Man From the USSR & Other Plays (16 page)

Well, I see you're full of moxie. Maybe it's all wasted, and Barbashin is not in such a passion. See, it even rhymes.

 

TROSHCHEYKIN

No, no, it's best if we scoot off somewhere and think things over once we're there. Anyway, everything is falling into place. Listen, I've called a taxi—I don't much feel like walking. Come on, let's go.

 

RYOVSHIN

Only don't expect me to pay for it.

 

TROSHCHEYKIN

I certainly do. What are you looking for? Here it is. Let's go. Don't you worry, Lyuba—I'll be home in ten minutes.

 

LYUBOV'

I'm not worried at all. You'll come back alive.

 

RYOVSHIN

You just sit in your bower and be a good girl. I'll drop by again this afternoon. Give me your little paw.
(The two of them, exit right while Vera appears unhurriedly from the left. She is also young and attractive, but gentler and tamer than her sister.)

 

VERA

Hi. What's going on in this house?

 

LYUBOV'

Why?

 

VERA

I don't know. There's something a little rabid about Alyosha's appearance. Are they gone?

 

LYUBOV'

They're gone.

 

VERA

Mama is tapping on her typewriter like a bunny on a drum.
(pause)
It's raining again. Depressing day. Look, I got some new gloves. Nice and cheap.

 

LYUBOV'

I have something new, too.

 

VERA

Oh, that's interesting.

 

LYUBOV'

Leonid is back.

 

VERA

Wow!

 

LYUBOV'

He has been seen on our corner.

 

VERA

No wonder I dreamt about him last night.

 

LYUBOV'

It seems they let him out of jail early.

 

VERA

It's strange, though: I dreamed that somebody locked him in a wardrobe, and when they started shaking it and trying to open it, he himself came running with a picklock, all in a dither, began helping, and when they finally opened the door there was nothing but a tailcoat hanging inside. Strange, isn't it?

 

LYUBOV'

Yes. Alyosha is in a blue funk.

 

VERA

What amazing news, Lyubochka! Wouldn't it be fascinating to take a look at him? Remember how he always used to tease me, and how furious I would get? Actually I envied you terribly. Don't cry, Lyubochka. It'll all work out. I'm certain he won't kill you and Alyosha. Jail isn't a thermos jug in which you can keep the same idea hot indefinitely. Don't cry, honey.

 

LYUBOV'

There's a limit up to which. My nerves can hold out. But that limit. Has. Been passed.

 

VERA

Come on, please don't. After all, there are laws, there is the police, there's plain common sense. You'll see: he'll wander around for a while, heave a sigh, and disappear.

 

LYUBOV'

Oh, that's not the point. He can go ahead and kill me, I'd only be grateful. Do you have a handkerchief? Oh, dear Lord.... You know, today I was thinking about my baby—I could just see him playing with those balls—and Alyosha was so vile, so ghastly!

 

VERA

Yes, I know. If I were you I would have gotten a divorce long ago.

 

LYUBOV'

Do you have some powder? Thanks.

 

VERA

I would have gotten a divorce, married Ryovshin, and probably gotten another divorce right away.

 

LYUBOV'

When he came running in today with that phony air of a faithful dog and told us about it—everything, my whole life, burst into flames before my very eyes and burned up like a scrap of paper. Six absolutely useless years. The only bit of happiness was my child, and it died, too.

 

VERA

Come on, you were head over heels in love with Alyosha in the beginning.

 

LYUBOV'

Nonsense! I was just playacting for my own benefit. Nothing more. There was only one man whom I loved.

 

VERA

You know, I'm curious whether he'll get in touch or not. After all, sooner or later you're bound to run into him on the street.

 

LYUBOV'

There's one thing....The way Alyosha hit him on the cheek while Misha was holding him. The way he took advantage. That thought always gave me a burning sense of anguish, and now it burns more than ever. Perhaps it's because I sense that Lyonya will never forgive me for having seen it.

 

VERA

What a crazy time that was anyway! God, remember what a state you were in when you decided to break up with him? Do you?

 

LYUBOV'

Really stupid thing to do, wasn't it? What an idiot I was.

 

VERA

You and I were sitting in a dusky garden, and stars were falling, and we were both ghostlike in our white dresses, and the scented tobacco flowers were blooming in the flower bed, and you were saying you couldn't stand it any longer, that Lyonya was squeezing you dry—those were your very words.

 

LYUBOV'

I remember it well. He had a terrible temper. He himself used to admit that it wasn't a temper but a distemper. He plagued me endlessly, senselessly with his jealousy, his moods, all his various quirks. And yet, that was the most wonderful time of my life.

 

VERA

And remember how Father used to say, with a tone of alarm, that he was involved in dubious dealings, that half his life was shady, and the other half shaky.

 

LYUBOV'

Oh, come, there was never any proof of that. It was just that everybody was terribly envious of Lyonya, and Father simply believed that if someone was involved in financial operations without actually buying or selling anything, he belonged either behind the bars of a bank or behind the bars of a jail. And Lyonya was a law unto himself.

 

VERA

Yes, but that also influenced you at the time.

 

LYUBOV'

Everybody began pressuring me. Massive Misha leaned on me with all his weight. Mama gnawed at me surreptitiously, as a dog chews on a doll when no one is looking. Only you, my darling, took it all in your stride and showed no surprise. The main thing, though, was what was happening to me: when, after a tryst in the park, I imagined what life would be like under the same roof with him, felt it would be unendurable—the constant tension, the constant electricity in the air....I was such an idiot!

 

VERA

And remember how he would arrive all glum, and glumly tell some story that would have us in stitches. Or how the three of us used to sit on the veranda, and I knew you two were dying for me to go, and I would sit in the rocking chair reading Turgenev, and you two on the couch, and I knew that the moment I left you would start kissing and did not go for that reason.

 

LYUBOV'

Yes, he loved me madly, with a madly unlucky love. There were other moments too, though, moments of perfect serenity.

 

VERA

When Father died, and the house and garden were sold, it hurt me that all the whispers, the jokes, and the tears its various nooks and crannies had known were somehow being sold along with it.

 

LYUBOV'

Yes, the tears, the chills.... He left for a couple of months on a business trip, and that's when Alyosha turned up, with his dreams, and his jars of paint. I pretended I was swept off my feet, and then, too, there was something pathetic about Alyosha. He was so childish, so helpless. That's when I wrote Lyonya that awful letter; remember how, in the middle of the night, you and I gazed at the mailbox within which it already lay, and had the sensation that the box was swelling, and in a minute would explode like a bomb.

 

VERA

Personally, I was never terribly impressed with Alyosha. I thought, though, that you would have a wonderfully interesting life with him, and now we still don't really know whether he is a great artist or a nothing. “My ancestor,” he said to me, “a military governor in the fourteenth century, spelled his name with a ‘y'
³
, and therefore, dear Vera, I request that henceforth you spell my name the same way.”

 

LYUBOV'

Yes, and the end result is that I got married to a “y.” And I haven't the vaguest idea what's going to happen next.... And can you please tell me why I had to have that free supplement with Ryovshin? What do I need it for? It only means an extra burden on my soul and extra dust in the house. And how humiliating it all is, with Alyosha perfectly aware of the whole thing and pretending that everything is hunky-dory between us. My God, Verochka, just think: right now Lyonya is just a few blocks away, and my imagination keeps rushing there, but sees nothing.
(Marfa enters with two balls.)

 

VERA

In any case, this is all absolutely fascinating.
(Marfa takes away the coffee cup.)

 

MARFA

What should I buy for tea? Or are you going out yourself?

 

LYUBOV'

No, I'd rather you did, please. Or else couldn't we order by phone? I don't know—in a moment I'll come and tell you.
(Troshcheykin runs in. Marfa goes out.)

 

LYUBOV'

Well?

 

TROSHCHEYKIN

All right for now. The city is quiet.

 

VERA

What did you expect people to do, Alyosha, start parading with flags?

 

TROSHCHEYKIN

What was that? What flags?
(to his wife)
Does she know already?
(Lyubov'gives a shrug.)

 

TROSHCHEYKIN
(to Vera)
Well, what do you say? Pleasant situation, isn't it?

 

VERA

I think it's marvelous.

 

TROSHCHEYKIN

You can congratulate me. I quarreled at once with Vishnevski. That old toad! It's no skin off his back. He called the police, but it still isn't clear whether or not there is any protection, and, if there is, what it consists of. What it boils down to is that nobody can do anything until we've been murdered. In a word, it's all very nice and elegant. By the way, from the taxi a moment ago I saw his sidekick—what's his name?—Arshinski. A bad sign.

 

VERA

Oh, you saw Arshinski? Is he here? I haven't seen him in a thousand years. Yes, it's true that he was a great friend of Lyonya Barbashin's.

 

TROSHCHEYKIN

He was another one of those gloomy scoundrels—he and Lyonya Barbashin cooked up counterfeit I.O.U.'s together. Listen, Lyuba, since we'll need money for the trip, I don't want to miss any sittings today. The kid is coming at two, and after that the old woman, and of course we must cancel the guests—you please take care of it.

 

LYUBOV'
'

Don't be funny. On the contrary, I'm going to take care of the cake now. This is Mama's birthday, and I don't have the least intention of spoiling it for her because of some silly ghosts.

 

TROSHCHEYKIN

Dearest, these ghosts
kill.
Do you understand this or not? If you treat danger in general with such birdbrained levity, then ... I just don't know....

 

VERA

Alyosha, are you afraid he'll slip in with the others?

 

TROSHCHEYKIN

That would be reason enough. There's nothing funny about it. Party time! Isn't that nice! When the fortress is in a state of
siege
you don't ask your dear friends to come visiting.

 

LYUBOV'

Alyosha, the fortress has already surrendered.

 

TROSHCHEYKIN

Are you doing it on purpose? Are you determined to drive me bananas?

 

LYUBOV'

No, but I simply don't want to ruin other people's lives because of your whims.

 

TROSHCHEYKIN

There are a thousand things to decide, and we're spending our time on ridiculous nonsense. Let's assume that Baumgarten gets me the money.... What next? Do you realize it means we have to drop everything, and I have five portraits in the works, and important letters to write, and I've left my watch to be repaired....And if we do go, then where?

 

VERA

If you want my opinion, you're taking it all too seriously. I was just sitting here with Lyuba reminiscing, and we came to the conclusion that you have absolutely nothing to fear from Lyonya Barbashin.

 

TROSHCHEYKIN