Moscow Stations Read online

  MOSCOW STATIONS

  Venedikt Erofeev

  MOSCOW STATIONS

  Adapted by Stephen Mulrine

  OBERON BOOKS

  LONDON

  WWW.OBERONBOOKS.COM

  This edition first published in 1993 by Oberon Books Ltd

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  Reprinted with revisions in 2013

  Translation copyright © Stephen Mulrine, 1993

  Stephen Mulrine is hereby identified as translator of this play in accordance with section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. The translator has asserted his moral rights.

  All rights whatsoever in this play are strictly reserved and application for performance etc. should be made before commencement of rehearsal to Alan Brodie Representation, Paddock Suite, The Courtyard, 55 Charterhouse Street, London, EC1M 6HA ([email protected]). No performance may be given unless a licence has been obtained, and no alterations may be made in the title or the text of the play without the author’s prior written consent.

  You may not copy, store, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or binding or by any means (print, electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  PB ISBN: 978-1-78319-132-1

  EPUB ISBN: 978-1-78319-631-9

  Cover design by Andrzej Klimowski

  Printed and bound by Marston Book Services, Didcot.

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  Contents

  Characters

  Moscow Stations

  Characters

  VENYA

  ANGELS

  SPHINX

  Moscow Stations was commissioned by the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, and first produced on BBC Radio 3 in 1992 with Tom Courtenay, directed by Faynia Williams.

  The first stage production, at the Traverse Theatre with Tom Courtenay, was directed by Ian Brown in 1993. This production transferred to the Garrick Theatre, London, in 1994, and to the Union Square Theater, New York, the following year.

  An empty stage.

  VENYA: Everybody says: “the Kremlin, the Kremlin.” They all go on about it, but I’ve never seen it. The number of times I’ve been drunk or hung over, traipsing round Moscow from one end to the other, and I’ve never once seen the Kremlin. For instance, yesterday – yesterday I didn’t see it again, and it’s not that I was particularly drunk. I mean, as soon as I came out onto Savyelov Station, I had a glass of Zubrovka for starters, ’cause I know from experience that as an early morning tipple, nobody’s so far dreamed up anything better.

  Anyway, a glass of Zubrovka. Then after that – on Kalyaev Street – another glass, only not Zubrovka this time, but coriander vodka. A friend of mine used to say coriander had a dehumanizing effect on a person, i.e., it refreshes your parts but it weakens your spirit. For some reason or other it had the opposite effect on me, i.e., my spirit was refreshed, while my parts went all to hell. But I do agree it’s dehumanizing, so that’s why I topped it up with two glasses of Zhiguli beer, plus some egg-nog out the bottle, in the middle of Kalyaev Street.

  Of course, you’re saying: come on, Venya, get on with it – what did you have next? And I don’t know exactly. I remember I had two glasses of Hunter’s vodka, on Chekhov Street. But I couldn’t have made it across the ring road with nothing to drink. I really couldn’t. So I must’ve had something else.

  Anyway, after that I walked into the city centre, ’cause whenever I’m looking for the Kremlin, I invariably end up at Kursk Station. I mean, I was supposed to go to Kursk Station, and not into the city centre, but I made for the centre regardless, to have a look at the Kremlin even just once. I knew I wouldn’t find it. I knew I’d end up at Kursk Station.

  I’m so annoyed now I could almost cry. And it’s not because I didn’t make it to Kursk Station, or because I woke up this morning in some godforsaken entry. (I’d sat down on the entry step, pressed my little suitcase to my heart, and fallen asleep just like that.) No, what’s bugging me is this: I’ve just worked it out, that from Chekhov Street up to that entry I must’ve drunk more than six roubles’ worth – but of what, and where? And in what order? And did drinking it do me any good? Nobody knows, and nobody’ll ever know. I mean, to this day we don’t know whether Tsar Boris killed the Crown Prince Dmitri, or the other way round.

  Anyway, when I came out this morning into the fresh air it was already dawn. And if you’ve ever fetched up unconscious in some entry, and emerged from it at dawn, well, you’ll know what a heavy heart I bore down the forty steps of that godforsaken place.

  Still, everything’s going to plan. If you want to go left, Venya, then go left, I’m not forcing you to do anything. If you want to go right, go right. Just wrap up against the wind and go quietly. And breathe only when you’ve got to. Breathe so your feet don’t keep grazing the back of your knees…

  Oh, vanity of vanities! Oh, transience! Oh, that most impotent, shameful time in the life of my people – the hours between dawn, and opening-time!

  I’d better find a pillar to lean against, and shut my eyes tight, so I won’t feel so sick…

  ANGELS: That’s right, Venya pet, just you shut your eyes tight, and you won’t feel so sick…

  VENYA: Oh, I know those voices! It’s them again! The angels of the Lord! Angels, is it you?

  ANGELS: Of course it’s us!

  VENYA: Oh, angels, angels – do you know something? I feel terrible!

  ANGELS: That’s right, Venya, we know you do. But it’ll be opening-time in half an hour. Of course, there’ll be no vodka till eight, but tell you what – why not try the station buffet?

  VENYA: Yes, yes – I’ll do that, I’ll try them right now. Thank you, angels!

  ANGELS: Your good health, Venya! Feel free!…

  VENYA: Now, wasn’t that nice of them? And it’s just as well I bought the presents yesterday – I mean, no way can you go to Petushki without the walnuts and sweets. No way. Actually, it was the angels reminded me about the presents, ’cause the people I bought them for remind me of angels, yes.

  So, when did you buy these presents yesterday? After the two glasses of Hunter’s vodka? No, I was in no condition to buy presents after that. Between the first and second glass, maybe? No, no way. There was a thirty-second gap between them, but I’m not Superman. Besides which, Superman wouldn’t have managed a second glass, he’d have collapsed after the first. So when was it then? Oh, sweet Jesus, how many mysteries there are! An impenetrable curtain of mysteries! Was it before the coriander, or between the beer and the egg-nog?

  “No alcohol here!”

  That was the woman in the buffet, looking at me like I was something the cat brought in. No alcohol! Nothing to drink! Mother of God! The angels said this place was swimming in sherry!

  “Do you want to order? We’ve got beef stroganoff, cabbage soup, cow’s udder…”

  What about sherry?

  “No sherry.”

  That’s funny – you’ve got cow’s udder, but no sherry?

  “Udder yes, sherry no.”

  And she left me. Dear God, why are
people so rude? And why are they especially rude, just when they shouldn’t be, when you’ve got a hangover and all your nerves are exposed, when you’re feeling weak and pusillanimous? I mean, why? I tell you, if the whole world was as weak and frightened as I am now, and as uncertain of things, it’d be a far better place.

  “Right then, who’s asking for sherry?”

  A man in white, towering over me.

  Honestly, I wasn’t really asking… I mean, I don’t mind if there’s no sherry, I’m quite happy to wait… I’m going to Petushki, to see my girlfriend… Look, I’ve bought some presents… I’m from Siberia, you see? I’m an orphan… and I just want a drop of sherry, so as not to be sick…

  Well, that was a mistake, the sherry again – that set him off. He grabbed me by the collar and frogmarched me right across the room – oh the shame! – right across the room, and flung me out into the street. And my little suitcase with the presents, they flung that out after me.

  Out again. Out into the howling wilderness, the grinning jaws of life! What happened next – between that station buffet and opening time, the tongue of man cannot express. I’m not going to try. I have a better idea. I’d like to dedicate a minute’s silence to those two terrible hours. You remember those hours, Venya? On what should’ve been the most wonderful day of your life? Yes. Stop what you’re doing – pause with me, and we’ll observe a minute’s silence…

  STATION ANNOUNCER: Attention! Attention! The train now standing at Platform Four is the 08.16 to Petushki, calling at Hammer and Sickle, Kuskovo, Reutovo, Kuchino, Nazaryevo, Drezna, Orekhovo, Krutoe, Voinovo, Usad, and Pokrov. This train does not stop at Yesino…

  VENYA: And now, of course, you’ll start firing questions at me:

  So, you’re on your way now, Venya, right? And your little suitcase is heavy now, isn’t it? And there’s a song in your heart, isn’t that true?

  My suitcase is heavy, yes, but it’s a bit early to say about the song.

  So what did you buy, Venya, for God’s sakes? Tell us, we’re dying to know!

  Yes, I can see that. Right then, hang on, and I’ll just check: okay, there’s two bottles of Kuban vodka, at two roubles 62 apiece, that’s five roubles 24 altogether. Then there’s two quarter-litres of Rossiiskaya, at a rouble 64, that’s five twenty-four plus three twenty-eight – eight roubles, fifty-two kopecks. And some sort of red – oh yes, a fortified rosé at a rouble 37… sum total of nine roubles, eighty-nine kopecks. Oh, and I had to buy a couple of sandwiches, so’s not to throw up…

  Ooh, Venya, that’s complicated! That’s so refined! And is that it? Is that all you need to be happy? Nothing else?

  What d’you mean “nothing else?” If I’d had more money I’d have bought some beer, and a couple of bottles of port, but that’s how it goes…

  ON-BOARD ANNOUNCER: Good morning, citizen passengers! This is the 08.16 train for Petushki Station, calling at Hammer and Sickle, Kuskovo, Reutovo, Kuchino, Nazaryevo, Drezna, Orekhovo, Krutoe, Voinovo, Usad, and Pokrov. This train does not stop at Yesino…

  VENYA: Oh, Lord, you see before You everything I possess… But is this really what my soul hungers for? No, this is what people have given me instead. And if they’d given me what my soul hungers for, would I have needed this? You see, Lord? Have a look – fortified rosé at a rouble 37…

  The Lord was silent.

  Fair enough. I took a quarter-litre and went out to the end of the corridor. My spirit’s been languishing in jail for the past three and a half hours, now I’ll let it out for walkies…

  So I had a good drink then, with my eyes tight shut, holding back the nausea, effing and blinding, praying to God to have mercy on me. One minute the vodka I’d drunk lay smoking somewhere between my belly and my gut, next minute it was shooting up and falling back down again. It was like Vesuvius, like the May Day salute in my country’s capital. And I suffered and prayed…

  ON-BOARD ANNOUNCER: Hammer and Sickle! Hammer and Sickle Station! Next stop Kuskovo…

  VENYA: At last, at Hammer and Sickle, the Lord heard my prayer, and peace was restored. (Dusts himself down, etc.) I went back into the carriage, and the passengers gave me the once-over with their round, vacant eyes…

  Now, I like that. I like the way people in our country have such vacant, bulging eyes. At a time of whatever torment and misery, eyes like that don’t even blink. Yes, I’m glad I was born here and grew to manhood under the gaze of those eyes. Just one thing, though – supposing they noticed what I was doing out there in the corridor? Like an opera singer…

  Well, what the hell, I could’ve been rehearsing something – I could’ve been rehearsing Othello, playing all the parts myself. I could’ve been unfaithful to myself, say, betrayed my own convictions. So, I suspect myself of infidelity, I whisper really dreadful stuff into my own ear, and I start to strangle myself… Oh, who gives a shit!

  I’m too sensitive, that’s my trouble. Yes, that’s been my downfall many a time. I’ll give you an example. I remember about ten years ago I was living in Orekhovo, in this one room with four other blokes, and we were like soul-brothers. I mean, if one of us fancied some port wine, he’d get up and say, “Right, lads, I fancy a drop of port.” And the others would say, “Great idea – we’ll have a drop too.” And if one us fancied a beer, then we all had to have one.

  Wonderful. But I suddenly started to notice that the other four were sort of drifting away from me, whispering, and giving me funny looks. It was just a bit alarming… And I could see the same kind of anxiety, and fear, even, on their fizzogs.

  One night I found out why they were acting that way. I remember I hadn’t even got up out of bed. I’d drunk some beer and got depressed, so I was just lying there, fed up. And I see the four of them quietly surrounding me – two at the head of the bed, and two at the foot… And they’re looking me straight in the eye, accusingly… Something’s happened, obviously.

  “Right, you listen – just pack that in!”

  “Pack what in?”

  “You know what. Thinking you’re superior to us, that’s what – you don’t even go for a piss! We knew right off, there was something funny about you. From the day you moved in here, we’ve never once seen you go to the toilet. Fair enough, if it was just Number Two, but it’s not even Number One – not even weewees!”

  And all this without a smile, as if they were mortally offended.

  “Hey, look, lads, you’ve got me all wrong. It’s just that I can’t do it like you, I can’t just get up off the bed, and announce it, ‘Right, lads, I’m off for a piss!’ or ‘Right, lads, I’m off for a crap!’ I can’t do it…”

  “And why can’t you do it? We can, but you can’t? That means you’re better than us! We’re filthy beasts, and you’re the lily-white boy! You’re Prince Hamlet, and we’re just something you picked up on your shoe!”

  “No, no, there’s just certain things in life… certain areas… I mean, it’s not that easy… I mean, there’s a kind of shame, sort of a holy precept, ever since the days of Turgenev…”

  “Fuck Turgenev! Just get up and go, now. And we’ll all watch you. Stop trying to humiliate us. Get up and go!”

  Well, what the hell, I got up and went. Not to relieve myself, you understand. To relieve them. And when I got back, one of them said, “You know, with an outlook like yours, you’re always going to be lonely and miserable.”

  So anyway, there you are. Story of my life. I’ll give you just one more example, ’cause it’s the freshest in my mind: about how I lost my brigade-leader’s job a week ago, on account of quote, introducing a corrupt system of individual performance graphs, unquote. Yes, indeed… Hold on – where are we?

  Kuskovo! We’re grinding through Kuskovo without stopping! In honour of the occasion I could have another drink, but I’d better tell you this from the beginning…

  Then I’ll need a drink.

  Yes, it was a week ago they fired me from my brigade leader’s job, four weeks after they appointed me. You know y
ourself, you can’t make radical changes in four weeks, so they didn’t give me the bullet for radical changes.

  Actually, our production schedule looked like this: in the morning we would sit and play three-card brag for money, then we’d get up, unroll a drum of cable and lay it underground. After that, we’d kill time, each in his own way; one would be drinking vermouth, another, slightly more basic, Freshness eau-de-Cologne, and the ones with a bit of class would be on the cognac at Sheremetyevo airport. Then we’d go to sleep. And the next morning we’d whip yesterday’s cable back up out of the ground and chuck it away, because it’d got all wet, naturally. And after that – shit, what the hell? We’d sit down and play brag again.

  Anyway, for a time everything went like clockwork: we’d send off our Socialist pledges, and they’d send us our money. We would write, for example: “In honour of Lenin’s glorious centenary, we shall strive to achieve a ratio of one in ten workers taking a correspondence course at an institute of higher education!”… I mean, higher education, for Chrissakes, we’re tucked out of sight playing brag, all five of us! Oh, halcyon days! Oh, birds of Heaven, that store not up in granaries! Oh, lilies of the field, arrayed more splendidly than Solomon!

  Yes, that was when it suddenly struck me: you’re a total dimwit, Venya, a complete numskull: I mean, didn’t you read in some philosopher or other, that the good Lord only concerns Himself with the fate of princes, confident that He can leave the fate of the people in their hands? And here you are a brigade leader, yet, and as it might be, a ‘little prince’. Well, then, where the hell’s your concern for the fate of your people? Have you looked into the souls of these parasites, into their benighted souls? Eh?

  Well, anyway, that was when I worked up my notorious ‘individual graphs’, on account of which they eventually sacked me. There’s really nothing to it: you draw two axes: one horizontal, the other vertical. On the horizontal, you set out all the working days; on the vertical, the quantity of booze consumed at work, estimated in grammes of pure alcohol. Boozing after work is of course more or less a constant, and can have no interest for the serious researcher…