Александр Молчанов - KillerFoulkner

SHE. You’re thirty-eight.

HE. It doesn’t matter. Faulkner, by the way, worked as a screenwriter in Hollywood. Wrote, among other things, the script for Hemingway’s novel, «To Have and Have Not.» And then he ran back to Jefferson. You know, he was world-famous, but he couldn’t provide for his family with his writing.

SHE. Reminds me somebody.

HE. I talked to this one playwright. He used to write pieces for «Teatr.doc» and now he writes for this big mass-produced series for NTV. You know how much he’s paid per episode?

SHE. Envy’s bad for the liver.

HE. As much for ten of my novels. Can you imagine how much that is in columns? I ask him: «Gene, and how long does it take you to write an episode? He says: «Well, four days. With editing, about a couple of weeks.» D’you think I could write scripts?

SHE. I have no idea.

HE. I think I’m doing something fundamentally wrong.

SHE. Exactly, instead of writing your moronic column, you’re driving me crazy.

HE. By the way, I met Mitya at ROSKON. D’you remember Mitya?

SHE. The one who works on the radio?

HE. He doesn’t work there anymore.

SHE. That’s someone doing well for himself. As opposed to —

HE. Hell no. He told me how much he gets for a run. I wouldn’t say it’s a lot of money. Not like Gene gets for an episode. His main income’s computer games. Some Ukrainian company made a game based on his book, and now he lives entirely on those royalties. He’s retired from radio, just sits there scribbling out his fantasy novels —

SHE. Maybe you should start writing fantasy?

HE. Are you crazy? Everything’s all compartmentalised in fantasy. It’s really a complex market. And really cutthroat, too. Like spiders in a jar. It’ll eat you up straight away. Better to write scripts.

SHE. Then do it.

HE. Well there is one problem: I hate movies. You know, I have a theory —

SHE. No kidding.

HE. The fact is that in certain periods of history, this or that kind of art becomes more relevant than all the others. For example, in Homer’s time it was epic poetry. And why, you ask?

SHE. I didn’t ask.

HE. I’ll tell you: because at that time there was no written language, and literary text needed to known off by heart. A poem is easier to memorize than prose. And so The Iliad born, and Beowulf, and what else, maybe Icelandic sagas too. Then writing was invented and literature at once became an elitist pastime. Not every king can afford to have a whole book of parchment. Then, thanks to religion, the arts attracted the mob. And then an art for the illiterate appeared. Murals on church-walls, and the theatre. So you get Michelangelo, and you get Shakespeare. And in the 19th century, the novel as art made such a leap because people became universally literate, and books became available to everybody.

SHE. As they are now.

HE. The problem is that now TV and computers are more accessible than books.

People don’t make the effort to read. Everyone watches series and plays computer games. Soaps and computer games today are the same thing that the Iliad was for the ancient Greeks, «Hamlet» was for the British, and the Sistine Chapel was for the Italians.

SHE. Literature will never die.

HE. Wrong. D’you know Dante?

SHE. Not personally —

HE. Do you know the «Divine Comedy»?

SHE. That thick book of boring poetry?

HE. It’s a satirical work of entertainment in which Dante settle scores with his political opponents, and it’s written in almost unprintable language.

SHE. You mean filth?

HE. I mean, in a dialect, which in Dante’s time was not a literary language. Traders in the marketplace used it. It would never have occurred to anyone to write a poem in that language. The literary language was Latin. And by the way, Dante himself was convinced that he’d go down in the history of literature for his sublime verses in Latin. Today, nobody remembers any of his Latin verses. But everyone’s read «The Divine Comedy».

SHE. I haven’t. Well, once in childhood, I tried to after watching a puppet show of it on TV —

HE( laughs ). Yeah, I’ve done the same. I even took it out of the library. But that later, at a University —

SHE. So, are you finished?

HE. No, wait. I mean, that writing novels today — it’s the same thing as writing Latin verses in Dante’s time. It’s prestigious, but it doesn’t guarantee a lifetime income, or posthumous fame. My novels will be forgotten the same way as the Latin verses of Dante.

SHE. Well write a «Divine Comedy.»

HE. Yes, but seemingly the «Divine Comedy» for today shouldn’t be a poem, it should be a TV series or a computer game.

SHE. Well, write a TV series or a computer game.

HE. I don’t know how.

SHE. Then get off the laptop.

He gets up and walks across the room to the shower.

He gets in the shower. Turns water on. She puts her headphones on and signs into Skype.

SHE. Hi. We’re here. No, he can’t hear me. He’s in the shower. Good. Presentation at eight. We’ll probably have dinner first. What’s the name of the restaurant again? This is on Mala Strana? Three minutes’ walk? Okay, I’ll see you there. D’you miss me? I miss you too.

He comes out of the shower naked.

HE. Pass me my razor. It’s in the bag.

She pulls out a razor and gives it to him.

He goes back into the shower. She returnes to the laptop.

SHE. I’m tired. Of him, and of myself, too. And of this whole situation. I can’t just leave him. Actually, it’s my apartment, too. No, it’s not just about the apartment. I’m just afraid. With him — there’s some kind of stability. It’s the stability of getting by, that’s all, but it’s still stability. And with you there won’t be any stability. No, I haven’t been sleeping with him for a long time. It’s just a habit now. He’s like furniture. Well, not like furniture, as like an electric fan. It’s there noisy, buzzing, but I don’t listen to it. Don’t push me. I need to think. Give me a little more time.

He gets out of the shower, comes in his underwear, drying his hair with a towel.

She turns Skype off and takes off her headphones.

SHE. What?

HE. I need to do some exercise. Look the size of my belly.

SHE( not looking ). It’s a normal belly.

HE. Really? I feel extremely chubby.

SHE. I don’t mind.

HE. It’s decided: tomorrow morning I’ll go to the gym. They’ve got one on the ground floor — a gym with exercise equipment. How’s your Mom doing?