Man From the USSR & Other Plays (6 page)

 

OSHIVENSKI

It's time you stopped getting lovelier, Marianna Sergeyevna: the thing could assume monstrous proportions. Mr. Kuznetsoff, this famous film starlet lives in the same modest boardinghouse as your wife.

 

MARIANNA

How do you do.
(nods to Kuznetsoff)
Victor Ivanovich, may I use your phone?

 

OSHIVENSKI

To your heart's content.
(Marianna crosses to the door on the right, near which the telephone is located.)

 

FYODOR FYODOROVICH

I guess nobody wants to say hello to me.

 

MARIANNA

Oh, excuse me, Fyodor Fyodorovich. By the way, show me what I have to do to call out from here.

 

FYODOR FYODOROVICH

First you have to press the nipple—here, this little red button.

 

KUZNETSOFF
(to Taubendorf)
Kolya, that's what I call a real looker. Or else, as they also say, a classy broad,
(laughs)
An actress, is she?

 

TAUBENDORF

Yes, she and I are working together in a film. Only, I play the crowd and get ten marks, and she plays the Other Woman and gets fifty.

 

MARIANNA
(into the phone)
Bitte, drei und dreissig, eins null.

 

KUZNETSOFF

Of course that isn't the lead?

 

TAUBENDORF

No, the Other Woman always makes less than the heroine.

 

KUZNETSOFF

Last name?

 

TAUBENDORF

Tal'. Marianna Sergeyevna Tal'.

 

KUZNETSOFF

It's convenient that she lives in the same boardinghouse. She can take me there.

 

MARIANNA
(into the telephone)
Bitte,
Fraulein Rubansky. Oh, it's you, Lyulya. I didn't recognize your voice.

 

FYODOR FYODOROVICH

I guess we can turn on the rest of the lights, Victor Ivanovich. Soon it'll be ten o'clock.

 

OSHIVENSKI

If you want....I have a feeling nobody will come tonight.
(Fyodor Fyodorovich turns on the remaining lights.)

 

MARIANNA
(into the phone)
Nonsense. Where did you hear that? We finish shooting in a week—they're in a terrible rush. Yes.

 

TAUBENDORF

Alyosha, forgive me if I ask: aren't you the least bit anxious to see your wife?

 

MARIANNA

(into the phone)
Oh, he's such a pest.... What did you say? No, of course not.
I can't tell you now—I'm not alone here. Ask a question, and I'll answer. Oh, you're so silly—of course not. Yes, he usually drives himself, but not today. What did you say?

 

KUZNETSOFF

Actually, what do you care whether I'm anxious or not? Is she married?

 

TAUBENDORF

Who?

 

KUZNETSOFF

This one here....

 

TAUBENDORF

Oh, this one.... Yes, I think so. She lives alone, though.

 

MARIANNA
(into the phone)
What a rotten thing! Did he really say that?
(laughs)
What? You have to hang up? Who's keeping you from talking at your end? Oh, I see, I see...
(with a lilt)Auf wiederse-e-ehn.

 

KUZNETSOFF
(to Marianna)
You didn't talk very much. I thought it would take longer.

 

OSHIVENSKI
(to Marianna)
That'll be twenty pfennigs. Thank you. First cash that's come in today.

 

MARIANNA
(to Kuznetsoff)
And why did you think it would take longer?

 

KUZNETSOFF

Can I buy you a drink?

 

MARIANNA

What do you take me for, a bar girl?

 

FYODOR FYODOROVICH

Bar the bar girls.

 

KUZNETSOFF

If you don't want to you don't have to.
(to Taubendorf)
So I'll see you tomorrow, Kolya. Don't be late.

 

MARIANNA
(to Kuznetsoff)
Wait—let's sit down over there. I guess I can spare a minute.

 

FYODOR FYODOROVICH

The huge hall was inadequate for the enormous crowd.

 

OSHIVENSKI

You know what, Fyodor Fyodorovich, be a good chap and turn off the big lamps, would you? It's just an added expense.
(He sits in a wicker chair by the bar and listlessly leafs through a newspaper. Then he grows pensive and yawns a couple of times.)

 

TAUBENDORF
(approaching the table, situated downstage, where Marianna and Kuznetsoff are seated)
What is your pleasure? Some wine? A liqueur?

 

KUZNETSOFF

I don't care. Make it a cherrya brandy.

 

MARIANNA

How odd: Olga Pavlovna never told me anything about you.

KUZNETSOFF

Good for her. Are you free tomorrow night?

 

MARIANNA

Do you really care to know?

 

KUZNETSOFF

In that case I'll meet you at ten o'clock sharp in the hall of the Hotel Elysium. And bring Lyulya along too. I'll be with Taubendorf.

 

MARIANNA

You're crazy.

 

KUZNETSOFF

And the four of us will go to some racy little spot.

 

MARIANNA

You're absolutely unbelievable. One might think you've known me and my girl friend for a hundred years. I should never have had that liqueur. When I'm so tired, I have no business drinking liqueurs. And I am terribly tired.... These shooting sessions....And my part is the most demanding one in the whole film. The part of a Communist woman. Abominably difficult part. Have you been in Berlin long?

 

KUZNETSOFF
About two hours.

 

MARIANNA

And imagine, today I had to repeat the same scene eighteen—yes, eighteen times. Of course it wasn't my fault. It was because of Pia Mora. Of course she's very famous, but, between you and me, if she is playing the lead, it's only because ... well, in a nutshell, it's because she's making it with Moser. I watched her seethe when she saw I was better than her....

 

KUZNETSOFF
(to Taubendorf, over his shoulder)
Kolya, tomorrow we're all going out to have a good time. Okay?

 

TAUBENDORF

Whatever you say, Alyosha. I'm always ready.

 

KUZNETSOFF

Then it's settled. And now—

 

MARIANNA

Baron, could you find my handbag for me? I left it somewhere by the phone.

 

TAUBENDORF

At your service.

 

KUZNETSOFF

And now I want to tell you something. I like you a lot, especially your legs.

 

TAUBENDORF
(returning with the handbag)
Here you are.

 

MARIANNA
Thank you, my dear Baron. I'd better go. The atmosphere is getting too romantic....The dim lighting and all...

 

KUZNETSOFF
(getting up)
Romance is the spice of life. Let's go. You have to show me the way to the Pension Braun.

 

FYODOR FYODOROVICH

Where's your hat, Mr. Kuznetsoff?

 

KUZNETSOFF

Never use one. Oh-oh—the boss is snoring. I won't disturb him. Good-by, Fyodor Fyodorovich—that's right, isn't it? Kolya, how much do I owe you?

 

TAUBENDORF

A mark and a half. Including gratuities. See you tomorrow, Marianna dear. See you tomorrow, Alyosha. Eight-thirty.

 

KUZNETSOFF

Don't bungle things, sweetheart. I said eight.
(Kuznetsoff and Marianna leave.)

 

FYODOR FYODOROVICH
(lifting the edge of the window blind and looking out)
Amazing thing, legs.

 

TAUBENDORF
(yawning)
Oh-hoh. Doesn't look good. I guess no one is going to come.
Come on, let's have a game of twenty-one.

 

FYODOR FYODOROVICH
Oh well—why not.
(They sit down at the same table where Kuznetsoff and Marianna were sitting and start playing. Oshivenski is sleeping. It is rather dark.)

A room. On the left a window giving on the courtyard. Door in rear wall, opening on a corridor. In the left comer, a green-colored settee with a green egg-shaped cushion. Next to it, a small table with a round lamp. By the right wall, behind a green screen, a bed: the only part of it visible to the spectator is one of the metal knobs at its foot. In the center, a round table with a lace doily. Near it, in an armchair, sits Olga Pavlovna Kuznetsoff, embroidering a silk chemise. She is wearing a very simple, not quite fashionable dark dress: it is more ample and longer than the current style. Her face is young and soft; there is something girlish about her gentle features and smooth hairdo. The room is an ordinary room in an ordinary Berlin boardinghouse, with aspirations to bourgeois comforts: a pseudo-Persian carpet; two mirrors, one in the door of a paunchy wardrobe against the right wall, the other an oval one on the back wall. In all of this there is a kind of unpleasant puffy rotundity—in the armchairs, the green lampshade, the outline of the folding screen, as if the room had developed in concentric circles, frozen motionless over there in the form of a pouf, over here in that of an enormous plate stuck to the peony design of the wallpaper and giving birth to several smaller ones all over the back wall. The window is ajar—it is a bright, spring afternoon. A very badly
played violin is audible outside. Olga Pavlovna, busy with her embroidery, listens now and then and smiles. The violin gives one last whine, sobs and falls silent. A pause. Then, beyond the door, Kuznetsoff's voice inquires,
“Wo ist mein
³
Frau?”
and the maid's irritable voice replies,
“Da—nächste Tür.”

 

OLGA PAVLOVNA
(drops everything, runs to the door, opens it)
Alyosha, I'm in here. Come here.

 

KUZNETSOFF
(enters, with his raincoat over his arm)
Hello. What do you think you're doing sitting in someone else's room?

 

OLGA PAVLOVNA
Marianna doesn't mind. And they're doing my room—I got up late. Put down your coat.

 

KUZNETSOFF

And where did she go?

 

OLGA PAVLOVNA

I really don't know. Off somewhere. I don't know. Alyosha, it's already been four days, but I simply can't get used to the idea that you're in Berlin, and come to visit me—

 

KUZNETSOFF
(walking to and fro, picking up a framed photograph from a side table)
It's hot in here and it reeks of perfume. Who is this character?

 

OLGA PAVLOVNA

—that I no longer have to wait for your letters, wonder where you are and whether or not you're alive....

 

KUZNETSOFF

Her husband, is it?

 

OLGA PAVLOVNA

Yes, I think so. I don't know him. Sit somewhere. You can't imagine how enormous Russia seems to me when you disappear into it.
(laughs)

 

KUZNETSOFF

Nonsense. Actually I only stopped by for a moment. I still have loads of things to do.

 

OLGA PAVLOVNA

Oh, sit down for a little while. Please....

 

KUZNETSOFF

I'll drop by to see you again later. And I'll take a nap.

 

OLGA PAVLOVNA

Can't you stay ten minutes? I have something to tell you. Something very amusing. But I'm a little embarrassed because I didn't tell you as soon as you arrived....

 

KUZNETSOFF

What is it?

 

OLGA PAVLOVNA

Last Monday about nine o'clock—the same day you arrived—I was walking home and saw you ride by in a taxi with a suitcase. So I knew you were in Berlin, and didn't know my address. I was terribly happy you'd arrived, but at the same time it was torture for me. I rushed over to the street where I used to live, and the concierge there told me you'd just stopped by and that he didn't know where to direct you. I've changed addresses so many times since....It was all very stupid. Then I went home, forgot a package in the tram on the way, and began waiting. I knew you'd find me right away through Taubendorf. Still, it was very hard waiting. You only came after ten—