Rock, Paper, Scissors

by Maxim Osipov

  How could anyone not fall for Slavochka? All the actresses adored him. You ask:

  Out late again? He smiles: “You know I can’t do without hot water.”

  You’ll get used to it.

  “Easy for you to say, Uncle Sasha. You’re past your prime.”

  It wasn’t only the actresses but all the single women—costumers, makeup artists, bookkeepers—who were glad to lend Slavochka a helping hand. Some days he’d take two or three warm baths. And no one kicked up a fuss, no one quarreled—marvelous people like Slavochka don’t come around very often. I’d never met anyone like him before. And I never would have, were it not for the theater. I sometimes reflect on how lucky I was, how fortunate . . . As for the shadows that fell on my life, the dark patches I went through—I’d brought them on myself.

  He knew how to do all kinds of things, juggling, eating fire. He could learn a text without the help of a notebook: he would take one look at a page and have it by heart. And how he played guitar! And sang! Even our Valentina Genrikhovna, a person of great restraint, would save the tastiest morsels for Slavochka.

  “Our communal treasure,” that’s what she called him.

  •

  Out of the hundred—more than that—actors who’d worked with us over the years, fate chose three, and placed them on a collision course. Of course, we ourselves helped fate along. We thought that we could move mountains, cycle through practically the whole of the world’s classics. One mistake, followed by another, and a crime—then fate takes over. In our case, the result was plain to see: no more theater, no more town. I myself am partly to blame: we could have left the Greeks alone; if not for me, no one would have thought of Oedipus. It’s foolish to brag about my intuition—where had it been earlier?—but I do remember that when we dared to put on Hamlet, I was already expecting some sort of punishment, was even wishing for it. The inspectors came, and I felt: here it comes. No, fate was just letting us swallow the bait, nice and deep—the inspection went fine.

  •

  Where are they coming from? Audit Chamber? Cultural Commission? Everyone’s panicking. We’d never had inspectors before. “From the ministry! How many are there?” Four! Can you believe it?

  I run into Valentina Genrikhovna: she doesn’t know whether she’s coming or going. What first? Hurry to props department? Burn the credit notebook? Ready a table for the inspectors? I stop by the wardrobe department, to get my jacket pressed—they’re in a tizzy too.

  Gennady Prokopyevich alone is as cool as a cucumber. He summons Gubaryev, me, a few other men.

  “Fellas,” he says, “don’t you worry. What’s on today? Measure for Measure? Who’s that, I forget—Shakespeare? Well, go get to work. Send the suckers straight over to me. Oh, and don’t you bother feeding those spongers. Waste of money.”

  A man of remarkable equanimity.

  •

  Late in the evening—the theater is empty, dark—the inspectors notice a light under my door, come in. They’d never come across anything like what they experienced in Eternity. Gennady Prokopyevich had sat them down in reception, didn’t even offer them tea, put on his coat, and left.

  I went down to the lobby, where there’s a telephone.

  “Alexander Ivanovich, I’m on leave. So is the accountant. I signed off on it last week.”

  I give them tea and biscuits. They look round and see Hamlet on my desk.

  “Putting this on?” They leaf through it. “But where’s the stamp of the Ministry of Culture?”

  No one had asked me that before.

  “Have you heard? They’re going to shut you down soon. The entire town is being liquidated. No sense in keeping the mines going. Not cost-effective.”

  These people from the ministry had a sad look about them: What did they really know? And still I ask: How can an entire town be liquidated?

  They shrug.

  “Just like that.”

  OEDIPUS

  “Am I always going to play his mother from now on?”

  Lyubochka asked me that when we had finished with Hamlet and, to our misfortune, set to work on Oedipus.

  •

  Not that Hamlet was uneventful. Hairspring—our Ophelia—comes running up to me: “Come quick, Lyuba’s lost her living mind.”

  Lyuba is playing Gertrude, and Gubaryev is the ghost. Slavochka, naturally, is the prince. It’s rehearsal time, and Lyuba—either she’s forgotten her lines or she is just in one of her moods—keeps going on about how her aged husband had made her get rid of her children.

  “Bawling her eyes out, Alexander Ivanovich, and saying straight-out—if she should get knocked up, under any circumstances . . .”

  How awful! What could I say to Hairspring—that it’s a new translation? I run downstairs. Lyuba is standing there, face turned to the curtain, and over her looms the Commander: stilts, armor—nothing goes to waste around here. There’s a fire in Slavochka’s eyes: “You’re a jealous one, my dear Zakhar. You oughta play, what’s his name, Othello.”

  Gubaryev’s face and neck are flushed.

  “Look, Gubaryev’s learned to turn red!” Slavochka laughs. “Like Signor Pomodoro.”

  Then Zakhar tried to hook him with a crutch. I myself didn’t understand what was going on between the actors. I thought they were just joking around. It seems they themselves wanted to believe that. The rehearsal broke off.

  But Hamlet still opened. Lyuba didn’t lose her mind; she remembered all her lines. Everyone performed to the best of their abilities. Melpomene Sidorovna was satisfied.

  •

  “And whom is she playing next, your precious Lyubochka? Cleopatra? Mary Stuart? Perhaps Juliet? She has turned fourteen by now, hasn’t she?”

  I offer explanations: Anna Arkadyevna, you know that what we’re doing is not, alas, very serious. We’re trying things, experimenting with new concepts, but always in a rush—we’ve got a grant to account for—and just look how much we’ve bitten off this season. But we’ll find you a role to play right away, don’t you worry—it’s just that you learn your lines so slowly; you take time to enter into your role.

  Anna Arkadyevna draws on her cigarette, releases the smoke.

  “Alexander Ivanovich, we weren’t taught to play roles, to say nothing of making money with our body and voice. No, we were taught to live and die onstage. I don’t learn a role, I live it. Do you understand the difference?”

  I promise, both myself and Anna Arkadyevna, to discuss the situation with Prokopyevich. Incidentally, he never did watch our performances. People with one eye, he said, couldn’t perceive depth.

  •

  Tanned, trim, Gennady Prokopyevich is feeding his fish—not little goldfish, but real sea creatures. The huge aquarium takes up the whole wall, and in it splash all sorts of colorful monsters. I notice a new writing set on his desk. I inform him that, from my point of view, our method of staging the classics has outlived its usefulness. Plays that ought to stimulate our development are instead causing fatigue and irritation. The problem isn’t the actors, and it certainly isn’t the great works we’ve had the opportunity to put on. No. I am the problem. I’m nothing more than a literary director, and an old man at that—an old man without theatrical training.

  I had prepared a whole monologue: what it had cost us to start making money, how everything had gone to pieces. Who were we now? Poor, bare, forked animals (we had staged that, too). But Prokopyevich interrupts me: “Do you want the medallion or the ride?” That’s his favorite expression of late. I can’t work up the courage to ask what it means, fearing it might be indecent. “You’re tired, Alexander Ivanovich. When did you last take time off? Never? Well, it’s high time! Off you go.”

  Go where? Prokopyevich had caught me off guard. Where am I to go?

  “What do you mean, where?” He points to the aquarium, as if calling the fish as witnesses. “There’s Sharm El Sheikh. There’s Greece.”

  I lose my bearings altogether, go weak. In the end I ask his permissio
n to stage Oedipus, tell him it’s long been a dream of mine. I’m astonished at my own words. Prokopyevich shrugs: he doesn’t meddle in artistic matters. You want Oedipus? Oedipus it is.

  •

  “Strophe, epeisodion, antistrophe. It’s all Greek to me. What’s it actually about?”

  About the truth, Slavochka: about the fact that the truth is, for some reason, necessary. Even though it can sometimes bring us pain.

  “You’re like the Sphinx, Uncle Sasha. You talk in riddles.”

  All right, then: it’s about fate. The play’s about fate. You know the expression, Slavochka: no flying from fate.

  A sigh: “So it seems.”

  •

  Suddenly Moscow remembers Gubaryev—he’s offered a role in a miniseries. He also wants to find out what happened with those documents for the honorary title. Five, six years have passed since they were submitted. Looks like we’ll have to make do without Zakhar, which is a pity. He would have made a good Creon. Or, better yet, Tiresias, the blind prophet: Gubaryev knew how to throw a scare into people. Although foresight clearly wasn’t his strength. We’ve all got excellent hindsight, but what happened between Lyuba and Slavochka came as no surprise to Valentina Genrikhovna: “The sparks were flying between them even before Zakhar left. Every time you went near them, it was like you were in their way.”

  I had the opposite impression. It seemed to me they were always looking for company.

  “No contradiction in that. You don’t understand the first thing about the sins of man, Alexander Ivanovich. Not a thing.”

  That may well be. Dear Valentina Genrikhovna! I remember what she was like twenty, thirty years ago. Stern, focused, always hurrying somewhere in that apron of hers. So much time has passed, so much has changed . . .

  •

  We erected an altar, arranged the choir around it in a U. The choir was mixed, which isn’t by the book, but each member was given an olive branch to hold. They wave their branches, dance around, sing strange songs, and they have fun doing it: “Alexander Ivanovich, it’s just like rap!”

  Slavochka stopped spending nights in the theater. Now they came to rehearsals together, holding hands. Many thought they looked crazed; I only noticed that they’d lost weight. The young actresses feel for Slavochka, but express surprise: What, was Lyuba smeared in honey or something?

  “I’ve got no idea what he’s doing to her, but your Lyuba has gone insane.” That’s how Anna Arkadyevna sees it. What concerns her most is the fate of the show. “Of course, it makes sense that Jocasta should be slightly deranged, but within reason.”

  But the state of the leads suits me just fine: they’re worn-out, but tuned-in, focused. I may not have any theatrical training, but I do have eyes and ears.

  And we’d thought up a nice role for Anna Arkadyevna too, without any lines. She was to play the governess to Ismene and Antigone, Oedipus’s daughters. They were also Oedipus’s sisters, Jocasta’s granddaughters, and their own aunts and nieces.

  “Quite a family,” sighs Anna Arkadyevna.

  •

  “Ah! My poor children, known, ah, known too well . . .”18 Slavochka is a true king, although he’s younger than everyone else.

  “Can you imagine Slavochka as an old man?” Valentina Genrikhovna once asked me. “Neither can I.”

  I went through a great deal of literature at that time, entered into correspondence with specialists in Moscow. “My dears,” I address the actors, “this is Greek tragedy. Here you mustn’t live and die onstage. What we need isn’t an expression of tragedy, but its depiction. Do you understand the difference?” Not really, Alexander Ivanovich, but we’ll try. “Forget what you were taught in school—don’t live onstage, just show us.” For the first time in many years, we might have a serious production on our hands.

  Lyubochka handles her new situation well, with dignity. But, to be honest, several scenes make me nervous: this isn’t the first time Lyuba has played a queen, and I still haven’t forgotten our adventures with Hamlet. But no, she doesn’t work herself up into a state when the talk turns to how remorselessly Laius, her former spouse, had treated their child: “Its ankles pierced and pinned together, gave it to be cast away by others on the trackless mountainside.” And even when the other actresses try to hinder her—use Lyubochka’s props or intentionally say her lines—she remains the same: fine and aloof. Where could this composure have possibly come from? It is astonishing.

  And now, with the same queenliness, she moves into Slavochka’s room. Zakhar would soon return—so why should they hide? Sure, they’d have to work together, the three of them, but they’re all adults. Civilized. “Then thou mayest ease thy conscience on that score.” No, our Lyubochka was not to be deterred. Later, we’ll deal with it later—right now we have Oedipus to perform. Even the other women laid the matter to rest: now Slava was a married man, and Lyubochka had a new husband.

  “A lovely couple,” Valentina Genrikhovna says.

  “Like Yesenin and Isadora Duncan.”

  “Fedyunin, curse that tongue of yours! Finish your meal and get out.”

  Valentina Genrikhovna is especially stern with Fedyunin. She once confessed: “Ugly people frighten me.”

  •

  Well, now even Fedyunin has had his say. The fellow was in our company, though I don’t even know what he did, officially. One time Prokopyevich asked: Do we actually need him? Can’t we do away with our annoying friend? We took pity on him: he’d been around so long . . . And how would he ever find another job, with that red rash covering half his face? Have you taken a look at his hands?

  And in general, one feels sorry for weak people. He even wrote plays. Not a single theatrical journal would print Fedyunin’s efforts; they were utterly hopeless. I’d hedge, sidestep—so as not to insult him too badly, but also not to give him too much encouragement. Again, I’d say, with the beaver collars, the fainting spells, the hussar uniforms, the spurs . . . And he’d respond: the genre of historical reenactment demands it. All right then, if that’s the way it is—but you’d better not bother Gennady Prokopyevich; just bring the script directly to me.

  Fedyunin had recently been showing up at the theater quite often, more often than usual. No one attached significance to this.

  •

  All the same, what about Gubaryev? Gone, all but forgotten. Theatrical memory is short: old man Laius, the former husband, has departed—to Thebes, Corinth, Elysium—and turned into a ghost.

  We probably began rehearsals in October, with the premiere scheduled for February. Gubaryev didn’t return for New Year’s—or did he leave later? At any rate, Slavochka stopped spending nights at the theater in January, and I don’t think Zakhar was with us for the Sun Festival at the end of that month—we always celebrated the return of the sun in January. Strange. Yes, those were rich days, the best in all my years in Eternity. . . I couldn’t possibly keep them straight. A premonition of triumph and, at the same time, disaster. I wasn’t alone in feeling that. Many others felt it too.

  We had a dress rehearsal before the opening. A success, without major losses. Was it possible? Could we actually bring it off?

  •

  No rehearsals on the day of the premiere. I go down to breakfast. Slavochka is in the canteen, alone. Nothing on the table in front of him but a shot glass and an ashtray.

  “That’s his fourth,” Valentina Genrikhovna whispers to me. “I made him a casserole, but he refused to touch it.”

  A clear case of nerves. I, on the other hand, am perfectly calm: there’s plenty of time for Slavochka to sober up before the performance, and he’s never shown himself to be an alcoholic. I ask him anyway: Why drink in the morning?

  He gives me a guilty, helpless smile: “So as not to smoke on an empty stomach.”

  SAGITTARIUS

  “Slavochka, do you want coffee?”

  Does he hear the question? No. He gets up, smiles again, and walks away with his cheerful circus gait, a little unsteady. White turtlen
eck, black trousers, black shoes. I should be worried—why’s he dressed up?—but I’m too busy with my own concerns. Concerns that are now entirely irrelevant.

  Could I have known that a terrible act would play out on our stage that morning—the most repellent, meaningless act one can imagine? Could I have interfered with fate? At first, looking back from a close distance, I had believed: Yes, of course, I should have known, interceded. I blamed myself. But then Slavochka’s misfortune took its rightful place in a series of other catastrophes, and my, frankly speaking, insane belief that we hold any sway over events simply evaporated. It’s all written down somewhere, preordained. We must accept the inevitable, and help others accept it too.

  I remember it clearly: Valentina Genrikhovna removes the shot glass and ashtray from the table, I ask her for a casserole and tea, and suddenly we hear a loud clap, followed by what sounds like a window shattering. What was that? The stage is set; the stagehands shouldn’t be fooling around back there. We exchange glances—and hurry off to see what happened.

  The door to the stage is closed. Why? We never lock it. We pound on it with our fists, kick it, pull at the lock. Later Valentina Genrikhovna will weep, saying that it was then, in those moments, that she first learned where her heart was located. We’ll run around looking for her medication. But in that instant she understood right away: “Gubaryev. He’s going to kill him.”

  She hardly had time to say it before we heard another clap. Never before had I heard the sound of a revolver, a real one, up close: a dull, loathsome sound. We freeze in horror. The stamp of feet, the door swings open, Zakhar emerges. In one hand he holds the mop that had been blocking the door, in the other, the revolver.

  “Finita. Our aerial gymnast has taken his last tumble. Bring Lyubka. I want her to take a good look at her beau. You shoot a squirrel in the eye.” He pushes us aside and limps away.

  Slavochka’s face is one huge wound. Blood—not the cranberry juice he would have smeared around his eyes in the evening. Valentina Genrikhovna covers him with her apron.