov ’ re-enters.)
LYUBOV’
You’ll be served in a moment. By the way, Alyosha, she says the fruit—Alyosha, what happened?
TROSHCHEYKIN
The inevitable.
RYOVSHIN
Alexey Maximovich, Alyosha, my friend—let’s go out for a while now. The fresh morning air will make your headache go away, and you can walk me home....
LYUBOV’
I want to know this instant. Did someone die?
TROSHCHEYKIN
It’s monstrously funny, though. Poor idiot that I am, a moment ago I still had a year and a half in reserve. By that time we would have long since been in a different city, in a different country, on a different planet. I don’t understand: what is this, a trap? Why didn’t anybody warn us beforehand? What kind of rotten way of running things is this? Where did these tenderhearted judges come from? The bastards Just think—they let him out early! No, it’s ... it’s ... I’ll lodge a complaint! I’ll—
RYOVSHIN
Take it easy, old man.
LYUBOV’
(to Ryovshin)
Is this true?
RYOVSHIN
Is what true?
LYUBOV’
No, no, don’t raise your eyebrows. You know perfectly well what I mean.
TROSHCHEYKIN
I’d very much like to know who stands to benefit from this indulgence, (to Ryovshin) Why don’t you say something? Did you talk to him?...
RYOVSHIN
Yes.
LYUBOV’
And how is he—very much changed?
TROSHCHEYKIN
Lyuba, enough of your idiotic questions. Don’t you realize what’ll happen now? We have to run, and there’s no place to run to, and no money to do it with. What a surprise!
LYUBOV’
Come on, tell us.
TROSHCHEYKIN
Yes, indeed, why sit there like a stone statue. Come on, stop torturing us.
RYOVSHIN
To make a long story short.... Last night, towards midnight, at ten-forty-five or so, I’d say ... nonsense, what am I talking about? I mean eleven-forty-five ... I was walking home from the cinema across the square from you ... and, can you believe it, right there, just a few steps from your house, but on the other side of the street, you know, by the newsstand—I couldn’t believe my eyes—there, in the light of a street lamp, smoking a cigarette, stood Barbashin.
TROSHCHEYKIN
Right on our corner! Delightful! And you and I, Lyuba, nearly went, too: great film, you said, Camera Obscura, you said, highlight of the season. Instead of the highlight, it would have been lights out for us. Go on!
RYOVSHIN
Now then. We never had seen much of each other, and he might have forgotten what I looked like, but no—he gave me a pier
cing glance—you know, one of those haughty, derisive glances of his, and I could not help stopping. We said hello. I was curious, of course. “How is it,” I asked, “that you’re back in our bailiwick so prematurely?”
LYUBOV’
You mean you came right out like that and asked him?
RYOVSHIN
Anyway, words to that effect. I mumbled something, improvised a few phrases of greeting, and let him take it from there, of course. And indeed he did. “Yes,” he says, “because of my exemplary conduct, and on the occasion of an official celebration, I was asked to vacate my government-assigned quarters a year and a half early.” And he looks at me. Insolently.
TROSHCHEYKIN
The son of a bitch. Eh? Can anyone please tell me what’s going on? Where are we, in Corsica? What is this, an incitement to vendetta?
LYUBOV’
(to Ryovshin)
And at this point you apparently got the jitters.
RYOVSHIN
Not a bit. “What,” I asked, “do you plan to do now?” “To live,” he says, “live for my own pleasure,” and he looks at me, laughing. “And why, sir,” I ask, “are you loitering around here in the dark?”...That is, I didn’t say it out loud, but just thought it most eloquently. I hope he got the message. And with that, well—we parted.
TROSHCHEYKIN
You’re not so hot yourself. Why didn’t you drop in immediately? Who knows, I might have gone out to mail a letter, and then what would have happened? You could at least have taken the trouble to phone me.
RYOVSHIN
Well, you know, it was kind of late....I said to myself, let them get a good night’s sleep.
TROSHCHEYKIN
I didn’t feel particularly sleepy, and now I know why!
RYOVSHIN
I also noticed that he reeked of perfume. This, on top of his sarcastic surliness, struck me as being downright satanic.
TROSHCHEYKIN
Everything is clear. There is nothing to discuss.... Everything is perfectly clear. I’m going to get the entire police force jumping! I will not stand for this benevolence! I refuse to understand how, after his threats, about which everybody knew and knows, how, after that, they could have allowed him to return to this city!
LYUBOV’
It was only something he shouted in a moment of excitement.
TROSHCHEYKIN
’Xitement, ’xitement! I like that! Sorry, dear girl, but when a man starts shooting, sees he hasn’t killed his victims outright, and screams that he will finish the job as soon as he’s served his sentence—that’s ... that’s not excitement, but fact, bloody, fleshy fact, that’s what it is! What an ass I was. They said seven years, and I believed them. I thought calmly, four more years, three more, a year and a half, and, when there is only half a year left, we’ll get out of here no matter what.... I’d already begun writing to my friend in Capri to make arrangements....Lord, I deserve to be thrashed!
RYOVSHIN
Let’s keep cool, Alexey Maximovich. It’s essential to remain lucid and unafraid ... though caution, even supreme caution, is imperative. I’ll be frank: according to my observations, he is in a state of extreme anger and tension, and forced labor has not tamed him in the least. As I said before, I may be mistaken.
LYUBOV’
Except that forced labor has nothing to do with it. The man was in jail, that’s all.
TROSHCHEYKIN
All this is horrible.
RYOVSHIN
Here, then, is my plan: at about ten o’clock, you and I, Alexey Maximovich, will go over to Vishnevski’s office. Since he was your lawyer at the time, we must first of all see him. It’s perfectly obvious to anyone that you can’t go on living under a threat like this.... Forgive me if I evoke painful memories, but it happened in this very room, didn’t it?
TROSHCHEYKIN
Exactly, exactly. Of course this was all forgotten, and Madame, here, would get annoyed when I recalled it jokingly now and then....It seemed like something we’d seen at the theatre, in some melodrama. Sometimes I even ... yes, it was to you that I showed a spot of carmine paint on the floor with the witty comment that the trace of blood was still there. Clever joke.
RYOVSHIN
Right here in this room, then? Tsk, tsk, tsk.
LYUBOV’
Yes, in this room.
TROSHCHEYKIN
In this very room. We had just moved in: real newlyweds, I with my mustache, she with her flowers—the whole bit. A touching spectacle. We didn’t have that wardrobe then, and this one stood by the wall over there, but everything else was the same then as now, even that little rug....
RYOVSHIN
Amazing!
TROSHCHEYKIN
Not amazing, but criminal. Yesterday, today, everything was so peaceful.... And now look at us! What can I do? I don’t have the money either to defend myself or to flee. How could they set him free, after all that happened.... Look, this is how it was. I was sitting here. No, wait—the table was in a different spot, too. Here, I believe. You see—memory does not immediately adjust to a repeat performance. Yesterday it all seemed so long ago....
LYUBOV’
It was October eighth, and raining, because I remember the ambulance attendants’ cloaks were wet, and my face felt wet too as they were carrying me. You might find that detail useful for your reconstruction.
RYOVSHIN
What an amazing thing is memory!
TROSHCHEYKIN
Here, the furniture is correctly positioned now. Yes, October eighth. Her brother, Mikhail Ivanovich, was visiting us and stayed the night. So. It was evening. Outside it was already dark. I was sitting here by the little table, peeling an apple. Like this. She was sitting over there, where she stands now. Suddenly the doorbell rings. We had a new maid, a blockhead even worse than Marfa. I look up and see Barbashin standing in the doorway. Here, stand by the door. All the way back. There. Lyuba and I rise automatically, and he immediately opens fire.
RYOVSHIN
Just think....It’s not even twenty feet from here to there.
TROSHCHEYKIN
Not even twenty feet? The very first shot hits her in the hip, and she sits down on the floor, and the second zaps me in the left hand—here—another half inch and it would have splintered the bone. He keeps firing, and there I stand with my apple, like a young William Tell. At that moment ... at that moment my brother-in-law comes in and piles on him from behind; you remember him—huge bear of a man. Grabs him and puts a hammerlock on him. While I, in spite of my wound and the terrible pain, calmly go up to Barbashin and whack him on the kisser.... That’s when he shouted it—I remember every word: “Just wait, I’ll be back to finish off both of you!”
RYOVSHIN
I recall how the late Margarita Semyonovna Hoffman gave me the news. I was flabbergasted. Worst of all, the rumor somehow started that Lyubov’ Ivanovna was on the point of death.
LYUBOV’
Actually, of course, it was just a trifle. I was laid up for a couple of weeks, no more. Now you can’t even see the scar.
TROSHCHEYKIN
Whoa, there—you can see it all right. And it wasn’t two weeks, but over a month. Now, now, I remember it perfectly well. My hand was no laughing matter either. This is all so, so—And on top of it all I busted my watch yesterday, damn it! Is it time to go yet?
RYOVSHIN
There’s no point in going before ten: he comes into the office at about ten-fifteen. Or else we could go right to his house—it’s practically next door. Which do you prefer?
TROSHCHEYKIN
I’ll go phone him at home right away, that’s what I’ll do.
(goes out)
LYUBOV’