Translations into English of 10 plays by Volokhov

1)
DEAD MAN’S BLUFF by Mikhail VOLOKHOV
***
Zhitinkin’s speech before the play Dead Man’s Bluff by Mikhail VOLOKHOV
Excerpt from a discussion of the play ‘Dead Man’s Bluff’ at the M. Gorky Literary Institute, 1989

2)
THE GREAT CONSOLER by MIKHAIL VOLOKHOV (English)
***
Classics and consolers (Article by Alexander Inyakhin, English)

3)
THE MACBETH CHRONICLES by Mikhail VOLOKHOV
***
The Macbeth Chronicles by Lev Novozhenov

4)
‘BULLETS IN CHOCOLATE’ — by Mikhail VOLOKHOV
***
‘Bullets in Chocoiate’ is not for foois Lev Novozhonov

5)
RUBLEVKA SAFARI by Mikhail VOLOKHOV
***
On M. Volokhov’s play ‘Rublyovka Safari’

6)
KILIMANJARO ON YOUR LIPS by Mikhail VOLOKHOV
***
Kilimanjaro On Your Lips a play by the dramatist Mikhail Volokhov

7)
TCHIKATILO’S CALVARY by Mikhail VOLOKHOV
***
 English press about Mikhail Volokhov

8)
PARIS BOUND by Mikhail VOLOKHOV
***
We`re fine as we are Lion Novogonov

9)
LESBIANS ROARING LIKE A TSUNAMI by Mikhail VOLOKHOV
***
Eng reviews Lesbians Roaring Like a Tzunami

10)
‘LYUDMILA GURCHENKO LIVES’ by Mikihail VOLOKHOV
***
‘Lyudmila Gurdhenko Lives’ by Mikhail Volokhov
11)
‘THE THEATRE OF KAIROS IN ESSENCE’ — AN ESSAY BY MIKHAIL VOLOKHOV ON THE THEORY OF THEATRE AND ART

12)
STANISLAV MERKUSHOV ‘THE PROBLEMATICS OF RUSSIAN DRAMA OF THE ABSURD 1980-90s — MIKHAIL VOLOKHOV’
13)
STANISLAV MERKUSHOV — ‘MIKHAIL VOLOKHOV — TABOO AND THE ABSURD’
14)
STANISLAV MERKUSHOV — LINGUISTIC AND THEMATIC DE-TABOOIZATION IN THE WORKS OF MIKHAIL VOLOKHOV (THE PLAY AND FILM ‘CHIKATILO’S CALVARY’)

15)
Lidia Mi;sowska — ‘Dialogue with the Absurd. Notes on the dramaturgy of Mikhail Volokhov’

16)
Mikhail Volokhov

THE RED TULIP AND LAST-YEAR'S OAK LEAF
A fairy tale (Translation into English by Maria Volokhov)
1)

By Mikhail Volokhov
 

DEAD MAN'S BLUFF

A one-act tragicomedy

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

Arkady
Felix


The present day.

Room in the hallway of a secret medical unit. The stage is dark. Enter Felix and Arkady carrying large shopping bags. Felix turns on the light. Arkady immediately turns it off.

ARKADY. You moron, you thick or what? First stash the food in the fridge.
FELIX. I'm tired.
ARKADY. You make me tired.
They transfer food from the shopping bags to a fridge, a cupboard. A saucepan is placed on the table.
(Turns on the light.) Those smart-Alec spook patients keep checking the bags.
'What you bringing from the kitchen, boys?' The KGB fucks spread black caviare on red, but they won't let us take a kilo of cabbage.
FELIX. Wait till the Chief comes and sees your 50 kilos of syphilitic cabbage bulging out the cupboard. You must be a fucking weightlifter.
ARKADY. That chief doctor from Ben-Edmund Square can suck my long fat one. FELIX. You're gonna pickle the cabbage on the balcony?
ARKADY. You better do things my way. You steal dried apricots by the kilo, you swipe 3-litre jars of milk to anoint your stomach ulcer, but you never listen.
FELIX. Shut up, asshole.
ARKADY. Now you've been transferred to my shift, we got our own rules here. Try and use the space between your ears
FELIX. I like you, man, that's why I arranged to be transferred. My dear Ukrainian friend, for all I care you can clean the whole hospital. It's all the same shit to me.
You're the one with a temporary work permit – better keep your nose clean. I'm wise to you.
ARKADY. Yeah, so I'm not a Jew – I'm on a temporary permit. Hitler was fucking right. If it was up to me I'd have all you little kikes, you little Ben-Edmunds, fucking taken care of.
FELIX. That's what I'd do to the whole lot of you, fucking Ukrainian party bosses. As for that little kike crack, I could smash your face in.
ARKADY. That means you're a Jew for sure. You take Russian names like you put on fucking condoms and go round fucking everyone up the ass. Yids, kikes, fucking stinking Hebes.

Felix quickly rises from his chair.

Just try and smash my face in, dickhead, we'll see who lands the first blow. You can't defeat Mother Truth with fists, Felix Ben-Edmund. Let's eat.

FELIX. You need to have a stick screwed up your ass so your head will work proper. You read me?
ARKADY. Huh?
FELIX. Where's the meat?
ARKADY. You can stuff yourself with meat at home, you fairy. Here we eat these stinking cutlets. You think you're too good for that. How do the patients keep them down?
FELIX. Our patients get boiled chicken from home.
ARKADY. Bought with their KGB salaries, asshole. We're supposed to chew on these stinking cutlets. Don't shit yourself – we got some meat. I had Klavka
liberate a piece for me. You're a Jew so you never get any meat. And that's the way it should be!
FELIX. Just wait till Klavka tries to pass the guardhouse – she'll have to bring me some meat
ARKADY. That's what you think. She'll sneak out through the hole in the fence, like she did today. What will you do then, try to catch the slut? If you do, that
boyfriend of hers will grind your bones into dominoes. I knew a guy who tried to catch her – now he's swallowing worms 6 feet under.
FELIX. Her boyfriend can suck my dick. (Opens the saucepan.) Why the fuck did you put the meat with the stewed cabbage? Looks like a whore's cunt with crabs. Don't we have enough plates?
ARKADY. You want it on a plate, put it on a plate, rabbi. All the same shit to me.
FELIX. I've had it up to the eyeballs with you, you incontinent fucker.
ARKADY. When I give you up to the eyeballs, you'll know about it. I can always give you a nose job for free.
FELIX. Listen, butthead, I'm not going to argue with you. Just report you to the local KGB.
ARKADY. It's an open question who tells on who. I never doubted you're a snitch, Mr Ben-Edmund. You'd get fucking pleasure from shooting a man dead. You Jewboy sons of Edmund are all birds of a feather. Always slacking off, but ready to sign up for a Nobel Prize any time. No, Hitler was right. I'd send the lot of you to Dachau. Stalin understood the situation right, an' all.
FELIX. My little Ukrainian lapdog, you'd be the first he'd send on a trip to those hangouts Lenin loved so well. Look at you – moonlighting as a hospital guard and stealing carrots. Not exactly slaving away, are you, you fat-ass Ukrainian. How much capital did you accumulate from these rat-eaten vegetables?
ARKADY. So the fucking state cheats me when it pays my wages. What the fuck. I work daytime, too, I'm a welder in the taxi depot. If I had a place like yours, you slime, no fucking way I'd waste my time in this dump. I'd like to see you if in the camps. Me a thief, you a political prisoner sent down for breaking Article 58. I'd make you eat your guts, stuff waffles down your throat and hang you from the ceiling by your fucking ears.
FELIX. You think you're so cool, my little tail-wagging friend. You cleaned out
Kuibyshev, then ran away to Moscow. You reckon you're too smart to get busted. But one day your clever ass will land in jail.
ARKADY. Well, it won't be you who puts me there, you pigeon-chested scribbler. You're a sad case – 37 years old, no wife, no kids. But you got a 3-room apartment downtown. What you want with three rooms?
FELIX. To enjoy the pleasures of dissipation, butthead. In the 1st room I fuck the lady, in the 2nd I gut-strangle her, and in the 3rd I hang her from the ceiling. Then
I can come into whatever hole I want: her mouth, her asshole. The lady screams, squirts blood – and I get a boner.
ARKADY. You sick fucker.
FELIX. Fancy a sexy pied-a-terre like that, my little chicken Kiev? Tell the truth – like the idea?
ARKADY. Sure I do.
FELIX. No fucking chance.
ARKADY. And you want to be a great Russian writer and humanist, you shit. You're a pervert, a fucking card-sharper, son of a whore. Think I'll let you write your poem here? You just try. You're here to work as a fireman for 100 rubles a month, a 100 fucking rubles, and that's all you gonna do – work for those crisp little bills. When your three rest-days come up you can scribble your decadent poem all you want. But here, if you clock in for a 24-hour shift you'll do honest work for the whole 24 hours. A fucking firefighter. You're a whore, not a poet. I'll
teach you how to be a fireman. Imagine you ripping off the patients for hundreds of rubles every shift. We got people here who were seriously wounded on
important missions, came back from Afghanistan, Chernobyl, from long-term intelligence jobs. Get my drift? Remember the soldier from Chernobyl you
cheated out of three hundred and fifty rubles? They buried him three days ago. FELIX. He croaked because of the radiation, not because he lost the dosh to me.
ARKADY. Listen, they buried the guy 12 feet under so the radiation won't rise to the surface.
FELIX. Anyway, he's got no use for three hundred smackers where he is now.
And when we were playing cards you sat right next to him, my Ukrainian beauty. Might have caught a spot of radiation yourself. Thought about that?
ARKADY. What? You mean I could be contaminated?
FELIX. Chill out, old son. Your mates in Chernobyl got a much bigger dose and they don't complain. Or are the Kuibyshev Ukrainians more yellow than they are in Chernobyl? As a writer I would find that interesting. Up yours, buddy.
ARKADY. Why did I agree to play with you and your cronies? On top of that you won 101 rubles from me, your own colleague. And not a scrap of sympathy.
FELIX. You sat down with us of your own free will and asked for a hand.
ARKADY. I sat down with my frigging pants on but I left without them. You just try writing your poem here – I'll teach you the basics of fire safety, shithead. (Eats stewed cabbage.)
FELIX. If you try and swipe more veg from the kitchen I'll report you to the boys from Petrovka. No kidding. My pleasure.
ARKADY. What did you say, you fairy?
FELIX. It will be my supreme pleasure, you faggot!
ARKADY. Calm down, Felix old mate. Can't fucking take a joke? If your pome means so much to you, be my guest, go ahead and write it. You must know nobody gives a fuck about that shit. And you can play cards all you want. There's not much to do while we're on duty. You're one of us through and through. You never refuse to play cards when the public asks you. As for the fact you clean everyone out, it's a matter of luck. If you don't want to play, don't sit at the table. Nobody's forcing anyone. You even lose to Vitya sometimes.
FELIX. That boy Vitya's an expert. Just a word from me and he'll wring your scrawny neck, my little chicken Kiev.
ARKADY. Vitya-the-Warrior's a fucking great guy.
FELIX. That cabbage you're stuffing down stinks like a john. That meat in the cabbage stinks, too. I think I'll report you to Petrovka after all. Or I'll have Vitya teach you a few lessons. I see no other solution.
ARKADY. Felix, you're right, OK? Think I don't know the cabbage smells of shit? FELIX. If it smells of shit why gorge yourself on it like fucking Gargantua?
ARKADY. Who's Gargantua?
FELIX. It's a fucking long story.
ARKADY. You don't have to explain. I might not understand. I'm a simple fellow, Mr Ben-Edmund, a man of the people. Now you say you write for the people. But when the people ask you a question, you're too busy. So what the fuck, busy means busy. For all 1 know, you might be a national genius. Another minute
–another Nobel Prize. I understand, you know. I'm not offended. I'm a simple fellow, Mr Felix Ben-Edmund. You Jews like to make money from the sentimental feelings of the Russian-Ukrainian common man, but here in this joint you live and die as a 100-ruble-fireman. So when you trick us little people at cards it doesn't upset me all that much. Tell me, who needs your fucking poems? You told me
yourself you can't get them published. No water off my back – it's your fucking problem. There's one thing I don't get, why waste all that paper? Why don't you buy my bird Kesha instead – you know how decadently he sings. That's nature for you – just a little bundle of feathers, but when he sings it's a work of art, a fucking epic. As for your kind of art, Ben-Edmund, my dick is unmoved. Why not let me read something you wrote, or explain it in simple language?
FELIX. You're interested in art, Arkasha?
ARKADY. You think I'm a total idiot?
FELIX. Dear boy, I'd be happy to explain the meaning of my art. He who asks politely shall be told.
ARKADY. Happy to hear it.
FELIX. I'm not the first writer in the history of the world, Arkasha. Right? ARKADY. Right.
FELIX. So you're not the first asshole who doesn't give a fuck about my work. Right?
ARKADY. No, Ben-Edmund, Hitler was definitely right. As a man of letters you may find this upsetting, but Hitler was absolutely on the ball.
FELIX. That's why I write – so there's fewer shitheads like you in the world.
ARKADY. As a reader I tell you, they should've shot you long ago, Mr Menachem Begin the Writer.
Sound of an approaching car.
Open the gate, it's the Chief.
FELIX. I'm not paid to work the security gate, my Ukrainian friend.
ARKADY. Know what? You're an asshole. Fucking firefighting Hebe.
Goes out. Opens the gate for the head doctor's car. Returns.
Just wait, you fat-ass fireman, I'll get my own back. Don't expect no favours from me, you fucking synagogue-dweller.
FELIX. You get three days off for being a volunteer fireman, friend, I get fuck-all for working that frigging gate.
ARKADY. You could've earned my respect for helping me with the gate, freckle-face.
FELIX. I need your respect like I need a hole in the head, shitface.
ARKADY. You're heading for trouble, brother Abraham, that's for sure.
Remember, the wind fans the flames. Ever thought what would happen to you if this whole syphilitic KGB hospital went up in smoke with all the people inside,
with all its foreign-made, dollar-bought equipment?
FELIX. You can burn it down for all I care. My job's to call the fire brigade from the city.
ARKADY. Well you're the Jew, no doubt you'd wriggle your way out of it.
FELIX. A red-haired Jew.
ARKADY. What?
FELIX. The informers and KGB killers treated here in this super-secret KGB clinic, can burn for all I care. Get a taste of earthly fire. Otherwise on Judgement Day those pricks will go arrest all the devils in hell. They've got the know-how.
ARKADY. Aren't you afraid to tell me all this, Ben-Edmund?
FELIX. Aren't you afraid to hear all this, Arkasha?
ARKADY. You're an interesting guy. It's a pleasure to talk to you. When you work a straight 24-hour shift in this dump you can go crazy with boredom. That cunt Marinka left her job. Did you screw her?
FELIX. I screw whoever I want, dear colleague.
ARKADY. Marinka's been fucked by everybody. You're the only one who didn't get the pleasure. In this you're at odds with the collective. I get it: you take those sterilised little nurses to your three-room apartment, nail them by the ears to the ceiling so you can fuck them in every hole. You said your grandma left you the apartment? Seems Granny was too fond of picking and eating mushrooms, like all grandmothers.
FELIX. What if she did?
ARKADY. It's just that when someone swallows a toadstool, it's difficult to prove they were deliberately poisoned.
FELIX. That's the kind of thing I expected you to say, punk.
ARKADY. You expected it?
FELIX. Yeah.
ARKADY. Spoken like a rabbi.
FELIX. Exactly.
ARKADY. And now you screw the sterilised nurses in your rent-free apartment after nailing them to the ceiling.
FELIX. Yeah, the ceiling.
ARKADY. And you're writing a poem about how you took care of Grandma with a toadstool?
FELIX. That's right, Arkasha. Dostoevsky once wrote a piece along those lines. I'm following in his footsteps.
ARKADY. Then permit me to ask you another, Felix Ben-Edmund, great Soviet writer.
FELIX. Go ahead. A Soviet writer is open to all questions. I'm listening.
ARKADY. Tell me, Ben-Edmund, doesn't all that screwing make your dick sore?
FELIX. A question worthy of Socrates, my little Soviet friend. Permit me to give you an epicurean answer.
ARKADY. I'm all ears.
FELIX. Fucking makes my prick salivate with sperm – that's how much I like it!
ARKADY. It's the first time in my life I met a Jewish lump of shit like you. I tell you this as a friend.
FELIX. On my part, I already informed you as a friend that I never came across such a case of fire-pumping Ukrainian verbal diarrhoea. I never imagined Mother Nature could excrete such a stinking pile of shit.
ARKADY. For you, Felix, life's a fucking picnic.
FELIX. But not for you?
Sound of howling dogs.
ARKADY. You stuffed yourself with all that meat again. Didn't you leave any for the dogs, you greedy bastard?
FELIX. This way they'll guard the gate all night long while you snooze, contrary to regulations.
ARKADY. You also spend the night hours taking forty winks, contrary to regulations. If there was an emergency the dogs could help you too.
FELIX. That's why I got this control panel with the fire alarm.
ARKADY. So who's the shit then? Leo Tolstoy didn't eat meat but he could still get it up when he was sixty and became a father at that age. You may recall, he was a truly great writer.
FELIX. But you eat meat by the shitload, don't you, dickhead?
ARKADY. So?
FELIX. How do you know Tolstoy didn't eat meat?
ARKADY. In my taxi depot there's another fellow with a hobby – he's writing a fucking poem too. But at least he doesn't mind opening the gate once in a while, he's of some use to the other guys. Everyone screwed Lyuska the dispatcher and he screwed her too. Now look at you. A graduate of the Moscow Engineering
Academy. You're a fucking space welder by profession. That's a great job. The state spent thousands of gold rubles training you. But what do you do? You decide to become a millionaire, a second Solzhenitsyn. Dickhead. You sent Granny to heaven and work as a fireman instead of getting a regular job, corrupting those cute little nurses, stealing milk, dried fruit and medicines. You win thousands from the common people playing cards, you're scribbling an
anti-Soviet poem to cure your desiccated soul – as I recall, those were your own fucking words. No, you're the spitting image of a Soviet commie, you should be shot. And every month you get an easy hundred from the state. I'd like to see you in a uranium mine, you'd shape up quick. Answer me. Why is it you're not in Israel, Mr Shamir? But who fucking needs you there? They've got plenty of useless pricks to write poems. And there's no fucking way you'd be allowed to emigrate. Shit, I'm cracking up it's so funny. KGB officers are treated in this hospital. Our work is classified. Remember the First Section had us sign a paper mat we wouldn't reveal state secrets – means this is a KGB clinic. So we're kind of classified too, shitface. Cosmonauts, ministers, generals, they've all got
parents who die of fucking old age. Those bozos don't want to take care of their folks. I figure they don't know much about toadstools. You think an ordinary citizen could ever get inside this joint? Did you know, once upon a time there was a little Russian village nearby? Right next to this secret health-care clinic, asshole.
FELIX. Last year they tore down the houses and chased the old peasants away. The KGB was afraid the locals would tell the truth to the sharks of imperialism.
ARKADY. One thing's for certain, Comrade Polivailov-the-Jew. They'll never let you emigrate to Israel after working in this clinic. You can forget about it.
FELIX. Are you sure I want to go to Israel?
ARKADY. Well what can you do here in the USSR? Your poem will never get published. You've lost your engineering skills. You got a crappy job working as a fireman for 100 rubles a month. You're an intellectual, a schizophrenic and a Jew.
Our Russian nationalists will squeeze your balls. If it was up to me you know what I'd do? I'd line up all you Jews in front of a firing squad without a second
thought, the whole Marxist lot of you. Dirty fucking Jew. You'll be sorry you didn't emigrate, my Hebrew friend. It's too late now. Mark my words.
FELIX. I'm not afraid to live, Arkasha. I've got tons of cash, and I don't want to kill people anymore when I go abroad.
ARKADY. Huh?
FELIX. Zip up your dick, there's work to do. How about a game of cards?
ARKADY. Sure. But what about my bird? Want to buy it?
FELIX. A songbird, you say?
ARKADY. Sings decadently.
FELIX. How much?
ARKADY. 25 for the bird, with the cage thrown in. The cage alone is worth 15 rubles.
FELIX. What's that weird look on your face?
ARKADY. What look?
FELIX. Like your eyes are pricks that just saw a virgin cunt.
ARKADY. Oh that. Ha-ha. (Laughs.) I just feel like a drink. Who knows, perhaps the nurses will bring in a stiff today. I tell you this, Felix. You've earned my respect in some ways. Our very first shift you started wheeling stiffs to the morgue with me. And you give me your medical alcohol ration for free.
FELIX. I've got a painful ulcer.
ARKADY. An ulcer, huh? What kind of fucking writer are you if you don't drink?
Knowledge of camp slang won't bring you fame and fortune. Tell me the truth. Did you do time? What were you in for?
FELIX. Murder. That's why I'm used to stiffs. (Takes a pack of cards from his pocket.)
ARKADY. (Picks up the pack.) A fresh pack. Great. Big spender, huh?
FELIX. I'd like to see you spend some money for a change. You keep saying I'm cheap, but you're pretty tight with a ruble yourself.
ARKADY. I need the money for my family. I don't go round winning millions every day, like some.
FELIX. Millions shmillions. (Puts a ruble on the table as first stake.) One to start. Shall we invite someone else, one of the attendants or Vitya?
ARKADY. Fuck 'em. They'll smoke the place up, make a noise and Vitya will fleece us. Is that what you want?
FELIX. Okay, I'll do the fleecing.
ARKADY. It's difficult to fleece somebody when you play one-on-one. One note.
(Puts a ruble on the table as a stake.)
FELIX. 1 could try.
ARKADY. Poker's the kind of game where if you've got more money you win.
FELIX. Looks like you're loaded today.
ARKADY. Don't fuck around – let's play for who's gonna deal. (Takes a card from the pack.) A ten. You're gonna pull out a fucking king, I know it.
FELIX. No shit. (Takes a card from the pack.) King of spades.
ARKADY. I knew it. Deal, you bozo. What's the limit? A tenner?
FELIX. What about an even hundred? You've got plenty of cash today, you cheap prick.
ARKADY. No need to count other people's money. Ten rubles. (Puts 10 rubles on the table.)
FELIX. I'm always happy to bet a tenner. (Puts 10 rubles on the table.)
ARKADY. So tonight's limit is 100 smackaroos. Right?
FELIX. Okay, fine.
ARKADY. Well, a hundred it is. Another tenner. (Puts 10 rubles on the table.)
FELIX. Here you are. (Throws his cards on the pack.)
ARKADY. This isn't serious money. How about a 50-ruble stake?
FELIX. Sure.
They place their stakes on the table.
ARKADY. I always like it when you fuck up, Felix. (Deals the cards.)
FELIX. And I was wondering why my love for you was so tender, so eternal. A tenner. (Puts 10 rubles on the table.)
ARKADY. You must have some beauties there. I have a feeling I'm getting screwed. How about 25? (Puts 25 rubles on the table.)
FELIX. Like they say: Jews are verboten wherever the Ukrainians go. (Puts 25 rubles on the table.)
ARKADY. You'll skim the cream off, I know it. Here's an even 50. (Puts 50 rubles on the table.)
FELIX. How can I resist? (Puts 50 rubles on the table.) Looks like you've come into some money, dickhead.
ARKADY. Why are you always loaded, Rothschild? I wonder if I should show my cards? Well, all right, go ahead. Let's see you try and fuck over an honest man. Here's another fifty. (Puts 50 rubles on the table.)
FELIX. You know me: I never show my cards first when the stake's fifty rubles.
(Puts 50 rubles on the table.)
ARKADY. I know you'll try to screw me, Jewboy. Take a load of this. 30 points on hearts. (Puts 50 rubles on the table.)
FELIX. 30 points on diamonds.

They show each other their cards.

ARKADY. Shit, that was beautiful. Let's draw for who deals.
FELIX. (Pulls a card from the middle of the pack.) An eight.
ARKADY. Mine will be smaller, that's for sure. (Pulls a card from the middle of the pack.) A six. I see I'm gonna get screwed.
FELIX. Scared, huh? (Deals each of them three cards.) Let's rock 'n' roll. ARKADY. Fifty. (Puts 50 rubles on the table.)
FELIX. No shit. Here's a hundred. (Puts 100 rubles on the table.)
ARKADY. Fucking high roller. Tell me the truth – did you get 30 points? I can equal that. (Puts 100 rubles on the table.)
FELIX. Why is it you look so sad, I wonder. Holding out for the Three Kings? You're a fucking Mussolini of the card table. You can clean me out for all I care, motherfucker. I'll raise my bet. (Puts 100 rubles on the table.)
ARKADY. Money means nothing to me, that's the fucking truth. Here's another hundred. (Puts 100 rubles on the table.) I've a feeling in my balls, I'm gonna get screwed. You're always bluffing, dickhead.
FELIX. A Jew never beats a Ukrainian by bluffing. What kind of Jew would I be if 1 bluffed? (Puts 100 rubles on the table.)
ARKADY. Read'em and weep, dickhead. (Puts 100 rubles on the table.)
Thirty-two.
FELIX. Thirty-three.
ARKADY. Let me see! You're a fucking miracle-worker, rabbi. I've lost five hundred fucking rubles in five fucking minutes. Thirty-three. It's not fucking fair. I got screwed again. Give me the pack, dickhead. (Examines the pack of cards.)
Three aces. I had a six of clubs, an ace and a queen of spades. A fucking queen of spades! (Throws down the card in disgust.)
FELIX. How about another round'
ARKADY. No fucking way. Go write your fucking poem, Jewboy. Just leave me alone, you prick.
FELIX. Next shift you'll win it all back. There's no point in getting upset. Money's just paper shit.
ARKADY. I lost five hundred rubles' worth of shit in ten minutes How can I not get fucking upset! That's how much I earn in six months, slaving away in this stinking job as a guard. You must be crapping yourself with joy.
FELIX. You know I don't give a fuck about money. The man who values this shit least wins the most.
ARKADY. No one values this shit less than I do. Screw you. I bet there's not one woman who loves you.
FELIX. Why do you say that? Women love me. They give me head, they let me fuck them up the ass. Know how delicious it is to fuck a lady up the ass? First – it's soft, second – your dick gets squeezed real tight, third – it sure is erotic.
ARKADY. Yeah, butt-fucking isn't bad, not bad at all.
FELIX. You tried it?
ARKADY. I'll do it right now. I'll strangle you, you little shit, and give it a try.
FELIX. Easier said than done.
ARKADY. Why the fuck did I come to stinking Moscow and take this shitty job? You should've seen me in Kuibyshev, l was raking it in.
FELIX. You stole more than enough there, you came here. All according to plan.
ARKADY. I'd swipe a truckload of potatoes every day. I'd net a grand, an even thousand, every job I did. You could only dream of that, you verse-scribbling card-sharper.
FELIX. Losing five hundred in ten minutes must've really upset you.
ARKADY. No sweat, motherfucker. Money means nothing to me. I lost – so I lost. I'm cool. My nerves are good. In my shoes you'd commit harikari for sure. Shame a little prick like you made such a pile.
FELIX. Yeah, with money it's easy come, easy go. Where did you get the five hundred? You had to work hard for it?
ARKADY. Made that five hundred only yesterday. Got paid for something you could never do, sucker. It was beautiful. A fucking work of art.
FELIX. I can see it was beautiful. You couldn't earn that much in six months of slave labour as a guard.
ARKADY. So go fuck yourself. Am I making myself clear?
FELIX. What the fuck do you mean?
ARKADY. You'll understand when I smash your face in.
FELIX. I'll smash your face in first. With an honest Soviet-made spade perhaps, or a crowbar, or a fire-extinguisher. I've got a shitload of this fire-fighting,
Ukrainian-suppressing equipment. I could work you over with an awl, or a knife. Slit your throat with a razor.
ARKADY. What the fuck are you trying to say, Jewboy?
FELIX. Me?
ARKADY. Could you really do someone in? You're not shitting me?
FELIX. Couldn't you?
ARKADY. Your questions are kind of incomprehensible.
FELIX. You poked your nose into my soul first with your incomprehensible questions.
ARKADY. I was just asking, but your questions have some kinda poisonous hidden meaning.
FELIX. You've been pretty free with your own poisonous insinuations, you snake. The discovery of a new star in the constellation of the Shining Turd. Fuck you.
ARKADY. Sometimes I have a feeling it's all a fucking great mystery.
FELIX. What is?
ARKADY. Our reptilian life. So fucking hard to understand what it's all about. FELIX. You must adopt a Leninist approach to life in Mother Russia.
ARKADY. I 'm so fucking tired of your stupid jokes.
FELIX. You heard the latest? Early yesterday morning they killed a ginger-haired Jew. In one of the high-rises. They killed him in the entranceway. It was 7 in the morning. Still dark.
ARKADY. Fucking news to me.
FELIX. It was in the next block. Haven't you heard?
ARKADY. You mean the tower block? I haven't heard shit. A Jew got wasted?
FELIX. That's right. He had ginger hair. I know it for a fact.
ARKADY. So there's one Jew-bastard less in the world. So what?
FELIX. He shouldn't have worked as a fucking informer for the KGB. Now their source of information has dried up.
ARKADY. He was a KGB informer? No way. Who told you?
FELIX. As a writer I know plenty of people.
ARKADY. What the fuck did he want with the KGB? Why did the prick do it?
FELIX. You should've asked him. They say he started by selling books on the black market. He photocopied books that were difficult to get and sell them.
Nietzsche, Berdyaev, Freud, Avtorkhanov, Solzhenitsyn, and so on. You know what I mean.
ARKADY. I never heard of them except Solzhenitsyn.
FELIX. Doesn't matter. Anyway, the KGB had him by the balls. They made him an offer: work for us or we'll pack you off to fucking Kolyma, to the uranium mine. So he said yes.
ARKADY. Said yes to what?
FELIX. He agreed to work for the KGB, to snitch on his pals.
ARKADY. What a prick. But I guess his friends were jerks, too. I got no respect for booklovers. I bought a copy of Dumas' Monte Cristo from some old bookworm once. Cost me forty rubles. Lost all respect for 'em.
FELIX. You're sweating like a pig, Arkady Vsevolodovich. You okay?
ARKADY. I'm fine. You mean I look the worse for wear?
FELIX. No, once you get used to it, it's not so noticeable. It was more noticeable at the beginning of the shift.
ARKADY. What was more noticeable?
FELIX. Well, your hands are trembling in your hands, weird. And your voice is kind of raspy, like it needs oiling, lubricating. Something the matter?
ARKADY. (Clears his throat.) Yesterday I had a few drinks with my mates. Lubricated my voice a bit too much.
FELIX. You mean you had a few afterwards?
ARKADY. Yeah, that's right. (Pauses.) When we found out someone wasted a ginger-haired Jew in the skyscraper we went to take a look. Then we went for a drink. I tell you, man, there was so much blood it was like the fucking Bermuda Ocean. They slit the guy's throat with a razor, so he wouldn't suffer too much.
Now that's what I call humane. Don't you agree?
FELIX. So you were curious to see a man who'd been murdered.
ARKADY. Not a man, a fucking Jew. You get the difference? It's always
interesting to have a look. There was a crowd of people. But no big deal: a stiff, some blood and dirt. The usual shit.
FELIX. Raskolnikov was tempted to have a look afterwards, too. It's only human. ARKADY. What?
FELIX. Never mind, asshole.
ARKADY. I saw you there too, funny guy.
FELIX. When you were standing there with your friends you pointed your finger at me. I saw it.
ARKADY. You could have come up and said hi to my mates. Too proud to meet the common folk, Jewboy?
FELIX. So you got pissed afterwards?
ARKADY. Yeah, you could say that. I was out cold the rest of the day.
FELIX. So in the morning you went to take a look at the dead Jew, then went drinking? Right?
ARKADY. Yeah, so what?
FELIX. You were out cold for the rest of the day, right?
ARKADY. You got a problem with that?
FELIX. You just told me you made 500 rubles yesterday. While you were out cold? That's some trick. Something doesn't add up.
ARKADY. What's this, an interrogation?
FELIX. Don't you think I'd make a great interrogator?
ARKADY. You're pissing me off, Felix Ben-Edmund. I'm tired of your fucking bullshit. You got your 500, now lay off. What do you want from me? Collecting material for your pome, are you? I told you politely –lay off and go write that fucking epic of yours, you little pen-pusher.
FELIX. I don't want to write my fucking epic. I've got writer's block. I'd rather have a heart-to-heart with a nice guy from the sunny Ukraine.
ARKADY. Our conversation's like two dogs barking.
FELIX. You're the one who comes out with the crap first.
ARKADY. Says who? You're the one who's always carrying on like some camp gaffer. Still, it's not that side of you I object to. You're just a miserable little fuck. There's no other way to say it, Felix Felixovich. You're a fucking creative artist, writing some fucking epic for no fucking purpose. I don't understand your way of life, man. You don't drink vodka, you don't screw Marinka, like you think you're better than me. As for that red-haired bastard, he sold out to the KGB for sure. You know they don't accept Jews.
FELIX. When it needs to, the KGB even welcomes CIA spooks. Don't you watch the political stuff on the box? There was a programme about it.
ARKADY. Yeah, I saw that a CIA agent sold out to the KGB. What a way to go. FELIX. So why are you so scared? Why're you always wetting yourself?
ARKADY. What d'you mean?
FELIX. I mean you're scared, man. It was you that dispatched the red-haired Jew. With a blade. Slit his gullet with a razor.
ARKADY. What?!!!
FELIX. Don't flip out. It was just another Soviet soap-opera. You wasted him, so what? You got 500 for the job. Your expenses were covered, everything was approved. No need to wet yourself.

ARKADY. I'll waste you, you little prick! Fucking fairy, I'll fucking kill you. (He throws himself at Felix, who knocks him down with a karate chop.)
FELIX. Fell down, did we? Be grateful I knocked you down tender-like.
ARKADY. Why did you hit me? What have I done to you? (Gets up.) How come you know everything?
FELIX. I work for the KGB, that's how. I have a feeling, my boy, this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
ARKADY. Get lost, you fucking card-sharper. You're looking to frame me for that stiff. No fucking way. I don't believe that red-haired kike was KGB. You can't bullshit me – I'm not stupid.
FELIX. He was with the KGB, then he started working for the CIA, selling out his KGB comrades for dollars. So we had to take him out. The mission was assigned to me but I re-assigned it to you. So now, Arkasha, you're one of us. A trusted colleague. But you still keep whining. That's human gratitude for you. Why do I try to be nice to people?
ARKADY. Huh? Thanks for nothing, motherfucker. You didn't re-assign nothing to me. Got that straight, creep?
FELIX. I was the one who left the envelope with the instructions and the 500 in your mailbox.
ARKADY. You? Fuck you, dickhead! I'll fucking kill you, you fucking Nazi!
FELIX. I knew you were a fucking coward and a chauvinist. I knew you'd do the job. You still got my letter, or did you throw it away?
ARKADY. I fucking burnt it.
FELIX. 'Forgive me, Ukrainian Arkasha. I have sad news for you. I was playing thimblerig with another Afghan vet, a professional killer. The stake was your life, too bad I lost. Luckily for you an exchange is possible. A death for a death. If you cut the throat of Sashutka the red-haired Jew who lives on Ushakova Street,
No.6, Apartment 18, you'll get 500 rubles. But if you back out on me, you sponger, by tomorrow morning your own throat will be slit. Here's a hint: Sashutka leaves the building to go to work at 7 am.
Signed, a certain unlucky Afghan war veteran from Lyubertsy, the one you fucked over at the trial. I remember your Ukrainian ass and I hate your guts.' That ring a bell?
FELIX. Yeah.
ARKADY. Burning the letter was a smart thing to do. So what do you think? Didn't the text I composed have a certain artistic quality? You're the one who's always going on about how pointless my writing is. Well, this is what we call art, my
Ukrainian friend.
ARKADY. Sure I was scared, jerk. The Lyubertsy Afghan veterans are the most vicious hired killers in Moscow. I know that.
FELIX. Many guys who served in Afghanistan became professional assassins after demob. During the war they got used to wasting civilians. But you managed the job fine, without the benefit of their experience. That I respect.
ARKADY. I made a speech at the trial about a guy from Lyubertsy. One night he cut the throat of a guy from the depot. For a few fucking kopecks. I figured his friends traced me. I told you about the trial, you son of a bitch.
FELIX. So I used that information.
ARKADY. You bastard!!! That's what you are – a fucking bastard.
FELIX. Well you're nothing to look at either, creep. You wasted the Jew like you've done it all your life. Or was it difficult?
ARKADY. What the fuck's difficult about it? I had a beer beforehand. After a beer I don't give a fuck about nothing. That's all I need – just one beer. I can get pissed later. I've got a wife, two daughters. I was thinking what would happen to
them if I wasn't around. There was no point asking the cops for help. It would have made matters worse. That was my reasoning.
FELIX. I was relying on your wisdom as a family man, Arkasha.
ARKADY. You're a real Nazi, you bastard. Because of you I'm a fucking murderer. But it's not like I killed another human being. The guy was a Jew, after all.
FELIX. I get your drift.
ARKADY. You get my drift? Have you killed anyone? Who? Was he a Jew?
FELIX. I killed many times. Jews, goys – they were all human beings.
ARKADY. But aren't you a Jew yourself?
FELIX. We're all Jews, according to Marx. Or Christ.
ARKADY. So you went around murdering people with your own hands?
FELIX. It's my profession.
ARKADY. That's a great profession. Now I understand why you're writing a poem and no one's allowed to read it. It's therapy. Your own KGB friends could do away with you any minute. Is that what you're writing about, how you kill people?
FELIX. Okay, Arkasha, I'll buy that bird off you. I like your decadent ways.
ARKADY. What about your own fucking ways, Ben-Edmund? What have I done to you? Were you pissed off because I told you not to steal milk from the kitchen? You were going crazy with those 3-litre cans. You were cheating the patients.
You've won so much money from them at cards. From the very people you're supposed to take care of. You make enough to buy a whole cistern of fresh milk after every shift.
FELIX. It's always more fun to swipe something, if you can swipe it. Do I really have to explain that to you, my Ukrainian friend?
ARKADY. Of course it's more fun to swipe something if you can swipe it, Ben-Edmund.
FELIX. As for the 3-litre cans of milk, swiping them from under the noses of my own colleagues, those murderers, gives me a rush. It's like winning the lottery.
ARKADY. It looks like we're one happy family of murderers here.
FELIX. And now you're a member of our fraternity. Learn to use the proper terms. ARKADY. Okay, okay.
FELIX. Your voice is trembling. Not a professional yet.
ARKADY. Why did you do this to me? Couldn't you find anyone else?
FELIX. I see you like to hide behind other people's backs, my Ukrainian friend. You think I made a mistake in picking you?
ARKADY. Yeah, you could say that.
FELIX. How about giving me a straight answer?
ARKADY. I don't think you made a mistake in picking me, comrade.
FELIX. That's better. We need freshly trained personnel. No perestroika for traitors. (He draws a line across his throat with his thumb.)
ARKADY. Yes, sir.
FELIX. If I give you another assignment, will you do it?
ARKADY. Yes, sir. What kind of assignment?
FELIX. Send someone to join his ancestors. Some prick, some Jewish parasite who gives the Soviet people grief. You're a loyal Soviet citizen, aren't you, my
little chicken Kiev?
ARKADY. I'm a loyal Soviet citizen.
FELIX. So you'll do it?
ARKADY. I'll waste the anti-Soviet prick if you tell me to.
FELIX. You're a cool customer. I must buy that bird of yours. You say it costs twenty-five?
ARKADY. You know what, Ben-Edmund? I've changed my mind. You don't need to buy it, you can have the bird for free.
FELIX. Kesha, my friend! (Embraces Arkady.) I'm forever in your debt. You made me so happy!
ARKADY. Don't mention it, Felix Ben-Edmund. My pleasure. Listen,
Ben-Edmund, my apologies in advance, you don't have one of those ID cards, do you?
FELIX. What sort of ID card?
ARKADY. A little red card. The one that opens all doors.
FELIX. Oh, you mean a membership card to the Union of Soviet Writers. I don't have one, Arkasha. I'm not yet an official member.
ARKADY. That's not what I meant, Felix. I'm talking about a little red card of a different kind.
FELIX. Like what?
ARKADY. A KGB card.
FELIX. Now I understand, you cunning bastard. What's it to you?
ARKADY. I'd really like to have a look. I'm curious. I've never seen one.
FELIX. Don't give me that, Arkasha. You've never seen one, sure. Every other patient here has shown you his card so he can boast he works for the KGB.
ARKADY. I never asked to see one. I've been here three years, but I never asked. I could have, but I didn't.
FELIX. You could have but you didn't. That's rich, you little peasant. You just want to find out if I'm really a KGB officer or just bullshitting.
ARKADY. Yes, Ben-Edmund, I want to find out. You hit the nail right on the head. Yes sir, you certainly have.
FELIX. I see you've got the makings of a true KGB virtuoso, my friend. You can see my little red card, you doubting Thomas. (Takes a KGB identity card in a red cover from his pocket and shows it to Arkady.)
ARKADY. (Reads.) 'Issued to Captain Felix Felixovich Polivailov.' There's the stamp. And your picture. A good likeness! Please forgive my minor doubts,
Comrade Captain. It's a neat little card. So compact. So handy.
FELIX. It certainly is fucking handy, Arkasha. You'd never be able to buy one from your friend the bookworm.
ARKADY. And a pretty high rank, too. Great. My congratulations.
FELIX. To have a rank like that at my age is really something.
ARKADY. Please forgive me, Felix Felixovich. I thought the guy I was working with was just a useless scribbler, but it turns out you're a respectable man.
FELIX. Every KGB officer must be able to work undercover. I too was misled. I thought, dear colleague, you were just a petty Ukrainian pickpocket. Strictly small-time. Good for nothing. But it turns out you have certain talents. And you know how to hide them behind that moronic exterior.
ARKADY. I'm very talented, Felix Felixovich. I'll do whatever you say. From me according to my abilities, to me according to my needs. Right?
FELIX. As for rewarding ability, it's like we've got our own printing press. You won't lose out, rest assured.
ARKADY. I'm ecstatic.
FELIX. But tell me. If we don't pay you for your abilities, would you still consider wasting an anti-Soviet for us?
ARKADY. But why wouldn't you pay me for my abilities?
FELIX. What do you mean, why? Everyone in our outfit works out of conviction. Money comes second.
ARKADY. What kind of conviction?
FELIX. Communist conviction, my little lapdog. Where do you think you were born, my doggie friend? Where do you live? Is your brain totally fucked up, you fairy?
ARKADY. No, but the communists are now reforming themselves, so to speak. In view of perestroika, I mean.
FELIX. The old geezers are getting pensioned off, the young bloods are taking over. A tactical retreat. Then we'll go on the offensive and wipe out the fucking opposition. To fucking kingdom come!
ARKADY. For good.
FELIX. For all eternity. Anyway, whose fucking side are you on? ARKADY. I'm on the side of the KGB.
FELIX. So watch your Ps and Qs.
ARKADY. No sweat. So I'm officially in the KGB now?
FELIX. Yeah, kind of. Is that what you want?
ARKADY. If you think I can do the job.
FELIX. We think you will more than do the job, my Ukrainian friend. And the pay is good. You'll get an apartment.
ARKADY. On a temporary residence permit?
FELIX. Our people are entitled to apartments on a permanent basis. It's the proletariat who get them on temporary permits. But we're the super-proletariat, so our apartments are permanent.
ARKADY. I understand the point you're trying to make, Comrade Polivailov. We're the super-proletariat.
FELIX. But tell me one thing, Arkasha. If we didn't pay you, would you still rub out for us (mimes pulling a trigger) those members of the toiling masses we've rubbed the wrong way? If we ordered you to (mimes pulling a trigger), of course.
ARKADY. What do you mean (mimes pulling a trigger), without paying me? I
wouldn't get any money at all? Won't you at least give me an apartment with the right of permanent residence? I'm asking you as a friend, Ben-Edmund. Will they give me an apartment?
FELIX. Our outfit doesn't function on the basis of friendship, Arkasha. It's not fucking retail, where they let you swipe potatoes by the truckload out of friendship. The KGB is a serious organisation, dickhead. It's run with self-control, self-discipline and individual responsibility. The only thing we do out of friendship is make sure the hit is painless. Slit the throat with a razor. That's the way we
work. If you have communist convictions you'll fit in, if not you won't. So look into your heart and tell me: are you a man of communist convictions or aren't you?
ARKADY. This is my considered answer, Comrade Polivailov. I say with all sincerity that my fucking communist convictions are in my blood, if you'll pardon the expression. They inhabit every one of my red blood cells day and night.
FELIX. You've put it beautifully, you little fucker.
ARKADY. True, when I wasted that red-haired hippy I wasn't thinking about all that. But now I am, and I can assure you I wasted him out of communist conviction. He was an enemy of our Soviet way of life.
FELIX. You're a fucking preacher, silver-tongued and all. A fucking fighter-pilot, an ace, that's what you are. Just carry on in the same way.
ARKADY. I'm a mortally dangerous kamikaze fighter-pilot, Felix Ben-Edmund. An ace. You were incredibly lucky to find me.
FELIX. I had a feeling.
ARKADY. Will they give me military rank? When I got out of the army I was a staff sergeant. Is that where I'll start with you?
FELIX. Where that's concerned we go by the book. You'll be rolling in dough with plenty of promotions to boot. And don't forget the apartment with right of permanent residence.
ARKADY. As a member of the super-proletariat.
FELIX. You got it. But if you truly are a man of communist convictions, the rest won't mean shit to you.
ARKADY. Have no doubts, I'll prove it with deeds. Will I go on working here or get re-assigned? I'm ready.
FELIX. Don't worry about that, Arkasha. There's something else that bothers me, though.
ARKADY. Like what?
FELIX. Like why the fuck did you go and waste a complete stranger in this cowardly fashion? Just like that, for 500 rubles. Why did that Afghan veteran from Lyubertsy scare you shitless?
ARKADY. I wasn't really scared of the Afghan veteran. I merely followed the instructions in the letter you wrote, Comrade Captain.
FELIX. Yes, but you didn't know the letter was written by me on behalf of the
KGB. The way I figure it, the Afghan veteran freaked you out and you wasted the red-haired guy because you're a coward.
ARKADY. In that case it was all your fault, Ben-Edmund. You're the one who composed the counterfeit letter on behalf of the KGB.
FELIX. That was done on purpose, to see your reaction.
ARKADY. I think you made a mistake, Comrade Polivailov. You should've told me straight out you wanted this stranger, this Jewish piece of shit, fucking taken care of. Out of communist conviction. And 1 would've fucking taken care of him – out of communist conviction. No way was it my mistake. No fucking way.
FELIX. I see you're determined to defend your position, Arkasha. That's good.
But in fact it's all the same shit to you whether you waste a guy out of cowardice or communist conviction, and that's not good, my little chicken Kiev. In fact, that's too fucking bad.
ARKADY. No, Ben-Edmund, I don't agree. As God is my witness, it's not the same shit to me. To waste a guy out of communist conviction, that's something special where I'm concerned. If I'm lying, call me a bastard. When you're doing it for that reason, you're benefiting all the people!
FELIX. As God is my witness, you're thinking along the right sort of lines, Arkasha. I'm really happy for you, Lieutenant. You're a true commie.
ARKADY. I'm honoured by your trust, Comrade Captain, by your trust and the happiness you've given me. If you'd told me I had to waste that little red-haired kike on behalf of the KGB, out of communist conviction, I'd have done it,
Comrade Captain. Done it out of communist conviction, no two ways about it.
FELIX. That's enough of your bullshit. What if we made a mistake? We've plenty of things to worry about besides you, dickhead. Don't we have the right to make a mistake? Never before in the history of mankind was there a developing communist society. Historically speaking, we're the first to set off on the road to that special place where peace and paradise reign eternal. So we're entitled to make a mistake or two in the case of a little lump of shit like yourself.
ARKADY. And what about me? Don't I have the right to make a mistake?
FELIX. You?
ARKADY. Like you, I mean. After all, I'm in the KGB too now. So I too had the right to make a mistake and waste the little kike out of cowardice.
FELIX. You've confessed and recanted. But when you killed him you weren't KGB. When you took a razor and slit his throat you were just another
Soviet-Ukrainian yokel.
ARKADY. But in my heart I was KGB, Comrade Polivailov. I swear on my mother's health, in my heart I was KGB.
FELIX. I'm getting tired of your bullshit.
ARKADY. You said yourself that every Soviet is like a living piece of history. I reckon every Soviet should have the legal right to one little mistake. It ought to be in the Constitution.
FELIX. What me fuck do you want with the Soviet Constitution, dickhead? This is what happens when you let a Ukrainian into the KGB. Listen, if what you're saying is true, then that red-haired Soviet Jew also had the right to make a mistake. He had the right to betray us, to sabotage us. And if that's so, we were wrong to rub him out. Is that what your dark philosophy of ingratitude means?
ARKADY. How the fuck should I know? How the fuck should I know?
FELIX. Now that's enough! Your incessant swearing is getting to me. I'm getting fucking tired of your incessant four-letter monologues.
ARKADY. What the fuck?
FELIX. Just use your brains for a second. Do you think we did a good thing when we terminated a Soviet who had the right to mistakenly sabotage us?
ARKADY. I don't want to think. I don't want to think for myself! (Starts crying.)
FELIX. It's okay, dickhead. Your tears are appropriate. Everything is fucking great.
ARKADY. It's okay? You're not shitting me? I'm accepted?
FELIX. I've taken a decadent liking to you, Arkasha, you little prick. Besides, it seems to me killing a man out of cowardice isn't a mistake. You did it because you're gutless by nature. I hope that with a collective effort we can drag that gutlessness out of you through your trembling asshole with an iron-hard
shit-picking KGB dick. Arkasha, I love you. I honestly do.
ARKADY. I love you too, Ben-Edmund, honest I do. As for my cowardice – you can extract it from my ass with your iron-hard KGB dick. I want that. If you like, you can pinch milk from the kitchen in fucking 5-litre cans. I know you need it for
your ulcer. I won't say a thing. I'll even have a word with Klavka on your behalf. Klavka will do anything for me.
FELIX. You're fucking Klavka?
ARKADY. I stuck it in her all the way up to her liver. Was I right or wrong to stick it in her, Ben-Edmund?
FELIX. To stick it in someone all the way up to the liver is cool. Fucking all the way up to the liver is the private affair of every Soviet motherfucker.
ARKADY. That's what I thought. And you can scribble your poem all you want. No fucking sweat. Just clock in and go ahead, write your poem.
FELIX. No fucking sweat?
ARKADY. No fucking sweat. I won't say a word. I can even carry the fire-extinguishers to every floor for you.
FELIX. Well thank you, Arkasha, that's very sweet of you.
ARKADY. But this I don't understand, Felix, what the fuck do you want with that poem? After all, you're KGB. You could relax instead.
FELIX. Don't be a moron. The poem's a cover. An intelligence agent needs camouflage. Only just occurred to you? How thick can you get, you dumb fucker?
ARKADY. I'm a dumb fucker? I'd like to see you swiping goods by the fucking truckload. Don't slander me, Comrade Captain.
FELIX. You're a thief, a thief to the depths of your soul – is that slander too? Fuck you. But tell me this. Does the most serious organisation in the Soviet Union need thieves? What do you think?
ARKADY. Ben Edmund, brace yourself. I'm about to give birth to a profound and weighty idea.
FELIX. Let me see you give birth to your profound and weighty idea. Careful, you'll bust a gut.
ARKADY. If the most serious organisation in the Soviet Union finds thieves useful, buddy, this means it has a crying need for them.
FELIX. I said you were a frigging silver-tongued preacher.
ARKADY. Well that's my private opinion, Comrade Polivailov. But if it's necessary, if the Party and the people ask me to contribute my little bit to the great cause of building communism, don't you think I'd give up pinching carrots and cabbage from the kitchen? Especially if I get paid 500 for every job. That could be a pretty good cover, Comrade Polivailov. Here's a thief, a cheap potato pilferer – but in reality he's a full-time KGB agent.
FELIX. And still you keep going back to the question of money, Arkasha. You have a depraved psychology.
ARKADY. I'll correct that, Ben-Edmund. Was I a fucking jerk? I was. Rubbing out that red-haired guy was hard. I had to learn how to kill. But I did it. And I can also do righteous deeds, if that's what it takes. I know it's not going to be easy. But,
Comrade Polivailov, I'm capable of carrying out complex, deadly missions. I'll be whatever you want me to be.
FELIX. These days following orders isn't enough, my little chicken Kiev. You've got to be able to think for yourself, improvise. You need to show initiative.
ARKADY. But that's what I'm telling you, dickhead – no offence. I've got plenty of initiative. A fucking shitload of it. I may be a thief, Ben-Edmund, but I'm an honest thief, I swear. I want to serve the Committee for State Security.
FELIX. Well never mind, the details can be straightened out later. Answer me this. When you killed that prick, did you enjoy it?
ARKADY. How the fuck should I know? Tell me what you want me to say and I'll say it.
FELIX. A KGB soldier must be able to think and decide for himself. He must be able to play cards like an expert, execute people, fuck both men and women, swallow his dose of poison whether it's vodka or cyanide. By the way, that's one thing you do with style. Initially, it was the ability to hold your booze that led our people to consider recruiting you.
ARKADY. I see.
FELIX. So did you enjoy killing the little kike?
ARKADY. I'm asking you as a friend, shithead, what do you want me to say? Pardon the 'shithead'.
FELIX. You still don't fucking get it, Arkasha. I've been trying and trying to make you understand there's no friendship in our classified outfit. That's as basic as ABC, my little Ukrainian friend.
ARKADY. I'll put it this way. Comrade Captain. If you can use me, give me a fucking job. If you don't think I'm suitable, we'll pass each other like ships in the night. I can always earn my daily bread in fucking retail.
FELIX. I've no doubts you'll earn your daily bread. You've got criminal talent. You're a fucking ace, I grant you that. But now you have the knowledge that you killed an individual as an assignment from us. And those who know more about us than they should sometimes have to be taken out. By some Afghan veteran who works for the KGB. He'll terminate you (mimes pulling a trigger in a highly professional manner). Out of communist conviction. You realise what could happen to you, Arkasha? Now I'm telling you this in all sincerity, as a friend.
ARKADY. So I'm a marked man now. Is that what you're saying?
FELIX. Who knows? I'm not the one who makes the decisions.
ARKADY. Well can you take me to whoever does? Or I'll go to the reception-room at KGB HQ and ask to see the big boss.
FELIX. That would be the worst mistake you could make, my Ukrainian friend.
Suppose you go there, dickhead, and tell the story of how you killed the
red-haired Jew. I'll say 1 didn't write the letter. I work alone, in great secrecy. When I'm ordered to put a team together I do it, based on my understanding of the supreme goal. You get the picture?
ARKADY. Yeah, I get the picture. But I did enjoy wasting that asshole! So there.
FELIX. So there. In that case, I have to know this: a) did you take pleasure in killing the Jew because you got paid for his ass, b) because you were scared shitless of the Afghan veteran, or c) did you forget about the dough and the veteran and get a rush from gently slitting the red-haired kike's throat? I want the truth, my Ukrainian friend. Only the truth can save you.
ARKADY. Generally speaking I was scared of the veteran and I was thinking about the dough. But when I gently slit the throat of that wretched little
red-haired, freckle-faced Jewish creep I forgot everything. Yea-a-a-h!!! Mamma mia! I forgot everything. Was that good or bad?!
FELIX. Did you get a rush when you were killing him?! The truth, Arkasha!!!
ARKADY. I got a supreme, ultimate rush when I killed him!!! Was that good or bad?!
FELIX. It's incredibly good, Arkasha. And your sinless tears, the tears of a child – that's also good. The communist goal is: a) to experience the simple-hearted desire to kill your neighbour, b) when killing to experience rapturous pleasure, i.e. a rush, c) to wash oneself in tears of repentance that cleanse the soul, and d) to thereby gain a clear and definite understanding of the aim and purpose of your communist destiny.
ARKADY. Working for the KGB it's better to reach point f), I figure. FELIX. You got it, Arkasha. F's the ticket. You're a clever little prick.
ARKADY. But if you follow those rules you could waste everybody. Forgive me if I'm wrong.
FELIX. I forgive you. So everybody gets wasted. So what. The nation needs to be cleansed of all the shit. Look at the wolves. They only cull the weak and diseased in a herd of antelopes. The strong and healthy antelopes survive.
ARKADY. I like that shit.
FELIX. It's medicinal shit.
ARKADY. The way I figure it you let the ones that are members of the KGB live, but the rest of the kinky-haired hooknoses can go straight to the ovens. Turn them into ash for fertiliser. Of course you don't feed all those losers to the
meat-grinder. You'll need some members of the herd for cannon fodder. Otherwise those American bastards will occupy our fertile land without even using their neutron bombs. They'll establish a US of A on our soil. And as I see it, the main aim of the KGB is to prevent the United States from transplanting itself wholesale onto our cornfields.
FELIX. The main thing, Arkasha, is not to be one of the losers. Remember that. If you stay loyal to us, we'll help you.
ARKADY. Thanks. You know, Ben-Edmund, right now I have such a great feeling about you. Before I was always depressed for some reason, but now I feel kind of enlightened. It's fucking great. That herd of Hebes better watch out!
FELIX. Your soul is filled with the bewitching power of communism. Let it flow through you.
ARKADY. Yeah, I've got a wonderfully communist feeling. You express yourself with such sensitivity, such humanity, Ben-Edmund.
FELIX. Communism is a frigging science, man. There's no going against science.
ARKADY. Before I didn't give a fuck about science. Now I admire it enormously. No shit.
FELIX. You must respect science, Arkasha. Especially in this scientific country. Here every college-educated ignoramus scientifically learns that at any given moment in any given point of free space you may be scientifically taken by the balls for some unknown reason and sent to jail. And the criminals in the joint will
put you on trial in their own scientific way. They'll fuck you in the ass scientifically. They'll dress you in nylon stockings and make you bend over with your face to the wall. Then a whole barrack of male dogs will squirt its diseased AIDS-infested sperm up your asshole. You'll get some in your mouth, between your teeth as
well. You'll be filled up to your liver. Then they'll kick you round a bit, put you on a stool and strangle you with a cord to consummate the erotic sadomasochistic scientific act. You'll never be able to take revenge on anyone, that's why you take scientific revenge beforehand. Look at me. I've lived my whole life unable to understand why they didn't put me in the joint, dress me in nylon tights, fuck me
in the ass like one happy Red Army choir, then strangle me with a cord. Or why they didn't decide I was a Jewish jerk who sold out and slit my throat in a doorway according to the principle 'kill thy neighbour'.
ARKADY. You won the lottery. You're lucky. So am I. But tell me, is it safe for us to have this scientific conversation here? Won't somebody put it on tape?
FELIX. I've enjoyed trust without any tapes for a long time, Pee-wee.
ARKADY. So you're letting me join your outfit, Ben-Edmund? You won't regret it. You shouldn't have any doubts about my spiritual qualities. I'm gaining such a fucking delicious appreciation of communism in my soul. You've no fucking idea how much I fucking love, value and respect Karl Marx and Lenin now.
FELIX. Why the fuck did you leave out Engels? Some commie you are.
ARKADY. I didn't fucking leave him out, Ben-Edmund. It's just they had their own fucking brand of communism...
FELIX. (Interrupts him.) What was that?
ARKADY. I mean scientific communism. But we've got our own fucking brand. What do we want with them?
FELIX. But how do you explain the fact that Karl Marx, the founder of scientific communism, was a Jew? How do you account for that contradiction, dickhead?
ARKADY. I account for it dialectically, Felix. In terms of dialectical materialism.
FELIX. I see you've got a scientific way of thinking, you little prick.
ARKADY. So will you let me join your communist hard labour brigade?
FELIX. In principle I find you acceptable. But tell me, Mr Philosopher, did you come across any unscientific bastards in the course of your life?
ARKADY. Sure I have. There's swarms of them all over the place. Like fucking cockroaches.
FELIX. Then tell me this, Arkasha. Why did you, to put it politely, let them live? Why did you let them continue their unscientific insect life?
ARKADY. Well Felix, I wanted to squash the whole fucking lot of them. On my own personal initiative. Including you, my friend. I mean, before our serious scientific discussion I didn't know you were such a scientific kind of guy. Anyway, you weren't the only one I wanted to rub out – and still want to, by the way. If it were up to me I'd exterminate the whole damned lot of those scientifically
incorrect intellectual fucks. As for you, I apologise, of course. Because now I know you're in the scientifically correct KGB and you're sponsoring me scientifically. I fucking love you, Felix my friend, with a love that's fucking scientific.
FELIX. Too bad, my little chicken Kiev, that you didn't waste some scientifically incorrect fuck before, of your own free will. Too fucking bad.
ARKADY. Is it too bad I didn't waste you? Do you regret it?
FELIX. Who the fuck knows?
ARKADY. I tell you, I wanted to but I couldn't organise myself scientifically. You understand? Let me join your outfit, organise me scientifically - then you can criticise my professional performance.
FELIX. Arkasha, why don't you fucking wake up? How can you think I'm KGB? I work as a fucking fireman in this fucking dump for 100 fucking rubles a month. If I really was in the KGB do you think I'd go round carting fire-extinguishers from floor to floor, chasing smokers from the stairwells, swiping milk and dried fruit from the kitchen, wasting my nerves on you? Do you think I'd work my ass off like that, even as a cover, if I really was scientifically KGB? Don't you understand
jokes, you fairy? And they say Ukrainians are smart. I'm an ordinary Soviet graphomaniac, Arkasha, who pisses himself because he could be busted as a social parasite if he doesn't have a job, even as a fireman. A graphomaniac
who's never been fucking published. Perhaps it will happen after I'm dead, that's
the case with all great writers. You can't be a prophet in your own country. It's a scientific law of nature, motherfucker. And Russia is a prime example!
ARKADY. Huh?
FELIX. Zip up your dick – it's time to work.
ARKADY. Then why did you blow smoke up my ass?! And that was the least of it, you creep.
FELIX. Didn't you ask me to explain, you Ukrainian yokel, the meaning of art? I tried to give you a popular explanation, so that as a Ukrainian yokel you couldn't complain that an All-Union Soviet-Jewish-Russian-intellectual who deserves a
Nobel Prize for every minute of his supremely Semitic suffering wouldn't give you the time of day.
ARKADY. And what about the instructions, I mean the letter you wrote? What about that hook-nosed kinky-haired freckled informer, that Jewish piece of shit?! And all that stuff you told me about the KGB? Your handy little KGB card?
Gimme that card!
FELIX. Don't panic, Arkasha. It's my dad's card. (Hands the KGB ID card to
Arkady.) My old man's a general in the KGB, I'm just his son – a useless bum, the son of a bum. See the year under the stamp? 1953. My old man was still a captain then. We've got the same mug. How about you? Do you and your old man have the same mug?
ARKADY. I'm a fucking portrait of my old man!
FELIX. All the men in my family were called Felix – grandfathers, fathers, and now his son. You should've inspected the card more carefully. After all, the state put you on guard duty, gave you a classified job. When you missed the date 1956 you fucked up good!
ARKADY. Okay, so I fucked up. I'm guilty. But if I had a dad like yours, I'd never be a useless bum. (Returns the KGB card to Felix.)
FELIX. To each his own. Render unto God that which is God's, unto the bum that which is his, and unto the Ukrainian what's fucking left. Anyway, don't shit yourself, there's plenty left. You just have to know how to take it.
ARKADY. You fucking creep! I hate you, you piece of shit! Because of you my clean hands are covered in blood, you bastard!
FELIX. My father told me in confidence that the red-haired guy sold out to the KGB and snitched on his two childhood pals – me and this other guy. He told
them we were copying anti-Soviet books. My old man didn't let anything happen to me. But my friend Kesha, he committed suicide when they sentenced him to five years in a strict-regime camp. My father couldn't help him. The red-haired guy was our friend. Now I couldn't waste a friend with my own hands. Can you understand that? Even though he was a former friend. Plus I wanted to apply a scientific approach to life. I wanted to see how strong the desire to cut human throats is among the people. Aren't you glad you took part in a scientific experiment?
ARKADY. What did I ever do to you, you bastard?
FELIX. What have you done to me, my love? What have I done to you, my love? ARKADY. Huh?
FELIX. That was Tsvetaeva. Know her poetry?
ARKADY. I know you. Fucking All-Union versifier. That's all the fucking knowledge I need for my self-education.
FELIX. Listen, buddy, you've only got yourself to blame for doing something as stupid as killing a man. I am truly and sincerely sorry that you did this, that you lacked the human strength to stand firm and refuse to cross the line. I fucking weep for you, my boy. I also think it's sad you want to sell yourself to the KGB, guts and all. For your information, the guy you murdered, our red-haired friend the snitch, was a Russian by nationality. 100-per-cent ethnic Russian – just like me, in fact.
ARKADY. Yeah, sure. I seen plenty of blond Russian Jews like that. I can smell your stink a mile away, motherfucker.
FELIX. And what about you, Himmler? Sure you're not a Jew? Perhaps your Jewish mother left you with a Ukrainian family when the other Ukrainian yokels got on her case. Some of the most notorious anti-Semites are Jewish. Your name, Arkasha, it's typically Jewish.
ARKADY. My mother was Russian. You got that straight?! And I was given the name Arkady in honour of my father's brother, he died in the war. He was
Russian.
FELIX. In this fucking communist society we're all Jews, my Ukrainian friend. My daddy was Karl Marx, my mommy Josephine Stalin. Nations divide people into different categories of assholes, the people like that.
ARKADY. Well whatever you are, Felix, right now I'd really like to send you to join your dead friend.
FELIX. Who's going to take that bird off your hands for 25 rubles then, you Ukrainian dimwit?
ARKADY. I'll give the bird its freedom.
FELIX. That would be an admirable thing to do. But your bird wouldn't know how to fly about in the wild on his own, you know. He's been brought up in a cage from childhood. His outlook is caged, so to speak. In the wild the tiniest little caterpillar would scare him. You should keep him in his cage where he can peck at the seeds you pinched from the state. Otherwise the little caterpillar will make him piss himself, like the Afghan veteran did to you. He'll sell out to the caterpillar secret police and start flitting through windows into people's apartments where his captive feathery relatives drag out their days, and he'll drop lethal poisoned seeds into their feeders. The secret-police caterpillars are afraid of birds even
when they're caged.
ARKADY. You sure have a way with words, Mr Writer. But what about you? Aren't you scared of me, I'm the one who knows everything about you, who crossed the line? And when you've crossed that line once you can cross it again, motherfucker.
FELIX. It's boring the second time and every time after that, Arkasha. The best fucking rush is when you do it the first time. Though with you it may be different, I don't know. We'll give it a shot, dickhead.
ARKADY. You're a prize prick! I never imagined anyone could be such a gigantic prick. You're an asshole. Your parents sure did a great job bringing you up.
FELIX. I hate my parents.
ARKADY. I'd fucking hate my parents if they'd brought me up like that. They weren't both in the KGB, by any chance?
FELIX. You hit the mark. Arkasha.
ARKADY. I don't fucking envy you, buddy. What did they do? So many different professions in the KGB. Did they waste people?
FELIX. My father wasted people abroad; my mother went to bed with diplomats and fucked them for secrets here in Moscow.
ARKADY. No shit. You were lucky to have such parents, brother. Sincerely.
FELIX. As for me, I'm just a bum. I spent my whole life photocopying and selling anti-Soviet literature. And I write shit knows what. In literary criticism there's no fucking definition for what I write. A poem. A modern Book of Job. A new Bible about the Russian Christ. Know what will happen at the Second Coming?
ARKADY. I don't know shit about that sort of thing.
FELIX. You're a dumb fuck, Mother Russia's son. If I was just some government minister's kid I'd have been sent to Siberia to take cold showers long ago. But here's a general in the KGB, who's spent his whole life bumping off people abroad. Nobody dared say a fucking word to him about his proud son. I can do anything I want. I work for a private company, I get paid in foreign currency. The firm I work for is a joint venture, or a society of queers – in the sense of who'll fuck who first. I was real nice to you, Arkasha. Do you think there's anything
wrong in killing a snitch?
ARKADY. I didn't kill him for being a snitch. I killed him for being a man. I killed him as a coward. What would you do in my place?
FELIX. Exactly the same. Fortunately or unfortunately. I wrote the letter to myself, but I dropped the envelope in your mailbox. I tried to put myself in your fucking shoes, that's why it worked. We all live under the same hammer and sickle. Our souls have all been reduced to the same level.
ARKADY. You should've married, Felix, had children. Perhaps then you wouldn't go in for this kind of crap.
FELIX. Have children in this prison camp of a country? So they too can have a shitty life? Somehow the idea doesn't give me a hard-on, Arkasha.
ARKADY. Well it does for me. Why I don't know. I didn't consult any shrinks about it.
FELIX. Well that's the definition of happiness, my boy, when your dick creates life independently of your brain!
ARKADY. I still say you should have given married life a try. Perhaps then your dick would have followed the correct path.
FELIX. You mean I should've married some whore like my mother? ARKADY. No, I mean you should've married for love.
FELIX. I murdered my love, Arkasha.
ARKADY. What do you mean, murdered your love?
FELIX. It's a decadent story.
ARKADY. Oh yeah? Tell me about it.
FELIX. I never tell this story to anyone.
ARKADY. Well tell it to me.
FELIX. Why should I make an exception for you?
ARCADY. Because you already made an exception for me once. Come on, tell me. It may make things better, at least for me.

A pause.

FELIX. He who has ears, let him hear. I was on a mission. I was supposed to fall in love with a Jewish girl' living abroad and marry her. The girl's father was a political emigre from our country. He'd done great harm to the Land of the
Soviets. I was twenty-five at the time. Just graduated from the Moscow
Engineering Academy. I'd been playing footsie with the KGB since my second year. Secret operations, all that romantic crap. You've seen our movies about secret agents, right?
ARKADY. Go on.
FELIX. Well, those movies give you the wrong fucking impression. What they did was they examined my dick for two weeks. Subjected it to all kinds of tests to make sure it was strong enough to fuck that little Jewess. You're screwing a lady and a guy behind a screen counts how many times you come! I did it twelve times in one night. The first three without withdrawing.
ARKADY. You're a giant among men.
FELIX. They sent me to London via a third country. Arranged for me to meet the little Jewess in a restaurant. She was twenty years old. Her name was Katrine. Here's her picture. (Shows Arkady a photograph.)
ARKADY. She's pretty. You can see she's foreign.
FELIX. The bastards did a great job setting up the bit with the restaurant. She studied at Cambridge University. So they sent me to Cambridge as an exchange
student. I had a million in the bank. A legacy. It was all legit. My mother had me
learn English as a child. Insisted I go to a special language school. Like she had a premonition it would come in handy one day. Katrine fell in love with me, madly. Never asked any questions, just loved me. She took me on vacation, to an Asian country on our border, so I could meet her father. He had a villa there. And the very first night I wasted the whole lot of them. Right then and there, every one of those innocents. Soundlessly. With a knife. There were eight people in that villa and I took them all out. Slit their throats to make sure there'd be no witnesses.
You understand? And my true love, I did the same to her. She was the last one I stabbed her in the heart. She didn't even wake up. She didn't even know it was me. Died in her sleep. She was lucky. God loved her, as He is my witness. That same night I crossed the border on foot. 60 fucking kilometres in one night. They were waiting for me on our side. The operation was scheduled to the minute. I
was immediately promoted to captain. So that's how I wasted eight human beings because of a single enemy of the people. I killed his wife, the grandparents, my true love and the little being starting to move inside her womb. That little being, my own blood!!! (Cries.)
ARKADY. Come on, Felix, calm down. Felix, calm down.
FELIX. I'm fucking calm, I am. After all, I'm a soldier of the Fatherland. I'm calm, Arkasha. And now I read in the papers that her father was posthumously rehabilitated. But what they didn't say is that he was killed by the KGB and by me personally. They're saying it was his own side, the CIA, that did it. Yesterday was the anniversary of the night I committed the murders. I celebrated this special occasion by wasting that aspiring KGB fuck with someone else's hands. That's their style. Tolstoy was right, you can't defeat evil with evil. But this Soviet life of ours has broken and perverted all human laws. So there. (A pause.) The poem I'm writing is about Katrine, how because of her love for me she unwittingly helped me carry out the treacherous Soviet mission for which I was made a captain. It's about what a dickhead I was not to stay with her abroad. Was it the desire to be a hero?! Love for rotting Soviet Russia?! The ideology that was
implanted from childhood in my brains, my soul, my dick? Why did I do it? Why is life so fucking masochistic?! At the time I was scared of the KGB, just like you
were scared of the Afghan veteran. True love is a special thing. As the years pass it doesn't go away, it grows stronger.
ARKADY. Very true, Felix, very true. But tell me, what's it like abroad? Life there must be beautiful.
FELIX. Yeah, it's beautiful. But I still missed Russia. I wanted at least to be able to die here. In my own land. In my own shit.
ARKADY. Yeah. Felix, tell me something. When you were abroad did you ever try it with a darkie? Between missions, I mean. You probably had spare time. They
stand on street corners, I'm told. One hour for the whole deal and you're free to go. You don't have to answer. I understand. You had a tragic love affair. It's just that I've always wanted to do it with a darkie. They say darkies move in a special way, like they're playing jazz or something.
FELIX. I'm talking to you about love and you ramble on about nailing some nigger!
ARKADY. I'm sorry, Felix. I said you didn't have to answer. I appreciate how difficult your life has been. Not everyone is tested to breaking point. Anyway, what happened next? Is there a sequel?
FELIX. What happened next? Next I couldn't sleep day or night. I landed in a hospital, this hospital, and cut my veins in a bathtub.
ARKADY. What? When? Don't bullshit, man.
FELIX. That was before my wife died of syphilis but after my son decided to become a writer. He'd already graduated from the Moscow Engineering Institute. My boy was the only one I told everything. It made such a strong impression on him he decided to become a writer. First he got a job as a camp guard and now he works in the hospital as a fire-safety officer so he can have spare time to commune with the people. It was during his shift that I cut my veins. It's more comforting when your son, your own flesh-and-blood, wheels the gurney with your body to the morgue, puts his warm hands around you and places you in the refrigerator. I'm grateful my boy forgave me before I died. But I cursed him for his literary ambitions. I never forgave him for wanting to be a writer.
ARKADY. It was your father died that shift? The general with the veins?
FELIX. Yeah.
ARKADY. Why wasn't his name Polivailov? It was different, as I recall.
FELIX. Because of his job, you stupid prick. His profession meant that all his life he went around killing people under a false name.
ARKADY. I remember now. You were really down that night, Ben-Edmund. Really down. And you took the next day off. You never told anyone you were burying your old man, that the guy with the veins they brought here was your father.
FELIX. That's my business, Arkady. It's between me and God. ARKADY. So is that what your poem's about?
FELIX. Yeah.
ARKADY. If it were up to me, Felix, I'd publish your poem. I swear on my little daughters I would.
FELIX. It's sweet of you to say so, Arkasha.
ARKADY. No, really, the subject matter's very powerful. It has to do with real life. When a writer describes what happened to him, that's genuine art. No bullshit there. But what about me? Are you going to write how you fucked me up?
FELIX. I wrote about that a long time ago, my Ukrainian friend. I described the theory. What happened to you, asshole, was just the practical realisation.
ARKADY. You're a fucking expert.
FELIX. Yeah, that's what I am - an expert.
ARKADY. Like me to give you a real-life plot? With lots of theory thrown in? You might want to use it for a separate chapter in your poem, since you're writing about me as well.
FELIX. Go ahead, describe your real-life plot. You could become part of literary history.
ARKADY. It was when I drove trucks in. Kuibyshev. Now what would happen? You're in your rig going down the highway and somewhere on the curb there's always a girl standing. Hitching a ride. Well it's like she's pretending she needs a ride. What she really wants is a good fuck. Curb-side sluts.
FELIX. I heard about them.
ARKADY. Yeah, right. So one day I'm rolling down the highway. I see this little number standing at the side of the road. Waiting for a ride. A young,
sweet-looking virgin. Decided to give her a lift. She said she was fifteen. An eighth-grader. We stopped after a while. Had ourselves a picnic. Kissed. I fondled her lily-white breasts. I felt her hairy little virgin cunt with my fingers. And suddenly it was like I'd been struck by lightning. The girl had never been kissed before. It was the first time she'd stood on the curb. She'd chosen me to pick her cherry, 1 mean, that's the way it turned out. So I took my hand out of her panties. And, Felix, can you believe it – I decided not to spoil such purity. God bless you, I said. When someone falls in love with you, darling, and you fall in love with him, he's the one who should fuck you, I told her. But in the meantime I've got a
hard-on like a fucking crowbar. So later I jacked off in the cabin, I tell you, there was enough sperm to fill a fucking beer mug. Well actually I got the little virgin to
jack me off. I asked her politely, it was the first time she'd held a prick in her hand. Anyway, a hand-job's no big deal. It's not like I screwed her in the cunt. I never had so much sperm come out, and that's the fucking truth. But I let that lily-white virgin go in peace. Can you believe that?
FELIX. It's a pity no one was there to measure how much sperm you produced. You might have made the Guinness Book of World Records. Your iron-hard prick would have been a great find for the KGB.
ARKADY. I'm telling you what's in my heart, as one human being to another.
FELIX. Chill out, my Ukrainian friend. Thanks for the story. Unfortunately it's too primitive for my poem.
ARKADY. You want something more intricate?
FELIX. Sure, go ahead.
ARKADY. Well, you can write it up like this. First I left that lily-white virgin on the side of the road, then I went back, fucked her, raped her, shoved a bottle up her ass for sadistic pleasure, crammed some grass and earth into her mouth and left her, the cunt, to die under a bush! What the fuck! The little whore wanted to fuck around so I showed her, the slut, what it's all about. If not me, someone else
would've snuffed her. Why don't you write it that way? Is the plot more suitable for your poem?
FELIX. Yeah, might be good for a chapter. Was that what really happened?
ARKADY. What's done is done. I'm offering you a plot, what really happened only God knows.
FELIX. So as it turns out, my Ukrainian friend, you're a murdering rapist as well. We are fellow-sufferers from tragic love, you and I. Suckers for fucking, you might say. Only you managed to get a family, while I couldn't bring myself to cross that particular line.
ARKADY. But you have your art. That's where you pour all your pus. Why don't you pour some of my pus into your poem? It'll be a work of genius. You'll make so much dough you can have every slut in Sovietland.
FELIX. No one has ever gotten rich from creating a work of genius, my Ukrainian friend. My little poem is as brilliant as they come, but there's no fucking way it'll get published.
ARKADY. To succeed as an artist you must be a fag, a Jew, or a member of a Masonic lodge. I know this. You told me so.
FELIX. So I'm a fag, a Jew, and a Mason. Those KGB censors, Arkasha, are fucking dumb animals. They can break your legs, squash your balls and not give a shit about your fag-Jew-Masonic art. But the CIA might buy my poem.
ARKADY. So sell it to the CIA.
FELIX. I already did.
ARKADY. You did?
FELIX. It doesn't take long if you know the ropes. I sold the poem and I fucking sold myself.
ARKADY. Cunning bastard! Well, good for you. It was a wise move. Don't piss yourself, 1 won't report you to the KGB. After everything you told me I couldn't do that. I've come to respect your tempered soul, Ben-Edmund. What kind of money do they pay you in the CIA?
FELIX. Dollars.
ARKADY. That's cool. What's the exchange rate now, 15 rubles to the dollar? FELIX. More like twenty to the dollar.
ARKADY. That's fucking great. Anyway, what the fuck could you buy with our worthless scraps of paper? That's cool.
FELIX. You want to work for the CIA? I could get you a job – I've got influence there.
ARKADY. No thanks. You already offered me a job with the KGB. You had some influence there too, remember?
FELIX. Up to you.
ARKADY. Tell me something. Did you or your old man get one of those handy documents from the CIA saying you work for them?
FELIX. Your red-tape bureaucratic obtuseness is starting to piss me off, my little chicken Kiev. Can't you figure it out? If you live in the USSR and you work for the CIA, the CIA won't issue you with any handy documents. And they won't give you the dollars in cash – it all goes into a Swiss bank account. You have a fetish
about documents, you Soviet-Ukrainian yokel. Can't you feel the workings of my unique Jewish brains, which even my dick obeys? Don't you think my brains are worth a few shitty dollars?
ARKADY. If it was up to me, I'd pay. What the fuck!
FELIX. Fuck you. If you want to work for the CIA you have to learn that the West lives by the principle my word is my bond.
ARKADY. I can dig that principle. I agree with it.
FELIX. Listen, my little chicken Kiev. Try using your Ukrainian yokel's brains: why should a Jew-fag-Mason like me want to spend night after night writing this health-damaging life-threatening anti-KGB poem?
ARKADY. To sell it to the CIA, of course.
FELIX. Who made me a Mason, who told me to get a job as a fireman in this fucking KGB hospital?
ARKADY. The CIA, naturally.
FELIX. You butt-headed Ukrainian. It's a pity you don't have access to secret blueprints. Otherwise I might have got you a job with the CIA. No problem. Why the hell didn't you get a science degree, you dumb fucker? We could've got you into a secret research institute. You can't imagine the amount of money you'd make. In dollars!
ARKADY. Somehow my folks couldn't persuade me to go for a science degree
FELIX. Couldn't persuade you? Well, it's your own fault. So you're always waiting for someone to tell you what to do?
ARKADY. But you're not working in a secret research institute either. And you're a graduate of the Moscow Engineering Academy. You and me, we've got almost the same technical-grade jobs in this KGB joint. I'm the gate expert, you're the carbon-dioxide fire-extinguisher expert. I even moonlight as a fireman just like you. I get three extra days off for that.
FELIX. I'm trying to think what kind of mission to assign to you, my little chicken Kiev.
ARKADY. I could burn this crappy hospital down. Turn it into fucking cinders.
FELIX. That's fucking radical, man. But you see, some decent people would perish: the doctors, those sterilised nurses. The hospital's not to blame.
ARKADY. Well what's your CIA mission here? The CIA must want you to do more than just write poetry, even if it's against the KGB.
FELIX. Do more? Why should I do more? I penetrate in my soul-searching way into the hearts of today's KGB agents. I depict them in a literary and artistic manner. I'm like a scalpel-wielding surgeon, dickhead.
ARKADY. I'd love to be able to do something like that.
FELIX. What the fuck, Arkasha? You're not a writer. You don't know how to break into people's hearts. In your dreams, dipshit.
ARKADY. So what the fuck. But what could I do then? Do you have even a germ of an idea about me? You're the Jew, after all. Can't you come up with an idea for your Ukrainian comrade? Please? Pretty-pretty-please?
FELIX. Don't fucking rush me, my Ukrainian comrade. Every good idea must see the light of day naturally.
ARKADY. I can't believe there's no job in the CIA for me except stealing blueprints.
FELIX. Sure, there's plenty of jobs. Anything you fucking want. You could be a messenger, liaison, an informer.
ARKADY. I'd be no fucking good as an informer, Felix.
FELIX. Once in a while you could be asked to terminate someone. Some blond KGB fucker.
ARKADY. That's it! After all, I snuffed that red-haired hook-nose.
FELIX. You mean the Jew?
ARKADY. He wasn't a Jew, he was a KGB officer. It was me that did him. You can report it to the CIA. I was the one who wasted him. Will you do that?
FELIX. Arkasha, you ungrateful little fuck, don't you understand the depths of my insight when I gave you such a valuable leg-up?
ARKADY. Well thanks a bunch for giving me the valuable leg-up, Ben-Edmund. I can see you're looking out for me. I humbly kneel before you, press my forehead
against the Russian earth. But please produce another of your clever
kinky-haired Jewish ideas. Pretty-pretty-please. I'll be your bosom buddy unto death.
FELIX. Don't rush me, Arkasha. I don't see any noble gentlemanly patience in you serf's heart.
ARKADY. Forgive me, Felix, for the love of God, forgive me. I could wait a little. Forgive your humble Ukrainian serf. But tell me, your Ukrainian serf, is the CIA a reliable paymaster? I won't get screwed, will I?
FELIX. You can rely on the CIA paying you. There'll be no screw-ups, my little chicken Kiev. They'll pay you a fucking pile and on the fucking nail.
ARKADY. What about promotions? No screw-ups there either?
FELIX. What's with all the questions?
ARKADY. I'm ready to give my life for the CIA. You understand? I'm ready.
FELIX. But Arkasha, in order to give your life for our side you must have democratic convictions. Now, do you consider yourself to be a man of democratic convictions or not?
ARKADY. As far as that's concerned I reckon I'm A-okay. What do you mean, anyway? What you on about?
FELIX. For example, are you in favour of a multi-party system or... ARKADY. (Interrupts.) I'm in favour of a multi-party system!
FELIX. That's the right answer. Now tell me something else, dickhead. Are you in favour of communism or capitalism?
ARKADY. Capitalism.
FELIX. What the fuck. You've certainly got you head screwed on right, you little bugger. You're politically mature. Now answer me this. Which of the two systems will survive as the result of the struggle between them, capitalism or communism? Which will triumph in the end?
ARKADY. Capitalism.
FELIX. Tell me why.
ARKADY. How the fuck should I know? I feel it in my balls, that's all. Capitalism is communism without the transition period, i.e. socialism.
FELIX. That's fucking deep. Where did you learn that?
ARKADY. Well, is my colleague, the guy I work with, an intelligent person or an idiot?
FELIX. Listen, my Great Russian friend, you should publish your thoughts in a book.
ARKADY. All in good time, Felix Felixovich. Could be, American will give me my due. If it was up to me I'd have sent the entire fucking Politburo to the
Kashchenko asylum for medical treatment long ago. And then to Paris, to live as fucking hobos under a bridge for about a year and a half. They could sleep in cardboard boxes in the street. Only then would I trust them with even a little bit of power. Because after all, Ben-Edmund, the Politburo is full of assholes. Those morons lord it over us while we blossom under their yoke. Enough to make you puke. You can't even take a crap in comfort: there's no toilet paper to wipe all that fucking socialist shit off your ass.
FELIX. I like it when you bark like that, my little lapdog.
ARKADY. Every day I bark to myself a thousand times. I couldn't do it more often. But tell me. If the KGB gets us by the balls, that means a bullet in the back of the head for the two of us. Am I right? I'm ready to risk it. It's a just cause!
FELIX. You'll be the one who gets the bullet in the back of the head. Not me. ARKADY. How do you figure that?
FELIX. The KGB already knows I'm working for the CIA.
ARKADY. No shit. Does the CIA know you've betrayed them to the KGÂ?
FELIX. Everyone fucking knows everything. They always have.
ARKADY. You're fucked, man. Lights out for you, I reckon. I don't envy you.
FELIX. Everything's under control. I'm a channel of communication between the CIA and the KGB. After all, these two important organisations need a communication channel. Look at what's happening m the world. The USSR and the USA are holding hands.
ARKADY. I see. Now tell me, do the CIA and the KGÂ both pay you?
FELIX. Of course. After all, I'm doing two jobs at the same time.
ARKADY. You get hard currency from one lot, rubles from the other?
FELIX. Yeah, hard currency from one lot, rubles from the other.
ARKADY. You're a slick bastard. Only a Jew could fix himself up like that. No fucking way I believe you.
FELIX. Well that's the least of my worries. ARKADY. I'd love to be in your shoes.
FELIX. You're a greedy little bugger, my Ukrainian friend, aren't you? You want it all at once. Just like a Jew.
ARKADY. No, not at once, not like a Jew. I'm prepared to start with a very modest position and assignment.
FELIX. So where would you like to start, the CIA or the KGÂ?
ARKADY. The ÑIA.
FELIX. That was quick. No calculating hypocrisy there.
ARKADY. I spoke the God's truth.
FELIX. Very well, my Ukrainian friend. But there's another thing. If you want to work for the CIA it wouldn't be a bad idea to become a Jew.
ARKADY. A Jew?
FELIX, That would give you a great leg-up with the CIA, my little chicken Kiev ARKADY. No shit. Well, don't I look like a Jew? Take a good look.
FELIX. Go stand in the light. Let's see. As for your profile, your schnoz is kind of hooked. And your forehead looks like carved oak. Kind of protruding.
ARKADY. I could break down doors with my forehead.
FELIX. That's not necessary.
ARKADY. Well tell me what's necessary. My nose was broken in a fight. Do you think they'll know the difference? Don't I look just a teeny bit like a Jew? My name Arkasha's typically Jewish. You said so yourself. As for my last name being
Russian, that's true of many Jews. Take you, for instance.
FELIX. Stop pointing your finger at other people! Do you feel in your guts that you're a kike?
ARKADY. All my insides are fucking Semitic, Ben-Edmund, I swear! There's nothing I ever wanted to be more than a Jew. We live according to the teachings of Marx, right? Do you know how the Jewish convolutions of my brain are trying to burst out of me?! They really are, man! Tell your friends in the CIA I'm a Jew.
Don't worry, I can prove it with deeds. I hate Jews because I wasn't born one myself. Come on, Ben-Edmund, say I'm a Jew. I'll kiss your feet for the rest of my life! (Kneels.) Tell them I'm a classic example of a blond-haired Jew. Will you tell them that?
FELIX. I'll see what I can do, my little chicken Kiev. I might be able to help, you grovelling piece of shit.
ARKADY. Thank you, Ben-Felix. Thank you so much, my dear Ben-Felix.
FELIX. Don't mention it, my Ukrainian friend. One day you may have to do a favour in return. Tell me, could you make it with a guy?
ARKADY. You mean f-fuck?
FELIX. Yeah, fuck.
ARKADY. I never tried it. Will I have to do that too?
FELIX. It's as basic as ÀÂÑ. A secret agent must be able to do anything.
Especially an American one. You want to be in the CIA, huh, Jewboy? Want to be an American agent?
ARKADY. Well, I might give it a try. I might be able to f-fuck a guy.
FELIX. Don't shit yourself, my Ukrainian friend. It's no big deal. In fact, it's kind of nice. And to protect yourself from AIDS we use condoms. See? (Takes a pack of condoms from his pocket.)
ARKADY. (Reads.) Tro-jans. The writing's foreign. They're imported.
FELIX. Made in the fucking US of A. And here's some vegetable oil from the kitchen. (Nods at a bottle of oil on the windowsill.) With lubrication your prick will move easier. Like a fucking perpetuum mobile.
ARKADY. (Picks up the bottle of oil.) Fucking fresh, I see. Sunflower oil. Klavka gave it me so I could fry some eggs.
FELIX. We'll fry us some eggs, Arkasha. We'll have a real feast. It was like Klavka could see the future. She's alright. I have some silk tights with a sexy
pattern. Here. (Takes two pairs of tights out of a bag.) One for you and one for me. (Hands one pair of tights to Arkady.)
ARKADY. (Sniffs the tights.) They smell American.
FELIX. (Puts his hand on Arkady's shoulder.) I knew a kid from the U. S. He was a great lay. Fucking communism without the transitional socialist period.
ARKADY. No shit.
FELIX. A friggin' poet's dream. You take off your clothes, like so. (Starts taking his clothes off.) Naturally, he's taking his clothes off as well. Strip, motherfucker!

Felix and Arkady undress. Felix keeps his swimming trunks, Arkady his boxer shorts Felix puts on the tights. Arkady, looking at him, does the same, but awkwardly. He pulls on the tights up to his knees.

Then you lie down on the bed: (Lies down on the sofa.) You lie down too,
nancy-boy. (Arkady lies down next to him.) And then that little fucker Shurik starts kissing your toes, ever so tenderly. Then he licks your balls, licks you between the legs, licks your ass – that's a real fairy tale, I tell you. Fucking Siberian white nights. Then the little pervert licks your tummy, your chest, your neck, your lips.
Then, my friend, he proceeds to tease your tummy and your balls with his cunning little tongue. The clever bastard never touches your dick! Then the artful little bugger waits for the moment when you're ready to come like sweet erupting Vesuvius. Yeah, Shurik-the-fairy knows his stuff! He's already kneeling between your legs. He opens his velvety mouth and your dick's like a fucking
machine-gun. It shoots out a whole glassful of sperm that speeds across space in an arching trajectory, in between his teeth and into his gullet, splattering his glands and adenoids. Whoaaa!!! (Grips Arkady's head and presses it into his crotch.)

ARKADY. Whoaaa! (Shakes his head in confusion.)
FELIX. Was that good? Marx and Engels, or Lenin and Trotsky never fucking imagined that such real communism was possible. And Shurik's ass... He had
such a perfect ass, Arkasha. He'd put his prick inside me so tender-like.
Softly-softly he'd go. And then he'd start pumping away! I've never known anything better than that kind of communism. I'd let him fuck me without a condom. The little fairy was clean. There were no germs on him. You see, I have an idea about the kind of work you could do for the CIA. For starters, during the trial period. You could fuck me while we're on the night shift to help me with my psychopathic meditations, so I can depict the souls of KGB officers in literary form. The next day the dollars would be transferred to your Swiss bank account.
ARKADY. Well I could try. To give you some pleasure, I mean. I agree.
FELIX. So let's try now.
ARKADY. Well I could try. To give you some pleasure, I mean. I agree.
FELIX. So let's try now.
ARKADY. We could try now, that's cool. But why don't we draw up an official document, an agreement, with regard to the fucking? (Walks over to the table.) I understand that over there they do everything on the basis of contracts.
FELIX. You cheap Ukrainian office rat. Fucking amateur lawyer. You get a
hard-on from registering a sexual act. That's what makes you happy, huh? What kind of book-eating worm are you, you Ukrainian prick? Your fucking word's all I need.
ARKADY. You're right, Felix, of course. I'm a book-eating Ukrainian worm, I know. I'll change, I promise.
FELIX. Well make an effort, nancy-boy.
ARKADY. Listen, wasn't that red-haired guy, the one I did with the razor, also called Shurik or Sashutka?
FELIX. So was my friend. You're alert, you notice things. That's good. Well Sashutka-Shurik didn't want to work for the CIA. He had no use for dollars
anymore. He stopped putting out for me. He says to me, why don't you fuck that Ukrainian peasant in your shift. He's got a great ass and he's kind of cute, alcoholism hasn't ruined his athletic body yet. And then Sashutka started going berserk. He could've landed in an asylum, in the Kashchenko clinic. He might have started snitching there. That's why I had to bury him nine feet under, send him to visit his maker without further delay. He was acting real crazy recently,
Arkasha. He could have ruined the entire operation. I hope you're okay mentally. ARKADY. Drink hasn't ruined all my mental powers. No fucking way!
FELIX. Still, if you snuffed Sashutka-Shurik in such a cool manner you must be okay mentally. Come here, baby. (Embraces Arkady.)
ARKADY. I can't. (Frees himself.) I can't.
FELIX. But why not?
ARKADY. Who are you?
FELIX. I'm me.
ARKADY. Where are you from?
FELIX. From life, my boy.
ARKADY. You're a fucking convict!
FELIX. I did time. I escaped. I've lived for five years on someone else's passport. I had a twin brother. He was such a fucking fine person. He's in queer heaven now. His life story's a poem in itself. Fucking music to your ears. Like to hear it?
ARKADY. I've had it up to here with you and your poems, you lousy con.
FELIX. My poems enjoyed great success in the camp. I recited my verse novels to the chief criminals by the dozen. They loved me. Saw to it that no harm came my way. Sashutka made a mistake. I got out. I got out with a thirst for life. You'll never betray me, my Ukrainian friend. I've tied the noose round your neck real tight. And it will get even tighter.
ARKADY. What if I cut it with my razor? (Pulls a safety razor out of his pocket.) I could earn another 500. How about that?
FELIX. Right here? You Ukrainian moron. There's no teaching you. (A pause.)
The one who does it first – in the street or the doorway – wins the lottery. ARKADY. You couldn't do it. You'll send someone else with a razor again! The phone rings.
FELIX. Answer it. Answer it!
ARKADY. (Puts the razor on the table, goes to the phone on the windowsill, lifts the receiver.) Ah, Tamara. Hi. A stiff in Neurology1? No way, Tamara. For 300 grams of medical alcohol you can wheel him yourself. 400? We're on our way.
Okay, Tamara. (Replaces the receiver.) They've got a stiff for us in Neurology 1. It's worth 400 grams.
FELIX. Did he cut his veins?
ARKADY. She didn't say. (A pause.)
FELIX. Tomorrow at 7 o'clock I'll come out of the entrance to my building. You have the chance to surprise me with your razor. You see, tomorrow I'll only have my bare hands. I hope I don't change my mind. I hope. You've got a chance. (He advances towards Arkady, brandishing the razor.) I just can't fucking kill myself! Help me!!! You'll be the 10th if you don't help me. I'll make it a fucking jubilee if you don't help me!!!
ARKADY. What?!! (Grips Felix's arm.) Fucking intellectual!!! (The razor comes down. The lights dim.)

THE END

Paris
1987 - 1988

 Zhitinkin's speech before the play Dead Man's Bluff by Mikhail   
Volokhov

We have no programmes, so I’ll say a few words about the play before we start. You see how cold it feels in here - that suits our purpose, I mean the circumstances of the play.
This is an experimental project and you understand of course that it couldn’t be staged in a state theatre.
Still, it’s not 'epatage' and we take it very seriously.
Mikhail Volokhov is a well-known and odious figure in theatrical circles. Even in Soviet times we knew his texts.
But we only had photocopies of his plays and only theatre professionals had access to them.
As you know, at that time staging Volokhov’s plays was impossible.
Our show is actually the first attempt to do this, although I know some experimental theatres use these texts.
First of all I should say that Mikhail Volokhov writes in the Russian obscene language we call 'mat' in Russian.
As far as I can see there's no children here tonight? Excellent.
This too is important. The language of the play IS NOT the language of the actors but the language of the characters.
What you will see today is a model of sorts. We all remember Stanislavsky’s words about truth in life – in my opinion Volokhov realises this idea to the utmost degree.
You see it’s impossible not to drink in a morgue, firstly because you risk getting frozen stiff.
Then you can’t help using this kind of language if you work in a morgue, otherwise you get beaten up by your 'colleagues'. It's a means of survival in this profession.
To those of you who feel it’s going too far and you don’t feel like listening further, my advice is to endure it for 8-10 minutes and then, perhaps, you'll be intrigued by the story. As long as you understand this is just a game, 'playing at stiffs' in thieves’ jargon.
By the way, Volokhov is a Russian emigr; and as far as I know he’s now thinking of returning to Russia.
His leaving the country had nothing to do with his political views, it was for family reasons: he just married a Frenchwoman.
And perhaps his writing is a sort of nostalgia, a farewell to that phenomenon of our RUSSIAN HISTORY that I call the Phenomenon of Soviet Idiocy.
We keep asking ourselves: should we continue performing this play? Considering recent events and the overall situation in the country, we think we should.
When we produced the play abroad, in Paris, the emigr;s who came to see it sought an answer to the question: was leaving Russia the right thing to do? Some think that it was the correct decision, others are still in two minds.
But we all tend to forget the past we shared too soon. Whatever attitude we have to the time we are living in now, whether we are severely critical or feel we are living in some black hole, we must NOT forget HOW we used to live.
That’s why for us this play is like a baguette on which we spread the layers of life. This is our recent past and it’s hard to perform it as a piece of theatre.
Theatre has its own laws of art and analysis. We have no intention of changing anything, we leave everything as it was:
the face value of the ruble, acronyms like the KGB and the USSR which no longer exist.
 
I usually give this example: at Sotheby’s and Christie’s works of social realism are in great demand. Is it because of their artistic value? Nothing of the kind, most of them don't have any. The reason is that this is already HISTORY, part of the Soviet era that is gone forever.
And we thought we could do the same in the theatre: let the stage remind us that such history must never be repeated.
The jargon the whole play is built on brick by brick is a theatrical experiment.
There was a very amusing scene when we produced the play in Paris, not with Bernard Sobel, but at the Sorbonne, INaLCO. The senior students studying Russian were invited to check their knowledge of the language.
In short, for them the play came as a shock – they’d been learning Russian some 5 years and couldn’t understand a word.
Another interesting story. To illustrate how I hate sanctimonious attitudes and hypocrisy when people ask me why I use this kind of language in the theatre.
Once they tried to show an except on St Petersburg TV, but the bleep kept going like Morse code. Everybody asked each other what was happening.
Here's the last example of 'why I can’t stand sanctimony'. It’s about Misha’s wife Chantal and what she once said about her husband’s work. Now Chantal’s left Moscow, she’s in Germany, and Misha’s been following her all over the world.
I should say that things have changed for Misha, too: his books have been published by the publishing houses Glagol and Magazin Iskusstva and his plays have been included ratings of the best European plays.
Dead Man’s Bluff is his bestseller and has been produced in Paris, Switzerland and Germany. This play is well-known all over the world.
I believe that all his plays will be put on the stage one day.
But coming back to Chantal and the time she was still working at the Embassy in Moscow while her husband was living in Paris (a strange couple: the French wife in Russia and her Russian husband living in Paris).
Well, one day she called Misha and told him: 'I want to congratulate you - you're a classic writer already.'
When a wife says that to her husband it must be very pleasant, I can imagine how Misha felt at that moment.
And when like a true artist he naively asked her why,
Chantal replied in all sincerity: 'Misha, every morning I go to the market and people quote you all the time.'
And that is really true. No other country but Russia has so many dictionaries of jargon, Slavists will confirm this and it’s probably why we stay here.
The Russians have unequalled talent in this respect.
A new dictionary of Moscow argot recently appeared and I can tell you it’s nothing less than poetry.
Last but not least I want to introduce the actors: without them it would all be impossible. This is not a joke, I'm serious.
The actors are professionals, among the best representatives of the current generation of thirty-year-olds.
Arkady’s part is played by an actor who made a brilliant debut in the film Menya Zovut Arlekin (My Name is Harlequin)
and acted in many films: Fan, Dirty Thing, Serious Game, Labyrinth.
Then he began making films himself (Dear Hap, The Time of Your Life based on Saroyan's novel).
Recently he was elected Secretary of the Union of Cinematographers. And now he ends up in the morgue.
 
Meet Oleg Fomin.
In the role of Felix you see an actor who is already quite well-known and many of you will recognise him.
This is an actor who's very dear to me, who participated in several of my projects. Today he comes into your homes every evening in the Mysteries of St Petersburg serial. His other films I can name are Deserter, The Psycho and the Trifler. At Lenkom he plays so many parts it’s easier to say what he doesn’t appear in.
In short, Sergei Chonishvili as Felix.
As usual, I wish the actors good luck...
I’ll keep my fingers crossed for you. Let’s begin.


Andre Zhitinkin

'Repentance'

First let me comment on the obscene language in Volokhov's drama 'Dead Man's Bluff'. What have people used for centuries to build their houses, all over the world? Adobe.
Adobe is made from dung, straw and clay, but mainly dung. Here dung is building material and not shit. Bunches of heather and other fragrant herbs were hung on the
walls because the odour never fades. And people lived in those houses: loved, died and gave birth – life went on. In Volokhov's plays obscene language plays two roles: firstly as construction material from which the characters 'build' their dwelling; secondly as a very important constituent of the play's vocabulary. This is not abuse, emphasis or slang but a new, revived language – revived by life itself. Because it is illicit, prohibited, the play's language becomes an integral constituent and the effect is 'telling the truth about life'.
This kind of play is impossible in traditional Russian drama (plays with obscenities are written over there in America, not here). Of course it may be just euphemism: for
instance, the phrase 'fig off' in Solzhenitsyn's novel 'One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich'. It means 'fig off' and nothing more. In Volokhov's play euphemism is
impossible – this is a different kind of language not heard in ordinary conversation, but perhaps people think this way. We may not actually speak with this debased lexicon, but our morality has been so degraded that while uttering decorative turns of phrase we think on the moral level of this language… I would call the play eschatological.
Eschatological by its reference to the end of the world. What will happen at the end of the world and afterwards.
Why is this play so realistic? The action takes place in our world, which is certainly close to destruction, in a very real sense. For example, if we cannot find a cure for AIDS in the near future, mankind will become extinct as a biological species. This is not an abstract apocalyptical tableau, but stark reality. AIDS can be contracted through a mother's milk, not only by sexual contact. Mankind has the capacity for sexual relations, and when you fall in love you forget AIDS. How absurd if Juliet tells her beloved: climb over the balcony and don't forget to wear a condom. The modern age is threatened by eschatological danger, hence the appearance of such literature. Apparently we lead a normal existence in the noosphere – we walk, eat, stand in queues, love, divorce, earn wages, drink vodka and so on. It seems we are walking on firm ground. But suddenly
we realise that monstrous processes – the subterranean boiling magma until now separated from us by a stratum of hard earth – are right beneath our feet! Although
walking on magma and living in the crater of a volcano, we are too afraid to peer inside the crater. Petrushevskaya writes that it is wrong, inconvenient and terrible to live in a crater: we are vulgar, vile, uncultured and quarrelsome because we live in that crater, and if transported elsewhere, even a concrete-panel apartment, we would live normally. Volokhov has placed his characters inside a volcanic crater, in the middle of an eruption. Recently a Leningrad TV programme reported a unique coincidence. The same girl was raped four times in one evening by four different people. Or just imagine what it's like to live in Kazan – a city inhabited by murderers, tens of thousands of them, aged from eight to sixteen.
Anyway, Volokhov has peered into the fiery volcano. Of course this is a generalisation, a metaphor – not everyone lives in the fiery volcano, yet.
The principal character in his play is not a KGB or CIA agent, neither a pederast nor a murderer. He is the same as you and I. But in this life we can be pederasts and murderers, KGB agents and CIA agents. The barriers are down. Everything is possible. Some say that Volokhov's play is too Western. Not at all – this play is very Russian!
Volokhov has invented nothing new – he just took another step forward. It is more
frightening, more profound than Mrozek's 'Immigrants', and the temperature inside the volcano is 1000 degrees higher. Everything is possible. Look at Dostoyevsky: if there is no God, everything is permissible. Volokhov's characters are driven to extremes beyond which there can only be God, otherwise there is no hope. This is the eschatological boundary, it is eschatologically just. Either there is a God, or that's it – the end, nothing. Nothing. And there really is a moment in the play where you catch your breath at the purity, the joy of seeing such purity. They are in such dire straits. They repent to the very end – this is where the catharsis lies. They have come to the end, without stopping halfway, hiding nothing. Although lies are everywhere. So 'Dead Man's Bluff' is filled with metaphors throughout, like the Bible. Suppose Methuselah never lived 840 years.
Suppose the Red Sea never parted to release the Israelites from Egypt, and so on. This is symbolic. As in the play. It's a groundbreaking play. Not simply a metaphor in itself, but entirely composed of metaphors. And the play's finale is grandiose. Let me overstep the boundary, otherwise I cannot stand before God – kill me. I cannot live like this any more. This is a repulsive, horrible, monstrous play. You can't take your eyes off it. Why? You feel sorry for the characters. They are insignificant wretches – they couldn't be more insignificant.
There is a third character in the play. Whatever made them that way. Call it what you
like – the course of history, or degradation of the human race. But we really have arrived at the brink. At a RSFSR Union of Writers plenary session someone declared: We are ready to kill for the sake of socialism! The cause no longer matters, since above all this transgresses the law of both God and Man – 'it is permissible to kill for the sake of a cause'. But killing is wrong! The human race has always killed, but always knew this
was wrong!! Now it is apparently permissible. Dostoyevsky was the first to realise. The Grand Inquisitor states: It is possible to kill You, Christ, kill You, Christ the Saviour, for the sake of someone or other. Yes, if necessary we can kill, we don't need You, Christ, for the sake of whom we live. And Ivan Karamazov schools Smerdyakov to kill his father
– 'exterminate the cockroach', as Ivan says. His intention is good – his father is
loathsome. You see? All this is eschatology. Volokhov has peered inside – where I am afraid to look. This is the daring and bravery shown by a Saint Francis of Assisi, or a
lunatic. I wouldn't have the strength to endure this truth and write it down. That is the nub of the matter, do you see? There are plenty of dramas about homosexuals: 'The
Ballad of the Sad Caf;', 'Sweet Bird of Youth'. There are many plays about drug addicts, lesbians and murderers. But this is a drama about the human race. That is why he (the hero of the drama) wants him (the second hero). You thought it was only for a screw?
He wants to escape from his loneliness, merge as one with another being, whoever it may be, he wants love.
There are no lies in this play, nor could there be. The heroes can lie about the KGB or the CIA, but they can't lie about life. Children are scared to enter a dark room because they are scared of seeing ghosts. You and I are reluctant to walk in the dark. Logically we understand there are no ghosts and corpses cannot rise from their graves in the cemetery. We know it. But we'd rather not walk through a cemetery at night. Nor do we like entering a dark room – especially a strange room.
…Not everyone can write such plays, but credit must go to the madman who evokes such wonderful dreams for mankind. Mankind needs wonderful dreams, particularly now, at this critical turning point. Physically, biologically and ecologically. First and foremost, we are in a state of moral crisis. Morality that was instilled in the
Neanderthals, formalised several millennia later in Moses' Ten Commandments and then Christ's Sermon on the Mount. Why have the Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount stood the test of time? Because they make no further demand of man – these precepts are instilled in him by nature. Thou shalt not kill, for instance.
 
As for the subject matter of the drama 'Dead Man's Bluff', it is exclusively about lying. Lies about the KGB and his father, as well as the motives for murder. But what holds our attention? Why do we feel tension throughout, when there is virtually no plot? Because the plot develops in a spiral rather than a straight line. They talk about the KGB, then the CIA, then the KGB again; he killed, didn't kill, he was forced to kill, wasn't forced to kill. Motion driven by despair. The heroes are forever charging in one or another direction, impelled by despair. Suppose Arkady killed Felix, as he intended. Okay? The next day he gets a call: 'So you killed that Jew-boy, and you killed Felix. Here's your third assignment – kill another man. You don't want to? How come? You killed them, didn't you?' No way out. Even if he didn't kill Felix nothing will be changed by that – he still killed the Jew. We are talking about the canary. The canary is all they have left.
Neither of them has anything else. One has it, the other wants to buy it. Most of all they both need it because the canary is from that other life and therefore without original sin. Possessing it is a kind of redemption. Why is the canary so important? It is like the dove carrying an olive branch at the end of the Flood. The canary is as important to the play as the finale with the razorblade. Why? Because there is a point when the principal character understands something (I won't presume to tell you) and what happens to them is not death, but worse than death. Finding the truth is also catharsis, when you hold your breath at the wonderful thing that happens as a result of all this ghastliness.
…There is something in this play that was absent from all other dramas written in the
last few decades – let's say, after Tennessee Williams. That truth penetrates into deeper and more painful aspects than the truth disclosed by Vampilov, not to mention
Petrushevskaya… The play introduces something new to the history of dramaturgy, for instance the fact that it could only be written in obscene language. Basically, Volokhov has delved deeper into that dreadful bottomless well. We all feared it was bottomless, but apparently this is not the case – Volokhov has shown us the lower depths.
Interesting – they are playing cards. For what? For the canary! They are playing cards to win the only sacred object still remaining. Not for money. Money is of no use to them. Money would be used for yet another murder, or something of the sort. You understand? They are playing for their own selves. This is a very strange phenomenon
– the American duel, called a 'Russian duel' in America. They put two bills in a hat and instead of shooting at one another, whoever gets the dud must shoot himself. You can see this duel as masochism and exhibitionism. Or alternatively, as a revelation.
The principal characters' extraordinary self-revelation is what makes the play so extraordinary. If not justifying the repentant, we are at least inclined to withhold the death sentence. According to the Christian faith, the repentant sinner is saved from hell. He has killed and obviously sinned, but we forgive him – by God's law we must not kill. He has killed and must therefore be punished, but why does repentance before God and man matter? This is not logical. We are alarmed by the ferocity with which Volokhov's heroes repent. That is the secret of the play 'Dead Man's Bluff', the reason you can't look away. As you read you unintentionally learn about yourself. You may not be a pederast or a murderer, but you are confronted with the inevitability of repentance. Repentance is all we have left… In my opinion the force of this repentance makes Volokhov's drama an outstanding phenomenon.

Yuliu EDLIS, playwright, prose writer
Excerpt from a discussion of the play 'Dead Man's Bluff' at the M. Gorky Literary Institute, 1989

MOSCOW GUARDIAN
Dead Man’s Bluff by Volokhov
Ghosts of the Past
Young Moscow actors perform Dead Man’s Bluff by a young Russian playwright — the themes and striking language exorcise the ghosts of the past
If Moscow’s rubbish-strewn streets today reflect a society polluted with aggression, falsehood and corruption, then the state of its language offers an equally powerful image of decay. On every level it grows less cor¬rect and literary, and becomes more laden with slang and bad grammar.
In Dead Man’s Bluff, however, the obscenities of ‘mat’ and convicts’ argot which provide the linguistic basis of the text are hardly shocking – instead they come across as carefully selected mate¬rial from which a model of pre¬sent-day reality can be built.
Written by Mikhail Volokhov, a Russian emigre living in Paris, the play had its first professional stage performance in January 1993.
The director is Andrei Zhitinkin, famous for his scandalous productions of Dog’s Waltz by Leonid Andreyev and Caligula by Albert Camus. He works with two actors from the Lenkom Theater—Andrei Sokoiov and Sergei Chonishvili, both well-known for their film roles. This is an independent production carried out without state funding.
Maintaining the unities of place, time and action, the events of the play unfold in a utilities room next to the morgue of a KGB hospital. What happens here is precisely what should happen in a morgue – routine preparation work: only it’s not dead bodies that are prepared, but the souls of the living. The heroes (or anti-heroes) of the play perform the procedures on themselves, with the final diag¬nosis made by the audience. This is genuinely shocking, because ordinary, entirely rec¬ognizable social types display a capacity for every possible abase¬ment and a willingness to resort to any crime.
One of the heroes, Felix, named after the founding-father of the Cheka is an intellectual, the son of a KGB general. He was raised among the commu¬nist elite, the stratum that simultaneously occupied the apex of the Soviet social pyramid, and the depths of an abyss of moral turpitude. His opposite number, Arkady, is a peripheral ‘lumpen’ from the dregs of society, but who matches his colleague in the complete absence of any moral principles.
Felix knows the bloody price that has been paid for his fami¬ly’s social status. Aware of the pointlessness of his attempts to resist the past and wrest him¬self free of it, he takes the only decision possible. Arkady, on the other hand, doesn’t want to know or remem¬ber anything: he accepts life as it is and adapts to the cir¬cumstances that present themselves.
Felix’s exit from the game called ‘life’ can only come with his own death. Having decided on this, he stages this death as a tragic farce, with Jesuitic inventiveness. Needing a priest capable of performing the sacrifice, his choice falls on Arkady, hand¬some, strong and primitive – ideal executor of the will of another. In order to be sure of his priest, he arranges a diabolical trial, forcing him to kill someone. He thus stages his own play within a play, leading his partner through all the circles of hell.
The audience and Arkady have to wait till the finale before they understand the motivation behind his actions and games. In this game without rules any¬thing goes: blackmail, threats, provocation. Felix forces his partner to cooperate with the KGB and the CIA, even in homosexual acts.
This string of torments seems to move towards the only possible reaction – a response in the form of a fatal blow. But while the game’s logic should lead towards one result, in fact it arrives at another. The answering blow never comes, the partner’s reac¬tion is paradoxical: he is prepared to accept any rules, to exploit humiliation for his own gain, to accept any system of values.
He is a powerful biological specimen who can survive in any circumstances. However, he is not stupid – he has a sense of humor and can at least appreciate his partner, if not understand him.
What is so terrible is that he is painfully familiar. If he is indeed that new sub-species, that social mutant currently known as a ‘sovok’, then we must acknowl¬edge that the development of human consciousness can run in reverse: sovoks of this kind can never make up a society, only a herd. It is a tragedy which remains with Russia today.
The production itself is quite unpretentious. Sim¬ple naturalistic stage sets, a catafalque, a preparation table, a trough of human intestines and organs – and beside them a bottle of vodka, some cabbage and ris¬soles stolen from the hospital canteen. Against this background a highly complex drama unfolds, in a piece which revives the finest traditions of psychological drama for which the Russian theater was once famous. The director relies on the actors’ abilities, refusing any possible cover from theatrical effects.
Only with intelligent actors, capable of sensing the dramatic nature of present-day reality and the tragic fates of their charac¬ters, could this be possible. The director’s choice is outstanding. Sergei Chonishvili, who plays Felix, is not only an outstanding character actor, but a distinctive personality in his own right: he writes verse and prose which express the same tormented search for meaning, and sense of isolation and chaos which per¬meates the play.
«Of course, I belong to a gen¬eration which never experienced the full horrors of the KGB, the oppression of the totalitarian regime,» Chonishvili said. «But I sense that even today there is some structure controlling all of our lives. It’s hard to define in words, but there is a genuine feeling of some force which directs and pursues.»
«As for the language of the play, of course, none of us had ever used slang to such an extent before. Early rehearsals were extremely hard – it was like we’d been unloading railway wagons. But then we began to feel that this language helped us to get rid of a negative energy. These absurd words become incanta¬tions which, on the one hand, have an effect on the viewer’s energy, helping him to attune himself emotionally; on the other hand, their indefinite and multiple dimensions of meaning allow for individual associa¬tions.»
Written in the mid-1980s, some of the problems the play touches on are no longer with us. But the people are still here – peo¬ple shaped by that recent, terri¬ble, absurd life. The play’s judgment falls as urgently on us today: equally on those intellectuals who ‘ignore all rules in exploiting human material to resolve their own dramas and moral conflicts, those willing to be exploit¬ed in any way’.
If Russia’s situation can be transformed into images in the artist’s consciousness and presented to an audience, then it can be controlled. We can under¬stand and change ourselves. Volokhov precisely fulfils the artist’s role of shocking the pub¬lic into alertness.
Staged and acted by young people, Dead Man’s Bluff represents their achievement, and their victory. The simple fact that they have chosen and understood this play, and played it with virtuoso precision is a real basis for hope.
Alia Nepomnyashnay

2)

Mikhail Volokhov


THE GREAT CONSOLER


A love story


CHARACTERS:



P o l a
T i m
L y o r a


Paris, the present

Two-bedroom apartment in Paris.


Before the action begins we hear an actor’s voice offstage, reading a poem:


The man who will die in my play –
Will remove his skin first and hang it on a chair.
And the chair will say: I shrug my shoulders — your death isn’t my problem.

The rose in a vase will intervene
And cite as an example the crystal vase:
I’m dying in this vase and the vase doesn’t care, It only gleams, with all its facets.
And the chair will say: those are your problems. Then the grumpy sofa will remember:
Once a man stood on this chair with a noose at his neck, And the chair was joyful as it was kicked aside
And the man’s legs hung in the air.

And the chair will say – just go away.

The man who will die in my play May remove his skin,
But respecting the chair, May he throw it to the floor.

The chair has its own problems. And after all, this is just a play.

(Polya enters with a small suitcase, Tim with a guitar.)
 
P o l y a. This is where I live. Come on in, Tim. Leave the guitar over there. We’ll put the suitcase here, for now. Feels heavy.
T i m. It’s full of paper for me to write a novel. Kostya gave it to me. Uh, I’m all sweaty. I’m tired of being tired.
P o l y a. Juvamine-Vitamine. (Gives Tim a vitamin pill.)
This will make you feel better. Here’s some water. (Gives Tim the water.) Swallow that.
T i m. Merci beaucoup. (Swallows the vitamin pill.) The dead body was carrying a dead soul too.
P o l y a. Tell me more about your novel.
T i m. The Great Consoler couldn’t find consolation for himself before his execution. All his life he comforted other people before they were executed. Then the realization that tomorrow he will be executed and he can’t find relief from the thought. (Looks around.) So you brought home a runaway hobo, a Jew-boy writer. If a person already decided to croak, found comfort in that, then you shouldn’t try to stop him before the execution.
P o l y a. Kostya couldn’t even give you a glass of water.
T i m. Kostya’s a good guy, Polya. Don’t know why, but it was him that gave me a place to stay in the squat.
P o l y a. Your Kostya lives in an abandoned factory in the centre of Paris for nothing, he just gives people like you permission to sleep in the squat.
T i m. Laws of the jungle, I don’t care. We live for free in Paris, so we take a cut from capitalism. (Examines the paintings on the walls.) Boats, landscapes, bouquets. In the Land of the Soviets
it’s getting dangerous to collect pictures. In Russia they can kill you now for paintings, just like in Paris. In the squat Russian artists only do fake Stalinist Leninist pictures.
P o l y a. They bring back some homeless slapper to the squat, screw her every way they can and then immortalize her on canvas as a naked milkmaid in the snow, just stepping out of the banya. They add a 1937 date stamp and off it goes to the auction room. The French buy it to hang on the wall of their blue bedroom to get turned on. (Examines a painting.) Little kids sledging down snow-covered slopes, they look so happy.
T i m. Another fake?
P o l y a. I only have originals. ‘There is no melancholy in the world that snow cannot heal.’ The purest, snow-white Russian snow. Snow is beautiful in Paris too, except that in Paris there’s no snowstorms, even in winter. Instead there are blacks and Arabs from the subway. Snow can make you racist. But Pushkin was half-caste, he came to unite the entire black and white world. By next week you’ll only have memories of your squat. Broken memories.
T i m. Order from the mayor. The cops made their move. Pas de chance, not a hope. I wanted them to throw me into a cellar. You could have dug me out. Where will our guys go? You need know-how to sleep on the street. When Yura Tomsky threw me out of his budget Arab hovel I spent three months in the Bois de Boulogne, dreaming on an inflatable mattress with only oilcloth to cover me.
P o l y a. The Boulogne trannies didn’t bother you?
T i m. They have a job to do. I even dreamed that someone would hit me over the head with a heavy object while I was fast asleep in the forest. No such luck. France is a cultured country.
P o l y a. Russian suicide of Jewish origin. Want some juice? (Pours him juice.)
T i m. Thanks. (Drinks.)
P o l y a. Have you written many novels?
T i m. I spent my entire life writing one and the same novel.
P o l y a. I read one of your novels about ladies of the night and murderers. It was cool. That’s why I wanted you to go on living.
T i m. Thanks for nothing, I’m alive. Yeah, it’s only on TV that all ends well and you really want to go on living. I can still get twenty euros a day to feed my face – in the subway I can still strum my guitar and belt out the ‘Coachman’ song. Kostya taught me how to survive in Paris as a boho living for free. And apart from killing people... in my novels... and so on... and not only there...
Some people can’t make a euro a day, they come bursting into Paris to write bum verses – Jewish poets are very Russian. One of them died last week in the squat. Swallowed the pen he whispered his verses to. It’s scary how funny that was. He lay there among cardboard boxes in the cellar for two days before he began to stink. But who cares… In the squat they all have their own business. Everyone has a little business in Paris. Having nothing to do gives people even more pretentions. I can give up food for ten days, no joke – I won’t die, it just cleanses the body of toxins. You just need a little water to drink. It’s better boiled. Could I ask you for some boiled water, for free, if need be?
P o l y a. No problem.
T i m. This is the West, you have to be considerate here. When I saw your eyes I thought of my mother.
P o l y a. Your mother’s in Russia?
T i m. She’s buried in Siberia. With my father.
P o l y a. I’m sorry.
T i m. All good things come to an end...
P o l y a. Our friendship too?
T i m. It’s begun?
P o l y a. Do you know how to stop time?
T i m. I know how to kill it.
P o l y a. Can we kill time together, then?
T i m. If you want.
P o l y a. Are you hungry?
T i m. After the Chinese restaurant?
P o l y a. You liked the food?
T i m. The mushroom soup was superb. Kostya invited me to the Chinese once, after he sold some fakes at auction. He’s the chief at our squat. He says the word. He sat them all round the table when I arrived, the new boy, told them they had to make space for me in the squat, floor space at least, because I’m a fucking Russian genius. Me, some kind of genius? All of us here, we’re all fucking Russian geniuses. Out of these countless Russian geniuses, more than twenty specimens of Russian immigrant poets are rotting away just in that one Paris squat. They all hate one another, hate it that all their floozies are so spiritually enlightened they don’t want to fuck.
And when Kostya the main man told them I was a brilliant storm-trooper talent the most foul- smelling spot was allotted to me, the genius, in the cellar on cardboard packaging, close-up with the rats. You find my memoirs shocking?
P o l y a. You’re good at killing time.
T i m. In the squat it’s very hard to find a place to sleep, even on cardboard boxes on the basement floor. But they obeyed Kostya. He told them very seriously after he’d had a drink that I was an exceptional crazy Russian genius, the pride of Russian culture, pride of the Russian underground when we drank wine. No, when we drank beer. Or wine. I don’t remember what we were drinking then. We were drinking tea then. Yeah, no shit. I brought a packet of cancer- curing Chinese green leaf tea to our first meeting at the squat, and we drank tea to guard against cancer. And I told them that Chinese green tea to guard against cancer is really popular for good health. And Makhrach said with a good dose of humour that he was a big fan of chaste gays with their muzzle down on your stomach with a love-rent taiga howl.
P o l y a. Love forgives everything?
T i m. When the French hear our love songs in the subway it gives them a hard-on. In an hour at least ten euros are thrown in your hat. Don’t be afraid – it won’t cost you anything if you want me to… stay here… in your apartment. I can easily live on… ten euros a day. You can take the other fifteen or twenty euros for general expenses.
P o l y a. You’re welcome to live here, Tim. Go ahead. No problem. T i m. Polinochka. You don’t know me at all.
P o l y a. We’ll get to know one another.
T i m. A writer is different from his novels.
P o l y a. And this lady of the night, she’s like her fictional character?
T i m. Polina...
P o l y a. Ladies aren’t prostitutes. Prostitutes are ladies. And to become a lady you must definitely become a slut first. You’ll be a royal lady if you become a dirty slut.
T i m. You’re pure.
P o l y a. A pure lady or the purest bedding? T i m. I dreamed of you like that.
P o l y a. I really love Russian Jews, you’re the most Russian people I ever knew. But you aren’t Russian. You know how to live and suffer without hysterics.
T i m. Life is a gift from God – what’s there to complain about.
 P o l y a. You yourself wanted to die there in the cellar.
T i m. The people in Israel – they omitted too much from the novel... They sold life short.
P o l y a. A gift from God. And the halo zero around the neck suffocates. Without hysteria. T i m. I’m a killer, Polina. I’ve had my share of hysteria.
P o l y a. We see the light of miracles, but not the Light itself. You’re Jewish yourself. Why kill other Jews?
T i m. I want to understand why the Jews themselves crucified Christ the Jew. I feel a terrible agony inside from that. Nothing has changed since then. Imagine, for a few green-coloured US dollar bills I, a Jew, murdered Jews in Israel by the light of the moon.
P o l y a. Jews can kill themselves wisely – Jews as God’s chosen people. How do the Russian God-bearers behave?
T i m. Russians and Jews are the two strongest nations in the world. Only they have the final link that connects mind with morality and the spirit with love-bearing salvation.
P o l y a. It hasn’t worked out yet.
T i m. The Jewish trade in everyone and everything – the whole world’s become Jewish. So the fatal scourge circumnavigates the world. Cabbage soup and porridge are our food. And for a long time Russians have been getting ready to put everything holy and spiritual in this world in place and save the whole world.
P o l y a. The God-bearer Oblomov is the personification of the Russian man, his selfless saving and unifying design and meaning. And Oblomov will still, let’s hope, get his due. The only question is when?
T i m. What a divinely clever and poetical Russian girl you are. So everything in the world is super-feminine, you know that for sure?
P o l y a. I’m just a very sensual girl. My nerves knocked everything outside.
T i m. You’re an ingeniously sensual beauty, Polichka. And not nervous at all on the
outside. Oblomov already knows a lot – he knows the most important thing: to get both feet in both slippers at once when rising from his bed.
P o l y a. But Oblomov sees that you Jews haven’t yet done enough to unite something for him.
T i m. Yes, he’s a Jew himself, like everyone else, your Oblomov! Only he doesn’t want to engage in Jewish trading like his German friend Stolz. Got lazy. Only cares about what’s for supper. That’s all.
P o l y a. And killing people is what kind of work – Russian or Jewish?
T i m. In Russia it’s Russian. In Israel it’s Jewish. Especially for a Jew killing Jews in Israel it’s not considered anti-Semitism. And I’m a professor’s son. Why should I come from Russia as a God-bearer in my mind in the bazaars of Tel Aviv and sweep the streets for the local Arabs?
That’s gross, my dear girl. And to commit suicide as a Jew, that’s not what the chosen people are meant to do. I didn’t learn to do anything else in Russia, Polichka, except to think a lot for the sake of others, and then to kill anyone who turned out to be smarter.
P o l y a. God-chosen to kill others as a God-bearer.
T i m. And in Israel there’s no Time to think when you arrive as a beggar from Russia. There you just need to get sorted right away, like in Russia, take someone down. And this desire only
gets stronger there. In Israel the earth and the sky don’t belong to you – they don’t morally support you there or restrain you. Why do they have the death penalty in America? Over there all the immigrant Americans have a strange land under their feet and the sky above is without condemnation – like in the desert. But at the same time – in general it’s an English nation where Shakespeare’s a sacred writer, with the same ‘Macbeth’ and ‘Hamlet’. On the one hand, in America every man for himself, but the altruism of We turns into the egoism of Me. There everyone is out to save himself as an immigrant, not everyone else. Americans are true immigrants, even to the tenth generation. Because of the egoistical Me they’d all shoot one another in a couple of weeks but for the death penalty. And at the same T i me, as well as their aggressiveness, the death penalty is a real embodiment in life beyond the idea of their sacred drama ‘Macbeth’ – the killer must be killed. That’s why the Americans are trying to sweep everyone into other countries with their own, often erroneous, understanding of the murderous Macbethianism of other nations. All their moralistic movies allude to their sacred idea of murderously bloody noble revenge killers, multiplied by the idea of the immigrant Ego of egoism. And now they are jealous of us Russians, when we also began to learn something from Shakespeare and ego-capitalism.
P o l y a. We Russians, without Shakespearean Americans, killed one other in the last century in trillions, unlike the Macbeth murderers killed at home.
T i m. For us Russians in the last century, instead of their Shakespeare teaching them how to kill, our mentor was street revolution. There was no law – this was lawlessness. But it came in handy for Russia to sort things out, as with Hitler, the fascist without laws. Bismarck said ‘never start a war with Russia’. The Russian word NOTHING was engraved on Bismarck’s silver cigar case. He studied in Russia and understood that for Russians the most important Idea is NOTHING, as opposed to their EVERYTHING in their indisputably, Most Global and in truth the largest Earthly
Divine Territory, Primordially His in Spirit and Reality. There is no doubt about the Territory. The Russian Spirit is akin to this Territory. EVERYTHING or NOTHING is our Russian ideological answer. That’s why you can’t go to war against the Russians. The Russians will never give up their vast EVERYTHING, their territory larger than any other in the world. So the Russians have the world’s greatest salvific responsibility for their enormous territory, for the mighty Russian language, calling on the Russian consciousness of readiness at any moment for any sacrificial, selfless feat in defence of this territory. And through this self-educated responsibility and readiness for the sacrificial feat at a genetic level, the Russian is the most important and righteous saviour of our common, earthly, global, human Peace. The Russian cannot help but save the world by definition – otherwise he will simply lose his sacrificial self in his country and in the World, he will lose the spiritual foundation of his righteous Self, which turns by the act of Salvation into We – the We of all Mankind, which We Russians are saving.
That was clearly seen during the Second World War. Russia is the self-defence of the Earth.
P o l y a. ‘There’s no fear of lying beneath the bullets of the dead,
No bitterness at being rendered homeless, And we will save you, the Russian tongue, The great Russian language.’
T i m. Absolutely. Well done, you understand. As Akhmatova said, all this is derived from the Motherland. She expressed the most important Russian idea that gives meaning to our lives, for the sake of the Great Russian World of the saving Word and Deed. Although Akhmatova was a woman and humiliated by her Stalinist country. But with these words by the great Russian poetess the World God expressed his innermost desire and thought. The Russians are invincible. The dumb Germans also sensed where the dog was buried, that Russia was the divine poetry of the Salvation of the Earth and the Righteous Rule of the World. That’s why the fascists that invaded us in 1941 staked out their anti-human fascist German anti-human destructive prose for rule of the World. But they got from the Russians what Bismarck had predicted – they achieved NOTHING in 1941. And when, back in 1918, Russia was squeezed by the Entente, clenched into
a fist, when the most truly righteous was also revealed and absorbed into Russia, in The Objective Spirit of the Development of our whole World – The Idea that Freedom, Equality and Brotherhood is one for all and whatever the price. And for this All-Human EVERYTHING Russia fought and resisted – hungry, naked and almost alone, saving this UlT i mate Idea of Peace. Without this NOTHING there is no Peace, no Freedom, Equality or Brotherhood for the people of the World. There is no Peace on Earth. Of course then Stalin, in ignorance, defiled this with bloodshed, defaming the whole idea, but he became the embodiment of his own name, he became EVERYTHING in that bloody, wild, totalitarian T i me. Nevertheless he defeated Hitler, the European Macbeth, by Force, Saving the World. Because the Power of Salvation is always superior to the power of destruction. Otherwise there would simply be no life on Earth.
P o l y a. And what’s happening in the world now?
T i m. Now…
While life still remains incomprehensibly eternal, human hopes and knowledge are reduced to love
for mortals born of their own kind.
But true knowledge, correlated with eternity,
with the aim of defeating human death and endowing man with the ability
to dispose of the universe at his discretion, is obtained, as in previous centuries,
only at the peak of bloody, barbaric acts with the bodies and souls
of their own kind, beloved mortals…
And if there hadn’t been this blood-infused archetype, then you and I wouldn’t be sitting here right now and talking. And Macbeth must be killed… When I was a Russian Jew in Israel, I put the first Jew in a bloody prison – I saved him at the same T i me... I didn’t tell him that it was his close relative, a Jew from America with whom he turned out to be co-heir of a large fortune, bought my knife for fifty thousand dollars.
P o l y a. If I hadn’t come to the squat today, no one would have given water to you, the killer- saviour-archetype, the anti-Macbeth.
T i m. Send me to hell, kill me, Polichka!
P o l y a. Calm down, Tim, everything will be fine. Life is a gift from God.
T i m. I’m telling you such wild, obscene, lupine things. Can’t stop. I haven’t spoken to anyone for two years. In the chlamydia-rotten squat there’s no one to talk to. And there’s absolutely nobody else to talk to and nowhere else in this mean, eternal city of Paris. No one in the squat knew that I buy Bordeaux for three euros and serve it for twenty. But they still had a nasty attitude towards me – and everyone else they encounter. I’m really tired of being an immigrant here in Paris, Polichka. No less than in the USSR, and more than in Israel. The publishers are waiting for their killer-author to die – it’s more peaceful to issue books for children instead of books with my murderers-heroes. They think the killer is writing about himself – for some reason they don’t want a scandal for advertising. You see, I really am writing about myself, a Jew-mute-murderer, I’m not writing novels for anyone else. They published one novel in Russia
– they’re calling me back to Russia to cut pine trees and unload bananas. Seems like I lost the habit here in Paris of silencing shitscrubbers for a bill of exchange in eternal snows. But without Russia there’s nothing to even moan about. Total dumbness. Do you sell Russian paintings?
P o l y a. I sell Russian love. Rhyming ass with waist and a tireless mouth.
T i m. Nobody to talk to here, either?
P o l y a. No one here to even think about anything.
T i m. You ordered the most expensive champagne. Divine gestures. Sorry, Polichka! I can’t eat good food. Immediately my brains swim – I sound off like there’s no stopping me. I don’t know how to live a day... without killing... And in novels, I explain to humanity how to live happily forever.
P o l y a. In Russia if you have some significance but you’re not a Jew, then you’ve sold yourself to them underhand. And in Paris you have to become a dirty slut again – so you can reach Lady Snow White with a soft ass. And in Paris you understand this when it’s impossible to climb out of complete shit – there are no sacred feline powers left. And we Russians, moreover, have a quirk of genius and super-bohemian, lordly, gentle genitality. If you drag your mouth to the spring of magic Russian words then the Governor gets up and beats you, the magazine editor-in- chief, the political trade immigrant economic with the regional committee’s gastro-intestinal tract, although at first he seems like a noble dissident. Then the Governor contradictor instructor sinks his axe into you here in Paris, cuts off your head, your soul, and Russia. Before Paris I wrote poetry in Russia, but in Paris the poems were executed. Executed by the Governor, a politician – either a grey dissident or a secret agent bought by the KGB, but with a sagging baldometre, a subhuman jellyfish with a temperature of 36.6, an abomination, warm. What could be scarier than a member of the Russian world like this for a happy Russian nymphet girl in Paris?
T i m. A warm limp jellyfish member – that’s very harsh for a lovely Russian girl in Paris.
P o l y a. All over the immigrant magazines there are party showdowns and KGB executions. No one needs your talent here. Neither the Russian immigrants nor even the French, who will NEVER be able to understand your poems!!! You’re unwittingly obliged to hang out with your poems in the milieu of Russian immigration. And there everything is seized by these big guys from their corrupt politics. And when Mr Big there politically shits on his pages – and Mr Big always shits politically – you have to be Mr Big’s whore – the first secretary of the city committee department of immigrant tolerance-terror. When Mr Big can’t get an erection – and Mr Big can’t be erect forever – he ties you to a chair and starts jerking off his wrinkled but not ashamed fly-agaric penis on you. And then, when this fly agaric comes with a poisonous gonorrheal-purulent-KGB substance, you no longer ask yourself any questions – you are powerless when faced by the sperm of a dissident Mr Big. You just drown unquestioningly in its KGB, clap-infected purulent poison. And when the communists in Russia turned into capitalists, Mr Big initially spoke out as a dissident, but then, so as not to lose the Western kickback loot, he suddenly became a communist, although his jellyfish member dropped in temperature to a diarrheal zero.
T i m. The new Russia has left all those Mr Bigs, gonorrhea-sick politicians and grey dissidents, those overseers behind culture, without work in the West. And now they want this grey KGB communism back, so the West continues to funnel them money for their incompetent, creaking Russia, that’s already communism. The abomination is democratically shit specific. The real spiritual romantics and dissident competitors are totally slaughtered by grey big guys for foreign currency and fresh Norwegian red shrimp, to make it more palatable.
P o l y a. I understand that no matter what, you just have to write your poems for salvation and not think about the Big Guy bitches. But when the number of these bitches controlled by the Big Guys crosses all mental boundaries… I have one poem about fascist bitches.
T i m. Read it to me.
P o l y a. The prisoner’s escape from Auschwitz proved unsuccessful – They shot him as he hung on the wire.
He weighed forty kilograms – no more. It was a warm summer in Poland.

Cicadas in the grass hummed all night long, The waxing moon illuminated the square –
 
All the prisoners were driven from the barracks,
After the unsuccessful convict escaped on that moonlit night.

Then they took every tenth man out of the line And led them on their final path.
A bullet was discharged in the back of head for these ‘tenth men’ When they reached the crematorium.

It was not a successful escape back then in Poland, Now there were less people and more snitches.
T i m. Thank you. I love you. Yeah, these twisted immigrant supreme lawyer-rats should just be shot, preferably with a healthy sense of humour. That’s exactly what I’m doing. As best I can.
Any of your people still in Russia?
P o l y a. Mama.
T i m. You still visit her?
P o l y a. No.
T i m. Problems with the embassy?
P o l y a. One infantile problem – five minutes sitting on the steps of the university, where I was penalized when they found out I married a Frenchman. You can smoke a cigarette on the steps, and that’s it. For the sake of five magical minutes – it’s not worth going.
T i m. You’re husband’s French?
P o l y a. From Alsace. He got jealous of the Arab at the window. There was a house opposite and there was always some Arab sitting by one of the windows. He looked at the street, at pedestrians, at cars and at our window with his sad eyes. One night my Alsatian husband dreamed of jealous bugs and he beat me very badly. By that time I already had my boy, my son. I ran away to him here in Paris. And ‘la cath;drale de Strasbourg’ said goodbye to me forever. That coffee and chocolate cathedral growing right from the stone earth up to the most striking ethereal sky. I used to sit in the cafe opposite for hours every day, it was balm for the soul.
T i m. I’m insanely happy you came into my life, Polichka. (Takes her hand.) Are you feverish? Have you caught a cold?
P o l y a. Just the sniffles. It’s nothing… A soldier with a cold…
T i m. I was really impressed by your amazing poem ‘The Soldier with a Cold’ when you read it to me in the restaurant. Are you shivering?
P o l y a. Everything will be fine tomorrow. When it’s abnormal that means everything is just like everyone else’s normal, the Great Consoler. You have other ideas... before the execution... in your novel?
T i m. Just before the computer drum spits out the fatal and happy number, this time for execution – seven sevens with threes at the beginning and end, the cherished number of the Great Consoler, the whole point is that shortly before that the Great Consoler accidentally meets a sweet sunny girl and falls in love with her, with a wonderful sunny love.
P o l y a. Yes, yes, it was exactly like that. In a sun-kissed forest, in a sunny clearing dotted with sunny dandelions to the end of the sunny horizon, a lovely girl was sitting on the soft green grass and weaving a wreath of sunny dandelions for herself when the Great Consoler saw her and fell in love with her at first sight.
T i m. In this sunny glade the Great Consoler comforted the most distressed people before execution. People forgot themselves, lost their mind with happiness in this blissful, heavenly, sunny glade. And this happy oblivion was enough for a person until the next morning, when the person’s head was chopped off.
P o l y a. The Great Consoler often came alone to this fairy-tale clearing to forget himself for a while after his murderous and unbearable hard labour as the Great Consoler. He understood that he was not comforting people, he only killed them with lies before execution. And he, the great killer, needed to forget himself in this sunny glade more than anyone else.
T i m. But when the Great Consoler came alone to this sunny glade for a moment of oblivion before his imminent execution the next day, this T i me the sunny glade didn’t help the Great Consoler. Just as his Solar Beloved didn’t help. The sunny glade and the Solar Beloved only burned and opened the wound of love with unprecedented force. After all, love itself would be put under the executioner’s axe the following day... But not a muscle twitched on the face of the Great Consoler when the executioner cut off his head the next morning...
P o l y a. But when the Great Consoler’s coffin was lowered into the grave and his Solar Beloved was granted the most honourable right by the king himself to throw the first handful of earth, the Solar Beloved of the Great Consoler threw a bouquet of scarlet roses and sunny dandelions instead of a handful of earth to the bottom of the grave, on the coffin of the Great Consoler.
T i m. And when all the other participants in the funeral procession became indignant and began to throw large fistfuls of earth in the grave, and drunken gravediggers came with huge shovels, the scarlet roses and sunny dandelions did not stay at the bottom of the grave on the coffin of the Great Consoler with his head cut off at the throat. The scarlet roses and sunny dandelions rose together with the earth scattered over the grave – these scarlet roses of love and the sunny dandelions of unearthly, celestial happiness were higher than the earth.
P o l y a. And even when the grave was levelled and the scarlet roses and sunny dandelions were beaten with iron shovels, these roses and dandelions were not broken or trampled into the soil of the graveyard. The roses and dandelions were themselves severed heads of roses and dandelions, but unlike the Great Consoler they were still alive and so they didn’t want to stay in the very depths of the grave underground...
T i m. But the Solar Beloved of the Great Consoler was found dead in the sunny glade two weeks later. The girl went there right after the funeral of her Great Solar Beloved and lay there in oblivion for several days, until she died of hunger and thirst.
P o l y a. The wonderful Solar Beloved of the Great Consoler was buried next to the Great Consoler and no one knew that there, underground, they exchanged love messages – no one knew. There, under the ground, love has revived them again, Tim.
T i m. You’re reading my mind, Polichka! You memorized my novel by heart, from beginning to end. You are infinitely generous and talented. I can’t live without you any longer. (Kisses her hand.) You’re shaking all over. Are you cold?
P o l y a (snatches away her hand). I’m more cold than hot. T i m. You’re… a cosmic girl saint.
P o l y a. When you don’t know what to say, it’s better to speak out. Otherwise people think you know what to say. Killing your Jews – did you console them before the execution, too?
T i m. I comforted them with a bullet, a knife, poison... a pillow!!! (Takes a pillow in his hands.)
P o l y a (takes the pillow from him). To bring sleep and sunny dreams.
T i m. When I, a Jew, killed Jews, it always seemed to me that I, a Russian, was killing Russians!!!
P o l y a. Why?!!!
T i m. To stay alive myself! I love you, Polichka! (Wants to kiss her.)
P o l y a (pulls away from him). Who are you?
T i m. T i m.
P o l y a. A killer?
T i m. Only man can be a killer. He is aware.
P o l y a. I’ll make a bed for you, man, here on the sofa, if you want to stay. T i m. Thanks.
P o l y a. No problem.
T i m. Merci.
P o l y a. The Jew-killer was a polite and deadly saviour.


Lights cut out.
 

The next day.

(Tim sits at a table, writing. Polya enters.)

T i m. Polichka! I’ve been thinking about you all the T i me.
P o l y a. Had breakfast?
T i m. I found your note that you had to go out and I should have breakfast by myself. Thanks.
P o l y a. You’re writing the novel?
T i m. The Great Consoler doesn’t want to put love under the executioner’s axe.
P o l y a. Is that better? He can refuse to be executed?
T i m. He can. However, in that case the rest of his life he will be spat upon, shamed and hated by the people. Firstly, everyone will think that the Great Consoler couldn’t console himself, therefore he doesn’t have the gift of consolation and all those executed after his false consolations were not comforted, they died under the executioner’s axe in inconsolable agony. And so the Great Consoler ate someone else’s white bread all his life and only did his own mercantile, black business. Secondly, in elite intellectual and many other circles close to the court, dying on the block, under the executioner’s axe, was considered something quite honourable and sacred, and many would have despised the Great Consoler for the fact that despite his inconsolability, he did not after all choose death and didn’t pass away with a pure, almost holy name.
P o l y a. And if the Great Consoler emigrates to another country where there are none of these ridiculous holy executions?
T i m. The novel takes place in the future, when all countries have united together, and the Earth has become a single country. Then emigration can save no one from execution.
P o l y a. What can save them?
T i m. My dear Polichka. Only one thing can offer salvation – the word of hope – God. That Christ has risen in the name of Truth. God is the Truth. And Truth is the Ultimate Measure of human Grace. Truth is paradise. And we were expelled from paradise. We took a bite from the fruit – we tear everything Jewish to pieces. Being present, we are absent. But the Fruit is still with us. The Fruit of saving and forgiving Russian love. You understand?
P o l y a. I don’t understand, I love, that’s all.
T i m. Without a love story you won’t write anything of global meaning – the truth won’t be all- inclusive.
P o l y a. What do you need to stigmatize a murder?
T i m. You need to kill someone yourself.
P o l y a. Have you killed someone?
T i m. I killed someone, but I didn’t feel it. P o l y a. How do you mean?
T i m. Just as I want to kiss you now, but I’m still afraid to ask: I don’t kiss you, so I don’t feel it.
P o l y a. Ask.
T i m. I already asked.
P o l y a. What did you ask?
T i m. I said I wanted to kiss you, but I’m still afraid to ask!
P o l y a. Ask!
T i m. I already asked!!!
P o l y a. What did you ask? Don’t raise your voice at me, killer!!! You don’t want anything else?!
T i m. I want everything, but I’m tired.
P o l y a. And you decided to die of fatigue?
T i m. From having to console myself.
P o l y a. From what?
T i m. From the fact that it’s impossible to console myself.
P o l y a. Is that why you want to die?
T i m. I did the most important thing – I fell in love with you. Thank you very much. Now I will definitely write the novel. There’s inspiration.
P o l y a. The inspiringly polite killer is a saviour and lover. Oh, I really like that. Such meaningful insane passions are like a whirlwind, and the more they become meaningful, the more they turn into utter madness. And I fell in love with you – such an impossible killer.
Murderers are probably loved more than anyone in the world. Is murder intoxicating, like love?
T i m. The meaning of murder is to give someone else’s body a state of rest. The dead man is the foundation of the entire universe. The thing is stable, measured. As Heraclitus said, ‘We live by each other’s death, we die by each other’s life’. Christ wouldn’t have risen, and no one would have loved Him if He hadn’t first died on the Cross. And now is the Time when any word and concept should be crucified on the Cross - on the Cross of Conciliation, on the Cross of Measure
– otherwise we will never understand anything, otherwise His Death would be absurd. An example of His Death would be terribly absurd – that Man was crucified like that and He suffered like that. Nature doesn’t do murder. It’s only people that kill themselves and others just for rusty kopecks.
P o l y a. And you’ll crucify me so you can love me even more.
T i m. Are you ready to pay?
P o l y a. So you don’t work for free, killer?
T i m. After I stopped killing it turned out that I was unable to earn money any other way.
P o l y a. What’s that? (Picks up a note from the table.)
T i m. A message.
P o l y a. Who’s the message from?
T i m. Your son called. Said he’s coming over.
P o l y a. My son? When’s he coming?
T i m. He’s coming tomorrow.
P o l y a. What did his voice sound like over the phone?
T i m. A bit pensive. Will I get in his way here? Should I go?
P o l y a. Where to?
T i m. The squat.
P o l y a. They’re demolishing it.
T i m. I can go sleep in the Bois de Boulogne. There’s an inflatable mattress in my suitcase.
P o l y a. You still want to kiss me?
T i m. Yes.
P o l y a. You can try.
T i m. Thanks. (Kisses her.) You really are a divine girl.
P o l y a. You can and should beat me for that.
T i m. I was beaten in Russia for being a Jew, in Israel for being a Russian. In Israel I went to the pharmacy once and there’s this typical Soviet Jewess behind the counter. I treat her as a person, in Russian, and she replies in Yiddish, but she can’t string two words together properly. All ass in a white overall, this lady babbles away nineteen to the dozen, on purpose so I don’t understand. Belching out her stinky Jewishness. And there was no one except me to show off in front of in this pharmacy, no Israeli bonuses to nail up. Well, that’s when I took some headache pills for free, put my knife to her Adam’s apple. Just like that, in half a second, in a typical Moscow drawl she hands over the medicine for free. When there are only Jews in one country, Jews can’t stand that setup. And I always asked the client who needed to be dispatched and what for. That was my condition. If it was a good guy, I didn’t kill him. Several times I just took out the clients so that nothing would happen to their victims without me. And I did it for free – anonymously, very positively. It’s a fucking joke, Israel’s like a worst version of life in the
Soviet Union. Every day the Jews crucify Christ the Jew exquisitely there, with the senselessness of the Jewish peddler. For every head of Jewish-immigrant-Alim, America or someone else still absurdly donates twenty-five thousand dollars, if not more, for physical and physiological provision. Twenty thousand is stolen by the Israeli bureaucracy. There, stealing is considered a worthy Jewish craft, especially in the state structure, among immigrant beggars, among the Alims, who haven’t yet figured out the system of theft in their Jewish kingdom, a state with Black Jews along with the same Jewish Arabs and mafia rabbis from China. Over there you’re just a suitcase for them with budget kickback money that just arrived at a seaside resort to visit them in Israel, with a parcel from Auntie Moti and your ugly Ryazan mug for a change of mother country. And if you don’t know how to open your own business at least, like me with my social hitman services, you understand, then you the Jewish professor will be charmingly, cleanly sweeping the streets for them, and tomorrow I can’t guarantee under which Tel Aviv train you will throw yourself like your own Annushka Karenina. Well, in short, if we discard everything superfluous – I’m not the marionette killer like Dostoevsky’s Raskolnikov – in order to then go through a contrived torment of the soul to surrender to the authorities there and repent forever. If I kill, I kill without repentance. You can’t kill someone if you think you’re going to repent later. But on the other hand, I’m in favour of finding positive healthy forces in the novel that could catch and kill a killer like me. As in Shakespeare’s ‘Macbeth’. I already told you.
Macduff, the most positive noble Scotsman, was found to put an end to Macbeth. Shakespeare’s killer Macbeth himself does not repent. This is the redeeming truth in the life of art. Only in this case will life continue in its moral, righteous, objective flowering. There is no redeeming truth of life and art in the contrived, fabricated repentance of the schematic murderer Raskolnikov. The image of Raskolnikov brought our killer Russian Revolution. Because in the novel Dostoevsky did not destroy Raskolnikov, but released his beloved Napoleonic thinker for pseudo self- repentance. He became the fortified Raskolnikov of 1918 and began bumping off all the Porphyrys and Elizavetas…
P o l y a. But how can a killer like you be murdered by positive forces that will actually be sincerely conscientious and visionary, absolutely convinced that after killing you they will not save this world but bring evil to it, with more murders everywhere.
T i m. Enough. Polichka. Let’s make peace. You’ve won with your feminine, maternal, peace- loving, all-seeing, insightful, over-logical, righteous nature. Anyway, in short, we won’t kill anyone else – we write novels about how someone was killed in past times. We earn a lot of money from these memoirs, these redeeming novels in schematic series, and we go to a far-away island in the Pacific Ocean to engage in fucking, absorbing love for inspiration – so that the next lot of redeeming novels go into multiple editions scribbled between ejaculations… Sorry.
P o l y a. Write whatever you want, just try not to fake it.
T i m. My dear, then we’re here in just the right place. For a moral and psychological ethical novel – here in Russian immigration – that isn’t faked, the most submissive city is Paris.
Wherever you look – the immorality of life plus our immigrant complicity, you might say – taking the immorality of an immigrant and branding it with shame. Yura Tomsky, the Parisian ballerino boy, lent me Vikochka Malinina in a white wedding for five greenbacks. Before that, a private business of immigrant Alims taught me how to rob Israel when leaving for eight and a half, not the Fellini way, with dollar greenbacks for twenty-five percent of the total amount stated, working as a guarantor and buying overpriced apartments. Our entire immigrant life here is just brilliantly immorally co-organized, Polichka. You can’t shoot all the freaks and you can’t lock them up in novels. I got you, of course, with my Blue Beard delirium. I hope you will still let me through your ears and into your soul in a Christian way, that you perceive me as a poet, a samurai killer poet in his noble field of war, in service to the master. My God-master is you now. My killer characters just involve me. Really, the bastards have got me – they entered me body and soul. SomeT i mes I really don’t see any difference between myself and my killer characters.
P o l y a. I myself ate my son in Paris.
T i m. Was it tasty?
P o l y a. Very.
T i m. Then who called you? What nonsense are you telling me?
P o l y a. Timochka, as a Jewess I learned to eat my children from the Russians. They, the Russians, reproach us Jews for eating our own children.
T i m. But wait – you’re Russian, Polina.
P o l y a. Russian girls are the most patient little girls in the world. Like Jewish girls. Even more patient than Jewish girls. That’s why Russian Jews love Russian women. And Russian women love Jews because Russian Jews are the most inveterate Russian freaks – without the natural step of a sparrow, but only a leap to the side and a gallop from heel to toe. They chirrup above all but jump lower and lower into the filth, lower still. And when I finally realized that I’m the most Jewish sparrow – I calmly, spiritually and physiologically pecked at my very Russian son, a little kike chick.
T i m. He said his name’s Lyora. You have a son called Lyora?
P o l y a. I have everything – I live with a Jew in the West. That’s what we’re talking about.
T i m. The Great Consoler and his beloved girl at the bottom of the grave were talking about worms. And I really forgot about the executioner, who is very kind and on whom a lot depends in this execution.
P o l y a. Oh, that’s cool. The executioner should always be the kindest person in the realm – so that people aren’t afraid of him when he chops off their heads. Listen, if the executioner doesn’t want to chop off his head for his own personal reasons, no matter what they are, then maybe he won’t chop off the head of the Great Consoler? The executioner has the right to surprise the unpredictability of his soul and heart, so that the public loves and fears him more? Eh?
T i m. This surprise of unpredictability is revealed, usually, at the last moment – when the head of the Great Consoler will already be lying on the block and the executioner’s axe will already be rising towards the sun, the stars – from there, whack, and the head and neck are slit in two forever.
P o l y a. Interesting. If the executioner cuts off the head of the Great Consoler, he will cut off the head of a murderer. But if a murderer kills a murderer, then there is still a murderer left in the world.
T i m. He who wants to live most remains. The one who knows how to forget he is a murderer. And again without the nerves and worries of the fictional murderer Raskolnikov. Dostoevsky didn’t kill anyone himself. How could he know all these torments of the soul, the consequences after the murder, all this was groundless. The murderer only needs to be killed, I repeat.
Allowing a murderer to repent is a crime. That is my belief. But, of course, with part of my Russian soul I clearly understand that Dostoevsky is right in terms of Christian Mercy – we must give even the murderer the opportunity to repent. Otherwise the world will self-destruct. But this is turning the other cheek. I myself do so often in life. But in the novel – you want to kill this bitch so badly – you can’t imagine it.
P o l y a. Kiss me, executioner.
T i m. Of course, Joan of Arc! (Kisses Polya.) If only everyone was like you, Polichka! We wouldn’t need to kill anyone. (Takes her hand.) You’re trembling all over, this is magical!
P o l y a. You want to die from my love, Tim?
T i m. I do.
P o l y a. I too want to die from your love, Tim. Tim. I love you, Polichka! (Kisses Polya.)
P o l y a. I think the problem of killers can be solved very easily: if all the killers kill each other there will be no more killers left in the World. And you will be the most important CEO in finding and pitting these killers against each other. I’ll let you do that.
T i m. For your sake I will sort out all the murderers in no time – and let them devour one another, like rats in a barrel.
P o l y a. And the last remaining killer must commit suicide. Just don’t kill him yourself, or you’ll be a killer yourself.
T i m. Why are you trembling? Are you cold, or scared?
P o l y a. With a cool killer like you and for a nymphet Natalie Portman like me nothing is frightening, LEON my saviour! (Kisses him).


Lights cut out.


(The next day. Onstage, Polya and Lyora.)


L y o r a. Polya, are you delirious? You dragged back to our home some kind of vagrant killer Jewish genius of Russian origin? Some kind of crazy Great Consoler, mad, pro-active, an executioner and good Saviour. Polya, this will drive me to the grave in no time. Isn’t my leprous moviemaking enough for you? Aren’t I, idiot that I am, enough for you? This is a tragedy, Polichka, a funeral march.
P o l y a. You’re not an idiot, Lyora. You have a very big metaphysical necrological opinion of yourself.
L y o r a. In short, what bald devil sent this blue balloon here?
P o l y a. You’re not a blue balloon yourself?
L y o r a. Isn’t it enough, the blue balloon you have already? Polya, this is crossing the borderline.
P o l y a. I got used to it. I’ve flown across many borders. Israeli, American, French. With a clapped-out conductor like you.
L y o r a. Isn’t one clapped-out Jewish fool enough for you?
P o l y a. I only know one Jewish fool – that’s you.
L y o r a. Suppose I’ll have to give in. If you really want me to give in, I’ll give in.
P o l y a. I want you to give in.
L y o r a. Polya, I’m deeply, super-existentially fucked up in this non-therapeutic Immigration – I’m devouring the last AIDS-ridden remnants, my Polichka. I’m already a stinking corpse in soul, in body, and in the pricks of others. And you still want to press another corpse into my body bag, wedging him in. For you I’m some kind of Belmondo. I’ve been with you a long Time. And right now I’ll tear like a ten-times-used johnnie. You’re ready for that?
P o l y a. Of course.
L y o r a. Well, dear comrades. Polya. Polinochka. Well, what else do you want from me? Shall I completely deflate and die? Then this lousy genius of yours will die sooner, if not head first then feet first, straight to the crematorium.
P o l y a. You’re a rare Jew-boy, Lyora.
L y o r a. A seductively rare Jew-boy, my dear Polina. Well, where do we put him, on which floor? That’s enough, Polichka. We talked enough – that’s it. Enough. Two Jew noses in one prison cell cannot exist in this world, ever. Besides, I’m still jealous of you.
P o l y a. What?
L y o r a. For you none of this is love. No doubt about it. I understand. But even then – he’s taking the shit here.
P o l y a. And you?
L y o r a. It’s my home.
P o l y a. I put up the dosh.
L y o r a. Okay, enough – hammer me into the coffin, hammer me in – go on. But let it be my own coffin, I want to be alone. This is the last and only wish of your dearest beloved corpse – to be at least quietly, silently alone in my own coffin, it doesn’t have to be made of crystal, no need for precious materials or music.
P o l y a. Why can’t we be happy, Lyora?
L y o r a. Nobody gets to be happy, Polya.
P o l y a. Then what do people live for?
L y o r a. We’re born and we live out our lives, no more and no less.
P o l y a. Don’t be mean to him, Lyora. He was born, he’s our son.
L y o r a. I’m going crazy, that’s for sure.
P o l y a. Why do I go on living with you when it’s impossible for me to live with you? Let me go, Lyora!
L y o r a. I’ll let you go, no problem. You’re in the West, you can do anything you like here.
P o l y a. It was in Russia I did everything I wanted. Here there’s freedom – here you have to respect the freedom of others – your freedom, Lyora. But it’s only you, lamb of the executor- destroyer, that can do everything you want here – you stole my freedom, my anal freedom.
When will we Russians get smarter?
L y o r a. If we get smarter, that’ll be boring.
P o l y a. The French aren’t bored in France. Why don’t you want to be a simple, exemplary, intelligent Jew? Go to work, get paid, finally, like a real normal, useful Jew.
L y o r a. Because of my upbringing. I’m a Jew – there’s no way I can get smarter. But for future prosperity, you first need to become Ivan the fool! Yes, yes! Every day I explain to you, girl, my brain nipple system. For you to become a lady you have to outslut all the sluts. And I have to lie on the stove like a foolish Yemelka, to be resurrected later as the Prince. Don’t cry, damn it, just let me make my movie – everything will be OK for queens in checkmate, we’ll smash all your freak enemies as you always love to do. We’ll go to Cannes, win the prize and sit in the immortal kingdom. The plot is cool, about this village where the residents don’t know what kind of fruit a Jew is and what to eat it with. And so the cannibals who escaped from prison and accidentally stumbled upon this Siberian taiga village begin to explain to them, these cloth-eared people, how Jews can be deliciously gutted. Well, I told you. I’m going to make short work of everyone with this movie, goddamn. Now it’s the only Jewish theme – they cut off everyone’s prick, Polya. After all, it’s only this way that the nomenclature brother will speculate on the topic of Jewish moolah. And, bitch, he doesn’t invite me to his dacha in Cannes to have fun.
He’s a worldwide fighter for the rights of unrecognized dishes, a cut-throat fighting bro, but he doesn’t invite Lyorochka and his fucking prick to his dacha for merrymaking at the Cannes festival. The hard-currency payment and the glory are only for porno, to seduce even more free- of-charge sluts, and the other Yemelyas get a yoke in the temple. With no clever Jewish brains I don’t understand this Darwinism of the bohemian stubborn absurd, my dear Polina. I must be crazy. Damn it – twenty thousand euros in Dieppe, fuck it, lost at roulette. Well, for greenbacks I took this Korean, Dobrynya from Kazakhstan, a producer, to Dieppe to breathe the air of the English Channel and fuck a few French salopes. I was punished to the tune of twenty thousand euros. Dammit, Polya, by all the saints, by the vices of all the saints, I swear – I’ll give you twenty thousand corrupt euros. I owe Boule ten thousand now. If I don’t give Boule ten thousand in three days Boule will cut your Lyorochka, your not-fully-killed louse from the Soviet Union with a penknife. Polinochka-Linochka, I’ll give you those euro notes. I won’t burn out this Time with the Soviet Union, dammit. There’s a free-of-charge fucking Jewish movie we can fly out to shoot right away. Well, we needed and there was and will be a Korean, a right bastard, Dobrynya from Kazakhstan, Ilya Muromets in Mumu. He tells me that in the movies right now they need music and pictures, and my script about a village with cannibals and no Jews is pass;. Lyorochka, he says, you can shove your Jewish script in your fucking Jewish black ass. In the movies music and pictures can make the people pay money!!! This Korean Kaiser from Kazakhstan, the dick! Like the mute Korean in a black metal hat with Goldfinger, a killer, James
Bond Sean Connery 007, there he was gracefully felled with a voltaic arc at the end. You know it. And no one else promises me currency for a movie, goddam. After all, everyone likes anal real art. And I’m like a saint, fighting for pure, big, sacred art. Porn everywhere, in life and in movies. Enough to give you a migraine, a stroke, Polinochka. Let Boule slice me up, for fuck’s sake, for steamed meat. No, fuck it, let Boule chop me into foie gras. I don’t need any wiping paper euro
francs shit, Polichka. Especially since all your money is holy. Let Boule slash me, for fuck’s sake, once and for all.
P o l y a. Let Boule slash you... once and for all.
L y o r a. Well, yes – of course, once and for all, let Boule cut me, my sweet darling. Thank you, mother, for your holy and heavenly sincerity. Thank you. I definitely deserved it.
P o l y a. I don’t have ten thousand euros, Lyora.
L y o r a. I played to win. For you to win, Polichka. Before that I’d won a lot for you.
P o l y a. You’ve only been losing lately. And I’m crying with my leaky doped pussy-rose, I’m crying with my life, Lyorka.
L y o r a. I don’t have a leaky doped pussy-rose, Polichka. And my life is torn to shreds, burning in your tender pink hands.
P o l y a. And you don’t have a penis, Lyorochka.
L y o r a. I do have a penis, Polya – let’s not thrash my dick too.
P o l y a. This big leaky smelly torn ass everywhere. And of course he suffered from it… I begged you, pleaded with you not to play that bloody roulette any more.
L y o r a. I wanted to win, Polichka. I wanted to win for your sake, baby.
P o l y a. Okay, Lyorka, don’t whine.
L y o r a. You’re my God, Polichka. God alone knows, you’re God to me, Polinochka.
 P o l y a. Save me, Lyora.
L y o r a. I want to save you, Polinochka! But you can see what an asshole I am, a Russian sham miser of Jewish origin. But I love you. Only God knows how I love you, Polinochka!!! (Weeps.) I’m a slimeball – I’m the last Russian slimeball of Jewish origin, Polinochka!!! (Weeps.)
P o l y a. You’re the first Russian slimeball of Jewish origin, Lyorochka.
L y o r a. Kill, kill me, Polichka!!! (Weeps.)

(Tim appears in the doorway. Polya and Lyora don’t see him.)

All I ask of you is that you don’t kiss Tim. If you infect him with AIDS – he’s crazy, he’ll tell everyone.
P o l y a. Lyora takes good care of himself.
L y o r a. Lyora takes good care of everyone.
P o l y a. You can’t get AIDS by kissing. It was you who brought me this AIDS-carrying rich French Jerome, Lyorka.
L y o r a. I warned you, Polichka. You agreed to it. You even wanted to risk going with this provocative AIDS-carrier yourself. I’m guilty every time, always, I know. Kill me, your Jewish asshole, tonight, Polinochka!!! (Weeps.)
P o l y a. It was then I decided to kill myself. Because you, Lyora, my tender, loving and beloved animal-husband, brought me an AIDS-carrier, and wanted this AIDS-carrying Jerome to want me for one hundred thousand euros... And I wanted that.
L y o r a. Polinochka! But where are they, my beloved, the one hundred thousand euros?!!!
P o l y a. Polinochka pierced a hole in the johnnie with her sharp nail, before making love with the prince.
L y o r a. Every day, such details – I can’t take it, Polinochka, makes me cry, Polinochka!!! (Weeps.)
P o l y a. And the AIDS-ridden sperm of the lovely Jerome the AIDS-carrier, stayed inside me forever.
L y o r a. My sweet, my beloved, dear, darling, unhappy Polichka – this is unbearable. Kill me, your bastard, your Jewish asshole, Polichka!!! (Weeps.)
P o l y a. When Jeromchik slid his penis out of me and saw the torn johnnie and realized that he had come with AIDS-ridden sperm into my body, then Jerome sobbed like Shakespeare and carried me to the bathtub in his arms, just as Othello carried the strangled Desdemona. And all night, for hours, he washed me in the bath with perfumes and shampoos. And he licked me with
his tongue and swallowed his AIDS sperm with his mouth. Oh, my sweet AIDS-ridden Jerome, this was our fatal destiny. I wanted to kill myself, and now I’m doing just that. I don’t blame you, Lyorochka for anything – it was me that wanted to fuck for money. And you didn’t protest, Lyorochka, my beloved, dear, darling killer.
L y o r a. I must have been mad!!! I am mad!!! Polinochka!!! (Weeps.) To emigrate and end up catching AIDS?!! Fuck it!!! Fuck it!!! Fuck it!!! I’ll make a great movie, Polina – all the sluts- Akashics-lady-swans, such a movie, shit, I’ll fuck, I’ll screw the bastards that inflicted this immigration on us, shit, I’ll kill those AIDS-mongers.
P o l y a. No problem working as a pro when you’re beautiful. But when a working girl’s beauty disappears, everything disappears in a pale and beautiful way. And AIDS disappears you faster and more zealously. Oh, divine AIDS, thank you for this royal meeting... Don’t hurt Tim, he’s a good man. I have so little time left to live, Lyora. Don’t hurt Tim.
L y o r a. Everything will be alright, Polichka.
P o l y a. If not I’ll go to the hospital and get registered. When I can’t extort money from the amorous preoccupied population of Paris Boule will kill you quickly, once and for all, with ultimate harmony and rhythm.

(Tim coughs.)

L y o r a. Jesus! You should knock before entering, Timokha! Isn’t that right, Polichka? T i m. I...  Sorry. I wasn’t thinking.
P o l y a. Sit down and have some tea, Tim. I’ll get the tea. (Goes out to the kitchen.)
T i m (picks up a pack of pills from the table). AZT. Polina’s got AIDS?
L y o r a. Polina’s got AIDS.
T i m. You can’t get AIDS by kissing.
L y o r a. You can’t get AIDS by kissing. (Polya comes in with the tea.)
P o l y a. Everything’s ok. Have some tea, guys.
L y o r a. Don’t tell anyone Polina has AIDS, T i m. Alright?
T i m. Of course not.
L y o r a. And don’t kiss Polina any more. Apart from having AIDS she’s my wife, not my mother. Understand?
T i m. Of course. I kissed Polina in a friendly way, as the French do. After all, we’re living in France now.
L y o r a. Polina and I have French passports, but I don’t want to see any more French kisses, Ti. Alright?
T i m. Alright.
L y o r a. That’s ok then. So. In short. Lyora wants to smoke, but Lyora doesn’t have any cigarettes left. Ok? No fooling around, guys. No need for any more problems in a foreign country.
Ok? (He is about to go out.)
P o l y a. I’ll go get some cigarettes. Need a breath of air. My head is aching. (Goes out.)
L y o r a. We’ve all got a headache... That girl gives you a headache.
T i m. She’s a good girl.
L y o r a. We’re all good girls – when we’re not bad boys. Will you write a screenplay for me? I’ll give you the initial concept. A dazzling plot and a harrowing Jewish theme.
T i m. I’m writing a novel.
L y o r a. What asshole wants your Great Consoler now, especially here in Paris. You must be totally crazy, and you seem to be a Jew, too. You need to reflect the mood of the moment. Now even anti-Semites don’t regret putting money on tear-jerking Jewish stories.
T i m. You don’t say.
L y o r a. If you don’t have a Jewish theme in the West today, then tomorrow the West will have you, a Jew, scuppered with a Jewish theme, they’ll have you fucked without even asking your last name. You need to be first to jab your hobbled lupine between-the-legs hard-on Jewish- Russian member in here quickly, very timely and boldly, deep inside to the point of obscurity – radiation in the eyes of this hoarded-up West – if the West itself has pleaded to be assfucked with the Jewish Russian theme. And if you manage to fuck the West well, then love will drag itself along with the world autopilot. If you fuck the West with love, Russia will already be waving its ass by inertia, in line with the West. And if Russia is waving its ass, in the West they’re already warmed up and ready, you simply rule forever, a millionaire Rothschild with yachts. You’re even better than them – you put the Russia-girl with the West, the pederast Dorian Gray fatalistic killer, languidly side by side, doggy style, and into their anal holes all along the spine with a gasp, one by one, you curse and insert your immeasurably active prick, and with a Kalashnikov burst you come orgasmically in their happy, gaping mouths. Surely, my boy, such a scenario about life and art must be a success?
T i m. The way to live a long life without any stress.
L y o r a. You got it! Your brain cells are already in motion. Then you turn on the music and the movie is off and running. Write a script, Consoler, this will be a great consolation to us. While in Russia everything is practically free – take it, motherfucker, don’t pass by the free movie in Russia from Paris, immigrant boy, for the glory of your homeland – we’re not slaves. Or write a blood-soaked murderous porn scenario in the nostalgic Soviet KGB mode about a mutually murderous group on the genetic hemorrhoidal sub-cortex level in Paris. Any Western porn is rejected for our own historical films that bleed with the tragedy of love for the ineligible power. Turn out the light and flash up the movie. What powerful forces of secret Soviet agents are gathered in Paris to fuck each other in the ass in unison until they are felled by the fever of AIDS and the grave beyond. They’re cooler here, our cockroach scum are stronger than in the USSR, my euro boy. So nobody can guess who is a dissident and who is KGB – everyone has completely fucked everyone else here, they all dug into all the KGB, dissident, Politburo and other Jewish-Russian holy holes. Everyone just wants to fuck and spectacularly zigzag a close friend, so that foreigners are still afraid. One type of salvation is to be the first, I repeat, to fuck – pumping like a fire engine, confidently, brazenly, deeply and boldly. That is what you must write for me in your great holy script, while your brain is still all-seeing, prophetic and accurate.
T i m. You speak colourfully.
L y o r a. But I can’t write colourfully, writer.
T i m. But wait, when you fuck someone you really forget yourself – and that’s when someone puts his AIDS-ridden dick in your ass for his own sweet, immeasurably prophetic murderous pleasure!
L y o r a. Well, that’s the essence of porn in bohemian group sex – the one who fucks to death the first, without knowing why, only to win glory and then, with all this monetary glory, to more easily and sincerely flog and knock down the others.
T i m. The end-to-end theme is awesome.
L y o r a. My boy. Here is a topic that’s really biblical and at the same time contemporary, bloody and sacred, with repentance in the finale. Polish Jews from Siberia told me this in Paris. Ephemerically speaking all Cannes will be ours. But if you, people’s commissar, plagiarize my plot for your novels I will kill you, piss-head, without trial or investigation. Ok? Lyorochka’s ultimate judgement will be to ride you into the asphalt without trial or investigation.
T i m. And what else is in store on the asphalt, commissar, in short?
L y o r a. You’re a serious Jew with a lightning-quick brain, I really like you, lifer. In short, this Jewish plot about a flourishing but remote Siberian village of some fifty houses surrounded by cedar forests. The people living in these houses sowed wheat, they have cattle. They have them in the bestial sense, too – this is when God can’t see because of the clouds. When there’s no God at all. Where could he be – he’s not there, not anywhere. A truly atheistic plot, right through to
the end. Two cannibal fugitives from the GULAG end up there – a third convict that ran away with them got eaten long ago, and now they’re hungry again. They see this village ahead with smoking chimneys. They enter. The villagers welcome them as honoured guests with bread and salt. Soon they put the newcomers in charge of the village. The residents soon realize the convicts have big members-generators – they can penetrate anyone they like in any aperture without lubricant. They are confident in their members. Time passes – the convicts crave fresh human flesh. So they tell the population: all your diseases, and all other misfortunes with a fatal outcome, are the fault of the Jews. If children go missing in the forest, they’ve been eaten by the Jews, no doubt about it. The day before the cannibals had specially led two little kids away into the forest, roasted them over a Pioneer bonfire and devoured them. The populace has never heard of Jews before and asks them to explain in detail. The convicts explain it like this: let all the villagers with hooked noses wade into the river to waist level, and the other villagers with upturned noses should take knives and stakes and stand on the banks – in this way the Jews will be revealed. Being na;ve and uneducated, the villagers carry out the convicts’ instructions. Then the convicts tell the inhabitants with upturned noses and knives or stakes that the naked
inhabitants with hooked noses in the river are these same Jews and should be quickly slaughtered, salted like fruit or vegetables and eaten slowly, so they last a long time. The people with
upturned noses do as the convicts ordered. They develop a taste for Jewish flesh and eat it quickly with appetite for a long time. But again the time comes when all the human flesh has been devoured and the people with upturned noses feel the urge for more Jewish meat. The convicts tell them straight out, without taking them to the river: those who, despite their upturned noses, have curly hair and dark eyes are naturally also Jews, the same fruit and vegetables. And with surprising resignation these new Jews surrender themselves to feed the others. Then the rest of the people with upturned noses are also butchered and pickled, and to this day the convicts haven’t yet managed to devour all their grandchildren. This is the basic material for the screenplay of my film. But it needs developing, maybe with a few depraved culinary details.
T i m. With a culinary theme of depraved cannibalism as well – back off, Lyora. Not my style.
L y o r a. Back off yourself. Why tell your lies about the Great Consoler to us, the grandchildren of convicts? I can understand your Consoler doesn’t need a cannibalistic culinary theme, I agree. But my theme of convict Great Stranglers with a cannibalistic culinary aspect would be more interesting as a farce. I could write it myself. Can’t you see, the soul is utterly sullied by this life of immigrant intrigue. In this taiga story I only feel the soul of these cannibal convicts. The film script must also have the theme of love, between a hooked nose and an upturned nose, something touching, na;ve and lyrical, so that ordinary people buy cinema tickets and go see a film they find moving. You can add something about love for me. I think you still have it in you.
Otherwise, when I think about the script I see before me not frozen Russia, but Israel, the USA, or even Paris, a gay faggot instead of this village lost in the Siberian taiga. And the convicts are like the grey KGB and gulag rats eating me, eating the simple, honest immigrant toiler alive.
That might be tolerable if I didn’t see myself in my scenario as this cannibalistic grey rat that devours itself. Total fucking self-destruction every way you look at it. But it looks like I can’t devour myself entirely. Help me write this script, brother. Or devour me, this anti-Semitic Jew immigrant cannibal, all raw, without culinary perversion, just devour me.
T i m. Lyora. I don’t have the appetite for it.
L y o r a. Let’s drink then, that will give you an appetite! (Reaches for a bottle.) (Polya enters.)
P o l y a. Your fags. (Gives Lyora pack of cigarettes.)
L y o r a. Thanks, Polichka, you’re a sweetheart. (Lights up.) Okay, guys. Let’s think it over, make an outline of the script, Tim – then we’ll be friendly and happy, just like in the movies. Ok? (Looks at his watch.) Oh yeah! I’m meant to be at a Party meeting with the old lags.
There’re having a rendezvous in the bar across the street. I won’t be long. Have fun.
 
(Goes out.)
P o l y a. So what d’you think of Lyora? A man who’s alive but dead.
T i m. I love you, Polya.
P o l y a. Love is beautiful. The most magical category in the wonderful human eternity. But they haven’t found an AIDS drug yet. Everyone dies and so will I. Why should God make an exception for a whore like me? If God exists. Other girls who were never whores die without God. I love you too, Tim.
(Puts her arms round him, starts to cry.) Why is there no cure for this damn disease? T i m. Will you give me AIDS, Polichka?
P o l y a. What?
T i m. I can’t live after you die, Polinochka.
P o l y a. What are you saying?
T i m. I can’t live without you. I want to die of your... AIDS. Then I’ll know I’m dying from your microbes, and I’ll feel better. I agree to die of your germs, Polinochka. I want you, Polina. Can I kiss you like a man kisses his beloved wife, on the mouth, slowly-slowly?
P o l y a. You can.

(Long kiss between Tim and Polya.)

T i m. I want you, Polina. I want you to give me your AIDS. I want you, Polina!
P o l y a. Then take me – take me!!!

(Pause.)

T i m. My... my prick... he doesn’t want to... stand up. I’m impotent. Can’t get hard. Complete prostration. That lousy squat must be the reason. (Weeps.)
P o l y a. Calm down, Tim. I’ll feed you up. You’ll soon be strong and hard. If you go jogging you’ll soon recover your strength. Won’t you?
T i m. I’ll do that later. Ok? For now give me your finger, I’ll make a little cut, make you bleed a bit, like my finger. (Cuts his finger with a knife.)
P o l y a. You’re crazy.
T i m. Look, it’s beautiful. The red blood of love.
P o l y a. Of love...
T i m. Doesn’t hurt at all.
P o l y a. Doesn’t hurt...
T i m. Can I give you a little cut to show the red blood of love?
P o l y a. Go on.

(Tim cuts Polya’s finger with the knife.)

T i m. Look, yours looks very beautiful too – the red blood… of love...
P o l y a. Of love...
T i m. Can my wound love your wound a bit?
P o l y a. Go on.
T i m (presses the cut on his finger to the cut on her finger.) I’m so happy, Polichka.
P o l y a. Timochka!

(They embrace, begin a long kiss.)

T i m (looks at his cut). God gave life to all. The AIDS microbes want to live too.
P o l y a. What have you done, Timochka? What have I done? Timochka!!! (Wraps her arms
round Tim, kisses him, weeps.)
T i m. AIDS will be a good executioner. He will execute us both simultaneously.
P o l y a. Romantic.
T i m. Love saves romantics from life.
P o l y a. Truly. You’re crazy, Timochka!!! (She faints.)
T i m. Polinochka! (Leans over Polya as she lies on the floor, kisses her.) (Lyora enters.)
L y o r a. What happened?
T i m. Polinochka fell over.
L y o r a. If Polinochka fell over we must lift Polinochka up.
(They place Polya on the sofa. Revive her. Give her a glass of water.) What happened, Polinochka?
P o l y a. Lyora.
L y o r a. I’m Lyora, I’m here. What happened?
P o l y a. My head’s spinning.
L y o r a. Shall I give you a pill?
P o l y a. It’s quicker without pills.
L y o r a. Tim, maybe she’ll listen to you at least and swallow these anti-AIDS pills! Well, what else can we do, Polichka? I’m going mad. I’m going mad for sure, guys. It’ll be for the best. It’s still impossible to understand this leprous AIDS-ridden immigrant life, my brothers!
P o l y a. Everything’s ok, Lyorochka. Lyorochka, you’re a good guy.
L y o r a. We’re all good guys, Polichka, when we want to be. That’s a golden notebook quote. (Jots it down in his notebook.) I’m going schizo – I need a drink. Tim, Polina, we’re human, we a drink – can’t we just forget for a while that we’re dung worms here in Paris?
P o l y a. Let’s drink.
T i m. Let’s drink.
L y o r a. Now we can have a human conversation, guys. (Finds some glasses and a bottle of vodka, pours.) They completely gutted me with their versified bohemian chatter. What are we toasting?
P o l y a. The Earth.
L y o r a. Idle talk of trans-bohemian worms.
T i m. If the Earth didn’t exist, there’d be no sky.
L y o r a. The Earth revolves around the sun in the cosmos.
P o l y a. And somewhere in Paris the Eiffel Tower penetrates the Earth like a splinter.
L y o r a. C’est la vie. That’s the way it is. We’ll survive. That will do.
(They drink.)


Lights cut out.


Lyora and Tim.


L y o r a. No, I don’t understand you at all, my friend. God gave you talent as a writer and Lyora has offered you a real-life commission so you can earn money and be famous. What do you say? You’ll never be able to get rich with your Great Consoler. They told me in Israel that I too could
send Jews to their coffins. I will never believe that a gay clown like you can outsmart the Jews. Although there’s a few gay faschists who might be capable of it. Well, write a script about how they eviscerated the Jews in Israel, non-baptised anti-Semite. Let the love in this scenario be fatal yet uncomplicated. Let every Frenchman from Bordeaux and every Russian immigrant pay the cinema so he and his beloved wife can watch the film. I’m tired of making films free of charge. How long can I do it? Life in Paris is too expensive. I’m worn out, man. I need a rest. Do you need a rest?
T i m. Absolutely.
L y o r a. Let’s take a holiday, then. Why shouldn’t two healthy men take a break. Here the vino, let’s get pissed. (Pours Tim some wine; he too drinks.)
T i m. Polya’s an amazing girl.
L y o r a. There’s no place left to brand this amazing girl. The little witch really knows how to put herself about. You’re in love with her? My heartfelt congratulations. All the more since Polichka is my wife, legally speaking. A fatal love affair for your screenplay? You think I don’t love or feel jealous about this nymphet? You’re very much mistaken, comrade. This is curly shaggy-headed Polichka, a whore who still can’t figure out that love and life are out of proportion. She’s a trollop, and she’s got AIDS – to avenge me, a bald Jew, for my faithful love with a deadly fate – an AIDS-infected cunt. Yes, really – a natural Russian phony slut. Here in the West that’s the Jewish existence. The all-loving Russian brain may still be worth something in Russia. Well, she’s a patient whore, that’s true. For that I appreciate Russian women – I size them up, love, screw and respect them. I wouldn’t have risked leaving for the West with a natural, real-life, tender but thoroughly cheapskate Jewess, a real blue-blooded Jewess. What Polina had to put up with due to my lifestyle would have buried ten Sarahs, no problem. But even with my complex Jewish brain I can’t understand simple Russian chicks. How many of them I fucked, all different, but I know with my sperm sucking brain that they only have one thinking convolution, their scratchy pink slit. But their edelweiss, this murderous snake-killing crotch splinter, has an incomparable capacity for reason. So this girl Polinka starts putting out, so I get jealous? But I’m not jealous, damn it. If she doesn’t believe that I love her, to hell with it, but I’m not jealous – my armpits don’t itch with jealousy, that’s it, no matter how much you stray, slut, you can be a right royal whore. Did she give you this trope about the ladies who are the bitchiest sluts, too? Yes, she just started putting out and she just really liked screwing. To begin with she did it for free, on the side. Then she sees you can get good money for fucking.
And she started earning big bucks. And I don’t care if she earns good money. I don’t live with her to sponge on her money. I’m just a stable kind of family guy, faithful to my one and only. If I married the one girl, I’ll live and die with her alone. I too can have a bit on the side, it’s only natural. Nature demands that sperm is selflessly shed and shared with someone or other. It’s not a crime, T i m, for a guy to have a few fucks in his own paid living space. All the more so, when your own pussy fucks until she catches AIDS. And of course, if you’re screwing you need to screw a few lookers. And if they’re lookers, they’re young. If they’re young, it gets expensive.
At least Polinka understands me in this respect and gives me money for girls and boys, it’s because she still loves me, that’s why she gives money to her Jewboy ferret for his Yid copulation. Probably she wants me to get AIDS, too. And I skewer very young girls and even younger boys like chaste and cute baby monkeys. I ask them for their medical certificates. If I’m not sure I screw them with a rubber johnnie. What can you do, brother, when you’re not quite sure? So you’re not well acquainted with AIDS yourself?
T i m. This AIDS can fuck off as far as I’m concerned.
L y o r a. Excuse me, brother, I looked in your suitcase and found an HIV-negative test certificate, although it’s a year old.
T i m. Borya Tomsky, the forensic labial expert, wouldn’t let me live in his house unless I brought him a certificate.
L y o r a. You lived with him?
T i m. Lyora, you’ve swayed me with your pressing questions.
L y o r a. After Borya Tomsky, over there in the squat, did you fuck in a manly way with someone? Can you answer just this medical question, this primary and sacral gender question, my wacky baby monkey?
T i m. To live in the squat, let alone die there, you don’t have to fuck the manly way at all.
L y o r a. You’re not as stupid as you pretend to be. I knew you’re a half-pink balloon, debauched but holy.
T i m. I loved Borya with real love, while there was love.
L y o r a. But I see you love to love girls, too. That’s to say you’re an immeasurably depraved bisexual giant. Let’s make it clear: gay as the blue sky and clear-cool in bohemian mouths – Lyorochka – bisexual dangerous-cool.
(Holds out his hand.)
T i m. Go to hell, Lyora, alconaut.
L y o r a. Bugger it, what kind of little boy writer are you to blaspheme a colleague? I’m with you, more or less, in a good way. We’ll land smoothly – you’ll fly to the blue sky. Polya won’t be back yet – she’s working the night shift, overtime.
T i m. What?
L y o r a. Polinochka has gone to suck and fuck for euros – she’s earning dosh to buy her guys supper. Of course these guys love Polichka, but they can’t get money to feed themselves. God didn’t give guys the ladies’ attraction slot. Even with a gay ass and a snotty dick, if you’re not a juicy 20-year-old boy there’s no chance of scoring in Paris. But there’s no problem having fun and hanging out with a snotty gay scoundrel like you. Tim, I’m not asking you to suck my dick if you don’t want to – you can still bite it off in a fit of anger, you killer. For now, I’m not in a rush to reach the next world. But we have hands and asses – who can stop us? And what else is there to do here in Paris when you’re short of funds? All the more since you don’t want to write this dream scenario for me. You gotta pay the rental one way or another.
T i m. I was ready to go and earn some dosh today, I can play my guitar in the metro. Polya said there’s no need. You also said there’s no need.
L y o r a. Are you stupid or are you pretending? Who needs your fucking forty euros or whatever amount of euro-franc-coppers you’d get for the whole week. For one night Polya can coin more than you’ll earn in a lifetime, clubfoot. You really tell oral bullshit, writer, but you’re a cute sportsman with lovely ruddy cheeks. (Hugs Tim.) We can really love one another... I won’t hurt you. My little boy, my acrobatic baby monkey.
T i m. Leave me alone, Lyora. (Pulls away from Lyora.)
L y o r a. No, I can’t leave you alone, Tim. If someone gives me a hard-on I can’t keep away. Don’t be afraid, Tim. I haven’t got AIDS. I always have my certificate to hand with the authentic stamp on it. Look. (Shows his certificate.) You’re a pure and holy boy, too, you don’t have any kind of AIDS. Let’s make pure mutual love, my little cupid, my boy, my bunny, my budgie. Stop behaving like a hymen – you’re not a girl. Why are you coy as a little cherry? You’re no little girl.
T i m. But you’re a Jew, Lyora.
L y o r a. I hate it when I get called a Jew. Tim, you’re a bastard, a real-life yid.
T i m. You should drink in moderation, that’s a quote from Jawaharlal Nehru. Okay, I’m gonna get naked.
L y o r a. I’ll undress you with the greatest pleasure, my Little Tom Thumb. (Puts his arms round Tim.)
T i m. Let’s see who gets undressed first, bitch! (Forcefully throws Lyora across him, pulls off his trousers.)

Lights cut out.


L y o r a. Talk dirty! Talk dirty! Cuss good and hard!!! Aah!!! Aah!!! Right in, deep in, tired out,
were you, that’s a magic sword, baby!!! Good!!! Aah!!! Right in!!! Aah!!!
All-mighty!!! All-powerful!!! Aah!!! Falsetto!!! Aaaaah!!! Like that!!! Yes – like thaaaat!!! So good!!! Wow – what an epic force – that’s so good!!! You’re my
consoler and saviour!


The following day.

(Lyora is reclining on the sofa, sucking his thumb as he flicks through a magazine. Polya enters. She’s tipsy.)

P o l y a. Lyorochka! (Flings her arms round Lyora.)
L y o r a. You’re in a very good mood, Polichka!
P o l y a. Last night Edmond was splendid as a hurricane, my dearest Lyora! (Throws her purse on the table.) Now Boule won’t be in such a hurry to cut your throat with a penknife.
L y o r a (takes the money from her purse, counts it). Ten thousand euro-francs! Twelve thousand! You’re a masterpiece, Polinka! You’re my heavenly, earthly golden girl! Edmond gave you all that himself?!
P o l y a. Edmond gave me a huge bouquet of red roses! I tossed the roses from the balcony of a five-star hotel in Montmartre, for the endless party that Paris throws for me, like a bone thrown to my bitch Montmartre soul! Before him there was Pierre, then Christophe, then Mohammed,
David, then black Jean with his white teeth. The Gospel of John: ‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God.
All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.’ John, Ivan Sergeevich, Alexander Pushkin, our enlightened harmonious white-black boy, genius of speech, combined two extremes in one:
‘Always of the same humble and majestic appearance, Just as a grey-haired deacon in his office
Sits watching all those innocent and guilty, Observing good and evil indifferently, Without knowing anger or compassion.’
By the words ‘Observing good and evil indifferently’, Pushkin proved that Nature doesn’t wage war, and men should take that as an example. We can swear, but we can’t argue.
L y o r a. I swear and argue too, all the time, in a vulgar and offensive way, my heavenly darling. Why does money never fall from the sky of heavenly Paris by itself, not even for pious people like you, my dear Polya?
P o l y a. They don’t give money for profanities. You should know that. But on the other hand, there’s nothing in the world more selfless and sincere than our obscene language. ‘Fuck off’, for example, means you have no virile generalizing creativity and you just need to get fertilized.
And ‘fuck your mother’ means ‘where’s your memory’? But Freud, the little bureaucrat, completely diverted all that into pathology.
L y o r a. That’s true, my dear. All the wrong-headedness of modern-day psychology stems from that. And does Freud understand my problem? He was a charlatan bastard, an Oedipean phallus; relatively speaking Freud was just a Jew, a Western dick from the hill of Sisyphus.
P o l y a. When the true gods return to Earth, they simply won’t be recognized. The problem was that Freud didn’t have any Russian obscene language over there in Austria, what could they know about all the things that can be generalized with our expletives. And between us Russian girls it’s necessary to have talent to listen and understand profanities, if we declare ourselves to be real, serious poetesses. Everything else is a lie, pointless chatter and provocation! Naturally. No, but in chess checkmate means a thrashing, deadlock and loss. In physics it’s the point of stupor. Profane language is an entire universe, where there’s always a way out of the shit that is
precisely configured by obscene expletives, by emphasis, this is the essence of its naked, tortured truth. Swearing is sacrificial, revealing the empty man, eliminating problems.
L y o r a. What did they give you to drink last night, those dickhead Paris hotel barbarians? What led you to voice Russian expletives? Are you a little fatigued, my little naked angelic poet? Shall I run you a bath?
P o l y a. Expletives stick to those who bear sweet sin, and no bath can help, my dear Lyorochka. (Kicks at underpants lying on the floor). Look, your polka-dot underpants are swearing in sperm
– we bought those together someplace!
L y o r a. My underpants are resting quietly, not uttering a word. What are you on about, Polya. Come on, lie down, chill out. (Picks the underpants off the floor.)
P o l y a. Where’s Tim?
L y o r a. Everything’s okay, Polichka.
P o l y a. Where’s Tim?!
L y o r a. I’m telling you everything’s okay, Polichka! To hell with him. I don’t know where Tim is. He was here all night with me. (Gestures at the sofa.) I didn’t hurt him.
Softly-softly. I tenderly and caressingly put my dick in his fucking huge mouth... I swear to you on all my holy infertility that I didn’t hurt him, Polichka. He’s a cool guy, Tim’s a real goer.
Such a strong, tired-out, gay winter stallion. The little gay boy is resting, all worn out. Listen, let him stay with us. Thank you for bringing Tim, Polinochka. He’s like a cricket brownie – we can just breed happiness. You’re never wrong about people. It was so tender and friendly between us
– he tickled my palate numb like sponge cake cream with his super silky intoxicating tail.
P o l y a. You can’t cross the same river twice. You stay there the first time. In Russian folk tales they chop off your tail with an axe. The bifurcated swishy tails of harridan cloven-footed sexomaniacs are felled with an axe for good.
L y o r a. I did him no harm, Polya, we had such a beautiful, junked-up, carefree trip. But I can’t fuck you, right in the mouth of almighty AIDS! And I need to fuck. Or else I become a neurotic crazy freak, twitching like that stupid idiot, your neurotic pathologist Uncle Freud, or worse. I’m a normal man, Polichka. And like a normal man I need to fuck, the call of nature. I don’t want to get your AIDS, Polichka. And don’t look at me like that, as if I passed it on to you. I’m exhausted and badly bruised. Well, you just fucked and became a tender, aromatic lady. I, too, just fucked and became... more or less... once again... what I was... but in truth worse, although, as far as my body is concerned, much better. You are explicitly and ulceratively right, my dear Polya. As always. Polya, I’m being self-critical... Polya... Why are you so sad? More tears. I don’t understand the meaning of your tears – I just don’t. And now you’re laughing again. Thank God. Tim will come back any minute and you’ll see, his eyes are shining with happiness. You have to understand this world in all its volume and diversity, political correctness and Western tolerance. Tim himself doesn’t give a shit about getting laid with an adrenaline-fuelled guy. I just fucked with Tim, Polya, but you can’t imagine how much I love you, without hypocrisy at this moment. I love you, Polya, and I’m absolutely transforming myself in the best artistic and inspired way! But that will clearly end in a completely crap way!!!
P o l y a. Like Tim, you loved me as you got sick.
L y o r a. Probably even more. Tim also loved me with a heavenly, consoling and sickening love. You know yourself. Tim’s an imperative hurricane, a pumped-up strongman. But if you want to fuck him we need to use a johnnie from now on. And it’d be better if you two didn’t fuck at all. You can love one another with platonic love, at a distance of a centimetre, at least. I guarantee: such immaculate love will actually last longer. You have a whole division of aborigine generals who’ll always pay you for a fuck. Let me have Tim, Polya. I’ll do whatever you want if you give me that, Polichka. What do you want me to do?
P o l y a. Tim wanted me without a johnnie. But he couldn’t do it. He’s too tired. He couldn’t get it up.
L y o r a. Why should he want to fuck, I say it again, without a johnnie? Are you crazy, are you little kids? Getting AIDS as a chance, parting gift from you? Let Tim come out of this clean and
ready-to-please with me, Polinka. Why are you so hung up on him? When he was with me he had an epic hard-on. Shit, he’s got such a mortadella sausage, healing to the death, you catch your breath, but so chastely, na;vely, yet deeply, he penetrated me to the bowels with his healing treatment, then he came out, and then again he repeated that magical spring manoeuvre over and over with his striking epoch-making hymen-breaking genital cock.
P o l y a. Bravo, bravo, congratulations – and you sword-fought without cloaks?
L y o r a. Of course we sword-fought without cloaks. We weren’t fighting a duel en plein air with Lensky. Tim has an HIV-negative test certificate. Borya Tomsky never jabs his huge dueling sword inside anyone’s anal breach without an AIDS certificate. And the last time Tim did any penetrating it was only Borya Tomsky a year ago. After that nobody. Tim’s an incredibly honest dude – he was looking me in the eye. He only shafts you up the ass out of spiritual love.
We made love with loving, Polinka. And for love a contraceptive is equal to AIDS. I can’t live without love, this duel between worthy men – you know me as a poet like Lensky, my Polichka- Olechka, Tatiana born of the Larins.
P o l y a. Yesterday Tim took this knife and made an incision in his finger. The crimson blood of love was shed. Then with the same knife Tim cut my finger too. Again the crimson blood of love was shed. After that we pressed our loving cuts together – incision to incision, blood to blood, and our wounds loved each other for eternity. Our wounds loved each other… (Sinks onto the sofa, covers her face with her hands, weeps.) Poor Tim, he loved me so much that he wanted to die from my AIDS, to die the same Time as me. And you made love with Tim to die with us at the same Time, Lyorochka. I’m not jealous, I’m tired of jealousy. I even forgive Tim for his betrayal.
L y o r a. Wha-a-at?!! Fuck!!! A-a-a!!! (Grabs his ass, spits saliva, looks like a madman at his ‘cut’ finger.) AIDS!!! A-a-a!!! Fuck-a-a!!! (Runs around the room, uncertain what to do.) AIDS!!! Fuck-a-a!!! AIDS never sleeps, fuck, fuck-a-a!!! (Howls.) AIDS never sleeps, fuck, fuck-a-a!!! (Howls.) AIDS never sleeps, fuck, fuck-a-a!!! I’m going to kill this AIDS leper, pariah, leper, bitch-a-a!!! He came inside me three times, the bastard, and ended up so stiff, Polinochka!!! And he, that beast, that hitman, he cut my finger too, the thug, so we too could be blood-related! I’ll kill that Pol Pot executioner – that pure, honest Jew! My Polina!!! Fuck-a-a!!! Momma!!! Fuck-a-a!!! What can I do now, Polina – my beloved girl?!!! (Sobs.)
P o l y a. There are pills to take. Swallow some AIDS pills, Lyorochka.
 L y o r a. But pills won’t stop me catching AIDS, Polichka.
P o l y a. Pills don’t help anyone, Lyorochka.
L y o r a. I can’t take it – I can’t co-exist like this!!! (Weeps on her lap.)

(Tim enters.)

P o l y a. Tim!!! Where have you been? My gentle, beloved, belated Tim. T i m. Went for a run.
L y o r a. Murderer, bastard, leprous killer, bitch!!! (Howls) I’ll kill you, bitch, murderer, with this AIDS-infected knife, finish you off, you leper, bitch, killer, bastard! Pray, Jewboy, leper, yid, to God the Executioner!!!
P o l y a. Give me the knife! (Snatches the knife from Lyora.)
L y o r a. You bitches, typhous sluts, leprous AIDs carriers! You infected me with AIDS, you bitches, you typhous AIDS lepers. Why did I surrender to a communal death? I’m not an executioner, Polichka. It’s you, the AIDS bandits pretending to be poets, you’re the bastard executioners, the typhous AIDS carriers that mow us down! (Weeps.) We’ve become blood relatives now, AIDS has made us Soviets and AIDS-infected Paris blood relatives. Whores!!! (Weeps.)
P o l y a. Loving is one thing, but dying while still alive is something else. Now you can love me without contraceptives, Lyora-Lyorochka.
L y o r a. No-o-o!!! Polichka. Little Polichka!!! No-o! Never! No!!! (Weeps.)
P o l y a. Obscenities are all that’s left to us.
L y o r a. Polichka! Little Polichka!!! Never!!! N-o-o!!! Moma!!! Bitch!!! (Weeps.)
P o l y a. What has become of the Great Consoler and his beloved, sun-blessed sweetheart, Tim?
T i m. Not a single muscle twitched on the face of the Great Consoler when the inhabitants of the abandoned village devoured themselves as Jews, and the convicts, the AIDS carriers and cannibals, carried on, and on, and on... And the Great Consoler was no longer needed by anyone... There was nobody left for him to save. Not a single human left in the world.

(Pause.)

I just went to look at the squat – it’s been reduced to ruins. Kostya was sitting on the rubble with his dog Dick, crying hot tears. He said only Miklos and some unknown Russian lady of the night were left in the cellar, under the ruins. Russian artists-bums protecting the Paris ruins with their bones.
P o l y a. Miklos was a good guy. His gay girl was a good person, too.
L y o r a. We should gather batches of young girls in Russia and take them to Nice, to Nice, to Nice – to round dance love!!! Then we’ll make a movie with the money! But only, mind you, if I go first, I go first to welcome the girls, the flocks of swallows, to Nice. I won’t infect them! I just caught a cold, nothing more. (Weeps.)
P o l y a.
A soldier with a cold in a trench in winter, snow.
Three o’clock in the morning, enemy tanks on the attack. The soldier has pneumonia, there’s no penicillin,
No warm bed for him in the nearest infirmary.

The soldier with a cold no longer wants to live.
He spits blood on the snow as his temperature nears forty. The nearest enemy tank is 100 metres away
And with his barrel pointed at an infantryman

The soldier rises to his feet, advances to the tank with a grenade, smiling, And it seems to him that his beloved flies towards him instead of the tank, That he holds flowers in his hand and not a grenade,
He wants so much to embrace his beloved, Even the tank is hypnotized and dares not shoot.
T i me stopped the war for a moment of love for this soldier and the tank.
But the next moment a shell flies from the tank and pierces the soldier’s breast. No penicillin, it’s no longer necessary.
The soldier has fallen, he’s dead, his cold is gone.
Winter, frost, and steam rising from a pool of blood.
(Pause.)
My roses were higher than Montmartre, higher than Paris, my scarlet roses of love flew over Paris... Despite everything, I only remember the good things. Despite everything... Let the words remain here with the others… But Russian Polichka has betrayed before… Mama! (Plunges the knife into her heart.) Doesn’t hurt at all. Death is no more. The soldiers all live on. (Falls to the floor. Dies.)
L y o r a. A-a-a!!! Wo-ah!!! À-à-à???!!! Is this for real? She’s a poet? (Points a finger at his head, and at Polya.)
T i m (removes the knife from Polya). Yes!!! Yes!!! Yes!!! (Violently stabs himself with the knife.) Doesn’t hurt at all.
L y o r a. Oh ye-e-es?!
T i m. Ye-e-es!!! (Deals Lyora a fatal blow with the knife.)
L y o r a. No... (Sinks to the ground.) Yeah, the Jewish killer... Still alive... Save me… (Dies.)
T i m. Polichka. My darling beloved Polichka. Child... of the Universe... God... My... Poet… You gave salvation… Freedom...

(Kisses Polya and falls silent beside her on the floor. He is dead.)


Strasbourg – Paris – Moscow 1993 – 09.11.2015
CLASSICS AND CONSOLERS


Mikhail Volokhov is a contradictory figure in the new wave of drama…
His texts and subject matter make us covet profanities, mire, masks cynically torn away. In ‘The Great Consoler’ the profanity is minimized and tempered, corresponding to the laws of ‘impropriety’: the gentleman is not the one who never curses, rather he appears not to notice when the lady curses…
The plot, as before, is onerous and ghastly, yet permeated with currents of compassion.
Igor Pekhovich, a graduate of the Shchukin School who studied under Yuri Lyubimov, fearlessly took on this play and created a performance for the Small Stage of the original Taganka Theatre (where ‘Cerceau’ was performed).
Above a sloping platform something resembling a window frame swings to and fro, suspended in the black void. Someone is still stubbornly trying to live in this gloomy, featureless space clearly unfit for human habitation. The three characters are all migrants in the Parisian underworld: the Russian prostitute Polya (Elena Laskavaya), the talented writer Tim (Sergey Afanasyev) that she has temporarily saved from suicide, and Lyora (Igor Muzhzhukhin), either her husband or her pimp, who directs their world and has more creative ideas than opportunities for their implementation. All three have nothing to do in Paris – the fashion for all that is ‘Soviet’ has waned and it’s almost shameful to live on the earnings of Lyuska-Polya like the heroes of Bulgakov’s ‘On The Run’. Although life is not better, it has added piquancy: all three are gripped by a burning passion. But Polya has AIDS. In order to ‘die in one day’ Tim gets infected by her, while the unsuspecting Lyora... is infected by Tim. The finale is mutual suicide.
Unexpectedly this rather horrific plot is presented in a spirited, charming and plastic manner. The drama literally overwhelms the audience with its burning sincerity, unique character types, recklessness, irony, and the tragic loneliness of all concerned. And also by the genuinely ‘Taganka’ style of expression; a special, playful catchiness.
 
Willingness to enter this shared circle of sin and suffering becomes a paradoxical form of sympathy, in the author’s terminology, ‘consolation’. And everyone is given access to the artistic dimension.
Naturally the theme of nostalgia for a rejected but not forgotten homeland rings through the play, although this is concealed by irony and relayed as inveterate cynicism. Bulgakov’s influence is also heard here. There is no hysterics, no neurasthenia. These faces reflect the light of suffering, heartache and sublime despair. At the very least, the hope of tortured souls for eternal peace.
With the amazing sincerity and organic ease of a mature thespian Sergey Afanasyev plays Tim, who bears a resemblance to Don Quixote with an obsession, not as a mystical messenger of death, but as a being of unique talent, seeing his role in other people’s destinies as a supreme mission.
In general the heroes of Volokhov’s play are not afraid of eternal questions.
They just don’t want to live in this dead end.


Alexander INYAKHIN, critic Kultura newspaper, 17.03.1996
3)

Mikhail Volokhov
 
THE MACBETH CHRONICLEC KINGS OF THE ENTRANCE


Wife – Zinaida Matveevna

Husband – Fyodor Ignatievich

Place of action: Moscow, apartment in a residential area. The present day.

Husband. Your morning coffee was more delicious and nutritious today than ever before, my dear gentle wife, the light of my unclouded eyes, my beloved Zinochka. With a slice of lemon, no sugar. I immediately perk up in no time and climb the corporate ladder of royal love – after your coffee I feel twenty years old again, instead of eighty-something.
Wife. Yum yum yum yum?
Husband. Yum yum yum yum yum.
Wife. How lively, young, velvety and fragrant you are today, Fedenka. You always remain for me, and for all who live on our beautiful, peopled planet, such a lively young hero for your little pussycat Zinochka, who is endlessly in love with you. At eight in the morning you, like a pilot in the barracks, loutishly rise like a hurricane, a typhoon at the trumpeting of a perky bugle, you make your bed according to all the military drilled canons – exact and even – straight as a die – without one wrinkle in the sheet. I look at you – such an energetic Olympian, personally my champion athlete – the keeper of my body and soul for sixty years now, and I want to live as energetically as you, to create, fly, flutter, spin, to feel ecstasies like a heavenly swallow, like an earthly Cinderella, my dear boy – Fedenka, you’re a prince, oh, my beloved, my legend.
Husband. You are my missis – little girl Zinochka, a ringing, mountain waterfall stream that sweeps all the shit away! You give me energy for life! Only you – only our holy love! Imagine, while I was in the kitchen just now and you were in the bathroom, I caught and so magically pulverised two moths against the wall, literally in two fleeting seconds.
Wife. You spent one second on pulverising each moth my boy, my knight of the
musical fingers? You really are my magical bright joy – my superman.
Husband. It was like this, these two stupid fluttery moths flew out of our wall- mounted kitchen cabinet from a paper bag of flour, but this little boy was on the lookout, I whacked my hand and smeared them on the wall, with a prolonged swipe of my bony, musical fingers. You know, the warm little flutterers felt so nice under my fingers as I smeared them over the wall, with all their intestines and wings. And at first, on the wall, one moth was above the other moth – as if the yard dogs in the yard were fucking like there’s no tomorrow. Can you imagine, even a second before I smeared them. And they never guessed, those stupid moths, what was coming to them from my flicked, artistic, hooligan finger – the conversion of their mothy insignificant essence into grandiose eternity through
all-kingly death.
Wife. They made love to each other, these two moths of yours?
Husband. That’s right – of course I wanted to invite you to look at this extinguishment of throbbing life, but you were in the bathroom, on the toilet. While you rushed to the kitchen these mothy little mites might just vamoose through the vent. And I thought I’d better smear these little moths immediately, and then relate to you my fabulous sensations from this marvellous procedure by the arbiter of destinies in the royal jungle of our apartment – in the most amazing crazy colours I will describe in words all my inhumanly happy delighting of the soul – than if I’d gone to you in the bathroom, waited till you finish your creamy toilette in that bathroom of yours, then rushed back with you, panting, to the kitchenette... That would all count as time, time, merciless time – the moths could flutter out of the kitchenette.
Wife. And then it’s impossible to track down these gluttonous fluttering pests, moths get all over the apartment, especially in the wardrobe closet between endless folds of woollen clothes. They also get in the closet with our woolly sweaters and hats knitted personally by me, these moths can fly in and start voraciously eating our hallowed favourite woollies.
Husband. And perhaps even your luxurious as-good-as-living mink coat, for which I once slammed down seven of my colonel’s wage packets with bonuses. Oh! Our flour moths would take it as their priority task to gobble up and devour your gorgeous delicious fur coat. If I put myself in the place of a flour moth, I can imagine how tasty a mink coat would be for a greedy moth.
Wife. Oh, don’t say even say it, Fedenka, what a nightmare. My heart feels bad and my liver prickles at the very words.
Husband. Don’t despair, my darling Zinochka, your heart is safe in my reliable officer hands – just as a medal-bearing comrade looks after his beloved Mauser!
Wife. I feel and appreciate that, my dear and noble officer.
Husband. And in short, I slapped down those horrible anti-wool moths while you were still in the bathroom, so that later we don’t have the nightmare of these NATO moths devouring your mink coat in its entirety, then gently and smoothly smeared them across the wall – artistically, as in Kolyma the convicts, if you remember, smeared pesky moths across the wall along with their bloody brains, those indoor household parasites, eternal enemies of the whole country.
Wife. Back then in Kolyma prison camp you were like a God. You didn’t let anyone else execute those vile convicts. You yourself put bullets in all the prisoners’ foreheads, not in the back of the head as the instructions specified. But I was a medical nurse then and never told on you. I wrote everywhere in the death certificates of executed convicts that the bullet in the head entered through the convicts’ occipital area and exited from their evil forehead. For this you let me try and shoot a bullet into a prisoner’s forehead a couple of times, and his eyes stared passionately and terribly at me from under the barrel for several minutes. And so, when the convict started screaming at me with a twisted face – kill me, you bitch, you Saltychikha murderer, kill me! – I fired the gun into his forehead!!! Then the love grew strong between us, Fedya!
Husband. Those days of wartime cunning are gone, Zinul. The only ones left are prisoner moths mashed to a pulp in the closet. And to whom can you pass on your wide-reaching experience of execution by shooting. You know, I’d get such pleasure from shooting those convicts in the forehead right now. I regret that I wasn’t born in China or the USA. Although in the USA they use digital executions – no real satisfaction to be got from that. The executioner there just presses a few buttons and that’s all, he suffers more than the man who’s executed – he keeps all the torments of the person put to death within himself. As for those dispatched by poison in a vein or electricity, they get nirvana – they leave with a happy fool’s grin on their face. It’s all perversion. The Chinese do the right thing – at the execution stadiums they stuff bullets in the back of their Chinese convicts’ heads with carbines! I’d be made a general right away in China for gourmet humane shootings in the forehead. And here I am, with such experience, and only moths and cockroaches to crush. What’s more, I smashed two moths and there aren’t any more. Where can I get them? Out of my asshole? I could still now, Zinul, before dinner, in a rudimentary way, as a form of exercise, smash another fifty or so moths across the wall – with a slap of the hand, smearing them ever more smoothly, more insistently and with an artistic pause – only there’s no more moths in the bag of flour in our kitchen – I carefully filtered all the flour through a sieve.
Wife. What a pity, how fatiguing. You need to apportion more moths for the
future in a bag of flour for the kitchen. Let’s do it like this – I’ll scatter a bag of flour over several cups – in a week there’ll be so many moths there, you won’t be able to contain your KGB gratification.
Husband. My dear Zinaida Matveevna. We’d do better to breed cockroaches like we used to for my KGB gratification. The joy from crushing cockroaches is a thousand times greater, my soul fills with zeal, it sings and swells, inflamed and strong. As if I were destroying all the people’s enemies, and they give me a general’s shoulder straps, they appoint me as supreme general of all the prisons in the country! My uncle, Savely Frolych, was Yezhov’s deputy in the maintenance department. All the prisons he ruled were in spanking order. (Clenches his fist.) Although uncle never shot anyone himself. And he wasn’t shot. In 1937, after Yezhov was done for, they took away all the other deputies, but they didn’t bother to take uncle. And why? Because my uncle Savely Frolych was a very clever man. Before anyone could lay hands on him he developed infectious tuberculosis. Nobody wanted to mess around with him for fear of catching it themselves. And my uncle became director of a sanatorium in Malakhovka and passed away in his own bed, from his infectious, redeeming TB. But Savely Frolych died the winner and was awarded four rhomboids – an awesome decoration at that time. We had a dacha – Kalinin’s dacha was the other side of the fence. A
ten-room apartment in Stoleshnikov Lane. There was so much money around. The NKVD had all the money then. Then the KGB. My uncle had another ten-room apartment opposite for secret assignations. I used to play football on the roof of the Lubyanka. From my childhood onwards he reviewed all the parades on Red Square together with Stalin. When I smeared the morning cockroaches in our kitchen that year I had such a grand and jubilant mood all day that I still kept inside – like a stellar space killer, an intergalactic fighter pilot. So I could use it in distant galaxies for whoever needed to be exterminated out there. On the Milky Way I would first of all wipe out all the anti-milky milkmen there. But first of all, of course, I had to exterminate all the anti-Andromedists in our entire Andromeda Nebula, our Galaxy. So where did you put my cockroaches, Zinochka?
Wife. I dispatched them with insecticide powder, my dear – don’t you remember
– we applied the insecticide together. Those bloody creatures got all over the apartment. They got into bed with us – you didn’t have time to crush them. Don’t you remember? You’re a touch schlerotic as regards our cockroaches, even though you’re such a big and grown-up general’s boy. Don’t you think?
Husband. Did I ask you to get this fascist insecticide dust, you old goat?
Wife. You didn’t ask, my dear, for me to be a rather primitive fascist, real life required it and I satisfied the request.
Husband. You satisfied it. Well well, what an old goat. What a cunt!!! You open
her mind to reason, you educate her, and she cleans up like a Soviet charwoman, she wipes, polishes and poisons the cockroaches. Without any understanding of what she’s doing.
Wife. For your sake, you old bastard, for the sake of our love, which no longer exists, I killed all the cockroaches in our apartment, you son of a bitch!!!
Husband. Son of a bitch – and what choice charwoman expressions she uses!!! Why are you getting worked up about nothing, Zinka? How come there’s no love? We have so much love that we can share with other goats and bald goats. For sixty years we’ve been living-fighting-lording it in love. We celebrated our diamond wedding. Well, you’re a goat without a dowry. Am I not your king?
Wife. You’re my goat, my udderless goat king!
Husband. Alright then, alright. Don’t get excited. We touched on the udderless goat theme yesterday.
Wife. And it seems we touched on the old goat theme yesterday, too?
Husband. Indeed we did, I concede – we even touched on the old goat idea yesterday before we actually mentioned the goat idea. In short, how about a dragonfly… You’ve nothing against dragonflies?
Wife. I have nothing against dragonflies, my worker ant – I’m your dragonfly!
Husband. In short, you’re my beloved stinging dragonfly, and if you really truly love me as you say, pussycat-darling-sweetie-honeybunch – we need to get these cockroaches again. And don’t argue! Don’t argue, dragonfly! You dance like a dragonfly – so dance! All the fine summer long she sang and never had a moment to look back – the ant is your hero – and he wants to live on in love and harmony with you. And I ask so very little for this, only to breed a few cockroaches and have fun. They are so Formula One, so lively, energetic, they run round the apartment like lightning. To me, this is their propeller, their Brownian thrashing motion on the parquet and rugs in the apartment, which gives enough tooth- crushing cosmic energy for a thousand years ahead, so I crush these convict bastards, enemies of the anti-people, and become the hero of our fabulous country! Then I transfer this cosmic thrashing heroic energy to you, my darling Zinochka. Isn’t that so, my dear? And you hand it back to me with a doubly tooth- crushing heroic strength. We’re twenty years old again, full of hope, we want to move mountains, turn rivers back, fuck for twenty-nine hours a day without Viagra. We want to live, live and live again! Live forever!!! But like kings!!! To thrash those convict bastards over the head and smear them over the wall, grind their brains!!! Don’t you want us to be kings and thrash their brains out?
Wife. My dear, I want us to live together forever, live like kings and fuck
twenty-nine hours a day without Viagra, spattering those bastards’ brains over the walls like bullets!!!
Husband. Well said. Spattering those bastards’ brains over the walls like bullets. Then with utter justification fucking me for twenty-nine hours without Viagra!!! My darling beloved! Zinochka my jet-propelled Ferrari!!! Come on, then – Ninochka my former secretary and then my student, the one with the cats, lives in Apartment 193 – she’s got Schumacher roaches scuttling all over the apartment – go and borrow a few in an old horseradish jar – in a week we’ll have swarms of them, they fuck so hard – we can return the roaches to Ninochka with a few extras, if she likes. The extra roaches they produce – later they’ll be extra, I mean
– I can crush from morning to night with my musical fingers – well, what a good, melodious, nightingale-lyrical heroic kingly mood I’ll have for you afterwards.
Believe me, darling titmouse. I’m not asking to go to China, I won’t even ask.
Wife. Not this Ninochka of yours again from Apartment 193! My dear Comrade Colonel, Fyodor Ignatievich! These roaches crushed by your tender fortepiano- Kalashnikov fingers – they’ll get under your fingernails afterwards, with their entrails, with their squashed eggs. You don’t trim your nails, my darling stop-at- nothing colonel, you won’t even let me do it for you. And I, out of my love for you, also let you not trim the crooked nails you scratch me with at night, of course, so erotically in all these delightful critical places. But when in the daytime, in the light of the sun, you start eating my aromatic, don’t you agree, own-recipe borscht with sweet red peppers and tomatoes, these slain, already dried roaches under your nails fall into my extraordinary, high-quality borscht with all their torn- off flattened legs, antennae, abdomen, and so on. And what can I do when confronted by this cockroach-killing pleasure of yours – I have to watch this with my shining indifferent sky-blue eyes, raped by your phallic egoism? You know, honey, in a non-virtual sense I can foresee that at some point there’ll be a Vesuvian protest in my stomach, in the form of a rising hydrogen sulfide, explosive, gutwrenching, anti-roach prostration, so that I really want to puke out all the borscht I just swallowed with pleasure and appetite from this angry stomach and tormented intestines – right onto your plate!!!
Husband. Don’t swear like that, Zinka! What a toothgrinder. Since morning you’ve been cursing like an old witch. With uncut nails it’s easier to thump the roaches, and even to fumble round your clit and deep inside at night. If I had a gun with orders to shoot, I’d cut my nails for the trigger. You’re a stupid, uneducated cleaner. Just now I was in such a sincere, sunny mood. I tried so hard. I so heroically crushed these two moths in our lovely comfy old kitchen. Then I tried so enthusiastically, poetically and sublimely to tell you, you stupid fool, how I crushed these moths with feeling in our sweet cosy kitchen, and now you... with
bloody female ingratitude start angrily spewing abuse for nothing. Don’t you think a girl should be at least a bit grateful to the boy who loves her, even if this boy is well over eighty years old, and the girl no younger. But this boy does gymnastics every morning, takes all his drops, infusions and pills minute by minute. Just so that you, girl, are never sad, but become prouder of your champion boy with each passing hour.
Wife. You’re out of your mind, Fedya. That’s all your honest Pioneer girl can tell you in the honest words of a Pioneer. It’s elementary, Commander Fedya, you’re out of your mind. You can’t live so long in this world, Fedya. What do you look like. You look like a hundred-year-old cockroach, Fedya!
Husband. You’re going too far now. Just take a look at yourself, you old hag – you don’t look seventy any more, roachface!!! You’re the one I need to exterminate before any others. And I always thought, where did I go wrong?
Wife. Last year Fedya, the saleswoman in the bakery opposite, thought I looked seventy. I took you with me on purpose so she said I look no more than seventy in your presence.
Husband. What can I do with you. I can say you look fifty if you ask me nicely, my unforgettable Zinaida Matveevna.
Wife. And if I ask very nicely, will you say I look twenty-five?
Husband. Well, if you ask very very nicely – with a blowjob – I’d say you look twenty and cut your nails, and if you bring a jar of cockroaches too, maybe I’ll cut my own nails here and there. Not everywhere. But you can eat your borscht without puking – I promise that crushed cockroaches won’t fall from under my nails, into your signature fragrant borscht with red pepper and tomatoes, it’s a promise. Zinul, you’ve been quite unbearable today, all morning. Are you trying to give me a heart attack?
Wife. You’re going to die soon enough, old man – why should I bother harassing you and bring you to a heart attack – you’ll kick up your goat’s hooves before me in any case, my dear old ram – you’re properly old, you old dickhead.
Husband. And of course you’re not old at all, my she-goat, my little old lady. Ach, you really are a harmful dragonfly-splintery-bleating wrinkly girl. I had such a great champion mood this morning. I so magically crushed those moths. Like Andersen, with such inspiration and fervour, I told you this whole victorious miracle, how sweetly I crushed these moths for us, so we’d have an unforgettable, powerful, blooming, royal mood for the whole day and perhaps even for the whole week. Like when you yourself shot those jailbird suckers in the forehead! What a heavenly mood we had then! And you’re so grateful you goat- face me in your own manure. How we can go on living together I can’t imagine,
my little bitch is a pain in the ass.
Wife. Weeks, months and years – you may live, or you may not live…
Husband. The dead are lucky – time has no power over them… Why are girls always late? The dear creatures want time to leave without them, not realizing that time sits in the girls themselves and ages them, wears them away from the inside.
Wife. And in men, isn’t it the case that time blazes away like a machine gun and kills all traces of youth?
Husband. Men shot back with a machine gun and returned to the new age eternally young, resurrected. That’s me, like a petrified fool in love, living here with an ageing, brick-hard, wrinkly girl who’s been an old woman for a very long time.
Wife. But who wants to live with eternally youthful, dynamic Ninochka?
Husband. Dynamic Ninochkas are no use to anyone, that’s for sure.
Wife. And I’m not an old girl-woman at all, Fyodor Ignatievich. Use your eyes and open your mind. It’s you that is such an old bastard and idiot that you don’t see the smooth, delicate, pure, rosy skin on my face, with absolutely imperceptible small, wrinkly, but very beautiful lines.
Husband. Well, that’s when you use your trademark French cream for eight thousand rubles a jar – you smear your face with an undulating centimetre of cream so your face isn’t visible at all under this layer of cream – maybe then you look like a fifteen-year-old girl. But when you wipe off the cream, under the eight- thousand-ruble cream that costs half of my pension, there’s your eighty-year-old wrinkly old woman’s face again!!! You’re my creamy joy. Look in the mirror!!! You threw all the mirrors in our apartment out in the trash so you wouldn’t have to look at yourself. And just so that I look at you, an old killjoy, and suffer – what an old wrinkled hundred-year-old killjoy the Lord has rewarded me with, God bless my portly and noble old age.
Wife. Yes, I don’t look as if I’m eighty, not at all, why do you get so angry and excited – Ivan Vasilievich from Apartment 104 thought I look no more than sixty – and he’s a real live general!


Wife. She’ll send me packing with this horseradish jar – surely you can picture her reaction when she sees me with a horseradish jar, Fedya? She’s got such roaches in her head that real roaches bear no comparison, especially if you ask for them.
Husband. Well, she’s just like any girl, cockroach-crazy, my Ninochka, and your Ninochka too.

as faeces and put these faeces in our glass jar in the form of ice – her two-year- old faeces that she’ll chop in her kitchen with a meat tenderiser, without any disdain or shame. Those roaches in her head are so bad. And then I’ll come back to you here bringing these best examples of faecal samples, now defrosted masses. And so I bring you, the greatest executioner in the world, the executor, the jar where there’s supposed to be your long-awaited cockroaches, Fyodor Ignatievich. I give you this jar, put it into your hands. And you, a blind old man, not understanding that she, that roach-brain Ninochka has put her own last year’s shit for her excellent analyses into the jar instead of cockroaches. Then you
na;vely empty this jar of her shit all over the apartment as if it is was roaches, and you know what kind of odour will spread all over the apartment, Fyodor Ignatievich, from Nina Prokofievna’s last year’s shit? I would not wish it on you, and certainly not on myself, to smell it with my elderly nostrils and lungs. Last- year’s faeces from crazy Nina Prokofievna are truly extraordinary, Fyodor Ignatievich, but the stench from them is no less, but even more extraordinary, Fyodor Ignatievich. Imagine – six months ago I went to Nina Prokofievna’s apartment to borrow an onion for the borshcht. There were no onions left in our fridge. So I went to her apartment and we sat for about two hours chatting in the kitchen – drinking tea with biscuits and fruit jellies. Then I wanted to use her toilet. You cannot imagine how badly her toilet stank of shit, Fyodor Ignatich. The smell of her shit in her toilet, old refuse with tortoise-slow matter, just doesn’t fade away. Then imagine how crazy it will be if we smear her shit all over the apartment instead of releasing her cockroaches. I go to the toilet every time when you’ve finished and flush it. And I wipe everything down – when you piss, Fyodor Ignatich, you don’t only piss in the bowl, you piss on the floor, Fyodor Ignatich, in our shared toilet, although I forgive you for that. And every other time you take a shit it goes past the bowl. I forgive you that too, out of love and respect for you. Of course I don’t understand and I ask inappropriate questions – how do you manage to shit right past the bowl when your narrow wrinkled decrepit old arse is squarely sitting on it. If I were to give you a gun right now, you’d be a centimetre wide of your target forehead. You wanted to visit China to pass on your experience in the firing squad. Why can’t you learn to shit without missing the bowl in your own apartment? And then the stench of her shit all over our apartment, as well as your shit everywhere on the toilet floor, no, Fyodor Ignatich, you can cut me in two, I cannot cope with this total shit from you, and from her as well, all over our apartment. There is no love that can save you here and nothing will help save our mutual feelings in future. I’ll run off to General Ivan Vasilievich in Apartment No. 104. Now you know! You know what I’m like!
Husband. That General Ivan Vasilievich in Apartment No. 104, he’s nothing but a cocksucking old screw. He was in charge of ten of our prison camps in Kolyma. If
they’d given me a hundred camps I’d have ruled them like God. My uncle Savelya Frolych ran all the camps in the country. If he hadn’t been taken away with Yezhov I’d have been in charge of at least half the country’s camps. Then I’d shoot with you like in a shooting gallery. That would be something to remember now in old age and reminisce aboat. Why are you telling me this shit, you simpleton, about running away to Vasilich? Off you go then, get out – I’ll kick your arse as you go. Who is this Vasilich, anyway, some kind of general?
Wife. Your brother-in-arms, your comrade and friend.
Husband. Engough-enough-enough. What kind of a brother-in-arms is this Ivan Vasilievich to me. He’s a traitor. Betrayed my friendship and all that’s holy. She’s running off to him. Off you go, then, I’m telling you – good riddance. She’s running off to him. She’s run off with him. Yes, they amputated his gangrenous legs a month ago, both legs above the knee, for real, not for pretence – she’s running off to him. What are you doing, running off to him in his wheelchair, you dry old cunt? Off you go – I’ll spit on you with pleasure from the balcony as you trundle off to the savings bank with him in his wheelchair to get his general’s pension – and you’ll both get bashed over the head outside the door when they find out you have his general’s pension in your purse. They’ll give you a kick in the head at the savings bank right away, and rightly enough. I’d kick you in the head there myself for his general’s pension. I’d crush you two bastards at the savings bank like a moth, right there on the asphalt, grinding you with the reinforced metal heel of my boot. I’m not reinforcing myself with metal for nothing. I know my place in the market.
Wife. What a cruel, iron, rusty Fyodor Ignatich you’ve become with your metal reinforcement everywhere after eighty-four years. I thought the years would soften you, but you’re getting tougher and tougher. I can’t go on like this with you, Fyodor Ignatich. Have mercy on me, a sinner – I’ll leave you, a sinner. Or at night I’ll smother you with a pillow. I’ll put a square pillow on your evil rectangular snout when you’re snoring, lying on your back, I’ll sit my round ass on top of you and smother you. And you won’t be able to dislodge me. I’ll have you smothered by morning. You’re always weak in the morning, Fyodor Ignatich, so I’ll smother you in the morning.
Husband. Well, smother me then, get on with it, smother me. You’ve been promising for a long time that you’ll smother me and I’m still alive, living and suffering – with such an old shit-arsed smothering beauty. I’d rather smother you, you round-arsed old bitch than have you smother me. Yes, I’ll even strangle you in the daytime – I won’t wait for the night. I’ll stun you with a frying pan on the forehead, put a round pillow over your muzzle and sitting my old man’s bony arse on top I’ll smother you – I won’t miss like I miss the toilet, you won’t get away.
And then I’ll jump from the balcony to the asphalt myself, head down to my death, so the cops don’t get me. And fuck all this family happiness here with you, it’s all been shitted away, surrendered. You think I’ll surrender to jail? Fuck me if I’ll go to my own jail. Listen, dear Zinaida Matveevna, do you know how fucking sick I am of everything here every day with you, a blockhead girl who is estimated at sixty by the bakery assistant at the shop opposite. First of all, specifically, I’m tired of you with your gangrenous last year’s generals and your worm-eaten leech brains that even cockroaches will be afraid to enter, even to come up with something original to have a bit of fun in life.
Wife. Yes, you’ve been threatening to smother me for a long time, all your life, Uncle Sozzled Son-of-a-Roach Barmaley. But I, nevertheless, still go on living, living and suffering – a sweet candy girl.
Husband. The sweet child is suffering. And who else is suffering in this apartment prison cell of yours on the panel-built fifth floor. Don’t I ask you to kill me almost every day? Tearfully I ask, breathlessly! With my last gasp I ask, you shaggy old witch, to enter your fucking sorcerer’s astral, then you’d pull me, an old fool, into your fucking astral, and you’d kill me there astrally, without pain, in my sleep, using your worm-eaten fried demonic charms. And you keep on making excuses and changing the subject. You keep slowly devouring me alive with your cerebral leech worms – you’ve been devouring me all your life, you goat-legged vampire. That’s what you need – to suck the living blood from me for the rest of my life.
You know how many educated, decent people, not convicts, you dispatched like an official KGB witch, when we returned to Moscow after my taiga prison camps and they recruited you, knowing that you can destroy people psychically. I taught you to kill, bitch – you fell in love with this business. How much money did you bring into our family piggy bank then, you KGB witch, when you astrally dispatched someone on a KGB assignment. But she can’t kill me. And everyone still admits to loving you, the bitch is a purchased overtime worker.
Wife. I’ve grown old, Fyodor Ignatich – I don’t have enough esoteric forces to enter the astral and kill you there. And then, you’re my husband. After all, a close relative. If I start blitzing your astral I’ll hurt myself. And I’ll hurt half of myself – I won’t completely kill myself completely – then I’ll suffer from gangrene, like the legless general. If you want gangrene in your legs, I can fix it. That would be easier for me.
Husband. I don’t want gangrene in my legs. Well, this swamp creature is a wide- format broad.
Wife. And you’re not a waterway Bukharin?
Husband. Waterway Bukharin never asked to be drowned. Alright then, poison
me with arsenic or rat poison, or with cockroach insecticide. You see, I’ve really had enough of living. I’ve lived eighty-four years, that’s enough. You must understand. What did I ever do wrong to you, witch, that you can’t kill me in the old age of my painful days? You killed that vagrant who was sleeping in our entranceway after one in the morning. You said it yourself – your astral dreams did the job.
Wife. He was a bastard, a stinking wretch, a hundred-gram piss artist. He used to breed germs for us with his stench. But if I start trying to dispatch you, Fyodor Ignatich, then I’ll begin to suffer myself as a side effect, you understand, after all, I love you, we’ve spent our whole life together, and I’ll begin to worry and kill myself before you’ve had a chance to die. And it never bothered me that our family life was childless. You’re like a child to me, Fedenka. And you get a colonel’s pension that’s quite adequate, almost like a general’s. And how would I go on living without your command officer’s pension, like a witch with one broomstick?
Husband. What can we do then, Zinaida Matveevna? Go on suffering and living?
Wife. We must go on suffering and living, Fyodor Ignatich. And when God takes dispatches us, let God dispatch us, when he needs to smear you and me on the walls there in hell. Or do you want to be smeared on the walls of paradise?
Husband. Well then, go and see Ninka – in honour of our sacred friendship I ask you to bring at least a couple of cockroaches from her – we’ll play janissaries – whoever gets there first, we’ll kill him later. I’d willingly go and see Ninka, but you’ll get jealous.
Wife. I am jealous. What do you want of me? And you’ll start shouting off again, how you’re going to play janissaries – you’ll have a heart attack, you’ll keel over even before the cockroach dies. You’ll have to call an ambulance for them to give you injections. And I don’t like the medical smell they exude, like in the camp. I’ll die first. And you’ll be left alone. It’ll be so sad for you to start living without me after that, Fyodor Ignatich. You’ll suffer all alone and who knows how much more of this tedious life you’ve got left. Is that what you want in your old age?
Husband. Then don’t call the ambulance when I have a heart attack. I’ll just die and let me die of a heart attack, like a hero, not from cancer, as if from some despicable magical evil.
Wife. When you say evil, you mean me?
Husband. Well, Zinka, you know yourself that you’re evil, but a good egg all the same. We’ve been together since way back, I’ve lived to the age of eighty with you and never regretted it. We had money and I became a colonel even without my uncle, without his help, after he was taken away. Of course Van Vasilich rose
higher than me to become a general, but now they cut off his diabetic gangrenous legs, and he’s a couple of years younger than me.
Wife. Ivan Vasilich used to really love chocolates. His life wasn’t sweet – he didn’t have an uncle to help him – that’s why he loved chocolates so much, they sweetened his life.
Husband. He had a dick, you know, the kind he could use to make a career for himself. You know that.
Wife. But his legs were amputated because of the chocolates, not his dick. Gave him diabetes, that’s why they cut his legs off. Let me tell you, Fyodor Ignatich, I tried to make life naturally sweet, so you don’t sweeten it too much with fruit jellies and chocolates, so you don’t come down with diabetes and get gangrenous legs in your old age that have to be amputated, so you keep going in your last years when you barely stand square on your feet.
Husband. Too true, Zinaida Matveevna, I’m really grateful for that, you’re the most beloved colonel’s woman in the world, you old fox. Oh, how sorry I am for Ivan Vasilich, our general in Apartment No. 104. Hey, maybe we should hasten the earthly fate of our gangrenous legless general. Maybe we could go into his astral, come on, let’s kill our legless comrade-in-arms General Ivan Vasilich. That will put us in charge of our entranceway right away in our KGB apartment block, and we’ll be doing a good deed to Ivan Vasilich. It would be the right thing to do, morally speaking.
Wife. Ooh, so you’re encouraging me to do away with all the generals from our entranceway, Fyodor Ignatich. And who else from our entrance will you hit on next, after Ivan Vasilich? Look here, I’m a gentle woman. Come on then and do away with Ninka, after the general. Just give the order. I’ll do it. I’m a very gentle woman, Fedya, who was liked not only by the colonels for being able to kill very conscientiously and tenderly.
Husband. Did you cheat on me, then, with this General Ivan Vasilich, Zinaida Matveevna?
Wife. Well, what else was I supposed to do, Fyodor Ignatievich, when Ivan Vasilievich was your direct superior in your Siberian Buchenwald work? You yourself insisted that I sleep with him, Fyodor Ignatich – so they gave you the colonel’s shoulder straps of the crematorium. You yourself, Pinochet-Koshchey the Immortal, insisted on this service promotion of yours thanks to my cunt, back then, Fuhrer!!!
Husband. What will she remind me of next? She’s already harking back to this little peppercorn in the borshcht of my unique lifestory.
Wife. That wasn’t just a peppercorn, Fyodor Ignatich, it was a whole paper bag of ground peppers, straight in your mouth and nostrils, on the side from my borshcht!!!
Husband. Then get rid of this legless General Ivan Vasilich, there’s good reason, he should’ve been done away with long ago – for our just family cause! What are you arguing about, woman? I’m the Fuhrer, bitch, I give the orders.
Wife. There was always good cause to do away with Ivan Vasilich. But why kill him now – let the legless gangrenous bastard suffer a bit more. What d’you think?
Husband. You have a point. Let the legless bastard suffer more. In our entranceway we’re already the main authorities, more or less. It would be even better to take his general’s pension – that’d be even better.
Wife. Yes, let him use up his general’s pension, Fyodor Ignatich, let him use up all his general’s pension buying chocolates for himself, and let his stinking black gangrene crawl and proliferate all over his feeble body. May his filthy arms and ears be cut off, and his lascivious lips, may his eyes rot with gangrene.
Husband. You can give Ivan Vasilievich the evil eye and that’ll be the end of him, no doubt about it. And you’ll be doing right by giving him the evil eye.
Wife. I’ll make the gangrene eat up his liver, and his rotten brain will moulder away. What else can I do, Fyodor Ignatievich – what other orders will you give for a varied and creative life?
Husband. You’re doing everything right – we’re creatively living our loving family life together in a variety of ways! Well done, girl!!!
Wife. So who d’you really think set the gangrene on his legs, apart from the chocolates?
Husband. You?
Wife. I didn’t want to admit it to you before. But now I see you like the idea. So now you know, and I can tell you, as a personal gift – I ordered the gangrene for Ivan Vasilich, your enemy the general, through higher powers.
Husband. Oho, well done you!!! So now we’ve become even more powerful keepers of the entranceway. All through your prayers, it seems, sweetie. How I love you, my dear!!! I instantly feel forty years younger, if not sixty!!! What a gift! This is a royal gift from up high, Zinaida Matveevna.
Wife. You should have told me yourself, big guy, when you made such a royal gift. After all, when we go out the entrance for a walk, you’re always spraying saliva at Nina Prokofievna’s apartment. With your crocodile dick in your trousers, ready to rise up and burst into that bitch Ninka, into the swamp.
Husband. Come on, that’s enough, the crocodile penis ready to burst – you’re just bandying words about. You’re suffering from a cult of personality of my penis. Of course, I like it – such a generous and expanded understanding of the question of my balloon’s life.
Wife. And when we see that Nina Prokofievna, that slut of a neighbour, in the yard, you stare at her all the time with your dinosaur pupils – as if you can’t tear yourself away, as if you’re watching some kind of crustacean porn. And why did I throw all the porn out of the house – you were seeing Nina Prokofievna in every woman on the Porn TV channel, you old dick. Not me, your sultry beloved little girl Zinochka.
Husband. I’m sorry, forgive me, I’m a sinner, Zinaida Matveevna. I apologise, you can hit me on the forehead with the metal-reinforced heel of my boot. It’s in the hallway – go right ahead.
Wife. You old dog, if only I could rub your dick, even your sagging dick, into the asphalt with that metal-reinforced heel – maybe then I’d have fun. Forgiveness is no more than salty snot. You should prove by deed that you love me, then you could be forgiven, body and soul.
Husband. What kind of deed is it to demonstrate fucking Euclidean geometry, my Zinulya. If I killed Nina Prokofievna for you as a present, the way you gave Ivan Vasilich gangrene. But I can’t – I don’t have any magical authorised KGB powers with access to the astral like you. If I stab someone with a kitchen knife my government comrades will put me in jail. They’ll find physical evidence – the kitchen knife with pieces of her meat and blood, and put me away. Do you want me to suffer in prison? I’ll rot in prison then, and Nina Prokofievna will just give up the ghost and her soul will reside with God while she rests underground for eternity. What kind of torment is that, gentlemen?
Wife. You could push her down the stairs – let her break her legs and arms, her hip joints. And then I myself can give her KGB gangrene from the astral once she’s reduced to that weakened state. While she’s still healthy and walking I don’t have enough of my own bewitching powers for her. However many times I tried, it doesn’t work. She’s probably a real witch herself. You prepare a springboard for me, Fyodor Ignatich, weaken her health, then I’ll do the rest myself, I’m a wise woman, I’ll finish it. You know, if we get rid of Nina we’ll have super royal authority over the entrance. We can tell the people using our entrance that the basement is only for our gherkins – the whole basement will be ours, with our pickles for the winter – well, we can share a little corner with a few of them to divert attention. We can tell them it’s our attic, the whole attic will be ours – you’ll start breeding pigeons there, like in the old apartment in Chertanovo. You’ll be the absolute king of the entrance with me as your queen. Or we can just rent
the attic to artists for the money, if you don’t want pigeons. Let’s call Nina – let’s go for a walk now. Let’s go get her. Then you can push her, as if she stumbled in the stairwell at the entrance and flew like a little bird, a smallish crow, down the merciful concrete steps and broke a few bones. And I, as a witness, will always say that it was she who stumbled without you and fell down the stairs headfirst. And she’ll never tell on you – she still loves you.
Husband. She loves you as well.
Wife. Yes, she loves me, as, allegedly, a well-mannered and cultured sixty-year- old former teacher, a young lady. I’m also very cultured, you know, this bit of skirt is not stupid. And you know I have a very high IQ. I was the first one in the KGB unit with an IQ. And she’s just a retired lieutenant colonel. And as a cultured woman I sincerely love this cultural Nina of yours. But that slattern Nina loves you more, the bitch!!! And I have to suffer!!! Don’t you see how I suffer from this slut being in love with you?!!!
Husband. And Nina Prokofievna herself suffers that I live with you, and not her.
Wife. And you, you old suffering fucker, what direction are you suffering in? In my direction or in the direction of Nina Prokofievna?
Husband. I suffer in your direction, of course, my unforgettable Zinaida Matveevna.
Wife. Fyodor Ignatich, we must kill her, this Nina Prokofievna, or leave her there without arms and without legs – that will be easier for all of us. Don’t you agree with me?
Husband. I agree. No problem. We’ll smear her down to the smallest bones over the wall, like a moth in the kitchen. Come on, come on – none of us has long to live. Someone has to die in great torment, and in order to feel death coming in advance, someone has to stay alive and rule over this death.
Wife. You know how to speak sweetly and royally well. Go on then, call her –
invite her for a walk!
Husband. Call her straight out, right away? But we wanted to ask her for cockroaches first.
Wife. Not now, Fedya – when she crashes down the stairs and she’s already an entirely broken crow-bird we’ll carry her, the little bird, to her apartment and from there we’ll call an ambulance. You prepare a jar for the cockroaches – you can catch them there afterwards. I’ve nothing against cockroaches – I’m for them.
Husband. But these cockroaches run fast. And I’ll probably get nervous and tired when we drag Nina Prokofievna the broken bird back to her apartment – I’ll be no
good at catching cockroaches in her apartment.
Wife. Well, I’ll give you a massage, take your hands in mine, hold them for five minutes – I’ll give you energy. You’ll catch cockroaches, Fedya, don’t worry, you’ll be happy. And if necessary I’ll help you catch the cockroach enemies of the people, myself. Give Nina Prokofievna a call – don’t waste time.
Husband. I’ll call her, it’s not hard to do. The phone’s free of charge, it’s not some radio-frequency mobile. Just time for a walk before lunch, to give us an appetite. (Dials a number on the telephone.) Ninochka! Hi there, sweetheart, our little kittycat. Yes, Zinochka and I thought we’d go for a stroll. And take you along too. Together, sunshine. Yes, today the birdies are singing sweetly. We’ll come and fetch you. (Replaces the receiver.) She’s nearly ready, as if she knew, little girl Ninochka, that we’re going for a walk too and we’ll take her along.
Wife. Here’s the old horseradish jar for the roaches. Let’s go for a walk with Ninochka. (They leave.)

The lights dim


After a while the Husband and Wife re-enter.

Wife. How I love you, my unforgettable, glorious warrior, my hero-king, Fyodor Matveevich. How I love you!!! Can I hug you and kiss you?
Husband. Of course, my darling Zinochka! You look so much younger. As if you were just twenty, that’s all you look right now.
Wife. Oh, how sweetly you kiss, Fedenka. But there’s no chance of diabetes!
Husband. What?
Wife. Don’t be afraid, my dear, I’m only kidding.
Husband. You and your jokes.
Wife. And how beautifully she, Nina Prokofievna flew like a swallow, oh, how divinely she flew all the way down the concrete stairs with her crow’s bag of bones – her body flew like a bird. The doctor counted five fractures – super! I’ll go into the astral tonight and we’ll give her the signature KGB gangrene in all the fractures of her limbs. Well, that’s it now, Ninochka will be a doll without arms and without legs – like a plant! We’ll feed her with a spoon. She will always be so glad and grateful to us for this. Are you happy, my dear?
Husband. I’m so happy. You can’t imagine how happy I am, as if I was born again.
Wife. But she herself, this Ninochka doll, won’t be able to go to the toilet. And the smell of her shit is so omnipotent that I just don’t know how we can intelligently and culturally bypass this circumstance.
Husband. We’ll sidestep it. We sidestepped it without being too cultural.
Wife. That’s true. I promise you this, we’ll bypass it – with your cerebral cockroaches we can manage.
Husband. And with your super-wise cerebral convolutions with their superior IQ.
Wife. We’ll manage. The main thing is that the doctor said she has two fractured hip joints, right and left. You’re just a master of competent fractures, honey. And in the long run, there’s no suspicion from the public prosecutor. Ninochka was so grateful to us that we were next to her and helped drag her into her apartment and call an ambulance. And in the entranceway I pretended to stumble and almost trip over myself. But I fell on her. And you put out your foot in time and held me back so I wouldn’t go tumbling after her. And she crashed down headfirst from a height, hitting the concrete steps of our entranceway staircase like a plaster skeleton. I counted about ten bumps on her head, and cuts. No less. Well, my boy, we gave the scum something to shit about!!! We can still participate in the filming as stuntmen and get a lot of money for it.
Husband. Exactly.
Wife. Well, where are your Ferrari cockroaches from Ninochka’s apartment?
Husband. Here, my little cockroaches are in the jar. Well, how nicely we brought the whole thing to completion. Well, just a grandiose, filigree, KGB operation. And then we humanely dragged the broken
Ninochka to her apartment and called an ambulance, then you took
my hands in your hands and gave me energy so I could catch the roaches afterwards.
Wife. And Ninochka, our real, alien enemy, was a hero too, you have to give her credit. Ninochka is really a marvellous marvel – what a marvellous marvel our heroic Ninochka is. She promised to bequeath her apartment to us. It turns out that Ninochka doesn’t have anyone else. She said we should go to the hospital tomorrow with a solicitor and she’ll sign her will for the apartment to go to us.
Husband. She’s a truly heroic Ninochka. It wasn’t some trashy creature that I loved, after all. Do you understand me now?
Wife. I understand and forgive you, you are my miracle. Such victories are only seen in this world in fairytales. Now we only have to live and live, and not grieve!
Husband. The main thing now is to deal with the loft competently and earn
money from artists, as you say, for rent. I decided it’s not worthwhile keeping pigeons in the loft. Crushing roaches will give me more pleasure.
Wife. Now I’m beginning to think properly and reasonably. Well then, release the cockroaches!
Husband. I’m releasing the cockroaches!!! The race is on!!! (Lets the roaches out of the jar.)
Wife. Whatever the child finds amusing – as long as he doesn’t cry, as long as he doesn’t hang, or shit past the bowl, the bastard…


The lights dim



Moscow, 2012
‘The Macbeth Chronicles’ – Help on the Bright Path…

Lev NOVOZHENOV

A production based on Mikhail Volokhov’s play ‘The Macbeth Chronicles’ has been premiered at the 18+ Theatre.
By virtue of the bloody profession of ‘social celestials’, the characters have been entrusted with the lives of compatriots. Now they, these tenacious executioners, should repent in their old age. But no. Chronic ‘timeless illness’ does not relent. Those who were once allowed to kill irrevocably turn into Macbethic beings who, even in extreme old age, are consumed by a real desire and determination to decide the fate of their neighbours (at the very least to deprive their housemates of life for the sake of power in their entranceway).
At the same time, Volokhov’s characters truly, with Shakespearean passions, selflessly love and, at the same time, hate each other with demonic intensity, which creates additional dramatic and vital volume and depth in the play. And this is exactly what is beautifully embodied on the stage by the director and played by the actors. For an hour and a half the viewer watches with fascination and laughs at the Boschian self- exposure of Volokhov’s hyperrealistic characters.
According to Volokhov he strives to expose the diabolical manifestations of the era in his plays, igniting the bright forces of humane values in the culture of mankind. Healthy laughter and prolonged ovations in the hall after German Grekov’s performance testify to the revival of epically worthy defenders.
This impressive success staged by the theatre’s chief director is emphasized by the filigree performance of Honoured Artists of Russia Olga Shchelokova and Vladimir Vorobyov in a formidable, terrifying, historical and social tragicomedy of global relevance.

4)

Mikhail Volokhov



BULLETS IN CHOCOLATE

A tragicomedy



CHARACTERS

Short Soldier
Tall Soldier Girl
Girl

The present


Onstage we see a couple of tree stumps, a couple of stones. Two Soldiers crawl towards each other.

Short Soldier. Hey, there – you on the horizon!
Tall Soldier. Why are you yelling at me from behind that tree stump? Short Soldier. Why are you lurking behind a boulder, like just another boulder?
Tall Soldier. Think you’re just another tree stump?
Short Soldier. I’ll cut such stumps from you for creeping up on me, dammit, you boulder.
Tall Soldier. Okay, calm down, tree stump, what’s your game? Long time since you had a fuck? What’s eating you? If you were born a stump, who’s to blame for that? Only the Lord God can answer for that, stump.
Short Soldier. You’ve really overstepped the mark now, boulder – I’ll grind you to dust right now.
Tall Soldier. What axe will you grind me with, you rotten stump, a branch?
Short Soldier. I’ll pulverize you with a volley from my Kalashnikov, get my drift, you miserable trench soldier.
Tall Soldier. Your Kalashnikov volleys ended long ago, little soldier.
Short Soldier. Then why hide from me behind a boulder? Pissing yourself at the very thought of my Kalashnikov volleys?
Tall Soldier. I’ll let off a Kalashnikov volley myself, right now, between your ribs and the back of your head, just to say hello.
Short Soldier. Oh yeah, your machine gun’s empty – and I can empty your leaky skull right now.
Tall Soldier. I’m really losing my cool now, you fucking idiot. (Gets up, dusts himself off, perches on the boulder, takes out a cigarette, looks for a light.) Got a light hidden away there?
Short Soldier. Might have. What’s that you’re smoking?
Tall Soldier. Anything that comes my way.
Short Soldier. The Lord God told us we must share our wealth.
Tall Soldier. Catch, you miserable druggie! (About to throw him a cigarette.)
Short Soldier. (Gets up, approaches Tall Soldier.) Hey, don’t throw, it’ll get lost! (Grabs the cigarette. They light up.) Wow, like oxygen, the real thing.
Tall Soldier. Awesome.
Short Soldier. Right on. How come you’re still fighting a war at your age?
Tall Soldier. I don’t want to die from bedsores between the sheets.
Short Soldier. Fuck me. You want to be shot at, out here in the fresh air?
Tall Soldier. Maybe. Or simply have a shell blow my head off and that’s it, kaput.
Short Soldier. You’re serving your country.
Tall Soldier. And what will you do?
Short Soldier. I’ll still be a soldier.
Tall Soldier. I see. What kind of soldier? Short Soldier. What kind? A good soldier. Tall Soldier. I see.
Short Soldier. And what will you do?
Tall Soldier. I’ll be an intellectual soldier.
Short Soldier. No need for pretentious statements. And me, don’t you think I’m an intellectual soldier?
Tall Soldier. How can I put it? At first sight you look more of a sensual soldier.
Short Soldier. A sensual soldier, you must be joking. (Points his bayonet at the Tall Soldier.) How did you figure out so immediately and so accurately about my sensuality?
Tall Soldier. I’m a specialist in meditation. What’s your zodiac sign?
Short Soldier. According to which zodiac?
Tall Soldier. When were you born? Date of birth, year.
Short Soldier. 28th of March, 1963.
Tall Soldier. That is Aries by the Western zodiac, and you’re a Tiger by the Chinese zodiac. On the cusp you’re a sabre-toothed tiger.
Short Soldier. I’m a sabre-toothed tiger? What’s this beast of a tiger going to tear apart here, who can I bite!? (Points his bayonet at a the Tall Soldier).
Tall Soldier. Well, that’s how your parents gave birth to you – on a sabre-toothed tiger date. You should be happy – a sabre-toothed tiger is a natural innovator, an inventor, very generous, both financially and emotionally. And the unbridled feelings inherent in you from birth plus your charm and artistry should attract a horde of women. Rejoice. The stars make you the centre of attention, centre-stage. (As he speaks the Short Soldier is exactly centre-stage).
Short Soldier. You’re not the first person to tell me that. And what’s your zodiac sign?
Tall Soldier. According to the horoscope I’m a mystical goat, my friend.
Short Soldier. Even if you’re mystical, you’re probably a billy goat, not just a goat. No need to hide intimately horoscopic personal military stellar positions, infantryman.
Tall Soldier. Listen here, soldier, you sabre-toothed tiger – I’m a mystical goat, with very sharp, long horns. There are no mystical or even non-mystical billy goats in the stellar horoscope. Billy goats only walk and jump around here on earth.
Short Soldier. Why are you trying to brainwash me – like I don’t know these idiotic horoscopes. Even my girlfriend according to your horoscope turns out to be a hybrid goatibex according to your zodiac, she’s a Capricorn, dammit.
Tall Soldier. Yeah, there are no goatibexes in the zodiac. And according to the zodiac Capricorns don’t have any goatish or billy-goatish characteristics.
Short Soldier. Capricorns aren’t goats – that’s a shameless lie. What are they then – they’re goats, if not billy goats, even if my girlfriend was a Capricorn, godammit. I told her myself – you’re not a Capricorn, you must be a She-Goat Capricorn. And she said, no, I’m a Capricorn. Those bloody feminists, can’t tell them anything.
Tall Soldier. And what’s your girlfriend by her birth year, in the Chinese zodiac?
Short Soldier. She was born in the Chinese year of the Ox.
Tall Soldier. Ox and goat. That’s definitely a hybrid goat – a unicorn. In that case, I don’t envy you, as a sabre-toothed tiger.
Short Soldier. She’s such a tiny girl, my girlfriend, even shorter than me, but she’s a real unicorn-multi-horn goatibex, a demon in a skirt, a real hybrid. And you, what does being a mystical goat mean according to the zodiac?
Tall Soldier. Most importantly, the mystical goat has more brains than it needs. Mystical goats were supposed to be sacrificed to the gods. These goats may seem deceptively simple-minded, but after getting to know them better partners soon rethink that opinion. A mystical goat can be a very good adviser or judge. Their personality is quite altruistic, valuing both their own freedom and the freedom of others, so they develop warm, friendly relations with most people.
Short Soldier. Must be hard for you to be an enemy soldier, my friend.
Tall Soldier. Absolutely. Shooting a soldier from the oppostite side brings me to tears.
Short Soldier. Well, you don’t have to actually kill me. Seems like we made our peace just by talking.
Tall Soldier. I’m all for peace between soldiers.
Short Soldier. How does the mystical goat behave zodiacally speaking in family life?
Tall Soldier. The mystical goat isn’t well adapted to family life. The mystical goat believes his partner is unworthy of him. Only in very rare cases can such a person meet a worthy partner and become a good family man.
Short Soldier. Then what’s life like as a mystical goat?
Tall Soldier. There’s nothing you can do about it – I live as a mystical cosmic goat, but also as a hardy tin soldier with a heart full of human love.
Short Soldier. Yes, you’re an interesting mystical soldier. You should be a writer, a prophet, but you’re still a soldier here, an unknown and un- mystical soldier soldiering on, up hill and down dale.
Tall Soldier. The highest rank is to be an unknown field soldier with a cold.
The soldier with a cold in the winter snow, in a trench,
Three o’clock in the morning, the enemy begins a tank attack The soldier has pneumonia, there’s no penicillin
There’s no warm bed for him in the nearest infirmary The soldier with a cold has lost the will to live
He spits blood on the snow with a temperature of forty The nearest enemy tank is a hundred metres away, Storming ahead with barrel aimed at the foot soldier
The soldier gets up and smiles, steps towards the tank with a grenade And it seems to him that his beloved flies towards him, instead of a tank, And he’s holding flowers in his hand, not a grenade
He wants to hug his beloved so much
That even the tank fails to shoot, entranced
And time stops in the war for a moment of love between the soldier and
 
the tank
But the next second a shell from the tank strikes the chest of the soldier There’s no penicillin, it’s no longer needed
The soldier falls, he’s dead, he no longer has a cold

Short Soldier. Thank God it’s summer here. You’re so cultured, not tin at all, you don’t even seem to have a cold. You definitely have a human heart. Don’t be sad. Maybe you regret not shooting me with a lead bullet half an hour ago?
Tall Soldier. All my bullets flew away like birds long ago.
Short Soldier. We’ve been fighting for a long time. And as for birds, by the way, I still have a bayonet beak. (Holds a bayonet to the throat of the Tall Soldier.) Well, have you finished, you goat-hybrid intellectual orator-soloist?
Tall Soldier. I’ve got a bayonet, too.
Short Soldier. But where’s your bayonet – your bayonet’s behind you. My bayonet’s here at your throat.
Tall Soldier. But I thought we made peace, my good man. Just take your bayonet away from my throat. The reflected sun’s shining in my eyes – since childhood I can’t bear sunbeams and anything that reflects them, anything made of iron or mirrors. (Pushes the Short Soldier’s bayonet away from his throat.)
Short Soldier. The bayonet’s my brother, he’s loyal. I often look at my bayonet as I look in a mirror when a midge gets in my eye and I need to remove that midge.
Tall Soldier. With the bayonet?
Short Soldier. Not with the bayonet, no. If you stick a bayonet in your eye you can gouge your eye out and end up like Leshy the One-Eyed – come off it, dude – absolutely not. You just look at the bayonet, like in a mirror, then you lift the upper eyelid a little bit, then you lower it a little bit, just below the lower eyelid, and so you rub it on the lower lid, you rub it again, and you lift it, you lift the upper eyelid. Are you memorising this first aid technique? Then the midge falls from the edge of the lower eyelid to the ground, according to the law of gravity, you get my drift?
Dude.
Tall Soldier. I get it. You know a lot, too.
Short Soldier. War’s the most reliable teacher.
Tall Soldier. You’ve got bright brains in your skull – like your bright shiny bayonet. My poor old bayonet got rusted over.
Short Soldier. Rusted with blood.
Tall Soldier. How could it be blood? You rip open someone’s guts and there’s hydrochloric acid in the guts. There’s an immediate chemical- thermal reaction with the metal and the bayonet gets rusty.
Short Soldier. At least you winced when you remembered the guts with hydrochloric acid – an intelligent gutter.
Tall Soldier. Yes, this war weighed heavily on me, left me like a wrinkled morel.
Short Soldier. You should rub it with machine oil, at least the bayonet, after contact with the guts. It’s not the bayonet’s fault that human guts are filled with hydrochloric acid.
Tall Soldier. Where do I get machine oil during a battle?
Short Soldier. Well, after the battle, back at camp.
Tall Soldier. Well, after the battle, back at camp, of course, you can lubricate it with engine oil there if you can find it, no problem.
Short Soldier. If you look, you’ll find. What can’t you find in war?
Tall Soldier. Best not to look. After all, if a rusty bayonet gets under the skin of some terrible enemy, it’ll be even better for him, he’ll die faster, from blood poisoning, too.
Short Soldier. Well I never… you’re an intellectual from a horror movie, you tell it like it. You arrange everything neatly in the recesses of a burial crypt, you crematorial bastard. I’d be glad to make short work of your goatish muzzle, right now.
Tall Soldier. The war completely soured my soul and ate away my conscience. I can’t kill anymore, but I’m killing.
Short Soldier. I kill everyone there and then – I just don’t look them in the eye, even when I kill from half a metre away with this bayonet.
Tall Soldier. I look them in the eye. It’s as if I’m looking into my own eyes, as if I’m killing myself. That way I can live and go on killing.
That’s my military experience, the horror of it. It’s a pity to drink – there’s no vodka to quench a burning soul with someone else’s blood.
Short Soldier. You’re insulting me, veteran. (Takes a flask from his pocket, offers it to the Tall Soldier.) Drink while you’re alive.
Tall Soldier. What can we drink to? (Pours alcohol into the lid of his flask, passes the flask itself to the Short Soldier).
Short Soldier. For all soldiers, may they live in peace and love.
Tall Soldier. The heartfelt words of army and fraternity. (Drinks.) Short Soldier (drinks). Who’s your commander?
Tall Soldier. The commander on horseback.
Short Soldier. Horses are like warm stoves in the cold.
Tall Soldier. Living stoves.
Short Soldier. Your commander’s lucky... mounted on a stove.
Tall Soldier. My commander on a stove... isn’t lucky any more.
Short Soldier. The horse got killed?
Tall Soldier. He himself got killed.
Short Soldier. I thought you meant the horse.
Tall Soldier. No, they shot him right through the forehead with a targeted
shot. At five hundred metres from your trenches. It sounds like a difficult target, what’s more they got him in the middle of the forehead. He only leaned out of the trench for a second. I actually told my commander – don’t stick the top of your head up in this light, you’ll end up in the next world. And that’s just what happened.
Short Soldier. They shot him straight through the forehead?
Tall Soldier. Right in the middle. Straight through.
Short Soldier. So you lost your commander yesterday, at 10:20?
Tall Soldier. You’re exactly right… You bastard, you have such good aim you can shoot to kill? (Grabs the Short Shoulder’s shirt front.)
Short Soldier. How could I know that was your commander? (Pause). What was his name?
Tall Soldier. He had a good name! My commander had a very good name!!! Such an irreproachable man. If you’d only known him. If you’d only known him, you miserable sniper.
Short Soldier. I’m sorry. Well...
Tall Soldier. You can forgive. But nott forget. How can I go on without my commander?
Short Soldier. You can follow your own orders.
Tall Soldier. My commander’s gone.
Short Soldier. War is such a beast, little brother. You should be glad you’re still alive – a tall man like you makes a walking target.
Tall Soldier. I think ahead, when to get out of the trench, when not. Short Soldier. I expect the girls love you, you’re so intelligent and charming. You probably have a whole regiment of good-lookers. An entire division. Eh?
Tall Soldier. Not one.
Short Soldier. Not one?
Tall Soldier. Not one in the whole world. They love me, but I don’t love them. Isn’t that the case with you?
Short Soldier. It’s not like that with me at all. Nobody loves me, I’m too short.
Tall Soldier. Never mind, you’re thriving here in the war – you’re still alive. It’s hard to hit a wild one like you as you run and jump from side to side. How many bullets would I waste trying to shoot you?
Short Soldier. I’ve got enough for you too, a whole cartridge. That’s a lot of money from our budget. You’re so fidgety, you’re lean as a snake, you can crawl through any crack in the stones so they don’t kill you.
Tall Soldier. Well, I want to live.
Short Soldier. Everyone wants to live – especially in a war. We’re fighting for our life.
Tall Soldier. We’re dying for life.
Short Soldier. We’ll die for life, brother. My commander was even
shorter than me. But your bastard bullets got him just the other day.
Tall Soldier. At the bears’ watering hole?
Short Soldier. At the bears’ watering hole.
Tall Soldier. The morning after the full moon?
Short Soldier. The morning after the full moon.
Tall Soldier. Three weeks ago?
Short Soldier. Three weeks ago. A sniper. Hit in the forehead. Right between the eyes.
Tall Soldier. A sniper. In the forehead. Right between the eyes. I shot him.
Short Soldier. You?
Tall Soldier. I’m sorry.
Short Soldier. That’s why the Lord used me yesterday to eliminate your commander, too, you bastard. The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away.
Tall Soldier. You took him for God? Then I did it for God too, but for Our God alone.
Short Soldier. Our God gave this land to us!
Tall Soldier. Excuse me, you’re mistaken – it was our God gave this land to us.
Short Soldier. We’ll see about that.
Tall Soldier. Oh no, we’ll see about that! Division! Salvo!! Fire!!!
Short Soldier. You bastard. You scumbag! Without warning. Squadron! Division!!! Salvo!!! Fire!!!!!!
Tall Soldier. AAh! Oh dear me! (Crumples to the ground.)
Short Soldier. What’s the matter with you, division? Huh?
Tall Soldier. Blood pressure, squadron.
Short Soldier. Blood pressure – that’s bad – could give you a stroke.
Tall Soldier. That’s what I’m afraid of.
Short Soldier. A stroke can keep you paralysed, bedridden, for ten years.
Tall Soldier. That’s what I’m afraid of, more than anything.
Short Soldier. Is there no one to take care of you?
Tall Soldier. Not really. Theoretically – doesn’t bear thinking about.
Short Soldier. If some little vessel bursts in my brain, I can take potassium cyanide there and then, it’s in this capsule. See? (Shows him a capsule.)
Tall Soldier. I see it. You’re like Dr. Pleischner – poison insured. That doctor was a good man. You don’t find doctors like that anymore.
Short Soldier. When he took poison and threw himself from the fifth floor I felt so sorry for him. I cried so much my mother wouldn’t let me watch the rest of the TV series.
Tall Soldier. I wept bitterly along with my mother. My mother let me watch all the series.
Short Soldier. How I envy you. That’s why you’re so cultured and
pedagogical. It was all due to your mama.
Tall Soldier. Thanks. All mamas are good.
Short Soldier. But not all women are our mothers.

Pause

Tall Soldier (looks round). A girl, she’s coming this way.
Short Soldier (looks round). She’s in a hurry, too…

The Girl enters.

Short Soldier. So who are you – a little doe… appearing from nowhere.
Tall Soldier (to the Girl). Who are you, sweetie?
Girl. Just call me Girl.
Tall Soldier (to the Short Soldier). She’s called Girl.
Short Soldier (to the Tall Soldier). Girl? A sweetie. In the middle of a war?
Tall Soldier (to the Short Soldier). Says she really is here in the middle of a war. But she’s a sweetie.
Short Soldier. You’re really here in the middle of a war, sweetie?
Girl. Want me to get undressed?
Short Soldier (to the Tall Soldier). D’you want her to get undressed?
Tall Soldier. Yes, in general, I’ve nothing against girls getting undressed, but I don’t know. I haven’t washed for three days. Maybe it’s a bit awkward right now?
Short Soldier. Yeah, and I haven’t washed for a week. She’s on our front-line border territory, so to speak she’s divided in two, spiritually and bodily.
Tall Soldier. Is she all by herself, unguarded?
Short Soldier (to the Girl). Are you all by yourself, unguarded?
Girl. I’m all by myself, unguarded. But I washed yesterday. Also all by myself. In the river – I even dived.
Tall Soldier. Oh, in the river, all by herself – it doesn’t count.
Short Soldier. A girl, washing in the river, especially all by herself – it doesn’t count.
Tall Soldier. I’m not the only one who washes in the river every day. Especially when the attack goes back and forth across the river. Or when you have to give them the run – then too.
Short Soldier. That’s right, there can be so many attacks in one day, especially along the river, from one bank to the other, and you jump in, you’re up to your throat along the bank behind the enemy. You can’t fool us by saying you swim and dive in the river alone. It doesn’t count.
Girl. And does bathing in a hot tub alone count?
Tall Soldier and Short Soldier (together). Of course bathing in a hot tub counts! Even if you’re not alone.
Girl. Well, today I actually washed in a hot tub.
Short Soldier. Where could you find a hot bath here today in the field, in an unpredictable combat situation? What kind of lies are you telling us, girl? Aren’t you ashamed?
Girl. I’m very ashamed.
Tall Soldier. It must be two hundred kilometres from here to the nearest houses, little girl.
Girl. I was dropped here by plane – by parachute.
Short Soldier. So where’s the parachute?
Girl. The river swept it away. I landed in the river. I unfastened the parachute in the river or I’d have drowned. What else could I do?
Tall Soldier. Well, you did the right thing, generally speaking.
Short Soldier. What, you’re a spy? A saboteur?
Girl. I’m doing research, that’s all.
Tall Soldier. Research into what?
Girl. People, of course – customs, folklore.
Short Soldier. Well I never! She’s a stormer! Our own military girl, so to speak.
Girl. Are you going to rape me?
Short Soldier. Why rape such a nice, appetizing girl? Right away, without wooing her a little first? What’s your star sign?
Girl. Capricorn.
Short Soldier. How come you’re Capricorn?
Girl. I was born on the 6th of January. In the month of Capricorn and the year of the Ox.
Tall Soldier. You were born in the year of the Ox?
Short Soldier. Unbelievable. Another goatibex hybrid. Girl. Are you going to rape me?
Short Soldier. There she goes again, she’s a nymphomaniac. No, we don’t rape goatibexes. The goatibexes rape us, after all. You see a
beautiful girl, so what, but in fact she’s a goatibex, a nymphomaniac rapist.
Girl. So you really will rape me.
Short Soldier. You’re getting on my nerves – my friend here is suffering from low blood pressure. How can he rape you, even if he really wants to?
Girl. Low blood pressure is very dangerous, it can give you a stroke.
Short Soldier. I’ve been telling the idiot that for the last hour.
Girl. What does he say?
Short Soldier. What does he say? That all strategic information is being processed.
Girl. A nasty turn like that could leave him paralysed and bedridden for the next ten years.
Short Soldier. Just what I said.
Tall Soldier. Yes, such words have international implications.
Short Soldier. You’re serious?
Girl. Absolutely serious.
Short Soldier. You see, and I was the first to tell him these internationally, even globally prophetic words.
Girl. He should eat hazelnuts. They’re recommended for atherosclerosis.
Tall Soldier. There are many beneficial foods, my girl. But where do we get hazelnuts in the steppes, two hundred kilometres from the nearest settlement?
Girl. I’ve got some hazelnuts, here you are. (Hands them some nuts.) They didn’t get wet – I had them inside an airtight plastic bag in my backpack.
Short Soldier. Hazelnuts for veins make a man wise. (Eats.) So what’s atherosclerosis?
Girl. It’s when this plague-fly junk clogs up your veins.
Tall Soldier. Blocking the blood vessels.
Girl. Exactly.
Short Soldier. So that’s it – first the goddam plague-fly junk clogs your veins, then you have a stroke. I see. Then you’re bedridden for ten years with paralysis. Then they put you on a bedpan and you crawl round like a cripple. You can’t turn on your left side, or your right. If there’s nobody there to turn you.
Girl. Why is there nobody there?
Short Soldier. Could turn out to be nobody.
Girl. Could that really happen?
Tall Soldier. Anything can happen in our fucked-up, egoistical life, we’re fighting, fighting away, taking other people’s lives for no reason, as if it meant nothing.
Girl. But you can turn from side to side – that’s not fighting, that’s absolutely necessary.
Short Soldier. If you can, then of course it’s necessary. Bedsores form if there’s no movement, when there’s no friend or relative nearby to turn you from side to side. D’you know what bedsores are? It’s when a person, a still living person, begins to rot on his back. A living person is lying there, rotting on his back. And he needs to turn over urgently, otherwise everything will rot. But nobody’s there to turn this poor man on his side. And nature doesn’t tolerate a vaccuum. Putrefactive bacteria on the person’s back see it as a beneficial, putrid, nutritious, free-loading haven, and where there’s poor blood circulation they grow and proliferate, these putrefactive little microbes. These, in turn, bear fruit in
love with their microbial children. Then the worms come, too. These worms are only too ready to devour your rotten bedsores, to eat us, living people, alive. This execution is scarier than any war. I apologise, of course, that I started to speak of such things in front of a beautiful girl, when I only want to talk of something else... to speak of sublime love in imperishable words. But I’m tired and nervous here in the war, I’m afraid I’ll die a crazy man, without ever falling in love with the most beautiful girl in the world… Although everyone calls me very brave, because I consider myself very brave.
Tall Soldier. That’s not really true at all.
Girl. Of course. (To the Short Soldier) You understand everything so deeply, so openly-fearlessly.
Tall Soldier. Yes, he understands everything so deeply, so openly- fearlessly. He’s a very brave man, a military man – being always ready to sincerely proceed straight ahead to victory over the enemy is the main thing.
Short Soldier. Okay, okay, whatever. I really do know everything that I really know, when I not only think, but also feel. And I always think sensitively in this way, therefore I feel like a thinker, like a general.
Girl. What worthy, intelligent general’s soldiers you are.
Short Soldier. It’s just always necessary to think specifically with a specific thought, and sensitively, too. How else? My children. Everything in our world is so absolutely sensitively mental that Absolute Mental Knowledge can only be comprehended by a subtly loving heart.
Therefore we must believe in God, the One God, only with a feeling heart. You don’t want to, you don’t believe, you don’t love with this brain of yours, but nevertheless, through this brain I don’t love, through this terrible, catastrophically mathematical means I don’t believe – I don’t want to – it’s necessary through force, overcoming all my pernicious atheistic thoughts, my unwillingness, you have to Believe, Believe Only To Believe – as the great prophets bequeathed to us. In war you realize most acutely that without Faith in God you will never meet the most charming girl on the battlefield, two hundred kilometres from the nearest settlement.
Tall Soldier. I Believe!
Girl. And me! And me!! And me!!!
Short Soldier. Thank you. What can I say. I Believe in this too!
Tall Soldier. You’re such a good fellow – I didn’t expect it. You’re more than an intellectual – you’re the nucleus of the people – a divine prophet.
Girl. We must be like him. We must be worthy of this prophet, this Chrysostom, in the war!!!
Short Soldier. Leave it out. Prophets get killed – I’m still alive and I want to live a while longer.
Girl. But in order not to die, even as a prophet in a peaceful life from these ill-fated bedsores, you only need take korenade.
Short Soldier. What’s korenade?
Girl. Tablets.
Tall Soldier. Tablets?
Short Soldier. He says it’s tablets.
Tall Soldier. Korenade?
Girl. Korenade.
Short Soldier. I never heard of these tablets.
Tall Soldier. They’re imported?
Girl. Our own! Made here!
Short Soldier. Made here – that’s better. As soon as you swallow a domestic pill you immediately feel you really swallowed some fucking metaphysical substance to the power of x in integral notation.
Tall Soldier. Are these pills made from natural ingredients?
Girl. Based on garlic.
Short Soldier. Garlic therapy has existed for centuries. Sehr gut.
Girl. Gut without a doubt, from centuries ago.
Short Soldier. Why korenade? They call garlic korenade now?
Girl. No, korenade is an anti-cancer agent found in all coloured vegetables and fruit. But korenade tablets provide this precious korenade in a very concentrated form. One korenade tablet has the same amount of this concentrated, precious korenade as several hundred kilograms of coloured vegetables and fruits. It’s a fact. One pill in the morning, another in the evening, and you get a self-fulfilling-dosage – so prophesy, prophesy, please be a Prophet of this medicine!
Short Soldier. You already take it, this korenade pill?
Girl. I take them all the time. Are we friends now?
Short Soldier. Sorry, yes of course.
Girl. Excellent. My name’s Elena.
Short Soldier. And I’m Charles. It’s a pleasure, Elena. (Kisses her hand.)
Girl. Oh, it’s a pleasure for me, Charles!
Tall Soldier. I’m Ferdinand.
Girl. Pleased to meet you, Ferdinand!
Tall Soldier (kisses her hand). My pleasure is a hundred times greater! Short Soldier. So tell me, Elena, you already take this korenade yourself?
Girl. Of course I take it!
Tall Soldier. And it helps? Girl. Of course it helps!
Short Soldier. So you don’t have a stroke?
Girl. I don’t know about strokes. I take korenade to protect me from cancer.
Short Soldier. You’ve got cancer?
Girl. No, I don’t have cancer.
Short Soldier. So you treat yourself, just in case?
Girl. Yes.
Short Soldier. Wow, you’re a real, pure natural, sincere medicinal girl, Elena!
Girl. I’m a very natural girl, Elena the eco-friendly, radiant, sunny medicinal girl! Thank you!
Tall Soldier. But we’re talking about a stroke leading to bedsores. Let’s be serious.
Short Soldier. Plague-fly-atherosclerosis! If a person has a stroke
coming, it’s right there on their nose! (Points at the Tall Soldier’s nose.)
Girl. They get a stroke on their nose? (Peers at the Tall Soldier’s nose.) I can’t see a stroke on Ferdinand’s nose.
Tall Soldier. Are you stupid or just pretending?
Girl. Just pretending.
Short Soldier. She’s an absolutely real, very philosophical, insightful girl with a sincere and sparkling heart, a female mind here in a heroic war, listen to what she has to say, my friend.
Girl. I’m a very, completely real insightful girl with a sincere and sparkling heart, an intelligent female mind in this heroic war. Although I really want to undress and sunbathe... To fully convince you that I’m just a totally academic and very sensible girl.
Short Soldier. Well, of course, let’s get undressed right away and sunbathe, what’s the problem, we’re very impatient to confirm that
you’re definitely this academic, sensible girl Elena. There’s enough space for everybody under the sun.
Girl. Oh! Thank you for this brilliant resolution of such a difficult and eternal gender-cultural issue.
Tall Soldier. But... wait! I’m getting a hard-on!!!
Short Soldier. Well, get a hard-on, my friend, it’s good for the health. I’m getting a hard-on too, but the thought will strengthen the hidden secret – Rozanov’s boy is indisputable.
Tall Soldier. But I could get a stroke any minute!
Short Soldier. True. He’s right, Elena. Just don’t look at her. Let her calmly sunbathe for her health, but don’t look at her – gaze calmly inside your soul, you’d do better to mentally compose intelligent poems in your mind right now, but I can give you a fountain pen and a sheet of white paper, even on a tablet.
Tall Soldier. But how can I calmly gaze inside my soul if she sunbathes naked here in front of us?
Short Soldier. How, how – it’s elementary. If you stand with your back to her, like a castrated Origen – he spewed holy thoughts about love and
friendship. And I will face her – just like the Holy Spirit, like this. That’s the way. We’ll even continue talking about your stroke and ‘korenade’, so you feel even calmer. Everything very simple is elementarily solvable.
 Girl. Everything natural, pure and ingenious is always so easily solvable. (She undresses behind the Tall Soldier.)
Tall Soldier. But I’ve got eyes on my back!!!
Short Soldier. Where are your eyes on your back? Why are you fooling around, where are these eyes on your back?! (Peers at his back.) What an idiot. Says he has eyes on his back. Maybe you have eyes on your ass, too?
Tall Soldier. Who gave you the right to insult me in front of the Girl, you lout?!
Short Soldier. Lout?! And what are you on about in front of the Girl, saying you’ve got eyes on your back. Maybe you have eyes on your ass, too? It’s an insult, no messing.
Tall Soldier (takes this to heart, sits on the tree stump). I don’t have eyes on my ass. If I had eyes on my ass, I wouldn’t be able to sit on a stump.
Short Soldier. Why couldn’t you? You could close the eyes on your ass and sit on a stump to eat your pie. You see, Elena, what kind of idiot I have to contend with, you understand me?
Girl. Yes, I understand only too well. But maybe Ferdinand also has, according to him, a sick heart – but it’s only a military trick to mislead the enemy?
Short Soldier. You must hand it to her – she gives you truth from the heart, puts the truth out there on the front line. Admit it, Ferdinand – is your sick heart just to mislead the enemy?
Tall Soldier. My heart’s barely beating at all, guys. I’m in a bad way, a bad way. (He lies down on the ground.)
Girl. Is he dead? Ferdinand!
Short Soldier. We must take his pulse. (Feels for Ferdinand’s pulse.) Ferdinand, are you dead? Stop fooling around.
Tall Soldier. Can you feel my pulse?
Short Soldier. I can feel it.
Tall Soldier. Then I must be alive.
Girl. He’s alive! He’s alive, Charles!!! (Flings her arms round Charles.) What happened to you, Ferdinand?
Tall Soldier. I need my mother, I really need my mother. But she’s not here – my mother passed on from this world.
Girl. Listen, Charles, your Ferdinand is so restless, so defenseless, helpless, so sick – I understand your plight, Charles. I’ve fallen in love with him as deeply as you did, Charles.
Short Soldier. What makes you think I’m deeply in love with Ferdinand?
Girl. Well you didn’t kill Ferdinand your enemy – you didn’t finish him
off, not even when he was just now at death’s door. You brought him to his senses with all your strength! That says a lot.
Short Soldier. Well, first of all, treachery and humanism aren’t the last word as far as I’m concerned. And secondly, I thought he was a traitor and about to die anyway, by himself, without outside help. If the enemy perishes by himself, why interfere, why waste energy, nervous energy – not to mention bullets, when there’s none left.
Tall Soldier. What a sophist you are, Charles, an impossible sophist! Short Soldier. No, I’m not a sophist. It’s just that bullets actually cost more than this dead Ferdinand. That’s the reality, the truth of it. It’s an unpleasant thought, yes, but it’s still true, unbelieving traitors.
Girl. Why are we unbelieving traitors?
Short Soldier. What else are you? How can you sunbathe behind Ferdinand’s back, then make up to him right in front of Charles. I was expecting it. As God is my judge, I expected treason! And me? I’m just endlessly na;vely talkative – which destroys me primitively.
Girl. But Charles, what’s that got to do with it? We don’t want any betrayal – we want everything to be open, very talkative-na;ve, but not primitive, Charles!
Short Soldier. Open treason will still be the most heinous treason, you insignificant, vile little people from the underworld. Argh! (Hand on heart.) My own heart aches. (He sits on the ground.) And I was already dreaming that someone would need me in paralysis, in love... Fucky- fucky…
Girl. But Charles! (Embraces Charles.) No one here was going to cheat on you, Charles.
Short Soldier. I saw everything, Lenochka. I saw what kind of eyes you have.
Girl. What kind of eyes do I have?
Short Soldier. You have magical, bottomless, brown, gypsy eyes. And your hair is an aetherial brown, like the boundlessness of mystery... like magical flowers at Maytime... my beloved Lenochka – I love you so much that... I’m just dying... (Clutches his heart, collapses on the ground.)
Girl. How about that! Who would believe it!! Eh?! Charles! Don’t die!! Charles!!! (Shakes the Short Soldier.)
Tall Soldier. Pulse! Take his pulse!
Girl (feels for the Short Soldier’s pulse). Seems to be beating.
Short Soldier. I’m not dead, I’m not dead. (Gets up.) No need to rejoice so eloquently.
Tall Soldier. You really know how to pull a fast one, don’t you.
Girl (to the Short Soldier). Are you jealous, Othello?
Short Soldier. Othello isn’t jealous. Othello is suffering. Then he does
away with whoever’s just asking for it, and whoever else, unfortunately, fortunately. C’est la vie – extinguish the candles – there is no happiness on earth or under the sun…
Girl. Ooh, I love you both so much, I love you equally. You’re so different, but with so much personality. Unbelievable.
Short Soldier. You can’t love both equally. What kind of family is that, for God’s sake, if you love us both equally. I’d like to have my children with you, just our loved ones and relatives.
Tall Soldier. I’d like that too.
Short Soldier. To have kids you need at least more or less a right-angled erection, without any of this crippling low pressure.
Tall Soldier. I can get a hard-on. Very high and beautiful, it stands at ninety-five degrees. Want to check, dwarf with the high blood pressure? Short Soldier. Periodically I check mine too, you know, you stroke- artiste.
Tall Soldier. You also got hit by a stroke. You keel over from your high- pressured heart like you’ve been knocked down – you don’t know what to do, what korenades to get.
Girl. But it’s better than falling into bed from a stroke with low blood pressure. (To the Short Soldier.) Charlemagne.
Tall Soldier. What?
Short Soldier. Charlemagne?
Girl. Charlemagne.
Tall Soldier. But why is it worse to keel over from a stroke with low blood pressure in bed than to keel over from a stroke with high blood pressure, Lena?
Girl. Well, in some respects it’s worse, but in other respects it’s better, Ferdinand. (Strokes the Tall Soldier’s head.)
Short Soldier. In what respect is it worse to keel over from a stroke with high blood pressure, may I ask?
Girl. Well, in what respect? If you have a stroke with low blood pressure, you can’t even crawl two metres to the phone.
Tall Soldier. What?!
Girl. But in my opinion it’s much worse when you have a stroke with high blood pressure. In that case you can call the neighbours, in time to call an ambulance. But then, even if an ambulance arrives and they give you some shots, either necessary or not, you’ll still be paralyzed, immobile for the rest of your future life.
Tall Soldier. All the same I’d choose a stroke with high blood pressure. I’d rather lie in bed for another ten years in a living form, although motionless. I’d close my eyes and move wherever I wanted – to the Caribbean, or Hawaii. I’d find somewhere to go.
Short Soldier. And who’d take care of you in such a displaced immobile
state for ten miserable years of imprisonment, Ferdy?!
Tall Soldier. Whoever, I don’t know who. I’m not asking you. And maybe Lenochka doesn’t have to be asked.
Girl. He’s right.
Short Soldier. Wha-at?! In your dreams. You stroke-ridden cripple, when your low-pressure stroke hits your brain you won’t even crawl two metres to the phone. And he was dreaming about my stroke with high blood pressure, the bastard. Only so that Lenochka would take care of him.
Tall Soldier. Well, Lenochka wouldn’t have brought me to this insidious stroke with low blood pressure. And that’s it!
Short Soldier. What are you trying to infer? Lenochka wouldn’t have brought you to this insidious stroke of yours with low blood pressure?!
Girl. No, I wouldn’t!
Short Soldier. I see. There is still treason in the Danish kingdom. It’s so funny, it’s sad.
Girl. I wouldn’t have brought you, Charles, to this terrible stroke with high blood pressure either, if we were only united by fate in love! (Embraces Charles.)
Tall Soldier (with tears in his eyes). You, you, my beloved Lenochka, are a prick-teaser! Charles! She’s a prick-teaser! That’s what she is! You must be very careful with her, Charles!!! Can’t you see, she’s spinning us around, it’s like riding a scooter on broken asphalt!
Short Soldier. Well, a beautiful woman, Ferdy, has the right to roam wherever her animal nature takes her, sorry, wherever her picturesque soul and breasts and buttocks take her. Let her stretch her wings and shake off this demoralising household entropy – so that she really does correctly decide on one of us, without a moment’s doubt, now and forever. And you, Lena, don’t take chances, time only marches on towards death from this fucking stroke. I want to live, and not in a bed with bedsores only on my back.
Girl. Well, how will I choose you – on what basis, if I like you both to the point of losing my super-warm-hearted female reason?
Short Soldier. Well, your super-warm heart is indeed spiritual and sublime, but you have to choose on the basis of male, reduced lethality.
Tall Soldier. Cicero.
Girl. Cicero the glorious. (Gives the Short Soldier a smacking kiss.)
Tall Soldier. Leave it out, if Cicero is the second, I’m the first to leave. (Makes to leave.)
Girl (stops him). But I chose you, my dear Ferdinand-Cicero – with all my exalted heart I will live only with you and for you.
Short Soldier. Wha-at? What about me – I’m no longer your first dear Cicero?
Girl. You’re a good man, very good, my smartest first Charles-Cicero, but I want to be one with Ferdi, with Ferdinand. He’s so tall, kind, strong
– he won’t let anyone offend me, you’re smart – you understand – you’ll be our best friend.
Tall Soldier. It’s a wonder how wonderful she is, Charles! The blessed Elena!!! (Kisses the Girl.)
Short Soldier. Ferdy, can’t you see what she’s up to! She shamelessly ignored the potential stroke of poor me from high blood pressure, so she wouldn’t sit at my bedside with my future stroke-paralysis for ten painful hard-labour years in the future. You, Ferdy, get a stroke with low blood pressure, and you instantly fly off to Tartarus forevermore. This Lena girl won’t have to suffer with you.
Girl. That’s not true, Ferdy, don’t listen to him, he’s a bastard.
Short Soldier. I’m a bastard only because of my honesty and the frankness of my intuitive mind, of course.
Tall Soldier. Charles! Lenochka!! Charles!!! Charles, you evoke such inhumanly human feelings in me, Charles! (Puts his hand on the short soldier’s shoulder). You know, Charles – you should know who Ferdinand is. I... I... How sad I am – immensely sad, but... but I make way for you, take our heavenly Lenochka, Charles.
Girl. Wha-at???!!!
Tall Soldier. Lenochka, I concede you to the great, wise, Confucian Charles – may you know heavenly happiness in love, earthly beings.
Short Soldier. Thanks, Ferdinand – you’re a true connoisseur of the most beautiful truth – I never stopped believing in you, as in God, not for a moment. (Hugs the Tall Soldier.)
Girl. But I don’t want him!!! I don’t want Charles!!! I want Ferdinand!!! Ferdinand!!! (Weeps.)
Short Soldier. Do you see, Ferdy, how this little girl, this little bird, sings so realistically and stylishly?
Tall Soldier. I see it – I see everything through my tears.
Short Soldier. Little girl, little girl, Lenochka-Marusya. Who’s going to ask you here in the war what you want, what you don’t want? Okay, kiddies, you know Charles’s heart is stricken by high blood pressure – I yield to you, Lenusya, Ferdinand – only don’t cry, it gets on my nerves, they’re already worn down to bacilli.
Girl. I’m not crying. I don’t need Ferdinand any more, either. You men can do anything you like. You can be unfaithful, give up the women you love, declare war, surrender young lads to the war, fill your pockets with dollars, and at the same time say that Peace is pointless, worse than wars
– for future wars. In short, if you want to apportion me to one or the other, go ahead and fight to the death right now, before my very eyes. Whoever is the winner, I’ll love him to death.
Short Soldier. You want blood spilled, Girl?
Girl. Yes, I want blood spilled, Tom Thumb.
Short Soldier. Well, what a transformation, from angel to full-on vixen. Well I never, it turns out she’s such an incredible, bloodthirsty, old- fashioned girl – straight out of ignorantly gross chivalrous times. I’m not the goatibexical sheep whose blood you want spilled. I’m a sabre-toothed tiger, I’m warning you. It’s Ferdy over there has a goatish whiff to him, but with sharp horns too, if need be.
Girl. What have all these animals got to do with anything, Charles, Ferdinand!
Short Soldier. But you want our blood, you goatibex, godammit!
Girl. What’s a goatibex got to do with it? I’m not a goatibex. It was always like that – the girl goes to the winner! You’re still fighting, anyway.
Short Soldier. We wanted to make peace, unhappy one – we truly wanted to make peace, and not for future wars, as you rightly, sacredly say, golden girl.
Tall Soldier. In short, here’s a rusty bayonet (gives the Girl the bayonet), all the same you’ll slay whoever you wish as your goat.
Girl. No, you’re not goatibexes, for God’s sake... Let’s live all three of us together – but we must go on living. You agree?! Or I’ll stab myself with this bayonet.
Short Soldier. Give me that weapon! (Confiscates the bayonet.) Suicide’s not an option.
Tall Soldier. What shall we do?
Short Soldier. What shall we do, what shall we do?? I don’t know what to do. She’s suggesting love in a threesome. You agree to that?
Tall Soldier. Surely that’s better than just killing one another?
Short Soldier. Otherwise we’ll morally die in this apparently immoral world. Can you really live with this slut in a threesome, in a morally immoral threesome?
Girl. I’m not a slut yet!
Short Soldier. Let’s start living together as a threesome – then you’ll be a slut right away, my dear.
Girl. And I dream of being a slut, my dears!!!
Tall Soldier. You dream of being a slut, Lena?
Girl. I dream of being a slut, guys – but only with you! Aah...

Two soldiers with Kalashnikovs leap onstage from different directions and shoot the Short Soldier and Tall Soldier point-blank.

One Soldier (approaches the Tall Soldier). Ha, one of ours, you bitch, Chizhik, traitor, bastard.
 
The Other Soldier (approaches the Short Soldier). Ha, one of ours, you bitch, Pyzhik, traitor, bastard.

With cries of ‘bitch’, ‘bastard’, ‘swine’, they shoot one another.

Girl. But whose bitch am I? I’m nobody’s bitch. Just nobody’s, nobody’s bitch, nobody’s slut... (Clutches her heart, grows weak. She lies down on the ground and... falls quiet.)


Ìîñêâà, 2017
‘Bullets in Chocolate’ is not for fools
Lev Novozhonov


Mikhail Volokhov’s play ‘Bullets in Chocolate’ has been staged in Moscow by director Vladimir Kimmelman, in the genre of tragicomic trash of the absurd.
‘Bullets in Chocolate’ is a play about fools fighting, while the smart people seek agreement
and love… But the fools always impede them.
The director and actors present a stage performance in the form of live action with direct audience empathy. There is a wide range of feelings here: from protest and commonplace curiosity at the initial acquaintance to full and deep acceptance of the theatrical reading of the play. An extremely rare and recondite theatrical magic is performed in this production without fakirism. There is only genuine stage magic. The drama allowed the authors of the play to create a sublime, noble, all-responsive living theatre. This is the heart and soul of people of all generations. Volokhov’s most distinctive quality as a playwright is the ability to create exquisite depth in a simple form. For the playwright this is not an author’s simplification or primitivization. On the contrary, here lies the central idea of Volokhov’s modernist style. The simpler the dramatic interpretation, the subtler and more elegant the director’s and actors’ tactics become, making this production of ‘Bullets in Chocolate’ truly theatrical and impressive. Actors Stanislav Pekhovsky, Nina Dronova and Andrey Klavdiev give a fine performance.
The enchanting ‘Bullets in Chocolate’ is currently playing at the Labyrinth of the Minotaur Gallery in Vetoshny Lane (almost on Red Square itself).
==========================================================
5)

 by Mikhail Volokhov               

RUBLYOVKA SAFARI


CHARACTERS
Nastya – a classy broad
Garik – gas oligarch
Mikiton – oil oligarch
Petro – bodyguard



Luxurious living room of a villa on Rublyovka

The present day

Two oligarchs sucking one another off

Garik. Your dick’s yeasty… and cylinder-smooth.
Mikiton. What do you know about my dick?
Garik. You jerk, Miki. After all that free nosh your dick swells like the Mount Everest of State. Stick your tool in the clown’s mouth, bastard, with his emery-rough, sweet snaky crocodile skin.
Mikiton. What emery-rough snaky crocodile skin? My lovely dick is fucking slippy as a jellied eel, like sweet stirring jelly beneath your mouth and naked, hobbled. Whatever you’re whining about down there – unintelligible epithet – is exceptionally incomprehensible. No respect, for fuck’s sake. Balls like a dinosaur’s with unshaven hedgehog bristles like a porcupine, sliding spew down my cock. You scraped my tongue on your abrasive balls till it bled, you homo bastard scum. Too lazy, shit, to shave before our friendly-fucking assignation of State, you bastard, little oligarch with bullet-proof Rublyovka brains.
 Enough of your clever nonsense, cocksucking poet, you stopped fucking you shithead, you old fag. At the most you could say the skin on my balls is slightly coarse like a kiwi. I bet it’s not like my doggy cock and warm loving human balls in your heavenly palatine fallen herald’s mouth. Garik’s balls are those of a cosmic cometary pederast, not the dry cunt of some Ed-med-ped, chief practitioner in the fucking country.
Mikiton. Yeah, shit, we don’t get enough of Ed – it’s not every day we suck one another off. He should be told to fuck off, Ed-ped, I got no desire for a practitioner from an underground mausoleum.
Garik. But I do.
Mikiton. Fuck, who d’you want, Ed?
Garik. I want you, the biggest bastard.
Mikiton. Wise words. I fucking want you, too. Not bed with Ed.
Garik. Suck me off – I fucking want you first.
Mikiton. He fucking wants me first. Shit, you can suck on cosmic Gagarin first. C’mon.
Garik. I’ve sucked Gagarin to weightlessness, I want you and your Earthly gravitation, I want to screw you up the ass, friend.
Mikiton. Very apt, the theme of fucking gravitation – Newton once dreamed it under his apple tree, fuck knows how long ago. But first I want to lick a drop of sperm off your dick. Shit, your dick is limp, Gagarin came back to earth like a little bird.
Garik. Five times already I came in your mouth – my dick’s limp because I’m all fucked out.
Mikiton. I didn’t count how many times you came in my mouth.
Garik. Why not?
Mikiton. Who can count love, for fuck’s sake?
Garik. Do you really love me?
Mikiton. I’ll give you a fucking example. Nearly hanged myself in New York when you and that Ed-ped pederast went to the Bolshoi Theater and they showed you two guys sitting in the stalls on Channel One news. Right there in the U.S. I saw you two filthy bastards in your dinner jackets and bow ties on cable TV. You thought I wouldn’t see a fuckin’ thing in the States. But I got eyes like a fuckin’ wild boar, saw everything.
Garik. You left Russia for over a month. Shit, Miki, you’d fuck him if I left Russia for over a month. You and I agreed on an equal basis – we’ll only screw Ed when one of us is abroad for a long haul. He’s clear of AIDS, that homo. Only fucks us for our thoroughbred horse bucks. Why don’t you get to work? You’ve got a hard-on now, let me suck some more and you’ll calm down. No need to dig up the past, for fuck’s sake, no need to scold like a fishwife. That’s what being a guy is all about: we live in the fucking future. A man’s brain – like his prick – slices through the cherry of the future. May I suck you?
Mikiton. Alright, suck me, suck me. No more questions. It’s a while now since I was a hesitant virgin.
(Garik sucks Mikiton’s prick)
Yes-yes – that’s the way, far out, cool. Lick the neck of my knob – yes-yes – you hit the spot. Academician. A-a-a!!! (Comes)
Garik. God bless, fuck, raw meat. Now my little pansy cock’s stirring, shit. Now it’s your fucking turn to suck my peter, free food exchange.
Mikiton. I don’t like taking turns, Garik. Don’t get heavy with me. I forgot about standing in lines a long time ago.
Garik. What’s up, linguist, why so touchy today? We haven’t fucked for a long time and now the Rublyovka rockets have docked in cosmic space. Life is great on board the spaceship, Miki. I suck your lollipop, then you suck my sugarplum. What’s called taking turns sucking dick – no pushing, super-intelligent and a loving friendship. Get it? I forgot what a line is, too. Five times we sucked cock, taking it in turns like good fucking buddies, one after the other. We could suck one another at the same time, without taking turns, sixty-nine. Anything you say.
Mikiton. You’re counting love in numbers again?
Garik. Miki, be reasonable – have a tot of whisky!!! I love you as much as a healthy prick can only love itself!!!
Mikiton. However long we’re apart and out of fucking distance, let’s not fuck Edik any more. Got an absolutely hundred-percent tip-off from the FSB – Edik’s got AIDS – the generals informed me.
Garik. Edik’s fuckin’ got AIDS?
Mikiton. Edik fuckin’ got AIDS.
Garik. Fuck that for a laugh.
Mikiton. When did you last hang out with him?
Garik. Shit, month and a quarter ago I let him screw my vestibule when you took yet another trip to the States. When did you last get hot with him?
Mikiton. Month and a quarter ago, just like you – made him to fly to the States on my private plane.
Garik. When did the FSB raise the alarm?
Mikiton. Fedya rang yesterday.
Garik. Fedya’s a guy to be trusted. But we paid Edik, the scumbag, so he didn’t fuck anyone else.
Mikiton. Fedya says Ed was raped by those assfucking AIDS-sick bums in Izmailovsky Park.
Garik. There was no reason for Ed to go fucking in Izmailovsky Park, it’s full of fags! You think I’d go merry-making in Izmailovsky Park to bring back long-lost memories?!
Mikiton. Me neither! Nostalgia for those fatal cherished spots for wandering fungal-infected past pederasts. Izmailovsky Park is our higher school of pederasty. Anyway, Ed strayed off the footpath there two weeks ago and some guy buggered him, gave him AIDS. Turns out we fucked him just a few days before.
Garik. Thank fucking God. You had me scared. Thank fucking God.
Mikiton. We got no problem, Garik. But I’m still not over the shock myself – that’s why I’m kinda stressed, for fuck’s sake. We were lucky, it seems. Really and truly, we must fuck for the future – only with our own personally-tested pricks.
Garik. Otherwise, fuck knows, we’d never have made it as oligarchs. I can always feel your definitively steel peter sticking in my asshole. That’s why I’m decisive as Stalin in business matters.
Mikiton. It’s mutual, with your cock in my ass I’m the Genghis Khan of wheeler-dealing.
Garik. You’re fucking juggler-Mikita – you swallow my two balls in your gob and juggle them about so I want nothing else in the world, shit, except your fragrant, energetic, endless fucking. I need your sexual energy for the future, too, to reach the heights, the mountains of greenbacks. We extort the glacial bucks by our arduous, back-breaking, mortally dangerous toil, laboring on the very brink of AIDS. My Mikitka, leader-joker-pederast-little State johnny, an Ancient Greek superhero. Cock in throat, balls behind the teeth – my personal suction pump – even the blacks never fucked God’s ass like that.
Mikiton. I suck your cock because you suck my cock, celestial creature. You draw my cock through your throat to your stomach – makes me fucking nervous – you could digest my mannikin in your belly with your salty gastric acid. Fuck, it tingles, my knob tingles from your internal intestinal digesting. I can’t stand it… Shit, in the name of your super-love I’ll tolerate it. Are you trying to hammer and thump my cock into shit in your gut? Here, take my tool, cockeater.
Garik. I’ve told you every time – before I give you a blow-job dip your prick in olive oil. You’ve got a specially-delivered ten-liter bottle of pure European olive oil – valued by Interpol at thirty thousand dollars. Antique, a museum piece. Our brothers in Greece risked everything diving into that outdoor museum, it came from Atlantis. Hee-hee.
Mikiton. You and your olive slime – you’ll bite off my cock without choking.
Garik. Fuck knows why you appeared on God’s earth with a cock like that, forty centimeters long. Call your mom, let her make a few alterations and give birth to you again. Or call legislator Bush. He trims any pricks that grow too long, anywhere in the world.
Mikiton. I’ll phone Volodya – he’ll quickly and efficiently put you to rights, he’ll fuck your hairy mismatched brainy balls.
Garik. Heck no, Volodya and me, we’re buddies. Lapped up champagne and Bruderschaft on a yacht in the Mediterranean, legislatively and executively. Swam races with the dolphins. Nobody got in the way of my long prick there. He knows that for sure.
Mikiton. Did Volodya see your cock erect, then?
Garik. Yeah, fuck, he sees through everything, does Volodya. But let’s not talk about politics. I’m a peace-loving pederast. The Kremlin respects me for being a peace-loving pederast – gave me a medal and Volodya posed for a photo with me, hangs in my head office. No more mouthing off about politics.
Mikiton. You sly faggot – got a snap taken with the president in case things go wrong.
Garik. And you’re not a sly fag, huh?
Mikiton. Cocksucker, don’t fuck around with politics. Call your mom, ask why she brought you into the world, you bastard gabby fag. You could suck and bite off a hundred dicks with that gobbling cakehole. Get off me! (Pushes him away)
Garik. I don’t fucking need to swallow your dick, for fuck’s sake, brother. Who else would know how to stick his peter in my asshole? After that, how would I fuck you good and proper up the ass? I love whoever wets my whistle – you know that – we both pumped starting capital from the same gang of teenage killers, as protection for our multifold businesses. And if I harm a brother like you – may I bite off my own cock – it’s like making a fucking omelet with my own balls, slicing my dick in the omelet like sausage meat. For me your dick is sacred, for dick’s sake, you know how tasty and lively it is.
Mikiton. For me your dick is truly and really amazing. Fucking with you and the pair of us wasting some dude is a miraculous and awesome experience. Your peter makes me feel and become like an all-powerful God. But I don’t want to hear any more of that cocksucking political blabber about the cocksucking fucking top brass at this dacha. Let’s just fuck the simple way, chaste like we were three-year-old boys at heart.
Garik. Fucking chastely is shit.
Mikiton. Otherwise I could get angry and shoot you dead right here on Rublyovka with no trial or inquest, just because of your cocksucking political rant, for fuck’s sake.
Garik. Off he goes again. For sure we can fucking shoot one another with equal success and enthusiasm. You and I already had a shooting match here on Rublyovka. Your bullet met mine and they fell together in the middle of Rublyovka Highway – two lead soldiers, loving mutual penetration, like the two of us shafting one another to the very grave.
Mikiton. Remind me, when was that?
Garik. In a sleepwalking dream, Mikita, a couple of astral years past. When we sucked one another’s cherished kindred pricks in parallel, simultaneously, right across Rublyovka. You don’t remember?
Mikiton. We suck one another’s pricks in parallel across Rublyovka all the time, for fuck’s sake!  You talk bullshit, your exalted starry thoughts, I can’t fucking out-argue a negotiator like you. From all these negotiations we make big bucks, hell, Garik – just from our priceless bullshit.
Garik. If you know how to talk bullshit there’s no need to say the words right. In other words – life with big bucks flies like sperm through space after smearing your face – headlong into nowhere. At least we have half-shares of fucking sex with love. Inanimate bucks prevent us from fucking till we’re bow-legged.
Mikiton. Love between men, real men, doesn’t cost a cent. Without love – with endless bucks – fucking can choke you off in no time.
Garik. When I was a kid I only wanted to screw girls.
Mikiton. What do you know, Garik. When I was a kid I didn’t even know boys had places you could skewer, I never knew those magic orifices. And when I was a kid my prick lifted like a chopper propeller every morning – got so fucking turned on I thought I’d soar into the absolute vacuum of the cosmos like Gagarin. Fuck – every day you hobble round with a stiff prick humming like a rocket. In school and Pioneer camp, concentration camp, for fuck’s sake. In my sleep it was awesome. Who didn’t I screw. Screwed all the girl figure skaters – all the world champions and Olympic champions they showed on TV, for fuck’s sake. All the girl gymnasts that did the splits, fuck. Gave them a right good fucking, in my dreams. Doggy-style, up the ass, in the ear, in the eye, fuck. I won’t begin to tell you about their throats with lips like Angelina Jolie. And the ballerinas. How I banged those horny ballerinas in my sleep – whole fucking companies of them – fucked the entire Bolshoi Theater troupe to death in one night, forty fucks for each of them.
Garik.  And how I fucked the ballerinas – whole theater companies right across the Soviet Union And the next night they fucking moaned and begged to ride my prick again. There was a queue for my prick – all round the globe fucking hoards of these theater companies stood in line – whoever I’d crazily fucked in my sleep.
Mikiton. It was the same with me, for fuck’s sake – ballerinas stood in hundred-kilometer lines for my peter. Only now do I nostalgically look back at that hundred-kilometer line and perceive it as a token of well-earned heavenly fucking grace.
Garik. For that reason we have an adequate and sincere evaluation of one another, for fuck’s sake. But now, if I’m honest I only dream of one fucking bullet-proof cosmic heavenly fuck.
Mikiton. You got it. But when I was a kid I screwed the mattress with my prick like a goddam pillar for three minutes before waking up, for fuck’s sake. Little did I know, should have been boring into your ass like a propeller. All my fucking ecstasy came to nothing in the fucking mattress.
Garik. When I was a kid I ploughed into my mattress till it looked like a fucking grid. Balanced on my prick for five whole minutes on that quilted mattress – I could easily stick it in, even without a hard-on. Otherwise you can’t sleep when your prick’s still awake like a little cock crowing with sperm.
Mikiton. Nah, when I was a kid a three-minute cock-stand was enough before I came. And my cock was forty centimeters. As a kid my peachy cock was already forty goddam centimeters. No shit. I’m unrecognized world high-vaulting champion with my own cock as the fucking unbending pole. And those hayloft dreams of mine when somewhere in a little village I grope a shepherdess in a field with ears of grain, and all day and night you screw and screw and screw her in a hayrick in torrid, fragrant pastoral ecology!!! Cicadas in the rye, shit, birds twittering. Fucking unreal. Not a care in the world. You want to spend your whole life fucking in the hayrick without ever pulling your dick out her cunt, her asshole, or the cute lips of a heavenly ten-year-old cocksucking milkmaid – never take it out – and come and come and come for the rest of your life – with your dick you live in her crack till you fucking die.
Garik. Best if you never snuff it at all.
Mikiton. Right on. Let the others fucking snuff it.
Garik. Holy shit – let the rest of them fucking croak. And if they can’t croak by themselves they’re asking to be fucking wasted, squashed like parasitic bugs. We know how not to die, we can beat an’ teach ‘em. And in the village, fuck, on the haystack, those are my milkmaid-nymphet dreams. When I grew up, in real life I vacationed in that little village when I was a student. Took a Pioneer milkmaid to the hayloft in the barn and screwed that strumpet minx – she was always up for it – how we moaned, what a fucking rush. Seemed like we’d burn down the hayloft with our hot spunk.
Mikiton. And when I went potato picking as a student… How we fucked right there in the hayricks – goddam hot-blooded black oblivion. Only the cows that gobbled up that fuck-fertilized hay in winter could say what predominated – hay, sperm or menses.
Garik. What the fuck else can you do when you go potato-picking. Drink or fuck.
Mikiton. You can do both together – fucking harmonizes well with goddam potato-picking.
Garik. If you’re potato picking and you get a stiffie even when you drink, you can fucking mix screwing with homebrew. They make homebrew with honey – this beekeeper gave us some. Never tasted such a healing high-alcohol miracle since. Sent Petro to the village in his car, couple of years ago. The beekeeper fucking died – took the secret of honey homebrew to the grave, gone forever.
Mikiton. Yeah, all of Russia’s fucking genius is dying.
Garik. Too right – honey homebrew lost in the grave – those ignorant cackhanded Russian peasants got no fucking sense of responsibility. Once, as a first-grader in Moscow, my cock got hard on the way home from school. Back then I didn’t understand what was going on with my own cock bone-hard in my pants. That dick of mine was big and grown-up beyond its years, pulling my pants till they pinched. Took out my dick to make my pants more comfortable and give it more space. Would you believe, I walked home with an erection waving in the air. Traveled in the metro like that. Just imagine – nobody said a word. I’m walking along grinning. All the people walking past looked at this seven-year-old kid with his hard-on and they grinned too. I liked that, I was free and easy. Got home, and my parents were amused. But then my pop led me to the bathroom and yelled at me – said that if he saw my dick sticking out of my pants again he’d pull it across my ass, wind it round my neck to make a bow and then shoot at crows with rusty ferroconcrete bars. Dunno why, my dick went limp. Although I didn’t know then what ferroconcrete bars are. From what my father said I understood right away that rusty iron bars would be even worse news for my cock and my whole body than for the crows. Imagine, I immediately grasped the fact that it would be very unpleasant if my father made a bow from my cock, or rather a bowstring, and then inserted rusty ferroconcrete bars to shoot at crows. But my pop was a real sadist – creative as fucking Salvador Dali – if he spawned a fucking image, fuck the lot of them, Salvador Dali would be flushed down his own asshole. And by that time I loved my cock more than anything else in the world. Only a little kid – seven years of age – but already I loved my cock more than anything else on the fucking planet.
Mikiton. Leave it out, I knew my cock was my best and dearest friend at the age of two – my favorite toy in all the world. So when did you become a bender – what age?
Garik. Same time, when I was fucking seven!
Mikiton. When you were fucking seven? Some guy screwed you up the ass between the yard sheds?
Garik. What fucking guy. About five of us used to hang out in the yard, all kids, for fuck’s sake. Someone said, let’s go in the entryway for a fuck. Sure thing, sounded like fun as far as we could make out, so we fucking went in the entryway for a fuck. We already subconsciously knew what ‘fucking’ meant, that it was the best occupation there is. So we went inside the entryway to fuck. Nobody really knew how fucking was done in practical terms. Well, first-grader Zinka – I can still picture it – suddenly pulls up her dress, takes off her panties, goddam cool as you like – and gives us kids a waft of her wondrous snatch, young but unwashed and piss-stinky. All the rest of us mechanically did the same. We bared our slits and pricks, right then and there. By now the boys’ pricks were pert as carrots and ready for action, at the age of seven for fuck’s sake. But the girls had no pricks between their legs and nothing but the stink of their own cunts steaming to the ceiling. Who knows where to stick your cock in a girl when you still don’t know the purpose of their cunts, or that they have a cunt between their legs for screwing, screwing and more screwing, with your cock ramming their slit. Had no porno then, no TVs. Remember, when we were kids we fucking wandered round with cocks bursting in our pants, in total ignorance. We boys stood there in the entryway rubbing our cocks against one another. That much we understood. It wasn’t hard to fathom that our cocks were vertical and we could rub them against one another and get this indescribable pleasure, and that was what fucking meant. Just indescribable pleasure, for fuck’s sake, a real buzz. I can still feel it, that first incomparable pleasure in the entryway when we rubbed our pricks together, at the tender fucking nymphal-virginal age of seven. Well, those girls just watched and watched. Afterwards they slunk away, of course they were completely and absolutely fucking unsatisfied.
Mikiton. They’re always fucking unsatisfied, those little trollops – whatever age they are, for fuck’s sake. You screw and screw her, but all the time the bint’s unsatisfied. Nature made their cunts that way.
Garik. Yeah, too fucking right. However much you poke them, those bints are always unsatisfied. After we’ve fucked you and I can talk about broads. We fucking understand one another. But when you’ve fucked a broad, what are you supposed to talk about, other broads? She’s ready to bite your cock off right there and then – stick her bloody teeth in your Adam’s apple, for fuck’s sake. What can you blather about, for fuck’s sake, after fucking? Other broads or God. How can you talk about either after fucking a broad. If you start talking about God after fucking a broad she immediately wants to have kids with you. I so fucking don’t need all that babyspawn stuff, we wanted it simple, for fuck’s sake, we were only up for a fuck, pure-and-simple sex for endless pleasure!
Mikiton. And the bitch would fucking stab you in the eye with knitting needles if you shoot your sperm on her belly once she’s decided on babies.
Garik. You mean that cunt of a wife, your Elvirka, mother of your children, knits?
Mikiton. My cunt of a wife Elvirka knits with needles like tank turrets, like machine guns, for fuck’s sake – I sit in my bunker waiting for ambush. Knits the snare that binds me hand and foot with murderous atomic hydrogen-bomb needles. I hide my bucks in the fucking Brockhaus. One hundred volumes of Brockhaus – who could fucking tell what volume I hid the bucks in. But she sniffs ‘em out in five seconds. Broads have this fucking instinct for bucks. My fucking wife would charge her own husband a hundred bucks for a kiss.
Garik. Why fucking bother with her kisses? Why the fuck waste sexual energy on her for no returns, when I’m here with my kisses?
Mikiton. She’s protection, for fuck’s sake. Here I can play bumboy games with you in secret, but nobody must see or hear of it!!! I’m an important guy with government connections, for fuck’s sake, Garik!!! Surely you fucking know that by now?
Garik. I know all that, Miki. My being here with you is an equal-ranking secret hypostasis of fag fucking!!!
Mikiton. You mean to say you kiss that Anyuta, cover-up wife, wasting our combined sexual energy in vain?
Garik. As for my cover-up wife Anyuta, we both fucked my wife, for fuck’s sake. Don’t tell me you forgot?
Mikiton. Made us like family, for fuck’s sake. But the way you talk, anyone would think we never fucked my goddam wife Elvirochka together. Maybe our cover-up-wives are fucking one another right now, combined cover-all protection, while the two of us are fucking and having fun. Amusing themselves and fucking, same as us, licking and sucking somewhere in the Grand Hotel, Paris. Broads can come one hundred times a day, for fuck’s sake. It’s nothing for them, they got unlimited capacity – the hussies just spread their legs and their fucking twat’s ready for sexual combat – they can come as many times as they or their cushy clit feel like it. Yeah, those bitches are fucking right now, together! I fucking know it, they’re fucking together right now, my Elvirochka and your Annushka! Well shit, let them make out together. We get more out of our bone-hard dicks. And our wives are lucky they’re our cover-up. If you don’t fuck a woman you gotta kill her, otherwise you get grief without leaving the cash desk – her cunt plays mean tricks on you.
Garik. Yeah, too fucking right. A man of State, for fuck’s sake. You know how to beat them senseless with your spot-on governmental-official rants, you’re a motherfucking man of State!
Mikiton. You know how to dupe ‘em with your fucking crafty catchwords, too. No need for false modesty. Gas king of Moscow, at the very least.
Garik. No need for you to be coy, either. Right across the taiga that oil pipe’s all yours.
Mikiton. Hey, no need, to bullshit about my taiga pipeline out loud. I already warned you – you should learn to bottle that political cant at the dacha. Times have changed. All those Rublyovka buggers break into government circles whatever way they can – only too ready to succeed us as oligarchs and swipe our stolen loot.
Garik. Goes without saying – no one’s blabbing fucking seditious shit. What are you pissing yourself for? Who can listen in here, for fuck’s sake, at our very own fucking Rublyovka dachas?
Mikiton. Yeah, those wiretappers mean nothing to me!!!
Garik. That’s it, buck up, regimental honor, for fuck’s sake! Or you’re like a deserter shit-scared he’ll be banged up for treason. For fuck’s sake, everything’s okay. We stand firm at our posts, doggy-style, for fuck’s sake, we surrender our dicks without spilling blood!
Mikiton. Whenever you say you can stick it in. Now you mention it, I wouldn’t mind a top-of-rank generalissimo blowjob.
Garik. Top-of-rank blowjob, whatever you say. You never need to ask if you want to blow – I’m always ready to suck cock like a general, comrade non-commissioned lifeguard marshal blowjobber.
Mikiton. You fucking bumboy ensign, you’re superior to any general, for fuck’s sake. Founder of the omnipotent rights of all pederasts in this mighty country. What do you say – suck one another off in unison?
Garik. Order the dish and here it comes in your tasty gob.

(They suck one another’s cocks)

Mikiton. Aah, fucking good. We time it so well – always coming at the same fucking time, like knocking back a glass of vodka together. You can’t shoot your load so rhythmically and harmoniously with some cute minxy bitch fresh off the podium. It’s only with you, with a regular bro, that we come with resonance.
Garik. And I can only come with you, a true buddy, at the same fucking time.
Mikiton. Fuck, most like the hussars in the Great Patriotic War fucked in action and drove Napoleon into retreat – drove the bastard back through the empty frozen snow-covered fields, for fuck’s sake, with their fighting-fit dicks.
Garik. The French, supreme ass bandits, thought they were the hardest natural ironclad Eiffel pederasts, fucking grinding buckshot. Too fucking right, our Kutuzovsky cocks scared the shit out of those cherchez-la-femme douche-bags on their way to the next world.
Mikiton. Hitler was a fucking bender too, there’s documentary evidence.
Garik. That fucking German nance ran up against our bumfucking peasant-worker ideological peter-omnipotence too, didn’t he? And what was Leo Tolstoy writing, for fuck’s sake – fairy tales about war and peace.
Mikiton. I haven’t a clue who wrote all that Russian classic stuff, who the half-assed benders were – I can’t make shit of all those endless Russian classics, that castrated crap. I only fucking open my multi-volume Works of Leo Tolstoy to hide bucks from the wife, same as you. Hundred-buck notes, for fuck’s sake.
Garik. You’ve got fucking millions of dollars and you hide hundred-buck notes from the wife in Leo Tolstoy, for fuck’s sake? Aren’t you ashamed?
Mikiton. Following your example, you motherfucking cheapskate.
Garik. I hide it so she goes looking, for fuck’s sake. So she keeps her fucking nose for bucks.
Mikiton. What do you think I fucking do? So the bitch of a whore understands how hard it is to make those bucks. However much you shove up her cunt, that fucking Elvirka birch thinks it’s not enough. However much you shove at her my bitch wife thinks it’s not enough!
Garik. Those bitches need slashing between the legs with an open razor – like Adam the first man. Razors are the only language they understand.
Mikiton. Like we did to that – what’s her name – Avdotya from Vologda. Sliced her up with razors, our own trademark Caesarian, a month ago and fed her to the German Shepherds.
Garik. Any broad is one big cunt. Man – Adam, the first man, that is – slashed his broad between the legs with a seashell razor and the cleft of her cunt was opened for centuries to come.
Mikiton. If I’d been Adam I’d have killed the bint.
Garik. They produce the kids. Out of those kids about half are boys you can get off fucking, if you teach them right. You can’t blame the fucking females for everything.
Mikiton. Those crazy females are like one huge unstable uncontrollable clit, for fuck’s sake.
Garik. A clit is part of an uncontrollable cunt.
Mikiton. More likely, the cunt is part of an uncontrollable clit.
Garik. We should fucking drink to that, suck on our uncontrollable dicks for appetizer. How about it?
Mikiton. I second your proposal.

(They drink vodka and suck one another’s cocks.)

Mikiton. Nothing better than sucking off a salty cock after a swig of vodka. A recipe fit for our Russian taverns. Imagine – in our beer cellars the guys drink beer first, for sure, but instead of dried salted fish as a chaser they suck one another’s dicks. That would boost fishing resources all over the country, for fuck’s sake. Can you imagine?
Garik. They should give an international Nobel Prize for such an economical ecological formula. A State prize. Government should give you five oil derricks as a reward.
Mikiton. But who values clever ideas.

(Mikiton’s cellphone rings.)

Hi, Mechanic! What? How come it took so long? So what songs is he singing in foreign parts? If he’s flown to Paris move fast and intercept him, silence him for fuck’s sake! Few Kalashnikov rounds in his fucking tires. Fucking sang out of tune. Take a few shots at his legs. And his ass, shoot from the side. Don’t blast him in the sucker. Told you that yesterday. My Kalashnikov sings – those are songs I understand, for fuck’s sake. Enough – cut the bullshit. Call me when he’s taken out the picture.
Garik. What’s the Mechanic say?
Mikiton. That bastard singer, the bender – wouldn’t suck me off three weeks ago, I told you. Had him removed to the outer hemisphere. Bastard used to regularly give me head. Then betrayed me, fucking refused. Well, now the Mechanic and his Kalashnikov are gonna teach him a fucking lesson for subordination. He’s a whore, that nancy-boy fucking canary. The Mechanic’s gonna fucking clip his cockscomb now. Hey – who we gonna thrash today? Didn’t thrash nobody this week – stresses me out.
Garik. Me too, fucking pins and needles. You were gawking at Norwegian fjords. I can’t do it alone – lose interest without you there. Giving head’s so much tastier when you beat the shit out of some douche-bag.
Mikiton. Promised my daughter those fucking fjords – apologies, bruv.
Garik. Daughters come first. Only she’ll grow up to be another broad.
Mikiton. A daughter’s no fucking broad. A daughter’s that very special human being that gives you grandkids and they dig your grave when your fucking illustrious life is over. Maybe my daughter will visit the grave with a watering can and sprinkle the little flowers so I feel fresh and good in my tomb, cock frozen for all eternity.
Garik. For fuck’s sake stop prophesying while you’re still alive and kicking. No more of that talk from beyond the grave. While you’re still above the earth let’s cool it and do some friendly whoring – enough fucking epic poems about your cock lying cold in the grave.
Mikiton. What the fuck are you trying to prove? I got every right to be a tragic lyric poet now and then. What the fuck – now you don’t love me any more?
Garik. Nah, sure I love you for that, too. I fucking love you absolutely and entirely, my white fluffy bunny with a half-meter prick. But I would single out your hot prick in particular, I love that a little more than stories about your prick lying cold in the grave. What is it with you, all this teasing schizoid drivel, your cold dick in the grave, it’s alien to our warm homosexual relationship. What d’you love most – your cold dick beyond the grave or my hot cock here and now?
Mikiton. A sacral fucking question. Who do you love more? The guy you’re thrashing or the guy you’re fucking?
Garik. Anyone can fucking love, thrash and screw with simultaneous satisfaction in non-intersecting but non-virtual planes. You’re bringing all these moralizing tragic topics into our conversation, for fuck’s sake. Like it’s fucking connected with that depressive moral bullshit about your frozen shriveled dick limp in the grave. In reality this is some hot optimistic fuck and we’re head and shoulders above those creeps and motherfuckers.
Mikiton. Okay, give it a rest. I can say what I like. You too – if you want you can blab endlessly on about those fucking creeps. That is proof of fucking freedom and democracy in our natural and unpretentious relationship. I firmly support that morality. It’s enough for me that I choke on frozen artificial morality till I puke for the TV cameras, for fuck’s sake. But you and I have natural, free and pleasant cocksucking relations in talk and action. Surely oligarchs have the right to their own personal oligarch happiness and their own all-conquering oligarch ideas? The ideas we fought for? We must understand to the full our own oligarch progress, yours and mine – in our souls and not only in the fucking banks. I come to you, Garik, for happiness, for our proper joint oligarch happiness through male friendship, that’s all. And if you still can’t get my drift when I blather something elevated and oligarchic about life in general you should either ask questions or suck my dick in silence and listen carefully. Motherfucker! Suck in silence!!! But instead you criticize and come out with some fucking bullshit. I’m not promoting pessimism, Garik! I want to understand the world in all its colorful rainbow nuances. We’re motherfucking oligarchs – with oligarch Souls! And we have to come out with ideas that are equally spiritual and oligarchic, all-conquering, for fuck’s sake! Yesterday we were bums, today we’re oligarchs, fuck knows why! Go for it, huh?! We can come and come forever!
Mikiton. Shit, who wants to end up in the slammer by the gut-bucket? Lighten up, for fuck’s sake. We’ll get by. Remember you’re Russian, for fuck’s sake, like icebreaker Comrade Lenin!
Garik. Well, unlike several of our comrades, at least I know I’m not a Jew, not Marx – that I fucking know for sure.
Mikiton. You trying to say something? Does that make me a Jew?
Garik. Did I say any such thing, for fuck’s sake? Never mind, Mikiton, enough showing off with clever words – we’re doing fine at liberty here on the Rublyovka, in oligarch ranks and all flamed up together, in a land flowing with milk and honey.
Mikiton. Too right – we’re sitting on creamy rivers of oil and gas, cantering about like cowboys on a Russian safari – you riding the gas pipe and me the taiga oil pipe. Let’s not talk about Jews. But let’s be fair – they taught us how to ride the pipeline, since you mention it.
Garik. A and B sat on a pipeline. A fell off and B buggered off – who was sitting on the pipeline then?
Mikiton. We were the only ones left. One jewboy slipped off – shit, that guy K fucking held out, though. He didn’t screw the right people in government circles – ended up in the fucking shithole. Half the government let him tell lies so he’d divvy up with them for letting him lie. That motherfucker left a shadow hanging over the rest of us fucking oligarchs, like we’re out of order. In Russia you gotta play by the rules, particularly if you rob the government of fucking great oilfields three times the size of Europe. Most important here is experience – you need the experience of other people’s fucking mistakes to put society straight! When those two jewboys under Yeltsin decided who channels the bucks in Russia they were flushed down the English lavatory rightaway, and now they want the shit brought back to Russia in a zinc coffin, final burial of their poisonous polonium waste, for fuck’s sake. That shitbucket-coffin option doesn’t suit either you or me. I love my country, I’m no dissident, for fuck’s sake, I share it out with the government dudes that make thieving easy work. And I love bender boys like you – love you and teach you. There’s no call for you to fucking bawl me out, Garik, for no reason at all!
Garik. Fuck’s sake – I turn to your professorial prick for every good reason with my gob and my neat little anal orifice! With me you squeal and moan like a pig in shit, for fuck’s sake.
Mikiton. When  you circle round my dick with your dick and its delicate little mouth, sure I squeal, it’s only natural, dearest fucking Garik with lips like Madam Angelina Jolie.
Garik. Do you really love me, Mikitosh?
Mikiton. Garik, for fuck’s sake. I’d give half my taiga pipeline for your heavenly suck-offs, for fuck’s sake.
Garik. I’d give half my oil pipeline for your cosmic Mikitosh suck-offs.
Mikiton. Garik, I’d trade one whole gas pipeline for your heavenly suck-offs.
Garik. And I’d give one whole pipeline, Mikitosh, for your cosmic suck-offs.
Mikiton. That’s the way we should talk – like comrades, friends, the Russian way, for fuck’s sake. There’s no Jews in Russia, Garik. All the Jews fucking vanished abroad. Whoever Russia spewed out of the country is a Jew – they’ve fucking had it. Nothing more to be said. Garik, Garik. You need educating. You should thank me.  Garik, Garik. Even in my dreams you’re my one and only Garik with your African Pushkin-Jolie suck-off lips. I come to work and Garik-Angelina Jolie haunts me there, too. Nobody else in the world sucks like Garik. You should fucking open your very own blowjob school – you’d suck more bucks than you get off the gas pipeline.
Garik. Yeah, we’ll fucking teach ‘em, no need to be afraid of students.
Mikiton. You can take bucks for the fucking tuition.
Garik. I take payment in kind, Mikita. I suck the bucks from my gas pipeline.
Mikiton. That’s right, you gotta know how to fucking suck with your own throat pipeline to begin with. What use is the suction on your gas and oil pipeline otherwise. But all the same, Garik, however many of your fucking cocksucking cute boy students you send me, I wouldn’t trade your fucking suck-offs for anything. It’s strange, but when a broad gets old you want to screw her less often. You’re getting older, too, Garik, but with your increasing age so your blow-jobs assume dimensions of cosmogonic pleasure production. Like in great art – there’s an initial concept, then a second, but only great master artists, Garik, have the skill for a cosmogonic second concept that goes beyond the bounds – nah, what am I saying, not the second, but rather a fly-to-the-stars Garik concept. I’m not exaggerating, Garik, I’m telling you straight.
Garik. Like in the Duma, like a State speech, huh? You got a classy way of saying things. I put all my soul into sucking your dick, Mikita – sucking your personal governmental dick with my own sacred sincere selfless governmental soul.
Mikiton. You couldn’t express it better – like peter in your mouth when you’re fucking sucked off. That’s how it should be, fuck, drilling into my brain. Lovingly, sincerely, soulfully. So who are we thrashing today?
Garik. Shall we snuff out that knocked-up gymsplit cunt Nastyukha?
Mikiton. The gymsplit cunt? Who knocked her up?
Garik. Fuck knows. We screwed her together three months ago after a tot of whisky – maybe it’s yours, maybe it’s mine, could be anyone’s. But it’s a fucking liberty if it’s ours. I already invited her – she’ll be here soon.
Mikiton. That’s bad, Garik, when the slut doesn’t even know who knocked her up. Just for that we can snuff the bitch with an easy heart. How shall we do it?
Garik. Slowly but surely. Same as the rest of them. Let her live a bit longer – till she’s broken by the Rublyovka treatment. Let the bitch feel how hard it is to make money, the fucking cost to our nerves. Obliges us to snuff some loser every week, just to keep our nerves in order, Soviet fucking order.
Mikiton. Snuff and screw. Slowly and surely – otherwise we get no pleasure, our nerves are wrecked. So how shall we kill this time? Most like we fucking used up every entertaining way there is. We could make her do the splits, sit her cunt on our elite needle without drawing blood? She’s good at doing the splits. She’ll go for it. (Hammers a large needle into the parquet flooring)
Garik. A wise decision. The needle in the parquet – all eight centimeters – is our trademark dish for gymnasts and ballerinas – our indispensable prelude for no small number of twat-flaunting dames. For a million dollars the bitch will plop down on a needle without training, no blood. But instead of a million greenbacks the hussy gets punished for her clumsiness, if she sat straight down with no blood. Then the bitch flips her cunt straight down on the needle with legs akimbo, for a million bucks she’s ready to prick her cunt all over till the fucking blood runs!!! After that let her eat diamonds for punishment, let the bitch stuff till she’s full.
Mikiton. Diamonds are a girl’s best friend. How does she eat the fucking diamonds, then, is this a new trick?
Garik. She swallows them without chewing. Although I’d give a whole pile of diamonds so she could fucking chew them, if you could chew them. If she guzzles down a kilo of stones she’s gonna die slowly, in torment, for fuck’s sake. Last week after you’d flown off to the Norwegian fjords I visited my pal in Siberia Simeon Almaznik, with Tanyukha Nepospelova, Nastyukha’s friend. Well, he set up a proper taiga safari – slaughter in the cedar forest. We snuffed that Tanyukha so fucking brilliantly. Sure thing. Gives me a buzz even now. After that Simeon paid me five hundred grand. The way that bitch died was class, believe me. Gotta put that technique in your card index right away, personal, like. The adrenaline from that topping would last half a lifetime, at least.
Mikiton. You never told me about the taiga safari.
Garik. Kept it as a fucking surprise for you. I like giving you surprises – that’s the reason you keep up with me, for fuck’s sake. (Takes out a packet of uncut diamonds) Here – a gift from Simeon Almaznik – two kilos of uncut diamonds. You’ll see, it’s like Chinese capital punishment. In China they forced prisoners to swallow sand. Six hours swallowing sand, then they were buried once and for all, writhing in agony. But I’ve no intention of burying Nastyukha with the diamonds still intact. We’ll fucking disembowel her first – like we did with Tanyukha in Siberia. Gotta return the diamonds to Simeon. He hired them out for the goddam safari, for our amusement.
Mikiton. Won’t she drop your diamonds in the john?
Garik. For fuck’s sake, Mikintosh, there won’t be time for the sparklers to reach her asshole. We’ll gut Nastyukha here soon as she croaks and the fucking diamonds go back in our pockets, sharpish. I told you, Simeon only hired them out, for the fucking safari.
Mikiton. Let the fucking pregnant bitch choke to death on those diamonds, shit. But we need something a bit more depraved so my peter rises natural and normal, like, so you can give me a Divine blowjob with her tormented groaning death agony in the background. Let’s do it together – I’ll suck you off, too. Our blowjob is the main thing, with her getting snuffed in the background.
Garik. Let’s slice off her tits and make her fucking eat them, with the sparklers.
Mikiton. Leave it out Garik, you’re a right fucking sadist. There’ll be veins in her fucking tits – everything will get covered in blood and she’ll start yelling. This floor’s Karelian beech parquet. We already had to wash the blood off a few times – soon the parquet will be ruined. Oh alright then, the main thing is to make Nastyukha sob and moan, only not too loud. I know you’ve got good sound insulation here. But I don’t want my eardrums damaged, not at my age. Last time we liquidated those seventeen-year-old lovers, Svetochka and Pavlik. Don’t get me wrong, I’d rate the overall impression of our hard-ons and blowjobs very highly, it was awesome. But Garik, the way they screamed. That was too much. Even bothered you, for fuck’s sake. The bastards saw they could torment us with their blood-curdling screams and they deliberately bugged us, for fuck’s sake, the decibels from those shrieks went right off the fucking scale. Till I got my hammer and bashed their heads in. Shut up completely then. Snuffed it there and then. That’s another thing, for fuck’s sake – we got just half an hour of sexual pre-funereal music from them and that was it. For a full-value blowjob we need the victims groaning in the background a bit longer – four hours minimum for a normal friendly rim-job.
Garik. Four hours is certainly enough for a cozy fuck.
Mikiton. And let me reiterate, if you care about your own eardrums, be merciful and spare a thought for mine. Still have a few years to live with these eardrums, for fuck’s sake.
Garik. Personally I get off on those ear-splitting screams. You can fucking stuff your ears with that shit they sell in pharmacies – earplugs, for fuck’s sake. You’re like a fucking German fascist – they invented gas chambers so they didn’t suffer during mass extermination.
Mikiton. Garik, I’m no prissy fascist German, I like sound effects from live victims. But I don’t want the victim’s yells to exceed the bounds of pleasure. We need to get off rhythmically, both of us. Won’t that slut Tanyukha Nepospelova get hoarse if she’s gobbling diamonds?
Garik. Only gradually, as she chokes – just the way you like it.
Mikiton. Cool. That’s why I value and respect you. Remember how we snuffed that punk, that fucking rocker – the one with a mohawk?
Garik. Fuck, we scalped him, cut off his mohawk. Poked out his right eye, made him swallow it with champagne.
Mikiton. Shit, his left eye stayed in so he looked like a fucking cyclops. Otherwise he’d have suffered less, unable to see what was going on around him.
Garik. We shoved a fucking billiard cue up his ass. You gave him the cue, Mikitosh, impaled him like Ivan the Terrible. It was your dick he stopped sucking. So you wreaked vengeance – and then some – you skewered him with a rough billiard cue, that was a masterpiece. I watched the video, a real masterpiece. If there were festivals for movies like that you’d get the fucking golden palm. Guaranteed.
Mikiton. You must be careful with clips like that. Could be used as evidence, for fuck’s sake. Maximum sentence and they stop asking how many millions you got. They’d get it all themselves. Give you life. A jab in the slammer with polonium and there’s a cross with no name waiting – two weeks later you’re in the fucking grave, freezing your cock off.
Garik. But I don’t know where to keep the film, our documentary life story, Mikitosh.
Mikiton. I know, I know – I know everything. Just be careful.
Garik. You teach me. You teach me to suck your peter with due care. I know how to suck your peter with great care, Mikitosh, you don’t need to teach me that.

(His cellphone rings)

Yeah, Nastyukha. Shit, we’re waiting for you. You’re at the door? What, you got stopped by security – what’s his name, Petro? Give that Petro a knee in the groin. Give him here. Petro – let Nastyukha in, you motherfucker. What’s the problem? How many times must I tell you? That’s why I pay you euros and not fucking Ukrainian kopecks, Petro, fuck your Ukrainian shithole, you fucking asshole politician, fuck.

(Nastya walks in)

Nastya. So here you are, boys.
Mikiton. Nastenka, you’re all dolled up, honey. All sweet and dandy. How many layers of lippy?
Nastya. One layer – no room left between the layers.
Garik. And she can bullshit like Hammer and Trotsky.
Mikiton. Like a drink?
Nastya. I’m Nastenka the sporty splits-gymnast – I only want to gently-soberly stretch my tendons and fuck for bucks.
Garik. She’s playing the same old song. What’s up – didn’t we give you enough money last time? We want a gentle but not a sober fuck, and you’ll get the readies. But fucking a stunning broad like yourself for free and without a drink would be shameful, that would hurt our feelings.
Nastya. I like playing the same old song. What else can we talk about? I could tell you my pussy is very pliant and clean – quite hairless.
Mikiton. And we could tell you about our licked clean and lovely sucked-off peters, Nastyushka.
Nastya. You already sucked off? Then what potential fucking male energy will you have to shaft me now? Why the fuck did you call me? And me pregnant, two months gone, most likely it was one of you – came all the way out here, for fuck’s sake, sat in a fucking traffic jam, drove straight over by satnav from the cosmos and here you are with dicks you already sucked off yourselves. Well, I can still have a chat with you I suppose, add a humorous turn of phrase.
Garik. I like your humorous way of speaking – just like the politicians, huh. A right little politician – like my Petro – you wanna be like Juliet Tymoshenko in the Ukraine? Apparently all Ukrainians want to be politicians. Alright then, you’ll make it to the Ukrainian parliament, sweetie, don’t fret. If you take the creative initiative, plonk your bare cunt on this eight-centimeter needle in the parquet for us – without injuring your cunt. If the needle doesn’t prick your cunt and there’s no blood on this tissue (sticks a white tissue on the needle protruding from the floor) – then you earn yourself a million bucks for your lousy little party. The bucks are real, darling, not fake, and the needle’s real tough stainless steel. Well? Sooner or later you gotta be an accurate, nimble, calibrated cunt ready for any prickly political struggle as leader of a limp dick parliament.
(Opens a safe and takes out a million dollars)
Nastya. Mmm, those dollars smell delightful, like fresh green veg.
Garik. But first of all the needle, even prettier, all shiny and flashy.
Nastya. But wait, how am I supposed to do the splits and plop my cunt right down on this eight-centimeter needle?
Mikiton. Light as a snowflake, little birdie. Main thing is not to hurt yourself. Nastyusha. We only pay the readies for a stunning skilful touchdown as your cunt hits the deck.
Nastya. What if I hurt my pussy?
Garik. Then you won’t get the dollars and your party in the Ukraine is done for, curtains. The Crimea will be ours again.
Nastya. You got to be joking, surely?
Mikiton. You should know us by now. We’re normal cultured bisexual oligarch pederast perverts. All our jokes are for real, and so are our billions of dollars, some of which we’re ready to part with if you gratify us with a particularly intrepid act. As you wish – the choice is yours. You can go home to your khrushchyovka slum without the loot. And we’ll forget we ever had a relationship. In no time we can call up a replacement who’ll straddle that needle for a million bucks, if you won’t. You don’t believe me?
Nastya. And what if I hop on the needle and it doesn’t prick my cunt? How do I know for sure you’ll give me a million?
Garik. For fuck’s sake, Nastyusha, if that’s not the truth, may I fall right down on that needle and stab my right eye!
Mikiton. You see, dearie, we get pleasure from the bucks anyway when your bare cunt lands on the dangerously bare metallic blade of this needle.
Nastya. Won’t it stab the little child inside me?
Mikiton. Needle’s only eight centimeters. You came here to fuck me, and my prick’s five times longer!
Nastya. I have to sit down on the needle right this minute?
Garik. Maybe you’d like a whisky first?
Nastya. No need for whisky – if I’m tipsy my cunt will miss the target.
Mikiton. That’s sensible. Then get undressed and fling yourself on the needle, this trick will be your masterpiece – we’re all rooting for you. Why waste time?
Garik. Take a little run and flip your fanny on the needle. Then you can take the whole million to your party in the fucking Ukraine and go fuck that Tymoshenko of yours. Why are you hesitating, slag, what’s come over you?
Nastya. Fuck. Just off the boat fucking the sailors and now I’m playing games with fruits.
Garik. What did you say, you seditious little minx?
Nastya. Plucking up my courage – only a joke. Where do I run from with no clothes on?
Mikiton. The side wall.
Nastya. Right, you bastards – just you wait. (Undresses, goes to the side wall)
Mikiton. What are you dithering for? Here’s the readies – they could be yours.
Nastya. Quiet, boys, quiet now. This is the first time I did the splits and fucked a needle for money. Hold on. (Takes a run and jumps astride the needle) Ah-h-h!!!
Garik. There, the bitch enjoys jumping. Didn’t hurt?
Mikiton. She likes it. Look – she’s grinning with joy. Not a bad little gymnast, Nastyukha. How did the fucking needle go in, you didn’t prick your cunt, then, didn’t fuck up?
Nastya. I’ve had enough of this. Got fucking overexcited at the sight of all that loot.
Garik. Too true. Well, come on, hop off the needle – let’s see if there’s blood on the tissue.

(Nastya rises from the needle)

Mikiton (lifts the tissue). Yeah, Nastyukha, your snatch went a bit off the mark. Fucking blood on the tissue where the needle pricked you.
Garik. Maybe it’s menstrual?
Mikiton. Can’t be menstrual, the bitch is knocked up.
Nastya. Seems I went a bit fucking crazy.
Garik. You’re not fucking crazy yet – there’s more to come.
Mikiton. Now you can swallow a few diamonds and you’ll really go fucking crazy. We’ll feed you all this diamond energy and screw one another, sweetie, so everyone has fun. Diamonds are a girl’s best friend.

(Empties a large pile of uncut diamonds on the table)

Nastya. We’ll fuck for the diamonds. Are they real?
Mikiton. You’re hurting my feelings. You can test them with your tongue first.
Nastya (tests a diamond). Just like glass. How many carats?
Garik. Almost as much as the Sancy diamond Demidov bought for half a million.
Nastya. So how much is here?
Garik. Let your stomach tell you how many carats. Go on, pop the fucking diamond in and get ready for takeoff, Tereshkova.
Nastya. Pop it in where?
Mikiton. In your mouth.
Nastya. You think I’m fucking off my head? You want me to swallow glass? You crazy, Miki? I never agreed to eat this glass shit.
Garik. We agreed for you to eat this glass shit. My apologies. It wasn’t just a million you lost on the needle, cunt. You lost your life along with your cunt, you fucking bitch!
Nastya. What?
Mikiton. Curtains, slag – you’re on our Rublyovka scaffold. No fucking time to hear your excuses. Our fucking cocks are asking for blowjobs at the sight of your death by diamonds, bitch! Come on, Garik, give us a hand!

(Mikiton and Garik get out an open razor and handcuffs, chain Nastya’s hand to her foot)

Now you can’t run away, little splits-jump gymnast. Swallow the diamonds, slut! If you want to live a bit longer, that is. Otherwise I’ll cut your throat right now with this razor. You know me by now, bitch!!!
Nastya (swallows a diamond). Think I really have swallowed it. You’re a pair of schizo fags. You’re crazy. I’m gonna die, for real.
Garik. You deserve it, Nastya. Here, enjoy a tot of whisky. (Pours her whisky, Nastya drinks) Tasty?
Nastya. No. Why d’you want me dead?
Mikiton. I’ll repeat, you fucking moron bitch. So we can have a good fucking blowjob. How are you feeling?
Nastya. Personally I’m not getting any good fucking blowjob feelings.
Garik. Are those sparklers in your gullet hurting a bit?
Nastya. They fucking hurt a lot. You’re making me swallow these diamonds so that when they pass from mouth to stomach you can screw me and your cocks have something hard to rub on, to give a real nice feeling?
Mikiton. Yeah, your way of thinking has quite rightly achieved our own depraved dimensions. Swallow some more fucking diamonds.
Nastya. Do they pop out your ass afterwards?
Garik. For the third time I repeat, you fucking halfwit – these diamonds are not meant to come out your ass. We’re not making you swallow diamonds so you can shit them at home afterwards and become a millionairess at the expense of us poor fuckwits. You’re gonna fucking swallow them till you die right here. Me and Miki are going to suck one another off without your big-bellied blowjobs while we watch your slow painful death from the swallowed sparklers.
Mikiton. In short, we’re going to suck one another’s cocks and get hard at the sight of you dying. Understand, is that clear at last, have I explained enough now, Nastyukha? We’re fucking fed up of your airhead questions. Swallow and keep quiet, slag, don’t die yet. Or we’ll get angry and cut off your fucking head with this razor. Then you certainly won’t swallow any more diamonds, you’ll die rightaway, won’t take a second.
Nastya. Why are you going to suck your own cocks when I swallow the diamonds?
Mikiton. This Ukrainian broad really is a fucking moron, she’s plainly not a Russian whore.
Nastya. I may come from the Ukraine, but I’m a Russian prostitute! So while I turn up my toes you’ll give one another blowjobs? Where the fuck am I?
Garik. Not bad. Turn up her toes. What delightful expressions she uses – and in her condition, too. You’re getting warmer. You’re on our trademark Rublyovka safari, for fuck’s sake! You’ve ended up in a fucking suction pump with no escape, babe, no way out! And only out of respect for your risky political cunt I will repeat – if you behave yourself and squeal in moderation – Makiton doesn’t like it when they squeal too loud – then after four hours of torturous torment, when each of us has come approximately eight times and we don’t need any more, I’ll quickly slit your throat and you won’t fucking suffer any more. Come on, swallow the pile of sparklers, stop blathering. (Forces the diamonds into Nastya’s mouth, she swallows)
Nastya. My belly hurts!!! Your child’s in there!!!
Mikiton. Excellent – original – you’re croaking along with our fucking kidspawn. From now on yell in moderation, not so loud. Here, Garik, suck my dick, time is passing. (Garik sucks Mikiton’s cock)
Nastya. Perverts, pederasts!!!
Mikiton. Go on, that’s the stuff – fucking insult us! Oh, Garik. Move your tongue a bit faster round the neck of my cock. Don’t forget – all the joy of my Serpent Gorynych filled with love lies there at the neck of my fucking cock!!!
Nastya. Why don’t I suck your cocks too – I don’t want to swallow diamonds. My belly hurts – there’s a little kid growing in there and one of you is definitely his daddy.
Garik. Know which of us is the kid’s daddy?
Nastya. No, I don’t. My belly hurts.
Mikiton. If you don’t know, bitch, you’d better swallow the diamonds! The diamonds will tell you who the daddy is! (Shoves a handful of diamonds into Nastya’s mouth) Diamonds improve the hormone and memory systems!
Nastya. But my belly hurts!!!
Mikiton. She’s yelling just right, panic-stricken but moderated. Classy safari with background shrieks, live sound, for fuck’s sake. Here, Garik, let me suck your prick now. (Sucks Garik’s cock)
Nastya. I don’t want to die!!!
Mikiton. Nobody wants to die, babe!!! If everyone wanted to die life wouldn’t hold any interest!!!
Nastya. You won’t even get to come three times, I’ll die right now, for fuck’s sake!!!
Mikiton. We’ll have time, babe, plenty of time, sweetie – this isn’t the first time we got hot and gave head, don’t you worry. Think of your belly full of sparklers – for four whole hours you’re like a fucking caliph, a diamond millionairess, bitch. Diamonds are a girl’s best friend – all the fucking dreams you ever had will come true for four hours, for fuck’s sake.
Nastya. Not the first time? Who else died swallowing diamonds?
Garik. Tanyukha Nepospelova. In Siberia with my oil buddies. You had a pal called Tanyukha Nepospelova?
Nastya. I did have a pal called Tanyukha Nepospelova. I introduced you to her, you bender!
Garik. That’s her. Well, the six of us Siberian buddies sucked one another off ten times then cut these diamonds out of her belly, before she croaked six hours later.
Nastya. These diamonds came from Tanyukha Nepospelova’s dead stomach?
Garik. From her dead stomach. Of course. What would happen to the sparklers otherwise? You’re talking our language now.

(Nastya spews the swallowed diamonds onto the floor)

Mikiton. Fuck – the bitch puked up all the diamonds.
Nastya. It seems my delicate organism isn’t keen on diamonds from a fucking corpse.
Garik. What the fuck – you bitch, my cock’s gone limp.
So it’s all my fucking fault, again.
Nastya. Don’t tell me you’re murderers?
Garik. That’s an insult. We’re killers – professionals – optical guns and triggers. That’s how we started raking it in on Rublyovka, sweetie. Murderers. What a fucking insult.
Mikiton. How can anyone fail to insult you, Garik? Naturally you’re a master at sucking dick, but apart from that seems you’re a complete asshole. Not a clue what to say to the broad when she’s fucking eating herself to death with sparklers.
Garik. Let her swallow the sparklers a second time and suffer some more. No food left in her stomach – she won’t be able to puke up the diamonds with only gastric juice left inside, the diamonds will stick in her belly.
Nastya. If I swallow puked-up diamonds on an empty stomach, so help me God I’ll fucking spew them up again on the parquet in seconds, with only my own acidic gastric juices. God damn me and my stomach if I don’t.
Garik. Well, thanks for telling me. She’s a well-bred, considerate little bitch when it comes to this, at least. We’ll rinse them in Chanel No.5, Nastyushechka. (Dials a number on his cellphone) Petro. Bring a bucket of water over here, and a rag, for fuck’s sake. And a bottle of Chanel No.5. Right away. At the double. We need a foot in every room with this bitch. Too right. But then she’ll get fucking dismembered.
Nastya. What? You dismember human bodies, as well?
Mikiton. You see, we’re professional killers, sweetie pie, we got experience in dismembering human bodies that will soon come in useful. We’ve been professionals for many years now. When we first came to the oil and gas business we were hired killers. Now we can’t do it any other way. You just get used to it – it’s a conditional-unconditional reflex now. You understand anything in psychology? Read Freud and Pavlov?
Nastya. Yeah.
Mikiton. We got conditional human reflexes too, for fuck’s sake.
Garik. But now we don’t take money for the unconditional killing – we kill purely for the sake of killing, it’s the highest form of art, to calm our nerves and fuel our bodies with fucking killing adrenaline.
Nastya. You kill and suck off at the same time?
Mikiton. How else? So more adrenaline forms in the bloodstream. We suck cocks as one of life’s necessities – otherwise we’d be fucking dead. And if we didn’t kill we’d be dead, too – our nerves couldn’t hold out without fucking killing. It’s a vicious circle. Quits. Death is all around us. And you slags multiply the number of deaths with your abortions, without even knowing who the fucking father is.
Nastya. What? You pederasts are off your fucking head.
Garik. These days everyone’s a pederast, Nastenka. Some active, some passive. Freedom and democracy have arrived, for fuck’s sake. Pederasts are everywhere, fucking like animals. And how do you fuck? Legs akimbo and she’s turning somersaults for everyone, soon as their cocks stick up. But you haven’t fucked the needle yet, you fucking misfired and gave up, you must answer for it now and pay us active pederasts back with your fucking life, bitch, because you didn’t fuck the needle and you wanted a million for it.

(Petro enters with a bucket, rag and bottle of Chanel No.5)

Petro. Water, Chanel and rag at the ready, comrade general.
Garik. This hussy Nastenka went and puked up the sparklers – wipe up, Petro. You can keep a couple of sparklers for your troubles. But rinse the others and bring them over here in a bowl. Sprinkle them with Chanel No.5, too.
Petro. No sooner said than done. (Begins wiping up the vomit)
Garik (to Nastya). You like Chanel No.5?
Nastya. When I get a whiff of Chanel No.5 I throw up ten times quicker than with diamonds.
Mikiton. Anything that doesn’t make you throw up?
Nastya. Natural unadulterated male sperm. Your aromatic sperm, Garik, never makes me puke. Mikiton’s doesn’t either. You know very well.
Mikiton. What a bitch we reeled in. Where can we get enough of our freely-given sperm so you swallow the fucking diamonds? We swallow our own sperm – we need natural sperm ourselves, for medication. That’s why we suck one another. Why we find the time to meet here like normal people once a week. And now you’re spoiling everything, bitch.
Nastya. Three months ago you fucked me, and I sucked your dick good and proper. You didn’t complain, gave you such an adrenaline rush you moaned for more.
Garik. But that was three months ago, Nastyukha. That was only a preliminary game. We were sizing you up. Time has passed, the machinery is set in motion, the kill-o-meter is ticking off the seconds. There’s a kid inside you. Maybe it’s ours. And with our kidspawn inside there’s no way out, the slag has to swallow the sparklers neat, right now, choking and shrieking, and we’re gonna watch her protests as we suck one another off. All the more when the slags don’t know who the father is, there’s good reason to kill them. These are our inspirational plans in such circumstances. It’s not up for discussion.
Mikiton. Maybe she’d like Petro’s sperm as sauce for the sparklers? Petro, over here. Nastyukh, quit playing around you halfwit, have a feel of Petro’s cock.
Nastya (feels Petro’s cock). It’s limp.
Petro. Careful! Broads don’t give me a hard-on! (Sharply steps out of reach) I only get hard when I screw some fit guy up the ass. Or even better, when I screw horses. If you have no objection you could help me oblige. (Lays his hand on Mikiton’s shoulder)
Garik. Not another dimwit pervert – one of our own bodyguards. Take your hands off Mikiton, Petro! Mikiton’s not a fucking horse! I already let you oblige me up the ass once! After your altruistic cock fucked me up the ass I couldn’t work for six months. Couldn’t even walk. Had to lie on my stomach for six months. Lost twenty-five million bucks in earnings. Your obliging cock up my ass cost a fucking lot of money, Petro!!! If you’re already fucking the horses in my stables, just carry on with it!!!
Mikiton. You could let him fuck that bitch Nastyukha up the ass. Maybe that will finish her off, and we can peacefully suck one another off listening to the groans and death agony from his obliging murderous cock.
Petro. I can’t get a hard-on from a broad’s asshole either, boys – with any broad there’s the stink of her cunt right next to the ass, let alone if she’s jamragging. Fucking round with some stinking broad will knock me out like a light, give me a heart attack and it’s curtains. I don’t fucking want to die, I want to work as the general’s bodyguard, earn those lovely bucks.
Mikiton. We can bung up her cunt with the silk tablecloth.
Petro. The tablecloth will fall out. I’d hammer that bitch’s ass so any cloth would pop out. I’d rather not take the risk, lads. I want to live, for fuck’s sake. I mean it, no kidding.
Mikiton. Maybe Petro could obligingly screw me up the ass, just for a while? Eh? I’ve been observing that magician’s wand for ages, Garik. I have the right to risk my own anus, Garik, after all! Forgive me, Garik. You like everyone to take their turn. I respected that and I let you take your turn with Petro first.
Garik. You want to risk your one and only asshole with Petro, for fuck’s sake, Mikintosh?! You’ve got a very narrow asshole! When I shove my millimetric cock tight up your ass you nearly die from the fucking pain and suffering. If Petro thrusts his equine tool inside you you’ve had it, you’ll croak there and then, hell with no redress. Your vision of a frozen prick in the grave will come true. I remember, you had your eye on Petro last year – I told you all about Petro then. Has your frozen brain fucking forgotten?
Mikiton. What if we use vaseline?
Garik. You gone schizo, taking risks like that after a dose of fucking black sperm in the States? You won’t die immediately, I guarantee you’ll like on your stomach another five years. You’ll squander your fucking millions. I can tell you straight, my comrade buddies nearly knocked me off the gas pipeline when I lay facedown for six months after Petro screwed me. Your bearish buddies from the taiga pipeline will soon bury you in your den. I already know what kind of safaris they have out there in the taiga snowscape – believe me, you can trust the heartfelt advice of your bender buddy.
Mikiton. Yeah, you’re right of course, Garik. No reason to risk my asshole yet. But what about Nastyukha? Where can we get the sperm?
Garik. What to do. Don’t know myself what to do with fucking Nastyukha. We could call the frozen sperm bank. They can get you any sperm you want in an hour, even Michael Jackson’s. Costs a packet, though.
Nastya. I’ll tell you straight, I throw up frozen sperm faster than Chanel.
Mikiton. At least the broad’s honest, but what a quarrelsome little gourmet.
Garik. Let’s try our luck on the streets – we can get any prick we want for a hundred bucks, a classy broad offering to do the business on our premises – they’ll do it for free. Fountains of sperm here in no time.
Mikiton. Exactly where do we find streets in Rublyovka? Everyone here’s a millionaire and a crook, for fuck’s sake, they drive round in mercs like tanks. And later she’ll spill the beans – the pederast oligarchs round here will gang up and get rid of me once and for all, make me swallow sparklers. She’s bound to grass us up.
Nastya. Too right I’ll grass you up, you assfucking alligator oligarchs.
Mikiton. There, you see, the slags are all fucking stool pigeons.
Garik. So what’s our next move? What the fuck, Mikiton, let me suck your dick, just an ordinary blowjob. Without any background death agonies from this puking bitch who won’t even eat sparklers and fucking die. I already had a suck on you. I want to be sucked off too.
Mikiton. Okay, okay. Just cool it, man. (Sucks his cock) Cock’s still not getting hard.
Garik. Fuck, I really want to come. It’s because that puked-up bitch Nastyona purposely played on our nerves and ruined our little get-together, instead of actually sincerely and honorably helping us out, even when she knows she’ll be snuffed out anyway, spewing all over the lounge of our multi-million villa. Know what this parquet you puked on is made of, bitch? Karelian birch parquet you puked on, fucking gymnast!
Nastya. Look, you benders, you’re still guys, after all – I got such a pretty smooth-shaven cunt, such a great cellulite-free ass. You were happy to fuck me before – let’s do it again, I’m not asking money for it, and then as a special favor you can let me go. If you do I’ll be ready and willing to come over and tenderly fuck you for free without getting knocked up, whenever you call. I’ll get rid of the kid.
Mikiton. So she’ll get rid of the kid. If you’re a good girl you’ll sit still and stop talking bullshit.
Garik. Know where you can fucking stuff your cunt and your cellulite-free ass, bitch?
Nastya. Where?
Garik. Up your fanny, you fucking bitch. The minute you leave here you’ll snitch to the first cop in sight.
Nastya. Who’s gonna believe me if I did?
Mikiton. Shut the fuck up, slut, quit the fucking bullshit. We’re gonna finish you off, professional, once and for all. All the time we wasted on you, bitch.
Petro. Why not pick up a pneumatic and shoot the naked slut, like you did with Verka last week. She was groaning in death agony for three hours. Such terrific background music you had ten blowjobs each. I can blast her with the pistol if you want, same as last time.
Garik. Pretty sharp for a Ukrainian, but you know, Petro, repeating the same scenario is not so interesting. You’d shoot a broad who’s one of your lot?
Petro. This is no proper Ukrainian broad. Phiz is typical Ryzan and the surname’s Russian. Forgot to tell you, there was a funny scene yesterday with that Ukrainian cook from the mansion next door, Roma’s place. He was out of salt. Came hammering on our gate. You were out. Asked for salt, can you imagine. Said he was fresh out of salt, on the Rublyovka, just imagine. I answered him in Russian. I says, there is no salt in this house, you Ukrainian git. But he goes on asking – who lives in this house, then? Without another word I clenched my right fist and gave his Ukrainian mug a neat Ukrainian jab, decked him with a broken jaw right there on your Rublyovkan Russian soil, that fucking Ukrainian skivvy with his dimwit idiot questions. No fucking difference if he’s Ukrainian like me, he needed to understand that anyone who asks questions on Rublyovka – even a Ukrainian asking another Ukrainian – such as who lives in this or that dacha gets his face smashed in, minimum, he’s really asking to be snuffed out there and then. When the ambulance took him away your neighbor Roma comes out and gives me a grand for teaching that fuckwit Ukrainian cook the Rublyovka code of practice. So you see, I can shoot a Ukrainian broad with a Russian surname minus any superfluous nervous excitement. No sweat.
Garik. We don’t need you to shoot any more broads, Petro, with or without remorse. Just go on calmly fucking my mares in the stables to your heart’s content – you have my permission – go on fucking them without any superfluous nervous excitement.
Mikiton. And go on flattening the neighbor’s cooks’ faces for their edification.
Nastya. Maybe you could suck Petro’s prick – when his sperm spurts on the diamonds I can swallow them.
Garik. That’s a fucking amicable idea.
Mikiton. Might be the solution.
Nastya. Saying that wasn’t in my best interests, what a silly girl I am. Hey guys, maybe it was such a brilliant idea you won’t finally kill me?
Garik. Killing is always final, sweetie. We don’t fucking need your idea if we don’t fucking kill you. You gotta see the logic there, for fuck’s sake. You’ve got brains in your head, huh? You got top grades at school?
Nastya. I got top grades for everything at school. Always sat at the front desk. I take my idea back, then, you fucking fruits. I wanna leave this class of fucking louts!!!
Mikiton. What bull she’s talking! Who’s gonna give you the idea back? You’re a na;ve fucking idiot, even if you did well at school. Fucking crap grades!! We’ll give you two out of ten and zero for your cunt that couldn’t even land on a needle without drawing blood. We have to kill you as punishment. Get my drift? Quits!!!
Garik. Except, I repeat, we could slit your throat in three and a half instead of four hours’ time so you don’t suffer long – or we can ask Petro to smash your head in with something heavy.
Petro. Of course, so she doesn’t suffer I can fucking punch her head in, finish the slag off good and proper, if you require.
Nastya. Have you no pity?
Garik. That’s the problem, fuckwit, we feel sorry for you. We used to be sincere and principled killers, for fuck’s sake. But now we’re even happier because we’re sorry for you, in the best possible way. You see that from the way we talk to you, with such sincerity and understanding.
Nastya. You’re being very mean, and hurtful.
Mikiton. We understand, but that’s why we’re happy, because it’s mean and hurtful. The moralistic fuckwit has a tongue in her head after all. Comes out with real fucking scholarly mean words. Stop blathering, for fuck’s sake! Come on, Petro, open your flies and take out your cock, drop your pants if you want. Pump us some sperm. We already wasted too much time, time is money.

(Petro takes his very large cock from his flies, masturbates)

Fuck, Petro’s cock really is fit for a horse, whatever way you look at it. Quite fucking scary. If you took that cock in your mouth it’d come out your ass gasping for oxygen.
Garik. I already told you, Miki, my elite bodyguard’s got a fucking King-Kong-size Cyclops.
Mikiton. Makes you want that elite bodyguard cock up your ass. Eh?
Garik. I know you want it up your ass. I already fucking felt it up my ass! How many times do I have to tell you!!!
Nastya. I want Petro’s elite cock, too!!! Just for a moment, before I die. Can’t I just touch the knob?!
Petro. No fucking chance! No broad touches my prick, for fuck’s sake, specially the knob!!!
Nastya. But I want to!!! I’m full of life while I’m still alive! (Manages to grab Petro’s cock by the knob)
Petro. A-a-a-a! I told you, no broad touches my prick, fuck, and specially the knob… That’s my life… and death… (Falls, dies)
Mikiton. Shit, that indestructible slag has fucking killed him… What have you done, you bitch?! She’s felled our King Kong, bodyguard commander-in-chief… Killed him…
Nastya. I gently touched his knob, that’s all. On my word of honor.
Garik. You gently touched his knob? So why’s he lying there, why’s he stopped breathing?
Nastya (bends over Petro’s chest, listens). You’re right, his lungs aren’t breathing. His nose and mouth aren’t breathing, either.
Mikiton. His lungs aren’t breathing and so his nose and mouth aren’t breathing… The bitch has an interesting way of putting it, fucking slag logic. Her gentle little fingers grabbed Petro by the knob of his mighty cock, for fuck’s sake! This is outrageous, only a woman could do this!
Garik. Nobody could have thrashed my Petro, for fuck’s sake, he fucked every one of us on Rublyovka, for fuck’s sake. He fucked my thoroughbred racehorses and after they’d been fucked by Petro they won millions, at all the fucking State-organized Hippodrome races. This bitch with her manicured fingers touches the knob of his cock and sends him to a cold death, for fuck’s sake. Know what we should do with you now, bitch? Make mincemeat of you – mincemeat!!! For cutlets!!! And feed the cutlets to the dogs down the trash heap. We’ll put you in the mincing machine and chop you up slowly like firewood – millimeter an hour – beginning with the gentle fucking fingers on your gentle fucking mitts. Know how much that Petro from Koktebel cost me, bitch?!!
Nastya. I didn’t want to do it, didn’t know what I was doing! I’m really, really sorry. Forgive me.
Garik. She didn’t want to. You wanted him very much, bitch!!! After that even mincing is too fucking kind. I want that fucking bitch annihilated from the face of the earth, Miki.
Mikiton. Got any hydrochloric acid left? We can dissolve her – remember, like those five big-schnozz wheeler-dealer bumboys from down south. Fuck, we got ten-dollar notes for each of them at the youthful dawn of our killing career.
Garik. Yeah, used to play around with vats of acid. Penniless killers we were in those days. For what she’s done the whore should be drowned alive in a cesspool, ten meters of shit.
Mikiton. You got a cesspool ten meters deep at your dacha?
Garik. Nah, ‘fraid not. This is a decent dacha – twenty million bucks’ worth. No cesspool here. Proper city-standard sanitary engineering.
Nastya. Soon I’ll hang myself listening to your cesspool trash-heap chatter, for fuck’s sake. Came to Rublyovka for an honorable fuck to spin a few bucks, a high-grade cutie with her own private business, ‘though it was your ass-bandit lifestyle made me a hooker. First you shove me on a steel needle, now you make me eat diamonds. Know what, your elite Petro’s beginning to stink like a corpse.
Mikiton. Yeah – he already smells bad.
Garik. Probably due to his strange fucking Koktebel constitution – fucking followed by refined beachside relaxation, at the worst zapping a few guys with his revolver. He fucked horses, fucked guys fucking half-dead. Now he falls down dead after some fucking top-grader hooker slaughtered him with her manicured talons. She slaughtered my chief bodyguard, the bitch. He kept us safe from all those fucking bandits. Liquidated them all without a murmur, a master of his art. A huge meaty guy and she zaps him with her delicate miniature bony claws. If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes I’d never fucking believe it.
Nastya. Take me on instead, I can be your bodyguard. Zap them all with my bony claws, grab their knobs through their pants.
Mikiton. You could only fucking zap Petro, bitch, with your claws on his naked knob! Shut the fuck up! I’ll fucking thrash you now!
Nastya. But nobody can fucking thrash YOU, can they!!! (In one fell swoop she snaps the steel handcuff, snatches the open razor from Garik, grabs Mikiton’s penis through his pants, tears off his penis and balls) When it comes to lowlife assfuckers like you that’s how quick I can rip it off, cock and bullshitting balls in one move!
Mikiton. Give my cock back, bitch!
Nastya. Choke on your own fucking cock – only don’t bother puking your bloody snivel on the parquet, you stinking bumboy! (Thrusts his penis and balls at him) And don’t spatter your bloody torn-off parts all over the parquet.
Mikiton. No!!! No more blow… My… pipeline… (Falls, dies)
Garik. Fuck, I don’t fucking believe this. (Holds his crotch like a soccer player)
Nastya. How d’you like it? I can break off your gas-and-air pipe peter, too. You thought you were getting off, all that sado screwing or whatever you do. You na;ve little bender, Garik. Where’s your Miki-prickysucker now? Snuffed it, and his prick too. What you gonna do now – suck off with him?
Garik. No need to snap my gas-and-air pipe peter, Nastenka! How could you dismember him, rip off his cock and his balls in one, deft as a juggler, with such miniature bony fairy-tale fingers? I’ve got another natural gas pipe for you, Nastenka. Or we can divert Mikiton’s pipeline straight into your future banks. What do you prefer?
Nastya. I want everything, right now.
Garik. Well… if you say so. Whatever a woman wants is the law of the universe. If you disobey you’re eating shit.
Nastya. Primitive dying words, but tender and inspiring. That assfucker Garik is in the shit now.
Garik. Where did you learn such an advanced and scarcely primitive skill – ripping off cocks and balls in one? You’re a gymnast, a splits specialist.
Nastya. I’m a Shito-ryu karate splits specialist, Garik. In karate splits are the most spectacular move.
Garik. You never told us you did Shito-ryu karate.
Nastya. You never asked. When I did the splits naked in front of you three months ago you immediately said ‘Cool, what a gymnast’. You liked me and you paid me too, so I went along with it – I used to be a gymnast back home, splits world champion. I didn’t lie to you. I’m an honest broad. I offer gentle, honest sex for money. My cunt is cute, peachy and even, and my sexy splits are pure gold.
Garik. With a cellulite-free butt.
Nastya. You got it, Garik. So I took whatever my gold-and-diamond cunt was worth.
Garik. But in all honesty, and you want us to be honest, you can earn more by snatching off cocks and balls. Let’s work as partners now, Nastenka. We’ll make mincemeat of all the Courchevel and Rublyovka oligarch alligators – in partnership, for fuck’s sake. Then you and I will be the only oligarchs left.
Nastya. You and I are already working as a duo – what’s up, Garik, you devious doomed oligarch bum, getting confused as you stare death in the face? I’m making oligarch bucks with you now, like a horsewoman riding your back. Write this contract before I break your arm. I’ve taken pity on you. Write that half your propane butane gas pipeline is mine now. No, better if your entire pipeline becomes mine after your imminent suicide. Where’s your safe?
Garik. Over there.
Nastya. Got the company stamp and some cash in there?
Garik. Yep.
Nastya. That the key hanging round your neck?
Garik. Yeah.
Nastya (tears the key from his neck, opens the safe). Fucking medieval. Wears the fucking keys round his neck. Noticed that last time. Oh yeah, and the readies. How much is in there?
Garik. It’s all yours. Four million bucks.
Nastya. How many lives do I live to get through that? Don’t waste time – write the document and I’ll put the stamp next to your fucking signature, there for all to see.
Garik. What document, what do I write? You can’t just write a financial legal document by hand, sweetie – you’ll find it’s not so simple when I’m no longer here and you go see a solicitor.
Nastya. I’m a solicitor myself, Garik! I do love that intellectual-sounding word ‘Solicitor’. Really gives me the hots. I’d much rather go fuck a guy called Solicitor than one called Oligarch. Go on, write, that’s all that matters, I’ll work out what to do with the signed papers later. Which john to flush them down. (Kicks Garik) Write the document, scumbag!
Garik. I’m fucking writing. Write what?
Nastya. Write: I, Garik such-and-such bequeath all my property after my death to Nastya Shokoladnaya.
Garik. But if you kill me you’ll get fuck all, this is incriminating evidence.
Nastya. Uh huh – thanks for the advice – then write this: I, Garik such-and-such, am committing suicide by swallowing all my diamonds after murdering Mikiton and Petro.
Garik. I’m not going to swallow diamonds.
Nastya. If you don’t I’ll rip off your dick. You’ll die quickly but much more painfully. If you swallow the diamonds I’ll slash your throat with the razor right away – same as you planned for me. Apart from anything else I can’t stay here any longer with stinking stiffs growing cold all round me and ripped-off dicks all over the lounge. I’ll throw up again soon.
Garik. Okay, Nastyukh. But look here, I’ve really grown to love and respect you, Nastyukh. Shit, you simply deserve to get all my innumerable material gaspipe shit for fucking free!!! I don’t want to die!!! Aren’t you sorry for me, Nastenka?
Nastya. I’ll be pleasantly sorry to kill you, you assfucking killer. Go on, write, bastard. Otherwise you’ll have to die in a very painful and primitive way. You don’t want that.
Garik. I agree to live in a very painful way.
Nastya. Write, you cocksucking fag: I, Garik such-and-such, admittedly I’ve gone a bit fucking crazy, but in full sound potency and mind I am taking my own life after murdering Mikiton my friend and Petro my bodyguard by swallowing all my fucking diamonds.
Garik. You want me to write the obscenities too?
Nastya. The obscenities too. After all, you’re a complete fucking cocksucking killer. Keep on writing: I bequeath all my property to Nastya Shokoladnaya and our future daughter Vasilisochka. And sign it.
Garik. Signed it. Here you are. (Gives her the paper)
Nastya. Excellent. And the company stamp. (Stamps the paper) Now let’s get down to business – swallow the diamonds, then I can carry all the bodies out in one go. Two fistfuls at once and gulp them down.
Garik. Well at least you could rinse them first. You spewed all over them.
Nastya. Swallow them and swallow the sick too, assfucker! (Grabs his crotch) Or I’ll rip off your cock. Wash them down with whisky – you can do it. I swallowed them. (She thrusts several handfuls of diamonds from the bucket Petro used to clean up the vomit into his mouth, gives him whisky to wash them down) There you are. You did it. Now slash yourself with the razor, makes me feel sick with bodies all over the place. I’ve still got to carry out these heavy bags with the four million dollars. (Stops to think – should she give him the open razor or not?)
Garik. It really fucking hurts, Nastyukha. A-a-a. (Chokes and pukes up all the diamonds) Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Didn’t work. Must have the same constitution, sweetie, you and I. Maybe we can live together and bring up your future daughter Vasilisochka as a couple? I’ll fucking do everything I can for my future daughter, and for you too.
Nastya. You already did everything you fucking could for me, you monster. Both good and bad. Whichever you did most I can work out on my own for the rest of my life. With you still here my head’s spinning. Even if you really loved me instead of lurking half an hour in the yard, then bashing my head open with something heavy. You can’t fool me. Relax. Accept death as a pleasant delivery from your life, which is no fucking use to anyone! (Kicks him in the solar plexus, sets fire to the document he just wrote in front of his face)
Garik (gasping) Why the fuck did you make me write that document?
Nastya. It wasn’t me that had to pass a written death sentence. You did it yourself – by your own hand.
Garik. What do you mean, a death sentence written by my own hand?
Nastya. The fact that you, Garik, were a cocksucker and fuckwit all your life. I don’t fucking need your pipelines when I’ve got four million bucks cash right here. What a fuckwit you are, Garik. And for the fact that like Mikiton you, Garik, wanted me dead, showed no pity for me. Fucking scumbag!!!
(Kicks him in the head and the blow breaks his neck, Garik dies)
These oligarchs, running all over the place, swaggering about! Half-assed alligators. Planned to snuff a girl out for her high-grade blowjobs. They’re not oligarchs, they’re fucking shitassed puking bloody sniveling bums! Fuck, I’m aching all over. Got to lump these bucks home, all by myself. Brought the car, at least. No fucking guys here to help a poor girl carry this heavy weight. No real men anywhere. You end up becoming a real man yourself and loving yourself for that. Then there’s that fucking narcissistic male split personality they can only cure with lovelies in the Caribbean. Fucking cocksuckers. (Plucks a hair from Garik’s head, then from Maketon and Petro, chanting) Chop!!! Chop!!! Chop!!! (Then she cuts each hair in two with the open razor, one by one, like a true karateka.
Pensively gazes round the lounge, puts on a Leonard Cohen song. Pours whisky on the parquet and sets the lounge on fire with a cigarette lighter… hauls the bags containing millions of dollars offstage).

On M. Volokhov’s play ‘Rublyovka Safari’


“…Volokhov himself has progressed further into the 21st century, to ‘Rublyovka Safari’, and in my view this is very significant. I would say the ‘Moscow-Petushki’ line has been extended (let’s say, Petushki-Vladimir). Firstly, Volokhov’s work is written in a tone that rules out superficial gratification; secondly, these unappetizing plotlines in ‘Rublyovka Safari’ are symbolic rather than naturalistic; and thirdly, they are not the main aim and certainly not an aim in themselves, only the means to reach a goal by the shortest route the author knows – by turning everything into a ‘carnival’ of sorts, if you recall. Incidentally, the aim here is not the hallucination that is called ‘catharsis’, but rather the characteristics of our idiotic reality couched in uncompromising, succinct and precise terms. ‘Holy shit – let the rest of them fucking croak. And if they can’t croak by themselves they’re asking to be fucking wasted, squashed like parasitic bugs.’ ‘He didn’t screw the important guys in government circles like he was meant to, ended up in the fucking shithole. In Russia you gotta play by the rules, specially if you rob the government of fucking great oilfields three times the size of Europe… I love my country, I’m no dissident, for fuck’s sake, I share it out with the government dudes that make thieving easy work.’ Try putting that another way and you get a term in jail (a journalistic term?). Volokhov presents a precise picture of Russian life by means of multiple, reciprocal fellatio; in his day Venedikt [Yerofeyev] achieved the same effect with his hero’s protracted dipsomania…”

Alexei BITOV


“Mikhail Volokhov fascinates me because when interviewed, one half of what he says is incomprehensible. He speaks in such a culturologically philosophical and complex language with cosmic thematic formulations. Even a top-notch intellectual would be hard put to interpret all his symbols. Volokhov – a living walking Joyce – is here
among us. As soon as you open Volokhov’s play the Russian people, with whom he is apparently well acquainted, begin to speak in the language of the street, a language with elements of shocking cruelty, obscenity, thrash and underground. Either he himself hung out with them, or he traveled on the roofs of freight trains and served time with the characters from his play ‘Paris Bound’… I also saw an amazing production of his play ‘Lesbians Roaring Like A Tsunami’, with costumes by Vyacheslav Zaitsev. I don’t understand how anyone could become so familiar with our street life down to the finest detail. After all, Russia today is street life. The intelligentsia mean nothing here. Zero. And if an intellectual like Volokhov tackles thrash, then probably using thrash he can convey what the intellectual really thinks of contemporary Russia, and what Russia thinks of itself. Most likely it would be impossible otherwise. And in this sense Volokhov achieves a shocking and metaphorically complete form.
For me Volokhov is primarily an artist who has the talent to live and create. Despite the fact that he lives in troubled times. We live in an age when it is not fashionable, cool or indeed much fun to live and create in the grip of human passions. There’s no money in it… nothing. When theatre is still unable to recover and begin speaking the truth. And we are rather tired of socially uncompromising Post Modernism like Pelevin’s. We yearn for a little conservatism and, definitely, great art from our writers. Volokhov stubbornly continues to occupy himself with genuine art. Anybody else would have given up. Penned something a bit simpler, a little more refined, and wormed their way
to acceptance. But Volokhov doesn’t do that. He doesn’t try to crawl through the eye of the needle. Doesn’t aim to gratify or curry favor. No! And that is remarkable – such
 
sincerity, the nerve of a true artist. Moreover, an artist with meticulous mastery of the written word.

Volokhov is a superb and original dramatist. Understandably Ionesco was enraptured by his ‘Blind Man’s Bluff’. And the erotica and non-standard vocabulary in his plays are not for ;patage, but to jolt to our stifled emotions and feelings.

After reading his play ‘Rublyovka Safari’ some friends of mine remarked: ‘That is real obscenity, you might even say Shakespearean. Magnificent!’ ”

Irina KHAKAMADA (from a TV interview)


“The play ‘Rublyovka Safari’ is remarkable above all because it reveals the underside of Power with hyper-realistic humor. You believe in Volokhov’s characters to such an extent that it seems this is not simply an avant-garde play whose arrival in the theatre world was set to demolish stagnant, narrow-minded and mediocre principles, but rather that life itself has become so mutinously avant-garde and theatrical that apparently no avant-garde exists without the dramatist Volokhov. As always we must give Volokhov his due: yet again his talent as a writer in succinct metaphorical theatrical form – a real theatrical game for high stakes – has encapsulated a truly tragic time with the metaphorical global precision of optimism engendered by cultural timelessness.”

Igor DUDINSKY (from a TV interview, 2011)

==========================================================
6)
 Mikhail Volokhov

KILIMANJARO ON YOUR LIPS

A dramatic comedy


CHARACTERS:

Dasha – an actress
Mitya – a businessman, former theatre director
Lyalya – a charming young girl
Kilya – a charming student

Moscow, the present.

The action takes place in Dasha’s apartment.


Mitya. Ah, Paris! Ah, Nice, the Pyrenees, the Alps, Strasbourg and Bourget! And the ch;teaux! Arcachon, the Atlantic, the tallest sand dunes in Europe – the northern Nice. A month flew by in no time. Next year I’ll spend my holidays in France, for the whole summer.
Dasha. And what about me?
Mitya. We’ll take you along. I invited you this year, too. It was you that refused.
Dasha. You didn’t go alone.
Mitya. She’s a lovely girl. Too lovely, even. But she had nothing against our crazy love in a threesome.
Dasha. Since you made money you’ve become very simple-minded.
Mitya. No problem. I love you. Breathe some French oxygen. (Gives her a perfume bottle.)
Dasha. Chanel No. 5? You can get that here nowadays.
Mitya. But this came from Paris. Have I walked in on a tragedy? God Almighty. Such good vibes all around, Dashenka. Not life but a carousel, my sweetie.
Dasha. I’m a sweetie, but not yours.
Mitya. So who’s your new man? Dasha. Jesus Christ with no money.
Mitya. A big, pure, uncorrupt love?
Dasha. Without your beloved money.
Mitya. Nonsense. You get my beloved money too.
Dasha. You give it to me. So thanks. Actors are underpaid in the theatre nowadays.
Mitya. That’s why I quit the theatre, for fuck’s sake! Sorry. Now I work hard and get
money for it. I’m working like mad, but at least get something in return. Sweetheart, I need some relaxation – it’ll kill me otherwise. You’re still working in the theatre. For you it’s like a religion, a sacred part of your destiny. For me too. But you have to eat something, you want more when so many are getting crazy bonuses, from Mercs to luxury pads in the countryside. I’m glad I can help you with money, so you don’t quit your devoted service in the Temple of Theatre. I’m grateful that you take the money from me.
Dasha. Why so gloomy and mercantile, sir. Quickly, strip me to the waist. And the bits above my waist. And below. Slide boldly along my black silk stockings. With your hands, your lips, use your tongue, use your... You’re boring me. All this sliding and merging, this slag slime, the oohs and ahs of heavenly happiness. By morning I just want to slit your throat.
Mitya. We’ll burn up together for a long, long time.
Dasha. But two days later the whole thing repeats itself. You call me and say you love me. So many lies just to squeeze our bodies together in carnivorous ecstasy. Does it come naturally? Oh, please, sir, caress me there with your tongue. I have such an erogenous concentration of love right there. More!!! More!!! I can see a garden of flowers in paradise, through closed eyes. I confess my love for you, sex without love!!! More!!! More!!! More!!! (Cries.) Oh, you’re just tired. Now you can only do a blowjob. Although you wanted the craziest love. Me too. But we’re people with well aligned, well constructed serpentine convolutions. Oh yes. Our crazy love won’t be repeated... I did my own abortion…
Mitya. Well, it was a very dreary autumn. Endless rain! You lose the will to live.
Dasha. And after the abortion I can no longer have children.
Mitya. Forgive me. It was such a long time ago.
Dasha. Back then you had no money to feed another two mouths. And I was weak, a poetic fool by nature. What are we doing in this world? We live and dream. Human existence is only the shades of other people, their machines and crutches, the graves of horses, dogs, latrines, wagtails... And after death, underground, you inhale your own stale, poisonous, sepulchral fumes for eternity.
Mitya. You’re in a cheery mood, my darling Cinderella. Theatre’s a special thing… I betrayed it. That’s life. But I always carry the cherry stone, our talisman.
Dasha. It’s unbearable how you live in the past, Mitya. You can’t seem to understand that not a single cherry stone remains from that cherry orchard.
Mitya. I want you, my little cherry.
Dasha. Whatever the director requests, the actress obeys. The director is the power. The power is the director.
Mitya. Sounds sexy. Say it again.
Dasha. I repeat. Directors, with very rare and surprising exceptions, are like perineum-decubitus, parasites feeding on other people’s texts and acting genius. This is such an eternally wilting, snotty, maniacal, worthless prick, but by some incomprehensible pistol action it’s still right there, scalding hot, leaping and fucking in bestial ecstasy all living things in the theatre and life.
Mitya. Well, you’ve made progress. That was brilliant.
Dasha. And you’re doing the right thing, too.
Mitya. What d’you mean?
Dasha. You live like all men, as a treacherous director.
Mitya. And you live like all women, as a warm-hearted, suffering actress.
Dasha. An actress on sexy errands. Proud, poor, brilliant, biblical Russian art. Eternal glory to you. God save you and have mercy.
Mitya. Dasha, you have to live calmly and positively, that’s all, it’s elementary. Venture into the forest, gather strawberries! Mushrooms! Blueberries! Directing your own, one, true, natural happiness. My God. How easy everything is when you take the right point of view. How important it is to listen to a sincere, kind, beloved woman, and to hear what she says. And we rape these kind, sincere women, we corrupt them and turn them into unbearable, mechanical whores. We like it that way. Then we reproach them for it, sentence them to death. And we like that even more. My God, the things that happen in this world, messieurs!
Dasha. Hooligan. And it wasn’t an act.
Mitya. She loved that hooligan. With good reason.
Dasha. She loved a murderer.
Mitya. You bet. Why not?
Dasha. The coolest thing right now is to become a murderer, a killer. What a beautiful buzzword. People pay for alienation.
Mitya. Sure thing.
Dasha. That’s what you’re doing?
Mitya. Naturally. Dasha. You’re a killer?
Mitya. If it turns you on.
Dasha. Although you never stopped to think, a killer can be the victim of another killer, if he kills too much and knows too much.
Mitya. Never thought about it. Dasha. So how many have you killed?
Mitya. What?
Dasha. You never told me how many you murdered, killer.
Mitya. Are you rehearsing a play with me? I never killed anyone. I don’t understand you. You’re a funny girl. I never got the text of this drama, Dashenka.
Dasha. You’re trying to wriggle out of it?! Why are you lying, you stinking worm?!
Mitya. Wha-at?!
Dasha. Keep calm and own up, how many have you murdered, killer?
Mitya. Slow down.
Dasha. I’m slowing down. We’ve stalled.
Mitya. You need to see a psychiatrist?
Dasha. I already saw a psychiatrist.
Mitya. And what did this mystical doctor tell you?
Dasha. This mystical doctor said there’s nothing wrong with me.
Mitya. Honest Dr Chekhov.
Dasha. So I want you to tell me, honest Chekhov doctor, frankly, sincerely, how many people you murdered with your silenced pistol.
Mitya. I don’t understand.
Dasha. You don’t understand?
Mitya. I don’t understand. But I’m a sane person and ready to understand your female fantasy!
Dasha. You want me to repeat my simple question to the penniless millionaire
pretending he’s an idiot?
Mitya. I’m getting tired of you. What question?
Dasha. I repeat. I want you, a healthy male person, to honestly tell me how many other healthy, not dead, of course, despicable people of different sexes he, that is, you, dispatched with this silenced gun.
Mitya. Dash, I don’t even have a gun, especially a silenced gun. I’m a millionaire, a modest one, but in dollars, and imagine, I don’t carry a gun and have no bodyguards. Bodyguards only draw attention. Are you crazy?
Dasha. Having your own gun can be useful.
Mitya. If they want to kill me they’ll kill me with gun in hand, just the same. Shall I give a few examples?
Dasha. No examples needed. What’s this? (Takes a gun with a silencer from a desk drawer.)
Mitya. A gun. With a silencer.
Dasha. Recognise it? Mitya. It’s not mine. Dasha. Then whose is it?
Mitya. How do I know? Where d’you find it?
Dasha. In the bedside table.
Mitya. What bedside table?
Dasha. Your bedside table. Where you keep your socks and underpants. I found this toy in there.
Mitya. You need to be careful with this toy.
Dasha. Of course. I’m not crazy.
Mitya. Where did you find it?
Dasha. Once again I explain to a healthy male person: I found this gun with the silencer in your bedside table with the socks and underpants.
Mitya. I love you, I keep almost all my clothes here with you, not at her place. Things are still the same between you and me. I don’t go shopping with her, either. That would be a betrayal to you. Because I see you in the shop instead of her. It just drives me mad. It’s a little quirk I have, but it’s genuine. Because I love you madly.
Then of course, I don’t have time to go shopping. And she has a lot of free time – she’s young and healthy. I give her money, after all. I’m not exploiting her. I fuck her, but for love – I’m not a sadist. She loves me too, this girl. But I love you no less. If not more. Naturally, more. So I keep my socks and underpants with you, I repeat. God dammit. In the bedside table.
Dasha. So I repeat, where did the silenced gun you left in the bedside table come from?
Mitya. Are you kidding?
Dasha. Do I often make jokes about serious matters?
Mitya. No matter, I love you for your gentle humour.
Dasha. But these serious jokes of yours about guns in the bedside table aren’t jokes at all, in my opinion.
Mitya. It’s not mine, Dashechka.
Dasha. Nobody visits me here except you, Mitenka. This pistol was in your bedside table with the socks.
Mitya. In my bedside table with the socks...
Dasha. And underpants.
Mitya. And underpants… MY pistol was never in there.
Dasha. With a silencer.
Mitya. With a silencer.
Dasha. Because this pistol of yours, Mitenka, was in another place before, that’s all.
Mitya. No-o, Dashenka.
Dasha. Ye-es, Mitenka.
Mitya. In what other place was this so-called pistol of mine, Dashenka?
Dasha. You know better than me, killer-boy Mitenka.
Mitya. Who told you it was my gun? And where did you get it?
Dasha. I found it in your bedside table with the socks and underpants. And you yourself just confirmed that it’s your gun and silencer, Mitenka! That’s not funny, after all.
Mitya. I said that tongue-in-cheek!!! Did you fall from the moon – are you stupid, or don’t you understand when I’m just being ironical? I thought you were a professional actress. Who are you? You’re not an actress anymore? Who are you, girl? Are you off your rocker? Or else I’m off my rocker after the trip to France. Where are we?
Dasha. In Russia.
Mitya. And who are you?
Dasha. I’m Dasha, a killer’s doxy.
Mitya. You’re Dasha, a killer’s doxy? That’s an interesting statement. Then who am I?
Dasha. You, Mitya, are a killer, a sadist. And I’m your freaky doxy Dasha. It was like that in the past, anyway.
Mitya. What? What the devil?
Dasha. The devil on both our houses, sadist.
Mitya. But wait, a killer can’t be a sadist. He just kills and that’s it, kaput, the person doesn’t suffer any more.
Dasha. But you see, I’m suffering for some reason. Suffering a lot, killer, dammit.
Mitya. Who’s the killer, dammit?!!!
Dasha. You are.
Mitya. What?!!! (Slaps her face.) Please forgive me, Dasha.
Dasha. The gallant killer-healer isn’t a sadist. A quasi-French gentleman from Khamovniki!
Mitya. That’s me all right.
Dasha. A Khamovniki-Frenchman from Bordeaux. Remembers to bring a whip when he visits his woman.
Mitya. Friedrich Nietzsche was absolutely right.
Dasha. Only Comrade Mauser was absolutely right. With a silencer. To make it quiet
– intimate – when dispatching some guy to Hades with a blast of lead, kaput. (Kisses the gun.)
Mitya. Tell me the truth, where did you find it? No hocus-pocus?
Dasha. Picked it up off the street.
Mitya. Which street?
Dasha. Near Izmailovsky Park. A week ago. I went for a walk. It was evening. Some dude was walking in front of me. Then I heard a pop and he keeled over. On the asphalt. There was another man walking twenty metres behind us… no, more like
thirty metres. There was an electricity pole there too, several. Do electricity poles have to be a set distance apart?
Mitya. Of course.
Dasha. Okay. So the man walking behind us fired from a distance of thirty metres. And he started running after this scarcely audible pop-shot – the gun had a silencer. So when the man started running something metallic – that much was obvious from the sound – fell on the asphalt, from his pocket or somewhere else. But he didn’t try to pick it up, he ran off as fast as he could. Then jumped into a Mercedes like yours, and that was it.
Mitya. You’re serious?
Dasha. Couldn’t be more serious. I approached the man lying on the ground and saw his eye had been torn away, with shreds of flesh: blood and brains, the whole thing. It was horrible! At the back of his neck the bullet had left a small hole. I understood straightaway, the man who ran off was the killer and he dropped the gun so he carried no material evidence. I went and picked up the metal object that had fired with a metallic clatter, and there it was, this pistol with a silencer. I ran to a payphone nearby and called the police and ambulance. And of course I vamoosed from the scene of this bloody showdown. But I took the silenced pistol dropped on the asphalt. Using a cellophane bag, naturally, not my bare hands. I put the pistol in my bag.
Mitya. O-la-la! What a nightmare! You walk on this earth na;ve and happy, then... You’re not having me on – you’re serious?
Dasha. I was almost... out of my mind!!! But you are lying… You rode your horse to a standstill way back. All this week I’ve been afraid to walk along the street. This poor guy got killed, but it seems one hundred percent they were aiming at me with this superman fatal Colt of yours, although they missed. Or was it a mistake? Maybe you can tell me. I can’t tell. I don’t have any unpaid debts, but everyone knows that you keep me.
Mitya. That’s horrific, sounds like a clash between two gangs. Well, if you like I’ll get you a license to carry arms. Teach you to shoot. Hit your target. But it won’t help if anything else happens.
Dasha. And what will help if something else happens, Mr Hit-Your-Target?
Mitya. Cut it out. You need to move, change jobs, so nobody can find you on your old patch.
Dasha. That’s not easy.
Mitya. When did it happen?
Dasha. A week ago, I told you. When you and your Lyalya were together on the banks of the Loire.
Mitya. We should have gone taken you along. Fucking hell. Who decided you’re useful, or rather, not useful?
Dasha. I’ve been trying to work it out all week. It gives me a headache.
Mitya. Have you worked it out?
Dasha. I worked it out.
Mitya. So what did you work out?
Dasha. I worked out that I’m no use to you. Easy as 1, 2, 3.
Mitya. Logical.
Dasha. Logical, one hundred percent.
Mitya. How d’you mean – logical, one hundred percent? What are you trying to say?
Dasha. You yourself just – everything’s logical and on-target!
Mitya. Wha-at?!
Dasha. They tried to shoot me! That’s not logical! (Whimpers.)
Mitya. Oh, leave it out. Sorry. Okay, I apologise. So this was serious shooting?
Dasha. When people shoot at you, that’s already serious, for God’s sake!
Mitya. Okay, listen, go to Corsica for a month. I’ll buy you a package tour. You can take a holiday from all this. Go swimming, sunbathe. Eh?
Dasha. And afterwards?
Mitya. Afterwards you can move to another apartment, change your job. We’ll think of something. Fucking hell. So there really are lowlife bastards who’d dare to kill a girl like you.
Dasha. There really are. But I can’t change my job in the theatre, Mitya. I’m an actress. People know my name, it’s your surname too.
Mitya. Okay, I’ll find this guy who wants to kill you, I’ll do something very, very bad to him and leave him for dead.
Dasha. You’re a knight in shining armour, a real Hamlet.
 Mitya. I’m not Hamlet, but I love you like a true knight.
Dasha. As he’d love Ophelia?
Mitya. As he’d love his beautiful Ophelia.
Dasha. You want me to go crazy and drown?
Mitya. I want to save you from our earthly abominations. You’re my special girl.
Dasha. Then why d’you keep this nymphet between us, she’s a headache, most of all for me.
Mitya. She doesn’t come between us, she has her place. A long way behind yours. We agreed.
Dasha. A place where I don’t exist at all.
Mitya. Everyone has their place, Dashenka. It’s not easy for me. Work sets you free.
Dasha. The words above the gate at Auschwitz. Work sets you free. Is this a replay? Or will everything stay the same?
Mitya. Only time will tell. You have to stay optimistic. Let death choke on the dead.
Dasha. That means one living person killing another living person. In Corsica they’re better shots than in Moscow. They won’t miss me there. I won’t suffer so much.
Mitya. They shoot much worse there. We showed that to Napoleon, in demotic terms.
Dasha. And I’m telling you in demotic terms. I carefully retrieved the silenced gun from the asphalt with a piece of cellophane and put it in my bag. You know Svetochka, my friend the actress, her boyfriend’s a criminologist, specializes in fingerprints. It’s such a lucrative profession these days. Well anyway. He found your prints on the handle of this silenced gun, Mitenka. How d’you like that?
Mitya. I don’t like it at all. Where did you get such a ridiculous idea?
Dasha. It’s called a dactyloscope.
Mitya. But I was in France, dactyloscoping. Dasha. I can’t believe it, either. A French riddle.
Mitya. And where’s the Russian trump card?
Dasha. The devil knows.
Mitya. Have you finished assing around?
Dasha. This black humour has more black treachery than humour.
Mitya. I was in Paris for a whole month with Lyalya!
Dasha. To start with you claimed to be touring France.
Mitya. So, that’s what we did.
Dasha. Then how was it you spent a whole month in Paris with Lyalya?
Mitya. Figuratively speaking, you little actress, no need to dactyloscope my every word.
Dasha. And what about the fingerprints on this pistol and silencer, on your bedside table with the underpants and socks? (Shows him two photos.) Look, two photos: material evidence, the prints on the bedside table and on your pistol and silencer are YOURS without a doubt.
Mitya. Looks like serious photography. (Examines photos.) Who set this up? And why?
Dasha. If it wasn’t you, it must’ve been Lyalya.
Mitya. She’s fifteen.
Dasha. Nowadays fifteen-year-old girls are very cunning little beasts.
Mitya. Okay, okay! But wait, she loves you.
Dasha. Who loves me?
Mitya. My Lyalya loves you.
Dasha. So Lyalya’s a lesbian as well?
Mitya. She loves you because I love you.
 Dasha. You believe what a woman says?
Mitya. You’re a woman too.
Dasha. You’ve known me for a long time, darling. Have I ever lied to you? Cheated on you?
Mitya. I don’t know.
Dasha. You don’t know?
Mitya. You love me, I can feel it. And I believe you and love you. You look like a saint when you’re asleep. I can always picture you asleep and it gives me strength.
Dasha. And your Lyalya, how does she look when she’s asleep?
Mitya. I don’t know. Haven’t seen it yet. With her I fall into a dead sleep after… You get my drift. Anka has machine-gun passions for Petka and Chapaev.
Dasha. Yes, if a woman sleeps like a shot bitch, then she’s a bitch. And the womanizers of bitches love to the point of incineration, so they can do a little shooting afterwards. Well, bitch! How did your fingers get on the pistol and silencer, Dmitry Petrovich Chapaev?
Mitya. On the silencer too?
Dasha. On the silencer, on the handle, and on the trigger – everywhere. Everything was ecstatically fingered.
Mitya. It was evil spirits. Maybe it’s evil spirits? There’s all kinds of poltergeists around these days. You know that?
Dasha. A poltergeist burns fingerprints.
Mitya. You could have made a decent living with Mueller in the Gestapo, Dashenka.
Dasha. Can you just answer me, Stirlitz director Mitenka – how is it that this entire pistol and silencer was covered in your fingerprints, if it wasn’t you who missed me that night?
Mitya. I wouldn’t have missed. I’m a very good shot and I wouldn’t miss you.
Dasha. You wouldn’t miss me? Mitya. Why would I shoot you? Dasha. You’re asking Desdemona?
Mitya. Her Othello was jealous.
Dasha. The whole thing was vile – a setup by Iago... Everything is as before, everything turns in a circle and everything will be as it will be.
Mitya. But you haven’t cheated on me, not once. Not before, not even now. You’re a saint, I repeat, girlie. I love you for that. I don’t know, of course, why you love me.
Dasha. Nobody ever knows why they love someone. It’s a psychiatric disease like schizophrenia.
Mitya. I’m grateful to you for this schizophrenia…
Dasha. That’s why you cheated on me with this bare-assed nymphet.
Mitya. All you divine girls have heavenly naked butts.
Dasha. Not all divine girls wear shorts ten times smaller than their naked, fleshy, pillowy butts.
Mitya. Pillowy butts!!!... I can tell you, that is said even at the level of Dali, with great cultural taste, of a woman worthy of the highest praise. Well, she’s still young, just a baby. Have pity,
Dasha. She’ll grow up and get smarter.
Dasha. When she grows up you’ll find yourself another nymphet with a naked, brazen, pillowy ass. You have money. Hungry nymphets stand in queues and stick out their breasts.
Mitya. She’s expecting a baby, we’re both very happy.

Pause.

Dasha. Congratulations.
Mitya. Thanks.
Dasha. She’s expecting your baby?
Mitya. You hate her – I can understand that.
Dasha. I love her. I just don’t love you being with her. But I love and understand her as a woman.
Mitya. Well said. She’s a fine, good-looking girl. Just like you. But she was born a few years later than you and met me when I was getting old too… But you have the most positive biofield in the whole wide world. When I take your hands I’m happy and calm – I don’t need anyone else in the whole world. May I? (Tries to take her hands.)
 Dasha. Let’s discuss this without fingerprints. (Takes her hands away.)
Mitya. Well, they cut the life of our generation in two with an axe. Like puppies thrown in the water – off you swim, they say. Well, I can swim away, by myself. The theatre is the sacred past – it’s you. Business is the future – that’s sacred, too – it’s her. But you also mean no less to all of us in this ongoing sacred life of ours. She’s expecting a baby. With me! And with you, too. We’re all together in this… We already said… You love her yourself and understand her as a woman. What’s the problem? You deliberately make up stories about killers, pistols, et cetera!
Dasha. I’m not making anything up! It’s all true! The naked truth! Like a stark naked ass!!! I was shot at!!! Your prints were found on the gun. You should be grateful I
didn’t go to the police, but I’m conducting an investigation myself, for the first time in my life. And imagine that on the evening when I was shot, someone called me on
the phone and told me to compare your prints on the nightstand where you keep socks and underpants with the fingerprints on the silenced pistol. That’s an important and undeniable detail.
Mitya. You’re lying.
Dasha. If I’m lying, then this pistol is a lie.
Mitya. Listen, only a person who’s visited this house could have called you. Someone who knows about the bedside table with the underpants and socks.
Dasha. He scared me so much, I almost died of fright.
Mitya. Fascism. You just need to understand who needs all this. I don’t need it.
Dasha. I certainly don’t need it – I nearly got shot.
Mitya. They were shooting at someone else.
Dasha. You wanted them to kill me?
Mitya. Of course not. I feel sorry for the murdered man, too. Very sorry. We’re all members of the human race. I love all the people on this earth. I still do, oddly enough.
Dasha. And most of all me, who gave you, a Christian, the scarlet flower of her youth.
Mitya. Women have such a happy, divine destiny – they give the flower of youth. I also gave you my youth and I continue to give you love. And respect. You’re making problems out of nothing again.
Dasha. Your underage floozy set it all up. Specifically, she doesn’t want to share your material greenbacks with me. Because she’s giving you her youth. My youth is pensioned off now. And if she’s got a young killer lover, she could just ask him, in a Christian way, to get rid of me, no need to hire anyone.
Mitya. She doesn’t have a young killer lover!!!
Dasha. Well, maybe her young lover isn’t a killer yet. But tomorrow she’ll ask him and he’ll become a killer, for the love of her fragrant, naked young ass.
Mitya. She doesn’t have a lover!!! A young lover or any other kind!!!
Dasha. She’s such a sultry, splintery icicle. You bought her, took possession. Do you think it’s hard for her to find someone younger who’ll pay more for gourmet blowjobs?
Mitya. She doesn’t have a lover!!!
Dasha. Why shout like that when you can’t be sure anyway?!
Mitya. I am sure!!!
Dasha. Absolutely sure? You’ll strain your throat.
Mitya. She doesn’t have a lover. Nobody calls her… Not when I’m around.
Dasha. There you have it. He doesn’t call when you’re around. He calls when you’re not around. Maybe she calls him herself, when you’re not there. Does she go out by herself, without you?
Mitya. Well, sometimes she goes out by herself, of course she does. Visits the shops.
Dasha. So that’s when she calls him. And in your presence she silently texts to say she loves him, her beloved young man.
Mitya. I don’t believe it. Women have never cheated on me.
Dasha. You had other women?
Mitya. But you didn’t cheat on me.
Dasha. For me you were young and fit. So how many women have you been with?
Mitya. Didn’t count them. That’s my business.
Dasha. In short, a harem.
Mitya. Call it what you like. I have enough problems right now, and you lay into me about harems. Are you crazy? I’ve never had anyone but you! And I didn’t have anyone in the theatre – I didn’t make use of the fact that I was the chief’s top director. For me you stood alone on Mount Olympus, the Holy Madonna. Have I ever given you the clap?
Dasha. Thank God I was spared that. But I’ve been concerned for myself lately – your nymphet is so seductive, and you’re flagging all the time at work.
Mitya. Noticeably flagging?
Dasha. Well, you’re still a bit of an Apollo. How many times a night d’you come with her?
Mitya. Dasha. No need to concern yourself about that. No problem there. Dasha. I’m not at all concerned. What gave you that idea? You come ten times a night?
Mitya. A lot more.
Dasha. And a lot less with me. (Starts crying.)
Mitya. Dasha, don’t cry. What’s the matter, Dasha?
Dasha. That shameless Lyalya of yours has a fancy-man killer out to get us and you just look the other way when he aims a gun at me!
Mitya. I’m not looking the other way at all! And how does my Lyalya have a fancy man, what’s more a killer? You’ve got the wrong end of the stick, my dear Dashenka.
Dasha. They even arranged for your prints to be on the handle of the gun. You’ve already been reduced to the point that you don’t feel what you’re groping for: my tits, Lyalka’s perky ass or this silenced Colt they used to fire at me but missed, thank God!
Mitya. I’ll take them to the grave for this, I swear by my naked fingers! (Grabs the gun.)
Dasha. What are you going to do?
Mitya. I have to fire back. Shoot down those killers. Bring down this killer Bill with his own Colt, shoot him right through his killer’s eye.
Dasha. Why are you aiming at my eye if you’re going to shoot this Colt right into this Tarantino Bill killer’s eye?
Mitya. You’re right. I’m going mad. As soon as you get back to Russia you go schizoid from all this ‘woe from wit’. (Puts his arm round her waist.) I’m sorry I slapped you. If you want you can slap me in the face in return. As you please. Do as you want, I don’t mind.
Dasha. You’re unshaven. It hurts to slap an unshaven face. After all, Monsieur only shaves before going to bed, when he climbs into bed with this Lyalka of his. Does she tie your eyes with a black scarf when you fuck her?
Mitya. Why do you need to know?
Dasha. Unexpected caresses really turn you on. If you ask me to blindfold you before we fuck, then you’re probably asking her the same thing, you maniac.
Mitya. So what?
Dasha. What are you clutching as you fuck her blindfolded?
Mitya. What vulgar questions you ask. Dasha. Do you clutch her springy little ass?
Mitya. Is that a bad thing? It feels good.
Dasha. And if, like me, she clamps her pussy on the iron rail of your bed, offering her ass like a sweet trembling elastic jelly for you, you bastard, to fuck even harder! And for an easy but firm, springy thrust you grip the rail of your iron bed.
Mitya. The Kama Sutra, my dear, in modern living conditions, using an iron bedhead. It’s called a dart strike. It’s good. You like that technique too, that’s what you said.
Dasha. During this Kama Sutra you could grip a gun instead of an iron bedrail at that fateful moment, with your eyes closed from the world with a black scarf.
Mitya. Wha-at? I’d feel like a hot weapon… A pistol weapon… Understand...
Dasha. You understand when you take it out. Yes, all the feelings you have with this Kama Sutra in your half-metre dart, especially with your eyes closed. To whom can you prove that’s not the case? Can you prove it to me, Marquis de Sade, you blind putrid maniac?
Mitya. I vow to fuck with eyes closed from now on.
Dasha. Too late, my moral, oral angel – you’ve already been framed. Mitya.I vow to fuck with eyes closed from now on!!!
Dasha. Will you have fun with me to make our skin breathe?
Mitya. I won’t do it with anyone.
Dasha. As you wish, not with anyone. Prohibition. It starts with five shots and ends with BUTYRKA. I approve.
Mitya. Well, I could do it with you, so that everything breathes and shouts.
Dasha. If I agree to fuck you at all after this organized shootout aimed at me, a defenceless woman.
Mitya. Lyalka couldn’t do it. She’s such a humane and generous person. Many times she told me to buy you an expensive gift in Paris.
Dasha. A gift bought with someone else’s money – very generous.
Mitya. Well, she’s, you know, so empathetic about you having to share me with her now. She’s wanted to meet you on many occasions, but you always refuse. How could she ever want to kill you because of my greenbacks? She’d never do that.
Dasha. Maybe out of jealousy?
Mitya. With her beauty, how could she be jealous?
Dasha. You don’t know women.
Mitya. I don’t know women? I don’t know anybody or anything in this world apart from women. I’ll call her now and ask straight off why her killer lover, this mythical Tarantino Bill, wanted to kill you.
Dasha. He’s far from mythical. You’ll scare her, just scare her. Maybe we should find everything out gradually, little by little? And for sure it’s a good idea to discover her with her killer lover in your bed. That would really hit the spot.
Mitya. Ugh – no way! For the time being we’ll keep tabs on them, or they’ll kill you outright, no doubt about it.
Dasha. What a nightmare life has become. What else can I say?
Mitya. I’m calling her now. Where’s the phone. (Picks up the phone.) Put it straight, like a tank gun aimed at her head.
Dasha. So you think she’ll tell you everything over the phone. If you want to lie with a voice, just ask a modern computer-generated girl. You have to look for the truth, the womb of truth, in her eyes with your eyes, my dear.
Mitya. Well, let’s bring her here and confront her. As a pair we can look her in the eye and find the truth. At the same time you’ll get to know her. She’ll be here in two
minutes, she lives opposite. I keep a lookout on rear positions according to the square footage of my apartment. I’m dialing now. (Dials the number.) Hi there! Lyalya! I’m at Dasha’s. Like I told you. Dasha’s fine, as always. We’re discussing the trip to France. She wants to meet you, too. Thanks. (To Dasha.) She’s blowing you a kiss.
Dasha. I’m blowing her a kiss too.
Mitya (into the phone). She kisses you too. A big big kiss, and from me too. Hurry over, right now. That’s it. The building opposite. Twelfth floor. Apartment 115. Come on then, we’re waiting for you. OK. (Turns off the phone). She’ll be here in a minute.
Dasha. I’ll press some orange juice.

Pause.

The doorbell rings.

Mitya. Great, she’s here already. And I’m asking you, Dashenka – no vulgarity. She’s a child. Let’s be well-mannered boys and girls now – we must show a good example to the younger generation.
Dasha. Blindfold sex, I note, is an excellent example.
Mitya. Dashenka, I’m opening the door. For my sake, please – you must love her with eyes wide open! That’s all.
Dasha. Now let’s show an example of love to young people, Mitya, with eyes wide open – don’t worry, like in Stanley Kubrick’s best movie, in the best villas in Nice, on the C;te d’Azur.
Mitya. Just don’t rock the boat, Dashenka.
Dasha. Get on with it, boatswain – give the girl a cabin on our boat.
Mitya. Captain, captain… Smile...

Mitya opens the door, Lyalya enters.

Mitya. Lyalechka!
Lyalya. Mitenka! Hi there! I’m Lyalya. So you’re Dasha?
Dasha. Hello, Lyalechka, yes, I’m Dasha.
Mitya. We’ve said such a lot of good things about you, Dashenka – you can’t imagine how very, very much Mitya loves and appreciates you, and I feel the same!
Dasha. And how many kind and sublime things we said about you, Lyalechka. We talked about you and only you all the time. You cannot imagine how much Mitya loves you, adores you, appreciates you, praises you, and I feel likewise.
Lyalya. I’m so pleased. You can’t imagine how pleased I am about that. You’re such a famous, talented actress. When I was ten years old, five years ago, my mother and I went to see ‘The Seagull’ on the stage. You played Nina Zarechnaya – the unfortunate and probably not so talented actress with her sad love story. But you played this, as I said, not very talented actress, with such talent that we really felt sorry for her, because in your performance she was so talented, there was so much real, sincere love in her. You were such a lurid, sublime, heavenly seagull. And when Treplev shot himself I cried. Thank God that at least you survived, or I’d have gone mad with grief.
Dasha. What a sweet girl, you’re a prodigy of fabulous fairy-tale realms.
Lyalya. A miraculous whale-fish.
Dasha. You dream of becoming an actress too?
Lyalya. Haven’t decided yet. Mitya wants to give me lessons. But these days economics rule: you have to learn languages, understand computers and big business. If you manage to become an actress and become famous, then it must happen by itself – it’s God’s will.
Dasha. You believe in God?
Lyalya. God can be found in good people, and I believe in them.
Dasha. How true those words are. You don’t just speak, you sing.
Lyalya. Oh, if only I could sing, I’d be so happy.
Dasha. I’ll teach you.
Lyalya. Thank you. But I don’t have the right voice.
Dasha. You have an excellent voice – you babble like a nightingale.
Lyalya. If only that was so.
Dasha. Mitya, I congratulate you and Lyalechka the little nightingale.
Mitya. Thanks.
Lyalya. And I congratulate you and Dashenka, Mitya. Oh, apologies, what’s your patronymic?
Dasha. Why bother with my patronymic, Lyalechka. You can just call me Dashenka. I hope I’m not so old that you call me by my patronymic.
Lyalya. Oh, sorry. Please forgive me. I didn’t want to offend you.
Dasha. Not at all. How could you possibly offend me, my child?
Lyalya. Sometimes I’m taken aback by the things I say myself.
Dasha. You’re right. Mitya, how come you never introduced me to the charming Lyalechka before?
Mitya. Just never got round to it... I wanted to. As God is my witness, I wanted to.
Dasha. I envy you so much, Lyalya. You’re expecting a baby?
Lyalya. Mitya told you? I’m not sure yet.
Mitya. We’re waiting…
Dasha. Let’s all wait together. Our whole life is before us. That’s the magic of it. Let’s raise a glass of orange juice to celebrate our meeting!

She pours juice into glasses. They all drink.

Lyalya. Delicious. Vitamin C.
Dasha. Yes. I’ve never had a baby.
Lyalya. That’s terribly sad. But you know, these days you can just adopt a child.
Dasha. So I could even adopt you? Lyalya. I already have parents, though.
Dasha. It’s good to have parents.
Lyalya. Of course.
Mitya. But having friends is even better. We choose our friends ourselves.
Dasha. And betray them ourselves.
Lyalya. You mustn’t betray friends.
Dasha. But we do.
Lyalya. That’s bad.
Dasha. It’s just unbearably bad.
Lyalya. But we won’t betray one another. Let’s drink to true and lasting friendship.
Dasha. Of course.
Mitya. To inexhaustible, sincere friendship, dear ladies!
Dasha. To that alone! (They drink juice.) And now our friendly and sincere Mitya will let us say everything about him in his presence!
Lyalya. Oh, how wonderful!!! (Claps her hands.) At last we will find out everything about Mitya.
Mitya. What is there left to find out?
Dasha. And when we share our sacred, secret knowledge, we’ll find out what each of us doesn’t know about you yet.
Mitya. Well, girls, you’re real hard-core fatal criminals.
Lyalya. Mitya loves watermelons and honeydew melons more than anything.
Dasha. Mitya’s keen on pickled garlic with vodka.
Lyalya. I didn’t know that.
Mitya. And what else?
Dasha. Mitya likes to fuck after drinking vodka.
Mitya. Come on, that’s enough.
Lyalya. Mitya likes fucking after eating watermelons and honeydew melons. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah!!! (Claps her hands.)
Dasha. And most of all, Mitya loves to fuck blindfold.
Lyalya. Exactly!!!
Mitya. Girls, you’re real recidivists.
Lyalya. Are we, Dashenka, real recidivists?
Dasha. Girls who fuck with their eyes open absolutely cannot be recidivists.
Mitya. Why can’t girls who fuck with their eyes open be recidivists?
Lyalya. Girls who fuck with their eyes open, Mitenka, cannot be recidivists because they honestly see with open eyes how they’re fucking. They see and know what they’re doing. They make love with open eyes!
Dasha. Love only happens with open eyes. Bravo! Bravissimo!!! Lyalechka!!! (She claps her hands, kisses Lyalya.) Love with closed eyes is just vulgar sex. And can you imagine – you can’t imagine – I was faithful to this vulgar sex, to this fucking prick with closed eyes by the name of Mitya – for a whole twenty years. For a whole twenty years I loved him with my eyes wide open, and he, like a recidivist maniac, fucked me with his eyes closed and enjoyed my body alone. As he came the saliva sprayed from his mouth onto my tits. For some reason that disgusted me, but he didn’t notice because he fucked me with his eyes closed. His blue eyes were tightly covered with a black silk scarf, moreover, I gave it to him myself for his bohemian neck... to obscure the light of love. But even with his eyes closed, Mitya felt that my body had aged. As for my soul... a soul without a body is only good in church.
Mitya. Oh, Dashenka...
Dasha. A slobbery womanizer knows all about the immoral holy fucked bodies they call my beloved... But why listen to me. I’m an old mop that’s been thoroughly screwed, and now it’s thrown overboard. That’s my fate. Lyalechka, with the grace of God may it be too late for him to throw you overboard. You’re lucky. When Mitya’s well over fifty you’ll only be thirty. How will he satisfy you when he’s bald and grey? That’s his problem. Why feel sorry for a male who lovingly devoured only your
nymphet meat. That’s how our fairytale, beautiful, magical, sublunary world is organized.
Mitya. Well, Dasha, you like to act out tragedies. You’re doing it brilliantly.
Lyalya. I love Mitya very much. And Mitya...
Mitya. Yes.
Dasha. I love Mitya very much. And Mitya used to love me.
Mitya. I still love you.
Dasha. The third party has to disappear without acting out any tragedies, true enough. And if the third party doesn’t disappear voluntarily, she is simply done away with. In our economic times, that’s what they do. And fast. Time is money. By pressing the trigger at the right time and in the right place. But best to shoot accurately. Let the eye be gouged out by a bullet, that way death is instantaneous.
Mitya. You see, Lyalya, someone shot at Dasha. From this silenced gun. (Shows the gun.) Fortunately they missed.
Lyalya. No!
Dasha. Lyalechka, you didn’t know? Fortunately they misfired. They’ll try again.
Lyalya. You’re serious?
Mitya. It can’t get more serious – you can see how upset she is.
Lyalya. That’s terrible. Blatant, untamed, disgusting, total lawlessness!
Dasha. They should have hired an experienced killer and, in any case, they should not have fucked this young killer before he performed such a responsible combat mission to eliminate the first love of the loving president of a modern theatrical-oil nymphet-candy, transantlantic financial company. First love – of course, I exaggerate my role in the retinue apparatus. I understand that the killer needs to fill his stomach with meat so his penis will stand like an oak, so he can thoroughly fuck a virginal fifteen-year-old nymphet for inspiration. But then, of course, how can he shoot accurately when all the inspired blood from the brain of this sighting went into his stomach and then into his penis, respectively – I’ve no idea, of course.
Lyalya. I don’t understand any of this. Killer, meat, dick, brains, stomach, president. A springlike virgin of fifteen. You mean me?
Dasha. God forbid.
Lyalya. Although I can be a virgin of fifteen. No problem. As you wish.
Dasha. Aha, you’re still a virgin? Mitya, my congratulations!
Lyalya. Sorry, I’m not a virgin, forgive me, no big deal – just like you, I’m no longer a virgin…
Dasha. Like Nina Zarechnaya in ‘The Seagull’…
Lyalya. Yes, yes! And who’ll be our president? Mitya?
Mitya. Well, I am the president of my marketing office.
Lyalya. And you, Dasha, are the first love of Mitya our president? I understand everything. And you were shot at, just like they shot President Kennedy. Who’s the killer then?
Dasha. Well, probably Mitya’s the killer.
Mitya. Wha-at?! I’m the president!
Dasha. And the killer’s alibi is that he’s the president?
Lyalya. Yes.
Dasha. I see.
Mitya. Wha-at?! Then who’s the president? With no protection?!
Dasha. The president without protection is the one cheated on by the underage fifteen-year-old virgin killer.
Lyalya. Precisely! Yes! Hurrah!!!
Mitya. Wha-at?!
Dasha. Now everything is clear, Mitya – you’re not necessarily the killer – stay as you are, a cuckolded president with no protection. Her fifteen-year-old lover may well be the killer.
Lyalya. Whose fifteen-year-old lover may well be the killer?
Dasha. Lyalechka, your own fifteen-year-old lover may well be the killer.
Lyalya. Well I never! What liberties this ballerina allows herself! I understand nothing. Mitya!
Dasha. This ballerina is only defending herself, nothing more! (Takes the gun.) The killer was you after all, Mitya. Admit it. After having sex with eyes closed, after vodka with pickled garlic and meat, Mitya’s hands were unsteady, he was so tired he could hardly keep his eyes open, and Mitya’s bullet missed his first presidential slut – me. Is that what happened, my homicidal comrades?
Lyalya. We were in France!
Dasha. Killers always have an excellent alibi!
Mitya. Is the gun loaded?
Dasha. Well and truly loaded! (Shoots towards the kitchen, we hear the sound of breaking glass.) Is the parliament still in doubt?
Mitya. What have you hit?
Dasha. I hit a glass jar kept for pickling your garlic. Don’t worry – in your coffin you won’t need pickled garlic any more. And I don’t eat it, anyway.
Mitya. Are you kidding or not kidding, Dashenka? Are you crazy? Dasha. Admit it, this blunder drove you to make an attempt on my life?
Lyalya. Just a mop! And you’re worse than a mop – you’re just a ragged,
disintegrating Zarechnaya floor cloth! Tell her, Mitya, that she’s a ragged, rotten floor cloth that you can and should wipe your dirty feet on! (Hiding behind Mitya.)
Mitya. Lyalechka! Dashenka!!! Calm down, girls!
Dasha. Get back, Mitya, I’ll shoot her down like a quail!
Lyalya. Like a quail?!
Dasha. It’s me that’s shooting and I can call it what I want when I rip off your head!
Mitya. I’m begging you, Dashenka! (Throws herself on his knees before Dasha.)
Lyalya. What gave this virago such a fright that she thinks you shot at her?
Mitya. The killer dropped the gun. Right, Dasha? There you are. Dasha is no fool, so she picked up the gun. Her actress friend Svetochka’s lover is a fingerprint analyst.
Lyalya. A live-in fingerprint analyst? That’s impressive.
Mitya. He’s a good guy. Fingerprinters get a decent wage these days.
Lyalya. And then.
Mitya. And then this fingerprinter took fingerprints, first from the gun, then from my nightstand at Dasha’s, where I still keep my underpants and socks. The evening Dasha was shot someone called her on the phone and advised her to take fingerprints both from the gun and the bedside table to compare. Is that right, Dasha?
Dasha. That’s right.
Lyalya. And you believe this jealous bleating goat?
Mitya. I always believe this cute goat of mine with her lovely soft smooth fur.
Dasha. And you’ll die now for this belief, you perverted self-seeker! And not just you! (She fires towards the kitchen, the sound of breaking glass.)
Mitya. How brilliantly you shoot, Dashenka, who taught you?
Dasha. Someone who really loves me. But you’re not destined to find it. Say thank you that you will die instantly right now, you parasite!
Mitya. Thank you, Dashenka, thank you. But maybe we can live a bit longer, at least till morning, then we might sober up a bit?
Dasha. If we sober up we won’t remember. But if you want you can do it your way. (She fires towards the kitchen, the sound of breaking glass.) There are still five bullets left, enough to remember.
Lyalya. But how could Mitya’s fingerprints appear on this gun in a phantasmagorical way a week ago here in Moscow, when a week ago we were in Nice on the C;te d’Azur, and Mitya’s fingers never left my skin for a second?
Dasha. You already helped him finger the gun before the trip to France, you miserable hit-woman.
Lyalya. Hah! I helped him finger the gun before the trip to France? And you stay silent, Dmitry, while she curses at me?
Mitya. She’s only taking pot shots, dearest Lyalechka!
Dasha. Her pot shots are no joke!
Lyalya. I helped him finger the gun? How, where – is she crazy? Answer her, Mitya!
Mitya. Well, maybe Dashenka’s right in saying I fucked you with my eyes closed, Lyalechka. True enough, we trembled like cats perched on my iron bed head, my hand accidentally brushed against the gun. That’s true, isn’t it, Lyalechka, Dashenka?
Lyalya. What does Dashenka have to do with it?
Dasha. What’s more, I’m a very good shot! I can even hit the evil eye! (Fires the gun towards the kitchen, we hear the sound of breaking glass.)
Dasha. How sad it all is, birds, beasts and men! (Fires towards the kitchen and again we hear the sound of breaking glass.)
Lyalya. Logically-poetically-scary – she’s a real grown-up bitch! Mitya, just who were you living with? That means, my young killer lover takes this silenced pistol carefully fingered by Mitya and fires at this worthless, shameless Ninochka, this spurned klutz?! I’d have killed this so-called actress myself – just for the hell of it!
Dasha. A top-hole theatre critic is dying and will now finally die for sure! (She gives Mitya and Lyalya photos.) I’m in a really good mood today. Lucky you, chromosomes. I also give you five minutes of life for free. Enjoy the art of these photos, my darlings. I first learned to shoot with a photo gun from my window at your open or closed windows – Mitya’s a lecher, Lyalya’s the same. Don’t judge – you’re not the judge, you’re the victim.
Mitya. This naked killer in here, and you’re kissing his chest, Lyalya, in my apartment!
Lyalya. Yes, Mitya, that’s Kilya in the photo! A superb masterpiece!
Mitya. That’s Kilya in the photo?! What does Kilya mean?!! Killer?!!
Lyalya. No, it’s only my friend Kilya from the ice cream booth. The booth over there in our yard. Kilya dreamed of selling ice cream since he was a boy, and now his childhood dream came true. He’s studying computer programming at college, too, he already completed his first year. He doesn’t take money from his parents and he
helps them out, he’s such a hard worker.
Mitya. A real hard worker.
Lyalya. No, he’s just a cute, funny little boy. I can introduce you to him. That way
you’ll understand everything right away.
Mitya. It’s clear then, you fucked him like a horny cat?!
Lyalya. Whatever are you saying? He never even kissed my hand!
Mitya. Well, you’re kissing his chest in the photo! And he’s in his underpants, with his chest bared above your lips.
Lyalya. It’s Kilimanjaro, Mitya!
Mitya. What? Kilimanjaro? So that’s what they call it, Dashenka, the younger generation’s new in-word for fucking – Kilimanjaro.
Lyalya. Not at all – with Kilya everything is Kilimanjaro if it’s good in a human- friendly way.
Mitya. Kilya loves Sir Hem, Ernest Hemingway?
Lyalya. He really loves Hem, sure enough.
Mitya. But he loves other people’s girls even more?
Lyalya. Wait... I can explain. I went shopping in the supermarket and had my hands full. On the way back, as usual, I passed the ice cream booth and wanted to get some for dessert. I bought a few ice creams but my hands were full. Kilya saw I had my hands full with all the bags and he offered to take the ice cream upstairs to my apartment. Naturally he took one of the bags, even two, to help me. He hung a sign on his booth that he’d be back in fifteen minutes. That’s how this photo got taken.
Mitya. How did it happen that Kilya’s standing in one shot, then he lies naked, and you kiss him, lying on his naked chest?!
Lyalya. I’m telling you – it’s Kilimanjaro. We came in the entrance, called the elevator and rode up to the tenth floor. When the elevator doors opened I stepped out first, as a woman, and Kilya, as a man, followed me out. He’s a real gentleman, so gallant. Really. But Kilya was gaping at something, because of Kilimanjaro, he told me, and the elevator doors shut on him and the bag of ice cream. The ices squashed all over his chest, real Kilimanjaro, so funny, so gross. Well of course I had to undress him, I thoroughly washed him in the shower and gave him a clean shirt. By the way, it was your shirt, Mitya. Kilya washed, dried and ironed it, then he brought it back two days later, he’s very disciplined.
Mitya. Did you wash him yourself in the shower?
Lyalya. No, Kilya’s a simple kind of guy, of course, but he’s not as vulgar as that.
Dasha. Kilya. What a beautiful name. His full name must be Nikolai, or maybe Innokenty?
Lyalya. I never asked. He’s Kilimanjaro.
Mitya. Kilimanjaro. The killer. Let’s clarify this. Bring this Kilya here!!!
Lyalya. Why should Kilya come here?
Mitya. I want some ice cream – we can cool down a little for dessert.
Lyalya. I can go get him.
Mitya. So you can tell him what to say? No need.
Lyalya. What would I tell him to say? Lord Almighty. How crazy you old people are round here. Businessmen, directors, actresses with famous surnames. You’re as corrupt as they come, but you preach morality to us. Naturally – you believe in the debauchery you yourselves created, we have to swim away from it, but you can’t
prevent us from surfacing ourselves from time to time. I’m terribly sorry. Mitya... Dasha... I really didn’t want to tell you all this. You’re such clever guys. Good guys. I like you. I knew what I was in for…
Mitya. Lya... lyechka... You’re just a kid...
Dasha. Parents are educated by children – that’s good... It’s good that you don’t cry.
Lyalya. Have you got any potatoes here?
Dasha. What d’you need potatoes for?
Lyalya. From here too you can throw a potato from the window, right on the roof of Kilya’s ice-cream booth. If your aim is good. Kilya will definitely come out, that’s the signal we agreed on.
Mitya. The signal you agreed on?
Lyalya. Yes. Why not? Then I’ll shout from the window and he’ll bring ice cream here for our dessert, after the orange juice. Kilya hasn’t got a mobile at the ice-cream stall. The ice-cream stall boss is a real sadist and doesn’t allow the use of mobiles during working hours – like it interferes with the business of selling ice cream. And our Kilya is hyper-honest, diligent, well raised, a good lad. He’s easy going, no worries there. I’m exhausted from explaining everything to the two of you. But when Kilya turns up I’ll be cheerful and kind right away. I’m sorry, I’ll say it again. It’s all my fault. Mitya plus Dasha... Go on, give me the potatoes.
Dasha. How many potatoes do you need – Lyalya plus Kilya?
Lyalya. Well, it depends. Usually I need four potatoes to score a hit.
Dasha (brings four potatoes from the kitchen). Here you are – four tubers.
Mitya. What if you hit a passerby? You’ll kill someone else. Maybe I should get Kilya myself?
Dasha. Mitya, you’re the director, but you’re spoiling the whole performance. It’s my turn, I’ll throw first.
Lyalya. Why?
Dasha. I’m sorry, but this is my apartment, my potatoes, and I’m the most depraved
– it’s my deal. (Throws a potato from the window.) I scored a hit! Hooray!!! Scored the first time. Now it’s clear why I’m unlucky in love.
Lyalya. Kilya will come out straightaway. Let me shout to him. He’ll be surprised when he sees me in this building, not the usual one. (Yells from the window.) Kilya!!! I’m here!!! Hi, Kilya!!! Bring us four popsicles. Thanks! Twelfth floor. Apartment 115. We’re waiting.
Dasha. Now all the neighbors will know we love popsicles.

Pause.

The doorbell rings.

Lyalya. That’s Kilya. I’ll open it. May I?
Dasha. Bien s;r, as the French say.

Lyalya opens the door, Kilya enters.

Kilya. Hello - Happy New Year! (Gives everyone a popsicle.)
Lyalya. Let me pay you, Kilya. (Gives Kilya money.)
Kilya. No need, it’s my treat.
Lyalya. Take it, take it, this is my treat. (Puts the money in his jacket pocket.)
Kilya. Yeah, no way to live without money these days, it’s hard.
Dasha. Was it ever easy to live without money? What a great name you have, Kilya. What’s it short for?
Kilya. Kilimanjaro.
Mitya. The mountain in Africa – the snows of Kilimanjaro.
Kilya. Sure thing, it’s a volcano in Tanzania. 5,895 metres above sea level. The snows of Kilimanjaro, that’s right.
Dasha. So why is that your nickname?
Kilya. I’m crazy about this Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa, that’s all. Gives me a high, like Ernest Hemingway when he wrote ‘The Snows of Kilimanjaro’. That dude was a real American genius.
Dasha. Sure thing, a real American genius.
Kilya. Happy New Year, ladies and gentlemen! (Slurps his ice cream with a sucking- kissing motion, swallows a mouthful.) Kilimanjaro, New Year’s Eve – what a buzz!
Mitya. But what’s New Year got to do with it? It’s summer.
Kilya. It may be summer here, but on Kilimanjaro it’s winter, and the New Year’s a buzz! (Slurps his ice cream with a sucking-kissing motion, swallows a mouthful.)
Dasha. Yeah, a buzz!!! (Slurps her ice cream with a sucking-kissing motion, swallows a mouthful.) I want to visit Tanzania – and Kilimanjaro!!!
Kilya. Cool! Me too. If I save enough money we can go together.
Dasha. Yeah, together, Kilya, let’s do it! Kilimanjaro! (Kisses Kilya.)
Kilya. What perfume! What refined ladies!
Mitya. Lyalya said you’re studying to be a programmer.
Kilya. Are you her dad?
Mitya. Yes, her dad.
Kilya. You see, dad, I really want to climb Kilimanjaro, but it’s not at all easy. Every step to the summit has to be programmed down below. So first I need to study programming.
Mitya. Wouldn’t it be wiser to learn mountain climbing first, in your fanatically Kilimanjarian case? So you don’t fall off the mountain.
Kilya. Dad, I’ve been climbing since childhood. It’s been my hobby since birth.
Mitya. Vysotsky taught everyone to climb mountains. And Hem’s an American.
Kilya. Vysotsky’s a singing Hem.
Dasha. Exactly. I’ll go with you, Kilya, we can climb Kilimanjaro together, just the two of us, listen to Vysotsky and read the genius Hem together. How about it?
Kilya. The two of us can do it together, in a threesome or foursome, but you have to program everything in advance.
Dasha. Maybe just the two of us can go?
Kilya. Sure, but you still need to program everything beforehand.
Mitya. Dasha, what’s the rush? How well do you know Kilya?
Dasha. I’ve known Kilya for ages, I’ve always bought my ice cream from him! (Puts her arms round Kilya.)
Kilya. Well, of course ice cream’s a buzz – like Kilimanjaro. Your mouth, after a glassful, is like Africa, Tanzania burning in the heat. Then you put the frosty ice cream in your mouth – and harmony, cool beauty, like snowy Kilimanjaro in Africa –
and wow.
Mitya. This specialist is versatile. And what else, Kilimanjaro, did you do naked? With my daughter?

Shows Kilya the photos.

Kilya. Who took this photo? What a thrill, Kilimanjaro – will you give me the photo as a keepsake. Will you?
Dasha. Please take it. Let it be your treasure.
Kilya. Oh thanks! What a buzz – Hollywood on speed.
Mitya. Why were you here in the nude, Hollywood?
Kilya. Come off it, daddy, why are you picking on me. I got smeared with ice cream in the elevator. I carried Lyalya’s groceries to her apartment, along with the ice cream. I got abstracted, thinking about Kilimanjaro, and the elevator doors closed on my chest, and not in a poetic way. You can’t think about Kilimanjara everywhere.
Mitya. In this photo Lyalechka, well, Lena to you, my daughter, of course, is kissing your bare Kilimanjarian chest.
Lyalya. The ice cream got smeared all over his chest, dad. The only ice cream left was on Kilya’s chest. And I wanted... the Ice cream… so much…
Kilya. Yeah, the ice cream was stuck all over my chest, like Kilimanjaro, dad. It really tickled. And when the ice cream stuck, it tickled. And when your Lena licked ice cream off my chest that was nice and tickly, too. There’s nothing left of the Kilimanjaro ice cream in the photo. It was frozen on my chest, sticking up like Mount Kilimanjaro. Well, I had to lie down then, of course. If I hadn’t, all of Kilimanjaro would have fallen off. And your Lena couldn’t have sucked it from my Kilimanjaro, dad.
Mitya. And you got pleasure from that, Kilya, that is, fuck it, Kilimanjaro, that is, Kilya, when Lyalya, that is, Lena, sucked on your fucking chest, Kilimanjaro? Was it pleasant or not for you, as a natural climber and programmer?
Kilya. Well, daddy, licking Kilimanjaro is a buzz, true enough. Tell him, Lena. I’d lick Kilimanjaro myself, but how can I reach it? No need to get so uptight, dad. What are you trying to say, dad – Lena and I didn’t, couldn’t have done anything. I’m a virgin, dad.
Dasha. Are you a virgin, Kilya?
Kilya. I’m a virgin. Are you her mom? I understood right away – they’re like two peas in a pod. And here I am, a virgin programmer and climber, so far, anyway. We’re all saving our energy for Kilimanjaro.
Mitya. What d’you mean, you’re a virgin? How is that possible? I don’t understand anything.
Dasha. You don’t understand, how can you understand when you’re a complete pervert, Mitya, unfortunately.
Mitya. How old are you, virgin?
Kilya. Only seventeen, I’m still a student.
Mitya. You’re studying to be a virgin? You’re a lecher, but you’re studying to be a virgin?
Lyalya. Kilimanjaro’s definitely a virgin, Mitichka, daddy of course, I know it for sure.
Mitya. How do you know? You tried it with him?
Dasha. He’s a virgin, Mitya – I tried it with him.
Kilya. Wha-at?!! How?!! When did you try it with me, citizen, I mean, mom? Dasha. In my imagination. As a popsicle without a stick. Can’t I try you out in my imagination? What kind of materialistic people are gathered here – they won’t let
you dream, cowards quavering in the bushes. Yuck. (Shakes her fingers.) They come here, don’t you know, to the apartment of a lady. The one they shot at. And you call yourself Kilimanjaro.
Mitya. Maybe they shot at you in imagination?
Dasha. The fingerprints weren’t imagination, Mitya wasn’t dreaming.
Kilya. Have you been shot at? Oh my God. When and why? And where? Who? With a gun? This one? (Points at the gun lying on the table.) Can I hold it?
Dasha (takes the gun, puts it away in the nightstand). As long as you’re a virgin, Kilya, you mustn’t touch such evil things.
Kilya. I wish I could shoot my virginity someday.
Dasha. Well, if you want I can deprive you of your fabulous virginity in a more humane way, without firing. And give you magical love in return! Is that what you want, Kilimanjaro?
Kilya. Well, as I said, I’ve wanted that for a long time, of course – it doesn’t go beyond my program, but is very much part of it, frankly speaking. Just recently, in particular. If I don’t lose my virginity humanely, I’ll explode like a nuclear bomb. So you and Lyalechka-Lenochka-Mitya’s dad no longer live as a family? Of course, it’s none of my business, but... You’re just good friends?
Mitya. Like Kilimanjaro! (Goes up to Dasha, puts his arm round her waist.)
Kilya. That will disrupt my program. I was serious when I asked.
Lyalya. Will you let me seduce you, Kilya?
Kilya (turns round). If you really want to, then you can, you must, even. (Swallows saliva.) If daddy and mommy don’t mind. I mean, agree.
Dasha. We agree with Lyalechka, Kilya. In the sense that we agree.
Kilya. In that case I’ll close the ice cream booth until morning, I’m lazy. And...
Lyalya. Come to me right away, Kilimanjaro! I’m a very humane, Kilimanjarian girl, Kilya.
Kilya. Oh, I just hope I don’t explode before... shall we do it here, or there? Where the Hollywood photos were taken?
Mitya. Where she gobbled from your chest, Kilimanjaro, you can go there.
Dasha. Lenochka will get there first.
Kilya. Total Kilimanjaro, unbelievable, there’s a real buzz going here! I’ll run down and close the ice cream stall, Lenochka, then come up in the elevator, just as I brought the ice cream to you, up there in Kilimanjaro!!!
Lyalya. I’ll come with you.
Kilya. Good night everyone, dad, mom – you’re Kilimanjaro!
Lyalya. Ciao, parents – love you lots. I’m sorry, okay?

Kilya and Lyalya run off.

Mitya. We forgive you. Ciao-ciao.
Dasha. Good night. Nice kids. Lyalechka plus Kilya. Hope everything goes well for them.
Mitya. Where did you get the gun, Dasha?
Dasha. From the nightstand. I told you. A man was killed. I was walking beside him. The killer ran away. He threw his gun on the asphalt. I picked it up and put it in the nightstand with your underpants and socks. The killer wasn’t you, of course, Mitya. But it seemed like my beloved Mitya was shooting at me. And the thing about your fingerprints – that was all lies and bluff. Forgive me, if you can.
Mitya. I love you so much... And you?
Dasha. Mitya, Mitya, now it’s our time together.
Mitya. Forgive me, Kilimanjaro. I just wanted a baby from her...
Dasha. You’re a good guy... My Kilimanjaro… (Steps towards Mitya, embraces him.) Moscow, 1998 – 2016
Renowned actor and director Mikhail Kazakov has made comparisons in the American press between the dramaturgy of Mikhail Volokhov, in particular the play ‘Kilimanjaro On Your Lips’, and the works of Edward Albee.
The great Roman Vityuk has made a remarkable video recording with his own reading of Volokhov’s ‘Kilimanjaro On Your Lips’. See: youtube.com

7)
By Mikhail Volokhov

TCHIKATILO'S CALVARY

While life still remains incomprehensibly eternal, human hopes and knowledge are centred on love. But true knowledge correlated with eternity, aimed at conquering mortality and providing man with the opportunity to dispose of the Universe at his own discretion, can only be obtained as in past centuries, at the climax of bloody, barbarous acts with the bodies and souls of other favoured mortals…
Ah, shit. There is no melancholy in the world that snow cannot cure.
Ah, shit. Boris Leonidovich Pasternak, that clever Jew with his dacha, died in his own bed, but gave Tsvetaeva a rope to hang herself in his native Yelabuga.
Nor could he use the Russian language to save Mandelstam from Stalin... 'I loved you and perhaps this love
Still burns deep in my soul;
But let it not disturb you further, I do not wish to cause you pain. I loved you silently, hopelessly,
Tortured by shyness, then jealousy. I loved you so sincerely, so tenderly,
May God grant you such love again.'
Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin. My favourite, unsurpassed poet - the World's Harmonist.
Forefather of the Russian Revolution. He simplified the language, condensed consciousness and the mind, after him Lenin had nothing to do but reduce the alphabet from 40 to 33... with human blood.
Lermontov, with his animosity, shit, paced to and fro, raised the Narodniks against the people.
Once on Sunday Lenin fucked his wife from behind. Afterwards he wrote his treatise 'One step forward, two steps back'.
They still don't celebrate Lermontov's anniversaries, whatever the fucking idiot did to curry the people's favour and toady with his intellectual animosity.
The people like their own animosity - ingenuous, clear and accessible. Pushkin didn't put on airs with his intellectual animosity, so the people love him.
So, Alexander Sergeyevich, we go on living with your love in the name of the World Spirit for Russia's evolution.
Ideas are immaculate, no dirt sticks to them. To enter into the idea is to become really human.
Sin is a structural axiom of life, like words it must be redeemed at once.
The world is diversified by sin - by the Jews. All our human steps are Jewishly fragmentary and mercantilely discreet.
So the snake lies at our feet and bites at our gills with the dollar.
When I speak of the Jews I mean philosophy, concept. I'm not a nationalist, I should say at once.
You'd simply like to see, in a Russian contemplative manner like Oblomov with both slippers at once, without opening your eyes, what you've done in your petty-minded Jewish life based on false axioms of Jewish feelings in Russia.
It was Jews that generated fascism so Hitler could play God's Chosen One.
 
Jewry is a concept of Time that embraces Eternity and is equal to Eternity, but it is manifests itself discreetly at the present moment of relative Time due to our
Consciousness and Life's limitations.
The entire fucking Human Tragedy is here! We see the Wonders of the World, but not the Light!
That's the way people are, hairsplitters and rolling stones - I escaped from from this or from that.
Where can you go, motherfucker! It's like the anecdotic, deathly-tired prison roll-call: Is Chikatilo here?
Well here I am, Chikatilo. And the fucking jailer: Sure you're here, where else could you be? And me to the jailer: There he is, the jailer, shit.
And where could you fucking go, Styopa, you fucking arsehole? So all of us fascist Jews lived in an Antiworld and still do.
Where can we fucking escape the spirit of universal evolution? Yes, if the spirit can save millions, life on earth will fucking die. Because the heavens aren't human. No prayer is heard.
There haven't been any saints to this day, shit, not a single one.
If God will only fucking grant someone eternal life for free, lots of parasites will get it, everybody will stop working and nobody will try to get where you should try to get intuitively, internally, Jewish-like - to God's Immaculate Idea, as you stumble round with your big prick.
Ignorance of laws does not release us from responsibility! Shit, it's cold.
Stalin was a Jew internally, sought to reach the heavens. Sacrificed millions of his compatriots on Russian soil in an externally, physically, orientally despotic manner, in the name of Lenin's but primarily Pushkin's intrinsic idea - with the simplification and compression of language, and the logic of consciousness.
Just as fucking Joseph compressed millions in his gulags and simplified consciousness: all according to Pushkin, to the holy document, in a brilliant and sacral manner.
But the Spirit of the Divine World's Evolution couldn't care less - the fucking Spirit evolves through these mass slaughters, although we don't know in what direction!
Who was there - Cain the first son was a maniac, a Jew, a murderer for the Idea, killing a man like himself was really Something!
In Jewish to-ing and fro-ing, piff-paff and shit, universal truth doesn't exist.
No, in the pure state the Jew is a brother to the Russian. The two strongest nations in the world.
They make a pair. Russian people are a dream, a contemplation, and therefore Godbearers.
Jews are physics, movement, the Chosen People of the Russian Godbearers, you can ride them the best, shit.
And so metaphysics is who's fucking whom.
Is the woman fucking the man or the man fucking the woman when they take their pleasure together.
Any fuck, like any death, engenders hope and beauty.
'O, how much more doth beauty beauteous seem by that sweet ornament which truth doth give!'
William fucking Shakespeare didn't understand himself he was a genius, son of a
bitch.
 
'We' should be understood through the letter of the prick crack, the letter minus Zero where the muzzle meets the ass, then you understand what 'me' means - the fucking prickhead!
And you understand this nowhere better than in prison.
There everything is regular and monotonous.
They bring meals on time. They don't shout, swear or offend you.
Soldier guards are even more respectful than the idiot lawyer, the Jewish bastard. I don't need this lawyer, shit, I'm my own lawyer.
They forced him on me. They understood I'm a trouble-free kind ofperson.
They imposed a Jewboy lawyer-wrecker to act against me on behalf of the fucking
cops.
 

They've sentenced me to death and they think they've won the case, huh? Shit. Yes, that's the way you go, shitass.
 
I've been judged? So what? They judged themselves without the death sentence, they condemned me to the gastric death penalty!
I've sentenced myself to capital punishment - another Cosmic Calvary - the Chikatilo Calvary!
Where did all the victims come from? Every day they're different: different mummies, daddies, aunts, uncles, friends, whatever...
They get a heart attack at the trial, get an injection and make way for the next lot. People have got weak, worn out by life.
Shit, they'd be no good at reconnaissance. Only get to the first corpse!
The soldier gets a heart attack at the sight of an enemy corpse or his dead companion. So what, should you drag the guy with a bad heart to the home dugout on your back? No, you can leave the bastard on the enemy side with his fucking heart attack, shitass. And so long, shitass.
Later on he might recover on the enemy side, fuck, give himself up instead of shooting himself!
What should you do with him?
Carry him on your back and risk aborting the military mission of a whole nation? While the enemy sets fire to our homes?
Set fire to and rape our cherished kiddies and beloved wives?
No, excuse me please, my dear comrade with the dicky heart - you see, we too have a heart, we've no right to endanger the survival of our beloved people,
no right to risk the whole nation's combat mission, especially in reconnaissance...
We should gently bayonet our comrade, right in the heart. Strike and rotate the bayonet anticlockwise.
In the cardiac area rotation doesn't cause suffering - you die more quickly. The bayonet rotating anticlockwise tears the lovely heart to shreds.
Well, you can turn the bayonet clockwise, shit. Of course you can turn it clockwise too.
Everybody should do his work as he likes. There's righthanders, and lefthanders. In fact you can do it clockwise or anticlockwise.
As mother nature put it in the genetic code - it all continues naturally in a black-and-white world, gentlemen.
What do you want? A homo bastard, or a murderer, a fool or a poet? Shit, all in one, born open-hearted like me!
At the trial, shit, these heart sufferers, there's lots of them, battle comrades like cockroaches,
every day they swarmed and crawled.
On the one hand,we shouldn't pass by, shitass.
On the one hand, the heart sufferer is certainly good to look at and admire. We passed by, shitass,
when he was jerking with a heart attack... Too many trees planted here, shit.
Yes, on the one hand, certainly, the heart sufferer's good to look at and admire as he's jerking...
Too many trees planted here, shit, in this forest.
Shit, he's pleasant to look at and admire as he's jerking his paws having a heart attack, the prick.
But on the other hand, I only terminated 64 sons, daughters, babies.
And I understand that all children have two parents!
Well, uncles, aunts, friends - I understand this. But not thousands of blood kin, shit, the fifty naked kids I snuffed can't have that many parents.
I'm not Boris Godunov, shit, I wasn't killing princes of the Russian dynasty. I'm not Ivan the Terrible, shitass, not fucking Uranus.
I'm not the funnyman Joe Stalin, shit, when he quipped that women will produce lots more!
Everywhere, always, there is one problem - Power!
I gave a blissful death to their darling kids, they remain innocent for time immemorial.
For some reason they can't understand and appreciate that their kiddies went to a golden heaven, bypassed the sheer hell of life.
Shit, they were only in the 4th form and they got to golden heavenly paradise.
Certainly they suffered before dying. But tell me, who in this cosmic vale of tears dies without fucking suffering?
You have to earn the ticket to paradise, by great torment.
When I turned the knife in the body - in a safe place nowhere near the heart - I turned it anti-clockwise and then clockwise too.
The kiddies screamed, they sobbed and wept, splashing in their royal blood.
You think it was easy for me to suffer all this? Though it was pleasant, too. Oh yes, very pleasant.
And it was better for the kiddies themselves to live another five minutes in this world which isn't white but black, ladies and gentlemen.
Then off they went, shit, in the Spirit of World Evolution!
Read Dostoevsky - the most Jewish soul investigator, the standard-bearer of all Jews who are Western in spirit.
He wrote clearly: give a man a ten-centimetre spot on a rock and a wild eagle, terrifying and bloody, comes to peck his liver every day.
So what, how do you fucking like it, the man accepts even that tortured life with great pleasure as an alternative to dying.
And Dostoevsky was a prophet.
He wrote about us: feeble, utterly dissolute Soviet Jew Russians.
He wrote in advance all that would happen to us, miserable revolutionary Jewish creatures.
What Marxist happiness-unhappiness would trample on our heads, shit on and crush our souls!
So did you listen to the genius, the prophet, you fucking bastards?
My ass if you listened. Yes, shit, you sentenced me to death, you fuckers.
 
But for Dostoevsky, mortal punishment was fucking replaced by prison five minutes before the execution,.
And what that man went through in those five minutes before the execution, fuck. The greatest Russian writer - it doesn't matter to you pricks.
After such a human shock, shit, he started writing those heartfelt novels about Sonechkas, sluts and supreme murderers.
Prophets, geniuses - hearty guys
just because they're geniuses and prophets. And people don't forgive geniuses their heartiness.
Pushkin was terminated by Dantes.
Lermontov, well yes, he himself rushed at the Russian Martynov.
They fucking shot Gumilyov without a trial. Mandelstam, the pastoral poet of the Future, perished on a plank bed for typhus victims.
Lorca was flushed out in an orange grove. Perversion.
I'm a heart sufferer, they'll shoot me in prison, shit, riddle me with bullets. Like Gumilyov, Mandelstam.
Russians and Jews, physically interrelated… Destiny of the Russian Jewish herd.
What can I say? To whom can you prove you're the higher truth, benign contemplator?
They kill for the truth.
Especially for the Jewish-Russian truth.
They're shit, animals, backstreet brutes, the beasts kill themselves
as painfully as they slaughter the prophets of compassionate Mother Russia!
And you want your kiddies, innocent souls, to become beasts like yourselves, like me, backstreet brutes?
Want them to be businessmen, fucking stray racketeers? After they knife one another for dollar kopecks?
Yeah, fucker?
You haven't learnt about Chichikov with his godless church that wouldn't let Gogol get to Optinaya Pustyn, so he burned his novel and died with the help of a monk?
Not one Tsar allowed himself to philosophise and grant life to Dostoevsky the prophet, scoffing graciously!
And who excommunicated Tolsoy because of his ideological Authority? Here, shit, you risk becoming historically nervous, it's untreatable...
And what if later on one of your damned kiddies grows up to become a maniac like me, and begins open-heartedly delegating your kiddies, innocent kiddies, to paradise?
You don't object to me dispatching future heartfelt maniacs who are still innocent embryos to God in paradise, out of the goodness of my heart?
That fucking Jewboy lawyer with his fucking backstreet Ukrainian face hasn't told the exact and very human truth in my defence...
What does this fucking Jew lawyer get paid extra money for? I was sentenced to death. And why did I have to remove my trousers in court and display my prick to them, in the cold?
All the time at the trial there was this fucking draught.

The door opens, the door closes: doctors and nurses coming in, letting in a draught that stank of medicine.

It's the people's State court, but there's no order there - and they're still surprised.
 
Stalin put things in order, but they didn't like it. They smeared Lenin with shit, soon as they could, let the dissidents in the gulags foulmouth the clown.

Of course Lenin was a arsehole, but also a conductor of the Pure Universal Idea, the Evolution of the Russian Language in Freedom, Equality and Brotherhood.

Take all for nothing.

Stalin devised a new communist slang and whoever got in the way was laid to rest in no uncertain fashion.
In the physical world Stalin and Lenin are like stray bisons.
But the Freebie of Communism - shit, the Idea of Laziness without remorse - I really like that.
And about inspirational ideas that give us guidance...
The word 'nothing' was engraved on Bismarck's cigarette case in Russian.
He studied in Russia, understood that for Russians the main Idea lay in their fucking wind tunnel, in their incontestable territory of the Spirit.
In Russia 'Nothing' is always equal to 'Everything'. 'All or nothing' - our Russian ideological solution.
That's why nobody should go to war with the Russians. Because of this 'nothing' that means 'everything' we're invincible.
But they came just the same. Those mute Germans sensed what it's all about, that Russia is the poetry of the Earth,
they got fucking nothing in the trenches.
Now the Western Chichikov our very own Jewboy bowls along in physical vehicles,
a broken axle 'without ideas' on fucking countless jeep wheels, he feeds on our universal dead souls. Once again they'll get 'nothing' in the long term.
Exactly like fucking Ninel in the snow by the door - it's like masturbation.
It's like that with a woman whether you fuck her or not - like knowledge: you've either got it or you haven't.
There's such disgraceful goings-on, fucking shit, such hypocritical non-metaphysical outrages in the Universe when you're not fucking.
No knowledge either, nothing's clear, shit.
Three hours you spend in the snow outside the door, shit, embracing her - and she still won't go upstairs to your place to fuck,
even though you've got Prophetic feelings for her - you got an erection, shit.
Fucking Ninel, the forget-me-not, awoke the sadist in me, excited me, shit, my prick stood up, shit, she awoke the beast in me.
For three fucking snow-white winter months I gave her flowers, crimson carnations, the colour of love, violence and blood.
And she didn't let me fuck, didn't let me make the Jewish movement backwards-back-forward-up-and-down.
She fooled me non-stop with her Platonic Russian fucking loving love.
She beat my most sensitive intimate parts, shit, kicked me in the balls and prick.
Only once I got into your slit and touched your cunt! Feastdays come but once a year!
I even quoted Voznesensky, my favourite poet on TV - 'Remove Lenin from our money - he is for flags and banners!'
 
And Brodsky, that erudite masturbating fucked-up poet, the pretentious Jew gets a Nobel Price.
And Andryushka the buffoon, the quick-handed prick with fried-egg eyes, masturbates in the Russian snow with his right paw on the TV,
and with his left-right Leninist fore-eye makes fellatio poetry in the Longjumeau position, sex to the green-buck Nobel Price tune.
And they don't fucking give it to you, dear old Andryushka Voznesensky, they give it to Brodsky, to that phrase-mongering poet,
on behalf of the American elite, in that huckstering English language.
But when you, shit, wrote that entering the Mausoleum's like entering an X-ray room, you were metaphysically closer to the Universal Truth, shit,
than when you fucking rejected those dreams for venal green bucks.
But the supreme truth of the world, fucking academicians, is that Lenin's Tomb is the cradle of all Mankind.
Laziness is the freebie of life, like a red raspberry smeared over us bastards when we're born.
And those revolutionary fools that buried Lenin were sincere in those very sincere
times
when they carried slogans that Lenin's tomb is the fucking cradle of all Mankind.
Geniuses don't live long on Earth - especially in this genius that is Russia.
If only they gave the Nobel Price for sadism, shit, lots of geniuses would appear in Russia.
I plucked red flowers in the red dawn and poured the blood of love on the ground when I killed them with tender love.
You can, must, live on Earth only ten years.
Then, if you're a wonderful World Spirit poet, you'll feel, you'll understand, that you should, can,live only ten years on Earth.
And if you're a lofty genius and the very first friend of Cosmic Nature, if you've lived on Earth for forty whole years, then Nature herself will summon you to help her shine,
to pluck baby flowers that are forty years old, no, ten years old, and set free their
innocent angel souls, and wait for the grey-haired boy that will save us and destroy everything.
Christ is Risen, you should Understand this.
And now those fucking backstreet brutes will shoot me down for my truly primordial metaphysical poetry.
Kolyukha my former cellmate told me: there's a gun fixed to the surveillance camera.
One day you go down the corridor for a walk and the tele-relay starts, the tele-gun perforates your pate.
So it seems like nobody pressed the trigger and nobody bears any responsibility... No fucking need to repent afterwards.
What does my darling wife Svetlanka think of me now.
She should have stopped to think before. She's no good at fucking in the bath.
I wanted to teach her but she didn't want to learn. Asked her to give me a blow-job.
She hurt me, fuck, said my prick's too salty.
A prick that's too salty is like the Divine World Spirit of the Universe being too salty. Evolution, fuck! I say nothing about my own prick, out of modesty in such a context...
It's all her fault. She had to fucking leave.
Took our darling kiddies Stepushka and Lidochka far away
or those fucking gits will get their backstreet revenge and kill my innocent kiddies.
 
Kill them with their stares of contempt, those materialistic backstreet beasts.
Me, I stabbed and fucked in the spiritual plane to get the energy of the Cosmic Soul!
You can't understand that, you dirty bastards, snakes and worms, fucking Jew Masons.
You live in this fucking bloody mother matter, earthly and Jewish, like there will be no death. In vain.
Know what Death is, shitass?
I already fucking told you - Death is given us so that Life fucking goes on forever.
You bastards haven't the right to spoil Life by your fucking grey vampire mediocrity, when there's no place on Earth even for geniuses.
Did you save Velimir Khlebnikov? No, you pricks wouldn't save the man who penetrated to the very syllabic basis of the language and gave you stars in the language.
My people make me crazy.
I make myself crazy, and my country, my people drive me fucking mad.
Everyone sticks to this electronic out-of-the-box religion by satirical Jews from Odessa now.
It's enough to show them the finger - that's terrible! They all laugh like someone stole something remarkable.
They stole the election results or some foreign currency.
Already you don't understand what has been stolen anymore, but you know for sure something was stolen at the beginning.
Because in Russia there are two businesses they can always carry out ingeniously and infectiously: stealing and then laughing themselves sick at such an ingenious theft.
No, when you steal something brilliantly you must know what you're stealing, naturally.
But when you're laughing because someone stole something, you don't need to know what was stolen to laugh heartily.
My Jewish country makes me crazy. They laugh, the Jews, because they're stealing and make fun of it in their Jewish way. It drives me mad!
They sparkle with their backwoods tricks and stink with their pea farts, those discreet Jewish fools. Makes me mad. But he laughs best who laughs last.
It's impossible to steal a language, it belongs to all, it's genius.
And when a baby croaks in terrible torment under your rotating knife you too are an artistic genius, you die too in the same terrible torments and comprehend the fatal taste of Russian life in the Jewish way:
there is no more brilliant country than the one that sweetly consumes itself like a maniac and leaves nothing behind.
In fact you stab and kill the snivelling kiddy a maximum of ten or fifteen minutes.
Well, you rape him then for an hour and a half.
If you multiply fifty times by two hours, you get one hundred hours.
The trial fucking lasted seven years - you can calculate how long the high lasted for yourself!
My high and your high!
They sentenced me to a particularly Jewish execution, without a painful high, a Russian people's high. A remotely-operated rifle and Andryusha's no more.
What executions they used to have all over the world! They impaled prisoners, planted a sharp stick in their sweet little arses.
Quartered them, fucking broke them on the wheel in public.
 
In China, the most ancient fucking culture in the world, they executed people with bamboo, a wanton wild shoot rises towards the sun,
your belly's slowly torn apart,
or else they threw them on an ant hill, for the ants to devour.
And everybody was so pleased with each passing year - the executioners, the victims and the people.
Well, sure, our kind-hearted, clever and sincere people came to look at me, too, with enthusiasm.
Unfair to complain - it was a great success.
They came from many Jewish countries to film the daredevil, to get an electronic thrill through their bodies by watching me.
When I exposed my prick, live and fresh, to their cameras to film,
to dirty Semitic mankind, I tried to give more live erotic thrills than the coals that raise steam in the traditional Russian bath.
The lawyer told me to pretend I was mad.
Comrade Jew lawyer, if you want you can do it yourself, pretend you're mad or whatever. I've nothing to do with that burned-out schizophrenia, nothing at all.
I exposed my cock to the camera for our dear Jewish mankind - just for fun. Heard about altruism, Jews?
It's only on TV you can brainwash everybody with your Jew sperm
and receive the fucking Nobel Price for your total corruption of people with blue bullfinch eyes pure as children.
It was only Ninel I irrevocably kissed in the Russian altruistic frost, but she wouldn't fucking let me dip into her practical emery-sharp little cunt with the Jew melon taste!
The last time I hugged her close
my naive penis suddenly ejaculated 300 grams of sperm on her boots. The bitch reacted by puking on the snowy footpath.
When she gave blow-jobs to Koshkin the world champion KGB weightlifter she didn't throw up! And when by accident I ejaculated some chromosomes on her boots
she spewed all over the snowy path.
Koshkin's prick is 45 centimetres long, she said.
She met Koshkin at some wild beach near Moscow.
He hypnotised her with his snakelike prick, stuck it up her ass.
He told her stories how he lifted weights in the Jewish West, said the bodybuilders and weightlifters lie naked on the beach and girls like Ninel go round measuring their pricks with rulers.
They fuck the girls on the spot, long Assyrian pricks with pink balls.
While I just kissed my sweetie in the frost for three winter months, gave her flowers from the market, gave her the best extramaritally.
Okay I'm not Koshkin, not a fucking weightlifter and I don't have a half metre Assyrian.
But people don't fuck with their pricks.
They fuck with their soul, Ninel my darling fuckwit, in correlation with Universal World Evolution.
It's because of you, slut, I lied to my dear wife Svetlanka, said I was taking extra courses at the technical training college, that I was monitoring a circle on Western literature about the existential Nietzsche and Camus!
That slut Ninel couldn't appreciate all this.
Thought I'd kill her with a rotating knife,
then my bitch mistress would appreciate
my love and my soul that reached to the heart of sin,
strike it at the root and defeat it, to repent afterwards with the Supreme Truth with the hell, souls,
that will stab you through and through! Oh how young people loved me! I'm not lying!
They appreciated me in the college both as a person and a clever teacher of Russian language and Russian literature.
You wondered how I seduced the kids into the forest?
A forest like this. Yes.
Here it's impossible to play the Life of the Human Spirit like an actor versed in Stanislavsky's system.
Here the soul must be angelic and tender by nature to persuade 54 persons into the forest for sacrifice, telling them tales!
He must be an epic hero! Svyatogor!
Not that Ilya of Murom who took only half a breath. For the Russian it's all or nothing.
It's not thirty pieces of silver that create Life, it's theThirty Three. Add 3 to 30, fucking little, but it's God's trinity.
No, they can't take it, getting it isn't that simple. 'I lay like a corpse in the desert
And God's voice called out to me:
Arise, prophet, see and harken, Carry out my commands:
Go forth over land and sea,
And with your word ignite men's hearts.' I just added a useful fucking knife.
Once at the very beginning something magic happened to me.
When Gennady the convict seduced me, fucked my tender arse, he told everybody about it.
The vermin began laughing at me. Not at Gennady - he was active.
And then the passive killed the active.
There's fucking nothing to eat in the forest in winter.
He fucked me to his death. I'd calculated the system - everybody thought it was convicts that settle scores after close and fatal relationships in jail.
But it was your servant.
With Gennady I felt a rush of adrenaline that tingled down my spine when I stuck in the screwdriver up to the handle,
and Gennady the parrot gasped for breath, fucking got you now!
I thought he'd come alive again as a werewolf, Gennady the fucking con, thought he'd kill me now in revenge.
I really got the shivers when he snatched the screwdriver handle with his enormous mit, pulled it out of his body.
A Versailles fountain of blood gushed from the wound.
But fucking Gennady didn't revive like Rasputin after that rusty wound, he collapsed and the screwdriver stuck in the ground!
This improved my mood a little and I called Ninel right there, with Gennady lying dead. In half an hour Ninel came to meet me.
 
Naturally I was up in the clouds - that's why my sperm splashed on her earthly
boots.
When she spewed all over the path and her puke steam began rising to the sky
I naturally came down to earth a bit. And the idea flashed before me, why not disembowel Ninel after fucking her first in all possible holes.
Such a bitch, her puke stank so bad I nearly spewed all round her! So I made a firm decision to get away from Ninel there and then!
The next day everything went smoothly, in the train I met little Vitenka, the boy nymphette.
I took the little catamite to the wood.
There I told him the tale of the Grey-Necked Duck and as a reward I fucked and killed him, turned the knife in him.
What was puky Ninel compared to this impact on my prick and mind.
Then there was the little lad Dimotchka, 4th-form fucking schoolboy. And the little 5th-form girl Oksana.
Then Yegor, 4th form. Shit, further and further, more and more.
Ninels are nothing compared to the nymphettes.
I can't fucking complain about my destiny - I tasted 54 nymphettes, thrust deeper than Volodya Nabokov, tasted more of the vivifying nymphette Earth Cosmos drink from children.
Where are you, my suburban trains where I caught innocent moths with the fire of my immensely human soul, for World Childhood's Sake.
Ah bastards, if only they'd let me choose how I die.
I could die like I executed those kiddie-princes - they could execute me with imperial torment!
Only where would they find a fucking executioner like that, who would fuck me first up my tender ass, then turn the sadistic knife in my body.
Gennady could do it. But I killed him with a screwdriver! How I'd groan and yell and weep, cry for help,
but most of all I'd groan dumbly at the slow turn of the knife,
the infinite duration of this most cruel torture! My last royal torment!
God help me, my brave God, to die in the name of Nothing-Everything, in infinite torment! If you exist, my brave God!
Oh God, my brave God. You rose from the dead, I don't ask that, I only ask to die in this cosmic Russian shit.
To die most painfully and abominably - die in the letter, fuck, minus infinity zero! There are 33 letters in our bloody Lenin's alphabet, but there's still 40 in the church alphabet -  one more difference for the future explosion.
To reach ecstasy in my own abundant blood
They don't appreciate the Letter Minus Infinity Zero,
when you give them the truth of the Earth for nothing, by murdering kids.
The only simple consolation is, I'm not the only one to die as a prophet in this lunar pro-Jewish mercantile commercial Judaic world.
They'll clean me out calmly with a remote-controlled gun, as if I never existed. Children will sleep peacefully, happy dreams. As if I never existed.
None of us fucking exist, we're Platonic shadows.
There's only the forest, and the steppe covered with snow.
There's no Morality, only the truth that shines on us from the cosmos. Life only exists in Absurdity - of the female and male elements.
 
As Tertullian said, I believe because it's beautiful and absurd!
You shouldn't tease, just fuck, you only believe when you're fucking, only believe what you're fucking!
I support the indictment and the prosecutor.
Get rid of me soon as possible, that's all, as if there was nobody and nothing.
I don't understand why the trial went on so long: to give me this prolonged philosophical pleasure, these contemplative reflections?
I don't think so. Just for themselves? For themselves. Who else, shit!
Pleasure at public expense, shit.
Your rotten Soviet system made me what I am - a mighty philosopher!
Yes, dear capitalist comrades, the rotten world Soviet huckstering life, Jewish huckstering!
Hell, what can I do with our backward Russian mankind?
I've tried, as experienced senior comrades taught me, always acted according to the morality of our brilliantly maniacal country.
If your country has a bloody morality, being a sadist and an executioner is moral, human, evolutionary.
Stalin and Lenin created millions of victims.
They gave an example of shocking maniacal deeds without grief, they hit the Communist bull's eye without glasses.
The Jewish time's to blame, not me.
I'm a normal man, heartfelt. I'm sanguine, living in my time,
as a Jew respecting the law, not a schizo with complexes, like many others.
And those alcoholic schizos have sentenced me to the grave.
The fucking grave is the work of God.
God's work can't be changed!
I say to them: repent, repent you bastards!
I repeat: when I killed those royal kids I acted for their sake.
I fucking tortured and executed myself first of all, that 'We' of yours!
I voluntary accepted my soul's self-immolation, felt the intuition of the Universal Spirit, how I must act.
But shit, it can't be done, because this mercenary pro-Jewish world of yours turns everything into shit.
Nevertheless I have Acted!
How can you pass that by? It's an impasse, fuck!
I passed on with the kiddies.
Those royal kiddies died naturally, not like Abraham's sacrificial lamb.
It's only you, royal Soviet Ukrainian prick, that went on living in this foul world of ours, the black Soviet world,
continued demonstrating the Pure Idea in the Leninist mode, that it's impossible to go on living and shedding blood so foully, so Jewishly!
Seems impossible to live otherwise - only in the Jewish way, shedding blood!
Nowhere on the Earth, on land or sea, is it possible to live any other fucking way than the Jewish way, in blood!
Because man is the devil's race, there's no other devil, you'll never see him. Same breed!
The real man is the memory of the Future. The Face of Eternity. Conscience and the essence of Being, understand, you brutes? That's the measure of all things.
We fucking Jew bastards only appropriate these names and take the imaginary for actual.
 
Everyone considers himself a matchless righteous sod when he's only learned to chirp, not speak.
Nobody raises his head skywards so he doesn't eternally fall and weep. Many Russian-Jewish royal kids didn't even cry.
Of course they gnashed their teeth like young heros, but sometimes they didn't cry at all. With divine gratitude they stared into my good-natured eyes; I was lost in their angelic eyes.
We felt so good on this sacrificial altar, everything became clear.
Then, shit, I dressed them in their royal kiddie clothes, dug a hole in the ground and buried them royally and humanly - I did it all so decently, so fucking royally!
So they would fly straight to God, to the heavenly paradise, so they didn't become foul Jewish mugs,
so they didn't let their eternal souls rot for years and years on this infernal lost earth of ours!
I never touched those nasty mugs, except Gennady, my dear judges. Hell's already overcrowded, with fucking brutes like you.
That's how the devil crawls across Russia, just the same as God, the Universal Evolutionary Spirit of Nature never has bad weather. My only fault is being born human and altruistic,
that I allowed the World Spirit to pass through me without first becoming a fucking secretary general by subordination.
If I had I could show you millions of Jew scroungers what the word Stalin means in our mercenary Judaic world.
Yes, if someone's good to you, you kill him like fucking Christ. And what's Christ - a fish to eat.
You'll gobble him up, entrails and all, without choking!
That graphomaniac St Augustine imagined a simplified image of the fish as Christ, diving deep.
But the fish is probably the eternal masters and slaves.
And David said: rich man or poor, all were created by God.
That has more truth in it than what St Augustine said on the nature of Christ. Christ is a fish that dives deep - that's true, too.
Someone always drives the others, someone always has to kill!
That's what you always fucking do! Slaves are mute! At the beginning of that century they protested. Now we are all that remains - the bosses, the murderers from the darkness!
And if I'm right, you dirty bastards? If I'm right before your Judaic God?
If 'I' is your 'We', you bastards, you mercenary Jews?
Shit, for just 50 kiddies, just to give you something to think about, your Jewish relative thinking, you sentenced me to death - forever, in a complete, not at all relative sense, me the fucking epic hero!
When there's a complete foul absence of thought all around, in all your our Jewish non-Jewish mankind, terrible obscenity in the non-evolution of the fucking World Spirit. And if I'm right before God? And before you in particular!
If I'm right? What will you fucking do then?
Shit, I'm tired and cold.
You fucking bastards, impossible to make you understand anything that makes
sense.
 
There is no melancholy in the world that snow cannot cure. 'I loved you and perhaps this love
Still burns deep in my soul;
But let it not disturb you further, I do not wish to cause you pain.'
 
Kirill Razlogov, culturologist, host of Cult Kino.

Mikhail Volokhov’s work is certainly a phenomenon that is out of the ordinary.
It belongs to several spheres at once: literature, theatre, cinematography and, as the author himself believes, maybe in the realm of philosophy too.
Working in different spheres shows the range of his talent and his approach to the themes reflected in his work.
At the same time his art is undoubtedly marginal: it counteracts mainstream trends both in popular and elite or ‘high’ culture.
This phenomenon is quite new and characteristic of the 20th and 2Ist centuries.
I think these alternative tendencies that extend an artist’s work outside the bounds drawn by society will gain ground and have even greater significance in the future.
In this sense Volokhov’s experiments with theatre and cinema are sure to receive public recognition.
Chikatilo’s Calvary is one of his central works, with versions for both stage and screen.
His cinematographic experiments border on video art, although cinematography and video are quite different forms of art with their own aesthetic peculiarities.
Maybe it is hard to imagine this being shown on TV, but Volokhov follows the example of reality shows that are suitable for both video- and big-screen format to some extent.
What makes Mikhail Volokhov’s work so interesting and unique is his apparent desire to use different aesthetic traditions with a definite aim in mind, not simply to shock the audience, but rather as a way to broaden our perception of phenomena that just a few years ago would have been totally rejected.
This makes Mikhail Volokhov’s work both interesting and instructive.
--------------------------------------------------------
Tchikatilo’s Calvary» by Mikhail Volokhov
A    P L A Y    F O R    P E O P L E    W I T H O U T   N E R V E S
Translation from russian by  Rene GUERRA,  mise en sc;ne  Andrei JITINKINE,  decor and costumes  Sergey MALYUTIN,  role of tchikatilo  interpreted by  Danil STRAKHOV.
This independent «Museum Theatre Play» project «The Supreme Penalty of Tchikatilo» is realized by people with a classical theatrical education working at Moscow’s leading academic theatres.
We introduce a ‘classic of the 21st century’ as an avant-garde interpretation of a hyper-realistic contemporary drama.
Programme of performances: MOSCOW: 8 June at the Mayakovsky Theatre
PARIS: 14 June at the Institute INALCO, Paris
16 and 17 June at the CARROSSERIE-MESNIER Theatre, SAINT-AMAND-MOROND
————————————————
It is well known that in the New Testament the term «kayros» determines the Eve of Great Accomplishments, when even the opponents of God’s Will exercise the Prophetic Rights of Disclosing the Infinite Truth and Beauty of the Ecumenical God. Already in the Old Testament God «tortures» the mortal Job «in a beastly, savage way» by «belief alone», and the dispirited Job finds himself «in belief alone» and reconciliation with the Divine World is bestowed upon him. The dispirited Periods and People of Russia in our century have reached the last stage in collapse of the human being i.e. «tchikatilism» is nothing else but the last, most terrible «torture of God», «testing by God» of the spiritual durability of the human beings made in his image. In «Tchikatilo’s Calvary», in the form of a Theatre-Temple, an attempt at recreating the transcendent contents has been carried out both as «Tortures-tests of God», and «Catharsis absolution» from this hellhole in cosmic Kayros for disclosing the Substantial Truth, when the most disastrous truth becomes terribly curative, since it its the most paradoxical. And as a matter of fact, the «only Belief» stays with the human being.
MIKHAIL VOLOKHOV, Playwright
——————————————————
«Dead Man’s Bluff» is a tragicomic history of modern Russian, and also of the western Hamlet. Hamlet’s flute appeared in my play not accidentally, but because the famous Sobel has staged the «Dead Man’s Bluff» in Paris literally as a Shakespearian epic. Moreover he has spent 1.5 million dollars on staging «Dead Man’s Bluff», also as part of a Russian classical trilogy from Chekhov’s «Cherry Orchard» to Babel’s «Marie». «Tchikatilo’s Calvary» is an upside-down history of Russia, a history of «Richard-Stalin the Third» where the characters are choked by their own lust and blood. Volokhov’s avant-gardism is that he is not engaged in diagnosing the evil around us like other modern writers, he simply builds this evil into structures of Global Fatality, absorbed in the western theatre of the absurd but for all that remaining a profound Russian classical writer.
ANDREI JITINKIN, Producer
———————————————————
«Tchikatilo’s Calvary» is a vigorous name overcoming the darkness. The whole phenomenon of Volokhov’s play is that by figurative formation it fights with the Evil in reality, but not with words. The play is written on the basis of fact, on absolutely terrifying true material. But the artistic, philosophical and figurative level achieved by the Laughter of Agony overcomes this material which is practically intractable for art. My decor and costume design for the play «Tchikatilo’s Calvary» in the form of a «museum-spectacle» exhibiting a collection of «ancient picturesque scrolls» with events of the apocalypse from the Theologian John’s Revelations and huge sculptures of the Avenging Angel made from wood with fragments of architectural details from ancient iconostases was selected by me to emphasize the basic philosophical idea of Volokhov’s play, our play, and in particular: mankind knows everything, remembers everything, but unfortunately does not become better.
SERGEY MALYUTIN, Artist
———————————————————
When Andrei Zhitinkin offered me the part of Tchikatilo in Michael Volokhov’s play «Tchikatilo’s Calvary» I was at first taken aback — is it possible that I’m similar to Tchikatilo? But nevertheless I decided to read the play first and then to decide. I laughed and cried when read it. Tchikatilo is a philosophical experimental character; especially because Zhitinkin has made him a modern Richard III. But what amazed me most of all about this play is that it was written by Volokhov in Paris, in 1996, yet it analyzes the Dostoyevskian mentality of a Russian man at the beginning of the 21st century.
DANIL STRAKHOV, Actor

8)


By Mikhail Volokhov


PARIS BOUND

A lyrical tragedy



CHARACTERS:



Shaft – young convict
Globe – old convict

Siberia. The present day


Scene – roof of a goods wagon





Winter. Taiga. Roof of a goods wagon. Night. The moon and stars shine brightly. The clatter of wagon wheels – the train is moving. The convict Shaft lies on the roof of the goods wagon. His head rests on a bundle of cloth.
SHAFT (sings). The steam engine flies across the vast taiga,
Flies no one knows where... As for me, said the boy, I'm a swindler and a thief,I said goodbye to freedom forever.

The old convict Globe climbs onto the wagon roof clutching a bundle. (Notices Globe.)Fuck me.


GLOBE. Don't piss yourself, one of your own, mate.
SHAFT. Come on up, then.
GLOBE. Where's the train going?
SHAFT. To Paris, and freedom.
GLOBE. I could do with a bit of freedom, in Paris.
SHAFT. Sit yourself down on the ice, explorer.
What's yer name?
GLOBE. They call me Globe.
SHAFT. There's a safebreaker by that name. GLOBE. That's me.
SHAFT. Yeah, I heard of the safebreaker Globe. GLOBE. In Paris we'll find the fucking truth.
SHAFT. And where will you find the fucking truth in Paris?
GLOBE. If I knew what it is I'm after, I wouldn't need to go looking, mister. SHAFT. Yeah, we're both on the same track, daddy.
GLOBE. And what do I call you, matey?
SHAFT. Shaft, daddy, Shaft. Not just a fucking needle. GLOBE. You're an ace pickpocket?
SHAFT. You heard of me, then?
GLOBE. Our criminal world's a fucking small elite world, Shafty me old mate.
SHAFT. The way you say it my name's got a ring to it. Shafty. Sounds kinda fancy, master safebreaker. I like a bit of beauty, you know.
GLOBE. If you don't like beauty you don't fucking thieve nothing. If the dosh wasn't beautiful you wouldn't need to half-inch it, mate.
SHAFT. You speak holy words, daddy, you're a real Cicero. So you heard of Shafty, that's pleasant.
GLOBE. You don't forget famous names. Only a true master can thieve with nobody the wiser.
SHAFT. But a slimeball that grasses on his mates deserves death. Move along, you bastard, out the way. Further. Move, I said.
GLOBE. Well I'm not dead yet, bruv. I plead aloud, I whisper spells, but death won't come. I never was a grass. I never told on another thief. Look matey, Old Shiny Jacket told everyone I was a grass because I hear the music of inflammable safes better than him.
He's jealous of me, like Salieri and Mozart! (Sheds tears.)
SHAFT. Leave it out. What's up? Why get so het up, daddy, because of that little runt, that coxcomb Shiny Jacket. I know that useless son-of-a-bitch queer. Salieri's jacket full of moth holes.
GLOBE. On the way to the camp, while my mates weren't around, Jacket called a meeting. All his mob were there in the barracks. That's when they called me a grass. (Weeping.)
SHAFT. Don't fret, daddy, no need to get upset, dry your eyes. We're going to Paris. Where the chestnuts bloom in spring. Lovers walk along the Seine embankment,
arm-in-arm.They kiss. Declare boundless love for one another. Then kiss again, then they fucking screw.
GLOBE. Shafty my boy!!! (Embraces Shaft, sobs.) You're my knight in shining armour!
SHAFT. Daddy Globik, what's up with you?
GLOBE. I want to go to Paris, matey! SHAFT. That's where we're going, pal. GLOBE. My little son, my super Shafty!
SHAFT. Calm down, daddy! When we get to Paris we'll give her a good squeeze, give her a good fucking, daddy!
GLOBE. Better screw her once than squeeze her lots, dear boy. Don't you think?
SHAFT. All truths of all the Gods the world over coincide on that one sexual star of truth that shines brightly on the whole universe, daddy, the Fuck Beyond Compare. If we fuck, better to fuck a queen, daddy.
GLOBE. You speak royal words, my little king.
So what queen can you screw over there in Paris?
SHAFT. The English Queen will be visiting, hat and all.
GLOBE. In her hat! The English Queen, sonny!!!
And why is she visiting, may I ask?
SHAFT. The English Queen's usually in her London castle, that's her base. But I only need to fuck her a few hours a day. I don't need her to addle my brains any more than that.
GLOBE. Fuck me, a real little Lenin behind bars, a savvy bastard. You foresee every circumstance. I'm proud of you.
(Kisses Shaft.) I can already imagine, we'll fuck her English arse, two pricks and four nuts.
SHAFT. How d'ya mean, daddy, two pricks and four nuts?
Pardon me, I didn't plan on sharing her fucking English arse! I want to screw her by myself, no perverted group sex for me!
GLOBE. Forgive me. Thought you'd like it, make you both hot, give you a fucking good screw. Think when you want to fuck the English Queen in her hat I'll bar the way to her twat with my flabby old cock?
SHAFT. So what will you do when my cock rams into her English arse, pauses for a sec? When it slips up and down to her kidneys, to the doorway from heaven through her royal arse?
I'll thrust deep into her cunt, to her bladder, the bitch! So she yells Russian curses, the bitch!!! I'll teach her. After that I'll fuck her in the mouth and come. Splat my sperm all over her mug, in her eyes. Slather her mug with come! Then fucking lie back on the sofa, light up and toss back a glass of wine. Chat a bit with the Queen on important matters: who should be executed, who should be pardoned. Then I'll chain the English bitch to a board covered with nails and whip her. Then I'll fuck her, fuck her, fuck her till she bleeds!!! Fuck her the way they do in the West. Afterwards I'll let her go to London for three or four days, maybe two, depends how my cock feels, and the state of her cunt.
I know even royal cunts in England have the curse, same as our sluts here. Let her have her curse back in London. I want to fuck French girls in Paris, too, don't want to offend anyone. But what can you do in fucking Paris with your limp cock, daddy?
Don't know what you can do if you're not fucking. Maybe join the local executioners?
GLOBÅ. I could limber up with a few executions.Or maybe it's better if I look after their treasury, all that Parisian hard currency, won't take my eyes off it. All the safebreakers there are skilled workers. You need an experienced eye to distinguish them. You're a
lucky fucker you've got me there, all your royal doings in Paris in the bag. That's a fact.
SHAFT. Just let me fuck her up the arse and when I take out my prick fucking consider yourself Parisian Minister of Finance.
GLOBE. I'll hammer into her so good, like taking speed! To begin with I'll thrash that English Queen, English fucking, then introduce true Russian love and kasha to Paris.
SHAFT. She might snuff it if you thrash her. If she fucking dies all our plans are ruined, Globey.
GLOBE. We don't both have to beat her till her pulse stops.
You smack her in the mug for starters, so it shines like a pair of clean boots. So she falls on all fours arse-up and you ram up to her kidneys. My tarts get down in no time. At your age I had them begging. Soon as they spit blood you ram your cock in their cunt, wet and hot.
SHAFT. Listen, Globe, you may be older than me, but my English totty isn't like your old slags, she could turn up her toes with the first blow. I can fuck her after she dies, that isn't a problem. But she can't make you Finance Minister if she's stiff in her coffin. My entry to the English nobility is fucked then.
You might not give a shit about me, but you should stop, think about your own position.
GLOBE. Shaft, you're a brick. I'm so fucking happy you offered me the post of fucking Finance Minister in that there Parisian kingdom. You hardly know me and you fucking offered me a government post, abroad an' all.
SHAFT. Your kind eyes melted my heart, Globekin. Your eyes are long-suffering, like the treasury.
GLOBE. Me and the treasury can make love. The treasury will pay me back in full for kindness and love, with the percentage rounded up, loved-up, bitch.
SHAFT. You clever fag.
GLOBE. As for stiff tarts, I can get you a conveyor line, more than you ever bargained for,if you want to keep the English tart alive. Just between ourselves, you handsome young feller, want to hear my advice on those filthy lolitas?
SHAFT. I'm listening. Go on.
GLOBE. You can bring the fucking bitch back to life with your hard vertical cock when you ram your guts into hers. Mouth to mouth, guts to guts and there's life in shit, like a shoot from manure.
When the slut falls in love with you, royally and Englishly. A real fairy story.
SHAFT. Everything will be like a fairy story, daddy – thanks for the advice, much obliged.
GLOBE. Forget it, my advice to you is free. No sweat. We'll settle up later. We must think of eternal, high-up things. The stars gazing down with eyes wide. See God up there in the constellation. Thank Him you're alive and can see the stars. Bound for Paris, to screw the English Queen, when we might never have been born.
SHAFT. Don't know how I'd get to Paris alone, without you. It was as stroke of good luck when you turned up.
GLOBE. I thought to myself, here's a good man bound for Paris to amuse himself with English sex, thought I'd keep you company.
SHAFT. You did the right thing. Otherwise here I am on the run from the camp, the weeks pass and there's only a human head to eat. Then God sends me a kindred spirit and the road to Paris gets shorter, I forget about worldly matters, concentrate on higher things.
GLOBE. Thank you for those kind words, Shafty.
SHAFT. Thank you for being around, Globey.
GLOBE. Fuck me, you're courting me like the English cunt.
SHAFT. But you like it, don't you, mate?
GLOBE. Very pleasant, like in the Luxembourg Gardens in the sunshine, on the luvly grass, with Joe Dassin singing.
SHAFT. Seems you know Paris and the Joe Dassins in the Luxembourg Gardens well.
GLOBE. That's why my mates call me Globe.
SHAFT. You're a fucking miracle. (Strokes Globe's head.)
It's high time I ate some manna from heaven. But maybe you want to live a bit longer?
GLOBE. What use am I dead in Paris?
SHAFT. I need you alive in Paris, matey, stay alive.
GLOBE. You look at me with such great love in your eyes, it drives me crazy. SHAFT. I can fuck with great love, you'll be out of your mind, see stars.
GLOBE. You won't kick me in the kidneys first?
SHAFT. Worried about your health are you, you egoistical bastard? GLOBE. The egoist lives not only for himself.
SHAFT. Little mozzie. How is a lag any worse than a mozzie, if he wants to live too, wants to drink human blood.
GLOBE. What absolute truths you speak, I'm simply bleeding with menstrual love.
SHAFT. Amen?
GLOBE. A million amens, for God's sake.
SHAFT. What about a million blow-jobs?
GLOBE. You and I are soul brothers!!! (Embraces Shaft.)
SHAFT. If you get down on all fours, take down your trousers voluntarily... I won't kick you in the kidneys, I'll take care of the Finance Minister's health when I'm fucking you.
GLOBE. You'll treat me like the English Queen, Shaft?
SHAFT. Like the English Queen, Globey. Get your trousers off.
GLOBE. I've no problem with that.
SHAFT. Get them off, fuck you.
GLOBE. (Removes his trousers, stands on all fours in front of Shaft.) Fuck me like the English Queen, up the arse. Imagine it's not my arse in front of you, but a fluffy English cunt.
SHAFT. I get the picture – stop blabbing! (Points his penis at Globus' anus.)Fucking hell, you stink of shit, Globe!!!
(Recoils from GLOBE.)We're imagining a cunt, in the open air, thank God. But the stink of bender's shit is destroying my fairy-tale love. Get my drift, old man? You're asking for a job in my Ministry and you seem like an intelligent dude.
But your fucking arse is filthy as a shitty baby. (Puts his penis away in his trousers.)
GLOBE (puts on his trousers). I've been three weeks in the taiga on the run from the camp. Where am I supposed to wash in the forest?
SHAFT. See the snow under your feet, motherfucker?
GLOBE. I'm used to washing with warm water, that's why I asked to join the Ministry.
SHAFT. I don't know what to do with you, you shitass.
GLOBE. I'll fucking wash my arse in Paris, we'll screw to our heart's content, I swear on my life.
SHAFT. In Paris I can screw the Queen, in Paris your fucking arse can eat shit.
And you, shitface, with your shitty arse, can eat shit.
Get away from me, fuckface.
GLOBE. I can get you little pages in Paris, for when the English cunt has her monthlies in London.
SHAFT. Should be pleasant to ride those little pages in Paris.
GLOBE. You can imagine I'm a conveyor belt of little pages in Paris.
SHAFT. Thanks be to God.
GLOBE. The main thing is you do your job proper as President, justify the English cunt's faith in you.
Then the pages will fall from the sky like raindrops on the Eiffel Tower, fall on a giant prick, a role brilliantly performed by me.
SHAFT. I can do my job proper as President, no shit.
I saw on the box what fucking lamebrains want to be President of Russia.
I can tell you straight, bruv, my fucking brains are a hundred times better than theirs.
GLOBE. Shit, and more some.
SHAFT. You got it.
GLOBE. You're just a fucking natural, with a fucking godlike prick.
Can't think of a better comparison.
Capable of coming up that kinky-haired English Queen's arse over and over again.
You can ram her in the gob to make you come. That'll get you going.
SHAFT. I'm not a born egotist like you, motherfucker. If I come in her gob it'll get her going too.
GLOBE. I meant you gotta stay lively after fucking so you can go on fucking the next fucking day, in the President's chair of office.
SHAFT. Advice worthy of a fucking Minister.
You get good ideas if you approach things the right way.
What name will you go by?
GLOBE. My parents christened me Louis.
Lazybones, sleepin' in the sun....
How you 'spect to get your day's work done?
(Shaft and Globe sing in unison.)

You can't get your day's work done......
Sleepin' in the noonday sun Lazybones, layin' in the shade....
How you gonna get your cornmeal made? You can't get no cornmeal made....
Sleepin' in the evening shade

Fucking get up.

Lazybones, loafin' all the day.....
How you 'spect to make a dime that way? Loafin' in the shade all day...

GLOBE. Fuck, bein' a kid, lollypops and pickpockets an' all.
What did they call you as a kid?
SHAFT. Ilyich. Tchaikovsky. Pyotr. And you, fucking Pavlich Chekhov, huh?
Anton, was it? Child of Russia, like all of us.
GLOBE. You think like a fucking president. If we get to Paris, we'll fuck Paris.
We can fuck classical-style, the pair of us.
SHAFT. We'll fuck 'em alright, bruv.
GLOBE. I believe in you. And when I fucking believe in someone I serve him wholeheartedly. And you can understand my Minister's thinking better.
SHAFT. Shit, forgive me, Pavlich Chekhov, Anton, that I didn't screw you good and proper.
Your fucking arse stinks of shit, I just wanted to throw up.
GLOBE. No misunderstandings between gentlemen!

You can screw me again. No hurry.

Life is like your arse – everything lies ahead, in front of your prick. The main thing is to get a hard-on while you're still alive and kicking.

As soon as I take a warm bath in Paris you can stick your cock up my arse, no shit.

And you can excite the English princess better with your feeding tube.

The bitch might choke when you ram her in the gob.

Depends on the circumstances, what slit I put my prick in.

Main thing, when you're promoted to the post of President don't fucking forget me, you fucking motherfucker.

Make me fucking Minister of the Treasury and Safes, that's my specialty, you can just fuck without any worries.

SHAFT. It's not easy to place a man by his specialty. Are we really going to Paris, Globe?
GLOBE. North Star seems to be in place.
(Points at the North Star.)
SHAFT. What place is that? (Looks up at the sky.)
GLOBE. Twinkling at the tip of the Great Bear. Screw up your eyes and you can see the arrows for the Paris road.
SHAFT. At least the cosmos doesn't fuck you around in the cold lunar world of heaven.
What about a bite to eat, daddy? If we don't eat we'll never reach Paris, we'll starve to death frozen on the roof of this fucking goods wagon.
GLOBE. A truly presidential idea. When my arse froze up I forgot about that. Gangrene of the arse can fucking kill you.
SHAFT. What you got to eat in your bundle, gangrene?
GLOBE (pulls a human head from his bundle). I only got a human head left.
Ever eat frozen meat?
I went on the run with this boy, Ukrainian, don't reckon he's poisoned.
A bit of him's still left, looks like the head.
SHAFT. We're soul brothers, you and me, daddy. (Pulls another human head from his knapsack.)
Let alone kindred stomachs.
I went on the run with a country boy. City boys are poisoned with exhaust fumes and other urban crap.
GLOBE. Wise words, President Shaft. Syomochka, you good-for-nothing hairy Ukrainian.
(Kisses the 'frozen' head on the lips, then bites off the lips and eats.)
How my good-for-nothing Syomochka loved me. And I loved him too, I love him just as much now.
(Bites the nose off the head, eats.) My sweet frozen Syomochka. Why aren't you eating, Shaft? Want to try my Syomochka?
SHAFT. Thanks, daddy, but I've got my frozen Ilyushenka.
Shit, this is the last time I'll admire his little face. My sweetie, my little honey-bun.
(Kisses the head on the lips, bites them off and eats.)
Better to go on the run in cold weather, you can keep the meat fresh.
GLOBE. No doubt about it.
Have a taste of my Syomochka while there's some left, for a bit of variety. (Gnaws an ear from Syomochka's head and gives the ear to Shaft.)
SHAFT. I'm indebted, daddy. (Takes the ear from him and in turn gnaws an ear off Ilya's head and offers it to Globe.)
Have a bite of this, eat your fill.
GLOBE. Treats from the President's table. (Eats the ear.)
Melts in your mouth, like the sperm of little children.
SHAFT. Your Syomochka's a choice delicacy.
GLOBE. We don't take scumbag suckers on the run.
With what devotion Syomochka used to fuck me.
You can't get a hard-on at my age, but I still hanker after a bit of depravity.
SHAFT. When it's true love, what fucking difference whose cock goes in what arsehole.
The thing is, you must approach the question – the arsehole, that is – from the correct love angle.
GLOBE. You got it. But if you try to explain no one understands – they're all fucking dimwits.
When you climb over the rusty rotten gangrenous wall it shafts you up the arse!
SHAFT. What did you say? Shafts?! You insult me in no uncertain terms, Minister, some bullshit about fucking gangrene?
GLOBE. I meant 'shaft' as an adjective relating to the wall, the gangrene's the noun here, shit, I didn't mean fucking nothing.
I didn't mean the English cunt, I meant the fucking gangrenous fence, not any kind of shaft.
Shafts hold up the railway, the rails taking us to Paris.
Shafts are of divine origin, they have great significance in the natural world.
SHAFT. Careful, Globey, when you try and create new words.
GLOBE. Please forgive me, Shafty, Petya Chekhov, President.
It was the shaft-like fence - you're right, I got confused, shafted you in the back.
SHAFT. Shafted?! You scumbag, you trying to fucking humiliate me?
GLOBE. Of course not, don't know myself how I spoke the words 'shaft' and 'joint' in the same breath. I never meant it, the fucking word just stuck, so strike me dead.
I love and respect you to the depths of my soul, Shaft, like fucking God Himself.
SHAFT. But all the same, windbag, don't go too far with your bullshit, not if you want to be a fucking Minister.
GLOBE. I get your drift, don't get upset, no need to waste nervous energy.
Treat yourself to a bit more. (Chews an ear off Syomochka's head, gives it to Shaft.)
Love for the President truly lies in the stomach.
SHAFT. You pervert. (Takes the ear, eats.)
Tasty, your Syomka's real tasty – you can tell who's who, Globey.
GLOBE. I can do the same for you in Paris, Shafty.
SHAFT. I'm not asking much – just excite the English cunt for the good of us all, for the good of the lost world, cunt.
I'm ready to sacrifice my own body, my own energy. Fuck knows who'll appreciate the altruism of my fucking cock.
Mankind shows nothing but ingratitude to those that offer excitement.
GLOBE. You have to overcome the ingratitude and excite the cunts night and day. A harsh destiny to bear.
Build yourself up with a high-calorie tongue.
(Gnaws off Syomochka's tongue and gives it to Shaft.)
SHAFT. You're spoiling me, daddy. (Eats the tongue.)
Nutritious and tasty, what more can I say.
GLOBE. Only the finest shit here, as they say. Want to try some brains?
(Offers Shaft Syomochka's brains.)
SHAFT. Grand merci, daddy! (Eats Syomochka's brains.)
Like a baton of white bread, like honey.
We'll split Ilya's brains, too. (Splits Ilya's scull open on the wagon roof.)
Here's an invigorating segment of brain, daddy. (Gives Globe a piece of brain.)
GLOBE. Thank you! (Eats the brain.)
I tell you, Shafty, I never tasted such a good piece of brain.
SHAFT. My cock's ready to rip out my trousers with the energy from those brains.
If only we could fuck the English Queen up the arse right now.
GLOBE. Dear comrades, nobody would believe who I travelled to Paris with.
SHAFT. I want to fuck the English Queen up the arse!!! (Sobs.)
GLOBE. I sympathise completely, shit!!! (Puts his arms round Shaft, sobbing.)
But there ain't no English Queen on this train – I feel it's my fault the bitch isn't on the train, shit!
In Paris I'll split a few more human brains for you and your cock will stand up for the English Queen, bitch, no problem!!!
SHAFT. I want to screw the Queen's arsehole now – now!!! Now!!! Now!!! (Sobs.)
GLOBE. Fucking shit, man, she isn't here now.
SHAFT. You pour a cold shower on me in this freezing Siberian frost.
GLOBE. I can't make English queens for you right here on a fucking goods wagon roof in Siberia.
I'm no Andersen, no fucking magician.
SHAFT. Surely you can come up with a simple idea fit for a minister – you want me to make you a fucking minister.
GLOBE. Fuck, fuck, fuck! Any good at wanking?
SHAFT. No problem. Does anyone find it hard in the nick?
GLOBE. Let's wank – close your eyes, imagine the Queen's arsehole on your brainbox
and I'll suck you off.
SHAFT. You said you'll suck me off.
Let's try and suck one another off. (Takes his penis from his fly, shuts his eyes.)
GLOBE. Ready, Comrade President?
SHAFT. Suck me off, Prime Minister, my presidential cock's freezing cold.
GLOBE. I'm sucking, mate, sucking. (Begins to suck off Shaft's penis.)
SHAFT. Oh, fucking hell, that's good, man!!! Hey, you arsehole, you baa-stard!!!
(Wrenches his penis from Globe's mouth.)
GLOBE. What's up, lad?
SHAFT. I like it when you suck me, bastard, not when you bite it off!!!
GLOBE. Shit, lost control. After tasting Syomochka's brains I wanted more human flesh – forgive me!!!
SHAFT. You appoint him Prime Minister and before you know it the bastard tries to bite off your prick.
GLOBE. Forgive me, Petro Tchaikovsky, as God is my witness, strike me dead, I never wanted to bite off your presidential cock.
But you've got a lovely cock, Comrade President.
SHAFT. Okay, I fucking forgive you, I'll let you live. For appreciating my cock's merits I forgive you, Minister, fucking homo, bastard, cannibal.
GLOBE. Your cock, Shafty, is priceless. We can seduce any English queen.
When she catches sight of your storm-force cock she'll give up without a murmur, the filthy slag.
SHAFT. I want to fuck the English Queen right now – I'm bursting with brainy sperm! Can't keep it in any longer, I'll explode like a hydrogen bomb of sperm!
Let's do it the normal way, wank off like normal people, without biting off any fucking cocks.
GLOBE. Alright, mate, quick, let's close our eyes. SHAFT (closes his eyes). Eyes closed.
GLOBE. Now imagine, draw the English Queen on your brainbox with a bare arse and bare tits.
Drawn her? Answer me.
SHAFT. The drawing's no fucking good – never could draw as a kid, Globey.
GLOBE. Wait, I'll come and help, don't fret, don't let your cock flop.
SHAFT. It's fucking standing, shit, the bastard's taken off! No piss to hold it down!
GLOBE. Can you draw the fucking Queen's castle drowning in gold on your brainbox?
SHAFT. I think I drew a fucking castle! (Begins to jerk off.)
GLOBE. You're finding new talents.
SHAFT. I fucking am, Globey!
GLOBE. Now draw the fucking ceiling in the castle, with diamonds dropping off it instead of plaster.
SHAFT. I drew a Niagara Fall of diamonds, fucking amazing!!!
GLOBE. There's clean water from gold taps!
Niagara Falls of champagne pouring from silver taps!
SHAFT. There's a flood of fucking alcohol!
GLOBE. Direct the flood to a pond or you'll drown.
SHAFT. Here's a pond, even two ponds...
In one of the ponds bubbly champagne, in the other the iced vodka's waiting.
GLOBE. Flocks of ladies-in-waiting wandering through the English Queen's chambers, the bitches are stroking their bushes out the windows, panting in the sunshine.
SHAFT. How gracefully they stroke their bushes, fucking hell. And you make a classy Prime Minister, daddy, flourishing in front of my very eyes, like my cock at the sight of English arse.
GLOBE. I do my best. It's a pleasure to show I'm worthy of the appointment, Your Presidential Majesty.
The pages are young, they started to screw me up the bum on the Persian rug, next to the bed where you're about to ram the English Queen up her arsehole.
SHAFT. Wouldn't mind giving the pages one too. Why can't I have a few pages, Globey?
GLOBE. The pages are screwing me, so your cock stands up for the English Queen...
The pages are screwing me to get you excited.
SHAFT. The pages can screw you, I've nothing against it, I just want to screw the pages up the arse myself right now.
GLOBE. But who's going to fuck the Queen, Alexander Pushkin?
The bitch could send us back to Siberia if we don't fuck her.
SHAFT. She can't send us to Siberia if she's a stiff, daddy!
GLOBE. She can't make you President if she's dead, either.
SHAFT. Let me fuck the pages for five minutes, daddy, five minutes is all I ask.
Then I'll quickly screw the Queen with my hot prick.
GLOBE. I think my pages want to suck off your tender prick first, will you let them?
SHAFT. Of course they can. But let them suck me one by one…
So they don't fight and chew off my prick in the fray.
GLOBE. I'll keep order, just close your fucking eyes tight, Shaft. (Begins to suck Shaft's penis.)
SHAFT. Eyes closed.
Like it's fucking real, daddy, shit, that's good!!!
GLOBE. It was worth making me Prime Minister? SHAFT. Worth it, daddy, Prime Minister, Globey.
GLOBE. You don't want to screw the pages up the bum now, matey?
SHAFT. I would, daddy, oh I would!!!
Here – suck.
GLOBE (sits with his arsehole on Shaft's penis, they fuck). Oh, is that good, is that tasty?
SHAFT. Oh, that's good, fucking tasty!!! (Sniffs.) But it stinks of shit again, daddy!
You haven't shit yourself with pleasure? (Opens his eyes.) You bastard, daddy, you homo, Globe!!!

Off my prick, you cheating sod!!! (Pushes Globe away.)

You make him an Officer of State and right away he uses his official position for his own personal ego-interests.

I was ready to prong the English Queen and what do you know, he covers my cock with his stinking shit again.

GLOBE. Comrade President Shafty, I fucked you out of true love.
What kind of Prime Minister will I be if I can't please the President when I fuck him out of true love for the President?
SHAFT. If you climb on my prick out of true love it might help matters if you wiped your arse with snow first.
Otherwise I fucking have to wipe my cock with snow for the second time running. (Wipes his penis with snow.)
GLOBE. I can fucking lick my shit off your cock, if you so desire.
I won't bite it off, don't worry. I didn't bite your cock off when I sucked it just now for the pages, although I could have.
SHAFT. Then your gob will stink of shit – how can I converse with you then, Prime Minister?
GLOBE. For Christ's sake forgive me.
SHAFT. I only fucking forgive you for Christ's sake.
GLOBE. If you want I can make you stew out of pages with vegetables, bring it to you for breakfast in bed.
SHAFT. I like attention to detail with a human face, daddy.
GLOBE. I know what a sympathetic person you are.
SHAFT. I don't know how to say it, but I'd like the Queen to have my kids – like real people do things.
GLOBE. Aren't you afraid of eating your kids out of love – like Saturn ate his children?
SHAFT. Think I couldn't stop myself, daddy?
GLOBE. Hard to stop yourself, it'll be difficult. I'll have to feed you pages once an hour.
I reckon I can fucking find the solution.
But if you eat your kid, don't forget the mother of that kid's the English Queen. The bitch will get very cross if there's cannibalism in her own family.
She'll get revenge by sending us back to Siberia.
And our Presidents will fucking eat us for quarrelling with her.
This is a small and problematical world, Shafty. Our fences and walls stand fucking everywhere.
SHAFT. What shall we do now, dear friend?
GLOBE. Lick the English cunt, pound your cock in her gob and up her arse, so the sperm don't drown in her split.
Nobody understands us heartfelt cannibals like we understand ourselves.
SHAFT. Shit, too true.
GLOBE. This is a truly global question
SHAFT. Paris will screw us, eat us, when they see we're Christian cannibals.
GLOBE. We must prepare ourselves by fucking and eating – then your prick will understand who's who.
Tongues and brains turn into simple shit in your guts.
SHAFT. Yeah, fucking true, that's Mother Nature for you. Your brains are a valuable commodity, bastard.
GLOBE. Your cock is no less valuable.
SHAFT. We could eat one another in anticipation.
GLOBE. We can't eat one another, mate. One can eat the other, the other gets eaten.
SHAFT. I'm fucking amazed at that brain of yours. And what can we do, now we're down on our luck?
GLOBE. Fucking grin and bear it. And keep on the road to Paris.
SHAFT. You must have Jewish brains, daddy. You can't find yourself a fucking edible Jew in the camp nowadays.
No fucking point in eating you if I could scoff a bit of Jew flesh.
GLOBE. On the whole Jew meat isn't bad. They pour less vodka and gherkins down their throats than our Russian comrades.
I escaped with a few Jews, ate their flesh.
But where can you get a Jew on the run now, boy. The fucking Jews all went abroad.
Now you have to go on the run with Ukrainians.
But Ukraine has fucking separated from us, soon there won't be an Ukrainian to keep you company when you escape from a Russian jail.
Should I emigrate to Ukraine, I ask myself?
SHAFT. We'll fucking emigrate to Paris, daddy – they say the Frenchies sitting in French jails are unspoiled.
Plenty of Jews there, too.
GLOBE. Like under Stalin, you can find Jews in any jail, even abroad.
Before the Revolution Jews had meat on them. Under Brezhnev they were foul.
Under Gorbachev the fucking Jews disappeared from the camps.
I'd have snuffed it without the Ukrainians.
SHAFT. Too right – I tasted a Jew under Brezhnev. Got food poisoning, nearly died.
Spent six months in fucking hospitals. I only go on the run with country boys now.
GLOBE. I like the Ukrainian bastards.
SHAFT. What if you get a Ukrainian from Chernobyl?
GLOBE. If I'm going on the run with a Ukrainian I fucking ask questions first.
SHAFT. Questions are like fags – they finish, disappear in a cloud of smoke.
Best to catch what you can, get my drift?
GLOBE. Catch what you can, matey.
SHAFT. A globe rotates a shaft, am I right?
GLOBE. You speak the truth, boy.
SHAFT. No need to speak the truth, better to wipe out the truth!
What you looking for?
GLOBE. Matches.
SHAFT. Matches. Snatches. Here's your matches. (Seizes a knife.) Here's shaft right under your skin, Globe, I'm hungry! (Gives Globe a fatal stab in the belly with his iron shaft.)
GLOBE. You bastard, fucking pickpocket!
Enjoy your meal, you bastard, fucking President! (Falls down dead.)
SHAFT. My belly wants to eat – that's all. (Cuts off Globe's head, splits it on the wagon roof, eats the brains.)
Fucking hell, tasty brains, no doubt about it. (Eats.)
Aaagh, shit! Shi-i-it!!! Fu-u-u-uck!!! (Clutches at his stomach.)
Fucking poisoned human brains in our Russian tsarist state, fucking cunt!
That's it, motherfucker, curtains. Here we are in Paris.
(Falls down dead.)
We're fine as we are.
Lion Novogonov


When Prince Hamlet said all of Denmark was a prison this dealt a blow to our national pride.
Even more hurtful, the insult is repeated every evening on the stages of theatres worldwide.
No laughing matter. Here is a question of principle. Every man should decide his allegiance: are you with Hamlet, or with Russia?
avec qui on est: avec Hamlet ou avec la Russie?
With Popov or Marconi? With Watt the Englishman, or our Russian brothers the Cherepanovs?
Did Radishchev, Chernyshevsky, Dostoevsky, Lenin, Stalin, Korolyov and Solzhenitsyn (the list is endless) serve their sentences in vain, was it for nothing our greatest poets Pushkin and Brodsky went into internal exile if some Danish prince dared to challenge Russia's priority as a jailer?!
Empty words Mr Hamlet, our President would say.
He has a propensity for prison jargon and maybe this is no coincidence.
Let us turn aside from the President and speak of a far more humble but no less
interesting figure. The dramatist Mikhail Volokhov, and his new play Paris Bound, staged by Mikhail Salov and performed by Salov and Dmitri Petukhov.
Who do you think are the main, to all intents and purposes the only, heroes of this play? Three guesses. You got it: convicts. The prize is yours.
Some of you may say: 'So what... The artistic imagination – his choice is dictated by flight of imagination.'
To that I say: here is no fancy or flight of imagination, but a conscious act of great civic significance.
Our reply to Hamlet! A jab in Mr Shakespeare's soft rump.
The plot of this play centres around two convicts, two Russian Hamlets fleeing to Paris on the roof of a goods wagon.
Being Hamlets, they start philosophising.
Philosophising in the first language of this science of sciences – in the language of poetry, thickly spiked with the vilest obscenities, very much in the spirit of our times: nowadays emotions that tear the human soul apart are intense as the mysterious obscurity of surrounding reality, words simply fail us.
Escape to Paris is another Russian theme from way back.
Whether we escape from the drudgery of lessons at school or repeated nagging from the wife, the place we flee to is always a Paris of one kind or another – the squalid Paris of Moscow casinos, the hallucinogenic Paris of substance abusers or a tourist paradise – we save our pennies for a week's trip to the capital of the average-income Russian bourgeois. But Paris always remains Paris because it is essentially unobtainable. Otherwise what is Paris?
Jail isn't jail if you can escape from it.
It has nothing to do with impenetrable bars and vigilant guards. We take it with us wherever we go, the way a snail carries its shell.
Even if the prison gates are ajar for some conditional historical period, the majority of our citizens never think of escaping.
It's logical – there's no point in escaping if you return there anyway.
 
Pushkin's image of 'a slave worn out long ago but dreaming of escape' is no more than a figure of speech.
All our discussions, all our words are merely idle chatter.
Time to bring this discourse to an end. Another ration of macaroni is being doled out here in prison.


We're fine as we are. The audience laughs so hard the chandeliers come down.


Regards to Mr Khodorkovsky!
9)


 Mikhail Volokhov



LESBIANS ROARING LIKE A TSUNAMI


a love saga


Ellie

Camie


The present day


Lonely island in the Pacific Ocean.
The lounge of a vast, expensive villa. Numerous pictures with portraits of Ellie by Camie on the stage. Ellie is seen against various backgrounds – the ocean, palm trees, sandy beaches, but mostly in front of huge Pacific breakers. One picture is veiled with a white cloth.
We hear birdsong, the chirr of cicadas. The distant sound of ocean waves.


Scene 1

Ellie.
The stony knowledge of Love
And no rain falls on parched souls. Spitting fire in human ashes,
The bloody ocean rages without dry land.

Knowledge of the Truth, that happiness Cannot encircle declarations of love.
Crashing waves – sighs and moans, As bodies entered one on one.

Ellie and Camie (together). For the continuity of moments,
Delectations of God on your face, Linking temporality and the downfall Of empty man in his nakedness.
 

Camie. You enchant me with your poignant verses, my Amazon.

Ellie (pulling a hair from her head). An Amazon's hair is the blade of a shiny razor. It can pierce like a knitting needle, like a spear, an arrow and… resurrect… in Atlantis.

Camie. I can hear your tongue in this world, touch it with my own – and more – we have no need of Atlantis. And we can pull arrows from our bodies, as the
Buddha has taught us all.

Ellie. To banish evil spirits – as self-protection. My salvation. Camie, the
palm-tree shadow has covered with a trembling, quivering kiss the snow-white
lacquered claws on your toes, and in the magic magnetic field the shadow of the spinning world rises ever higher, higher, higher, bringing its cool gift. And if,
Amazon, you remain so proudly, imperiously and austerely motionless – passionately, heatedly seizing with your swanlike balletic hands my tousled head silvery with dried oceanic salt, then I, I… can enter your fairytale, naked, icy, fragrant, incorruptibly infantile cunt – your sweetly inspiring cunt – with my yearning hot little tongue and rouse there a sleeping volcano. Through all your fibers both spiritual and corporeal the magma of invigorating passion begins to seethe and froth, and lightning strikes through all the languishing fibers of my body and soul… And tsunami, tsunami, tsunami, it no longer holds back and foams, foams, foams in a tsunami of living water and covers, covers, covers us with its universal power – the Tsunami of Nirvana's revivifying all-destructive might.

Camie. And so with eyes shut we shall see clearly, we have come to a land
where the stars are united in an unbroken circle of dancing happiness (crosses her leg). How magical, delightful, tragic. I need nothing more in this life. Just lying here, lying blissfully – you make me go on living.

Ellie. You crossed your leg enchantingly. Did it make you come, my lovely goddess?

Camie. When your murmuring little tongue pokes under my clitoris and tenderly caresses me, what else could I do but come? All I need to come is for a hair to touch my tousled maidenly cunt slit. I cross my leg, my sorceress soulmate, to stir the little hairs down there.

Ellie. Go on talking, go on – I tragically want to come too, my sweet – your heavenly words can make me come, Ellie, my treasure.

Camie. And when I cross my leg the right lip of my tousled tsaritsa delicately rubs the left lip of my moist cunt, and between them my clit divinely rubs together
and thrills, thrills so poetically. And it all seems to happen so quickly, so momentarily – one leg thrown over the other in a second in space, but body and soul shudder in a precipitate explosion that reaches deep into every root and fiber, and you desire it again, and again I cross my leg in front of you, pavonine and picturesque, my goddess and conqueress of the world!!!

Ellie. And you are mine, mine, mine!!! (They cross their legs facing another.) My love, my cosmic Camie!

Camie. To hell with everything. Ellie, my love, you are my astral love, Ellie!

Ellie. And you are mine, my terrestrial heat!!!


Scene 2

Camie. There's no wind to turn the propeller on the roof. I don't want to paint pictures. Nor do I want to start the gas-fired dynamo. Too noisy. And it stinks of petrol. In this weather the petrol could explode, and we've had it.

Ellie. What wouldn't explode in heat like this?

Camie. Anything could. Even brains.

Ellie. Brains more than anything. Thank God the helicopter with ice from the mainland will be here in an hour. I adore that helicopter with ice from the mainland. For three hundred bucks… But won't we be ruined at that rate?

Camie. Ruined with twenty million bucks each in accounts all over the world? Especially now we've bought Le-Le, our magical Pacific Ocean island, thanks to God and male dicks – all of it, innards and all. And our life on this little ocean
Nirvana costs no more than five thousands bucks a month. It would take a lot of effort to go bust.

Ellie. The doctor knows the entire history of the disease – our own private doctor Gogo on the helicopter! He'll lower the rope from the helicopter. With bananas.
More and more bananas like cocks. (They caress one another.) You're painting another picture of me!

Camie. I love you, not the bananas. (Kisses Ellie.)

Ellie. Nothing but my portraits all over the house – portraits, portraits everywhere. I'm like Alice Through the Looking Glass. I'm drowning in your love
for me, our lives together reflected millions of times over. How much would we get if we sell a portrait?

Camie. We won't ever sell a single portrait of you to anyone. Relax. We're in Eden, resting from life's difficulties in the Promised Land. We've got everything we need. All the necessary protein and vitamins. We're condemned to love one another here in paradise for the rest of our lives, without schizoid urban male construction workers.

Ellie. What if we fall out of love?

Camie. How can we fall out of love if we love one another so deeply, more and more each day? Nobody can come between us here with their lying hypocritical advice, their male aromas and feelings.

Ellie. Even that pilot guy doesn't always land his helicopter on our island, he lowers the rope like a cock with whatever we need, from his private transcontinental plane.

Camie. Here in the Pacific Ocean it's cheaper for the company to employ one Russian first-aid helicopter guy who speaks English, what's more they can pay
him four times less. Gogo greased their palms. To be up there above us! (Strokes Ellie.) Cheaper if he gets killed.

Ellie. You're so quick at understanding foreign financial affairs and banking.

Camie. You wouldn't be able to fathom foreign finances – you'd die of hunger in the market back home. In no time. Here we come and come, but if our foreign finances finish we won't be able to give one another orgasms, even back home. And our Nirvana will be split apart like a hymen. You understand, my sweet?

Ellie. But we've got millions in our banks!

Camie. If we get desperate I can always draw portraits on the Arbat. The face of some cute little girl who takes our fancy.

Ellie. For a few measly kopecks on the Arbat?

Camie. You're jealous? Gogo will drive us to utter destitution! On Le-Le island the sun is free, the beach is free. Tragic love is free. But at the same time our
love is priceless compared to our vulgar, murderous millions.

Ellie. Let's go on a bohemian cruise and frivolously spend all those disgusting, vulgar, murderous but not priceless millions. So we don't have to think or talk about them ever again.
 
Camie. So that someone could snatch me away from you on that bohemian cruise? And snatch you away from me? We couldn't endure that!

Ellie. But maybe we could gamble at the onboard casino. Maybe we could win a few decent coins at roulette. In casinos the money isn't vulgar and slippery.
Casino money is very risky, jingly, hippy-go-lucky, your very own.

Camie. Nobody who's fortunate in love also won jingly, risky, hippy-go-lucky money at roulette. We mustn't excite divine vengeance, Ellie. God gives you four per cent of twenty million dollars – that's eight hundred thousand bucks a year
without lifting a finger, just making sweet love with your beloved. But you prefer to shoot yourself in the foot, in the most banal, bloody, vulgar and cheap way possible, by going off on some obscure, madcap, low-class cruise, where someone could simply snatch me away from you – some half-baked banal
good-looking cruise-ship slut will use me and dump me. And you'd watch all this with eyes wide open, maybe to begin will there'll be a pleased, contented, vulgar glint in those eyes of yours, because at the same time you'll be seduced by another uber-young, fashionista nymph with her own geriatric, absolutely leprous inner world, she'll screw you and leave you. And maybe the useless hussy will turn out to have AIDS too. Or the bitch will have some kind of hepatitis that's like lingering AIDS. What would you do then – infect me? We'd grow to hate one another, pussycat, left together with AIDS, the way sex-maniac fuckwits die from their careless tawdry betrayals. You need to use your head while you're still healthy. Of course, I wouldn't abandon you afterwards, even if you were sick.
Hope you'd do the same for me. But why commit such paranoid foolish acts
when you can get your kicks peacefully and happily without all that. Just think, a bird of passage like me has fallen in love with you.

Ellie. Hush, hush – I crossed my legs, I'm gonna come, right now. Hush, hush – I came. A-a-ah!!! See, you began twittering away about someone seducing me – well, I came right away, all the more because I crossed my legs, remembering our transsexual private doctor Gogo. How that animal turns purple, fucking in his cowboy hat with a cigarette between his teeth as he stares in the mirror, right hand with a gun on the small of your back as you bend in front of him and the aggressor's left hand on the small of his back. And standing up! Standing!!
Standing!!! The bastard screws us two doggies in front of the mirror, straight up the ass!!! I gaze and gaze at you. And you've already killed Gogo and you alone love me, your darling. Who could seduce me apart from you, whatever are you thinking? I'm seduced forever by your talent and even genius – I'm your golden muse. And I myself want to seduce and seduce you too, seduce you with my poetry.

Camie. Aah, I came too! Just from the vibration of your voice. When you begin talking of love I come just from the vibration of your voice. From the passion
when you try yet again to prove you really are head over heels in love with me, you love me madly despite our private doctor who really does fuck like a thousand pricks. But naturally I believe you love me madly, all the more because with you I'm so na;ve, of course your frivolous darling will never go off on some bohemian cruise. You can go – please do. I'll be here alone on our Le-Le island, hoping that nobody will seduce you on that bohemian cruise-ship with vulgar roulette. Although in that casino you'll lose in the most total, laid-bare, vulgar and primitive way possible. Guaranteed. If you really love me – if you can, of course, abandon me, your beloved, to the fates so lightheartedly and so easily – then go ahead, please. In that case you can get stuffed, all alone.

Your mermaid love
Scorches stone, breaks down walls, And turns tears into blood,
But kingdoms fly the flag of Earth – Betrayal!

You cannot resist Betrayal
With all your underwater love.
The Earth stands level with Betrayal On the heights of the Underwater cliffs.

And you will sob and weep, Killing youths with love.
As the waves beat with shrapnel drops Your love will pierce the swimmers,

Who, casting themselves from cliffs Into your ocean of endless passion,
Risk finding your deep mermaid love…
Only their skulls will be found at the bottom of the Earth – Betrayal… Your poem, my sorceress.
Ellie. I'm not going anywhere, what are you thinking. I'll never leave you or be unfaithful to you! How could you. I love you. How could you. It's so good with just the two of us, Camie!!!

Camie.
We are like soft metal,
Our alloy is a mighty citadel. You said that we
Can live like this forever.

Ellie.
I said that the poet
Wants to find a bullet. You said – believe me,
I will be that bullet's companion.

Camie.
I fly faster,
My thoughts cut steel. If you wish, I can kill You myself, you wretch!

Ellie.
I said I love
Your honesty like a thief. Like a killer of killers…
And I will accept the sentence.

You said – wait.
You hear – music – sing.
We two bullets are with you… One is not enough for the heart…

Camie. We don't need anyone else here!!! No doctor.

Ellie. Shall we undress, get into bed?

Camie. Yes of course, let's – about time, it's already afternoon. Can't wait. (They caress one another.)

Scene 3

Ellie. Let's part our legs and our adoring cunts will cling together like two segments of cherry without a stone.

Camie. You're my cherry without a stone, Ellichka. Of course you are!

Ellie. Does it feel good?

Camie. Blissfully good. Just awesome. Nothing more fragrant in the whole world than your vitamin-rich cherry cunt.

Ellie. And for me, too, there's nothing more heavenly and delicious in the whole wide world than your cherry cunt. I'm coming, it's so fucking delicious.
 
Camie. I'm coming, it's so fucking sweet.

Ellie. I love you so much, Camiushka. Don't need anyone apart from you, Camie.

Camie. And I love you lots, Ellie. Don't need anyone in the world apart from you, Ellie. This is magic. Such a sweet cherry taste in my mouth.

Ellie
You didn't know reality Your soul sang a tornado
And you boldly untwined your plaits And your body turned into wings.

I'm flying. I'm flying weightless above our cherry- and palm-tree island. And you fly beside me, caressing me. Paint a picture of us as two stoneless cherries in
love, flying above our cherry and palm island.

Camie. Certainly I will. But I want to fly through life without casting a shadow. Oh, I've no strength left, but I want to fly and come, fly and come, come as I fly. Forever. And from somewhere my strength returns. But I'm so tired, so tired, so tired. Weightless bliss is so exhausting. But so enchanting. Who could have known this weightless bliss could be so exhausting, and at the same time enchanting. Who could have known. But that pilot doctor will come to a bad end, I can tell you. Even if he cut himself a cunt – wanted to be like us.
Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!

Ellie. Oh, then we'll be totally free to fly despite the exhausting battering winds, all the storms and inclement weather – we'll fly, fly and fly – proudly, joyfully blissful. I'm tired too, so tired, so very tired. But I love you more and more, love you and love you. Don't worry, Camiushka, Gogo our pilot doctor will fly here soon, he'll come zooming along with something very fucking tasty as well as the ice, that fucking banana prankster with his amazing cock.

Camie. The main thing is, he must get out of his helicopter. And before he gets out his gun with his experienced cock and undresses us… He never gets out his gun and his experienced cock before he undresses us. That's where men are
weak, Ellie. The impotence of a cheap male brain.

Ellie. I want to come and come and come, in blissful happiness, but only with you. Orgasm is a wonderful thing. Salvation. Proof of love. Love itself. Only this can give new strength to stay alive and poetically in love.

Camie. When I come with you, you are part of the whole universe, all the stars, all the galaxies, all the Milky Ways. With your euphoric force bursting with love you drive away all the ill-starred asteroids that might crash to Earth and hinder
you from accomplishing blissful union, the multiplication of Love without end. I have this feeling of worldwide universal joy that is important not just for me. You drive me crazy, Ellichka, drive me crazy. And you twirl, twirl all the good and dreamy lovestruck stars into a festive celestial round-dancing vortex. I'm swept off my feet. But you drive my soul wild and I need nothing more than you, you driving me insane with your cherry cunt, your incomparable florescent soul and your very being. It's only three in the afternoon and I've already come thirty-three times since sunny morning.

Ellie. Me too, I've already come thirty-three times since sunny morning. I wouldn't allow you to come more times than me, my darling Camiushka. Let's get up now or we'll be worn out – the whole bright day is ahead, and our helicopter pilot will soon be here.

Camie. Let's.

Ellie. We'll have to go outside and greet him in a very original way today. Greet our transsexual pariah, our first teacher, like never before!

Camie. Our last teacher! I'm coming right now – hush, hush – I'm coming.

Ellie. I'm coming.

Camie. Oh, that's so good.

Ellie. Wonderful, wonderful – so wonderful that it's just super-super – inconceivably wonderful.

Camie. Fucking fantastic. How can it be so good?

Ellie. Fate is smiling on us.

Camie. Shall I squeeze out a milky orange full of vitamins?

Ellie. O-o-oh! I'm thirsty, thirsty, thirsty!!! I would love you, boa constrictor, to squeeze me a milky orange full of vitamins.

Camie (squeezes an orange into Ellie's mouth and over her breasts). Here, my little one, catch the divine karma of a boa-constrictor milky orange.

Ellie. Divine. (Drinks)

(Sound of a huge wave breaking on the seashore.)
 
Scene 4

Ellie. Did you have a nice dream about Maxi screwing us with his clever male incantations?

Camie. No, my dreams of Maxi aren't nice at all. The bastard considered himself the mighty equal of great men, top champion in clever male talk, fucking everyone with his over-intellectualizing but righteous and tight-fisted super-safe banking struggle.

Ellie. If only they'd seen how his cock's articulated when in working order, how his fifty-year-old cock can fuck two fearless pedigree Amazon beauties for days, nights, weeks, months, years – all the mighty men in the banking world considered Maxi the most gigantic Cock of all clever moneyed mortals, not an Internet-hacker motherfucker.

Camie. Maxi Cock was also a doctor of various aeronautic and erotic sciences, honorable member of a multitude of elevated waffle-flying academies, expert in inflated dick airships – he produced voluminous dicks that flew through the air,
inflated with helium of course. That Maxi was a great flying bird of passage, a business dick that nobody could catch by the ass or fluttering balls – Maxi Cock the airship tamer was a success at everything, as if he was at the circus taming wild feline tigers.

Ellie. He even made us love him, that respectable hard-currency and
hetero-high-minded Maxi Cock loved us two stoneless cherry cunts, us chaste birdies, little panthers. (In the tone of a detective.) Everything Maxi Cock did turned out fine, flew like a waffle. Just consider. Eh? A cunning little guy with a serpentine cock in his brains from birth.

Camie. In between his orgasmic bonking sessions Maxi Cock made us grind our cunts together like emery boards in front of him. (Camie and Ellie begin making
love.) And red-haired Maxi Cock cunningly wanked with love for us. To begin with we only fondled one another for him to watch.

Ellie. Oh, we're lithe ladies – Olympic champions of artistic paired sexual gymnastics not averse to his pitiful requests to pay for our services – and we understood then that this erotically dynamic exercise would soon become our personal pleasure.

Camie. He fucked us off, that red-haired tight-fisted unshaven Maxi Cock, so one day we had this brilliant idea. But the too-clever computer motherfucker never suspected we could ignore him with our shortsighted female brains.
 
Ellie. Especially since Gogo, his private doctor, first had the idea and told us what to do. An unusual kind of traitor. But now that bastard Gogo's the lecher instead of Maxi.

Camie. What difference, for fuck's sake?

Ellie (lasciviously). The difference is, it can't be done immediately! (Kisses Camie.)

Camie. It's pleasant for men not to come immediately. And generally speaking, not to come for money – Maxi paid us, I admit, it was fashionable for him to finance our depraved disgusting love by opening accounts for us.

Ellie. He even proposed to you. Wanted you to have his kid. Isn't that true, Camiushka?
(Pinches Cami's nipples.)
In the end I couldn't bear Owl Face's aesthetic ties and shoelaces any more. Felt as if the bastard would strangle me with them. Felt like he had hissing cobras in his shoes instead of laces. As for the tie – just like a cobra ready to pounce on my face.

Camie. All my life I've felt they could strangle me any minute with their male cobra condom, and kaput. With men it's one condom after the other, so we don't get pregnant from their cobra phallus. You and I can play around without condoms, all pure and magical, without their poisonous male cobra sperm. The phallic sperm lies deep in their subconscious, comes with their mother's milk.
Just imagine my sleepless nights imagining how you'd be strangled with a rubber, as if you were responsible for their joyless rubber-johnny fucking. Imagining how this guy stretches the condom like a rope and approaches from behind; you're hypnotized, presenting your naked ass to his cobra cock. And instead of fucking you normally he winds this elongated cobra condom round your neck and chokes you as vengeance for his fucking rubber – it takes the fun out of screwing and always bursts at the worst moment. And what use is the fucking rubber then?

Ellie. Nobody should be choked to death at gunpoint with a naked ass out of vengeance for a goddamn rubber – that's just too appalling.

Camie. What else can the impotent phalluses do, especially when they can't get an erection any more, even without a rubber. They can only fuck you once for a bit and get their snaky satisfaction. And that's not enough for them, either, but they can't get it up any more, certainly not after three or however many bonks the guy's natural potency allows. They feel with that phallic male cobra deep inside them that it's not enough for us girls, pussycat lionesses, for our pubic mound,
we need a lot of sweet girlish oohing and aahing to come. Not every guy will invite a friend with an athletic dick over, some Olympic lion with a meter-long
peter to help finish fucking his girl. They're mean about letting others use their own personal cunt for free. Private property. When they buy a cunt they won't share it with anybody. But the Lord said we should share and share alike. So all these impotent useless phalluses can do to get their kicks is voluptuously
half-choke their girls in a form of fatal-anal-canal revenge.

Ellie. They're not capable of anything more. True love is not for men.

Camie. Then we killed them with the poison of maidens' cobras!!! Our own!!!
Ecologically!!! So we could love one another in peace, understanding
instinctively, with a whisper, for nights and days at a time. So we could only hear the birds, the sound of the sea.

Ellie. So you have two phallic cobras here on the island? And you catch them by hand from time to time, to drop their poison in a jar.

Camie. When Maxi and Owl Face fell asleep we put sex-shop handcuffs on them and covered their mouths with tape so they couldn't fucking shout. We bound their legs with tape, too. Then you injected Maxi's hand and Owl Face's
leg twice with a syringe of your own phallic cobra poison, two punctures each at a distance of three centimeters, as if from a cobra's fangs. Those male rapists had to die from the clever spectacled phallic cobra bites. That's our Olympic hymn.

Ellie. So you were nothing to do with it – those male werewolves were bitten by cobras, those highly dangerous naturally deadly snakes? Gogo the private doctor flew in on his helicopter? Signed the death certificate – fatal poisoning?

Camie. He made friends with us, a triangle. Became a transsexual to feel spiritually closer. But he fucks with his goddamn pistol, and even though he cut himself a cunt his prick stands up!!! The fucking racketeer took shares with us so he could take full control. If we can get rid of the transsexual pilot doctor our life together would unfold like a magical fairytale romance, nirvana.

Ellie. I trust you, Camie. I can't do otherwise. I trust you alone, the entire universe lies in this hand, this palm.
The eye cannot see through the spider's web of light All the passing days we call reality –
As the hands of the clock march on we lose everything, The pearls of birth, objects in Eternity.

Camie.
And Gravitation attracts all the sap
Of heavens and stars and springs and Homelands, The beat of the heart ennobles with love's suffering,
War cannot bear regret.

Ellie.
As the doubts of Aphrodite awaken,
And Audacity – cloudy Uranus – falls asleep, sated From eating hermaphrodite words all the day long, While the soul sings an accented cancan in its sleep.

Camie.
And hating the center of all movement, The dictator of lying laws and powers,
The thoughts whispered, writhing in passion:
'With freedom you can excise your doubts!!!'

Ellie.
Which gnaw like worms into the coffin panel To consume your Death –
A gift to the soul – Tomb of the Humpback of God – Death given to the soul for eternity.

Camie.
To rise up vertically to the acquisitive Plus,
Of Christ who was killed-signified by the Cross. But the minus-exhalation of the crossbar comes To calm the thoughts of the human choir.
I too trust you alone, Ellie. On lonely Le-Le island here in the Pacific Ocean it's impossible to trust anyone else.

Ellie. What about the little birds, the spiders and cicadas?

Camie. I can trust the little birds, the spiders and cicadas as much as I trust you. I hope you trust me too.

Ellie. Of course, my sunny golden miracle!!! Divinely incomprehensible. I throw everything at your feet
And embrace you like a flame. You will warm yourself my dear, But I will burn into eternal ashes.
I love you for your sinuous movements. What do you love me for?

Camie. For the same reason. (Takes Ellie's hand, guides it down her own panties.) There, there – yes – I'm coming, my darling sinuous Elite-ochka.
 
Ellie. I can just look at you and come. Just seeing your lashes flutter I imagine my clitoris floundering between those fluffy lashes – I get a wonderful orgasm immediately.

Camie. And I imagine your breath entering my cunt and my cunt begins to breathe too, and swell from your breathing. Begins to sing and twirl, excited and dancing from your breath. And I – fuck – come all over again.

Ellie.
To overturn love and life
And cease to see the face of death, And from the center of the sun scoop A drink of icy water

Camie.
Set love and life aflame in the night And leave the day for rest,
So the powerful sunbeams Scorch my head till it hurts

Ellie.
With our eyes we let the soul inhale, With our hands try to exhale,
And clear a path with dreams Where the stars sob with joy

Camie.
And dissolve into birdsong, Fall like a snowflake on flame And with velvet words
Cut yourself endlessly apart

Ellie.
And dispersing what strength was left And locking time in the mist
The soul desperately prayed To fly back without the body.


Scene 5

Camie. I came!!!

Ellie. Me too!!!
 
Camie. Want me to squeeze some orange juice?

Ellie. Squeeze! Squeeze!! Squeeze!!!

Camie (squeezing an orange over her). Here, take the vitamins and you get pressed milk.

Ellie. The elixir of life. A young girl took Bunin's wife from him, you know.

Camie. Very right too – a completely feminine girl.

Ellie. But all men get upset. They say lesbianism is such a problem in the world today, that it's life-destroying and worse than drug addiction.

Camie. Well of course, if they can't get any pleasure out of it.

Ellie. But these men are not girls.

Camie. Who are these men – you tell me – who are these guys with bristling penises? Egoists – they only think of their own cock. When they've got it up we don't give the come-on. By the time we say yes their cock isn't hard any more. All male problems, in their life, philosophy and their place in the cosmos, originate from that alone. What can they understand about the love of one lovely girl for another heavenly girl, girls that always get excited about what matters and are always ready for one another at the first request, ready to give all their priceless treasures to one another, every second ready for a celestial cosmic orgasm.

Ellie. They see it like this – a great man like Ivan Bunin had his muse stolen by some marginal squinting slut, the muse to whom that great Russian writer had given everything – all his great works, his money, his life and love, his occasionally erect cock, you understand what I'm saying.

Camie. Oh, of course those men know how to defend their ballsy phallic elitist ego. Couldn't those men give their lady love a pure fragrant maidenly muff if at some very critical tragic moment in her life she needed one, instead of a salty old walrus cock like a cucumber but warm, with a temperature of 36.6 degrees?
Enough to make you puke.

Ellie. But you can't put his literary dick in the icebox.

Camie. They'll soon be sticking their dicks in the icebox, those guys, just you wait. I reckon Ivan Bunin stuck his dick in the icebox when his wife made her
ultimatum – either stick your dick in the icebox, Ivan Alexeyevich, and then ram it in my gob behind my teeth in a frozen state, or, even simpler – go fuck yourself, great ;migr; Russian writer, with your own hot dick, and I'll go away and love my
little damsel with her fresh cold coochie. There lies the honest truth, the only true thing in this world, Ivan Alexeyevich Bunin, great Russian writer. You never thought of that before, did you?

Ellie. To be fair, in his impotently outstanding stories all the heroines tell the impotent heroes to go fuck themselves.

Camie. Only they all go to join a nunnery. In fact they went to join another cunt and not a nunnery. What fucking nunnery can compare with the joys of a cunt not-made-by-human-hands, for fuck's sake? So life set Bunin straight, taught him a lesson, where the plain truth lies. While in his stories wonderful girls go off to a nunnery. And that's not true at all. The girls only went off to a nunnery for other girls. And God came to their assistance there.

Ellie. Bunin could have cut himself a slit between his balls, when all is said and done, if his muse wanted to sleep with a cunt. That Gogo's a resourceful little bastard! (They kiss.) But I don't think they operated on transsexual guys back then.

Camie. Otherwise Bunin would have been the first transsexual. They say Bunin was a genius. Well, why didn't it occur to him to cut a slit between his balls and hey presto, the great Bunin would've been the first great transsexual with a Nobel prize. His muse would never have left, and he might have lived way past
eighty-three years.

Ellie. Well, it turns out Bunin wasn't quite such a genius, he didn't fucking understand the world around him if he couldn't see that it was entirely natural and elementary to become a transsexual with a cunt, if he wanted to keep his muse cunt.

Camie. When their cock gets hard it means they've got feelings – the muse has come to them. An erect cock is the ultimate muse those fucking self-seeking cunt-chasers ever have, that's for sure, so strike me dead.


Scene 6

Ellie. I still don't understand – how do their cocks stand up, anyway?

Camie. Yeah, no bones, nothing but veins and blood with only skin to cover it, how does all that gear stick up so interestingly and despite everything, in Maxi's case?

Ellie. When Maxi got an erection his dick was hard as stone, like an iron crowbar.
 
Camie. You could crack asphalt with dicks like Maxi's!!!

Ellie. And Gogo-Magog's fucking cock?

Camie. Shit, Gog-Magog's fucking cock like an anaconda, the Tower of Babylon. Fucking with the Tower of Babylon. (They caress one another.)

Ellie. A clitoris is something else altogether. (They caress one another.)

Camie. A clitoris is perfection. Self-sufficient, no need for an erection as a declaration of love. (They caress one another.)

Ellie. I want to touch you. (They caress one another.)

Camie. Did you come?

Ellie. Oh, yes!

Camie. Now I'm coming!

Ellie. You're an absolute miracle – you never stop coming.

Camie. And you're my super heavenly invigorating orgasmic miracle.

Ellie. I am. In the last few weeks with Owl Face I pretended to myself I was living with a girl. Any other way would've been impossible – I'd have gone mad.

Camie. Yeah, you can live with those pricks for a while if you imagine they're girls, makes it less nauseating.

Ellie. I shaved his entire body smooth as silk and gave him a good scrub in the bath, then I licked and licked and licked as if I was licking a girl. He moaned like a girl, too. Taught the windbag how to love girls.

Camie. I got into the birch tree position with Maxi, parted my legs…

Ellie. Like for anal sex?
(They slip their hands into one another's panties.)

Camie. Almost. Only instead of him sticking his cock up my bum we agreed he would slip his balls in my cunt, take hold of his cock and wank. I can tell you, his balls began such a fucking amazing cancan in my cunt, I tell you, just the memory of it turns me on – I can come right now just remembering, but only if you stroke my pussy. A-a-a-a-a-ah!!! I came.
 
Ellie. I came too, simply from the vibrations in the ether, simply from hearing your story and of course from your finger under my clit. And I can see how your tongue dances a bewitching cancan inside your little mouth, imagine my clitoris
inside your mouth fluttering against your palate, fluttering hard like a fly's wings when you hold its legs.

Camie. What a delicious fantasy. But the last time with Maxi the First I got so excited that I grabbed a razor. Not like the one you probably used to shave Owl Face, but an open razor – Maxi's personal razor he loved for shaving and never cut himself with – I just picked it up and cut off his beloved balls with his own beloved razor.

Ellie. What an enterprising, original girl you are.

Camie. Naturally. I'd left Maxi's razor ready, under the pillow. And just imagine, his severed balls actually stayed in my cunt but he and his prick withdrew with the other ball-less part of his body.

Ellie. Hope you didn't hurt yourself, by accident?

Camie. Oh no. I'd already smeared my cunt with Vaseline – I was prepared in advance.

Ellie. Clever girl. So what about him, I expect Maxi was a bit upset?

Camie. Well, after that the fun really began – a whole string of insults. He stares at me with goggle eyes and suddenly starts yelling – what have you done, cunt, what the fuck have you done, cunt, you've left me without balls at the age of fifty, left my dear fat half-century-old cock without any balls, you bitch, my genius of a cock, you ignorant cunt. What did you do that for, you squinty-eyed witch? That, word for word, is what he said, spraying me with saliva in an entire recitative of enraged exclamations.

Ellie. That wasn't very polite, was it, swearing and spitting at you?

Camie. And of course I'm toning down what that grunting gutbucket really said for your delicate female ears. What really happened is too awful to recall! He wanted to take the razor from me, his Amazon. But only so he could cut me up like graph paper, like Chinese torture. Well, I instinctively understood what hieroglyphs that would lead to. If I didn't finish him off he'd cover me with lines,
good and proper. So I slashed his belly and arms, right through the veins so the bastard didn't fucking grab me. Then the big fat pig started howling: call an ambulance, get an ambulance you bitch! Yells for his fucking doctor, Gogo, the fuckwit. Asks me to help bind his veins, the bastard. Says he can't do it himself. He was right, too. I slashed his tendons with the razor – hacked him to pieces,
cut up his tendons, for fuck's sake. Just here on the wrist I sliced into him with his razor, his beloved talisman. Several times I slashed and slashed the bastard's tendons! So his arms went limp. And I slashed the tendons in his fucking legs too. Otherwise he might have kicked me, could've killed me there and then, me, a mere girl. We were at war now, right enough. Fucking blitzkrieg. Whoever attacks first has the advantage. Those devils of the male species, those scumbags rape us girls using the same principle. Oh yes, my dear. I had to act quickly – swiftly
work out what to do, where to hack the old goat with his talisman, all the more since that razor of his had magic powers. Everything's easy when you know how. Well, when his arms and legs gave way – fuck, that was it, I could take a breather. Only then did I realize his balls were still in my cunt, they hadn't fucking dropped out. Imagine that. His balls were stuck in my cunt. They were probably shit scared that this broad was slicing up their owner, tendons, veins, buttocks,
who knows where next, the fucking balls were staying put in her cunt. What a laugh, for fuck's sake – his balls were stuck in the commander's cunt! (Laughs.)

Ellie. You're a right little Amazon, cut him up like a field marshal.

Camie. Too fucking right. Fucking awesome, my Olympian victory on that bed.

Ellie. I'm so happy for you. You performed a truly astonishing feat. You're a genius, and not only at painting pictures. So how did Maxi the First die, after losing all that blood?

Camie. Well, when he finally died it was a real picture – Impressionism without a doubt. Henri Matisse. Pure, red, dancing paints. That half-assed motherfucker stuck his dick where I slashed his wrists – where I cut the veins with his beloved magic talismanic razor. Either he was trying to stop the flow from the vein with his own dick, or else trying to jerk off on the vein, with the blood spurting out like a fountain in all directions and spattering the whole room – couldn't fucking make it out – Dali's Surreal double through-the-looking-glass picture, Alice, my darling
wonderful girl.

Ellie. You should have asked him what he wanted to do. Maybe the Surrealist artist in him had suddenly sprung to life.

Camie. I did, I asked him straight: what the fuck are you doing, Maxi the First, you miserable fucker? Are you jerking your cock off on that open vein, or trying to stop the blood flow from your vein, asshole, using a cock with severed balls?
Maybe you got blood-clotting sperm in that cock of yours? Or maybe you're using a cock instead of a brush and you're gonna paint us something for posterity?

Ellie. Well, what did he say?
 
Camie. Nothing, the motherfucker suddenly started crying for no reason, just because of my question. Shoved his cock with the severed balls in the wound
where two perpendicular veins were sticking out and spewing a fountain of blood. Although it was really one fucking vein the razor split in two.

Ellie. Yeah, I understand – of course. Well, go on.

Camie. Well well, go to hell. You understand the situation. Your guy is fucking jerking his cock with carved-off balls right in front of you, into a vein in his arm that the razor cut in two, down to the bone, and weeping bitter tears. And the wretched fucking tears stream into the wound where he's rubbing his cock, stream and stream.

Ellie. I bet it was stinging.

Camie. Well of course it was stinging. His whole ugly mug was lopsided in a grimace. Fuck, his whole mug went red, even without the whisky, and then these hands with cut veins are wiping and smearing the tears, what a fuckhead. Like a harlequin or Chinese circus painted a natural red color by Matisse.

Ellie. Well, with our guys clowning is a full-time profession.

Camie. You understand so well.

Ellie. So his cock with the chopped-off balls was hard and erect when he rubbed it in the wound?

Camie. Amazing, just imagine – it was still hard and erect. Five minutes passed. Exactly five – I looked at my watch – five minutes passed and his cock with the chopped-off balls remained standing, as the blood flowed from his veins and spattered all over.

Ellie. A real stud, your Maxi the First.

Camie. A jackhammer. Darling, what an experience that was.

Ellie. Amazing. I'm gonna come right now.

Camie. I get so overexcited remembering, I probably came about ten times just telling you.

Ellie. Yes, me too, ten times at least.

Camie. I can feel it. I'm trying to tell you everything straight. No point in lying. If I did you wouldn't understand.
 

Ellie. My martyr par excellence.

Camie. Being a great martyr is no fun at all.

Ellie. Don't let it get you down, darling. That's what makes women great.

Camie. I don't let it get to me – that's why I'm happy with you now.

Ellie. And so am I. Well, how did Maxi the First finally croak?

Camie. He jerked his cock against the lacerated vein for another five minutes or so, like I already said. In all he was wanking about ten minutes. Then Maxi starts breathing funny, fitfully and spasmodically, and he falls over backwards, jerks apoplectically and goes silent, staring up at some indeterminate point on the ceiling, even had a smile on his face, can you imagine.

Ellie. Like in the movies. Super.

Camie. I says to him: Maxi, forgive me. Said it real sincere, like: Maxi, forgive me.

Ellie. You did a good thing. So what did he do?

Camie. I forgive you, he whispers. I forgive you, scarcely audible it was.

Ellie. Like a movie. Super. And did his eyes stay open?

Camie. His eyes stayed open, really wide open.

Ellie. Like a movie. Super. And his eyes were smiling at you?

Camie. His eyes smiled back at me in farewell, Ellichka. Every single cell in his dying body smiled at me in farewell, Ellichka, every fiber of Maxi's departing soul. (Weeps.)

(Sound of a giant wave breaking on the shore.)

Ellie. Don't cry. Why are you crying, Camiushka? I really envy you.

Camie. There's good reason. Ellie. I'm just happy for you. Camie. I'm glad.
 

Ellie. And what was Doctor Gogo's reaction? You asked Gogo to help saw up the corpse, boil and dispose of it.

Camie. That bastard Gogo laid me on Maxi's corpse and screwed me so hard on top of Maxi I was fucked out of my mind. Forgot all the satisfaction I got from Maxi snuffing it. Gogo fucked me like an anaconda, gun at the ready. After that sawing up Maxi, boiling and disposing of him were like child's play.

Ellie. Gogo's a top-notch doctor – trained in a concentration camp. Remember me telling you how Owl Face the First smiled at me before he too stopped breathing?

Camie. Remind me. Please. I like to reminisce. I'll squeeze you some orange milk juice.

Ellie. Squeeze, squeeze it for me, like a serpent, squeeze that vitamin-rich yogurt.

Camie. Here you are. I like looking after you. (Squeezes an orange over Ellie.)

Ellie. You make magical orange milk juice.

Camie. I'm a good serpent. Tell me about Owl Face the First, then. (Squeezes the orange over herself.)

Ellie. Well, it was evening, there was nothing much to do and I really needed sexual intimacy, the biorhythms were kicking in as usual.

Camie. The Lord charged us with all these delightful endocrine torments of the flesh for the good of the soul. (They caress one another.)

Ellie. Well, Owl Face lay down as usual on the bed. We did the sandwich routine a couple of times. He came all over my face and smeared it round, came and smeared, came, the bastard, and smeared his personal sperm sandwich, the bastard. (They caress one another.)

Camie. The hooligan, bastard, Gulliver.

Ellie. He couldn't come any other way, only on my face.

Camie. He had a good upbringing.

Ellie. Yeah, he had sexually intellectually educated blood in him. Got his master's degree when he was twenty-four.
 
Camie. Clever little bastard.

Ellie. He was very bright even as a child, a good lad. Well, I dreamed of becoming a professor. And darling, he was a great theatergoer, so bohemian – he'd seen every play in Moscow. He got me interested in it, too. Oh yes. We started going to Stein's plays. Watched his beloved Hamlet several times. Yes, really. Stein's Hamlet made him come. Yes, really. I was simply knocked out by Stein, I mean knocked out that Hamlet made Owl Face come. Owl Face's pants were all covered in sperm after Stein's Hamlet. And those were expensive pants. You can't wash them. I had to take them to the drycleaner's. Yes, really. And there's this same assistant every time. I took her four different pairs of expensive Versace pants all covered in Owl Face's sperm after watching Stein. Each time she stared at me with these burning X-ray eyes. I couldn't really tell her my Owl Face the First keeps coming every time he watches Stein's Hamlet, all over his expensive Versace pants. Although there was nothing at all in Stein's impotent
Hamlet play to make anyone come. I can tell you everything – I know you'll understand.

Camie. Of course I understand – I really do understand – your Owl Face the First keeps on coming for no apparent reason at Stein's Hamlet, like a typical fuckwit snotty-nosed male – from who knows what theatrical impotent bullshit brainy crap.

Ellie. More than enough dicks were there, you know. Whatever you say, there were more than enough dicks in that Hamlet Stein play. They were running and leaping about all over the stage, blowing on the saxophone like fucking Clinton, wriggling like worms on a frying pan – all out searching for whoever killed the father Freudian-style, and meanwhile they snuff the girl, Ophelia, in the brook,
she's up to her maidenly, chaste, guileless neck in water. You know what, here on this island in the Pacific Ocean you can completely forget your Russian.

Camie. You won't forget with me here.

Ellie. I'm coming.

Camie. I'm coming next, right after you.

Ellie. Anyway. To cut a long story short, Owl Face the First was such a comer, whether he got off on Hamlet or that deadwood theatrical Stein, the motherfucker, such a sensitive little bohemian flower with a dick, whatever living thing he looked at he came. I just couldn't watch him snuff out the rest of his fuckwit life with that dick on my bed. You understand me?

Camie. Only too well.
 
Ellie. So – it all happened like clockwork after that. As always, after the second sperm 'sandwich' smeared all over my face I absolutely voluntarily tied up his four extremities to the four corners of the bed with a few lengths of strong nylon rope. Sure thing. Then I pulled a hair from my head and told Owl Face the First in no uncertain terms that I was going to kill him with one hair from my own head, playing out my revenge for Ophelia, poor girl-child, after what that bullshitting
Hamlet did to her. And I asked him straight out – will you, Hamlet, allow me, you bullshitter, to kill you with one hair, as female revenge for that poor girl-child Ophelia? He answered straight out – of course I, two-sided bisexual bullshitting Hamlet, will allow you female vengeance for that poor girl-child Ophelia. He answered charmingly, aesthetically and good-naturedly. Of course, he says. You can imagine – you saw what he was like. And he smiled. He was well satisfied by
then, the bastard had fucked his fill – twice he'd spurted and smeared that amoral sandwich sperm all over his girl-child's face – he was all glowing and
bushy-tailed.

Camie. Such an intelligent amoral professorial scholarly ten-out-of-ten-type dickhead – the lecher didn't need much to keep him happy.

Ellie. Too true. And you know how I snuffed him with one single hair?

Camie. Of course I don't know – tell me.

Ellie. My hair was thirty centimeters long. Same as now.

Camie. Lovely hair – so magnetic, caressing. (Draws one of Ellie's hairs across her own neck.) Erotic.

Ellie. Just what I was saying. Then right away I sank my front teeth into the skin above his carotid artery. That part of the neck – as you know – is a very erogenous zone.

Camie. We always kiss one another there.

Ellie. Well then. By this time Owl Face and I were in no mood for kisses. He started yelling: why are you biting me, what are you biting me for, you vampire
witch – we agreed you were going to snuff me with a hair, not like a werewolf with teeth. I told him straight: my dear, I have no intention of finishing you off with my teeth – I'm just preparing the ground, nipping the skin so it won't hurt when I kill you with one hair. What d'you mean, you're preparing the ground so it won't hurt when you kill me with one hair, when you've bitten right through my neck, you pesky poisonous cobra. I told him quite calmly and clearly: I haven't bitten right through your neck like a cobra – I just bit off the skin under your carotid artery, so
I can cut and saw through your carotid artery with just one hair. That's how we argued with one another, just fancy.

Camie. What can you do with those guys – you can only argue with them. And then bonk, bonk, bonk, bonk. Nothing else you can do with them apart from those dismal arguments and the bonking sessions with poisonous phallic cobra sperm.

Ellie. Well, the argument got so heated I just bit through his carotid artery in desperation. How many of those dismal exchanges can your nerves take? And it was his fault that I couldn't keep my word and sadistically creatively kill him with just one hair, that theatrical two-sided two-faced intellectual, that deadwood
stay-at-home.

Camie. Of course it was his fault. What did he expect? Fucking splattering his scholarly erudite professorial sperm all over your little face. For doing that to a face like yours I wouldn't stop till I'd fucking torn every artery in his body to shreds, right this minute. Lucky for him I wasn't anywhere near, the fucking jerk. I'd have fucking bitten off his cock together with his theatrical balls with my own teeth, bitten them off without choking. He'd have begged to die a thousand times!

Ellie. Calm down, Camiushka, calm down.

Camie. Easy to say calm down, for fuck's sake – imagine, some professorial fucking satanic cock shoots leprous sperm on my sweet girl's heavenly little face, and you want me to calm down. It will take a while for me to calm down after that inhuman fucking behavior towards you, my own sweet girl! My parents never prepared me for anything like this in all my years of schooling!

Ellie. Oh calm down, Camiushka! Please?

Camie. I have no choice, but it still bothers me, Ellichka. Those shitty male fuckwits fucking play on our nerves till we end up in a hospital bed.

Ellie. But in the end all our refined emotions for one another became clear thanks to specky four-eyes Owl Face. All our personal mutual relations. While he took you to the theater, came a thousand times in his pants at Stein's impotent
Hamlet…

Camie. Got his just deserts – the bastard couldn't get his kicks shooting and smearing spunk all over your face. A fucking bisexual bohemian is no good to anybody.

Ellie. Yeah, what an audacious hypocritical bohemian bisexual. And when
real-life tragic fate looked him straight in the face, at his wide-open but in no way intelligent, as it turned out, fuckwit maniacal muddy little eyes – this little man
revealed his entire sordid little asshole world that could poison us all with the gas from his rotting corpse.

Camie. That's always the way with those foul puffed-up bohemian cocksucking bastards.

Ellie. I couldn't even look him in the eye after all that. I stuck a pillow over his mug, that way the blood from his carotid artery couldn't spatter all over my apartment, either, and sat my soft shapely ass on top of it – and incidentally, he adored my ass. That bisexual jerk began yelling when his fuckwit brains – now no use to anyone – finally grasped the fact that his favorite girl was going to snuff him, so deep was her love. That he hadn't showed his love for her, his favorite girl.

Camie. He began yelling?

Ellie. And how! Yelled his head off. And there's neighbors on every side. So I turned up the volume on Music TV. And wait for it. It was a good thing I already closed the windows. As if I had a premonition he would yell his head off. Oh yes. Wait till you hear this. How we've suffered, you and I. It wasn't like your Maxi the First blissfully smiling in the face of death. I envy you there. I envy you with all my heart, Camie. Oh no. You didn't know this, but Owl Face had a boxer dog by the name of Charles. Owl Face used to affectionately call him Charlie Boy. This
Charlie Boy earned big money for Owl Face by killing cats whenever Owl Face invited a bunch of guys along. These other guys used to bring cats along for
Charlie Boy, and each time they said Charlie Boy will never kill this one. But
Charlie Boy the boxer would strike at the cats's spine with his front paws, always hit the spot and broke their spine. Charlie Boy always won all the bets for Owl Face. Because cats have an arched spine and Owl Face trained Charlie Boy the boxer to deal a death blow, striking the highest point of the cat's spine with all his strength!!! (Bursts into tears.)

(Sound of a giant wave breaking on the shore.) I couldn't bear to watch, Camie.

Camie. Try to forget, but always bear this in mind. My darling, how you've suffered. Let me kiss you, Ellie. We are cats that lived to tell the tale.

Ellie. Of course, Camie! I want to kiss you so much! (They kiss.) We gave so much to those beastly traitorous men of ours, so much pussy. They should be happy. After all…

An ant squashed by a stiletto is happy.
The little poppet never expected that fatal jab
 
From a lovely girl's stiletto – The fulcrum of the universe.

Camie.
The hopeless can hang themselves in bathrooms, Twisting their members in a noose.
Twisting their minds first
To rid themselves of that love, The wave and the berth.

Ellie.
When you whispered to me:
I love you without end,
I love you without beginning, I love you as if in a dream
Where I myself am dying.

Camie. I'm coming, my sweet.

Ellie. And I'm coming, my eternal savior.

Camie. How lucky that we met and saved one another with our love.

Ellie. We were tremendously lucky, surrounded by the hypocritical loveless blue Pacific Ocean swarming with screwing fuckwitted scumbag males.

Camie. And when Gogo came to help you saw up Owl Face, boil and dispose of him, how did the bastard behave?

Ellie. When he came to help me that bastard Gogo sliced off Owl Face's dick, stick it in my mouth, laid a mirror on the floor under my face and fucked me from behind with a cigarette in his teeth and a cowboy sombrero on his head, holding a gun to my temple. The bastard fucked me so hard that I forgot all my satisfaction from snuffing fucking Owl Face. The way that Gogo screws, screws all and sundry!!! (Passionately embraces Camie.)

Camie. But darling Ellichka – we'll screw him even worse!!! (Passionately kisses Ellie.)

Ellie. No doubt about that, Camiushka, darling!!!


Scene 7

Camie. Remember the first time we met?
 

Ellie. I remember, it was magic.

Camie. Like two princesses in a fairytale.

Ellie. I came to your house at three in the afternoon when your mother was at
work. The day before I asked you to clip my ticket in the trolleybus, you clipped it and asked my name, 'Ellie' I told you.

Camie. I really liked your name. Suited your pretty face.

Ellie. I adored your name, too. It was similar to mine, and you were such a fragrant cute little girl.

Camie. We swapped telephone numbers and agreed to meet the next day. I said we could meet at my home. Said my mother doesn't get home from work till seven, so if we met at three in the afternoon after lessons we'd have four hours together. You turned up with a big bunch of sunny scarlet gladioli and an enormous box of chocolates.

Ellie. You opened a bottle of delicious sweet French Sauterne and gave me the amber ring I'm wearing now as a present, amber colored like sunshine.

Camie. We hadn't agreed in advance that you'd get wine and I'd bring chocolates.

Ellie. It all happened like an enchanted dream. The day before I dreamt all night of you, queen of a realm of fabulous flowering gladioli.

Camie. And the night before I soared across the sky in my dream, a vision in amber, a bright transparent stained-glass bird. You undressed the moment you stepped inside. You touched a clasp on one shoulder and your silk dress slid to the floor, you stood there totally naked like a heavenly marble nude.

Ellie. You lifted the hem of your dress and pulled it over your head, as if you had no use for it anymore.

Camie. Then we moved close and began kissing. (They kiss.)

Ellie. Then we lay down on your magic divan and stayed inseparable till a quarter to seven, when your alarm clock rang. I had to take a shower and leave before your mother got home.

Camie. The next day you came to me at exactly half past nine in the morning, two minutes after my mother left for work.
 
Ellie. And we clung together till a quarter to seven in the evening, when my mother got home from work.

Camie. And so it went on for six weeks. We took our exams using other people's notes.

Ellie. And so it went on for six weeks, until one day your mother appeared unexpectedly at five o'clock in the afternoon, opened the door with her key and saw us together, our pussies clasped together, just about to reach orgasm – and we couldn't stop, we came together right in front of your mother as she stood rooted to the ground!

Camie. My mother fainted, and as she fell her temple hit the corner of a chair – immediately I knew that I had lost my mother forever.

Ellie. It was sad.

Camie. That's life. But I still had you. We burnt my mother in the stove.

Ellie. Forgive me.

Camie. It wasn't your fault at all. Wasn't anybody's fault. My mother never understood me. After we are born we simply perform a series of predetermined foolish human somersaults all through our lives.

Ellie. Is being in love a foolish somersault?

Camie. Love is divine. Love is more than divine. I don't need anything else.

Ellie. But why do you sound so sad?
Camie. Because people who love are unhappy. As if you cannot see the sun.
A shaft of lightning plunging across the sky. Like falling and never getting up.
Like a volley from a double-barreled gun.

Ellie.
My heart is frozen but my thoughts aflame, Skin taut and eyes indifferent…
Simply, when you are not beside me Life vanishes with the folly of the page And where is the exit?
 
Camie. It's the same as the entry – just go on loving. For love will come and love comes.

I will elevate on a pedestal Your suffering soul.
So that you may hear more clearly And see the true finale.

Say to them all – yes, there was sorrow When I loved her!
Who? I know not. Maybe the sea, And maybe no one at all.

Ellie.
But how I loved, how I loved! Oh, how I loved her!
But never could find
Her face among the throng.

And if someone smiled, I tried in reply
To give my love, my mermaid,
But her fish's tail ruined the sonnet.

Camie
And the sea, the sea, the sea, the sea! The sea drowned all the oarsmen
That I with amorous blood
Had blessed with a serious face…

Ellie.
Say to them all – only with amorous blood Can we live, breathe and weep.
And if you want it very badly, Then love will not hide from you.

For love will come and love comes.

Camie. And we should be glad of that, only glad. I'm coming.

Ellie. And I'm coming, and coming, and coming.

Camie. I'm really hungry, but fucking Gogo-Godot the helicopter pilot's late, that cheap European physician! (Embraces Ellie, kisses her.)
 

Ellie. I'll wing that helicopter pilot. If you buy me a rifle, Camie, I'll shoot him down once and for all, Gogo the macho helicopter pilot who never comes on time and is no use to anyone in the world!!! Gogo! Gogo!!! (Kisses Camie.) You are my Gogo. You're far better than Gogo!!!

Camie. I'll buy a rifle, Ellie, and you can shoot to our heart's content at that Gogo the macho helicopter pilot who never comes to the island on time and is no use to anyone in the world! (Kisses Ellie.) He only flies here when we don't need him. And he says that you and I don't own an island in the Pacific Ocean, Ellie!!! That you and I don't have any money, Ellie!!! (Kisses Ellie.) That pedophile wants to confiscate our money and this fairytale island and settle it with ten-year-old boys and girls! (Kisses Ellie.)

Ellie. He doesn't know that our love is the most unsinkable fairytale island in the whole world!!! Isn't that so?!! (Kisses Camie.)

Camie. Oh yes, you are my fairytale nymph. For the sake of our love and for your sake I abandoned my beloved, my family, my daughter. Maxi did everything for me, he raised me up from nothing. Maxi… But then I saw you, your cunt… A magical, fragrant, Pacific Ocean tsunami wave swept from your cunt, rose up and drowned me. And when your cunt clung to my cunt I understood – I belong only to her – to your priceless cunt and your pure soul – I belong only to them and to you alone. I am part of you, Ellie, and I'll do everything to remain part of you forever, Ellie! Now I'm afraid that if I leave your cunt for just half an hour someone will take it away from me, snatch it away. That Gogo with his incredible cock will steal it away. But I'm with you, Ellie. I'm with you, Ellie, and I can't paint anything but your face, Ellie.

Ellie. I'd die without you, too, without your inspired cunt, Camiushka. I got rid of Owl Face for your sake, too, and… But when I'm with you, when I think about you I don't need any Owl Face. Or Gogo!!! Don't need anyone but you, Kamiushka! (Sobs.) But if you want I'll have a baby for you. I'll buy sperm from a good-looking guy, not Gogo, and make a beautiful baby for you. Best if it's a girl.

Camie. I can buy sperm from a good-looking guy, too, and have a baby for you, Ellichka. Best if it's a girl. We can think it over later. Will you come to our coconut and banana supper today?

Ellie. With coconut milk?

Camie. Same as always.

Ellie. If it's the same as usual, I will.
 
Camie. We need nothing more than our love. We won't be frightened by the evil, depraved tsunami wave that can sweep off the face of the earth their venal, repulsive, completely debauched, male, impotent, thousand million
double-barreled insular little world. We have the tsunami wave of our female love. And perhaps only this self-sacrificing love can fend off the tsunami wave of their phallic evil.

Ellie. And our maidenly tsunami of sincere sacred love will wipe out the tsunami of their cocksucking boorish party. And flowers will grow in the sea. And the peace of all-saving Love will dawn!!! We believe in it. And we will proudly hold hands. All the evil male lecherous maniacal puritanical bastards in the world can stare at us enviously as we hold hands and show everyone how we love one another.

Camie. We may be the unhappiest female lovers in the world, Ellichka, but we will proudly hold hands and let them see how we love one another. And we will go together and come, go and come without those depraved males, and we will be happy.

Ellie. We will cover our shapely buttocks with panties that tenderly cling to our cunts, and every time we lift our feet, with every chiming, resonant step… we will step and come, step and come, moving across the Earth and Skies to the very horizon of the Universe, the very edge of our boundless Love!!! And if some day we are fated to fall, we will take flight as we fall, I believer that we will soar up as we fall. Because we are already flying now, Camiushka, don't you see – you and I are flying already, Camiushka!!!

Camie. I See, Ellichka, I See!!!

Ellie. All the same, if you buy me a rifle some day I can shoot that accursed male cock, Gogo the helicopter pilot who eclipses the sky for us, prevents us from taking flight once and for all, the cock we have to screw, screw and screw without love, with his always-erect member upright as a stake. And may he tumble down, crash and smash into tiny pieces right here, on this accursed, porno-fucked
Pacific Ocean island, may he crash down and be smashed to death on this wild Le-Le island in the Pacific Ocean. Because he's a male, that scumbag helicopter pilot – he's only a maniacal male, the bastard, Gogo the helicopter pilot with his cock like a bolt and his balls like propellers!!! They can't fly, can't love, the male of the species. Why does he lie, saying he flies and loves that fucking helicopter,
why does he call us creeping cellar cobras, that male with his dinosaur balls, the helicopter pilot doctor transsexual maniacal pedophile Gogo?!! But how he fucks, just amazing how that Gogo fucks!!! (Weeps, sobs, kisses Camie.)
 
Camie. He's an amazing fucker, but we'll finish with him. And God sees all – Gogo didn't want peace. Don't cry, don't cry, Ellichka. Everything will be okay. I love you, Ellichka. (Weeps, sobs, kisses Ellie.)

Ellie. But I'm a girl, I have to cry, Camiushka. You mustn't cry either, Camiushka.

Camie. But I'm a girl too and I have to cry, Ellichka. (Imitates the sound of an approaching helicopter.)
Ellie. He's approaching. Do you hear? He's coming in to land. We wanted peace, didn't we?

Camie. But peace lies in war.

Ellie. He's incredibly good at fucking, Camiushka!!!

Camie. Maybe he is good at fucking, Ellichka. But we only fuck for love.

Ellie. We only fuck for love.

Camie. This time we'll screw him up and get rid of him.

Ellie. This time we'll screw him up and get rid of him.

Camie. You are my tsunami.

Ellie. And you are my tsunami.

Camie. I dream of the Golden Dream of Mankind, Ellichka. And there is only you and me in all the world.

Ellie. I too dream of the Golden Dream of Mankind, Camiushka. And there is only you and me in all the world.

Camie. I'm flying, Ellichka!

Ellie. And I'm flying, Camiushka!

Camie. Shall we go?

Ellie. Let's go.

Camie. We must leave unveil the picture.
 
Ellie. We always do when we go out.

Camie. Today it's your turn to unveil the picture, Ellichka.

Ellie. Today it's your turn to unveil the picture, Camiushka. But I'm afraid, Camiushka.

Camie. Don't be afraid, Ellichka, don't be afraid – there are only paints in the picture.

Ellie. Can I hold your hand, Camiushka?

Camie. You can hold my hand, Ellichka.

Ellie. Cobras?

Camie. Two cobras, Ellie.

Ellie. They won't sting one another, those cobras, will they, Camie?

Camie. They love one another, Ellie. They don't cast shadows.

Ellie. That's your best painting, Camiushka, of wild but such lifelike nature. You have achieved enlightenment like the Buddha, you're a real Rosa Bonheur with this picture.

Camie. When we go out those cobras will crawl out of the painting and guard our sanctuary till we get back. And then they will guard our dreams and our love for the rest of the night, and they'll help us deal with Gogo, Ellichka! (Embraces
Ellie.)

Ellie. But I think I can see them crawling out of the picture already, Camiushka! I'm afraid! Let's go, quick.

Camie. But the cobras won't sting one another, Ellichka. What's wrong with you today, child? (Throws herself on Ellie, kisses her passionately.) I love you, child. You are my salvation.

Ellie. And I love you, mama. You are my salvation. But snakes are like a phallus, Camiushka.

Camie. St Augustine said that when we achieve enlightenment there is no longer any reason to think of Good and Evil. We are saved.
 
Ellie. We will do Good then, without thinking about it. But the snake is a male phallus, Camiushka!

Camie. Then what else do we need, my Ellichka?! We're self-sufficient! (Kisses Ellie.)

Ellie.
Empty bottle, Platform,
Rails,
Rattle of the train, Weightlessness of snowflakes.

Camie.
All-seeing black hole of the galaxy, Which is unseen
By the pupils of Conscience. And the frosty wind,
Prickly like a cactus
With the barbs of a rattlesnake.

Ellie.
Empty bottle
Clasped in your palm Tenderly.

Camie.
Two of them spit against the wind like wolves, Unhurriedly.

Ellie.
The wind whips against your back, Crazily.

Camie.
Your eyes see the steam from lupine fangs. Observed…

Ellie.
Ten paces between you, Sinners.

Camie.
Snow crunches underfoot
 
Ellie.
In strange lands.

Camie.
Like Anna Karenina's neckbone.

Ellie.
Seconded!

Camie.
You break the bottom from a glass bottle On an angle of brick,

Ellie.
Desperately.

Camie.
You are armed like an ancient Roman.

Ellie.
Not sacrificial.

Camie.
But they are drunk, An urge to spew,
Seeing them and inside you, But where can you run?

Ellie.
A platform of living area Restricted in space
When you are on the edge.

Camie.
Oh, they are barbarians!
And the armies are closing in!

Ellie.
And in the throat, In the throat
You strike The brutes
With the bottle,
With its broken edge!!! In anticipation…
 

Camie.
Knives flashed in their hands, But the knives fell.

Ellie.
Disarmed!

Camie.
Before they could pierce Your chest!

Ellie.
And reach your heart With their sting,
The draped symbol!

Camie and Ellie (together). And your heart laughs
But your veins are like strings Your entire body sings like a violin Born anew by Life
Born anew in the night Flung aloft by the Universe Kindled by the Blizzard Immortalized by Fate
With the blood of others As your dream!!!

Camie.
And the road scorches vagrant singers with guitars In the dust and hiss of the frying pan.
With hairy ears and clinking coins The crowd passes the villains.

Ellie.
Breathing from exhaust-pipe innards, Death-dealing shit from petrol,
From automobiles – numberless monsters With the rasping tires of Scriabin. A rubbery

Camie.
Blackish-red cock
Between two raving beauties
Crawls up and sucks a juicy European kiss
 
From the cigarette between his fingers.

Ellie. Gogo?

Camie. Death to all Gogos!!!

Ellie.
I am a white boat, white But not made of paper
I flew in the bright sky Equal with the birds

Camie.
I am the boat of my beloved I love you
I sail with the stream into a valley There you will find me

Ellie.
In that valley is an ocean With a mountain coast There we will kiss
Like a wave with sand

Camie and Ellie.
And we will sail with the flags From stars of all the constellations Gratefully and without a berth
In the joy of Divine tears

(Sound of a helicopter coming in to land and a giant wave crashing on the shore.)

 

 


Slava Zaitsev on Mikhail Volokhov's plays (from a TV interview)
-What inspired you to contribute to the design of scandalous playwright Mikhail Volokhov's avant-garde play 'Lesbians Roaring Like A Tsunami'?
Slava ZAITSEV. First of all I find Mikhail Volokhov an interesting personality. I had the opportunity to meet and talk with him at the opening of my exhibition. I was intrigued by him and saw that he is a very tactful person, not at all like a scandalous writer. And as I learned later, Volokhov also acts and directs stage productions and films based on his own plays. I really liked his entirely one-man film 'Tchikatilo's Calvary', which was shown at a recent Moscow film festival and caused a sensation at the Nice Festival of Modern Art. After seeing productions in which Volokhov himself took an acting role I became even more
interested in his original writing.
Thus my acquaintance with the author and his work motivated me to take part in Volokhov's new project, 'Lesbians Roaring Like A Tsunami'. I saw that he is a really extraordinary man who has a quite different way of thinking from most of us. And above all he takes the risk of being misunderstood, despised and humiliated, since he stubbornly insists on the right to his own view of life. Such a
unique sense of individuality always attracts me to a person and inspires me with notions of an interesting joint project. When I read his play 'Lesbians Roaring Like A Tsunami' I was a little surprised – why 'roaring like a tsunami'? But later
when we began work I was engrossed by the theme, found it even more
intriguing. To begin with the text sweeps you off your feet – his frankness and undisguised defenselessness. This is extremely exciting but also a great strain, and you have the desire to create something equally original and new on the
 
given theme. I have never worked on such a production before. Creating the costumes was very difficult because I didn't know director Mikhail Salov's initial concept, and he himself is a highly creative man with vacillating and changeable ideas, which is most important. When the director has precise and uncompromising ideas it is usually easy to work together. But this was a very
impressionable person with a sensitive disposition and I was deeply interested in every new proposal he made.
It was a pleasure to talk to him, and as a result I could stand up for my own concept of the production. This process took a while, since Salov himself is an excellent actor with a fine understanding of the actor's craft. Of course I found his individuality remarkable – he is such an exceptional person,
not-made-by-human-hands, as they say. He had already staged Mikhail Volokhov's play 'Paris Bound'. An absolutely unique performance from Mikhail Salov as both actor and director. In the end the tactful and delicate Misha Volokhov brought our discussions to a satisfactory conclusion, and I think the
production was a success. Of course the costumes for 'Lesbians Roaring Like A Tsunami' were unusual for me, especially with a deadline looming. But it was
wonderful that I had to design and cut everything out myself. What an intoxicating maneuver on the part of Mikhail Volokhov – only introducing me to the director after I had begun making costumes for the play.
When I attended the premiere I roared with laughter. I was sitting next to Irina Khakamada and we were enraptured by the superb text and the acting. To begin with Maria Runa and Olesya Edelveis seemed too reserved, but during rehearsals with Mikhail Salov their inner tension melted away. They are actresses, after all, obliged to perform whatever the dramatist and director of the play have contrived. And undoubtedly the revelations they consequently allowed themselves onstage were staggering. Those two actresses were delightful. Their acting was brilliant. I can say that for sure because I watched the play several times. And then again on the video. I repeat – I was delighted by their acting.
'Lesbians Roaring Like A Tsunami' is a very realistic text yet the atmosphere of the play is very unreal – that bothered me when I was reading it. Such an astral and timeless concept. Although the text is quite frank, nothing is concealed. Many people think and act like the characters in this play but are
scared of revealing it to others. Here the naked truth of human nature is exposed. Something of which we are unaware, something we never encountered. But we are implicated nevertheless, if we want to call ourselves human beings. And here Volokhov managed to create the marvelous aura of two very cruel women who are amazingly beautiful, but in that beauty there lurks a hidden demon. The dramatist and director show this with great skill.
A play of penance. These girls, the heroines of the play, open up in one another's presence with such celestial radiance yet say such ghastly things that the audience is appalled when they begin to imagine the extent of these crimes. Simply horrifying. But the characters recount everything with such ease, probably fearing the burden of truth that weighs down their conscience. They open up in
 
front of the public, before the auditorium. Verily these sinners are repenting on behalf of all of us. For their irony, sarcasm and pathos we feel a terrible pain.
Of course 'Lesbians Roaring Like A Tsunami' is a very interesting play. And this production is on the one hand remarkably in tune with the times, but nevertheless demands completely different conditions, demands to be played with a different and more worthy stage set.
I would like to create an image of two cosmic women in bright clothing and incredibly bright bedclothes. When the truth about life is revealed by these splendid women surrounded by fitting stage d;cor it becomes even more terrifying.

-You said that in the context of world drama this is an innovative play. In what way?
Slava ZAITSEV. Above all the dramaturgy of 'Lesbians Roaring Like A Tsunami' makes it an innovatory play. The text is very powerful. There are few authors worldwide who allow themselves to write such honest plays with such concentrated energy and outspoken candor. There are different degrees of truth, it can be veiled or mysterious. In this play the truth is shouted from the rooftops. But I think audiences are not ready to hear most of this. Not mature enough, yet. Many would like to see the action that takes place onstage, but for many it comes as a shock. Those who know Misha Volokhov already have an idea what they will see. They watch the play and listen to the dialogue with pleasure. Young people who came here with their girlfriends were obliged to leave when the girls were put off by words the heroines use. The young men wanted to watch, but the girls were very embarrassed. The audience has to be well prepared and very civilized as regards erudition and perception. It is extremely important that the play is timeless. A cosmic drama.
There is no calumny against Russia in Volokhov's dramas. On the contrary
– they emphasize Russia's merits as a country capable of global cultural penance for the whole world, performed by her talented sons.
I have read all Mikhail Volokhov's plays. They really are extraordinarily
interesting dramas, proving that highly talented people still live in Russia. Initially you may find the text of Volokhov's plays and the revelations they contain alarming. We are not used to seeing such words on paper. We use them among friends, when we are irritated or somebody is being especially annoying. I can say any word from the Russian lexicon of non-standard vocabulary. This is typical Russian language, but unfortunately most people are too hypocritical to admit that they use it for everyday conversation. However, careful perusal of Volokhov's plays reveals that this language is simply a form of expression, while the content is different and more profound. The profane form they take is only used to more fully and precisely depict modern man, who dresses up in fine clothes but is rotten at the core deep inside. You often see well-dressed men or women who suddenly release such a stream of expletives that the air turns blue. Such unexpected and inappropriate behavior is infuriating. But in Volokhov's plays
 
there is very exact analysis that gets to the root of a question or situation, and brilliantly modeled characters. There's poetry, too, everything you care to name.
After seeing one of Volokhov's plays you emerge from the theater not just feeling good, but in excellent spirits! You just watched a superb drama yet feel unnerved because it requires a re-evaluation of your own ideas. The play makes you stop and think, which is very important. You didn't just watch a show, have a bit of a laugh and walk out the door. No, the play forces you to think about a situation that surrounds us right here and now. All the more because you don't know the people around you, what is happening to them and to this world in
which we must live by the rule of love, according to Volokhov. Well done, Volokhov. I fully support Volokhov.



In the play 'Lesbians Roaring Like A Tsunami' Volokhov has achieved a phenomenal dramatic reworking of the plastic arts (of roles, confrontations, conflict, the actors' movements, etc.) in a lyrical and extreme situation that occupies the narrow space of two female characters. He has written a
'philosophical pillar of fantastical drama' on a par with his best tragicomedies.
Valery IVANOV-TAGANSKY
***
The Moscow Times
ART & IDEAS
CONTEXT
Flirting With Controversy
By John Freedman
Volokhov, whose «Lesbians Roaring Like a Tsunami» is playing at the Dom cultural center, has cultivated his reputation not only with plays that flaunt nearly every standing rule of good taste and propriety, but also with occasional outbursts against figures wielding power in the theater world.
«Lesbians Roaring Like a Tsunami» will surprise no one who knows Volokhov’s previous work, although it may shock many who don’t. More than any Russian writer in recent years — and probably in history — Volokhov builds his texts on the dense riches of Russian obscenities. Murderers, cannibals and perverts are the characters who attract his attention.
In «Lesbians,» Volokhov throws everything he’s ever used into the stew. Only this time he made a concerted effort to give his tale the veil of romanticism. Here we encounter two former prostitutes who apparently each wheedled $20 million out of former lovers before killing them and retiring to a South Pacific island to live out their fantasies of sexual and personal freedom. Kami (Marina Runa) is a painter and Emi (Olesya Edelweis) a poet. Chatting rather as one imagines Plato and Socrates to have done, they discuss a range of topics, including the sexual prowess of their dead lovers, the brutality of the doctor who concealed the murders for them, Emi’s loathing for the helicopter pilot who brings them supplies, the nature of Ivan Bunin’s relationship with his women, the rank stupidity of the typical male and their mutual admiration for each other’s sexual organs.
Volokhov’s text, flowering furiously with graphic, yet tender, descriptions of sex and violence, is remarkably poetic and ironic. To a point, it can be funny and liberating as it wreaks havoc on the usual notions of both literary philosophical dialogue and pornography.
Brusilovsky on Mikhail Volokhov’s play ‘Lesbians Roaring Like A Tsunami’
Mikhail Volokhov’s play ‘Lesbians Roaring Like A Tsunami’ is an extremely important philosophical study of the problems posed by our modern world.
Volokhov’s drama has become a serious dramatic exploration of all the harrowing issues that confront mankind today, and in this play Volokhov touches on a serious and extremely important problem – our loss in the modern world of extremely important fundamental human qualities such as tenderness, love, personal relations, friendship and marriage. The modern world is losing values that were an integral part of our culture from time immemorial, losing them forever as the new century brings us increasingly uncompromising modes of existence that hold no place for these fundamental human characteristics.
When I stop to reflect and read the text carefully, in my opinion the two heroines of this play do not represent any particular age group, or even gender. In fact these are human beings that lament and howl at the sense that we are all godforsaken in a world where there is no room for love, in which love is subject to an extraordinary attack from universal evil, universal inflexibility, terrorism, war, moral degradation, drug addiction, etc. etc.
Unfortunately this is a very long list. Consequently the two heroines try throughout the play to embrace this problem of the abandonment of Life in a world that has become empty for them from all angles, as if feeling for an answer.
That is why I say their gender and even their age are immaterial. Actually the heroines could be anyone from adolescents to grown-up women, men or women of an indeterminate age, so to speak. As for their gender, the fact that they are lesbians is not important. Moreover, this is Volokhov’s familiar, habitual game with concepts that seem shocking at first but only indicate the theme. Volokhov delineates a kind of lacuna, an empty place in which, you might say, the story unfolds. Of course the male sex also find themselves in this godforsaken state, except that they lack the deep-seated sensoria, the apparatus to tune into and measure the quality and degree of their downfall into the inhuman abyss of finer human feelings. In this instance women are better suited, although if it is possible to dig deep into their souls, men too may comprehend and feel the same things in the depths of their subconscious.
Throughout the drama the action is an attempt to organize an oasis of feelings, an oasis of resources that are slipping away and vanishing, sucked down a gigantic funnel like sand in an hourglass. We should use this play to help us seize and hold on to disappearing feelings that give life to the biological form of love and human attraction. Any staging of the play must also correspond to the gigantic theme posited by Volokhov. That is, it should be constructed like the greatest sublime tragedies and comparable with Ancient Greek tragedy or the elevated passion of the Japanese theatrical tradition Noh. For this purpose music must also be used. Clearly rhythmical tom-toms should sound offstage. No musical phrases should intersperse with the melancholy wailing of the Japanese samisen or zither. This would create the pulsation of ‘qi’ energy, as the pulsation of nerve endings that prowl throughout the play, creating the aura of these sensoria.
It is also important that the heroines should not touch one another. Any trait that would reduce the play to everyday life will destroy the central idea of Volokhov’s play, smash it to smithereens.
The dialogues must sound like an internal conversation enunciated inside a vacuous balloon. And the heroines should not even talk to one another – in principal they should not even speak these words. Perhaps this is contact between their souls. A kind of therapeutic session. A flow of pulsations between finer feelings almost imperceptible at a verbal level. Consequently there should be no touching. Not to speak of embraces or anything that can be viewed as a preliminary to sex in one way or another. And even stage make-up or any kind of costume will distract us from the theme of the play. There could be two large inflated sexual symbols on the stage – circles compressed at the top, maybe even illuminated (with light bulbs or filaments inside) and the women, who could rock to and fro on swings as they speak their monologues, would climb through these and so on – any number of flexible devices could convey this rich symbolism. Nothing else should be on the stage. Nothing in the way of chairs or table, bicycles or anything else. Clothing worn by the characters should also be minimal, certainly not a bikini of any kind. The costumes should be made of very fine flyaway material that flows around them without hiding anything, and nothing should be tight-fitting. They should simply give the impression of two clouds, nebulous, or rather astral constellations.
The metaphorical basis of the play should be understood in the broadest possible sense, for it is extremely important that the audience focuses on the text from the very first instant, from the first word that is spoken. Here the text is of prime importance. Everything else is the plastic arrangement of this text. And the plastic arrangement should not illustrate the text, but symbolize man’s forced separation from the image and likeness of God. If we were speaking of religion this would be man forsaken by God, the consequence of that separation and indeed the destruction of fundamental human relations. I believe that this play is quite simply a revolutionary disclosure, a breakthrough into the dimension of the soul that usually concerns Volokhov.
The text must be enunciated in a manner unlike any dramatic mode we are used to, outside of illustratively naturalistic forms, and certainly without ‘feeling the part’ or giving the heroines any specific characteristics. This is not required, and the names of the characters, their age and so on should not be of any interest to the audience.
You might think the result would be a rather vacuous production. On the contrary. We will observe with heightened interest the very things that elevate and inspire us.
Text should be spoken very fast in machine-gun bursts that alternate with pauses, seemingly endless pauses.
The heroines do not converse in the usual sense of the word. Everything they do and their contact with one another is the life of the Soul, the pain of the Soul and the wail of the Soul. Loneliness, separation and the inanity of life in this scorched desert of the Soul. All this together should make the play interesting and thrilling.
Familiarity with the drama of Beckett and Ionesco prompts me to say that Volokhov has crossed the threshold of abstract puppetry in the Theatre of the Absurd – Volokhov’s drama belongs to the third millennium. Shutting it away in the archives of the mid-twentieth century is a big mistake – the world has been transformed since then, the human soul and the nature of human relations have undergone colossal cataclysms that destroyed much that was still present when Beckett, Ionesco and many others were writing.
In fact Beckett and Ionesco’s plays are, strange to say, very comfortable pieces written in a robust bourgeois world for a robust and prosperous bourgeois world, where everything is well ordered, where the mechanism of social relations still works and precisely because of that they are quirky, amusing, interesting, etc. But for our unrepentant Russian world their drama is simply child’s play. Through a gesture of penance in his powerful dramas Volokhov has progressed much deeper and further, and his drama should not under any circumstances be styled like the Western Theatre of the Absurd.
With regard to great theatre and great plays of bygone years from dramatists such as Shakespeare, Racine and Boileau, undoubtedly the great dramaturgic journey traversed by mankind in the work of Volokhov exists as a perception of this journey.
Volokhov’s ‘Tchikatilo’s Calvary’ contains echoes of all the masterpieces of world drama from the Greeks to modern times.
Anatoly BRUSILOVSKY


The play ‘Lesbians Roaring Like A Tsunami’ continues the tradition of classical decadence. Not the genre to which decadence has been reduced by contemporary Russian writing, but traditional, classical, European decadence. Nobody writes like that now. All modern dramatists are influenced by Chekhov. The influence is subconscious, for they see decadence in his work as a branch of Romantic Symbolism. Because Chekhov himself is like Maeterlinck in translation.
Hard times demand romanticism. Right now the Romantic Symbolism of Maeterlinck’s style is very modern and up-to-date. And Theatre demands such styles as part of its essential and universal traditions. But instead of directors turning to Chekhov once again, they should instead turn to plays such as ‘Lesbians Roaring Like A Tsunami’. And approach them on a conscious level, selecting deep-reaching dramas like this with a virginal purity of genre. Because Chekhov no longer provides ‘up-to-date romanticism’, and accordingly no longer allows the Theatre to perform its sacred, cathartic and purifying function. Time passes and we have to write plays of classical quality taken from real life. Because Chekhov wrote about his own era and however you look at it, Chekhov remains Chekhov. Why is Chekhov still staged? Because there is nothing else.
Now, for the first time, an alternative to Chekhov has appeared – in Volokhov’s play ‘Lesbians Roaring Like A Tsunami’. This is not an alternative because it somehow replaces Chekhov, but a first-class drama instead of second-rate goods.
As compared with his previous plays, here Volokhov rises to the heights, touching upon the mystical, sacral, crystalline-poetic essence of this world, while remaining true to himself as a shocking and Fateful writer.
Romanticism always takes the female gender. Now the Reality of the Human World has moved on to the Zeitgeist of femininity and the female perception of life. The world is tired of the coarse, violent, male dictatorship.
In this Volokhov play we are captivated by two women who express the very essence of life in a way reminiscent of Maeterlinck.
It is not important who acts in this play (men or women), since the characters – global beings – will nevertheless personify the women that ennoble us. This ennobling romantic Maeterlinckian female quality makes Volokhov’s play ‘Lesbians Roaring Like A Tsunami’ an extraordinary phenomenon
Igor DUDINSKY

===========================================================



10)

Mikhail Volokhov



LYUDMILA GURCHENKO LIVES

Images from memory


At the back of the stage looms a wooden gallows from the time of the 2nd World War.

A huge open-necked vase filled with roses has been placed on a stool under the gallows. A noose from the gallows is tightened around the vase’s neck as if it were a human throat.

Lyudmila Gurchenko sits on a sofa

She sings the song ‘In the Frontline Forest’

I am Lyudmila Gurchenko. The violation of loyalty is the central leitmotif of my work.

I can’t stand cheating. For me life is based on loyalty. And on wonderful, gallant, talented men like my father, Mark Gavrilovich. I always sought a man like my Daddy, who, as he used to say, had a fist “with five fingers full of lead and the smell of death”. Such a man was the Alain Delon standard of excellence.

But first of all, I tried to become a very good, loyal actress so that you, my dear audience, would be loyal and grateful to me all my life.

That’s why I aspired to be always eternally young and beautiful. It’s very important for my profession to always stay in shape – so you, the public in the auditorium, should also keep in good form like me – then you can be as successful, talented and beautiful as I am, you can be as happy as me... (Wipes away a tear).
 
You mustn’t ask or complain. “In the morning almost a freak, in the evening a Goddess.”
That’s how Daddy described me.

I, Lyudmila Gurchenko, am a fragile woman with a powerful character – a truly Soviet lady born on the territory of the former, powerful, totalitarian Soviet Union, my Motherland, on November 12th, 1935.

And, apropos – this is very much apropros – my French, practically twin brother – yes, blood brother in spirit, Alain Delon, who I was madly in love with all my life, but very quietly, in fact soundlessly – was born just four days before me, on November 8th, 1935.

Delon is my dream in a vision of the most perfect love. And we started working together in 1957.

The young, charming Delon, with the purity of love and tenderness in his soul, began to create his art so beautifully.

And of course, I contantly went to see films he acted in, where I could admire him as if he was my very own young beau – especially in the sad, even tragic Visconti film ‘Rocco and His Brothers’.

Then Delon delighted me in ‘The Swimming Pool’ with Romy Schneider, ‘Any Number Can Win’ with Gabin, ‘Borsalino & Co.’ with Belmondo, in ‘Farewell, Friend’ with Charles Bronson.

And of course, in ‘Red Sun’, with Ursula Andress on horseback.

I would have played that role in ‘Red Sun’ – with Ursula Andress on horseback, with a fabulous thespian triangle of Delon, Bronson and Toshiro Mifune, Kurosawa’s favourite actor – far more gracefully than Ursula Andress.

How I was captivated by the incendiary role of the flighty Christina, the girlfriend of Gauche, who was played by Alain Delon.

What happiness to ride a bay horse like that and knock them all senseless with your elastic juicy bosom jutting through the buttonholes of your
 
shirt! I assure you, my bust was a thousand times more wonderful than hers, in the years when I was young and active.


It’s just amazing – Alain Delon is only four days older than me, and Rocco, my elder brother in fate, has the same actor’s blood group as me.

After watching the film ‘Rocco and His Brothers’, where Delon played the strongest brother, I was completely enthralled by him. I wanted to be Annie Girardot in the movie. She is killed by Alain Delon’s brother Simone, just because Delon loves her and she responds with fatal reciprocity.

Afterwards I was jealous of Mireille Darc’s love affair with Delon.

You will remember this actress from the movie ‘The Tall Blond Man with One Black Shoe’, her cool, satin, naked ass peeking from a black satin dress, with a cutout at the back larger than her back and buttocks.

Yes, this blonde femme fatale Mireille Darc was with Delon for 18 years, but when she was unable to give him a child they split up.

I could have given Delon a child… Perhaps. But not after Delon began playing those police detectives of his without sincere love and tenderness in his soul... Just for money... That’s fate…


I, Lyudmila Gurchenko, a self-sufficient actress, the elemental female, loved giving birth to roles more than anything in the world, above all to inspire my creative mood – to give birth to healthy, fully-fledged, unforgettable, eternal, female images.

And then, it turned out so naturally – these vivifying female images of mine lifted the spirit of wonderful ideal men and no less wonderful ideal women, for the sake of life and love.

By his self-love the actor becomes great – he helps everyone by means of the stage!

God gave me the talent to realise my Daddy’s dream – to become a great actress with cheerful healthy companions, in the cheerful and healthy creative zone of my controlled cultural and blissful insanity.
 
And not in a mediocre, trivial zone of helpless vain self-affirmation – as with many of those quasi-bohemian thieves ; la acting-complexed arseholes with family ties.

Here Delon understood me perfectly. And who wouldn’t understand – Delon would have been very happy to stuff his face with these incompetent scoundrels, neurotics and schizoids in art.

They never calm down, these simulacrae of the imperfections of bastards
– they are terminally sick from their incurable mediocrity and transfer this nervous, pernicious infection to others.

Truly businesslike killers prevent real talents from revealing their brilliant gift from heaven in a full peal of bells. And only the supreme gift of acting is able to convey to the nation, to the people – a saving Spiritual Insight for finding possible happiness in this so unbearably absurd life of ours.

But we are real, not those neurotic, creative Russian ‘Brave People’ always riding huge white war horses.

There is a contagiously gorgeous actor by the name of Seryozha Gurzo. Very lyrical and natural, like nature in the highlands, from which his horse gallops to the stars. I wanted to be like that.

I always wanted to be so beloved and heroic for my beloved daughter Masha the nurse, and for my heavenly grandson Marik, for my beloved Daddy Mark, and my Mama Elena Alexandrovna Simonova-Gurchenko.

Mama and I endured the entire German occupation of Kharkov. We even escaped death together in the mobile gas chamber.

This is a vile fascist vehicle for group execution, with an exhaust pipe channelled into the sealed interior. The fascists crammed about fifty people at a time into the vehicle, they were packed like sardines in a can.

And about fifty minutes after the car started to move, the same number, all fifty people in the gas chamber suffocated and died. A barbarous form of execution.
 
The Germans thought up these mass executions so they wouldn’t feel guilty about pulling the trigger of a gun, and then one German soldier could kill hundreds of captives.

At the time Mama and I had a market stall in fascist Kharkov.

Then the second lot of SS Germans arrived, different from the first lot who weren’t such evil Germans, who were at first defeated in a couple of weeks by just a few of our glorious but exhausted Red Army soldiers.

These new Germans who had already knocked out our heroic Red Army soldiers were very mean SS Germans with Alsatian dogs. They organized raids on the market where we, the children, mothers and old women of Kharkov, who lived a dog’s life in the city they occupied, could sell something in the market to somehow, more or less, survive.

It was terrible how these SS fascist Germans, with their fanged fascist Alsatians, drove us hungry, cold, brave Kharkov residents into their infernal killing machines before we had time to escape from the market.

Their goal? That’s how the fascists tried to reduce and suppress the proud people of Kharkov as they tried to resist. And my mother and I, who sold tobacco at the market so we wouldn’t starve to death, nearly ended up in one of these hellish gas chambers after a fascist raid.

It was a terrible semblance of execution in the bull of Phalaris. Ancient Romans sentenced to death were placed naked in a hollow bull made of bronze. Under the belly of the bull a fire was lit. The people died in unbearable agony.

The spectators at this execution heard the bull bellow when a special apparatus in the brazen bull’s nostrils made the human screams audible as the sound of a bull.

In the German gas chambers only those suffocating from the carbon monoxide fumes of the infernal fascist slaughterhouse heard the human groans, just for a while.

The Germans at this time preserved and tenderly cherished their own conscience and health.

As people were thrown into this infernal machine many took a final gasp of fresh air outside the trap door. But to no avail, of course.
 
I particularly remember one of our amazing blessed simpletons, who also fell under this murderous fascist dispensation.

He began to dance as he approached the infernal gas chamber.

The Germans were initially taken aback by the Russian buffoon’s performance, but they let the blessed idiot cavort to the tune of his German accordion. Then, as he still laughed uncomprehendingly and they laughed at his plight, they pushed him into the slaughterhouse last and tightly slammed the door behind him.

I remember how the tears rolled from my eyes. I was shocked by this great, tragic, Shakespearean scene.

It was an outstanding deadly act by an unknown blessed Russian artist, the unknown soldier of our righteous Russian art, a noble and heroic performance before overfed frenzied Germans zombified into murder by Hitler the neuropath.

Then, in that dark year of 1943, I realized that an actor may be indulged by the public and allowed to play his unrivalled performance to the end, only to be ruthlessly destroyed amid the baying uproar of an all-male alehouse.

Just such a beery, masculine obliteration followed my extraordinary success in our beloved Soviet country, in the beloved popular film ‘Carnival Night’.

It’s the Chinese custom to burn carnival dragons! Our Russian version is when merrymaking clerks in boots with heels for riveting-snitching turnips turn successful Thumbelina-Lyudmila girls into informers.

If you resist, they torture and finish you off like an arrogant heifer after your cosmic cultural flight. While you dreamed that the glory of ‘Carnival Night’ had earned you an Eternity…

The Eternity of Gratitude, Love, Loyalty, Friendship and Devotion of all the people to whom the film gave hope to continue living with honesty and love.
 
But… If you achieve fame, that means you’re a witch. Like in the Middle Ages, when the girl is met with rods and thorns, and then chop off her pretty head.

She sings the song ‘Oh, the rocky roads…’

When the Germans occupied Kharkov I was just six years old. From the age of six I began my lifelong murderous Kafkaesque training in fascist executions.

During the German occupation the SS often forced us Kharkov residents to gather in the city square. Partisans and other worthy Soviet people who resisted the fascists were put to death there.

To begin with, at the age of six, I didn’t understand what was happening when a living person was placed on a bench beneath a crossbar, under the gallows.

Then a rope with a noose from this crossbar-gallows was thrown around his neck.

Then the bench was knocked from under his feet and he found himself suspended in the air, hung by the neck on a rope.

Then the living person twitched and croaked the death rattle; our own, living, heroic compatriot grew still, hung by the Germans.

As a little girl of six I didn’t realize what death was.

I didn’t understand that these German executions of the heroic Soviet people were a punishment because they wished to remain free and honest.

I didn’t understand that they brought our common victory closer, for one and all.

After victory, after we all became free and happy, we could learn to sing and dance, go to study at the acting faculty in the Gerasimov Film School.

And then I could walk through Mosfilm in a tight-waisted skirt, like Thumbelina, showing everyone my incomparable wasp waist.
 
And stepping forward to meet me – Ivan Pyriev!

He immediately took me to the set where Ryazanov was filming ‘Carnival Night’!

I was approved for this cosmic leading role, instead of some neurotic wannabe actress!

After four months of filming against the backdrop of the legendary Soviet Red Army Theatre the film was released and appeared on the screens of every Soviet cinema!

In an instant I, like Gagarin, became a deservedly famous actress all over the Soviet Union!

However… after the incomparable ‘Carnival Night’ the KGB invited me to sing for concerts featuring VIPs of the Soviet Union, so I could inform on them afterwards! And in 1957 I was directly recruited by the KGB to work at the World Festival of Youth and Students.

But in reply to their proposition I sent a message to every one of them, including that time-honoured word of four letters that everyone understands.

In retaliation my comrades told me that for this message of mine with a word of four letters I’d be ground into sawdust and branded as a bitch so that everyone understood.

And… those professional spies kept their word, those informers, those squealers and snitches. That life form stays true to their loud vows of fidelity.

At their instigation I was deprived of leading roles for 15 long years. And every day for 15 years I dreamed of fascist executions.
Dreamed of how they lead me to execution barefoot across the prickly snow and hang me, like Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya, for carrying out a feat of bravery in support of my people.

They hang me, hang me, hang me…
 
BUT! They hang me in peacetime too, right now, our native bloodhounds are our fellow creatures.

Back then, during the Kharkov fascist occupation, at the age of six, I still felt that death and execution is the most vile and disgusting thing that people can devise and inflict on others.

During these executions I pressed my face against my mother’s belly so I shouldn’t see anything terrible.

But the German who ensured that all the precise details of this execution were carried out came up to my mother and I, he twisted my face from my mother’s belly with his whip handle. So I could see everything, remember everything – how really scary, unbearably scary it is to watch as jeering people in ironed German fascist uniforms hang others, our heroic Soviet relatives in torn, bloody, dirty old clothes.

I understood – those Germans were carrying out Hitler’s orders that we, the Soviet Gaidar children, should not become, when we grow up, partisans who could fight these fascist monsters…

That’s why, at the age of six, we had to see what happens when the partisans struggle against the German fascists.

But then I began to understand something completely different: the German fascists are worms that somehow crawled across our land and emerged in our backyard; they must be crushed, crushed and crushed like cockroaches, so they simply don’t exist in the world.

So your understand, my formation made me quite different from a Tolstoyan girl who will turn the other side of her face when a hefty blow strikes blood on one cheek!

My character has been shaped by fascist executions since I was six years old. And precisely because of this I began to understand what is good, and what is bad.

This is the most important thing in life. To say, yes of course, or no, certainly not.

I clearly understood that the young Soviet hero who boldly and bravely shouted the victorious words “For the Motherland!” before his death on
 
the gallows is our most glorious Russian man, our soldier, just like my father, who went to the front as a volunteer.


Our partisan soldier with a cold…
Who suffered for us, gave his life for us, so that we can now speak together in our native Russian, understand each other from a half-word and love each other forever!

A soldier with a cold in a trench in winter, snow.
Three o’clock in the morning, enemy tanks on the attack. The soldier has pneumonia, there’s no penicillin,
No warm bed for him in the nearest infirmary. The soldier with a cold no longer wants to live.
He spits blood on the snow as his temperature nears forty. The nearest enemy tank is a hundred metres away
And with his barrel pointed at an infantryman
The soldier rises to his feet, advances to the tank with a grenade, smiling, And it seems to him that his beloved flies towards him instead of the tank,
That he holds flowers in his hand and not a grenade, He wants so much to embrace his beloved,
Even the tank is hypnotized and dares not shoot.
Time stopped the war for a moment of love for this soldier and the tank. But the next moment a shell flies from the tank and pierces the soldier’s breast.
No penicillin, it’s no longer necessary.
The soldier has fallen, he’s dead, his cold is gone

But the German soldier who knocked the bench from under our heroic boy was a worm, a vile snake, ignorant of what he was doing.

I remember how I was really upset I wasn’t a boy – I wasn’t fighting and couldn’t kill the enemy in a fair fight on the battlefield.

But the paradox is that I didn’t want to kill the Germans occupying Kharkov, with whom we lived in the city for two whole years.

I didn’t even learn to hate them. And not because many Germans gave me food after I performed in front of them at children’s concerts.
Thanks to that, my mother and I survived.
 
When the German film ‘The Girl of My Dreams’ with Marika Reck was shown in Kharkov in ’44, I fell madly in love with this German actress and began singing her songs to our occupiers in their native German.

I swore to myself I’d become a famous and charming actress too, but a Russian actress, just like this incomparable German Marika Reck, who, of course, was not exactly a Marlene Dietrich, she made a world name for herself on two octaves.

I really feel sorry for Jean Gabin, who loved that Dietrich diva festooned with ostrich feathers.

But no Marika Reck endured such excruciating Gestapo tortures from her male so-called fans as the ones I had to bear. No one understood anything. It seemed everything was fine. But you could be punched in the face, and no one knew where the fist came from...

Sentenced to death For being yourself...
“You, boy, are a traitor to the motherland,” The evil investigator told me.

“You will rot, you bastard, unknown
In the damp earth with a hole in your forehead, For wanting to hang yourself
Rather than work in the taiga.

Because you eat macaroni, Like you want to puke
At the sight of my shoulder straps You want to throw up so much,

For the fact that, bitch, you smile,
For the fact that, whore, you sleep badly,
For the fact that you don’t repent, you bastard, You dream seditious dreams.”

And now these bullets were flying From the guns of scoundrels.
Who did the shooting – the fools don’t know… “Someone’s finger pressed the trigger”…
 
We lived with all that… And for sure not one director offered me a starring role for the next fifteen years – from when I was twenty to thirty- five.

And this is the best and most productive age for a woman, and an actress.

What’s more, the so-called tyranny of the ‘Carnival Night’ mask – the girl with a smile – began. None of the directors wanted to see me in another mask.

That’s how your famous actress lived when she didn’t want to betray her friends and acquaintances, telling who said what and who drank for what.

Naturally Daddy said whatever helpful, supportive words he could – “a good man is only shaken by fate, then let go”.
Daddy used to call me his ‘cranberry girl’, his ‘goddess’.
I bought cranberries in white powdered sugar and... ate myself by myself. It was even sometimes very tasty – best of all with the Indian tea that came in a yellow pack. Makes me nostalgic!

But thank God, at the end of my life Fate gave me the best kind of happiness – sudden death.

How did it happen? It’s a funny story.

On towering stilettos like these – I was already drowning in my bitter fame as an actress – in a mink fur coat, in the new Russia, at the young age of seventy-six, I was walking my two lap dogs in central Moscow, near my home, near my bureau of happiness.

After my dachsund Trump died I purchased two lap dogs. It was winter and I took them for a walk. I didn’t notice the ice on the ground.

I slipped – that’s the funny thing! And fell – it was hilarious! I broke my hip joint – well, I’m laughing like crazy!

Then a month later my lungs were thick with blood clots – what weird, feeble tricks the old nag’s body gets up to!
 
The ambulance didn’t arrive for twenty endless minutes – the usual circus you hear about in anecdotes – well, of course, the ambulance didn’t reach the actress beloved by her public in time to resuscitate me and bring me back from the next world.

That’s how the movie ended – everyone’s just roaring with laughter, and I’m also directing and editing, dying of laughter!

I gave my soul to God in a completely festive and cheerful mood – in the mood of ‘Carnival Night’.

So I approached God and handed over my Soul in a closed, sealed envelope.

It was all very peaceful, at home, and God opened the envelope, pulled out my Soul, maybe took a bite and tasted it. Well, I don’t know exactly what God does before dispatching a person to Heaven or Hell.

Maybe it’s not so vulgar what God does with our Souls, of course – not like a secondhand goods dealer evaluating gold and diamond treasures or relics in our earthly kingdom of corrupt humanity.

Everything in the world is fairly balanced.

What did the mink give her soul for, when they skinned her to make my fur coat? That mink took revenge on me through my lap dogs when I took them for a walk.

The mink that took revenge on me was with my lap dogs on an astral dog-mink connection. Those little dogs pulled at the leash on purpose – so I stepped on the slippery ice and shattered my hip!

But, as Nikita Mikhalkov quite correctly said about my departure, if I were faced with the choice of dying instantly without suffering with a blood clot on the lungs, or like a houseplant with no one to look after it, then I’d prefer the first option for that lethal flight.

Only now, after death, taking flight isn’t the same as when I rose to the heights way back then, when ‘Carnival Night’ made me a star! (Weeps).

In fact my real life ended before that – when Marik, my unique, beloved fifteen-year-old grandson died…
 
I didn’t know Marik was into drugs.

Some people are keen on sport, some prefer the theatre, others like to fly planes, but Marik liked to fly with drugs. Well… he flew away altogether…

He’s not the first.

Only, you understand – Marik is the first and the last – this is my only and eternally alive, immensely beloved grandson – Marik, my dear grandson. (Weeps).

I often visited my two Mariks at the Vagankovo Cemetery. Marik my father and Marik my grandson.

If I hadn’t visited the cemetery for a long time, for more than a month, I used to feel downhearted.

But now my Mariks lie in Vagankovo Cemetery, and I’m at Novodevichy. For never was a story of more woe, my friend Horatio.

Now, from this eternal burial separation of our family, I’m eternally dying a cold, solitary death here at the Novodevichy Cemetery, without my Mariks, and they’ve been left alone at the Vagankovsky Cemetery, too.

This is the most unbearable torment – to die alone and forever in your own unbearable death from an insurmountable, beyond fatal separation.

Marik died at the age of fifteen. And after ‘Carnival Night’ I didn’t get another role for fifteen years.

You, my public, were also deprived of my creative and human attention to you for three five-year periods.

I suffered during these years with no filming from the fact that my audience, through my screen images, didn’t get the opportunity to see how, according to my bitter experience, we should rid ourselves of this monstrous internal, looped, nationwide suffering.

We can be saved by Love and Creativity. Only love and only creativity can save us.
 
Sings the song ‘Accidental Waltz’

Although in fact it’s better to get used to your suffering and derive the wisdom of life from it.

Without this suffering fertilizer of ours, our bitter Russian suffering, we will immediately turn ugly and wither, we’ll die like flies.

We’ll stupidly, happily eat Snickers, and like cattle we’ll gaily and sweetly die from it!

But in those days, when I was still young, I didn’t realize.
I was only a sad young girl who needed to survive, quite simply.

After all, I was a very proud and independent lady. And in a hurry to live, naturally.

I always raced ahead of my happiness. People usually fall behind their happiness. I ran far ahead and still couldn’t reach my happiness.

But when you run ahead of your happiness, you catch up with the misery of those close to you who fall behind their happiness.

If you’re a really strong and honest person, then you’re certainly able to take your tardy loved one along with his misfortune, and bring him closer to his happiness.

Although you don’t obtain your happiness at the same time, you’re happy with the happiness of the friend you helped.
And if you’re really capable of being happy from the happiness of your loved one, then you’re an honest, pure person.

For those fifteen unhappy and stagnant years I flew around on Aeroflot planes and gave joyful, jolly concerts all over the Soviet Union – all over my Motherland.
 
I also learned how to sew and sell homemade dresses. And at this time, across the country, ‘Carnival Night’ was racking up its three hundred and fifty million viewings in the cinemas.

I bought myself a holiday in Sochi with the fee from ‘Carnival Night’, but didn’t have enough left for a cinema ticket to watch myself in ‘Carnival Night’.

At the same time Delon released a film with Gabin, ‘Any Number Can Win’.

Well, in the movie Gabin and Delon go to Monte Carlo to rob the casino. And they achieve everything in the most extraordinarily beautiful manner. This is the most gorgeous, intricate robbery, like Robin Hood.

You remember the final scene from this movie – they already have millions of stolen francs in two large bags.

Gabin asks Delon to bring the bags of money to the beach. Well, there’s a big, open beach in Monte Carlo, with pools and bars.

And here comes Delon with these huge sacks of money as Gabin sits and waits for him in the cafe opposite… but suddenly the police turn up.

Yes, my dear comrades – the most commonplace police to catch the most worthy people, Jean Gabin and Alain Delon, who hadn’t sleep the night before and had brilliantly robbed the Monte Carlo casino.

And, mind you, without a single shot – no blood was spilled. Well, Delon hit someone gently on the back of the head, so he kept still and behaved properly. After all, he and Gabin had robbed these nasty, half-corrupt casino bosses.

The arrival of the cops is like the way the KGB moved in on me after ‘Carnival Night’, as if I was whored out for commercial gain.

Such well-heeled but at the same time unpleasant types – all these police spies are always on the lookout.

They walk along the beach, past Delon, past the open-air cafe, the pool, past these bags of money that Delon must give to Gabin and hide from all these fascist policemen.
 
Jean Gabin has a very sweet and faithful wife waiting for him at home.

Alain Delon also needs to make a new life for himself after prison, where he was unjustly locked up for several years, they found drugs…

Like those that took Marik – poor Marik...

And so Delon has no choice but to very carefully submerge these bags of money in the pool.

Yes, these bags full of money slowly and silently sink to the bottom of the pool.

I was so happy for Delon. He found a solution right in front of several filthy policemen walking past him just two steps away – from what seemed a hopeless situation.

Alain Delon had found a way out!

Very quietly, gently and cautiously, he lowers the moneybags to the bottom of the pool.

And what do you think. One of the technicians that clean these facilities opens some kind of valve in the pool and sets off undercurrents at the bottom of the pool, near the bags with Delon and Gabin’s hard-earned money.

The money starts floating out of the bags!!!

I really felt sick as I watched this scene play out before my eyes.

After ‘Carnival Night’ I really felt unable to watch as the money surfaces and never gets to the people who deserve it most.

That money is needed to prevent people getting drunk or addicted to drugs, to give them a haircut, dress them in clean shirts or dresses with tight waists and let them work, work, work.

An actor can’t live without work. Without work an actor dies.
 
Can you imagine, my darlings, when the money earned by honest, hard labour, the nerve-fuelled labour of an actor, floats up and away.

Many millions of Western money in foreign currency are floating away, with that you can buy yachts, villas, ships, steamships, instead of sewing dresses in the evenings after ‘Carnival Night’, when all exits as an actress were cut off for me – exits to reach you, my beloved, heroic, Soviet viewers.

And practically the same deservedly earned money from ‘Carnival Night’, the classic Robin Hood carnival, the brilliant Delon robbery – this money begins to float and… disappear.

This is an absolutely accurate image of my state in those terrible years when, after the frenzied success of ‘Carnival Night’ – as well as after the chic robbery of a night casino in Monaco – all the money made by me and Delon surfaced and went to the police and the same crooks from the casino, who probably corruptly shared it with the necessary persons. The police.

Well, the difference between Delon and me was only that my Frenchman played this character with the money that surfaced in the cinema and received for this miracle movie from his actor’s box office decent currency fees for a well-deserved life as a filmstar.

And I, Lyudmila Gurchenko, lived my truly stellar life in almost utter poverty, without a well-deserved job or even a crust of stale bread.

Only in 1966 was I given a role with Oleg Borisov in the film ‘Workers’ Settlement’, and even that was a supporting role.

By then eleven rainy years had passed since ‘Carnival Night’. As a result, this semi-dissident film would then be shelved elsewhere.

Of course, later – I proved to them all that my years of suffering hadn’t been in vain – I learned to understand and love the Russian people who trail behind their legitimate happiness, running after their elusive happiness.

And I tried to help people suffering for the truth as heroine of the movie ‘Old Walls’.
 
There’s a lot of God in the Old Walls of ruined churches. I played a solo role in ‘Old Walls’.
Dzhigarkhanyan accompanied me just at the beginning of the film, and the end. He personally, gratefully and nobly confessed to me that he couldn’t fathom how I could reach such cosmic heights of acting just like that.

He’s a bit of a long-haul pilot there. But of course I eclipsed my beloved Dzhigarkhanyan. Without intent or ill will.

Everything just turned out naturally. God supported me. Where God supports, there can be no feeling of cheap self-love, vanity, or especially, ill will.

The entire film is based on me and on God. Perhaps the only film based on me alone and God alone.

But I was also in a film about Divine Love – about me alone and God! ‘The Mechanic Gavrilov’s Beloved Woman’.
There I wait throughout the film for the incomparable drunken Russian knight, my Seryozhenka Shakurov… My Seryozhenka Senin was my real Russian Alain Delon, finally sent me by fate as a reward for endless torment.

Sings the song ‘Heart in My Breast’

And before that, of course, there was Nikita Mikhalkov’s ‘Five Evenings’. There God really was in Everything!

And in 1979 Andron Konchalovsky’s ‘Sibiriade’ was shown at the Cannes Film Festival. There I erotically and brilliantly acted with Nikita Mikhalkov, using Stanislavsky’s psychological Acting Method.

I just magically, humanly and creatively merged with him, trembling and
 
resonating with our Russian Alain Delon, Nikita Mikhalkov.

In the frame I kissed Nikita incomparably – from the heart, according to Stanislavsky, like an Olympic champion the gymnastic actress turned an actor’s somersault of love and felt no pain from her recently broken leg.

For which I received sincere and enviable praise from Andron Konchalovsky.

But I couldn’t kiss Slava Lyubshin in ‘Five Evenings’ in front of the director Nikita Mikhalkov. Forgive me, Nikita, but in front of you, my beloved director who gave me the role in these ‘Five Evenings’, I couldn’t kiss blessed Lyubshin according to Stanislavsky.

You wouldn't believe my only artificial possible kisses, Stanislavsky- Mikhalkov. But we made an excellent film. A black and white film like a rainbow of colour! And understandable for a lot of people. Almost everyone.

I always wanted to play images that everyone could understand.

I’m sorry, like Pushkin I wanted to create rich, unfading folk images over the years.

That’s the most difficult thing in art.

In my work the heights I achieved as an actor and human being were like Gagarin’s vertical ascent.

Then we had the year 1975 in Russia. When they released Eldar Ryazanov’s film ‘The Irony of Fate, or Enjoy Your Bath!’ on the wide Soviet screen.

Of course I auditioned for the fatal role of Nadezhda in this film.
Of course! But Ryazanov, after the infinitely successful ‘Carnival Night’ set at New Year’s Eve, didn’t audition me for the role.

As it turned out Ryazanov needed that over-refined Polish girl Barbara Brylska for the role of the Russian girl Nadya in the film.
 
And I, in Spirit and Mind, with my mortified Russian-Soviet fate, after ten years of downtime after his brilliant ‘Carnival Night’, when I ran through life ahead of my happiness for so many painful years, did not suit dear kind Ryazanov in his warm slippers at that moment.

But after all, in this film I would, as always, have been playing myself running ahead of my happiness – well, I would’ve slow down a little, Ryazanov would have condescended and helped chivalrously push Myagkov towards happiness, although he is always far behind this happiness – that’s his misfortune.

And then we’d have been so idyllically happy, him and I, in this movie.

And you, Ryazanov, would have achieved a great, courageous, lyrical film comparable with the level of heavenly suffering in your own ‘Station for Two’.

My God – the divine Ryazanov!

If I were shooting this film, I’d definitely put you in the role of Lukashin instead of Myagkov, and I would play with you in this film instead of Barbara Brylska. You would just become a Delon from my passions, Ryazanov!

Dear Ryazanov... My dear Ryazanov... For ‘Carnival Night’, not ‘Station for Two’, where I played the absolute vertical Gagarin space takeoff with Basilashvili, you didn’t settle accounts with me and with all compassionate humanity, in the person of the Russian people.

And I had to wait three years for ‘Five Evenings’ with Nikita Mikhalkov. As a result I played my best role of love there with Slava Lyubshin.
Lyubshin is a Christian superhuman Actor.

To exist with Lyubshin in the frame is like being in the frame with a child, you can’t overplay.

Then there’s another super-actor-child of ours, so similar to my Daddy, but there was only one incomparable folk peddler of anecdotes – Yura
 
Nikulin.

He was sent to me as my Salvation.

I acted in Alexei German’s ‘Twenty Days Without War’ with Yura Nikulin.

In this movie I really like myself.
I fell under the spell of this wonderful man Yuri Nikulin, I wanted him to like me, and now I also really like myself, with my modesty and refined intelligence.

Usually I watch films with my participation, where I did something really super-extraordinary.

In ‘Twenty Days Without War’ by the documentarily accurate Alexei German, who’s been making films for decades and staging plays for years, any actress or actor can play brilliantly.

Although they tell me that no one could have played better than me with Yuri Nikulin in ‘Twenty Days without War’. Thank you, Lyosha German, for bringing me together in your war film for our beloved Motherland with Yuri Nikulin, my Actor Father. Thank you.

When the film was being shot, Nikulin endlessly thought up wartime jokes about Stirlitz:

Muller is walking down the street. Suddenly a brick falls on his head. “Once upon a time,” thinks Muller. “And now twice,” thinks Stirlitz, throwing the second brick.

Stirlitz leaves his home and sees some working ladies: “You should go home, girls, there’s a war on.”

A shot rings out. By the whistling of the wind in his head, Stirlitz realizes the wound went straight through.

The wound went straight through…
 
And now Alain Delon’s performing in Paris with his twenty-year-old daughter, for people who love and appreciate him. And I, with my beloved grandson Marik, see from the heavens the great happiness of Alain Delon and his beloved daughter – playing on stage with your closest and dearest, most beloved person on earth, playing for your beloved audience – and so happily continuing to live together!!!

The man who will die in my play –

Will remove his skin first and hang it on a chair. And the chair will say: I shrug my shoulders, Your death isn’t my problem.

The rose in a vase will intervene

And cite as an example the crystal vase:

I’m dying in this vase and the vase doesn’t care, It only gleams, with all its facets.

And the chair will say: those are your problems.

Then the grumpy sofa will remember:

Once a man stood on this chair with a noose at his neck, And the chair was joyful as it was kicked aside
And the man’s legs hung in the air.


And the chair knew, knew, knew,

What would happen when the Man was left there.
 
And the chair will say: those are your problems.



The man who will die in my play May remove his skin,
But respecting the chair, May he throw it to the floor.

The chair has its own problems. And after all, this is just a play.

She kicks the stool under the vase of flowers and the ‘hung’ vase of flowers dangles in the air from the gallows.


Nothing personal. It’s just that I once lived in this world beside you – Lyudmila Gurchenko lives.


She sings the song ‘Evening on the Raid’ The lights dim
Moscow, 2017
‘Lyudmila Gurchenko Lives’ by Mikhail Volokhov

Mikhail Volokhov’s long-awaited and much-discussed play ‘Lyudmila Gurchenko Lives’ was premiered on 27 April 2017 at the Leonardo Club, in a production by director Andrey Zhitinkin with the actress Galina Bosaya. Costumes for the performance were created by fashion designer Slava Zaitsev.
The play presents intermittent and vivid episodes that seem to randomly emerge from memory, scenes in the life of this famous actress, singer and female icon. Life through memory. Memory through our memories of her. Documentary and fictional images collated together – like memory, like real life. Joys, sorrows, twists and turns in life, love, happiness and suffering. A complex, eventful life that has become part of our country’s history. Emotional tension rivets the audience’s attention for nearly one and a half hours.
The playwright Mikhail Volokhov says:

“In my play ‘Lyudmila Gurchenko Lives’ – I myself define this play as a Sacred Tragedy – an artistic language and a polysyllabic game present the Image of Gurchenko’s Memory, meaningfully reinterpreted so that the truly authentic facts set forth by the heroine’s speech acquire a Prophetic resonance, and the image of Lyudmila Gurchenko herself is elevated to the highest horizons of her perfect Humanity.
I’m glad that it was possible to recreate in the performance the revived spirit of Gurchenko, who not only remembers, but Lives in Figurative Embodiments of her Memory with the Meaning of Truth and the sincerity of Prayer...”

Director Andrey Zhitinkin added:


 
Most importantly, it seemed that we know everything about her, but viewers who watched the performance were stunned, for they didn’t know what was going on in the heroine’s soul, behind her external persona as the striking and successful star of carnival night.”

Summing up, producer Andrey Alekseev succinctly and briefly described the work as follows:
“The play ‘Lyudmila Gurchenko Lives’ tells a story of human resilience.”

Vlad Stopalov



11)

DIALOGUE: Mikhail Volokhov, Nikita Struve –

‘THE THEATRE OF KAIROS IN ESSENCE’

– an essay by
Mikhail Volokhov on the theory of theatre and art,
on the basis of Nikita Struve’s interview with Mikhail
Volokhov.


STRUVE. To begin with, you are a playwright. How many plays have you written?

VOLOKHOV. Nearly twenty. ‘Dead Man’s Bluff’, ‘The Great Consoler’, ‘Chikatilo’s Calvary’, ‘The Immaculate Conception’ – these are like the Four Times Unity. Well, my other hyperrealistic plays, I believe, were written by me at the philosophical figurative level of objectively sincere penetration into Reality – such as ‘The Great Consoler’, ‘Bullets in Chocolate’, ‘Rublyovka Safari’, ‘Chikatilo’s Calvary’, ‘Lesbians Roaring Like a Tsunami’, ‘The Macbeth Chronicles’, ‘Lyudmila Gurchenko Lives’, ‘The Companion’, ‘His Majesty’s Executioner’, ‘Bullets in Chocolate’, ‘Forty-Eighth Degree of Solar Latitude’. I always intend to write a novel, but it turns out as a play.
That’s my ‘dramatic organism’.

STRUVE. ‘Dead Man’s Bluff’ has produced the greatest resonance so far.

VOLOKHOV. The French, German and Swiss productions of this play spoke of their own inner anti-spiritual frenzy, about the bloody manipulation of man by man. Nonetheless the performances everywhere turned out to be spiritually significant – I was compared to Shakespeare and ‘Hamlet’ – in the sense that the philosophy of the Truth of the World Spirit of Development is revealed in this play through the absolute Truth of Life. I conceived this play back in Russia, and wrote it in the first months of my life in France. Through the writing of this play, the phenomenon of revealing the real looking glass, the Troubles of Russia, as the most tragic Misfortune of our entire World polluted by thoughtlessness occurred to me spiritually and physically. Then my daughter was born and my beloved French wife was with me – all that was a great inspiration.

STRUVE. The play is, above all, a conflict. What is the philosophical, ‘universal’ conflict of this play of yours?

VOLOKHOV. The fact that in the physical and spiritual reality for people, so-called communism turned out to be more terrible than fascism. That is, as if the good, largely Christian ideas about justice, the pure idea of communism – not to live at the expense of others – turned into their bloody
opposite in Soviet reality – it was literally possible to live ‘with faith in communism’ only at the expense of the ruined lives of their compatriots. Tens of millions were destroyed, and any person in the USSR was turned into a degrader and potential killer who, for the sake of ideas that were unrealizable, virtually phantasmagorical, ideally beautiful and in many ways beneficial, I must admit, was ready in reality to kill his neighbour without a twinge of conscience, as if ‘between two cups of tea’.

STRUVE. And thereby killing himself, you mean.

VOLOKHOV. In many ways there was a spiritual and physical ‘self- mutilation’ of the nation, of Russia – and since Russia is located all over the world (which is very often forgotten by many), then through Russia ‘spiritual mutilation’ occurred throughout Humanity. And in the play this universal anti-human paradox is metaphorically inverted: ‘in good intentions the road is paved to hell’, and an attempt at Redemption is made by debunking this pernicious, absurd, real ‘spiritual damage’ with a Positive Artistic Hyperreal Absurd Image of the whole play.

STRUVE. Do you mean only the destruction of people in Russia, or some kind of internal dehumanization? After all, let’s say for the last fifty years, people have not been physically put to death there. Since Stalin’s death destruction has been very limited. It was still a potential. But there has not been total physical destruction for half a century. What was going on?

VOLOKHOV. The cart moved on. There was a corruptible anti-spiritual decomposition-self-destruction in ignorance. The immoral disease of the nation was on a very pathologically deep and exquisitely corrupting level.

STRUVE. Anthropological, you mean.

VOLOKHOV. Yes — in Russia, all the universal moral roots were cut down. There was a hyperreal over-critical universal negative Absurdity. For decades killing their brothers in the name of ‘communism’ in the largest and most cultured country on the planet was considered the highest good of the ‘saints’. In the name of the inverted ‘holy’ ideas of the social revolution turned upside-down. And all the other countries – their left-leaning intellectual majority applauded Stalin and his ‘foreign’, ‘magical’ deeds, like the Blue Bird from ‘Bluebeard’, as if he had won the war with Hitler, in fact as the Saviour. This is the anthropological, totally fatal sacrilegious global blind looking glass. And ‘Dead Man’s Bluff’ in the form of Theatre plays out and reveals the essence of all this anthropological destruction of the Russian man – as a man of the whole world. Yes, even one philosophical level, the so-called ‘philosophical pillar of the game’, puts ‘Dead Man’s Bluff’ in the category of an anti-Soviet work, as Andrei Zhitinkin told me – a
director who literally ‘prophetically – for centuries’ staged ‘Dead Man’s Bluff’ with such talented actors as Oleg Fomin, Sergey Chonishvili, Andrei Sokolov and Dmitry Marianov – if we talk about the socio-philosophical aspect of this play. Although the play was written partly so that people would come to their senses after seeing in this drama their potential, inhuman, apocalyptic end from flirting with ‘Good Murders for the sake of mind-numbing ideas’. But it seems to me that this play is more about an objective tragic Drama of the World Spirit of Development, which does not save millions in the Name of the future existence of Life.

After all, the fact is that Heaven is not human, not a single prayer has yet been heard, and all revolutions are simply from ignorance. Yet on the other hand, the Last Judgment means that the Light that has entered the World. Death always gives rise to Hope. And when Hope is generated and resolved in knowledge, death, hopefully, will recede. Nothing can be begged for. Prayer is basically spiritual work – a thought hungry for Truth. And the thought of the playwright who creates the Catharsis of the Spiritual Word in the Temple Theatre should become the philosophy of the Cathedral Theatre. I think that as a result ‘Dead Man’s Bluff’ performs precisely this Cultural Temple Cleansing, saying through the Word of the Temple Theatre that fatal, total human thoughtlessness leads to universal, blasphemous death.

STRUVE. Man will thus be tempted. So you envisage a religious action behind art?

VOLOKHOV. In the absolute limit, of course. From God’s Spark a Flame should ignite, which will warm our entire World with Goodness. And the Theatre, by and large, should always be a Cathedral, a Temple. The theatre is a small cathedral where people gather in order to contemplate, to see the Truth and ripen as a Fruit in order to reach this Truth and become Mature themselves, for in Maturity lies Knowledge.

Theatre is Creativity and Knowledge. The essence and task of any Creativity and Knowledge is overcoming Death. ‘Death Is Corrected By Death.’ And this is possible if we have the Gift to create an image of Sacred Death in the Theatre-Temple. It was no accident that Rilke said: ‘None of us die our own deaths’. We don’t rule over ourselves. We don’t know the information space in its absolute entirety. We don’t know the culture of Eternity. Its Secretly Explicit Image. We leave, we are dismantled – by one or another life circumstance and in the vast majority of cases in the Theatre, where we are destined to Serve precisely in the Name of Eternity, we nearly always remain mediocre at the level of everyday petty-grudging Schadenfreude. But another Death is destined for us – Death in Eternity,
which is the Highest True Life, and thus with such a Great Death we can overcome earthly temporary death.

There is one single Image – the Image of Eternity, the image of the motionless Mask of Death, the Mask of Eternity. It distributes true guises and disguises – exposing through a disguise. And all the masks and guises in the Theatre-Temple should come only from this Mask of Eternity – only then is a Live Theatre-Cathedral possible. And only then, and only in such a True Theatre, is it possible to recognize all theatrical acting disguises not in their shabby everyday sense, but already in relation to the Mask of Eternity. Because only this Mask is the Measure of all temporary disguises. For only that turns Life into a form of currency. Otherwise, everything turns into a temporary moment, a moment of clamour, then dispersal.

And the basis of theatre is the play. A real Poet of the Theatre should paint the action in the play with bursts of the ninth waves, with accents on Eternity. And the Play itself should act as the ninth shaft, already summing up these ninth shafts with the Idea of Ideas. Then the Play, alive and effective, will live indefinitely, with the Constant of Eternity, all- encompassing in its limitations.

It’s necessary to direct people in the Theatre to this kind and level of Conciliar Thought – they are the audience, gathered here, gathered in the Spirit, together, in the Name of the Great Effective Word. They listen to the Word. They are eager to catch the Word through a Big Theatrical Play. And the Word of a Great Theatrical Play is again a Cathedral. And when such a Theatre-Temple With Its Art ‘captures’ all the apocalyptic pros and cons of ‘live real time’, melting out of all this a Holy Tragic Philosophical Catharsis – such a Theatre-Temple is able not only to soften morals, but also to make a person Christianly Wiser.

Any word and concept in the Theatre-Temple must be Crucified on the Cross – on the Cross of Conciliarity, on the Cross of Measure, otherwise no one will understand anything again, otherwise His Death would be stupid – His example would be stupid that a Person was crucified and He suffered so much. Christ Is Truly Risen. And the goal of Truth is Life. Such an attitude to oneself, Life and Art dictates our new time of an enriched information field. And a person tempted by such Art, such a Renovated Theatre-Temple, will in any case be able to clearly distinguish human spiritual grains from all kinds of subhuman chaff. Mind, Conscience, Faith and Repentance are the fundamental principles in creativity, as the ‘avant- gardists’ of all kinds of secondary postmodernizations do not struggle with this.
 
STRUVE. The beginning of a believing conscience is strong in all Christian literature, and in drama in particular – starting with Shakespeare, ending with Pushkin, Bulgakov, Claudel.

VOLOKHOV. Although the absurdists such as Beckett and Ionesco artificially, as it were, ‘abandoned’ the ‘Mind and Conscience’ – especially they refused Faith and Repentance in their absurdist plays, but indirectly, by the invisible will of the Almighty, the Mind of Conscience is still present in their plays, although Faith and Repentance are not there – it’s just not given. Ionesco, who was a friend of mine for many years during my time in Paris, told me he didn’t see himself as a religious person, but considered Christ the Kindest and Greatest Man on Earth. Beckett, Ionesco and their other ‘generational brothers and absurdists’ ‘devised’ philosophical, cabinet, ‘brain’, anti-gnoseological anti-drama – and the Heartfelt Volume of Life, but they didn’t capture all its Universal Romantic Tragic Juices, Beliefs and Religions. They – the ‘Western cabinet creators’, are simply not spiritually aiming at this with their fractional, private, egoistic, relative, abstruse, powerless forces. The voice of a Western artist, as a Western person, is rationally limited, utilitarian and cowardly. In the West they all work in ‘degrees’, they are ‘stumps’. They aim at the target, but they hit the stump – they arrive at something very similar, but it’s not the main thing, it’s fluid, liquid, relative, certainly momentary and monetary. The nature of Russian Art, Russian Artistic and Globally Philosophically Objective Absurd Writing consists in the discovery of a universal, unified, world, the innermost secrets of human beings, through the creation of Existentially Holy and human voluminous Creations. Like, for example, Dostoevsky’s ‘Brothers Karamazov’. For this ‘silverless universe’ they are drawn to us, the Russians. But at the same time Dostoevsky’s ‘Crime and Punishment’ is already, among other things, the most ‘modern’ Western novel because of the speculative repentance of the murderer Raskolnikov. And in fact, this novel morally resolved our social, bloody revolution.

For the most part Dostoevsky is revealed in the Western world as the most ‘Jewish-Western’ writer – with a psychological, temporary hack – from the point of view that the whole life of our time is in the Spirit – humanly everywhere psychologically Jewish – in the world there is a process of scattering all his brilliantly created stones-creations. I say that in Spirit Dostoevsky was a Jew, although he is an antagonist to them outwardly, in the physical world. And in this case I am not talking about Jews in a substantive way (I am negative about anti-Semites), but only as a kind of philosophical concept of Time, which covers Eternity and is equal to Eternity, but is aware of itself only discretely at the moment, due to the limitations of our universal Consciousness and Being. In this fatal unresolved state, at the moment, of the development of the World Spirit lies the main Tragedy of the World. Russians and Jews are the two most
metaphysically powerful Coming Nations, who are today outcasts of this our physical world. Jews represent the movement of the world, its Physics. Russians are its contemplative unifying static, its Meta.

Our world-famous genius Gogol is the most globally universal Russian- Jewish Metaphysician with his main character, the eternal Jew Chichikov, who buys Dead Souls (something which cannot be bought, which only belongs to God) in Contemplative Russia, where all Dead Souls are essentially Living. In Chekhov, the United Russian Spirit of the Russia of Ranevskaya with its Cherry Orchard becomes like Christ on the executioner’s block under the axe of the Russian Jew Lopakhin, the Hassidic love of the Cherry Orchard for dacha silverware. Shakespeare is an absolutely ‘Russian’ playwright, entirely woven from Real Human Eternal Great Unified Absurdities. There the Russian Contemplative Hamlet is fighting with the temporary worker Claudius, who took power by killing.
And another interesting aspect of Shakespeare is that, for example, Macbeth the murderer, like Dostoevsky’s Raskolnikov, doesn’t repent speculatively. Shakespeare finds forces in life and uses them in the play to destroy the killer Macbeth. In my dramaturgy I adhere to the same Shakespearean principle of punishment for the crime committed.

But all of today’s Western philosophy and culture is ‘Jewishly’ discrete and relative. If they are engaged in God, they are engaged in his self- expression. And self-expression is endless. Their Western philosophy and culture have stopped developing – they are grinding away at the same thing, but this is physical, psychological or often just pathological self- examination. And any great universal divine metaphor is an Eternal Great Universal Metaphysical Absurdity. Ionesco also believes that Shakespeare and Chekhov were the first absurdists. Only Ionesco doesn’t say anywhere that the ‘absurdity’ of Shakespeare and Chekhov was of a different, higher metaphysical, life-affirming, noble-tragic order.

Absurdity is not a one-sided thing – it is masculine and feminine, their act of coupling. In coupling they form a single Word. This is the Heraclitean lyre and bow. And if the Absurd disappears, life itself disappears. The person becomes flat, one-sided, and gradually declines into death. A person is not aware of the Absurd, but lives by it, being at the centre of attention, as if in the middle of these two conjugate poles. Man does not need to understand the absurdity, but he lives and feeds on it. And it is not when he gets into an absurd situation that a person commits suicide (according to Albert Camus), but vice versa, when he is deprived of this situation. Because absurdity is always a dialogue, a clash, a contradiction. Like two banks of the same river. Where life flows and speech itself is built. And so we all live one-sidedly. Everything ends up out of kilter. But we are absurdly carrying two sides forward at the same time. In the same way we have two eyes but
see with the third. One eye is fixed and the other is diffused. And besides the fact that the eye is just a physical body, the eye is also the body of Consciousness. So the right hemisphere of the brain is responsible for the left hand. But at the same time, everything lives in a single organism.
Therefore, the Absurd is a unifying principle. Absurdity is the meaning of life and the construction of any form and content taken together. Otherwise, content and form will fall apart. Just like the alphabet – in its essence, like a Mystery, like the preservation of the One, indivisible, but divisible in the endless details of our human mercantile absurdity. The absurd is a ubiquitous global reconnecting metaphor for life. And in a theatrical play, in order to recreate the full scope of Vibrant Absurd Life, the characters should not be artificial, flat puppets that are neither exalted nor belittled.
The image is always the Whole, and in the Essence of the Whole lies the Absurd.

Then there is always a double basis in matter. There is the Truth of Beauty and the secret Life of Brotherhood. The world within itself is One. And in secretive life, any objects are absurdly twinned. That’s why Western plays of almost any level so strongly smack of vulgarity. They just contain the meaningless ambulation of the world – went there, not knowing where.
Created one-sidedly, they simply express the one-sidedness of life. And, for example, it was ‘strategically’ more important for Ionesco to foster the mercantile claim that it was he, and not Beckett, who wrote the world’s first anti-play, ‘The Bald Soprano’. Skinny and unfinished – like a Play, but before ‘Waiting for Godot’, the most metaphysically vulgar, baseless and linear Western play, this is, incidentally, its manic pathological ‘genius’, and consists of an absolutely mirror physical tracing paper of Einstein’s relative theory of relativity, which fails to take into account the Coordinates of Eternity. The mere fact that Beckett wrote an Ionic absurdist play earlier (in relative time, a relative play) brings concrete non-metaphysical money in the West. After all, it is in the ‘relative West’ that this type of ‘relatively previously written play’, in the puppet gradations of their mercantile monetary absurdism, is staged far more often. And, incidentally, Ionesco’s play ‘The Chairs’, which appeared at the same time, has an order of magnitude more significant than ‘Waiting for Godot’; after all, it is written in the coordinates of subject philosophy: what is the ‘table’, so is the ‘chair’.
And, in my opinion, Ionesco’s ‘The Chairs’ is the only worthy masterpiece of the era of the French ‘breaking drama’.

Unfortunately, on the whole all subsequent modern Western ‘avant-garde’ dramaturgical creators ‘produce’ their ‘absurdist masterpieces’ in artificial ‘tabloid metaphysics’, at the pathologically insane, superficial level of all their teachers of armchair absurdity. And so all of their Western postmodern general-uniform, pension-kitchen fuss at the gastric level – the first ‘before-after’ of the first truly great Shakespearean absurdists became
the first completely monetary-salary, ‘puppet’ absurdist, which is simply tabloid ridiculous. But that’s how these ‘Jews from over the hill’, these ‘mass entertainers’ with their ‘magic herb’ lived in their invented relative anti-world, and go on living. They see the Seven Wonders of the World, but they don’t see the Light itself. After all, the weakness of the dramaturgy of Beckett, Ionesco and their other more primitive followers is that the arithmetically generated puppet antiheroes of their plays in their temporary underdevelopment in the course of the play are incapable of anything more than ‘knocking out’ for the ‘anti-spirit’ of the play, resetting their entire already impotent set of mutually exclusive matches without reason and meaning. As a result, they simply don’t have and cannot have a ‘Great Theatrical Performance’. And, for example, in potentially metaphysically universal Russia, the performances of Beckett and Ionesco have no ‘Presence’ at the Christian Level of even Tennessee Williams. On the other hand, in the Old West, Williams is considered a deeply tabloid, tearful playwright. That is, the physically absurd snake of the sophisticated avant- garde Western discrete mind and heart devoured not only itself in more than one circle, but it also managed to bite with its rotten, ‘pseudo-avant- garde’, critical fangs the living sprouts of its own potentially real Spiritual, Cathartic Theatrical Art – Light for All, with Blood, Flesh, with Heart, Conscience, Love, Repentance, with the Universal Fullness of Life. This is the real Crazy Aggressive Absurdity of Cultural Humanity – Western pseudo-consolidating relative physical avant-gardism, ‘leading’ only at the expense of its mathematical, monetary organization.

The oneness of language and thought in the West did not exist and will never exist. They killed the Letter. They are mute, they are all ‘Jewish Germans’ in a philosophical sense. That’s why fascism came from Germany, as a Lutheran act of Human Chastity, a very Human Faith, but in an undeveloped physical world, and it all ended with extensive and insane bloodletting. Because their dynamic, monetary, relatively contractual world cannot be built ontologically on a Static Unshakeable Truth, when anyone can be deceived and divorced for money.


‘monetary degree’. But, on the other hand, this creative Absurd Antagonism of the physical Jewish West and Oblomov’s contemplative Russian Russia should in the future give birth to a really worthy ‘offspring’, who will begin to Save and Sanctify us all, at least in the Theatre.

STRUVE. But won’t you get the same paradox of a snake devouring itself with your abundant use of obscene language, the Russian mat? Don’t you see this as a kind of dead end for expression, don’t you use it just to distinguish yourself?

VOLOKHOV. For me, an obscenity is just a very strong figurative Russian word. What is obscene language? On the one hand a deadlock, but on the other a victory. Objective reality is the foundation of everything, a support in which nothing can be changed. And in relation to mat, it is no longer obscenity. There is an expression: ‘He scolds with all his might’. And to bring to life, to ‘raise’ a strong, universal, full-blooded, tragic Russian Plot, these sacred words are a Sacred Necessity. The great play is not afraid of sacred words; it matches them. And the sanctity of the Metaphysical Super- Idea in a strong play is so Holy that an attentive person with a ‘need for truth’ accepts the need for appropriate strong words, especially if all this is a Real Holy Art, which is higher than real everyday physical life. For, without an appropriate, in the case of Fully-Fledged Art, a full-blooded objective mat, the sanctity of an objective Super-Idea will simply be perverted. And the conciliatory, participatory person in such a ‘Theatre’ will have the feeling that he was cursed without obscenity, as always happens in the case of mediocre grey art. And in dramaturgy, sometimes, there is simply nowhere to go – art is moulded from the ‘natural juices of the language’, ‘it is impossible to retreat – Moscow is behind us’.

And mat is a very serious thing. The seriousness of it is indicated by the critical moment at which it is used. Of course, mat is vulgarized as an insult, but this comes from a misunderstanding of Russian obscene language as a principle. Mat is very stingy with expressions, but this is a lofty, capacious concept that carries mathematical criteria – it is possible to swear with a three-, seven-storey obscenity. In mat lies the concept of the word atom, meta, death and metaphysics. It is very specific, and a person feels some awkwardness and experiences tremendous tension when he enters such a clear framework. He feels that the mat is placed at the conclusion of something. Mat is always a measure of responsibility, a very great responsibility that is also moral, as to what we mean – so this profanity should always be appropriate. And, in principle, mat lies, as it were, in the sphere of silence, of sacred action – it need not be voiced, the cursing can be apparent. What is the reason for cursing? The hopeless situation a person has inflicted on himself, due to his lack of education. And the mat gives a hint – what you are missing. If people say ‘Fuck you,’ it
means you lack creativity and need to be fertilized. ‘You’re a cunt...’ indicates that you don’t have a feminine aspect, you just need to transition. And mat is always moralizing, it hints at the way out of a lie. We always ‘lie’, but we justify this lie in a good way and convert it into the truth, oddly enough, through mat. Obscene language is the last extreme hint at how to get out of the situation of lies and lying, which always has a specific temporal meaning, distinct from the Unit of Being. In chess, checkmate is implemented in physics, and the language does not know dead ends, but this is not a concretized chess game or a table, this is the Field of View, this is the whole universe, where there is always a way out – this is the Essence. There is a way out of any situation. And we humans are always concerned about how to get in, but we don’t think about how to get out.
There is no sin. There is only the vanity of reason. Mat is the key, the way out of the situation, the birth of an image associated with Eternity. And if we emotionally experience the deadlock situation, then we get out of this situation by way of Emotions. We interpret, we make sense of it. Mat is a sublimation of the highest human qualities accumulated over the centuries
– this is an extreme position that is not deaf, it carries a hint. And you need to be able to listen to mat. Everything else is a lie, a meaningless hubbub and provocation.

‘F... your mother’ – you have no memory – you fucked your mother. Some narrow-minded psychologists, educators and writers seem to see here the shadow of incest, the Oedipus complex invented by the ill-fated philosopher Freud, who was always concerned about pathology. But what does incest have to do with it? How can a person enter into a physical relationship with his mother? Only if he is completely unconscious and does not remember who his mother is. This is the whole falsity of the psychology of today, which has pathologically become pathology. No language other than Russian has such a profanity – a return to memory. So, in this sense, Russian mat is no longer pathological. The Russian man will, albeit unconsciously, comprehend himself. And the fact that in Russia people often say ‘F... your mother’ is a clear sign that the nation is at the forefront of humanity, in the sense of self-purification, repentance and constant reminders of the mother, the mother who brings everyone together. No wonder they say ‘Love the Motherland, your mother!’ In this, Russia is ahead of the whole planet. Mat immediately fixes the topic, but also immediately gives a way out of the situation – it is life-giving. And this is only the property of Russian mat, because it is genetically justified by language – here lies the basis of the Truth of the Life of language itself. A spring of pure water, but at the same time a key. Philosophers have not yet paid close attention to this fundamental topic because they have failed to understand the basic principle. You can, of course, talk grandiloquently about obscene language, about the vulgarities of the common people, but this does not reveal its essence. Mat is a manifestation of the highest
moment of Being. We have a completely false attitude towards mat. Everyone swears, but at the same time everyone is afraid – they feel shame. Yes, shame – mat discovers this shame. It is not the mat itself that is shameful, but what it reveals is the failure of a person. And speaking in obscenities is a situation when the event is most accurately described in its own terms, so the mat is impartial, it always offends the eyes and ears – this is the most naked form of human communication.

But mat must be very responsibly accurate. It must be learned – it must be understood and correlated with the highest manifestations of the human Spirit. The more we listen to it, and the more accurate and precise it is, the faster we can dispense with our mistakes. If you did something senselessly, then you cursed yourself. But if you did it with meaning, ‘naked with balls’, then you have already pointed out something lacking in society and given a hint of what we lack.

Mat is a theatrical action in the first place. And naked shame protects. And if there is shame and understanding of this, then no mat will stick. Mat sticks to the person who has no sin. We have a common vulgarized point of view on mat, when the mat is interpreted without any meaning, without any figurative application to this or that fact. As a result the mat cannot achieve its goal, it becomes meaningless. In a meaningful Theatre-Temple the process of Human Purification must therefore be achieved by the creative impetus of the mat, its sacred meaning. But, unfortunately, to dismiss it is our ubiquitous vulgar understanding of mat. This means that a person has become deaf, mute, waved his hand and walked away from the problem.
People don’t worry about problems, they get rid of them. And this is the positive essence of mat, to get rid of problems. Mat thereby strives for self- destruction, and it is used to self-sacrifice. After solving the situation through mat, the mat can then be withdrawn. Language is sincere – there is nothing in the world more sincere than language. We must trust such a language. And be very sincere yourself, like your language.

STRUVE. That’s very interesting. Probably that’s why French obscene language experienced certain problems and lost all its colour.

VOLOKHOV. Then in Russia, the people and the intelligentsia are still very far from each other. Life has not settled down. But the differences give life to beautiful waterfalls. You can’t step over anything. The spirit of development moves with pace, this is its saving power. If we step over, we will be over the abyss again. And in France there hasn’t been such a wild social difference for a long time, it’s a relatively small, realistically imagined human territory. In Russia, wherever you throw in all parameters, there are incomprehensible ups and obscene downs. But there’s no doubt about what life involves. Let’s say, this is the Russian Spirit, its earthly territory.
 
Then also in drama: Divine Universal Metaphysical Art – in relation to the Spirit of Development of the World, it’s necessary to ‘earn’ by undressing- destroying the ‘diabolism of the Epoch’ according to the ‘highest phallic account’. This is one of the conditions for the whole play to sound like a Poem of Faith, again, according to the Law of the Absurd, created by the female, reincarnated, maternal, all-loving creative principle of the ‘male artist’, as a global poetic metaphor.

STRUVE. This, of course, is very difficult to achieve in drama, almost impossible.

VOLOKHOV. In this sense, that is why Great Female Poets sometimes achieve, at the expense of their feminine, essential, physiological immediacy, the most significant and brilliant sacred results with their impulsive ‘lyrical’ poetry, ‘their holy inner delirium’. Let’s say, even fiercely hating the Soviet system, Akhmatova, like the Motherland, created great lines for the Development of the Spirit: ‘And we will save you, Russian speech is the great Russian word.’ Because the tongue is the Spirit, the bone that the enemy seeks. But who among the male poets of the ‘ardent statesmen of that time’, when it was necessary, realized and issued such Majestic Self-Protective lines at this feminine, Akhmatovean, sacral universal level? Although there are also male sacred pearls in line with the same Universal World Russian Spirit of Development – the great Imminent poems of the Russian Jew Mandelstam about the unknown soldier, which he also created in spite of his hatred of the Stalinist system.

STRUVE. Western fascism certainly had a vicious phenomenon, but nevertheless it was the least vicious among other diabolical systems. Italian fascism did not feature such absolute anthropological destruction as German Nazism.

VOLOKHOV. I think that’s why in some of my plays the mat acted as a living protective factor of anthropological destruction. And especially in art, mat is important only in the context of the highest meaning of a literary work. Mat is not as an end in itself, but as the objective circumstances offered – the Truth of Life, from which and thanks to which a righteous solution is sought, where the only weapon of struggle, of course, are words, words, words... and different ones, but those should converge in a Single Wise Righteous Word from the Truth. During performances of my plays people literally ‘cry with laughter’ because the accurate, imaginative mat of the Truth of Life has helped them comprehend some of the deepest truths. And I believe that ‘Dead Man’s Bluff’ is the embodied Mystery of Golgotha of today, yesterday and the future. What Rudolf Steiner dreamed of finding. Felix, the hero of the play, is the personification of Luciferic Evil, while Arkady embodies Ahrimanic Evil. These two heroes took all the Evil of the
World on themselves ‘in life’. And they redeem it with the whole course of action of a hyperrealistic, tragicomic play. Hence the viewer’s cathartic tears.

Even in Paris ‘Dead Man’s Bluff’ provoked the master of the French theatre Bernard Sobel to throw one and a half million dollars to stage a Russian trilogy: Chekhov’s ‘The Cherry Orchard’, Babel’s ‘Maria’ and my play ‘Dead Man’s Bluff’ in his most prestigious theatre, with such superstars of French theatre and cinema as Denis Lavant and Hugues Quester. Sobel then staged ‘Dead Man’s Bluff’ in Germany, and again, as ‘Hamlet’. In many interviews Sobel admitted that for him the philosophical and metaphorical level of ‘The Troubles of the World through the Troubles of Russia’ revealed in ‘Dead Man’s Bluff’, matches the epic tragic canvas of Shakespeare’s ‘Hamlet’. Joseph Brodsky read ‘Dead Man’s Bluff’ and told me it was all very pertinent. And, in any case, as the French press noted, the level of the Absurdity of Life in the prophetic play ‘Dead Man’s Bluff’ – ‘The Golden Dream of Mankind’ (as they wrote in plain text) – is an order of magnitude higher than the level of their pensionable classical Beckett absurdists.

STRUVE. You told me you feel close to Shestov. VOLOKHOV. Yes, very much so.
STRUVE. What do you like about Shestov?

VOLOKHOV. Literally everything. When I start reading him, no matter which page, which work, I have the feeling I’m entering an Eternal Wise Life of Passionate Heartfelt Great Tragic Absurdity, where Faith Saves Everything.

STRUVE. Rarefied mountain air.

VOLOKHOV. The feeling of an Unearthly Paradise. You begin to Remember, See and Understand everything. He simply fascinates me with the pure depth of thought in his wise, kind, fearless, believing, sincere heart, unbanished from paradise. A philosopher-poet. A holy genius.
Although there hasn’t been a single saint on earth yet. I believe everything he preaches. Ultimately, he preaches Faith in God, in Eternal Life, in the Holy Truth. Since it comes from him, you truly believe it. And I want to write plays like that.

STRUVE. Who is closest to you among Russian playwrights of the 20th century?

VOLOKHOV. Chekhov, of course, the greatest ascetic religious genius.
 
STRUVE. He’s a bit of a whiner in his dramaturgy.

VOLOKHOV. It all depends on the production. Chekhov is a very tough poet of the chaste theatre of the Absurd, who created plays that are metaphors of real, sincere, human Hope.

STRUVE. Music.

VOLOKHOV. Great plays are always music, symphonies. STRUVE. Have you seen a good production of Chekhov?
VOLOKHOV. Brook’s ‘The Cherry Orchard’. An ‘English’ director with finesse to the last millimetre. Like a sniper. With a soul not entirely spoiled by ‘half-empty’ Western art.

STRUVE. Who do you see as the best 20th-century Western playwright?

VOLOKHOV. I keep going back to Shakespere. In comparison Brecht, Beckett, Williams, Camus and Genet are simply ‘avant-garde mannerists’. And Moli;re is rather vulgar.

STRUVE. The underground man is a feature in your plays. Did Dostoevsky significantly influence your work?

VOLOKHOV. Kafka admitted somewhere that if he hadn’t read Dostoevsky’s ‘Notes from Underground’ at the right time, then Kafka would not have been Kafka. I’d say the same of myself. But I think what I’m doing is, as if in one person, defining the Russian and the world sense of Dostoevschina – or rather, it’s still probably my Volokhovschina, and then I try to overcome it with tragic Gogol’s laughter, not forgetting Pushkin’s declaration that ‘Good and Evil are equally stifling’. Although a lot of things influenced my creativity. Until I was 14 I was raised by my grandmother, Anisya Ivanovna Volokhova. In the ‘difficult Brezhnev years’ she led the local Baptist community. But the list of what influenced my creativity is endless. The Bauman Moscow State Technical University, Tula, Shymkent, Alma-Ata, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Heraclitus, Nikolai Kuzansky, Lao Tzu, Kafka, Pushkin, Gogol, Jung, the later work of Tolstoy – his famous declaration that ‘The world is probably not the way we know it, there will be other tools of knowledge – there will be another World’. My father was a volunteer fighting in the Great Patriotic War, a first-conscript Solovetsky sea cadet; my mother was a very poetic woman – she knew hundreds of sayings by heart. But I was also influenced by a mental asylum in the city of Moscow, where my beloved parents decided to get me checked out when I wrote my first free drama essay. Although I was sent to the asylum to be checked for insanity, I also went to seek material for a play about a Soviet
anti-dissident psychiatric hospital. Now I have a beautiful French daughter
– she is a talented artist. I have run many marathons. For ten years my coach was Semyon Semyonovich Kuznetsov, marathon champion of the USSR. I nearly drowned in an ice-hole not long ago: I fell through the ice on skis in winter, in the middle of the Moscow Canal. After fifteen minutes fisherman Volodya Shmal dragged an old eight-metre dead tree over and pulled me out. The ‘encouraging’ feeling of real folk life from the series of how to live I haven’t found yet, but I want to explain to Humanity how to Live Eternal Life Freely and with Faith.

STRUVE. And you wrote ‘Chikatilo’s Calvary’ for this Humanity?

VOLOKHOV. ‘Chikatilo’s Calvary’ is the global Kairos Theatre in essence. After all, in the New Testament the term Kairos, ‘kairox’, defines the Eve of the Great Achievements, when even opponents of the Will of God fulfil the Prophetic Right to Reveal the Infinite Truth and Beauty of the Universal God.

Even in the Old Testament, God ‘brutally-savagely’ ‘Tortures’ Job the man ‘Only in Faith’, and the afflicted Job Finds himself ‘Only in Faith’, being Granted Consent with the Absurdity of the Divine World.

The Destroyed Times and the people of Russia of our century, up to the very last stage of the fall of man, ‘Chikatilism’, is nothing but the final, most terrible ‘Torture of God’, ‘Checking by God’ of the spiritual strength of His Human Likeness.

In ‘Chikatilo’s Calvary’ the form of the Theatre-Temple attempted to recreate the transcendent, absurd content, like ‘Torture-Checking God’, and ‘Catharsis Resolution-Exit through Repentance’ from this diabolical abyss into the Cosmic Kairos of Revealing the Substantial Truth, when the most terrible Truth in the most paradoxical, Metaphysical Image becomes Life-Giving Healing.

And in essence, Only Faith remains with Man… on the Earth – in the Idea that is the centre of the Universe.

Paris – Moscow, 1997-2015

‘Literaturnye vesti’, ¹50, 2001

12)

STANISLAV MERKUSHOV
‘THE PROBLEMATICS OF RUSSIAN DRAMA OF THE ABSURD 1980-90s
- MIKHAIL VOLOKHOV’

UDC 821.161.1-2

The core problem raised in the plays of Mikhail Igorevich Volokhov, the problem of truth and related issues of understanding morality and the distinction between good and evil, are solved at several levels and associated with the removal of two main prohibitions: the veto on use of language in all its variety of forms, and the veto on discussion of the most important subjects for humanity, which are also the most often suppressed.

The playwright M. I. Volokhov is positioned by critics as a rebel and provocateur, and by researchers as a striking representative of the Russo-French theatre of the absurd. When he himself responds to legitimate questions about his identity as a writer in relation to the geographic territory, he perceives himself as the author of the ‘Russian mentality’, having lived primarily in Russia since 1996: “I cannot write plays in the French mentality. It is not my native element, anyway. I can only write in the Russian mentality. By means of Russian problematics” [Cit: Booker 2016]. In the article ‘Dialogue with the Absurd. Notes on the Dramaturgy of M. Volokhov’ the literary critic L. Miesowska gives her own definition of the artistic specificity of his plays, referring to a number of authoritative opinions (i.e. those of A. Zotov, Y. Edlis, O. Schmidt, A. Zhitinkin, E. Boyakov): “in the dramatist’s plays one can find allusions to the texts, ideas, treatises and philosophy of Aeschylus, Sophocles, Shakespeare, Racine, Corneille, Camus, Sartre, Genet, Shestov, Dostoevsky, Gogol, Mikhail Bulgakov, Leo Tolstoy, Kierkegaard, Heidegger, Nietzsche and Tertullian. The quote ‘I believe, for it is absurd’ (from the Latin, Credo quia absurdum), written by Tertullian, the apologist of early Christianity, best describes the worldview of Mikhail Volokhov” [Miesowska 2016: 633]. From our point of view, M. I. Volokhov, in addition to all that has been said, is a methodical destroyer of taboos, both in literature and, consequently, in human consciousness.

Most frequently the aspect that gives grounds for superficial denial or rejection of
M. I. Volokhov’s literary work and the polemics associated with it has been related to an excess of taboo vocabulary in his plays. The playwright stopped all questions on this topic with an answer about the absence of the reception of obscene language in his own works as an end in itself: “This is the language of characters. <...> If a Russian soldier cursed during the war, there would still be a sacred message of protecting the country, the motherland. There is no vulgarity here. That is, it is not the obscenity itself that is shameful, but the fact that it reveals the inconsistency of a person” [Cit: Booker 2016; italics added by S.M.]. In the second part of the quoted (and highlighted by us) extract from this
interview there is simply an understanding of the specifics of the functional use of swear words and expressions as a resource for the ritualization of certain areas of the text, returning to the original purpose of such vocabulary. In this regard we present the opinion of B. A. Uspensky about the primordial archetypal aspect of obscene language, which explains its abundant presence in the plays of M. I. Volokhov: “Swearing had a distinctive cult function in Slavic paganism, <...> it is widely represented in various kinds of rites of obviously pagan origin — wedding, agricultural, etc. — that is, in rites somehow related to fertility: swearing is a necessary component of such rites and is certainly of a ritual nature” [Uspensky 1981: 49-53]. M. I. Volokhov asserts the absence of a profane principle in his plays of obscene language unconsciously applied in opposition to the sacred principle. Moreover, in the most complete edition of the playwright’s works to date ([Volokhov 2016]), all the plays, including the most well-known to the reader and especially the lexically demonstrative ‘Dead Man’s Bluff’, have been reworked for almost complete replacement of obscene words, not by euphemisms, which could create the opposite effect, depriving the plays of their characteristic sincerity and, on the contrary, vulgarizing them, but by language even more prominent in comparison with obscene lexemes. In any case, uncensored vocabulary let us propose this word as absorbing the meaning of the presence of not only obscene language, but also of any special, uncensored vocabulary) is, according to the playwright, “an X-ray of the spirit. The ozone of speech. This is a sacred, super-genial language that enhances art, if it exists, and sweeps it to zero if it is the art of naked kings” [Volokhov 2006]. Indeed, the use of obscene language by the author is not accidental, and that is why at the beginning of performances of the first Russian production of the play ‘Dead Man’s Bluff’ its director A. Zhitinkin warned the audience that the author writes “in Russian mat, but this is not the language of the actors, but the language of heroes,” adding that it is necessary “to be patient for 8-10 minutes, and then the story of the heroes
<...> will entice you” (Volokhov M., ‘Dead Man’s Bluff’, directed by A. Zhitinkin, 1996).

After overcoming the initial barrier associated with the obscene lexicon, the reader, firstly, paradoxically finds himself inside the living, vital, Russian language, ‘suprema’ and ‘infinima’ (to borrow terminology from mathematicians), which are transformed by M. I. Volokhov so that all thematic boundaries are destroyed – the playwright manoeuvres away from the apparent ‘small-earth’ to global problems, then to metaphysical ones, and eventually approaches the monumental image of the ‘global chaos of the early 21st century’ [Razlogov 2016]. Here we are talking not only and not so much about the play ‘Dead Man’s Bluff’, in which the element of censure of Soviet totalitarianism is very strong, although now with an introduction to the global level of philosophical analysis of the causality and ‘genetics’ of any totalitarian device. We are talking now about all eighteen works of M. I. Volokhov, which are distinguished by the formulation of universal problems relevant to humanity at all times, presented through archetypal realizations. The individual’s problems move into macro-areas, into metaphysical spheres, correlating with the discovery of the absurd as a unifying principle. “The absurd is the meaning of life and the construction of any form and content in it together,” says M. I. Volokhov [Dialog 2016: 558]. The generation of form and content occurs by creating an Image (according to M. I. Volokhov, with a capital letter), and “An Image is always a Whole and the essence of the Whole lies in the Absurdity” [ibid].
 
In this way, by choosing a real character in the play ‘Chikatilo’s Calvary’ (1994; the ‘censored’ author’s version was published in 2016), the effect of extreme realism and, synchronously, the absurdity of the narrative is achieved. Both Chikatilo’s monologue and the details of the maniac’s villainies begin to be perceived documentarily as a documentary chronicle of events, which is facilitated by the parallel perception of the published text and the film (the film
‘Chikatilo’s Calvary’ was released in 2005, with M. Volokhov simultaneously acting as director, cameraman and actor). The paradigm of ‘author - hero – reader’ ceases to be an abstraction and is highly concretized. The ‘idea – man’ model acquires categorical resonance: “Ideas are immaculate – no dirt sticks to them. Enter into the idea to become a person. I see. Sin, as a structural axiom of life, like words, must be redeemed immediately” [Volokhov 2016: 412]. Then – and here M.I. Volokhov argues with F. M. Dostoevsky, more precisely, with his novel ‘Crime and Punishment’ – no matter how terrible the sin, it can always be justified by a timely admission of guilt. M. I. Volokhov reveals the hypocritical, artificial mechanisms of ‘conditional self-repentance’, by virtue of which ‘it is possible to implicate everyone’, as revealed by F. M. Dostoevsky in ‘Crime and Punishment’ [ibid: 415]. But notably the same playwright wrote about this in his essay-manifesto ‘The Theatre of Kairos in Essence’, emphasizing that the afore- named novel by the great writer is ‘the most ‘modern’ Western novel because of the speculative repentance of the murderer Raskolnikov’, which ‘actually morally resolved our social, bloody revolution’ [Dialog 2016: 556]. It is also worth noting the formal proximity-polemic of the texts by M. I. Volokhov and F. M. Dostoevsky: just as V. V. Nabokov called F. M. Dostoevsky’s novels overgrown plays [Nabokov 1996: 183], so, in fact, M. I. Volokhov, on the contrary, calls his plays short detective novels: “I always want to write a novel, but it turns out as a play. This is my ‘dramaturgical’ organism” [Dialog 2016: 551].

Representation of the Absurd in Russian Literature of the late 20th-early 21st centuries.
Theme of the dissertation and abstract for the Higher Attestation Committee of the Russian Federation 10.01.01,
Doctor of Sciences Merkushov, Stanislav Fyodorovich, 2021
 
khkh-nachala-khkhi
==========================================================

13)
 
Merkushov Stanislav Fyodorovich
§ 3. M.I. Volokhov: Taboo and the Absurd


According to S.I. Chuprinin, “the history of literature can also be read as the history of creative transgressions, the consistent tabooing of lexical layers, themes, problems and plots that were not allowed by censorship and public opinion to public discussion” (Chuprinin, 2007: 535). This idea was expressed by this critic and literary critic in the 2000s, when it seemed that there were no taboos in art, since there was no censorship. ‘Tabooing’ then became ‘a widespread technical literary technique’ (Chuprinin, 2007: 535). Today the situation with obvious taboos is changing, which confirms the return of a new version of cultural supervision (for example, the notorious law on the use of mat in art).
Nevertheless, it seems that even in the 2000s certain, perhaps the most important, taboos were preserved, but in a more veiled form, which almost always indicates the increased influence of such non-obvious taboos on mass consciousness. Above all taboos that have existed from time immemorial now increasingly assume implicative configurations.
This is a taboo on people’s ability to think critically and express their opinions freely, which of course comes from language prohibitions. The initial restrictions and taboos, among other things, were associated with prohibitions on the utterance of certain words denoting sacred religious concepts, in particular, the ban on pronouncing the name of God (Tetragrammaton), which persists to this day in Judaism (see: Lightman, 2019). Don Quixote speaks of the ‘Golden Age’, with its characteristic absence of any separateness, mainly the division into ‘yours and mine’ (see: Cervantes, 2018), reconstructing ancient knowledge about that prehistoric period when man lived in harmony with his instincts.
Unnatural taboos have not yet been invented, of course, testifying to certain stages of socialization, but also actualizing a certain degree of unfreedom, a feeling that gave rise to the first sense of absurdity due to the introduction of illusions into the natural harmonious world by man. But the understanding of absurdity simultaneously preaches liberation in the broadest sense, and first of all, liberation from taboos. While calling for the abolition of taboos in literature, the absurdist authors did not declare permissiveness at the same time, on the contrary, as we have seen, the classical textual version of absurdism, which is often taken as a basis by modern Russian writers, involves serious work with form,
expressed primarily in rigid structuring of the text. With regard to the content, their own laws also ‘work’, largely due to such strict formal verification. What specific taboos are violated in this case? The playwright M.I. Volokhov is positioned by critics as a rebel and provocateur; by researchers as an outstanding representative of the Russian-French theatre of the absurd. At the same time, when he himself has legitimate questions about his writer’s identity in relation to the geographical territory, he perceives himself as the author of the ‘Russian mentality’ — and he has lived mainly in Russia since 1996: “I cannot write plays in the French mentality. It’s not my native element anyway. I can only write in the Russian mentality. And through Russian problems” (Bukker, 2016: e-resource). In her work ‘Dialogue with the Absurd. Notes on the Dramaturgy of M. Volokhov’ the literary critic Lidia Mi;sowska, referring to a number of authoritative opinions about the drama of M.I. Volokhov (meaning the judgments of A. Zotov, J. Edlis, O. Schmidt, A. Zhitinkin, E. Boyakov), gives her own definition of the artistic specifics of his plays: “in the dramatist’s plays one can find hints of texts, ideas, treatises, the philosophy of Aeschylus, Sophocles, Shakespeare, Racine, Corneille, Camus, Sartre, Genet, Shestov, Dostoevsky, Gogol, Mikhail Bulgakov, Leo Tolstoy, Kierkegaard, Heidegger, Nietzsche and Tertullian. The quote ‘I believe, for it is absurd’ (Lat. Credo quia absurdum), the author of which is precisely Tertullian, an apologist of early Christianity, best describes the worldview of Mikhail Volokhov” (Mi;sowska, 2016: 633). From our point of view M.I. Volokhov, in addition to all that has been said, is a methodical destroyer of taboos, both in literature and, consequently, in human consciousness. The most frequent aspect, which gives grounds for superficial denial or rejection of M.I. Volokhov’s literary work, or polemics with it, has always been associated with an excess of taboo vocabulary in his plays. The playwright stopped all questions on this topic with an answer about the absence of the reception of mat in his own works as an end in itself: “This is the language of characters … If a Russian soldier had cursed during the war, there would still have been a sacred message of protecting the country, the motherland. There is no vulgarity ... that is, it is not the mat itself that is shameful, but the fact that it reveals the inconsistency of a person” (Bukker, 2016: e-resource). The second part of the quoted (highlighted by us) fragment of the interview reveals just an understanding of the specifics of the functional use of swear words and expressions as a resource for the ritualization of certain areas of the text, returning to the original purpose of such vocabulary. In this regard,
we present the opinion of B.A. Uspensky about the primordial archetypal aspect of the mat, which explains its abundant presence in the plays of M.I. Volokhov: “swearing had a clearly expressed cult function in Slavic paganism, … and is widely represented in various kinds of rituals of obviously pagan origin — wedding rituals, agriculture, etc. — that is, in rites somehow related to fertility: swearing is a necessary component of such rites and is certainly ritual in nature” (see: Uspensky, 1981: 49-53). M.I. Volokhov asserts the absence in his plays of the profane nature of the mat, unconsciously applied as opposed to the sacred nature. In addition, in the most complete edition of the playwright’s works to date (‘The Great Consoler’, 2016 — see: Volokhov, 2016) all the plays, including the most well-known to the reader and especially the lexically demonstrative ‘Dead Man’s Bluff’, have been reworked for almost continuous replacement of obscene words, but, in fact, not euphemisms, which could cause the opposite effect, depriving the plays of their characteristic sincerity and, on the contrary, vulgarizing them, but even more prominent in comparison with obscene lexemes (we will return to them). In any case, uncensored vocabulary (let us propose this word as absorbing the meaning of the presence of not only obscene, but also any special, uncensored vocabulary) is, according to the playwright, “an X-ray of the spirit. Ozone of speech. It is a sacred, supergenial language that enhances art, if there is one, and sweeps it to zero if it is the art of naked kings” (Volokhov, 2006: e-resource). Indeed, it is not by chance that always at the beginning of performances of the first Russian productions based on the drama ‘Dead Man’s Bluff’, directed by A. Zhitinkin, the audience was warned that the author writes “in mat, but this is not the language of actors, but the language of heroes”, and it is necessary “to be patient for 8-10 minutes, and then the story of the heroes … will entice” (see: Volokhov M., ‘Dead Man’s
Bluff’ staged by A. Zhitinkin, 1996, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_AsFHUoAoFw).
After overcoming the initial barrier associated with mat, the reader first of all paradoxically finds himself inside the live, living Russian language, of ‘supremums’ and ‘infinums’ (to borrow terminology from mathematicians), which are transformed by M.I. Volokhov, and thanks to which all thematic boundaries are destroyed — the playwright manoeuvres from the apparently ‘small-scale’ to global problems, then to metaphysics, and as a result approaches the monumental image of the “world chaos at the beginning of the 21st century” (Razlogov, 2016: e-resource). Here we are talking not only and not so much about the
play ‘Dead Man’s Bluff’, in which the element of censure of Soviet totalitarianism is very strong, although already entering the global level of philosophical analysis of causality and ‘genetics’ of any totalitarian device. We are talking now about all eighteen works of M.I. Volokhov, which are distinguished by the formulation of universal problems relevant to humanity at all times, presented through archetypal realizations. The individual’s problems move into macro-areas, into metaphysical spheres, correlating with the discovery of the absurd as a unifying principle. “…The absurd is the meaning of life and the construction of any form and content in it together”, says M.I. Volokhov (Dialogue..., 2016: 558). The generation of form and content occurs by creating an Image (according to M.I. Volokhov, with a capital letter), and “The Image is always the Whole and the Essence of the Whole lies in the Absurdity” (Ibid.). The avant-garde of literature, to which the work of
M.I. Volokhov continues to belong in one way or another, always responds to the change of cultural and civilizational processes, which entails the emergence of something fundamentally new, unprecedented, and this, in turn, always implies some departure from the old, familiar, which is very often associated with the breaking of barriers and non-compliance with taboos. This is the reason for the forward progress of the avant-gardists, a kind of ‘calling fire on yourself’. With M.I. Volokhov the elimination of taboos is carried out with the help of well-defined artistic means and techniques associated, of course, with the avant-garde, the literature of the absurd, and is implemented in at least two directions, both linguistic and thematic. But what are the tasks of breaking taboos? Let us turn to the play ‘Dead Man’s Bluff’. M.I. Volokhov began working on it in 1994, the year when the death sentence on murderer A. Chikatilo was carried out, it was published in the mid-1990s, and at the same time the first productions took the stage in Moscow and Paris (see: Filatov, 2016: 601). M.I. Volokhov continued to work on the play after its first publication, giving rise to several variations, the last of which dates back to 2016. In the early 2000s, with a corresponding increase in interest in the playwright, performances of
‘Dead Man’s Bluff’ were resumed, again staged by A. Zhitinkin. The film of the same name, the author, cameraman and only actor of which was the playwright himself, was premiered as a participant at the 27th Moscow Film Festival in 2005 and shown in Russia and abroad, at the same time becoming available to the amateur cinema audience. I think it is the complex analysis of the play and the film as complementary texts that will allow us to approach the holistic perception of both works of
M.I. Volokhov as a single synthetic text. However, we do not set ourselves the task of considering all its aspects – that would make this section of the dissertation immense – but rather focus on certain aspects of its form and content (including those related to the elimination of taboos), which we will present below, outlining possible directions for further analysis. At the same time we will base our critique on the text of the latest edition of the play, published in the collection ‘The Great Consoler’ (this gives the date and place of writing as Paris 1994, Moscow 2016), it is also presented on the official website of M.I. Volokhov (http://volokhov.ru/site/?page id=6 ). We will not address the above-mentioned production, since it deserves a special analysis, comparative or not, since it represents a very loose interpretation of the play by director and screenwriter A. Zhitinkin (see: Volokhov M., ‘Dead Man’s Bluff’. Dir. A. Zhitinkin, actor D. Strakhov: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObO0zj3vjH0), which was sufficiently reinterpreted by him and turned into a kind of new work in terms of the structure of the text and interpretation of the image.
The play ‘Dead Man’s Bluff’ is, in fact, a twenty-page monologue of a character awaiting execution, the prototype of whom was a notorious serial killer. First of all, the initial words of the play attract attention, which are shown in the film as an epigraph, but not marked in the text itself, although they exist as Chikatilo’s verbal approach to his monologue. They run as follows:
While life still remains incomprehensibly eternal, human hopes and knowledge are centred on love.
But true knowledge correlated with eternity, aimed at conquering mortality
and providing man with the opportunity
to dispose of the Universe at his own discretion, can only be obtained, as in past centuries,
at the climax of bloody, barborous acts with the bodies and souls
of other favoured mortals... (Volokhov, 2016: 411)

These words contain the main message and key problems of the work in a concentrated form. The core theme, the problem of truth and the
related problems of understanding morality and distinguishing between good and evil, are solved at several levels. The essay ‘The Theatre of Kairos in Essence’, stylized by M.I. Volokhov on the basis of a conversation with N. Struve, which can be perceived as a kind of manifesto of the playwright in which he formulates his own aesthetic credo and understanding of modern theatre and its socio-artistic role, has the following important phrase that clarifies a lot in the play under consideration: “in the New Testament the term Kairos defines the Eve of the Great Achievements, when even opponents of the Will of God fulfil the Prophetic Right to Reveal the Infinite Truth and Beauty of the Universal God” (Dialogue..., 2016: 567). The above passage correlates with these words, and in both texts the main essence of the play is conveyed in a concise form: everything done in any form and by anyone is always aimed at approaching the Truth contained in eternal values common to all mankind and realized in such concepts as love and beauty. Of course, such statements, deduced, as we will see later, from the text of the play, contain a certain paradox, but the same paradox is present in the most important sayings immortalized in books sacred to mankind, although it is customary to either ignore these sayings, or interpret them from all sorts of ‘convenient’ points of view in different situations, or put them in suitable contexts removed from the real context, thereby prolonging the taboos on statements that were supposedly eliminated, but in fact preserved. It is during the periods of Kairos as an extraordinary moment in history that both the sacred and the base or sinful serve one higher purpose, as previously mentioned.
Taboos on utterances are introduced, deepened and embody false meanings with their accompanying materialistic, non-spiritual ideology. It is with such taboos that M.I. Volokhov struggles: “In ‘Chikatilo’s Calvary’ an attempt was made to recreate the transcendent, absurd content in the form of a Temple-Theatre, as well as Torture-Verification of God, and the Cathartic Resolution-Exit through Repentance from this diabolical abyss into the Cosmic Kairos of Revealing Meaningful Truth, when the most terrible Truth paradoxically, Metaphysically becomes Life-Giving Healing" (Dialogue..., 2016: 568). Numerous examples are contained in the Revelation of St. John the Theologian: “Behold, I will make them of the synagogue of Satan, which say they are Jews, and are not, but do lie; behold, I will make them come and worship before thy feet, and to know that I have loved thee” (Rev.3:9); “As many as I love, I
rebuke and chasten” (Rev 3:19); “And when he opened the second seal, I heard the second beast say, Come and see. And there went out another
horse that was red, and it was given to him that sat thereon to take peace from the earth, and that they should kill one another; and there was given to him a great sword” (Rev.6:4); “And I looked, and beheld a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with the sword, and with famine, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth” (Rev 6:8).
But let us return to the play. Further on, after the paragraph about the poet B.L. Pasternak in the edition under study, there are two phrases absent in the film: “There is no Morality — there is Truth on Earth. The emptiness is burned out and the words are burned into Eternity...” (Volokhov, 2016: 411), and after the recitation of the poem “I loved you, love still, perhaps..." (Pushkin, 1985: 454) there is a line from ‘Boris Godunov’, whose images will also be touched upon more than once in the play, — “Listening to Good and Evil indifferently” (Volokhov, 2016: 411) this also does not feature in the film). The basis of the potential script of the film was, apparently, an early version of the play (see: Volokhov, 1997), created by M.I. Volokhov even before the conditional manifesto (‘The Theatre of Kairos in Essence’), with which the content of the phrase about morality correlates, and the second phrase is an autocitation from the play ‘The Great Consoler’ (1993-2016) (see: Volokhov, 2016: 58), the source for which is, of course, a quote from A.S. Pushkin’s famous tragedy. It should be noted that all the plays by M.I. Volokhov to a greater or lesser extent communicate with each other.
Hence the play under study is in dialogue not only with ‘The Great Consoler’, with which it has the most points of contact (in terms of hidden and explicit quotations and allusions), but also, in genre and other respects, with the monodrama ‘Lyudmila Gurchenko Lives’ (2012), where a real character is also displayed; with ‘Dead Man’s Bluff’ (1987), which, in turn, corresponds to ‘Rublyovka Safari’ (2006), etc. (‘Dead
Man’s Bluff’ and ‘Rublyovka Safari’ artistically interact in termsthe themes, images and issues raised. The first is a long, exhausting dialogue between two former KGB executioners now working in a morgue. In the second the action also revolves around two main characters, representatives of the gas and oil oligarchy, who were ‘killers’ in the 1990s (joined later by another two characters)). The elimination of boundaries between good and evil, i.e., in fact, immorality in the plays of
M.I. Volokhov seems to be only a fixation of the eternal world reception of these categories. This reception is the same, it is specific to their ‘deabsolutization’, which is emphasized by the special marking of
lexemes: ‘Good’ and ‘Evil’ are on the same level, despite the fact that it is highly emphasized – on the mental and spiritual plane, these concepts are equal (‘Equally Soulful’).
The film ‘Chikatilo’s Calvary’ was shot from one vantage point, continuously, with one camera capturing the author-character crawling on it in the frosty snow-covered Bryansk forest and speaking the text of the play (see: ‘Chikatilo’s Calvary’, film by M. Volokhov https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svYWn0VoWjQ). The viewer gets the impression that Volokhov-Chikatilo is moving towards him/at him, and the text itself is addressed to him directly. The effect of W. Whitman’s ‘Song of Myself’ is visually reproduced, only here the goal- setting is different. M.I. Volokhov, in a harsh and merciless form, seeks to evoke in the viewer a sense of kinship with the killer and does this persistently, to the point that the viewer may have a feeling of mutual identification between himself and the author's character. All this is exacerbated by the fact that the obscenities in the film are preserved, unlike the last edition of the play, but the use of mat in the film, as in the early editions of the play, is perceived purely abstractly by Chikatilo, in effect as a magical conspiracy, an incantation of his deeds. The main text of the play is conveyed practically verbatim, although there is an element of improvisation inherent in transgressive art, with its desire to overcome everyday attitudes and norms and to inspire similar impulses in the recipient. Having opened up the prison space in the film, replacing it with a winter landscape, M.I. Volokhov enlarges this space to the scale of a post-apocalyptic world. The winter forest is both a broken human consciousness, and the unconscious, and an expansive symbol of the transcendent, and the place where Chikatilo dealt with his victims.
Prison, a solitary death row in the play, is also a metaphor with different interpretations – from the most obvious, having purely social aspects (prison as a metaphor for society, societal relations), to the existential, in the perspective of which prison is perceived as an expanded metaphor for the existence of a person who has enclosed himself in various kinds of conventional frameworks, into which he sometimes sinks, then tries to struggle free throughout his earthly life. One way or another, a person is always in a borderline state, he is always before death, because life in this physical body ends with it and always unexpectedly, i.e. in the end, the human perception of life is reduced to the perception of oneself, consciously or unconsciously, being on death row. The many examples in the play that contain metaphysical and philosophical reflections, to which we will return, give us the right for
such judgments. It is worth noting the conceptual relativity and universality of the concept of prison, brought to the play by the anecdotal context: “It's like anecdotal roll call in prison routine: ‘Is Chikatilo here?’ ‘Well, I’m Chikatilo here.’ The warden: ‘Where the fuck are you going to go.’ ‘And I say to him: ‘Where the fuck are you going to, you spermal penpusher, two balls and a pen?’” (Volokhov, 2016: 413).
Prison is both the universe and the anti-world. In general, we should note the national grassroots culture widely represented in the play, its spacious folklore field, which includes, in addition to anecdotes, proverbs and sayings, ditties, folktale images, etc.
M.I. Volokhov makes the central and only hero of his play the taboo figure A. Chikatilo, revealing implicit levels in this, some of which can be designated as ‘poet’, ‘creator’, ‘prophet’, ‘god’, and the most obvious level among them is ‘all ‘humanity’. M.I. Volokhov sets the poetic vector of the play from the very beginning: Chikatilo quotes A.S. Pushkin, M.Yu. Lermontov, talks from his bell tower about the cowardice of B.L. Pasternak. To a certain extent, of course, the character compares himself with poets, with creators in general, citing an excerpt from A.S. Pushkin’s ‘The Prophet’. The poet is called on by God only to ‘burn the hearts of people with a verb’, while Chikatilo creates poetry with a ‘useful knife’, becoming equal not only to poets, but to God in His Old Testament, punishing hypostasis. Another thing is that the maniac character punishes humanity through the murder of children, showing that it differs little from the maniac himself. On the one hand, he took it upon himself to show the true face of humanity in an extreme way, giving birth and nurturing tyrants, on the other hand, he tries to eradicate like with like (cf. the Buddhist extraction of one thorn with the help of another). The meaning of the poem that opens the play and closes the film, “I loved you, love is still, perhaps ...” in view of such a statement of the question is redesigned in accordance with M.I. Volokhov’s concept. The utterance of Pushkin’s stanzas by the playwright’s character is modelled in a different context, which we outlined above, in view of which the addressee of ‘fading’ love becomes the human race, which Chikatilo seems to be unable to love, judging by his deeds, but the paradox of the situation is that he loved and still loves, therefore he resorts to atrocities against humanity. Chikatilo is the image of all mankind, which is for itself a ‘tyrant’ and a ‘benefactor’. The absurd double morality of society allows some to destroy millions with impunity, positioning the exterminators as heroes, while others ruthlessly make scapegoats. (Here M.I. Volokhov’s thought is contiguous
with the interpretation of such problems by director A.O. Balabanov, in particular, as realized in the film ‘Cargo 200’ (2007)). Of course, M.I. Volokhov does not try to justify either of them, but suggests that we dare to see everything through a different prism; by changing the system of internal coordinates we can try to understand the nature of violence.
M.I. Volokhov breaks the taboo on the ambiguity of perception, on the multiplicity of points of view, which will eventually bring the reader closer to a single Truth.
M.I. Volokhov transforms F.M. Dostoevsky’s idea of salvation through suffering in an extraordinary way. Chikatilo appears as the arbiter of the will of nature and the universe — the murder of children becomes a vacation for sinless souls in paradise — here the paradigm ‘Chikatilo is a poet — creator — god’ comes to an end: “Then, if you're a wonderful World Spirit poet, you'll feel, you'll understand, that you should, can, live only ten years on Earth. And if you're a lofty genius and the very first friend of Cosmic Nature, if you've lived on Earth for forty whole years, then Nature herself will summon you to help her shine, to pluck baby flowers that are forty years old, no, ten years old, and set free their innocent angel souls, and wait for the grey-haired boy that will save us and destroy everything. Christ is Risen, you should Understand this.” (Volokhov, 2016: 420). The quoted fragment is very indicative of how both liberation and enslavement occur through language in a broad sense. M.I. Volokhov achieves a special kind of effectiveness in his plays, which consists of opening new ontological facets to the reader. Firstly, the playwright discovers the dialectical specifics of his plays through language. In the analyzed drama and the rest, the method of expressing ontological duality is common by combining parts of lexemes with mutually exclusive or, conversely, complementary meanings in one complex occasional word (here – ‘iit is possible— it is necessary’, ‘sacral- genius’, ‘people-brothers’, ‘sons-daughters-babies’, etc.); in other cases, a variant of successive lexemes with diametrically opposite semantics is likely – ‘loving killing love’, etc.). This aspect also has an emotive effect: an endless sojourn in a caustic-ironic context, which is created due to the absurdity of the fiction, literally exhausts the reader even with almost complete normative word usage characteristic of the editorial office in question. It is worth quoting an illustrative fragment: “But not thousands of blood kin, shit, the fifty naked kids I snuffed can’t have that many parents. I’m not Boris Godunov, shit, I wasn't killing princes of the Russian dynasty. I’m not Ivan the Terrible, shitass, not fucking Uranus.
 
I’m not the funnyman Joe Stalin, shit, when he quipped that women will produce lots more! Everywhere, always, there is one problem – Power!” (Ibid: 414). The use of agrammatism, the author’s neologisms ([translated to English as] ‘kiddies’, ‘blood kin’, ‘Soviet’, etc.), constant syntactic inversions — all this is transformed by M.I. Volokhov into his own individual techniques. In the case of M.I. Volokhov, this principle is used in relation to vocabulary with metaphysical connotation — the same can be seen in the ‘manifesto’. All ‘ultimate’ concepts are written by the author with capital letters (‘Life’, ‘Death’, ‘Truth’, ‘Spirit’, ‘World’) in defiance of definitions of the transitory, while according to the
dramatist’s worldview other nouns begin in lowercase (‘america’, for example, as a conditional sign-symbol of vice and lack of spirituality).
M.I. Volokhov’s subjective and individual lexical etymology is also specific, for example, the associativity of the pseudonym Lenin and the word ‘laziness’ as indications of the lack of initiative, passivity and contemplation of the people (only the ruler carries out sentences, while the people are only silent and contemplative). Finally, M.I. Volokhov often resorts to some kind of analogue, his own version of rhythmized classic texts — Shakespeare, Homer, Pushkin, etc., with lines going back to folklore sources: “Not one Tsar allowed himself to philosophise and grant life to Dostoevsky the prophet, scoffing graciously! And who excommunicated Tolsoy because of his ideological Authority?” (Ibid: 416).
In the end, everything starts with Language. Prohibitions on the use of language give rise to all other prohibitions. That is why M.I. Volokhov puts, in fact, an equal sign between the lexemes ‘verb’ and ‘knife’, creating a ‘Single Sacred Language of Narration’: ‘... Language is the Spirit, the bone that the enemy is looking for … the only weapon of struggle, of course, words, words, words ... and different, but which should converge in a Single Wise Righteous Word from the Truth’ (Dialogue..., 2016: 565). The original essence returns to the word: ‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God’ (John 1:1). ‘Language is sincere — there is nothing in the world more sincere than language,’ the playwright believes, ‘we always lie, but we justify this lie in a good sense and turn it into the truth ... through mat’ (Dialogue..., 2016: 563, 562). Mat is a manifestation of the highest moment of Being, mat is impartial, like the real truth, it always hurts the eyes and ears — this is the most naked form of human communication, the truth is the uterus. But ‘mat strives for self-destruction ... After resolving the situation through mat, mat can then be withdrawn’, M.I.
Volokhov said back in the early 2000s in his manifesto (Ibid: 563). I should say that the 2016 collection of M.I. Volokhov’s plays entitled ‘The Great Consoler’, which we are focusing on, is not only almost completely free from obscenities. Many early plays have been reworked even from the point of view of the plot, which sometimes leads to radical genre changes. Many of his plays in the final version to date began to end, like Greek tragedies, with the death of all or at least the main characters (‘Dead Man’s Bluff’, ‘The Great Consoler’, etc.).
The Chikatilo character, as with the concepts of L. Andreev or H.L. Borges on the betrayal of Judas, emphasizes that the ultimate measure, the ‘calvary’, is ahead of him from the point of view of cosmic scales – his real trial, as with all mankind, awaits him outside the visible world, especially since in this understanding he, like Judas, becomes equal to Christ, only from the opposite side. Judas was initially aware of the gravity of the sin that he took upon himself, but also subconsciously understood that without his act the Son of God would not fulfill his mission: ‘it was necessary that in response to such a sacrifice, a certain person representing all people made an equivalent sacrifice. This man was Judas Iscariot. Judas, the only one of the apostles, guessed the secret divinity and terrible purpose of Jesus’ (Borges, 1989: 118); also, ‘“Come on, clever Judas! Tell us, who will be the first beside Jesus – him or me?” But Judas was silent, breathing heavily and his eyes fervently sought an answer for something in the calm, deep eyes of Jesus. … Jesus slowly lowered his gaze. And, quietly beating his chest with a bony finger, Iscariot repeated solemnly and sternly: “I! I will be beside Jesus!”’ (Andreev, 1991: 27).1 This, in fact, is the highest meaning of the concept of Kairos in the New Testament and, in fact, the meaning of Chikatilo’s stay on Earth, his ‘calvary’ is the lofty task set for him by the higher powers. Here is the paradox of being, the supreme meaning of the absurdity of existence according to M.I. Volokhov. Meanwhile, such
1 A. and B. Strugatsky go even further than their predecessors in their last novel (‘Those Burdened by Evil’). Judas appears to them in the image of a weak-minded, hunted man who deeply loves the Saviour and receives instructions from Jesus
Himself on what he should do: ‘The Rabbi spoke for a long time, slowly, patiently, he repeated the same thing over and over again: where he should go now, whom to ask, and when they would put him before this person, what he must say and what to do next. … Everything was exactly as the Rabbi predicted: they would praise him, give him money, and now he was already leading the guards. Everything is as the Rabbi predicted, and the trouble is getting closer and closer, and nothing can be done, because everything is going as the Rabbi predicted, which means it's right" (Strugatsky, 2019: 179-180).
 
meanings are inaccessible and incomprehensible to ordinary consciousness, since those in whose hands the spheres of influence and resources of massive manipulative influence are concentrated focus their attention on other less important aspects of life and being, thereby covertly tabooing the search for answers to fundamental existential questions. Humanity somehow strives to get rid of the present, the authentic, that which can return us to true nature. The absurd, through violation of the artificial taboos that actually separate people, actually becomes M.I. Volokhov’s ‘ubiquitous global reunifying life metaphor’ (Dialogue…, 2016: 558).
In the film M.I. Volokhov goes even further, putting handcuffs-chains- shackles on himself as a character resembling a martyr, as well as a metal crown, thereby creating an allusion, including one to the image of Christ. Quasi-martyrdom is also indicated by crawling through the frosty snow. However, the knife, with which the character helps himself to crawl, does not allow us to forget both the ambivalence of the image and the fact that we still have the image of Chikatilo, albeit enlarged to universal proportions.
By choosing a real character, the effect of extreme realism of the narrative is achieved: here, the monologue of Chikatilo, and all the described villainies of the maniac begin to be perceived documentarily, as a documentary chronicle of events, which is facilitated by the simultaneous perception of the published text and the film. The paradigm of ‘author – hero – reader’ ceases to be an abstraction and is highly concretized. So the ‘idea – person’ model acquires a categorical resonance: ‘Ideas are immaculate – no dirt sticks to them. Enter into the idea to become a person. This is understood. Sin, as a structural axiom of life, like words, must be redeemed immediately’ (Volokhov, 2016: 412). Then – and here the dispute with F.M. Dostoevsky continues, more precisely, with his novel ‘Crime and Punishment’ – no matter how terrible the sin may be, it can always be justified by a timely admission of guilt. M.I. Volokhov reveals the hypocritical, artificial mechanisms of ‘conditional self-repentance’, by virtue of which ‘you can do away with everyone’, identified by F.M. Dostoevsky in ‘Crime and Punishment’ (Ibid: 415). Note, however, that the same playwright wrote about this in his afore-mentioned essay-manifesto, ‘The Theatre of Kairos in Essence’, emphasizing that this novel by the great writer is ‘... the most ‘modern’ Western novel because of the speculative repentance of the murderer Raskolnikov’, which ‘actually morally resolved our social, bloody revolution’ (Dialogue..., 2016: 556). It is also worth noting the formal
proximity of polemics in the texts of M.I. Volokhov and in F.M. Dostoevsky’s novels, which V.V. Nabokov referred to as overgrown plays (see: Nabokov, 1996: 183); in fact, M.I. Volokhov, on the contrary, calls his plays short detective novels: ‘I always want to write a novel, but it turns out as a play. This is my ‘dramaturgical’ organism’ (Dialogue..., 2016: 551).
In a short paragraph it is impossible to cover all the features of M.I. Volokhov’s drama, as well as to analyze all the taboo topics that the playwright mentions. We have not yet touched upon the most interesting issues of the correlation of Chronos and Kairos in the plays, or other philosophical problems such as imaginary life in totalitarian conditions, universal guilt and loneliness, personal choice and freedom of choice; we will not attempt a more detailed study of the intertextual aspects of the playwright’s work, his obvious connections with classical and modern Russian and foreign literature, classical and modern cinema (A.O. Balabanov, C. Dreyer, C. Lawton, L. von Trier, M. Haneke, A. van Warmerdam), etc. Nor will we analyze the specifics of reception in M.I. Volokhov’s plays of national issues; of homosexuality, cannibalism and their ritualization, the specifics of sexual themes in general, etc. The range of problems raised by M.I. Volokhov is inexhaustible, but the playwright concentrates on the philosophy of death, globally expanding the perspectives of its study.
Thus M.I. Volokhov, as we have seen, removes the prohibitions of two levels:
1. Prohibition on the use of language in all its variety of forms.
2. Prohibition of discussion of the most important topics and problems for humanity.
Connecting the seemingly unconnected, M.I. Volokhov suggests that the reader should think in different categories, emerge from the yoke of imposed patterns of thinking and try to think globally, broadly. As a result the taboo on calling things by their proper names collapses. All prohibitions sooner or later lead to terrible consequences – this is also shown by M.I. Volokhov. It is prohibition, not opportunity, that generates violence. Even the smallest language prohibitions eventually lead to prohibition of the language of free art, because a person / reader
/ viewer is free to choose. Volokhov violates artificially created and already, perhaps, unnoticed taboos that implicitly enlarge the mutual alienation of people, forcibly distancing humanity from really terrible topics and problems, thereby hiding the genuine and the present deeper under the cover of an ersatz, thereby limiting the human in man. The
most obvious taboo violations identified, serving, at first glance, external purposes (shocking the audience, breaking patterns, scrapping stereotypes), at the deep level, when the mechanisms of the absurd are connected to the ‘shock therapy’ of the reader / viewer, can simultaneously demonstrate directly opposite meanings, behind which the continuation of not just the traditions of classical drama is visible, but reaching the global level of classical tragedy, where cultural and historical epochs are combined.
Obviously, M.I. Volokhov’s absurdity can be categorized as a
‘detabooization of absurdity’.


MINISTRY OF SCIENCE AND HIGHER EDUCATION OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION
Federal State Budgetary Educational Institution of Higher Education Tver State University
Merkushov Stanislav Fedorovich Representation of the absurd in Russian literature of the late
20th – early 21st century

Dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philology



Scientific consultant: Doctor of Philology, Professor L.N. Skakovskaya



Tver – 2020
 
Contents                Introduction 3
Chapter 1. The Absurd in culture and literature 24
§ 1. The Absurd: concept – reception – meaning 24
§ 2. The Absurd in the domestic literary process: universality of techniques and methodological elements 54
§ 3. The Absurd in the 20th century: cultural ties and literary trends 71
Chapter 2. The Absurd in prose 90
§ 1. The Absurd in prose of the 1980s: deconstruction of the Soviet myth and the realistic canon 90
§ 2. The Absurd in prose of the 1990s: fixation of a paradigm shift 113
§ 3. The Absurd in prose of the 2000s: striving for wholeness 150
§ 4. The Absurd in prose of the 2010s: a return to fundamental principles 192
Chapter 3. Poetry: the context of the Absurd 222
§ 1. Symbolism and the Absurd: Yu.P. Kuznetsov. 223
§ 2. Existentiality and the Absurd: B.B. Ryzhii 235
§ 3. Metaphysics and the Absurd: Yu.V. Mamleev 257
§ 4. The Absurd and rock poetry 271
Chapter 4. The Absurd in dramaturgy 330
§ 1. N.V. Kolyada: The Other and the Absurd 330
§ 2. O. Mukhina: Paratext and the Absurd 342
§ 3. M.I. Volokhov: Taboo and the Absurd 351
§ 4. D.A. Danilov: Play and the Absurd 370
§ 5. A.P. Shipenko: The Author and the Absurd 379
Conclusion 393
List of referenced works… 409



The world is more complicated than any of our ideas about it, and therefore reason alone is not enough...
B. Strugatsky




A special aspect of the Absurd associated with its metaphysics is latently contained in texts of ancient knowledge (such as the Tibetan Book of the Dead, the Upanishads, the New Testament, the Bhagavad Gita, the Tao Te Ching, the Yijing, Tatteki Tosui, etc.) and various adaptations,
empirical transcriptions and interpretations (books by A. Watts, Ram Dass, F. Merrell-Wolf, etc.). These books, in our opinion, carry perhaps the most profound and key component necessary for understanding and interpreting the object and subject of the proposed research in general cultural, theoretical, historical and literary aspects. Very unusual and constructive approaches to a definition of the essence of the category of absurdity are demonstrated by the writers themselves: V.V. Nabokov,
E.V. Klyuev, Yu.V. Mamleev, M.I. Volokhov, S. Beckett, U. Eco, etc. Thus, within the framework of the object and subject of analysis, we study the works of M.I. Volokhov, V. D’rkin, D.A. Danilov, D.A. Gorchev, M.Y. Elizarov, V. Klimov, Yu.I. Koval, N.V. Kolyada, Y.P. Kuznetsov, E. Letov, Yu.V. Mamleev, O. Mukhina, D. Ozersky, L.S. Petrushevskaya, E.A. Popov,
E. Radov, B.B. Ryzhii, V.G. Sorokin, A.P. Shipenko.

The purpose of the study is specified by its main objectives:
— to present in structural-semantic and motivic aspects and classify modes of the Absurd in the dramaturgy of the late 20th-early 21st century (with examples from the dramaturgy of N.V. Kolyada, O. Mukhina, M.I. Volokhov, D.A. Danilov, A.P. Shipenko);


Provisions for thesis defence:
10. Through the previous experience of the 1980s and 1990s, which showed a desire to violate various literary and aesthetic taboos, the absurdist drama of the 2000s demonstrates at the same time fundamental philosophical meanings, behind which one can see a continuation of the traditions of classical Russian literature with simultaneous access to the global level of classical Shakespearean tragedy, where cultural and historical epochs are combined (the ‘detabooization of absurdity’ by M.I. Volokhov).

List of referenced works
84. Volokhov M. Velikii uteshitel’ [Text] / M. Volokhov. — M.: Glagol, 1997. — 304 p.
85. Volokhov M. Mat lechit kak zmeinyi yad [E-resource] / M. Volokhov
// Trud, ¹ 14, 11.08.2006. — Link: http://www.trud.ru/article/11-08- 2006/106821_radi_krepkogo_slovtsa.html (Date of application: 30.01.2020)
86. Volokhov Mikhail. Velikii uteshitel’. Sochineniya [Text] / M. Volokhov. — M.: «Kitoni», 2016. — 672 p.
609. Miesowska Lidia. «Dialog s absurdom. Zametki o dramaturgii M. Volokhova» [Text] / Lidia Miesowska // Volokhov M. Velikii uteshitel’. — M.: «Kitoni», 2016. P. 630—640.

14)
Stanislav Fyodorovich Merkushov (Tver State University)
Linguistic and Thematic De-Tabooization in the Works of M. Volokhov (the play and film
‘Chikatilo’s Calvary’)

A comprehensive analysis of M.I. Volokhov’s play ‘Chikatilo’s Calvary’ (1994, 2016) and the playwright’s own film of the same name (2005) as complementary texts brings us closer to a holistic perception of both as a single synthetic text. In both works the main content of M.I. Volokhov’s creativity is conveyed in a concise form: everything done in any form and by anyone is always aimed at approaching the Truth contained in eternal values common to all mankind and realized in such concepts as love and beauty. It is during the periods of Kairos as an extraordinary moment in history that both the sacred and the base or sinful serve one higher purpose, as previously mentioned. Thus the core problem of the search for truth, and the problems of understanding morality and distinguishing between the good and evil contiguous with it, are solved at several levels related to the removal of two main prohibitions: the ban on the use of language in all its variety of forms, and the ban on discussing topics that are important for humanity but often suppressed.



15)

ACTA U N I V E R S I TAT I S L O D Z I E N S I S
FOLIA LITTERARIA ROSSICA 7, 2014



Lidia Mi;sowska
Uniwersytet ;l;ski Wydzia; Filologiczny
Instytut Filologii Wschodnios;owia;skiej Zak;ad Historii Literatury Rosyjskiej
41-205 Sosnowiec
ul. Grota-Roweckiego 5




Dialogue with the Absurd.
Notes on the dramaturgy of Mikhail Volokhov

‘The absurd has as many shades and degrees as the tragic,’ Vladimir Nabokov noted in his lectures on Russian literature,1  and Mikhail Volokhov’s dramaturgy2   seems to confirm this opinion and indicate that ‘absurdist artistic worlds can be created by various means’.3 Absurdism in literature means, let us recall, the rejection of traditional forms in dramaturgy, i.e. from various realistic forms of birth, from plot, character, psychologism in the image of a person. Absurdism appears where the internal logic is violated, which is replaced by a number of associations, cause-and-effect relationships are destroyed, the logical and temporal sequence disappears, where there is no intrigue, and a specifically understood action unfolds in a circle. The aim to use all absurdist techniques is considered to achieve the effect of irrationality of what is happening on stage in the artistic world, and therefore these techniques are usually accompanied by such aesthetic categories as: paradox, grotesque, humour. Another important reason for turning to absurdism (we are talking about the proximity of the Absurd to existentialism) is, as Dmitry Tokarev notes, the desire to express ‘the feeling of the absurdity of being experienced by a person who has realized the mechanicality of human existence’.4 Mikhail Volokhov (as well as founders of the literature of the absurd Daniel Harms and Alexander Vvedensky5) creates literature that ‘does not represent a total absence of meaning, but on the contrary, a different meaning that does not fit into everyday logic, destroying, as a rule, established logical connections’.6. In Volokhov’s work, we really observe various means by which the author achieves the
above-mentioned effect of absurdity. The key to understanding it is considered, on the one hand, a direct connection with the Western theatre of the absurd, represented by Eug;ne Ionesco (who was a friend of Volokhov’s), and the most important question for the father of the absurd is the crisis of communication and the problem of the absurdity of language and the language of the Absurd. On the other hand, there are very strong links with existentialism, which gave rise to the author’s interest in philosophizing and thus determines not only the problems of artistic utterance (existential and metaphysical principles in Volokhov’s plays, i.e. the struggle of Good with Evil, a person in a borderline situation, death, conscience, redemption, etc.), but also strongly affects its form.
Volokhov’s philosophizing often takes the form of a treatise or is placed within the framework of a traditional dramatic genre, i.e. it resembles an ancient Greek tragedy, which is observed within the theatre of the Absurd, which, as Martin Esslin states:

…concerned with the basic realities of life, occupied with relatively few fundamental problems of life and death, issues of isolation and communication ... can manifest grotesquely, superficially and irreverently, returning to the initial, religious function of the theatre – the opposition of man to the sphere of myth and religious truth. Like ancient Greek tragedy, medieval mysteries and baroque allegories, the theatre of the Absurd aims to tell the public about the precarious, mysterious position of man in the universe.7
 
Regarding scandalously brilliant plays that dialogize with the worldwide cultural and philosophical context, critics characteristically portray Volokhov in different ways, for example, as a classic of the Russian avant- garde, as Alexander Zotov said. He believes that ‘Dead Man’s Bluff’ was ‘absolutely therapeutic and shocking for Moscow and Russia and the entire highly elite Western world, and from that the phenomenon of ‘new drama’ grew in Russia’.8 Julius Edlis, in turn, speaks of him as a ‘marginal’ playwright who, with his texts, ‘discovers something new in the history of drama’, and Olivier Schmidt claims that this is a playwright who ‘belongs to a galaxy of writers who write in very condensed metaphorical colours, who never bridle their image in the form of a complex or self-censorship’, that this is ‘an author who writes about what others only think about, but never formulate’.9 Andrey Zhitinkin draws attention to the most important aspect of Volokhov’s work:

The avant-gardism [of Volokhov – L. M.] consists in the fact that he absorbed the school of the Western theatre of the Absurd while remaining a deeply Russian classical writer – he does not, unlike other modern writers, diagnose the surrounding evil, but simply embeds this evil of ours into the structure of World Fatality, bringing to the absolute Stanislavsky’s testament about the truth of life.10

The dialogical origin of Volokhov’s plays was also noted in 2006 by Eduard Boyakov, at the time artistic director of the Praktika Theatre: ‘Volokhov is archaism, traditionalism and, as it were, Shakespeare. In Volokhov’s plays there is this almost folklore orientation to the archetype, tradition, even to a certain theological context, referring to the ideas of the ‘new Theodicy’’.11
Thus, in the plays of the playwright one can find hints of texts, ideas, treatises, the philosophy of Aeschylus, Sophocles, Shakespeare, Racine, Corneille, Camus, Sartre, Genet, Shestov, Dostoevsky, Gogol, Mikhail Bulgakov, Leo Tolstoy, Kierkegaard, Heidegger, Nietzsche and Tertullian. The quote ‘I believe, for it is absurd’ (Lat. Credo quia absurdum), the author of which is considered to be Tertullian, an apologist of early Christianity, best describes the absurdist worldview of Mikhail Volokhov.
It is best expressed in four texts by the playwright, of which he himself says that ‘these are like Four Times Unity’12. These are the plays: Dead Man’s Bluff Game, The Great Consoler, Chikatilo’s Calvary and The Immaculate Conception. They touch upon issues of the crisis of spirituality essential for the theatre of the Absurd , the struggle of Good against Evil, a person in a borderline/final situation of a personality crisis, lost cultural values, the destructive influence of totalitarianism on personality, the crisis of communication, devaluation/ depreciation of language, etc.
It is also seen in the linguistic absurdity inherent in every one of Volokhov’s texts, regardless of what problem the author touches on. The playwright is mainly interested in mat, obscenity, about which he himself said ‘this is an X-ray of the spirit. Ozone of speech. This is a sacred, super-genial language that enhances art, if it exists, and sweeps it to zero if it is the art of naked kings’, moreover, ‘if a work with profanity performs the sacrificial function of High Repentance, then mat heals people, society, the world – like earthly poison in the hands of a real healer’.13
The ease with which Volokhov turns to mat (his plays are written entirely in obscenities) is not due to the need to shock the reader, but rather follows from a peculiar understanding of the essence of the theatre. Volokhov claims that in his plays ‘the main thing is not the mat, but the thought, since the theatre is not the place for relaxed but vulgar guffaws.’14. He admits that the theatre for him is ‘a small cathedral where people gather in order to contemplate – to see the Truth’15 And indeed, this can happen during a reading/performance, if the consumer manages to overcome the mat in the process of perceiving the work, if it is possible not to perceive the mat as alien and hostile to literature and the theatre. Those readers/viewers who are lucky will be able to dive into the months
with the characters of the play to the very depths, to the deepest depth of human unhappiness and suffering. Edlis tries to justify Volokhov’s tendency to write in continuous obscenities with the words: ‘as you surface again, the mat already seems to be just a sign of something like a caisson disease of society as a whole’.16
Volokhov writes about the mental and spiritual diseases of modern man in his most famous play, Dead Man’s Bluff. This is a dialogue between Arkady and Felix, the KGB assassins who, during the play, talk and sort things out with each other, and consequently with the whole world. In this way they pay off their past. As they talk they describe in detail, with all the subtleties, their methods of action and the effects of their
 
work. Thus they introduce into the play a clear ‘Soviet background’ and the absurdities of those times. They mock the Newspeak and list the goals of ‘Cainism’ (with an error) in sarcastic statements about the past:

You must respect science, Arkasha. Especially in this scientific country. Here every college-educated ignoramus scientifically learns that at any given moment in any given point of free space you may be scientifically taken by the balls for some unknown reason and sent to jail. And the criminals in the joint will put you on trial in their own scientific way. They'll fuck you in the ass scientifically.17

Quotes (sometimes allusions) from Russian poetry (e.g., Marina Tsvetaeva) are woven into the absurd dialogues of former murderers, morgue workers, where they ‘treat’ the blind men of neurology. These dialogues are interspersed with scenes of rough sex. As a result of combining within the framework of one image the depicted reality of high and low principles, the spheres of sacrum and profanum, a depressing picture of a potential ‘inhuman apocalypse’ is obtained, from playing to the gallery with ‘good murders in the name of mind-numbing ideas’.18
A little more complicated is the picture of the Absurd in the play Paris Bound. Here the characters are two fugitive convicts who intend to find freedom in Paris, and therefore escape from Siberia on the roof of a freight car. The plot is typically absurdist, reminiscent of the Western theatre of the Absurd by Samuel Beckett or Eug;ne Ionesco, as well as the plays of the Russian playwright Alexei Shipenko, particularly his Moscow–Frankfurt. 2000 Metres above the Surface of the Soil, where two clowns travel on the wings of an airplane, take bad walks in the universe and discuss the topic of the state of humanity at the end of the 20th century.
In Volokhov’s play the convicts escape and during the journey they consume their companions on the run, or rather eat their heads. In the end Shaft and Globe never reach Paris because Shaft kills Globe and eats his brains, then in the finale falls dead. Thus, murder/death (Volokhov’s favourite theme) ends the cannibal convicts’ journey to freedom.
Their dialogues are filled with arguments about the essence of God, existence, the values of literature, classical music (they refer to Mozart, Mendelssohn, Chopin, Tchaikovsky), etc.19 They treat each other either rudely and swear, or tenderly and affectionately, with sympathy: ‘This is a small and problematical world ... Nobody understands us heartfelt cannibals like we understand ourselves’; ‘Paris will screw us, eat us, when they see we’re Christian cannibals’; ‘We can't eat one another, mate. One can eat the other, the other gets eaten’; ‘On the whole Jew meat isn’t bad’.20
Creating a picture of cannibal convicts, Volokhov philosophizes with humour (or rather with a bitter smile) and forces the reader to ask the question: Who am I? For myself and for another person? The writer shows that in all of us ‘lies and total aggression can be detected’, because, as Eduard Boyakov explained the meaning of the play, ‘These are all our inner prisoners. Such are the monstrous creatures that live in each of us’,21 terrorizing us internally, as the Presnyakov brothers would say, referring to Heidegger. Perhaps for these reasons, Volokhov endows the most striking scenes (cannibalism or homosexual sexual intercourse) with features of ritual actions, a kind of communion:

GLOBE. I get your drift, don't get upset, no need to waste nervous energy.
Treat yourself to a bit more. (Chews an ear off Syomochka's head, gives it to Shaft.)
Love for the President truly lies in the stomach. SHAFT. You pervert. (Takes the ear, eats.)
Tasty, your Syomka's real tasty – you can tell who's who, Globey. GLOBE. I can do the same for you in Paris, Shafty.
SHAFT. I'm not asking much – just excite the English cunt for the good of us all, for the good of the lost world, cunt. I'm ready to sacrifice my own body, my own energy. Fuck knows who'll appreciate the altruism of my fucking cock. Mankind shows nothing but ingratitude to those that offer excitement.
GLOBE. You have to overcome the ingratitude and excite the cunts night and day. A harsh destiny to bear. Build yourself up with a high-calorie tongue.
(Gnaws off Syomochka's tongue and gives it to Shaft.) SHAFT. You're spoiling me, daddy. (Eats the tongue.) Nutritious and tasty, what more can I say.
GLOBE. Only the finest shit here, as they say.
 
Want to try some brains?
(Offers Shaft Syomochka's brains.)
SHAFT. Grand merci, daddy! (Eats Syomochka's brains.)
Like a baton of white bread, like honey.
We'll split Ilya's brains, too. (Splits Ilya's scull open on the wagon roof.)
Here's an invigorating segment of brain, daddy. (Gives Globe a piece of brain.)
GLOBE. Thank you! (Eats the brain.)
I tell you, Shafty, I never tasted such a good piece of brain.22

The ritualistic behaviour of the characters, the repetition of the actions they perform, the philosophy of murder created by the author all the time brings the theatre of Volokhov closer to the roots of theatre, to the religious, mystical beginning of stage art, as mentioned above in relation to the theatre of the Absurd. On the other hand, raising the difficult question of the Absurd as a defining principle, as the meaning of life and construction of any form and the content within it, Volokhov at the same time convinces us that ‘the Absurd is a ubiquitous global reunifying life metaphor’.23
When constructing his anti-plays and the anti-heroes who ‘inhabit’ them, Volokhov each time seems to depict the underground man that resembles Dostoevsky’s characters: Volokhov’s underground anti-hero also feels unhappy and demands sympathy from others, he has a strong sense of superiority over others, but still remains an ordinary person and, by nature, he enjoys the fact that he fatigues himself and others at the same time. The externally scandalous aspect of Volokhov’s works, including the linguistic aspect, as mentioned above, does not hide the philosophical conceptions of the world and the emotional saturation of his reasoning. In his plays other Dostoevskian ‘ideas’ resonate,
such as ‘Beauty will save the world’ (The Idiot) or ‘If there is no God, everything is allowed’ (The Brothers Karamazov), as well as Leo Tolstoy’s imperative of ‘non-resistance to evil
by violence’. In addition, Volokhov’s dramaturgy gives a sense also of existentialist ideas, especially the idea of a borderline situation (Karl Jaspers), and existentialist categories of choice, freedom of choice, death, guilt, fear (S;ren Kierkegaard’s concept that ‘fear is the vertigo of freedom’), internal terrorism (Martin Heidegger ‘das Man’) or the thesis ‘hell is
others’ (L'enfer c’est les autres by Jean-Paul Sartre).
A full analysis of the above-mentioned connections with the theatre of the Absurd and
existentialism is beyond the scope of this article due to the obvious limitations of form, but it is worth mentioning here as a characteristic example the play Chikatilo’s Calvary. Here the writer strongly asserts that the end of the world has come, ‘people are consuming each other’, and we can only collect some remnants of humanity.
The drama is a monologue by Chikatilo, a prisoner awaiting his death sentence, a condemned man for which Volokhov used as a prototype Andrey Chikatilo (1936-1994), the most notorious Soviet serial killer.24 Chikatilo the hero of this play sincerely confesses to the reader/ viewer, since the author is almost painfully concerned about the problem of Good and Evil, especially the question of the ‘damage’ of human nature, the ‘distortion’ that comes from original sin and is carried out in a person due to the freedom of choice between Good and Evil given to him by God, which tragically defines the whole existence of a person.
Volokhov, working in his oeuvre, as we have already said, with underground man, creates here a picture, by his definition, of the ‘last stage of the fall of man’, i.e. a picture of ‘Chikatilism’.
Chikatilo recalls and carefully describes the murders of children, trying to prove that others are to blame for everything, for example, parents who gave sweets and sensitivity to their children, as a result of which the children went to the dark forest with an unknown uncle for these sweets, caresses and tenderness. On the other hand, Chikatilo acts here as a metaphor for the absurdity of the existence of Humanity – he presents himself as a victim sentenced to death for his mercy:

I gave a blissful death to their darling kids, they remain innocent for time immemorial. For some reason they can't understand and appreciate that their kiddies went to a golden heaven, bypassed the sheer hell of life … Certainly they suffered before dying … You have to earn the ticket to paradise, by great torment.25

Chikatilo’s monologue can be considered as a monologue of Humanity on the eve of self-destruction. But the absurdity of the tragedy of Chikatilo is also hidden in the fact that he cannot choose his death so as to get a
 
sense of euphoria, get complete satisfaction from pain and violence and maintain a sense of superiority over the world and a position of disregard for it: ‘Give me a fucking executioner partner!!!’. To this, he says: ‘Well, I‘m not fucking interested in killing myself at all, for fuck’s sake – it’s absolutely fucking not my job to do.’
In conclusion it is worth adding that Volokhov pays special attention in his plays not only to the absurdity of human existence, i.e. problems that have arisen as a result of a person's inability to use freedom and will. He also considers with great interest the absurdity and horror generated by the policy of totalitarian states and ‘leading to the phenomenon of the birth of anti-humans’.26 Chikatilo, trying to justify himself, makes an accusation against totalitarianism:

There’s no Morality, there’s only Truth on this Earth. … Life only exists in Absurdity. I always acted according to the morality of our country.
If a country has a fascist morality you gotta be a fascist – that’s fucking moral and human, evolutionary. I’m not a
fucking animal – I’m a fucking human, warm-hearted thinking boy …
Stalin and Lenin created millions of victims, they gave an example of shocking maniacal deeds without grief, they hit the Communist bull’s eye without glasses.

It is therefore impossible not to agree with Anna Kraevskaya, who notes the double role of the theatre of the Absurd. The researcher draws attention to the fact that the theatre of the Absurd, on the one hand, touches on the question of existence in the world, but on the other hand, from a satirical viewpoint, it exposes the absurdity of imaginary life in a totalitarian state, which forces people to exist in a false reality deformed by language, politics and the actions of society.27
Summing up all of the above, of necessity in an abbreviated and selective form, it is worth emphasizing that Mikhail Volokhov’s dramaturgy is scandalous and often incites criticism for abuse of obscenities, but it is an unusual work, especially due to deep ties with the Gogol-Bulgakov tradition of devilry and devilry, with the legacy of Dostoevsky, Leo Tolstoy and the Oberiuts (mainly in the level of structural absurdity, which allows you to fully convey the extreme chaos and crisis of language/communication, and thereby emphasize the absence of a single integral image of an individual). The uniqueness of Volokhov’s dramaturgy is also demonstrated in the sphere of rich and complex mutual relations with the Western theatre of the absurd and existentialism, which allows us to include Volokhov’s plays in the broad global context of absurdist theatrical art.

1 V. Nabokov, Lektsii po russkoi literature, Moscow 1999, p. 124.
2 Mikhail Volokhov (b. 1955), Russian and French writer, playwright and drama theorist. A student of Yu. Edlis and G. Gorin. In 1987 he left for France, where he became world famous as a playwright and director when, with the assistance of Eug;ne Ionesco, his play Dead Man’s Bluff was staged in French and German in France and Germany. Since 1995 Volokhov has been a member of the Paris PEN club, and since 1996 of the Moscow Writers' Union. He has written more than fifteen plays, including Dead Man’s Bluff, Lyudmila Gurchenko Lives, The Macbeth Chronicles, Kings of the Entrance, Rublyovka Safari, Lesbians Roaring Like a Tsunami,
Paris Bound, Chikatilo’s Calvary, Immaculate Conception, The Great Consoler, Diogenes. Alexander.
Corinth, Kilimanjaro On Your Lips, Naked Snow Carelessly Gentle, The Companion, Forty-
Eighth Degree of Solar Latitude, Bullets in Chocolate, His Majesty’s Executioner. Since 1996 he has lived predominantly in Russia. See the site: www.volokhov.ru.
3 M. Marusenkov, Absurdopediya russkoi zhizni Vladimira Sorokina. Zaum’, grotesk i absurd, Sankt- Peterburg 2012, p. 204.
4 D. Tokarev, Kurs na khudshee: absurd kak kategoriya teksta u Daniila Kharmsa i Samyuelya Bekketa, Moskva 2002, p. 7.
5 Dmitry Tokarev, for example, mentions this in his previously mentioned study Kurs na khudshee... He also names other scholars with a similar view, and incidentally Vladimir Glotser and Mikhail Meilakh, who defines the works of Kharms and Vvedensky as the Russian pre-war theatre of the absurd. See: D. Tokarev, Kurs na khudshee..., p. 7.
6 A. Kobrinskii, Daniil Kharms, Moscow 2009, p. 416–417.
7 M. Esslin, Teatr absurda, translated by G. Kovalenko, St. Petersburg 2010, p. 412.
8 A. Zotov, V nekhoroshei kvartire Mikhaila Bulgakova khoroshaya p’yesa Mikhaila Volokhova ‘I v Parizh’, Pravda.ru from 31.05.2006, [e-resource] http://www.pravda.ru/culture/
theatre/premiers/12-04-2006/81461-0/ [12.08.2014].
9 The opinions of the above-mentioned Yu. Edlis, O. Schmidt, A. Zhitinkin and other quotes from the article Velikaya Otyechestvennaya Igra sovromennoi dramaturgii Mikhaila Volokhova, included in the Culture section of the e-newspaper Pravda.ru from 12.04.2006, [e-resource] [09.09.2014].
10 Ibid.
11 Ibid.
12 Volokhov himself used this terminology in his conversation with N. Struve. See: The Theatre of Kairos in Essence – Mikhail
 
Volokhov’s essay on the theory of theatre and art, ‘Literaturniye vesti’ 2001,
¹ 50, [e-resource] http://volokhov.ru/site/?page_id=388 [02.09.2014].
13 M. Volokhov, Mat lychit kak zmeinyi yad, TRUD, ¹ 146 from 11.08.2006, [e-resource] http://volokhov.ru/site/?page id=518 [02.09.2014]. Hereinafter the text is quoted in the author’s edition (punctuation, syntax, use of uppercase and lowercase letters). 14 Ibid.
15 The Theatre of Kairos in Essence...
16 Velikaya Otyechestvennaya Igra...
17 M. Volokhov, Dead Man’s Bluff, [e-resource] http://www.volokhov.ru [02.11.2014].
18 The Theatre of Kairos in Essence....
19 The device of calling each other by different names in each remark resembles the technique used to construct the image of characters in Venedikt Yerofeyev’s play Walpurgis Night or The Steps of the Commander.
20 M. Volokhov, Paris Bound...
21 Velikaya Otyechestvennaya Igra...
22 M. Volokhov, Paris Bound...
23 The Theatre of Kairos in Essence...
24 Between 1978 and 1990 Chikatilo committed 53 proven murders; among the victims were: 21 boys aged 7-17, 14 small girls aged 9-17, 18 girls and women. They managed to shoot him before abolition of the death penalty in Russia.
25 M. Volokhov, Chikatilo’s Calvary, [e-resource] http:// www.volokhov.ru [02.09.2014]. Hereinafter quoted from this resource.
26 Anatolii Brusilovskii î Mikhaile Volokhove – ‘Veryu, potomu chto absurdno!’, [e-resource] http:// www.volokhov.ru [02.09.2014].
27 See: A. Krajewska, Dramat i teatr absurdu w Polsce, Pozna; 1996, p. 14.



Lidia Mi;sowska

A Dialogue with the Absurd:
Remarks on Mikhail Volokhov’s Dramatic Works (Summary)
The article presents an attempt to describe the oeuvre of the Russian and French playwright and theatre theoretician Mikhail Volokhov in the context of his relation to the Russian theatre of the Absurd of the 1920s, as well as to the 1950s western model of theatre of the Absurd, represented by Samuel Beckett and Eug;ne Ionesco. The author also discusses Volokhov’s dramatic works in reference to the philosophy of existentialism.

Keywords: contemporary Russian drama, Absurd, theatre of the Absurd, Martin Esslin, Ionesco, Beckett, Volokhov.

*******
16)

Mikhail Volokhov


THE RED TULIP AND LAST-YEAR'S OAK LEAF
A fairy tale (Translation into English by Maria Volokhov)

One warm spring day a young man with a bunch of red tulips is sitting on a park bench, waiting for his beloved.
Here she comes.
'How lovely they are!' the girl exclaims as she takes the flowers. 'I love you,' says the young man with a wide grin.
'And I love you, my prince.'
'My princess. Let's go for a stroll.' 'Let's.'
And the lovers walk away, without noticing that a tulip has slipped from the bunch and dropped on the path.
The tulip fainted away (after landing on her head with a nasty jolt), but quickly came back to life. She felt lonely and sad – all her friends were gone. The tulip wanted to cry but couldn't, being a cut flower with no water for teardrops. Suddenly there was a piercing cry from above the red tulip's head: 'Look out! Careful! Stand back!' Before she realised what was happening a last-year's oak leaf landed on the ground some five centimetres away.
The oak leaf launched into conversation right away. 'Hello there. What's up?' 'They dropped me, and nobody noticed,' the red tulip explained.
'I know – I saw it all.' The oak leaf tried to comfort the tulip. 'These things happen. Don't be upset – that's the way of the world, nothing you can do – all for the best.'
'I'm not upset.' The red tulip livened up. The moment the oak leaf addressed her she felt much better. 'Please tell me, how did you get here, and what's your name?'
'Oak Leaf's the name. Flew down from that big tree. See the branch where the swallow's perched – I was hanging up there.'
'Being high up like that must be wonderful,' said the red tulip enviously.
'Oh yes! It's cool up there, wicked. You see the sun rise and set, the splashing fountains, children riding the merry-go-round. The blue sky is right above you, snow-white clouds coddle close and the birds share their dreams, their joy and happiness. You imagine you're a bird too – although there's really no need, up there you're free as any bird!'
'So why did you break away from the branch and fly to earth?'
'Well, hanging out in the same place gets boring after a while. Wanted to travel a bit, feel the thrill of free flight.'
'What was it like?'
'Amazing, unforgettable. Alas, that was my first and last flight, but I'm glad I met you – to be honest, that's why I left the branch.'
'Because of me?'
'Saw you fall, heard you whimpering – I came down to help.'
'Thank you, noble oak leaf. But tell me, please, why are you brown and all the other oak leaves green?'
 
'I grew old after hanging from the oak all summer, autumn and winter. Should have fallen off last autumn. But in autumn you might end up on a bonfire. I
wanted so much to live, to have a close friend and love someone with all my heart. The birds are happy because they live in friendship, they love one another. I expect happiness gives them the power of flight – what do you think?'
'Can there be another reason?' 'Of course not!'
'But what is a bonfire?' asked the red tulip.
'A big wild thing, all red and very, very hot,' explained the oak leaf. 'You also get red and hot if it touches you, then immediately you're turned to dust. Just like that.'
'How awful,' gasped the red tulip.
'I should say so,' drawled the oak leaf.
'You're so clever – you know so much,' the red tulip went on. 'You've lived so
long in this world. I only sprouted from the ground two weeks ago. Yesterday I flowered and today I was cut from the root, sold, bought, given and lost.'
'That's very sad, I must agree,' said the oak leaf sympathetically. 'But don't despair. The most important thing in life is never give up – everything works out in the end. Trust me.'
'I trust you more than anyone in the world, oak leaf, you're wonderful, so kind and charming!' Suddenly the tulip uttered a pitiful squeak. 'Ouch! I felt a nasty stabbing pain in my head. There it goes again. Ouch! Why does it hurt so?
Ouch!'
'Poor little soul – you're wilting away.' 'What does that mean?'
'You're drying up for lack of water. But don't be afraid – nothing to fear. All the moisture dried out of me long ago, and I'm still hale and hearty,' explained the oak leaf. 'My head never aches now.'
'You mean I'll be dry, spick and span like you when I wilt away?'
'Well… alright, I'll be absolutely frank with you,' said the oak leaf. 'If you want to be like me you must find a human being who needs you for a herbarium. I wouldn't mind ending up in a herbarium, for that matter.'
'What's a herbarium?'
'It's like a fairytale hideaway for flowers and leaves – the only place where there's nothing to be scared of, where you can live forever in eternal happiness.'
'How wonderful,' said the red tulip, intrigued. 'How do you get there?'
'First and foremost, the human collecting the herbarium has to like you.' 'Is that hard?'
'Not if you're lucky,' replied the oak leaf.
At that very moment an artist sat down on the bench.
'Look – it's a human!' cried the red tulip. 'He's staring hard at us! Surely he must like us? If only he was collecting a herbarium!'
Sure enough, the artist was staring hard at the red tulip and last-year's leaf. He had come to the park to paint and was searching for subject matter.
'Eureka!' the artist exclaimed. 'Excellent. The oak leaf died a natural death but this youthful red bloom was torn up and carelessly thrown on the ground,
 
where it withers in agony and dies a tragic death. Their fate was different but similar. That is a subject in itself.'
And the artist rose to his feet, stooped to nudge the tulip and oak leaf closer together until they almost touched for better contrast, unfolded his easel and began painting his picture. He had already thought of a title: 'Two Deaths'. For some reason it never occurred to him that the tulip and the oak leaf might still be alive.
A light breeze blew and with every breath of wind the head of the red tulip leant towards the oak leaf. The oak leaf was blissfully happy. The tulip was blissfully happy. And the artist, too – confident that this would make a fine picture.
'I think he likes us,' said the tulip, quivering in agitation. 'He's bound to take us to a herbarium. What do you think, oak leaf?'
'Not so fast… After all, he's an artist. Our luck has run out, little tulip – artists don't gather herbariums, it's not their thing. Why didn't I guess he was an artist when I first set eyes on him? I haven't got used to viewing the world from ground level. From above I'd immediately see he was an artist,' said the oak
leaf, annoyed with himself.
'What's he doing?' asked the red tulip.
'Painting. I expect he took a fancy to us. See the canvas? We'll end up there soon.'
'How will we end up there?'
'Clasped together. Just as we're doing now. Only we're really clasped together here, and on the canvas we'll be clasped together for pretence.'
'What does pretence mean?'
'It means that here we're alive and embracing,' replied the oak leaf, 'but on the canvas our painted selves will embrace – the paints will embrace for us.'
'That's not true, not true,' chirped the swallow, who could clearly see what the artist had painted so far from her perch on the oak branch. 'You look very much alive in the picture. Of course I understand the paints are embracing for you in the picture. But all the same…'
'Is the picture like a herbarium where we can live happily for ever and ever?' asked the red tulip.
'For ever and ever,' replied the oak leaf. 'But even the swallow says the paints are embracing for us – they look very like us, but they're only paints.'
'Is there anything we can do to continue our lives on the canvas, instead of the paints?'
'Only a good wizard could help us,' said the oak leaf. 'But all the good wizards now live in dense forests or impenetrable bogs, in burning deserts or underwater kingdoms – they're needed in such places, indispensable.'
'Couldn't we manage without a kind wizard?' asked the red tulip. The oak leaf didn't know what to say.
'Yes you can, you can,' chirped the swallow, 'you can manage without a kind wizard.'
'How?' chorused the friends in unison.
'Don't know for sure, but I think you could,' chirruped the swallow in reply. 'To come to life in a picture you must live with all your heart now, love one another with all your heart. I know it.'
 
The swallow fluttered her wings and flew back to her nest.
'I'll come back and see you, my good friends,' she chirped, disappearing over the treetops.
'We're so much in love, swallow, we love one another so deeply!' the red tulip and the oak leaf cried after her. But the swallow couldn't hear – she was already too far away.
'Will she fly back to us?' asked the red tulip.
'She promised. She's a good sort, that swallow, I know she'll come back,' replied the oak leaf.
Twilight was falling. The artist folded the easel under his arm, muttered 'Until tomorrow', breathed a pensive sigh and headed for home.
'Look, he's walking further and further away,' said the red tulip anxiously.
'Taking his picture with him, and we're not alive on the canvas yet. Why not? We love one another so much, oak leaf! Isn't that right?'
'Yes, little red tulip, you're right. But don't be sad. Most likely the artist isn't done yet – he'll come back tomorrow and finish the picture.'
'What if he doesn't? Suppose he doesn't come?'
'In that case I think – I know – someone else will take a fancy to us, maybe lift us from the cold earth and take us to a warm herbarium,' the oak leaf answered hesitantly.
'Overnight I'll wither away, and by morning I'll be ugly, so hideous that even you won't like me, you'll stop loving me there and then.'
'Nonsense, how can you think so poorly of me. I think I've found the answer. I'll curl up like a saucer, and you must stretch the tip of your stalk towards me. Overnight dew will collect in my saucer and you can drink your fill, you'll be fresh and full of life again. With luck the first person to fall for you will whisk you off to his herbarium.' And the oak leaf curved like a saucer. 'There you are
– hold out your stalk.'
But the red tulip found this very difficult – she had drunk nothing since morning and her strength was ebbing away. The red tulip might never have stretched out her stalk alone, but a big ant crawling past at that very moment understood the language of flowers and leaves. Being extremely magnanimous, kind and strong, he gave a helpful push. The tulip thought she had achieved the feat herself, the big ant was so diplomatic and considerate
in carrying out his good deeds. Neither did the ant stop to introduce himself – firstly due to his humble nature, secondly because it was his custom to keep good deeds secret, thirdly he observed the rule of never interfering in other creatures' lives, and fourthly he had many urgent matters to attend to – the big ant was in charge of a vast anthill, besides anything else.
So the red tulip and the oak leaf lay there all night, luxuriating in the freshness and silence of the park beneath the silvery moonlight. Dew appeared in the curled saucer of the oak leaf and the tulip drank. By morning her headache had eased a little and her cheeks looked fresh and ruddy. The sun rose, the birds trilled their morning song and our friends were brimming with happiness. 'If only a human collecting for his herbarium could see us, he's sure to like us,' they mused. 'Or the artist might reappear – after all, when he said 'Until tomorrow', he must have been addressing us, who else?'
 

When the artist awoke the next day his first thought was to rush back to the park and finish the picture. But since he wasn't in the habit of painting in the morning, he had lunch before setting off. He found the same spot in the park, the same bench, but the red tulip and last year's oak leaf had vanished from the path.
'What a shame,' he muttered, taken aback. 'I can't possibly finish the picture without the same models.' And he sank down on the bench, dismayed and dejected.
He was roused from his sad reverie by a flash of red between the slender trunks of a hazel grove. The artist took a closer look and saw a flower bed filled with red tulips the other side of a hazel grove.
'There's an idea. I can just pick another red tulip, find an oak leaf from last autumn and put them together in the same place as yesterday. Then I can finish the picture once and for all,' he decided.
'Hey-ho, here we go!' Yet another last year's oak leaf flew down from the oak and landed on the bench.
'Well I never: exactly like your counterpart of yesterday.' He unfolded his easel, looked closer and found the leaf to be remarkably like its fellow from the day before. He approached the flower bed.
As he stooped and stretched out his hand to pick the most beautiful tulip he suddenly had a strange feeling.
'What's going on? What is it? What's happening to me?' the artist cried out in surprise.
He suddenly felt what a shame it would be to pick this sublime flower. He went back to his easel.
And what did he see?! How was it possible? The picture was already finished!
What a miracle! But true enough, the painting was now complete. Very
impressive it was too – the red tulip and last year's oak leaf really looked alive. The best picture the artist had ever painted.
'That must be why I felt sorry to pick the tulip – the red tulip and oak leaf in the picture saved me from an evil deed,' he mused. 'This really is my best picture ever.'
He congratulated himself on completing the task, told himself he was undoubtedly talented and imagined how he would show the painting to his wife and children, how they would give him a smacking kiss on both cheeks and thank him for this magic gift.
'But I'll call this picture 'Two Lives' instead of 'Two Deaths', that's more fitting,' the artist decided.
He folded up the easel, grinning, and set off for home. He turned back for a second, took the oak leaf so amazingly similar to yesterday's leaf from the bench, carried it to the flower bed and left it between the most beautiful red tulips.
'Two lives! Two lives!' the artist whispered rapturously, and walked home very pleased with himself. Yesterday's swallow circled in the sky above him, accompanying him as far as his house.
 
But what became of our red tulip and last year's oak leaf? This is what happened.
That morning a little boy and girl took a walk in the park. They went along the same path, past the bench where our friends lay. The little girl picked up the red tulip: 'Look, a tulip. But it's ugly and dying.'
'Surely not?! Oak leaf, is that true?!' cried the red tulip in despair. 'Oak leaf, why don't you answer me? Am I so ugly you stopped loving me? Why don't you answer, why don't you love me any more?'
The oak leaf loved the red tulip as passionately and devotedly as ever and answered as loudly as he could, but his reply was inaudible. The little boy had unknowingly stepped on the oak leaf and completely covered it with his sandal.
'The tulip needs water. Quick, put it in the fountain,' advised the boy. The little girl agreed and the children ran to the fountain, giggling loudly.
'Take me too! Take me too!!!' the oak leaf desperately shouted after them. But the children couldn't hear – they were already too far away. And they couldn't understand plant language, anyway.
At that moment the swallow returned to find her friends of the previous day. Seeing the disastrous turn of events, she seized the oak leaf in her beak and flew to the fountain with him.
The children had already tossed the tulip in the water. The stalk immediately sank and only her purple head bobbed to and fro on the surface. The tulip thirstily drank the water and wept bitterly. Now she had enough water the tulip could give way to tears.
But then a miracle occurred! The swallow dropped the oak leaf right beside her! What a joyous encounter!
'Do you still love me, my darling oak leaf?'
'Even more than before, my lovely red tulip!'
And they splashed, embraced, kissed and splashed again. They were carried by a light breeze. Our friends were overcome by joy and happiness.
But the tulip inadvertently scooped too much water in her petals. Before she had time to tip it out the tulip found she was sinking to the bottom.
'My darling oak leaf, help me!' was all she had time to shout.
'Hang on! Here I come!!!' cried the oak leaf, splashing about in the water with all his might to get wet and dive after the tulip. The warm breeze helped as much as it could. Finally the oak leaf began sinking through the water.
By now the red tulip was lying on the bottom, smiling at the oak leaf. The oak leaf smiled back at her. That's how they expressed their love and devotion to one another. Being born on dry land, they were unable to talk in the watery depths.
But disaster struck again. The underwater current in the fountain carried the red tulip and the oak leaf in different directions. This was more than they could bear. After ending up at opposite sides of the fountain, unable to see one another, they died of a broken heart at the very same moment. Although only their delicate bodies died, not their eternal, unyielding souls.
For a long time the swallow circled over the fountain, chirping pitifully. Then she flew to the oak tree, to the bench where she hoped to wait for the artist and see her friends again in the picture. When he finally appeared and she
 
saw the painting, her heart overflowed with joy – the red tulip and the oak leaf had come to life in the picture, their souls had transmigrated. The red tulip and the oak leaf thanked the swallow for her help once again, asked her to stay close by forever and swore a vow of eternal friendship. The swallow agreed and they heard her – they were alive and all was well.


When the artist went home the swallow accompanied him as far as his house, so she knew where the picture would hang.
When he entered the house his wife and children smacked kisses on both his cheeks and spoke kind, tender and loving words – they really liked the painting.
It was hung in a spacious sunlit room and the swallow had a good view of the picture from a large open window. That day she perched on the windowsill for a long time, chatting with her friends who had come alive again on the canvas. And she went on visiting them, day after day.
The children saw that the swallow came and perched on the windowsill every single day. After a while she grew brave and flew into the room, where the children kindly fed her shelled pine nuts. After that she visited the room every day, took nuts from the children and perched next to the painting, talking for hours with the red tulip and the oak leaf – about the sun, the blue sky, the snow-white clouds and the warm rain, bringing the latest news from the park and the world outside. The red tulip and the oak leaf felt as if they were flying like birds, seeing and knowing everything, singing the birds' loud, joyous songs. Eternal friendship and true love turned their life into an everlasting,
joyful celebration.
When the swallow grew old her fledglings flew to see the picture. And when the artist's children had their own children, they too fed the visiting swallows their favourite pine nuts and listened to their merry chatter with the red tulip and the oak leaf.
To this day swallows fly inside the room to look at the picture, chattering in their own special language with the red tulip and last year's leaf, who will live forever.

Alma-Ata, 1982
Paris – Moscow, 1996-2001
//Volokhov M.I. Igra v Zhmuriki: Sochineniya//Magazin iskusstva. 2001