Translated by Eugene Pevchev (для связи с переводчиком: temnemenee[собака]gmail[точка]com)
Characters: Me, forty-year-old woman. I smoke and drink much. Larry King, famous television presenter wearing a deluxe tuxedo. Insurance Agent, 25-years-old lad looking either like a glamour magazine cover man or Jesus Christ, wearing trousers, white shirt and a tie.
Me: Three cheers for another day!
I drink. I sit on the bathroom floor; partly empty bottle of brown slop stands beside me. I smoke and drink while the bath fills up. I pull court shoes off my feet as if freeing myself from bloody shackles, and strip the plaster off a sore toe on my right foot. My phone rings. I look at who is calling and turn it off.
Me: Another fucked up day. I could be presented with a prize for the most useless day I endured, in the form of some sodding piece of granite, pleasing to the eye of a frogman who might have found me with it in the Moscow River. When I still had a TV set, things were a little more cheerful here in the evenings. My ex took it away. I came home once and found neither him nor the telly. I was damn worried about both of them. But then my ex called and told me that he left me and took the television. He said that that was the least I owed him. Maybe he’s right. It seems to me that "What is love?" and "Why am I such a fool?" are the most frequently asked questions in the internet search engines. Well. Let them be happy. I liked that when Larry King once inquired of some of his interlocutors: “So, how is it going”? I would like someone to ask me now “Hey, how is it going”? I guess I would have some things to tell if I appeared in the idiot box. You know, millions of TV viewers who all look at you right now. I would tell them something. I often lie in the bath and talk to Larry King. I don’t have a TV set anyway. Although he may seem to be a snob, he is quite all right, I’ll tell you. I know such people; they simply have to relax a bit, to feel that their ass is out of danger. Everything is decent; we’re just having a friendly conversation. Larry King wears a tux, his studs are expensive. If only you could see his studs! I don’t know what I should do to make enough money to buy such studs. Larry King (sitting in the bath): So, how's it going? Me: The same old thing. Larry King: Not in the mood today, huh? Me: I feel like drinking. And that’s what I’m gonna do now. Larry King: How was your day? Me: I’m in deep ass. I guess some people are just created for contemplating shit only. Larry King: Were you late to your employment interview again? Me: A little. A few minutes late. I came almost on time. Larry King (slightly venomously): What happened this time? Me: Where does this hidden sarcasm come from? Larry King: I just ask it this way. Me: I woke up… in someone’s apartment. I don’t know whose it was. It was early morning apparently. There was no one in the apartment. There was a broken rainbow film on the very bottom of the coffee maker. That’s the bottom of hell. I know its taste. Cigarettes lay on the windowsill. The table was piled with dirty plates, sausage casings which were shrank like foreskin, and empty glasses. I put on my clothes and went away. Larry King: Didn’t you try to find out who lives there? Me: Curiosity. It ends where morning begins in the bed of someone you don’t know. I have no intention of thinking about where I’m gonna find myself next time. Besides, I was late to my employment interview. Cocktails will kill me one day. That’s a fact. I’m not a great drinker. Girls do not like cocktails at all. They destroy your memory completely. You have to call your friends in the morning and piece memories together. Larry King: Did you inform the one who had lured you into bed of that? I also wonder if he had used the rubber?
I nod.
Me: Those are the right questions. Larry King: And what are you going to do? Me: Everything I can do for myself now is simply accept it all for a fact.
I fill my glass and drink.
Larry King: Well, it seems to me you’re not very good at that. Me: I do my best. I get my everyday fund of knowledge reading free newspapers while I travel by subway. One of the guys from the TV said,: "I don’t have any problems with my house because I don’t have any house”. I like it when all problems are solved that way. That’s exactly how I like to solve them myself. That’s why I don’t have many problems. Jennifer Aniston said: "Temporary starvation results in drinking bouts". ОК! I’m not gonna check that. I am aware of many things which have the same consequences. Larry King: So you really don’t care whom you slept with? Me: Sure thing that’s interesting to me! I am no road tunnel, you know. It really does not care who goes through it… Alright. One of my buddies called me. He asked me how I was doing and inquired about my plans for the nearest future. Such warmth was unusual; it was like we had had an experience of watching some good movie. I felt very pleased all of a sudden. When I switched the telephone off I thought: “Could it really be him?” Larry King: Did you call him back and ask whether he had used the rubber? Me: I preferred to stake on his decency. Larry King: It’s a pity you always lose your stakes.
My phone rings.
Larry King: Who is it? Me: Edik, my ex. Larry King: Aren’t you going to answer? Me: No. Larry King: What if it was him? Me: I doubt that. Larry King: But there still is a possibility of that.
I do not respond.
Larry King: All right. Come here. Come on!
I heave myself into the bath reluctantly – right in my blouse and skirt. I drink. I feel good as if we were driving around streets of Paris in a limo.
Larry King: How did your job interview go? Me: I don’t wanna talk about that. Larry King: Oh come on. Me: I do not want to. Larry King: As you please. Me: I hate these interviews. You know what is the first question they always ask? "How old are you?". They’re not in the slightest interested in who I am or what I am experienced at. They ask my age in the first place. As if an insurance agent is a person responsible for landing the president’s plane.
I smoke in silence again.
Me: In fact, I could leave right away. That guy who went in there first did not leave me any chance. Whom do you think they will hire a twenty-five-year-old strong smart aleck with a cute face or a forty-year-old lady with dark circles under her eyes? I may assert that raccoon eyes are like age rings in a tree trunk. It is life experience. But who the hell needs your fucking experience? Nobody. If you are twenty-five years old, have respectable parents who were able to pay for higher education of their only descendant, your features are regular, and you do not have children and harmful habits, you can have any job you like. Children. Particular attention is paid to this issue in every questionnaire I filled. They will not ask this good-looker about children. Children do not fit with any job, you know. Larry King: You don’t have children. Me: No I don’t. But it won’t outbalance a white smile in this case. Being a forty-year-old woman constantly looking for a job is just indecent. All those questionnaires! At least I pilfered their pen. Larry King: Did they ask you about your previous employments? Me: They did. Larry King: You never told me. Me: Right. You are like a gynecologist, aren’t you? You just have to know everything. I was a courier, a nurse, then a courier again, paralegal, night shift shop assistant, telephone girl, commercial agent – I seem to have had all kinds of jobs. I also issued skates at the indoor ice rink in one shopping center. Well, not to mention insurance agent, of course. Larry King: And why did you quit your last job? Me: Yeah, they always ask about that. I quit being a courier because, as ill luck would have it, the winter happened to be cold. You try and run around the city at minus thirty degrees! I pass. Larry King: Nurse. Me: The old woman who I nursed died. Various saints appeared before her. I don’t remember their names. She was crying when she told about that. The saints did not forget her; they came to visit her regularly. She suffered from constipation and she kept miserable silence most of the time. And when she finally succeeded in taking a shit – it was like a holiday. A V-Day of some sort. She returned to life. She called me so that I could feast my eyes upon her work. She found animal figures on the bottom of her bedpan just like children see them in the clouds floating by. “That looks a scorpion, right”? – She inquired. She had a lively imagination. I don’t know what she was talking about with all her saints. Larry King: Shop assistant. Me: Those were the night shifts in a furniture supermarket. I had to control that everything was prepared for morning delivery of pre-paid furniture to the customers. Deliveries were few. We finished working towards two o’clock. I chose a bed and merely slept in it. I had a problem with my lodging, and it was very convenient – I mean job and bed, all at once. I have never slept in such beds before. Not every presidential room can boast of such bed. I’m not sure you have ever seen such beds. Well, you have, I guess. Chic! I used to sleep in one like that until I dragged one guy there. Our manager did not like it. Larry King: Telephone girl. Me: I liked that job. I met one of my exes there. That moron ended up in my bed once, when he was intoxicated. And then he started to insist on continuation. We began to live together. He used my table zen garden as an ashtray. And when that pissed me off he yelled that I had a PMS. I guess PMS is not the issue if you’re told "I do not love you but we’re a good couple after all".
I light a cigarette again.
Me: My, what crap people call “love” sometimes... Well, at least there is some crap. It’s better with it than without.
I drink. The bottle of brown liquid stands on a tiled floor of the bathroom.
Larry King: You’re going to drink again. You know what the result will be, don’t you? Me: What? Larry King: You will wake up in some unfamiliar bed. Me: Well now, look at Mr. Know-all. Larry King: OK. What about being a commercial agent? Me: That is not a job but crap, to go from apartment to apartment and from office to office all days long as if you are a religious fanatic. Actually, I offered to buy various magic stain removers. Nobody needed them, just like nobody needed faith. No one wanted to lend me money anymore. And the question of housing still remained open. Larry King: Skates? Me: Oh, that was a good time, maybe even the best; I was stuck there for more than three years. But then I decided that I had to go ahead and I appeared to be taking an insurance agents training course. I worked as an insurance agent for almost a year receiving interest from bargains only. I called hundreds of people per day, I ran on errands with one single mantra in my head: "Please-God-don’t-let-me-fuck-everything-up-this-time". You know, it seemed to me that they agreed to meet me only because they wanted to sit at some cafе; and twaddle about their troubles. They had to be listened to. In half of cases I paid for their coffee. A hell of a deal! Finally I insured my father, two of my former boyfriends, son of my barber; a neighbor’s car and a garage of one jerk who had covered the rug in my toilet with puke. He felt very awkward the next morning and decided that insurance of his garage was quite an appropriate apology. It was then when I realized I’d had enough of this. I am experienced enough to sit in a lousy office of some insurance company now, like those girls who ask all of those stupid questions, and not to run about the streets in search of customers. God, I know all about insurance! I can answer phones or render consulting services, for example. Look at these shoes. They are not shoes; they are damned instruments of torture! No one cares about your bad legs. You cannot meet the clients with sneakers on your feet. You must make people think you’re successful, you must look perfect, like that grinning handsome fellow behind the door – your customers must believe in you like in their own future.
My phone rings again. I reject the call.
Me: These guys, they are always nearby. Larry King: Did they employ him? Me: I don’t know. I decided not to wait for my turn. Larry King: Did you leave? Me: Yeah, I went away proud with my head high. Fuck them. My Dad still considers me to be a telephone girl. He says: “That’s alright, everyone has to start somewhere”. I wish I could close my eyes like that. Gee, I have so many eyes to close!
I drink.
Me: I was a dreamer once. I had dreams. Larry King: And what did you dream of? Me: I was going to take a class in photography. I had an old camera. I used to take some photos, and one of my friends told me that I had some sort of vision. Sure thing he told these things in order that I relaxed faster and let my guard down. I was still an unapproachable girl back then. I was going to find a nice guy. I wished to grab my piece of cake on this occasion. I just had to stand on my own feet somehow, to become a little stronger. I galloped to and fro with my eyes shut and was sure that nothing went wrong. Larry King: And what happened? Me (shrugging): Something had broken. As if I ran and ran and then suddenly stopped and looked around. I looked around for the first time. And what did I see? I saw a sodding dreamer in the middle of a river of shit. There was no run left in me. While the others were regulating their lives, I was dreaming. I decided that, well, I had to pause for a while and think of what to do next. “This adjournment is temporary”, I said to myself. But several years elapsed, and now it’s time to confess that my break took longer, much longer than planned. At times something just breaks, and it remains broken forever. There is no way to repair it.
My phone rings again.
Larry King: Answer it. Me: I’m not going to. Larry King: What if it is him after all?
I turn the phone off.
Me: I don’t understand what they make me drunk for. Do they really think they don’t stand a chance without that? I don’t know, maybe I should leave a note in my panties telling them to use condoms? Or I’d rather they informed me in writing that they had not bought them, like “Sorry babe, but the closest shop was in the goddamn back of beyond and even if I had had money for condoms I would have sooner bought cigarettes”. Never mind. Larry King: And when did you last end up in bed with a man consciously? Me: Last year. I had to borrow money from somebody. And there was that guy from the accounting department. We sometimes went together from metro to the office and back. He was handsome but too shy; that wrapped-up-in-Mommy’s-quilt type. You know, at times it’s much more difficult to ask a man for money than to sleep with him. I thought I would try to act as I normally do – to let him have me, and as for what’s next, time will tell. Larry King: So what? Did you go to bed with him? Me: I did. We sat in the kitchen and drank tea afterwards… I felt like my favorite dog had died… In short, he gave me money and I got the fuck away from there. Larry King: You’re filling your glass for the third time. Me: Are you counting, I wonder? Larry King: Maybe you should have a snack? Me: One of my friends once said: “By no goddamn means you are a good drinker”. Just because I decided to make him breakfast in the morning he concluded that I should be very indebted if he bestowed his chinwag upon me. He kept telling me about some Alex, one of his buddies. I think Alex was his imaginary friend with whom it was funny for him to be while taking a shower. I’ll go to the kitchen and bring whatever I find there. Larry King: I doubt that there is something in your fridge. Me: I can go to a shop. Larry King: But you won’t, because as soon as you imagine that you would have to get out of the bath, get dressed and drag yourself to a convenience store in the end of the street… No, you won’t do that. Me: Alright. Fire your questions away. Larry King: Name? Me: What is that, some kind of fucking questionnaire?! Larry King: Age? Me: That’s enough! Larry King: Marital status? Me: Once I was very close to getting married. I mean it. I had a delay of menstruation and thought that I had gotten pregnant. My boyfriend of those days wasn’t very happy about that but told me that he would marry me if I agreed. Gosh, he got so drunk as if he received the news on the end of the world coming soon! Pregnancy test put everything in its place. Later I found that I had some kind of tumor. I thought I would die. And I even accustomed myself to this determinacy. I was in a hospital getting used to the landscape, since I had to become a part of it soon. Then the operation ensued. Pills. My belly wrung itself out because of them for a couple of weeks. It appeared that I had to live again. Life is a very indefinite occupation. Accept it. Larry King: How many sexual partners did you have? Me: What are we playing now? Gynecologist? Larry King: How many, please? Me: I do not count them. This is not an annual contest for the prize of "Fishing and Hunting" newspaper. It’s just that sex is an extreme way of shifting to first-name terms of a kind. No muss, no fuss.
I drink.
Me: One of my exes told me once: “Your tongue seems to have been just in everyone’s mouth”. He seemed to be proud of me.
I try to recall that guy. I feel like laughing.
Me: I was obsessed by him. I was ready to take his worn heart and replace it with my own – that’s how I loved him. He always went away on some business trips. When he came we were banging, and then he said: “Sugar, you’d better check yourself with a doctor, it seems to me I had picked up some crap”. He told me he had gotten it in a swimming-pool. I guess he considered me too much of a fool… Exes remain exes – it’s painful but one can live on with that. Forget it. Go on. Larry King: Children? Me: One of my female friends told me: “When you’re down, everyone advises you to simply give birth to a child. And when you do it everything remains the same but no one can tell you “Give birth to a child” anymore”. I think about children sometimes. Especially in the middle of the week, when everything’s damned bad. Larry King: But you feel good at times, don’t you? Me: You’re right. Everything livens up on Friday nights, and it seems that something good would definitely happen to you at the weekend. Your mood gets elated. You feel the fucking world go round faster. People generate electricity; it just runs down the streets. Time off is wasted on cancelled meetings, laundering, shopping and conversations. You just lounge about for several hours. We all do that: we loaf about waiting for a miracle like children at the Christmas tree party. But then Monday comes. And everything starts all over again. Larry King: Do you have an idea of what you’re going to be let’s say in five years? Me: I often picture myself five years afterward. I make myself older mentally, as if I give my present self another chance. I imagine myself washing dishes in some small utility room of a night bar. Ten employment interviews failed since the start of the month mean it’s really gonna be like that… They never call back. They only tell you: “We will surely call you”. And they never do. If they do not call you, that’s a bad sign, right? One of the dead great ones once said that it was even funnier to descend a mountain. Well. I roll down with a positively breathtaking speed. I make myself get up in the morning, go to the bathroom and say to myself: “What am I doing this for?” And I think that I think that every morning, and still I get up and go to the bathroom, and I start to play this crap till the very evening, as if it really amuses me. These nights when you think about what you are! One man I know is fond of saying: “Every night is a little longer than the previous one if you wait for its end with your eyes wide open. We got acquainted in the street; we searched for his dog together. He used to say “Fuck ideals”. Ideals imply snobbery. Compassion is without ideals. I’d like to embrace him. Perhaps I have even done that in one of the parallel universes, so right he is. Larry King: Why are these words so important? Me: I try to learn to accept everything for a fact. Idealism is similar to idiotism not only phonetically. Do you know that story of a Hollywood actress who decided to commit suicide? She devoured a whole bottle of pills, dressed up in her best peignoir, went into bed and took a beautiful attitude. Journalists were supposed to have found her like that. But you cannot deceive nature, if you ate a hundred of pills that would have an impact of some kind on you. She wanted to puke, so she ran to the toilet and crashed down there, having gotten entangled in her own gorgeous peignoir, split her head against the toilet sink and suffocated in her own vomit. Not everything depends on you. Rather, noting depends on you at all. Some guy hit three men who were walking along the pavement today. To death. I doubt those people counted on that. Having their eggs and coffee in the morning they were most likely thinking that they screwed their luck for good. Larry King (ironically): Is that why you chose insurance? Me: I chose insurance because everybody could attend those classes. I’m just the contingent – "everybody". Larry King: Who would believe an insurance agent who does not believe in anything, I wonder? Me: I believe in hell. Larry King: That guy with whom you looked for a dog, is he also your ex? Me: This stuff makes you hilarious, doesn’t it? Larry King: You know I must derive at least some satisfaction from sitting here in the cold water and listening to the forty-year-old woman who is about to ruin herself with drinking. Me: Kiss my ass.
I light up another of those endless cigarettes.
Larry King: So what? Is he also your ex? Me: You know what?
I get out of the bath.
Me: I don’t want to continue this interview. I know what you and all those jerks watching their TVs want: my confessions mixed with some crudeness. Damn you! Larry King: As you like. Me: Fine! Larry King: Would you mind if I continued with someone else?
I spread my hands wide as if with encouragement.
Me: Show must go on, right? I will drink some more and see your stuff from outside. Larry King: Who would you like to see in this bath? You can choose today. Me: Some dumb tanned good-looker. They say there is no end of such guys at Turkish resorts.
A 25-year-old Insurance Agent looking either like a glamour magazine cover man or Jesus Christ, wearing trousers, white shirt and a tie, gets into the bath. He is as handsome as a young god. He smiles.
Larry King: You seem to know him? Me: Yeah, that’s the guy who turned me aside at today’s interview. Larry King: So you don’t have any objections? Me: Go ahead. Insurance Agent (looking around suspiciously): When was the last time they washed this bath, I wonder? Larry King: Don’t ask. Me: If you don’t like it, get the hell out. Insurance Agent: Have you read today’s news? A guy hit three men who were walking along the pavement to death today. And a hurricane took the lives of thirty-nine people at once in America. Me (to Larry King): I’d rather he danced. Larry King: It's talk show here, not a strip club. Insurance Agent (to Larry King): Will she sit here? Me: Relax, kid. Don’t you be so nervous. What was that about the news? All these troubles help you work, don’t they? Go on. Insurance Agent: As we know from the news reports, we live in a ferocious world. We watch TV; we’ve heard that there are people who are able to kill, just like that. We should think about that. When we go underground we think: “God save us”. We become the hell of churchmen when we go underground. We are afraid of people in the crowd. We don’t know what they carry in their bags and heads. We don’t know that. We just think: “God, please make people a little more tolerant to each other today”. We want somebody to give us a tiny hope that today or tomorrow nothing bad would happen to us, we want to be sure at least of something. And what do we do? Me: I knew one guy who asked himself such questions. Well, he was quite nice. But sometimes he became angry as if something started to disturb him inside, and he could not realize what exactly that was. Larry King: Pay no attention to her. Me: Right. Just make yourself comfortable in my bath and pay no attention to me. Insurance Agent: Why the hell can’t you just stop it? I’m talking about motherfucking hope!
He gets out of the bath, offended.
Me: Well-well. Go ahead. You’re cute, kid. I don’t mind your sitting in my bath. You know, guys who are far less handsome than you usually appear in it. Insurance Agent: You could have listened to me. For once in your life you could have shut up and listen. Do you have a clean towel?
I do not respond contemptuously. He seeks in the cupboard, squeezing out his wet tie right onto the floor, finds a cardboard shoe box full of Christmas tree decorations.
Insurance Agent: What is that? Me: What do you think it is?
Insurance Agent takes out a cheap garland wound into a crown of thorns from the drawer, sets it upon his head, turns the garland on, making the small many-colored lamps of his wreath twinkle. Gets back into the bath.
Larry King: Shall we continue? Insurance Agent: Only if she does not interfere. Me: You have heard of safety measures, haven’t you? This thing may kill you if you place it in the water. Insurance Agent: Do you see what’s on top of my head? Nothing can kill me. You have no imagination at all. Larry King: We were talking about hope. Insurance Agent: Yeah, right. I’m the one who can give it. Me: Sleeping pills are cheaper. Insurance Agent: You know, I see right through the ones like you. Me: And what do you see? Insurance Agent: Give me your hands. Extend your hand, don’t be afraid.
I give him my hands reluctantly.
Insurance Agent: What do you feel? Me: In order for me to feel something I should get much closer. Insurance Agent: I’ll tell you what you feel. It’s fear. A tiny animal fear which eats you alive from the inside. A rat destroying each of your days. That’s what you feel. Me: Oh, you’d better learn some of those tricks with transforming water into wine, kid. Insurance Agent: I could tell you something. But you’re so deaf you even don’t want to listen. Every man is born to be happy – that’s what I would tell you if you were listening. Don’t you have a right to be happy? Weren’t you born for that? Me: Well, it seems to be I was born for becoming some sort of visual aids of how to simply fuck human life up. Insurance Agent: Trust me. Me: Great words. That immediately inspires confidence. You’re on the right way, kid. Do you know how many times this phrase led me into a bed?
Insurance Agent puts his hands together prayerfully, holding my hands in his.
Insurance Agent (with his eyes almost shut in ecstasy): Listen to your heartbeat. Let’s listen to it together. Do you hear? That’s a little hope. There’s something inside you that is still alive, still pure like fucking God’s baby, it wants to live while you fuck the remnants of common sense away sitting in your bath. Me: What is that evangelical crap all about? I’m fed up with that! It’s my bath after all! Get out!
Having torn the garland wreath off Insurance Agent’s head I try to drown him. He resists. We both get tired as a result. He sits in the bath, breathing heavily, sets his tie straight and combs his hair.
Me: You should learn how to do a striptease, kid. I would have paid you for that. Get lost already!
Insurance Agent leaves, pushing his business card into my hands.
Insurance Agent (with the same smile of a Messiah): Call me.
I throw his business card away. I sit in the bath, setting a many-colored twinkling wreathe upon my head. Larry King laughs.
Me: What?! Larry King: That was great. Me: Uh huh. Invite me more often. I can cheer people up. I’m like a damned hamster wearing a silly cap. Larry King: Maybe you should be on television. You would have been successful. You would have been popular. Me: If you wanna be famous, come out naked to a field during a live transmission of a football match. You will have millions of fans on Youtube tomorrow. You will be a national hero, until some lucky fellow films his dog taking a piss into a toilet sink while standing on its hind legs. I don’t wanna compete with a dog pissing in the standing position. I’m ready to give it the palm right now. Just not to that preacher. Larry King: Well, at least he cares about something. Me: And I don’t. Let this stuff, all those people with clockworks and bombs in their heads outside finally get together. And let them do what they want to do so eagerly. I’m not going to be blamed for anything. Everything around me happens without my knowledge, no one had ever asked me of anything and I don’t want to be responsible for that. All I care about is whether that moron used the rubber that night. Is that clear?
I drink again.
Me: Do you know what I would insure? Larry King: What? Me: I would insure my ass. I mean it. Everyone says I have a great ass. I also like my ass. And let all other things go to hell. That’s even better. I think if we had hurricanes here, if they were rather frequent, we would be able to stay at home and spend more time with our loved ones. You see, I’m an optimist. I try to be an optimist despite everything, I’m like the sky cut up to pieces with helicopters, I’m still innocent. This guy is right: somewhere deep inside I’m still damned pure and virgin like dry straight martini.
I keep silent for a while.
Me: You know the worst bit of such bath talks? Someday I will definitely go nuts completely. You will trail along behind me to different job interviews and along the streets, you will drink and sleep with me, go shopping and advising what to buy for dinner. We will wrangle about crumbs in our bed. These are some freaking family relationship. You are a decent man and you will have to marry me, do you understand that? You will marry me, won’t you? Larry King: I will. Me: Sodding great! I’ll be Larry King’s wife. And let the fucking Insurance Agent save us! Fuck you all.
Анастасия Истомина