Короткие пьесы - [63]
ANNA: Peter, stop mocking!
PETER: Ha! Who is mocking who? Your lover moves to the other end of the city, and then – end of love! I would’ve understood you if it was a real passion… but I don’t know what to call this. Some nonsense! Stupidity! Because of this nonsense our whole relationship goes to hell?
ANNA: Our relationship? What did I get? Just humiliation. Did you really love me? Every party you ignored me and quickly found a woman and started flirting. What chance did I have? Just to be a wallflower?
PETER: Did you do all that in revenge? If yes, then that’s different.
ANNA: It doesn’t matter whether I did this in revenge or not…
Pause.
He was extraordinary, very considerate, loved me, used to bring me flowers…
PETER: Considerate: traffic jams and end of love! Don’t you feel ashamed to tell me, your husband, all this? After fifteen years together…
ANNA: Fifteen years six months and two weeks.
PETER: Anna!
Anna (comes close.): Peter!
Peter (pushes her away.): Give me his phone number.
ANNA: What for?
PETER: I want to meet him… and his wife.
ANNA: And why his wife?
PETER: I’ll compare her and you! Give me his phone number!
ANNA: I don’t have it.
PETER: That’s a lie, Anna. You’re lying!
ANNA: I don’t have it… not since we parted.
PETER: Then – his last name. Well, come on!
ANNA: I won’t.
PETER: Oh, I understand, it means that you didn’t have anybody and any relationship. You’ve made up the whole romance. Nobody hankered after you, just your sick imagination: love, infidelity, traffic jams – all this is a lie. Our whole life together was a mistake.
ANNA: Peter, but we had such fun together.
PETER: Fun? Me? Never! What’re you talking about? All our life together was a complete and utter torture for me.
ANNA: Our “grunge” costume party…
PETER: Ya, friends still mention it, but that was different.
ANNA: Why?
PETER: I’ve never loved you, not a moment!
Anna (slowly): Full moon… Lake George… when we slipped off the paddle boat… You like to sleep touching me…
PETER: (pause) It was long ago.
ANNA: Peter, why did you marry me?
PETER: Your pregnancy.
ANNA: But it was a mistake.
PETER: I decided that I was committed to marry you…Well, I’ve come to see you on business. I finally wanted to dot all the “i”s. Now I understand everything. You’re a liar and disgusting trash! I feel suffocated! I’m divorcing you. I’ll complete the divorce agreement myself. Good-bye!
Peter leaves. Anna runs after him.
ANNA: Peter, wait stop! I told you a lie!
PETER: (stops at the door). More lies?
ANNA: Listen, I had a love affair and it ended when he, my lover, died in a car crash. He was hurrying to be with me when…(Anna swallows hard.) passed a bus and hit another car…
Pause.
PETER: Passed a bus? Passed… When did it happen?
ANNA: Six months ago.
PETER: Six months… It was Michael! My best friend!
ANNA: Yes, Michael.
PETER: How did it happen?
ANNA: He was hurrying to see me…
PETER: I introduced you to Michael! I was proud for you to see what a wonderful friend I had.
ANNA: He was really a wonderful…
PETER: You’re going to say “a lover”? I can’t believe… it can’t be true. If there had been something between you, I certainly would have noticed it.
ANNA: You and Michael didn’t meet so often lately… He was afraid that you would suspect us.
PETER: I respected him so much: joyful, full of life, and so tragically… We’d been friends as kids: at school, at college…he had always rescued me… when we were about twelve; a dog jumped out and grabbed my leg… Michael found a stick and beat the dog away. I still have the scar; I can show it to you.
ANNA: I’ve seen your “dog bite” a lot of times…
PETER: We used to be close friends… Used to read each other well, so quick on the uptake… How come I didn’t notice anything?
ANNA: You were busy… You so persistently hung round his wife.
PETER: It was nothing serious… (angry silence.) Oh, and she must’ve noticed that there was something between you. Women – they notice everything. I’ll call her right now…
Grabs his cell phone.
ANNA: Stop it! Can you really call a woman who lost her husband just six months ago and ask her about her husband’s infidelity?
Peter silently closes his cell phone and throws it.
ANNA: Didn’t you have an affair with her? I thought that you were seeing each other, especially after his death.
PETER: How could he? I cannot believe… My best friend…
Silence while Peter stares with confused interest at Anna.
ANNA: Why are looking at me like that?
PETER: Anna, what did he see in you?
ANNA: Think…
PETER: I don’t… Tell me, please…
ANNA: He loved me… It was real passion…
PETER: Amazing! So unexpectedly. He was striking, brilliant, so able…
Pause.
What now…
ANNA: Peter, you’ve come to agree about our divorce. Let’s start.
PETER: Anna, wait, wait… let me see…
ANNA: Just a second. I will get the agreement you sent me.
PETER: Anna, I don’t know…
ANNA: Since you’ve come, let’s do it. We need to dot all the “i”s…
PETER: I need time…I have to understand… Maybe, I’ve changed my mind…
THE END
WHY DOES NO ONE LOVE US?
BOB: 14-year-old boy
MA: Peter’s mother
A living room. Curtains drawn over a window. At rise BOB’S hand is poised and eyes are staring at the phone he expects to answer any second. Ma enters in a rush and grabs for the phone. Peter deftly deflects her hand and grabs the receiver him self.