Александр Молчанов - KillerFoulkner

SHE. Look on the envelope.

He looks at the envelope.

HE. And, here it is. Look at this clever trick, then. WiFi is kinda free, but the speed’s only 512 kilobytes.

SHE. Is that low or high?

HE. D’you remember what kind of Internet we had on the Otradnoye estate?

SHE. Seriously?

HE. That was 512 kilobytes.

SHE. So how much, then?

HE. Twelve Euros to upgrade it to 5 Megs, twenty-two to get it to 10.

SHE. Let’s do five.

HE. Okay.

Tapping on the keyboard.

HE. I wonder how many people will come today?

SHE. Someone might come. Czechs are curious. Only don’t make jokes about 1968.

HE. Don’t worry. My jokes were all pre-scripted. In Warsaw, there were about twenty people.

SHE. I thought there were more.

HE. Less than that, even: eighteen. I counted them. And how many of them are gonna buy my book? One, two?

SHE. It doesn’t matter.

HE. I think the publisher grossly miscalculated this trip. They definitely won’t recover the costs. Two plane tickets, first of all, that costs… well, it was a cheap flight, but it’s still nearly two hundred Euros. A room somewhere: seventy Euros a night, food…

SHE. Why do you care? Stop counting other people’s money. Enjoy the ride.

HE. I can’t.

SHE. What’s stopping you?

HE. Stupid question. Faulkner, first of all.

SHE. Here we go… Really?! Blame Faulkner. Why did you agree to it, then? You need to relax, escape, and now you’re up to your ears in Faulkner.

HE. If I said no, I still would’ve thought about Faulkner, just with a tinge of regret at the missed opportunity.

SHE. What opportunity?! How much are you getting paid to write this article?

HE. It’s not an article, it’s a column.

SHE. I don’t see the difference.

HE. Well there is one. In an article, it’s important what you write. In a column, it’s important who wrote it. There’s an added value to it.

SHE. And what’s that worth?

HE. Well, Toporov, who’s dead now, estimated that a writer today receives about five columns’ worth for a novel. And this is as true for the top authors who write columns for glossy magazines as it is for all the schmucks who write detective crap, who write columns for «MK» or the «Metro». One novel equals five columns. Penny to penny. So you can count. How much did I get paid for my novel? So, for a column about Faulkner they’ll pay me one fifth of that amount.

Pause.

HE. What, can’t you divide?

SHE. I’m thinking. Maybe you should start writing columns instead of novels?

HE. Well, I wouldn’t mind. But you know the difficulty: to be interesting to people as a columnist, you’ve gotta write the occasional novel. Be a writer. A celebrity. That’s to say, a person whose point of view people care about.

SHE. So write novels.

HE. That’s what I’m doing.

SHE. Write novels and columns.

HE. Oh you’re so smart. Well, here we go — we’re on the Internet. Wave bye-bye to twelve Euros.

SHE. Let me on it.

HE. Just a minute, I want to look up that cathedral again on Wikipedia.

SHE. When d’you need to deliver the column by?

HE. The fourth. No, I tell a lie, the fourth’s Sunday. The fifth.

SHE. Almost a fortnight. Why are you getting so stressed about it in advance? As usual, whining and whining, and then you’ll sit down and write everything in two hours.

HE. I’ll write something. I just need to know what to write. I need to come up with a hero.

SHE. Well, no need to invent anything. Look on Wikipedia.

HE. Yeah, William Faulkner was born in the provincial town Blah-blah-ville in nineteen something: no one writes a column that way. I need to find a plot. A twist. Intrigue.

SHE. So look for it.

HE. That’s what I’m doing. Look, I’ve just found a girl on «Vkontakte» I was in love with in my first year of college.

SHE. Show me.

HE. Wait a sec. Tanya. Tanya. Here she is. Tanya. Tatiana… shit, I forgot it again, her last name. Begins with a «z» … Aha, got it. Rogozina! Tatiana.

Tapping on the keyboard.

HE. Look.

Turns the laptop to her.

SHE. Wow.

HE. Here we go. She studied finance in St. Petersburg.

SHE. And you fell in love with her future money?

HE. No, I fell in love with her studying in St. Petersburg. God, I wanted to live in St. Petersburg back then! Maybe we should move there?

SHE. I didn’t hear that.

HE. Why are you getting hostile all of a sudden? We’ll sell the apartment, get just enough for a two bedroom place in St. Petersburg.

SHE. Yeah, right, sell it, then. We’ll have to pay back the loan we took out on it first.

HE. We’ll pay it, don’t worry. I’ll write a bestseller…

SHE. I’d get on with the Faulkner column, in the meantime.

HE. Bitch.

SHE. Yep.

HE. Just think, she’s probably still working there, a financier in some kind of financial office. Her husband’ll be that… guy from the Caucasus. Two kids. Imagine you’re a financier…

She makes her fingers into an imaginary gun, puts it to her temple and fires.

She puts her fingers into an imaginary gun, points it at him, and then puts it to her temple and fires.

SHE. Bang. Bang

HE. Ethnically motivated murder. Typical.

SHE. You should write a column about it for the «Metro.»

HE. Why don’t you write it?

SHE. I’m not a writer.

HE. So what? I didn’t become a writer straight away, either. We can be like Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir.

SHE. No way, she’s ugly. Like your finance girl.

HE. Maybe I should write a detective novel?

SHE. Here we go again.

HE. Akunin worked it out somehow. Maybe I could do it too.

SHE. And if not? Eternal shame.

HE. I’ll do it under a pseudonym.

SHE. Under a pseudonym: go on then.

HE. Deal?

SHE. Deal. Do what you want.

HE. Talk to me like that and of course I will.

SHE. Don’t mind my tone.

HE. Well you’re asking me not to mind it, but if I do you’ll give me shit about it.

SHE. Give it a rest.

HE. Maybe I’ll be a screenwriter.

SHE. Do whatever you want. Be an astronaut.

HE. I don’t have time to be an astronaut. I’m forty.