FUTILLA (invisible, quietly singing inside the prison):
Nulimbatuiya, nulimbatuiya,
Alyailya, so far, so far.
Uvvikuveira fimulumayla—
Alailya khalma sarvaidzha!28
Pause.
FUTILLA: Are you there, Antoshka?
ANTON: I am always wherever it is essential for me to be according to instructions from above or according to my personal point of view as to what will be of most benefit to the state.
FUTILLA: From here I can see a crack. How bright the sun shines out there in the kolkhoz! How much longer will I be sitting in darkness?
ANTON: For an nth quantity of time.
FUTILLA: How long is n?
ANTON: Nobody knows. It’s mathematics. There’s an nth quantity of water in the sea. There’s an nth quantity of sand in the desert. Everywhere’s just one gigantic n.
FUTILLA: I’m cold in here. It’s all shadow.
ANTON: Insofar as Nature, at the present moment, is emitting an adequate quantity of temperature, you are slandering the entire climate of the USSR.
FUTILLA (singing quietly):
The grass is warmer in the spring
And rain falls on the motherland.
Stalin is far now from my heart,
But I await him in the sand.
ANTON: The state is provided with a system of vertical communications—via the regional, district, and kolkhoz committees. For you at this moment I substitute for the entire higher leadership: suffer without any boredom!
Pause.
FUTILLA: Antoshka! I’m going to climb out (claws at the wall of the prison basket).
ANTON: That will lead to your mortification!
FUTILLA: And who was Filipp?
ANTON: Filipp Vershkov was none other than a now fully unmasked class enemy, a dangerous double-dealer wearing the mask of a prizewinning exemplary shock worker.
FUTILLA: Liar! He was a true exemplary shock worker!
ANTON: But a class enemy at the same time!
FUTILLA: Yes. He was also a true class enemy.
ANTON: The question is now exhausted.
FUTILLA: According to our constitution, the class enemy stands outside the law. He can be killed. I’m climbing out (claws at the wall).
ANTON: Since there are no instructions as to your release, I shall liquidate you to death on the spot!
FUTILLA: Do you know our constitution?
ANTON: By heart! Every clause. Ask what you like!
FUTILLA: Without exception?
ANTON: I don’t precisely remember every amendment and addendum to the constitution introduced by decree of the Presidium of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR.
FUTILLA: I do.29
ANTON: Nevertheless, you don’t have the documents to hand.
FUTILLA: You’re an accomplice of the class enemy!
ANTON: Comrade Anton Endov knows himself better than any unsubstantiated and psycho-crazed girl taken into custody for exceeding her mandate of local authority.
Brief pause.
FUTILLA: There’s someone coming. Antoshka, call out to him!
ANTON (looking): It’s the old man from the district center, the man responsible for assessing socialist emulation and the quality of production. He’s distributing directives summarizing the most important of the district’s recent measures.
FUTILLA (drawing out the words): But how alien his face looks!
ANTON: The face is a mask for one’s ideological readiness to fight on either side of the front line of struggle!
VOICE OF OLD MAN: Guard! Can you hear me from over there? My legs are exhausted from walking. I must sit down and get my breath back.
ANTON: I’m listening, comrade from the district center. Speak your requirement.
VOICE OF OLD MAN: Listen to me! Futilla Ivanovna is to walk free—by order of the district prosecutor. Henceforward until further notice neither you nor anyone else is to touch her. She is to be reinstated in her former position, with full rights of citizenship.
ANTON: Henceforward until further notice? How long does that mean?
VOICE OF OLD MAN: Henceforward means forever. She can walk free as far as the grave—the prosecutor has other concerns. Futilla Ivanovna’s a good lass—she doesn’t kill for nothing.
ANTON: Go and have a word with comrade Bos. He, in his capacity of chairman, must read me the directive—you don’t carry enough credibility.
VOICE OF OLD MAN: I’ll call out to him in a moment. I’m worn out from walking—how I long to live until fully schematized transport!
ANTON: Your position will not entitle you to transport.
VOICE OF OLD MAN: I’ll make a career for myself, then—I’ll climb higher. After all, I’m a zealous worker. Well, it’s time I went on my way. Ay, ay, ay, what it is to serve the district at such an hour of time! (Mutters and groans.)
Pause.
FUTILLA: Old, old bastard of an old man!
ANTON: Old age, in the event of its being profitable to the state, is permissible for an nth interval of time.
A demobilized soldier arrives, looking vigilantly around him. He wears a Red Army greatcoat and has a knapsack on his back. This is GEORGY GARMALOV, FUTILLA’s husband.
FUTILLA: You’ve come back to our kolkhoz? You’ve come to me? Georgy! I’m in here, I’ve been locked up.
GARMALOV (startled): Futilla! Where are you? Why are you in there? Who’s making you suffer?
FUTILLA: Put your mouth to the wall. I’ll kiss you with my tongue.
GARMALOV: Is our boy alive or dead?
FUTILLA: He’s alive. And he looks like both of us…Bend down closer. I can see you, but the wire cuts into my face. (Claws at the wall.) Quick! I’m getting cold in here.
GARMALOV runs his hands over the prison wall.
ANTON (getting to his feet): Keep your distance, citizen, from this classified construction.
GARMALOV (recognizing ANTON): Are you Antoshka Endov?
ANTON: Whatever my name, I am a man of definition!
GARMALOV: Comrade Endov: release my wife.
ANTON: Masterpieces like yourself show up every day—keep your distance!
GARMALOV: Don’t be afraid. I’m a Red Army soldier, I will do no harm. I miss my family.
FUTILLA: Georgy! You’re a soldier and I’m the kolkhoz chairman. I order you to remove Antoshka’s rifle!
GARMALOV: Don’t you dare wrong my wife! (Rushes at ANTON.) She’s the chairman—the Soviet boss!
ANTON (shoots): I live life seriously. I strike terror into everyone!
FUTILLA: You missed!
ANTON: Don’t speak too soon—that was a warning! (Adopts the pose of a marksman.) A platoon commander of the Red Army reserve never misses!
With the howl of a meek man, GARMALOV seizes ANTON. He knocks the rifle out of his hands, breaks it in two, and throws it to one side.
Aha! Assaulting a guard. It being peacetime, that’ll be ten years. An inescapable fact!
BOS appears.
BOS: Antoshka! Leave now—you’re being replaced!
ANTON: Time you stopped showing up late! An official from the district center has ordered that Futilla Ivanovna—
BOS: I know, I know. For a long time now I’ve known and understood everything.
ANTON: And he (pointing to GARMALOV) should be sentenced without delay to ten years within our prison system!
BOS: Who is he? Who does he fight for?
ANTON: He’s Futilla Ivanovna’s spouse. He has assaulted a guard. It is essential that merciless—
BOS: Stop, you classic of the masses! At the end of the calendar year we shall record this event in the balance sheet of the class struggle. Go and check our measuring instruments of weight, draw up a meteorological bulletin, busy yourself with questions of pasture management, check the stove in the canteen kitchen, draw up a plan of your invention on a scale of—
ANTON: Which of my inventions? There is a maximal quantity of them!
BOS: The most important of all—this hut, which confines within it a human being.
ANTON: It is essential that electrical current be directed through all the barbed wire.
BOS: Go get stuck in, Antoshka!
ANTON: Antoshka himself knows very well what should be stuck in and what pulled out in the unison of labor, with no reward of either glory or food.
BOS: Hurry up then and get organizing!
ANTON: Time to aspire! (Disappears.)
GARMALOV: Old man, release my woman for me.
BOS: You’ll have her soon enough. Store up your patience until bliss.
FUTILLA (clawing at the wall): I’m cold in here. I’m squeezing myself with my own hands to get warm. Something hot inside me is going cold.
BOS: You have warm hands. You can warm whatever’s going cold.
FUTILLA: I don’t know, Grandpa Bos. Maybe nothing but cold will remain in my hands—and they’ll turn cold too!
GARMALOV: Futilla! Breathe on your own self—then you’ll warm up!
FUTILLA: I’m breathing anyway, I’m warming up already. Go and labor on the wells. Feed people something—they haven’t eaten. Can you see a sail out to sea?
GARMALOV (looking out to sea): There’s no sail to be seen, Futilla.
BOS (releasing the bolt): Come back out, Futilla Ivanovna, to your former happiness. Soviet power loves you.
FUTILLA (comes out, wrinkling her eyes and rubbing her hands over an emaciated body): And where’s Georgy from the Red Army? He’s my husband!
GARMALOV: I’m here, Futilla Ivanovna.
FUTILLA: Have you served your term!
GARMALOV: My successes have entitled me to early release. I’ve returned on indefinite leave to my permanent place of residence—to help the kolkhoz regime!
FUTILLA embraces GARMALOV. GARMALOV responds by cautiously clasping her to his body, holding her in a modest embrace.
FUTILLA: And you won’t prove to be a class enemy?
GARMALOV (withdrawing a little): How dare you? I’m a Red Army soldier!
FUTILLA (pressing herself against him): I shall love you, I shall be a wife to you once again.
GARMALOV: Thank you, Futilla Ivanovna. I shall endeavor to be a full and complete shock worker.
FUTILLA: Be sure to spare no effort! We’re weak from hunger and class enemies, we’re waiting for the ship carrying our grain and our sheep. Can you see a sail out there? (Looks out to sea.) The wind’s getting up a little.
GARMALOV: And where’s our son?
FUTILLA: With Ksyusha. Have a look at him—then get down to work. You must redo all that Antoshka has done.
BOS: But Antoshka’s a peerless shock worker!
FUTILLA: Be quiet! You have no vigilance! Antoshka’s work all turns out wrong. He digs a well—it goes dry. He bakes a hundred weights from clay—they crumble. He made this prison—it terrifies criminals and they can escape! We want everything done proper and forever. Your Antoshka’s insignificant piffle!
BOS (meekly): I have nothing to say.
FUTILLA (to GARMALOV): Let’s kiss now.
GARMALOV wipes his mouth and kisses FUTILLA tenderly, holding her protectively.
I love you. We need husbands and loyal kolkhozniks.
GARMALOV (crisply): I shall endeavor to live rigorously, both as husband and kolkhoznik.
BOS (thoughtfully): Men disappear in the world, but women remain eternal.
GARMALOV: Good-bye, Futilla.
FUTILLA: Come to me in the evening—depending on your output I’ll put you down for a workday.30
GARMALOV leaves.
BOS: Futilla!
FUTILLA: What is it, Grandpa Bos?
BOS: Let’s kiss.
FUTILLA: Only not on the lips.
BOS: However you like—your body’s enough.
FUTILLA: All you want is the body—you don’t love the worldview.
BOS: The body, only the body. (Kisses FUTILLA on the temple.) I love this essence! My girl, you haven’t got anything chemical, have you?
FUTILLA: No, Grandpa, you’ve eaten the whole of our pharmacy already. Go and get some bleach off Ksyusha—I told her to buy some long ago.
BOS: I’ll go and eat some of this bleach. (Leaves.)
FUTILLA (alone): Not a ship to be seen out to sea! What a brilliant light everywhere—it must be joyful to live in the world now! I can hear some noise! What’s going on in the whole world? (Looks perplexedly into space and listens intently.) Over there lies imperialism, yes, it’s boring and awful there, I stand alone on the shore, and behind me there stands all the entire Soviet Union of Bolsheviks…But I’ve grown weak, you can see my ribs, my husband won’t love me…We must hurry up and build the winter sheepfolds. I’ll look after the grain, I’ll guard it myself, I won’t sleep. (A distant harmonious hum. FUTILLA looks up at the sky.) An airplane flying over the desert! The plane is ours too—in it is a drop of our kolkhoz blood. May it fly higher—we shall endure!
Enter KSYUSHA.
KSYUSHA: Futilla, there’s no food—the men are all collapsing. Antoshka’s throwing up—he’s eaten some poisonous herb.
FUTILLA: They should have protected our grain and our sheep from the kulaks. Let them suffer now—that will be science and technology for them.
KSYUSHA: I’m running out of milk. We have no food for our children.
FUTILLA: Squeeze out some of your lymph—like I did last night.
KSYUSHA: Futilla, the whole people will rise up.
FUTILLA: Subkulaks aren’t people. They don’t rise up—they lie down.
KSYUSHA: Futilla, surely a life like this must part body and soul?
FUTILLA: Ksyusha! To hell with you—you take me for God! Have you given my child something to suck?
KSYUSHA: I have. Your man brought some bread with him. He chewed a little and slipped it into the child’s mouth.
FUTILLA: Very good…Listen, take my man and go as quick as you can to the state meat farm. In exchange for all our hay maybe they’ll give you a sheep!
KSYUSHA: And who’ll feed my baby without me?
FUTILLA: I will. Quick, go.
KSYUSHA: Your milk’s dried up.
FUTILLA: Don’t worry. I’ll give him my bones to gnaw.
KSYUSHA (with feeling): Futilla, when did you last eat?
FUTILLA: I had a little fish soup in Astrakhan—twelve days ago.
KSYUSHA: But how can—
FUTILLA: Do as I say and go! Don’t try to scare me, and don’t make up to me either. Mollycoddled kulak—weeping one minute, picking a fight the next!
KSYUSHA: A right old bitch you’ve become! It’s not nice even to look at you. It’s disgusting! (Sets off.)
FUTILLA (calling out): Grandpa Bos!
VOICE OF BOS: I’m coming, my girl. Don’t stir from there without me.
FUTILLA: Be quick then!
Enter BOS.
BOS: Do you miss me? Is it boring when I’m gone?
FUTILLA: Yes, it is. You know, Grandpa, step-by-step I’m coming to love you.
BOS: Love me a little. But Grandpa won’t love you.
FUTILLA: Why did Grandpa love me before?
BOS: Because you’re an illusion. An empty delusion for my sorrow.
FUTILLA: That’s true. I’ve never been conceited—I’m an empty delusion.
BOS: I have an exact knowledge of the structure of the entire world. The world is constituted from a confluence of psycho-crazed piffle. And that’s all there is in you too!
FUTILLA (lying down on the ground): Yes, Grandpa, there are piffles inside me too. I can feel them.
BOS: You are merely a poor body, aching from the sad stuff cramped within it.
FUTILLA: There’s not much stuff left in me, I haven’t eaten for a long time.
BOS: It’s all the same. I ate for a hundred years—and I’m still a nonentity.
FUTILLA: Put your arms around me then. Forget yourself and die, dear old man!
BOS: You’re right, my girl. Let’s warm ourselv
es together, before you cool down…(Lies down beside her, close to the prison basket.)
FUTILLA (caressing BOS): Grandpa Bos, you’re a great worldwide sage. Feed the kolkhoz!
BOS: How, my girl?
FUTILLA: Think something up, think something chemical. Death’s on its way to us—feel my bones.
BOS feels FUTILLA’s bones.
BOS: You’re thin. I can sense your heart—it’s come close now.
FUTILLA: Soon it will beat its way right through my skin…I want to sleep.
BOS: Don’t sleep, my eternal one. Talk to me—I feel bored.
FUTILLA: Think up some food for us quickly. You know the stuff of the whole world. Nothing but piffles, you said so yourself. Give us some of these piffles—then we can eat them. (Brief pause.) Think quickly—you know everything.
BOS: I am thinking. Give me a kiss.
FUTILLA: In a moment. First think some food up—even just a smidgen.
BOS: In a moment.
Pause. BOS tosses and turns on the ground in the anguish of vain thought. Then he begins to roll about, his whole torso rotating.
FUTILLA: Well? Are you thinking?
BOS: I am.
FUTILLA: Any thoughts?
BOS: Not yet. Don’t pester me with piffle. I want to sleep.
In the depth of the kolkhoz some babies begin to cry.
FUTILLA: Sleep, then. I’ll go feed the babies.
BOS: What will you feed them with? You’ve dried right up.
FUTILLA: I’ll squeeze something out of myself—perhaps there’ll be some blood. (Exit.)
BOS (alone, lying down): How can I think up bread for the kolkhoz? Nobody ever thinks anything in the world! There’s no thought anywhere—only fraud and the machinations of chance.
Enter INTERHOM with a suitcase. She sees BOS.
INTERHOM: Johann, is it you? Here—alive and well? Thank God!
BOS (getting up off the ground): Interhom! My mad, faithful child!
INTERHOM (nestling up to BOS, speaking quickly): For ten days I’ve been driving alone through the steppe. The chauffeur died. I’ve been searching for you all over the local republic, I left the car at the district center, where all the authorities are. I’ve come seventy kilometers on foot, they said Mister Bos was living in the little huts—and living well! We shall be together again without separation! Mister Latrinov sent me on a mission throughout the Soviet Union—to search for the ancient and terrible forces that counter the Revolution—but there aren’t any. I’ve searched and searched, I’m exhausted, and I still haven’t found them…Latrinov’s a triumphal fellow! I lived physiologically and with charm, but he’s not a Marxist and they took away his—I’ve forgotten the word—the horse you ride on to make your career! My darling Johann, how exhausted you are, O my eternal grandfather-husband. (Kisses BOS.)
Fourteen Little Red Huts and Other Plays Page 14