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lingerie store, goes inside, warms up his hands, looks at his watch, gets embarrassed, leaves, goes back in the opposite direction, enters the previous store, tries on hats again – one, another, a third. Finally chooses one and buys it, puts it on and goes back out on the street.

      In the café the six pay their bill and prepare to leave. Someone washes his hands, others endlessly keep putting things on while somebody helps someone else put something on.)

      BUSHY-TAIL (Looking over the business card. To ORANGINA, who takes her picture): What do you do?

      ORANGINA: I’m a designer. I make everything beautiful. You know how that is?

      BUSHY-TAIL (Nodding in the direction of Maniac): What about him?

      MANIAC: I have the luxury of doing nothing whatsoever at the moment. Sometimes my friend and I (embraces BLIZZARD) hire prostitutes and we film it on video

      (BLIZZARD gags. BUSHY-TAIL’s eyes get real big. ORANGINA takes advantage of the moment and photographs it.)

      LENOCHKA: Ooh, yuck

      SNOWFLAKE: That’s his stupid idea of a joke

      BLIZZARD: Want some chewing gum?

      LENOCHKA: Is it strawberry?

      ORANGINA: My favorite

      SNOWFLAKE: My perfume is strawberry

      SNOWSTORM: I’ve been wondering how come it smells so sweetly of strawberries

      LENOCHKA (Takes the chewing gum from BLIZZARD’s hand and then takes his hand in hers): What an interesting hand. Now, now, now, now, now – let’s look at this in the light

      MANIAC: What about me?

      SNOWSTORM: Do you believe in palm readings?

      MANIAC: Tell my fortune

      BLIZZARD: What do you see?

      MANIAC: What are you looking so hard for there?

      SNOWSTORM: Careful, Lena. He’s jumpy

      LENOCHKA: You have a very strange life line

      BLIZZARD: Why?

      LENOCHKA: Because it breaks off

      BLIZZARD: Okay –

      SNOWSTORM: So now you live on with the weight of this painful paranoia hanging over you

      MANIAC: How much time does he have left?

      LENOCHKA: You have about –

      MANIAC: The years are numbered

      BLIZZARD (Pulls his hand away, hugs it to him): Knock it off. I don’t want to know.

      LENOCHKA: I realize, you probably shouldn’t do that

      SNOWFLAKE: That’s serious stuff

      ORANGINA: You have a beautiful T-shirt. What’s that written on it?

      LENOCHKA: Angels don’t weep

      ORANGINA: What about yours?

      SNOWSTORM: Masturbating is no crime

      MANIAC: What do you think?

      ORANGINA: I think it’s a sin

      (SNOWSTORM has left, but he comes back.)

      SNOWSTORM: I forgot my case

      BUSHY-TAIL: I thought I saw someone forgot a case

      SNOWSTORM (Picking up his case): That was me

      BUSHY-TAIL (To SNOWSTORM): I forgot, what’s your name?

      SNOWSTORM: Blizzard

      BLIZZARD: Blizzard – that’s me. He’s Snowstorm. “There once lived two fine friends – Snowstorm and Blizzard.” You know that song?

      BUSHY-TAIL: No

      BLIZZARD: That’s about us. He wrote the lyrics. I wrote the music

      SNOWSTORM: But we’ll sing that for you another time

      BUSHY-TAIL: How come you have such funny names?

      MANIAC: Because they’re homosexuals

      BLIZZARD: He’s joking

      SNOWSTORM: Does that bother you?

      BUSHY-TAIL: I don’t care

      SNOWSTORM: Somebody gimme a smoke

      BLIZZARD: Here

      MANIAC: You like to dominate?

      BUSHY-TAIL (Remaining alone. Looks over the business card): In the Far North there’s never anything to do. There’s nothing except theater. And in the Far North women really dress up beautifully to go the theater. It’s not like here. People here just wear whatever they wore to work when they come to the theater. Where I come from, women put on evening gowns and jewelry, and they never fail to put on heels. When you walk to the theater the fresh sea air comes in and it smells like fresh-cut cucumbers. That means the fishermen are beginning to sell their day’s catch of smelt – that’s a kind of fish. It smells like fresh cucumbers.

      (The six are out on the street. They head in the direction of the office, slowly, deliberately, taking their time, chewing their gum, looking around, sometimes just stopping and standing there. Once again, someone forgot something, so they went back to get it. Someone puts on glasses, someone else takes something off and asks another to try it on. They exchange clothing and laugh, looking at their reflections in storefront windows and car windshields. Someone pulls out a make-up case, someone else steps off to the side and talks on their cell phone.)

      SNOWSTORM: Unlike you I simply have no talent for talking to women. For some reason I start lying immediately

      BLIZZARD: You just have to think that they have nothing you want

      SNOWSTORM: But that’s not true

      MANIAC: Just pretend it is

      BLIZZARD: Coffee, ice cream with mint and don’t look ’em in the eye

      SNOWSTORM: I do just the opposite. I look deep into their eyes

      BLIZZARD: She’ll think, “how come he’s not looking at me”

      MANIAC: You look at ’em later

      SNOWSTORM: I made a date for dinner with this one girl. I call her up and confirm and then I come to pick her up and call her and she hangs up on me

      MANIAC: What the hell are you confirming? Dinner dates aren’t office jobs, you know

      BLIZZARD: Did you talk to her about love?

      SNOWSTORM: What’s there to say about love on the phone?

      LENOCHKA: Women don’t accept commands

      ORANGINA: Women only understand presents and aromas

      MANIAC: Women have to listen to everything all the time, to convince themselves and others that they are wanted 24/7. That used to be done by letters, now it’s telephones and text messages

      BLIZZARD: People have started hiding behind text messages

      MANIAC: Orgasm. Sex only in words, only in text messages. Without that you’ve got a temper tantrum

      BLIZZARD: Her underwear didn’t match her eyes

      MANIAC: And she already wore that dress last time

      BLIZZARD: To another restaurant

      MANIAC: And not with him

      LENOCHKA: You are exceedingly cynical

      MANIAC: I can’t deny what’s true

      (They ascend in a transparent glass elevator, shake off the snow, take off their gloves, mittens, caps, and scarves and wipe off their foggy glasses.)

      LENOCHKA:

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