by Nick Dear
Lika Stop it. (She strokes his hair.) Now go to your desk.
Leonidik Sweet dreams, my lovely Attached Supervisor.
Lika (kissing him) Goodnight.
Lika turns off the light. There’s just the lamp on the desk.
Do you mind if I play the tape machine?
Leonidik Not at all. Music helps me work.
Lika switches on a reel-to-reel machine. We hear the slow waltz to which she and Marat once danced.
(Smiles.) Your favourite tune again?
Lika (softly) Don’t you like it?
Leonidik It’s not a bad little number.
SCENE TWELVE
11 December, 3 p.m. – but December days are short in Leningrad, and it’s growing dark outside.
Home from her shift, Lika is busy with the housework. She clears the table and goes behind the screen with a loaded tray.
There’s a light knock at the door. It’s repeated. The door opens slowly: it’s Marat. He looks around, then goes to the window and presses his forehead against the glass.
Lika comes out from behind the screen and sees Marat. They stare at each other for a long time.
Lika (softly) What have you … What have you … have you gone mad?
Marat No.
Lika It’s futile.
Marat No it isn’t.
Lika … So many years! You must understand!
Marat So many years what?
Lika So many years after.
Marat Well, what of it? (Shouts.) Stand still! Don’t move! Just stand there …
Lika Marat, take your hat off. (He does so.) You are …
Marat What am I?
Lika You’re just like you. (Pause.) Have I got old, too?
Marat No. You’ll always be beautiful. (softly) Once upon a time an old, old man lived with his old, old wife, in a little house in –
Lika Be quiet. (Whispers.) Can’t you see my tears?
Marat I didn’t know it was going to be like this.
Lika If you could feel the horror of it … No! Don’t come any closer.
Marat I shan’t.
Lika Stay by the window.
Marat All right.
Pause.
Lika Where do you live?
Marat Far away.
Lika As it should be. (Smiles.) Building bridges?
Marat Yes. (Pause.) When I come to Leningrad, I come here.
Lika Why?
Marat To look through my window. And then to go away.
Lika That’s as it should be. Nothing’s going to happen.
Marat I know.
Lika When’s your train? Hurry up and go!
Marat I can’t.
Lika Why not?
Marat I’m in a bad way. And since I’m here … (rudely) I mean, I didn’t just come to see you, I came to see you both. (softly) You’re all I have.
Lika But you’re not going to start –
Marat No, no. You’ve been married thirteen years. I’ve been married quite a time myself.
Lika You’re married?
Marat Why shouldn’t I be?
Lika So therefore …
Marat Yes. Just as we decided.
Lika Leonidik blames you for going away. You haven’t written once in thirteen years. He says you’ve forgotten us.
Marat Did you think I had?
Lika No. Might’ve been better if I did. (affectionately) What made you get married?
Marat I didn’t. (Laughs.) See? I’ve got out of the habit of lying.
Lika … You said you’re in a bad way?
Marat I’ll tell you later. When Leonidik comes.
Lika Tell me now.
Marat No.
Lika Tell me!
Pause.
Marat So, how are things?
Lika Fine.
Marat Work?
Lika Like I said – fine. Good clinic. Good area.
Marat General practice?
Lika (apologetically) Yes.
Marat But surely you wanted to –
Lika It didn’t come off. But everything’s fine. I’ve been promoted. Attached Supervisor of the unit.
Marat Attached?
Lika Leonidik thinks it’s funny too.
Marat How is he?
Lika It’s all going brilliantly. His third book of poems is about to come out. He isn’t attacked by the press, or at rallies. And we’re getting a new apartment. Moving in the spring.
Marat What about this room?
Lika I don’t know. We’ll let it.
Marat You could do that? After all we –? (She’s silent.) So Leonidik has everything under control.
Lika He takes seminars at the university. He’s in demand.
Marat (cautiously) Poets seem to be in the news a lot these days. Even the kids buy poetry. But I’ve never heard any arguments about him.
Lika He doesn’t try to be fashionable.
Marat I bought that last slim volume of his. I see it was only a limited edition. But there are piles of them in the shops. (Pause.) Other writers have a print run of a hundred thousand, and you still can’t lay hands on a copy.
Lika Cheap success. Not worth much.
Marat And his books, lying on the shelves, collecting dust – what kind of success is that?
Lika (flares up) Have you actually read his poems?
Marat (nods) He didn’t make any mistakes. He didn’t break any of the rules.
Lika He doesn’t publish his best work.
Marat I see.
Lika What?
Marat (harshly) Everything.
Lika Marik, don’t tell him you’ve read him … don’t say anything.
Marat But that would be a lie.
Lika Then let it!
Marat (sits down) How do you live here? … I don’t understand.
Leonidik opens the door and enters.
Leonidik Marat!
SCENE THIRTEEN
The same evening. They sat down to supper an hour ago, but they’re still at it.
Leonidik It’s not worth arguing about. You can never see yourself – who you are, what you are, whether you’ve achieved anything or whether you haven’t … (Pours himself some wine.) Only death provides the answers. So here’s to death!
Lika takes his glass from him, smiling.
Lika You mustn’t drink any more.
Leonidik This woman persecutes me. She’s been persecuting me for thirteen years! (Laughs.) That’s what you get with a guardian angel. However, here we are, you appeared an hour ago, and it’s as if you never went away. Why are you so quiet?
Marat … I spent my childhood in this room.
Leonidik And?
Marat (smiles) I don’t know. (Looks at them.) Isn’t it strange …?
Leonidik Isn’t what strange?
Marat … There’s a day that sticks in my memory. The first of May, 1934. The parade. I would have been nine. My dad marched beside me in a new uniform. He held tightly to my hand, and there was Kirov, standing on the rostrum, saluting, smiling … (passionately) If only everything could’ve stayed as it was!
Leonidik But after the thirties … came the forties …
Lika And the shame is, we saw more than we could understand, my poor Marik.
Marat Why do you call me poor?
Lika Because you believe in the impossible.
Marat Maybe the others who felt like me never came back from the war … (He puts his head in his hands.)
Leonidik (gently) Hey … what is it?
Marat (studies the others carefully) How do we live? I think about this all the time. I’m thirty-five, so are you … Lika’s thirty-three … What have we done?
Lika … You’ve had a lot to drink.
Marat I’ve had just what’s necessary! I’m no alcoholic, you don’t have to stand guard over me!
Lika How many bridges have you built?
Marat Six.
Lika Is that too few or too many?
Marat It’s enough.
Lika There, you
see! And his poems get published! And I tend the sick! All that we dreamed about has happened. (gaily) Well? Aren’t I right?
Marat I always believed what you said. But not this time.
Lika … What do you want from us?
Marat I wanted you to help me. (a sour laugh) Didn’t realise you were worse off than I am.
Leonidik We lost everything in the siege. But we found each other. (bitterly) You’d no right to leave us!
Marat Weren’t my reasons adequate?
Leonidik They might have been for an ordinary man. But you are the great Marat.
Marat I enjoy being flattered. But let’s talk seriously.
Lika Oh, do let’s. What’s your apartment like? How many rooms?
Marat (to Leonidik) See? She’s afraid.
Lika What am I afraid of?
Marat The truth.
Leonidik Very wearying in large doses, the truth.
Marat (hotly) Tell me this: when is a man finished? I’ll tell you: when he suddenly realises that his whole life is fixed, he’ll never be anything more than he is already. (to Leonidik) Are you tired of living?
Leonidik … I suppose I should tell the truth: I don’t give a toss one way or the other.
Marat Don’t try and be witty!
Leonidik … I am tired, yes.
Marat Why?
Leonidik Well, old chap, I’m sure you know it can be awfully tiring standing still.
Marat (to Lika) What have you done to him?
Lika (angrily) Dear friend, you have no right to use that tone of voice!
Marat Thirteen years ago I left you together in this room. The room where I spent my childhood. I’ll use any tone of voice I like! Understand? – Are you happy?
Long pause.
Leonidik We get by.
Pause.
We visit the clinic regularly, our housing allocation is upgraded … (He goes to Lika.) The dreams of youth … who got in their way? Leonidik did. Not exactly a good result. – I write badly, don’t I?
Marat You write correctly.
Leonidik You’re very polite, comrade.
Lika (alarmed) Marat, what are you –
Marat Lika says you don’t publish your best poems.
Leonidik I have been guilty of that.
Marat But you still write them?
Leonidik No, I’ve lost my touch. (Laughs.) He’s such an arse. He published the dull little ditties, and kept the rest to himself, revising, pruning, tweaking a cadence here, a cadence there … But – to improve – a poet must get a reaction.
Marat How long have you know this?
Leonidik He’s known it for ages; but he wouldn’t admit it to himself.
Lika Shut up! Can’t you see that Marat’s determined to convince you your life is wasted? (acidly) Not very polite in front of a lady. Besides, for a judge, he’s rather an interested party, isn’t he?
Marat That was below the belt.
Leonidik … So Marat’s a wicked breaker-up of marriages, but we’re steaming along just fine, with everything coming up roses. I see.
Long pause.
Lika Marat, it’s late. You should go.
Marat puts on his overcoat, and stands in the middle of the room, putting on his scarf and his cap.
Marat Perhaps it wasn’t worth coming here, at all … (He goes to the door, then turns back.) I want to tell you about bridges! Bridges! The best type of engineering in the world! I’ve done six bridges! The six chapters of my life … But does any of them count as a real achievement? (Pause.) I had a friend. A design engineer. We built three bridges together. He was a confident chap, but he wasn’t satisfied either. One day he was given a new bridge to design – a bridge without precedent, a fantastical structure! Lot of people said it couldn’t be done … But he managed to get me the post of works manager. It could have been my life’s work! But it isn’t. I abandoned my friend. Isn’t that unthinkable? I left him to the wolves. I convinced myself I wasn’t ready, couldn’t do it, didn’t have the experience … maybe that was true? But whether it was or it wasn’t, I swiftly got myself transferred to another site. He wrote to me there: ‘Hello, Marik, you extinct volcano …’ That’s what he called me. (Pause. Swiftly) Now he’s in a very bad way. All the arse-lickers and yes-men are saying he had bad traits … over-ambitious, headstrong … the project should never have been started. – But the crucial point is that he despises me, maybe even hates me! I can’t come to terms with that. I don’t think I’ll ever come to terms with that.
Leonidik That’s a sad story. Pity it isn’t believable.
Marat Why isn’t it believable?
Leonidik Because it isn’t logical.
Marat And life has to be logical, does it? Well, write a bloody poem about it, and get it printed in Pravda! Has all your life been logical?
Lika Darling Marik, we’re not children any more. Our time is up in the land of dreams. We have to come down to earth.
Marat Don’t want to!
Lika We aren’t supermen.
Marat Who says we’re not? – Oh, we’re supposed to be grateful to be alive? Is that it? Well, think how many people died, so that we could live! Remember the blockade in the depth of winter, the suffering, thirty degrees below! The children’s sledges piled high with bodies! Hundreds and hundreds of thousands perished, so that we could be happy, and extraordinary, and triumphant! And what are we? What are we now? – Try and remember what you were, Lika. Try and remember your promise. Where is it? Where is your promise? (Pause.) You’ve gone very quiet.
Lika … I’m afraid.
Marat (strokes her hair affectionately) At last. (Smiles.) Oh, Lika, Lika … sometimes it’s good to be afraid. There are plenty of optimists who are scared out of their wits. (Thinks hard.) What I’m trying to tell myself is that on the brink of death it still isn’t too late to start over.
Lika wants to object, but can’t find the words. All she can do is smile, frightened and lost.
(Cheerfully) And now I shall try and be logical. Always a first time, Leonidik. I mean … I could tell you, Lika, I could tell you how I … damn it, I shall tell you! Listen: when I lost you I lost everything. (He goes very close to her.) The birds don’t sing in the morning; the stars don’t shine at night. The sky is empty. Understand? Not a single star! Just silence and darkness. Nothing. (Pause.) Well, there we are. You wanted your logic. You fools. (to Lika) How’s it all going to turn out, I wonder?
Pause. Then Lika goes to Leonidik.
Lika (firmly) Just like before, only better. My husband will be happy. I promise you that.
Marat runs from the room.
Marat Goodbye! (He’s gone.)
Leonidik Bring him back, Lika, bring him back!
Lika (tears pouring down her face) I can’t … I can’t …
SCENE FOURTEEN
31 December. The table is laid for a New Year’s supper for two. Lika and Leonidik sit on the sofa, playing cards. Lika lays a final trump.
Lika How about that?
Leonidik (lays down his cards) He loses. What a fool.
Lika Third time in a row!
Leonidik Triple fool of the Soviet Union!
Lika You’re just not attentive enough.
Leonidik Or wonderful enough, or terrific enough.
Lika But you have a gorgeous tie.
Leonidik Yes I do.
Lika What’s the time?
Leonidik Nineteen sixty in a few minutes. (Goes to the window.) The citizens are hurrying home, to see in the New Year at table. Great crowds of them …
Lika It always brings childhood to mind …
Leonidik At midnight the streets will be empty. (He is quiet.)
Lika What are you thinking?
Leonidik Marat.
Lika Yes. He’ll be alone. Five thousand miles away. (Laughs.) Three weeks gone, and that’s that!
Leonidik He’s a sweetheart.
Lika Don’t.
Leonidik Right, let’s have another game. Perhaps I’ll get
my revenge!
Lika (smiling) What’s got into you today?
Leonidik They’re coming, damn them, they’re coming.
Lika Who?
Leonidik (with a grimace) The sixties.
Lika You are a fool. (She kisses the top of his head.)
Leonidik (quietly) Don’t, my love.
Lika Why are you being so nice to me?
Leonidik I am, aren’t I?
Lika You’ve been clowning around all evening … Won’t you be bored? Greeting the New Year with just me for company?
Leonidik He won’t be bored. (Goes to the table.) He’s made a majestic salad. Why didn’t he become a cook?’ Tis true, his life is wasted!
Lika Why do you keep looking at the clock?
The doorbell rings.
Leonidik That’s it then. Open the door.
Lika looks at him with a puzzled expression.
That’s it. All over.
A knock at the door.
Come in, Marik.
The door opens. Marat stands there, in his fur coat, covered in snow.
Lika … You?
Marat As you see.
Leonidik I was afraid you wouldn’t … (Slaps him on the back.) But you never fail, do you? Marat, you’re the friend of the people!
Marat How did you find my address?
Leonidik Brain-power. But I was afraid the aeroplane would be late. Now I can relax.
Lika What have you been up to? Tell me.
Leonidik Lika, I have something for you. Bit of a surprise. It’s with the neighbours. But the hour has come, I’ll fetch it.
Leonidik exits. Pause.
Lika … I thought I would never see you again.
Marat Me too. (He takes her hand, hesitantly.)
Lika Your hand is cold.
Marat It was tricky getting here from the airport. New Year’s Eve. No taxis. (He presses her hand to his cheek.)
Lika … Are you sure you should have come?