Александр Молчанов - KillerFoulkner

Pause.

HE. In the evening, while you were sleeping, I walked around the city. You know, it’s strange, but the way I saw Rome wasn’t the way I’d imagined it would be. It wasn’t a contemporary European city. Or the Rome of Fellini. Via Veneto, the lady in «La Dolce Vita» in a dress swimming in the Trevi Fountain — it was none of that at all. Or Rome of Imperial times, either. Caligula the maniac with his horse-senator. No, I saw a very different Rome. I saw the city as it was in the Middle Ages, when the capital was moved to Constantinople. An abandoned town. The Forum overgrown with grass. Goats grazing in the Colliseum. And people going to the Parthenon to piss or shelter themselves from the pissing rain. That’s what I saw today… For several centuries only about ten thousand people lived in Rome. As many as in my home village. Or in Faulkner’s Jefferson.

She brings remote control to her ear.

SHE. Hello. It’s me.

HE. What are you doing? Are you mad?

SHE( covers the control with her palm ). Stop it. Can’t you see? I’m on the phone. ( Into the remote .) Hello, can you hear me? I want you to do something for me.

HE. That’s a TV remote.

SHE. I want you to kill my husband.

HE. Enough already.

SHE. Today. He has a meeting with his readers in a bookstore. At eight o’clock.

HE. Stop it!

SHE. You can approach him quietly in the crowd and inject him with poison. He won’t feel a thing. The doctors will all say he had a heart attack.

HE. It’s not funny.

He jumps up and runs to her.

HE. Give me the remote.

SHE. If you do, I’ll come to you and be with you for the rest of my life. I’ve finally decided.

HE. Give me the remote.

He takes the remote from her. She’s looking at him.

HE. This is the remote control from the television.

SHE. Then you have nothing to fear.

HE. You’re sick.

SHE. And you’re dead.

HE. Nothing will happen. No one’s out there. There won’t be any injection. There won’t be any poison.

SHE. Then don’t be scared, go off to your meeting with your readers and die of a heart attack.

HE. I won’t die.

SHE. You will die. It’ll be on the news. Helen will be happy. You’ll finally be glorified.

HE. I know what you’re doing. Witch.

SHE. I’m bored of you.

He presses the buttons on the remote. He puts it to his ear.

HE. Hello. It’s all canceled. You hear? She told me to tell you that everything is canceled.

SHE. You don’t know his number.

HE. There is no number! This is the TV remote!

SHE. I’m not arguing with you. Fine: it’s the remote.

HE. What d’you want?

SHE. From you — nothing.

HE. Wait. Let’s just talk. For the last time.

SHE. The last time was in Berlin.

HE. No. Wait. Let’s try to understand each other. What d’you want?

SHE. I want to leave you.

HE. Done.

SHE. And I want you to leave me alone.

HE. Done.

SHE. No calls. No letters. Don’t pursue me.

HE. Done.

SHE. And don’t call my Mom, either.

HE. Done.

SHE. If you see me in the street, cross over.

HE. Done.

Pause.

HE. Call him.

SHE. All canceled. Let him live. I’m coming to you.

HE. William Faulkner was born on September 25, 1897 in New Albany, Mississippi.

He types on the keyboard.

January 29, 2014. Velikiy Novgorod.