Man From the USSR & Other Plays Read Online Free PDF Page B

cellar. The proprietor has evidently attempted to give the tavern a Russian atmosphere by means of blue babas and peacocks painted on the rear wall above the strip of window, but his imagination has stopped there. It is about nine o'clock on a spring evening. Life has not yet begun in the tavern: tables and chairs stand haphazardly; here and there the angular white shapes of spread tablecloths strike the eye. Fyodor Fyodorovich, a waiter, is bent over the bar, arranging fruit in two baskets. There is an evening dimness in the tavern, and that makes Fyodor Fyodorovich's face and his white smock seem especially pale. He is about
twenty-five, with fair hair slicked down very thoroughly. His profile is angular, and his movements are not devoid of a certain careless swagger. Victor Ivanovich Oshivenski, owner of the tavern, a slightly chubby, neat old man with a short gray beard and a pince-nez, is nailing to the wall, to the right of the window, a large white sheet, on which one can distinguish the inscription “Gypsy Chorus!’ From time to time legs pass from left to right and from right to left in the strip of window. They stand out against the yellowish background of evening with a two-dimensional clarity, as if cut out of black cardboard. If one compared the action onstage to music, these silhouettes would serve as black quavers and semiquavers. Of course they do not pass continuously, but at considerable intervals. From the opening curtain until the moment when Fyodor Fyodorovich lowers the blinds at Kuznetsoff’s appearance, only ten pairs of legs pass, of which two cross from opposite directions, two follow each other in rapid succession, and the rest pass individually.
    Oshivenski pounds, for a certain length of time, then drops his hammer with a spasm of pain.
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    OSHIVENSKI
Damn!...Right on my thumbnail....
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    FYODOR FYODOROVICH
Mustn’t be so careless, Victor Ivanovich. That really hurts, doesn’t it?
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    OSHIVENSKI
    I’ll say it does.... The nail will probably come off.
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    FYODOR FYODOROVICH
    Here, let me hammer. The lettering is well done, though, if I do say so myself. I admit I tried very hard. Those letters are a dream.
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    OSHIVENSKI
    These gypsies are just an extra expense anyway. They won’t bring in any new customers. It’s only a matter of days before my little place ... what do you think—maybe I should soak it in cold water?
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    FYODOR FYODOROVICH
    Yes, that helps. There, it’s ready! Right where it strikes the eye. The effect isn’t bad at all.
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    OSHIVENSKI
    ...It’s only a matter of days before my little place folds. And that will mean running around this damned city of Berlin again, searching, trying to think something up....And meanwhile, like it or not, I’m pushing seventy. And how tired I am, how very tired....
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    FYODOR FYODOROVICH
    I think it’ll look better this way: green grapes with the oranges, red with the bananas. Simple and appetizing.
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    OSHIVENSKI
    What time is it?
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    FYODOR FYODOROVICH
    Going on nine. I suggest we arrange the tables differently today. Anyway, next week when the gypsies get going we’ll have to clear a space over there.
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    OSHIVENSKI
    I’m beginning to think that there is a hidden flaw in the concept itself. At first it seemed to me that this kind of nighttime tavern, a basement place something like the “Stray Dog,” would have a particularly attractive atmosphere. The very fact that legs flit by on the sidewalk, and that special kind of—what’s the word—oh, you know, coziness, and so forth. Don’t crowd them together too much, though.
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    FYODOR FYODOROVICH
    No, I think it works out nicely like this. Here’s a tablecloth that needs changing. Wine got spilled on it last night. Turned it into a regular map of the world.
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    OSHIVENSKI
    I’ll say. And the laundering doesn’t come cheap, either. Anything but. That’s a