LITMIR.BIZ

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Calm down? Calm fucking down? Are you fucking crazy? You touch me, I’ll tell Seka. Fucking idiot.

      ANDREW. And she started crying. Sitting there sobbing while I got my stuff together.

      OKSANA. He walks around the room, packing up his shit, and I think the main thing is not to cry in front of him-

      ANDREW. Then off we go down the hall. All the girl’s heads poking out of the doorways, no fucking clue what was up.

      OKSANA. If he thinks I’m a whore, he’s in for a fucking surprise.

      2. Bus

      ANDREW. At the bus station, I had an idea.

      OKSANA. He says to me, you stand here, have a smoke. I’ll go in and get the tickets. The desk’s crowded. Me – I’m just standing there smoking and thinking about what a son of a bitch Seka is. He doesn’t give a shit about anyone else. I could work for the exams, pass them, get a grant. There’s loads of people doing that. They come and live in the dorm and get expelled, but they carry on living there for years and nothing happens. It’s easier for guys, of course. They just move to the girls’ floor, pick a girl, and stick around. But it’s harder for a girl to get taken in. The fucking pigeons have it alright. They just hang out here. No worries about grants or rooms, and every day’s a holiday.

      ANDREW. I got the tickets and came back out. She’s standing there staring at the pigeons.

      OKSANA. We’re getting on the bus and I just have this feeling. Like I’m going home. I hate the countryside. The dances. And the guys are all village idiots. Cultural life – basically drinking and fighting. Not that I go to the theatre here I guess. And not that Seka ever takes me to the movies.

      ANDREW. So we’re on the bus, and I think, well I should at least say something.

      OKSANA. And now he turns to me with his puppy-dog face and says.

      ANDREW. Sorry it’s turned out like this.

      OKSANA. I don’t need your fucking pity.

      ANDREW. It’s not pity. I just…

      OKSANA. Just sit there and shut up. It’s a shitty enough situation for me without you talking to me as well.

      ANDREW. Oh and it’s not shitty for me? I’ve got it fucking worse than you.

      OKSANA. Calm the fuck down. And fuck you. Look. There’s the street I went to college in, and that’s where I hung out with the girls on City Day. Wooden houses. The old watchtower they keep saying they’re gonna turn into a bar, a monastery, the barracks. Forest.

      ANDREW. She didn’t notice we got on the wrong bus. I’m not going to tell her right now. I’ll tell her when we arrive. I was thinking it was all over. Of course, there’s more to come. I always thought I had to have been put here for a reason. I have proof of that too. Solid proof. Back in the eighth grade me and Mishka Astakhov were going to go to the School Of Communications in Arkhangelsk. It was all arranged. The paperwork was signed and they’d made the offer. I even studied. Like a week before the exams I learned some geometry. I rode around with Mishka at night on motorbikes, spending the last days before we went away, smoking, hanging out. Dreaming that soon we’d be walking round Arkhangelsk. And then the Colorado beetles came. These poisonous larvae, bright red, and they stripped the potato plants back to the stalks. Never seen them before. Just that one year. The old women were all saying the US has sent bio-weapons. Weaponised beetles. And we were all gonna die of starvation because potatoes were all we grew. Long story short, every morning I got on the bike and went to the fields, and I filled a half-litre jar with these fucking grubs and I siphoned in some gas from the tank and lit it. And one day I was watching them burn and I suddenly felt so sick. Puked my guts up. Didn’t feel any better. In the evening Mishka and me were riding around and I still felt feeling terrible. Woozy, like I was stoned. So I suggested going for a swim. Maybe it’d help. We went for a swim and I still felt shitty. Sick as a dog. Like, that night I thought I was going to die. My mum phoned the hospital and said «Go to the Emergency Room, the one our neighbour Aunt Sveta works at’ – so I went and she examined my eyes, and she checked out my stomach and the rest, and when she pushed her fingers over my liver she just stopped and said. Right. We’re done. Jaundice. I was in quarantine for three weeks. Everyone had to get vaccinations. Nobody else got it. Mishka went to Arkhangelsk and passed the entrance exams. I went back to school. And in four months Mishka had quit. Ran away. He said it was so fucking harsh – the hazing was so bad and the freshmen got beaten so brutally the walls in the room it happened in were covered in blood. Mishka stopped his education at the eighth grade, did his army service, started working as a welder. No fucking future. And I finished school and got into college. And I think that wasn’t an accident. I think God was watching over me. I think he sent a plague of locusts. Colorado beetles and jaundice, but same difference, eh? He did that so I didn’t go to the technical school. There’s something else I have to do with my life. Become a great musician or a great poet. Or maybe it’s all so I can kill Maronov. Maybe he’s going to become a new Hitler or build a dirty bomb? Although I reckon it’s probably something on the creative side. An artist. Something like that. I mean I can’t draw but that’s kind of optional. It’s not the Renaissance any more, thank fuck. I’m not going to kill anyone. It’s all OK. Everything’s gonna be OK. Right?

      OKSANA. A three-room flat in a city. A floor lamp. Work anywhere, as an archivist maybe, or in a shop. Or in a firm. A business that pays a lot even if you don’t quite know exactly what it does. Apparently the bosses fuck all the women in firms like that. It’s tradition. It’s accepted. Fair enough, let them, as long as your husband doesn’t find out. Especially if the boss is cute like Seka. No. Better Seka’s the husband and the boss is even cuter. No, Seka’s the boss and there’s another husband and he’s cute and kind. Not greedy. But not some goon who can’t take care of money either. We’d go to the movies every week. Maybe somewhere in the south, although there are fucking wars everywhere now. Could get ourselves killed wherever. I’d cook for him, have to, wash, do laundry. Bear him a son. Why not? I’d push a kid out for a good man. When I first saw Seka I used to dream about him. That he had a wife somewhere. Like this toad of a woman. But a beautiful kid. And they’d go to the movies together and I’d say, you go. Let me stay here and take care of the baby.

      ANDREW. When I get famous I’ll buy a house in a village. Or build one. Two stories for sure. Study on the second floor, looking out over the forest. Wake up in the morning to the sound of the birds. Nothing to do because I’m already in the encyclopedia. On the curriculum. Guitar all cabled and ready to go. Music up the ass. Speaker stack. Samurai sword on the wall. Next to it an abstract painting and on the table a manuscript. A novel called «My Life’. No. «My Triumph’. No. «My Defeats’. That’s cool. Everyone can see how humble that is. He got everything he wanted and he only remembers the defeats. He wandered from defeat to defeat. Live like that til I’m old. When you know you’ll be remembered, there’s no fear in dying. However it happens, it’s all good.

      OKSANA. It’d be so lovely if everyone just died. I mean dying alone’s not fun. Even if you know heaven’s waiting for you. But with all the family in the room, kids, grandkids, watching, waiting for you to go. Why not just hit a button – switch everything off. Not bombs, or chemicals, but just gone, without pain. A clean planet. Forests, oceans, but no people. That’s be amazing. Nobody hurt. Fun, even. Someone who’s worked all his life. Saved millions, and then – voilà! Everyone’s equalised. And it’s interesting to think – where would all the souls go? The trees? Humans will pick a fight anywhere, even if they were trees. We’re bastards. The pine’s going – ’hey birch, get

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