Rock, Paper, Scissors

by Maxim Osipov

  He was a screenwriter now, and well known enough, although there’s really no such thing as a sufficiently appreciated artist. He used to write plays, too, before getting into film. And then, after Anyuta was born, he had gone over to television. His degree? They say mathematics is the highest achievement of human thought. He had enrolled at the department without any practical goals in mind. Frankly, it had been a concession to his parents. He had other ambitions: to put on plays, to act, to compose. Back in those days, the student theater at Moscow State, where he spent nearly every evening, was going great guns. When exams would roll around, he’d cram and pass. Seems he had some aptitude after all. And of course the university kept him out of the army.

  Mathematics is nothing, really—some things are much more difficult to master: remaining sober and alert, not losing heart. Nothing he faced today could compare to what his parents had dealt with, to say nothing of his grandparents. Yes, things had gotten a bit frightening. But more dreary than frightening, no? There was certainly no point in adding to the woes of others, of those one loved not as things. Maybe it wasn’t so bad, anyway? Maybe things were better than they appeared? At any rate, one couldn’t just sit there and hate the regime. One had to work, write, teach the kid Russian, music (his wife, Varya, taught harmony). But those whom he didn’t cherish quite as much, those whose peace of mind meant less to him, got very different advice. He would tell them to flee as soon as they could:

  “A lack of imagination. Emigration is a terrible thing: a garret in Paris or, I don’t know, some apartment building in Brooklyn . . . But imagine a guard in a watchtower, imagine being dragged out of bed at six every morning—yes, a lack of imagination.”

  His own imagination was in perfect working order. After lecturing others about watchtowers and guards, he’d find himself tossing and turning all night. He’d promise himself that he’d wake up the next morning full of joy and gratitude to his parents, his daughter, his wife (he believed in God less and less), and even his friends—but now, more and more often, he awoke with his heart pounding, feeling trapped. He was sure he’d get ahold of himself soon enough. In any case, his girls mustn’t be allowed to suffer. He had lived under this pressure, had dwelled with these thoughts for the past few months, until the beginning of the school year, September 1.

  “Andrey Georgievich, why did you leave your television job?” asks Lydia from Krasnodar. Low forehead, bangs, a typical regional twang.

  “Anyone with a shred of decency abandoned television.” Hadn’t she noticed, down there on the Kuban? And what did it matter where she lived? This Lydia was an active girl. What did she do before coming here?

  The screenwriting students were all in their late twenties, thirties. They all had educations, professions.

  “Municipal services. Why?”

  So why did he leave his job, she asks.

  “I decided I wasn’t going to join the Communist Youth again. You don’t get it? Good.”

  His new class: two Nastyas, two Olyas, a pair of ordinary-looking young men (these two, he knew, would soon fall away, just stop showing up), Lydia, and, finally, the main source of danger—Rachel, a clever, toothy brunette. It was a two-year course, and commercial, so he had to accept all applicants. There were only two kinds of students he feared: the mad and the clever. So here was one such student: big eyes and large crooked teeth. You could see her upper gums when she smiled. She wouldn’t be able to write a screenplay for the life of her. Not a lick of imagination. Her head was full of French postmodernists, Derrida and Deleuze. She’d drive him crazy with her endless comments. But still—Rachel, born in 1987: someone had dared to give their daughter that Old Testament name back in ’87.

  And now it was up to him to teach them the craft of screenwriting. Yes, yes, my dears—the craft. The Romantic era, which had lasted nearly two hundred years, was now over. Gone were the days when artists had sat at the heads of tables, surrounded by aristocrats—all these dinners where Richard Wagner had hobnobbed with King Ludwig II. If you harbor any illusions about inspiration, about divine afflatus, get rid of them straightaway. In the years of his youth, when he was lucky enough to spend time with—he pronounces the name of a famous pianist, a friend of his parents (Rachel nods, the rest give no sign of recognition)—he was instructed to be quiet around the genius, not to make a peep, as if the man were terminally ill. God forbid he should bring up the last concert, or—worse yet—the next concert, or even talk of music. But now, with these young fellows, some of whom are genuine masters, like his neighbor Vadik (he mentions his surname), things are different. You ask: How did it go? Did people show up? And he just mumbles: Went fine. Or says: Played as well as I could, now let’s go tie one on.

  The students grow quiet. Lydia jots something down in her notebook. His phone vibrates in his pocket. Let’s have a look—no, he doesn’t recognize the number—and he moves on to the fact that the visual arts, cinematography first and foremost, are increasingly displacing literature and music. He doesn’t know why, exactly—maybe it’s a lack of imagination? But these days he himself prefers to listen to music with pictures, video. And so, dear colleagues, the ability to write for the screen, to make movies, is a useful thing—although, with the situation being what it is, he has to warn them that their prospects are not at all rosy. If they wanted a recipe for quick success, well, they were out of luck. There were no recipes for success, quick or otherwise:

  “No one will shoot films based on our screenplays. From now on, we’ll have to work like architects: our boldest, grandest constructions will exist only on paper—in magazines and in printed volumes. They’ll never make it to the screen.”

  A knock at the door. One of the young women from the office.

  “You’re wanted in Human Resources.”

  Doesn’t she see he’s in the middle of class?

  He has to fill out a registration form, list all the foreign countries he’s visited in the last ten years.

  “Can’t I just put down ‘all of them’?”

  “What do you mean, ‘all of them’?”

  He begins listing countries: Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Denmark . . . He feels awkward in front of the students.

  “Stop by Human Resources,” the young woman interrupts. “No later than Tuesday. Bring your passport.”

  He follows her out into the corridor: What’s this about?

  “Your file was requested.”

  Why was she whispering? They had a file on him? Why hadn’t he been told?

  “We have files on everyone.”

  So who had requested it? Had they requested all of the files—or just his?

  She shrugs her shoulders: What’s the point in asking? Then, with a look of sympathy: “Maybe you wrote something? Said something? Give it some thought.”

  What could he have written? His heart pauses, then gives a strong jolt. Again and again—a pause, then a jolt. He knows his heart won’t stop, that these are just so-called extrasystoles, nothing serious, but it still doesn’t feel good. He takes a few breaths, walks back into the classroom: Well, time for a movie?

  Motes of dust in the projector beam, the white screen, semidarkness; one doesn’t watch serious films on the TV screen. He would show them Iosseliani’s Falling Leaves and then explain the picture’s structure. He tells them what to look for: the family photos, the clatter of billiard balls, the out-of-tune piano in the director’s office, the close-ups (infrequent), the Russian words coming from the radio, the fact that almost every event happens twice, has its reflection, like when you close a notebook and the fresh ink leaves its trace on the facing page.

  “Georgian girls all have those little mustaches,” one of the Olyas says with a sigh.

  Let’s not laugh at Olya. Any other impressions? He, for instance, finds that Falling Leaves never fails to restore his sense of harmony, never fails to reconcile him with reality. By the way, Iosseliani had also spent several years studying mathematics before he made films.

  So what’s
it about? Almost nothing happens: a minor industrial incident. But it’s inscribed in an eternal context—by the scenes of peasants, by the photographs, by the tolling of the bell at the end. From his point of view, the film is about the forging of an individual character, about dignity.

  “Would you say it’s about rootedness?”

  Yes, thank you, Rachel. As for the name, he himself doesn’t really understand it: leaves don’t fall in August.

  “The vegetative cycle of grapes. First the berries ripen, then the shoots dry up, and then the leaves fall. The plant is preparing for winter.”

  That’s it. Rachel is a botanist, in the truest sense of the word: she has a degree in biology. Scientific knowledge can come in handy for anyone, but for an artist it’s an invaluable source of metaphor.

  “An anti-Russian film, through and through,” lovely Lydia suddenly declares.

  He smiles: “Perhaps anti-Soviet?”

  She furrows her little forehead: “Same thing, no difference.” He disagrees. There is a difference.

  “Andrey Georgievich, what are your feelings about the current government? Yes, our government,” Lydia asks in the manner of someone who has the right to know, looking straight into his eyes.

  He remembers the conversation with the young woman from the office. Should he make a joke? Why did he have to show them Falling Leaves? He responds firmly: “My feelings aren’t good. We’ll leave it at that.”

  Rachel claps her hands a few times: she’s the only one to applaud.

  “I’ve given you your assignments.”

  He and Rachel walk to the metro station together. Until recently, she had been working at a school. Then her job became unbearable—for obvious reasons.

  “I’m so glad we have you for a teacher, Andrey Georgievich. You’re not only a wonderfully talented person, you’re also very brave. And you can’t have one without the other, wouldn’t you say?” She shakes his hand as they part.

  Once he’s on the train, he remembers the phone call. It turns out he’s missed six calls, from the same unknown number. He reaches the Sparrow Hills station, steps onto the platform. “Connection cannot be established.” Strange. He’s paid his bill. Problems with the network? He tries again—same thing. Back into the train, to the Southwestern station.

  •

  He always visits the twins, his good friends, alone. Tonight he expects to see them, Ada and Glasha—short for Adelaide and Aglaya (that’s what a love for Dostoyevsky does to people)—and their husbands, Alexander and Alexey, whom he still has a hard time telling apart. Both men are cheerful, slightly boring engineers—you don’t meet many engineers anymore. Their children, already in their teens, will be there too. And maybe three or four other couples.

  Ada is the elder sister, born ten minutes before Glasha. “What’s it like, having an exact copy of yourself?”

  “We’re used to it,” they say, “what’s it like not having one?” And they live side by side, on the sixteenth floor—two apartments with a shared balcony. He had known them at Moscow State. They studied chemistry but, like him, preferred the theater. “We had a lot of fun, didn’t we, Andryusha?” Memories: everyone smoked back then, and the sisters always smelled of cigarettes—their hair, their dresses. What fun it was. They sewed all the costumes themselves, and built all the sets. Twins can always find roles to play: for example, Ada and Glasha put on a very funny production of The Canterville Ghost. But for them the theater remained just that, playtime. It never turned into a profession. Good thing he never got involved with them romantically. Well, there was that one time. With Glasha. Just a momentary fling, many years ago.

  The only guests so far are a married couple, whose names he can never remember. Where, he asks, are such and such? “Moved to Georgia.” Is that right? He hadn’t heard.

  “Of course; you’re too busy. . .” Is Glasha mocking him? Doesn’t seem so. The usual topics of conversation: the end of summer, parents ailing and—in more detail—being difficult, the relative merits of home-care providers from the former republics of the USSR. He has nothing to contribute on that last topic: his parents aren’t yet in need of nurses.

  “Andryusha, you’re out of focus today.” The sisters want him to stop snacking and tell them a story. He’s ruining his appetite. They have a pheasant in the oven. He should tell them about his new crop of lady screenwriters.

  He runs through the events of the day in his mind. Fairly frightening, really: the sudden request for his file, the question about the government. And the silence—not a wary silence, but a hollow, dead silence—that met his response. Then the lonely applause, the isolated claps—they didn’t help at all. It would have been better had the group argued with him, shouted. In previous years, such things had at least led to screaming matches.

  “Same as always: two Tanyas, two Manyas, two silent sons-in-law, one aggressive idiot—but also one kindred soul.” There’s nothing to laugh about, but he feels he should strike a more cheerful tone: “So I’m feeding them my favorite ideas, one after the other, steering clear of politics, and then, suddenly, she pipes up,” he remembers beautiful Lydia. “You know the sort, a nasty little guttersnipe—thin lips, small mouth.”

  His audience exchange glances: Andryusha is surprisingly observant. To be honest, he doesn’t remember what Lydia’s mouth actually looked like. He brings his narrative to a close by mentioning Human Resources and the office, then thinks to himself: Every story, no matter how simple, requires a climax and a denouement. Now, having finished, he waits to be comforted and consoled, to hear them say that there’s nothing to worry about, that they have checkups at their institutions and businesses too, that it’s just a formality, that everything’s planned out now, including checkups, nothing to be afraid of, these aren’t the bad old days. But no one says a word.

  “Things are what they are.” One has to end on the proper note. “If you’ve decided to stay, you’ve got to be ready for anything.”

  The talk takes off on its circuitous route again, getting tangled, shifting to the past, then to children. After some time the wine is gone and the pheasant’s bones are picked clean, and he’s thinking out loud about our mistaken notion of justice—the notion that justice is ever present and always wins: “Nothing can banish this childish delusion. In the end, they’ll come for us, and all we’ll be able to ask is: ‘But why?’ I myself am spoiled. For instance, I never got lower marks than I deserved. I did well at school, though I was really a C student at best.”

  “With me it’s the opposite,” Alexey breaks in.

  Alexey has a different notion of justice. If you were given more than you deserve—how can you call that justice? He has a more modest claim. And now Alexey, who hadn’t uttered a word all night, relates how last spring he and his friends went down to the courthouse to protest the latest wave of political arrests—to stand outside and protest, since they weren’t allowed into the building.

  “We stood out there for an hour or two, shouting this and that, but, more than anything, just shifting our feet. It was cold, and I had to go relieve myself. Then I came back and stood some more. I lost track of my friends. There were a few hundred people by then. Then I see buses blocking the road on both sides. We hear an announcement: ‘Citizens, do not interfere with the movement of traffic.’ But we’re all on the sidewalk. Then the police show up—with shields, helmets—and start grabbing people out of the crowd, one by one. They target the people doing the shouting, and anyone with a distinctive feature—a poster, a bright hat, a red beard. I don’t really mind being thrown onto the bus—so they’ll take me to the station, check my passport, then let me go—but I’m not especially eager. So I just stand there and watch. And they keep saying: ‘Citizens, please clear the road.’ By now anyone close to the road is getting swept up. The buses are almost full, but they aren’t going anywhere—and I sense nature’s calling again. It turns out I’m not the only one. I hear two intelligent-looking middle-aged women say: Last time they kept us in there for
two hours, stewing, but we had our plastic bottles—you can cut off the tops and . . . They laugh: You fellows have it easy—you don’t even need to cut off the tops. That’s when I took off. I didn’t like the idea of urinating on a bus. And I didn’t particularly want to see women pissing in bottles, either.”

  “And that’s all?”

  “That’s all. I just took off. The end of my career as a protester.”

  “Andrey is a typical professor.” For some reason Glasha speaks of him in the third person. “He doesn’t like it when anyone talks for longer than he does.”

  She was right. He had to take the conversation into his own hands: “What it comes down to, I feel, is lack of imagination. Of course, when you imagine the hardships of emigration . . . I can stay with . . .” He names a mutual friend, who’s been living in Brussels for ages. “He has a huge apartment. Or with . . .” He names another of their acquaintances. “He’s got a big house in Houston. He’ll go off to work each morning, then come back in the evening—and ask, What have you created? Any headway with Hollywood? You open the refrigerator, and he frowns. ‘Andryusha, maybe you should look for an easier job, just for the time being?’ What, delivering pizza? Trimming bushes? Sweeping the street? ‘Don’t get the wrong idea, no one’s trying to force you out. Great, now you’re upset . . .’ Your children start pushing you farther and farther away, the threat of alcoholism, depression. We can imagine that, sure—but how about a guard screaming ‘On your feet!’ at six in the morning? How about sewing mittens in the shop? The stench of unwashed bodies, playing by prison rules, keeping your head down. Should I go on? Fearing for your life every minute of the day. Not enough heat, food, air. It’s not just a matter of ‘thinking about the children’—we should think about ourselves. Inertia is a terrible thing. Do you know the story of Kissinger’s family? They stayed in Bavaria till the very last minute. They very nearly left it too late. Well, we’re no smarter than Kissinger, I assure you.”