Мария Старожицкая - Навіщо. What For

Tetyana

— I want a beautiful white dress with a train on our wedding. When we married with Ponchyk, I had to wear the school-leaving party dress — He became Chervonets in militia to please everyone ... except me ...

Veles

— What a husband of me? Where will I take you away? I would better leave myself now...

Tetyana

— Stay here. I’ll feed you somehow.

Veles

— No, it's not life to hide in the basement. The leg will heal and I’ll go.

Hatch of the cellar opens, machine-gun shooting.

Chervonets

— Go out one by one .

Tetyana

— Found, bitch ?!

Chervonets

— You are the bitch, got a boy-friend when the son is around. Go away, I will kill you.

Veles takes his dress on, Tetyana too. They leave the basement without watching each other.

Chervonets

— Dimka?!

Veles

— Kill me, Ponchyk (Donuts), don’t be shy

Chervonets

— Take your hands behind head

Veles

— And why not to talk?

Chervonets

— I have nothing to tell you. I know everything. They are no formers cops. You went to fight for America, to extract shale gas here, to poison ground here. And at school graduating party you had a speech how much you loved your native city, and you told you could give your life for it. What the hell did you leave here, fascist?! Now you are to remember that it is not your city and Tetyana is not your wife, and then I will cut your balls out and live you alive.

Тetiana

— Did you come alone? Leave Dimka, let him go away, otherwise you will never see me, nor our son.

Chervonets

— No, I am not the only one here.

Martynov

— I listen here your performance, Shakespeare is taking silence now. Do it, Otello, capture the punisher, let him reconstruct the city, and take your wife and tamp her on the street. She has to know how it is to make love with the punishers. As for cutting balls, it was lovely, I am ready to observe the process by myself.

Veles

— Decide equally, who which is to cut.

Martynov

— Usually we start by a tongue... He beats Veles with machine gun and pushes him out.

Scene 13

Theseus is near the computer

Theseus (speaks by phone with Laurel)

— You can sleep at a refuse heap, on a crushed stone. Two kilometers from you to the west. Then — strictly west side. And do not step on the road. There are armored vehicles on the road, and relocation. Switch off, you can return on line in the morning, you will get SMS with further information. Yes, I will tell Nastya.

He tapes the handset from the ear and makes another call.

— Yes, the table has been booked. Mojito, lobster, and we will remember Goa and say goodbye to the summer. I kiss you, I am busy at the moment, wait for a carriage.

— Nastya, is it you? Yes, I just called him, I was talking to him, I asked him to switch off the phone, he sends you his regards. Everything is ok. There are 2 of them, may be. They were 5? I don’t know, he did not tell me. He has cheerful voice. Oh yes, he also said: “We have weapons should something be wrong, we will take the battle”. Nastya, you know, you have very good poems, may be, you will send me something via messenger? For a connoisseur…

He puts the handset, opens the page in internet and starts to read slowly

— He carried his sub machine gun without a belt,

Clutching it to his chest,

As if it were a first-born.

He breathed in its smell

Of molten metal and a week-long battle.

He went with no way,

Just not to captivity or to heaven.

He ate dry sunflowers' seeds, stuffed his mouth,

He could not swallow them

As he drank only once from a puddle.

And so three days

To go hiding,

Spend nights on waste hill tops,

Make his way

Between the lines of a poem,

Looking for rhymes,

And they are not there.

And he rescued his weapon

And gave it to a newcomer,

The one whose eyes are still bright

For he had not yet seen

How the fire engine burnt

In which his brothers-in-arms from the reconnaissance

battalion of "Donbas"

Were leaving Ilovaysk along the green — red — black corridor.

Details later,

When the last one comes out,

And he is still going...

All the awards had been handed out,

And he is still going.

Those who came out had a good sleep in their homes,

And he is still going.

The wounded who waited for too long have their arms and legs

Cut off,

And he is still going.

Victory proclaimed, and truce ignored,

And he is still going.

They're burying dead in the alleys of heroes,

And he is still going.

The battalion commander has new grandiose plans

With no account for the one who's still going,

And he is still going.

And again, I wait until morning.

Deals the phone.

— Nastya, thank you, it empowers very much, I mean what you write. Excuse me, could you tell me more about Laurel? I think, he is just a common, simple guy. For how long do you know each other? Yes, I will wait for a phone call.

Scene 14

Strilka and Laurel are on the heap. They lie there and watch the stars at the sky.

Strilka

— Tell me about your Nastya. Ae you long with her?

Laurel

— I don’t want.

Strilka

— Why? Probably, it is the last night in our life, it is better to tell about everything

Laurel

— And if not the last? What after it?

Strilka

— Why do not you hug me?

Laurel

— Because.

Strilka

— What does your Nastya have which I do not?

Laurel

— You have everything. But Nastya is just mine as I am hers. I did feel it when saw her for the first time. And stop here, let’s sleep. I will hug you as my military comrade, because I am daze, too.

Both are silent, both are preparing to sleep.

Strilka

— Are you sleeping?

Laurel

— No. By the way, you wanted to talk, so start, the tales make me sleep better.

Strilka

— OK. There was a girl, living in a town of Korosten. It is where the Princess Olga once let sparrows take small firing branches and to burn the town. She revenged the death of her husband. I suddenly remember about it, analyzing all my life. I went to war, following my or not my boyfriend, I did not understand it. I thought this war would make it clear, but it killed him. I mourned and continued to fight together with his comrades, but not a long, just about one week.

Laurel

— Are you talking about Dovbush?

Strilka

— Did someone notice? I told nobody, he too…

Laurel

— We are reconnaissance. Everybody knew. You, girls, you are so predictable.

Strilka

— Up to you. So, the girl graduated from school and then she studied philosophy at the university, because she liked a lot to discuss with the boys the meaning of live — like to become popular, to benefit and to glorify the country. I mean, to discuss not only with the boys, but it is more interesting with them…

Laurel