Everything similar to reality is pure coincidence.
All you'll read is fiction.
Characters
John Coover, 27, an American journalist and a
closet writer
Anna Voros, 33, an obscure Transylvanian
actress, writer, freelance journalist and third-year student in
American Studies at the Eotvos Lorand University in Budapest
We are in the year 1996, winter, in Budapest, in the shabby
apartment of John Coover. There is a table, two chairs, a
telephone, in a corner there is a small table with some food and
glasses and not much else.
Anna: I just read this, maybe you should read,
it's an Irish woman, a traveler and she had been to Transylvania
right after the revolution.
John: Really?
Anna: After few days, and she says we were
starved people. You can imagine a people, not a person or a
village, but a whole nation looking starved?! I never thought
that we looked starved because I was used to our faces, but this
is true, we were starving! All we had in the shops were pricked
tomatoes and pig feet.
John: What?
Anna: Ihi, pricked tomatoes and pig feet. What?
John: Nothing.
Anna: ... (pensive) Six years ago, in
December '89, people were fighting to overthrow the communist
regime in Bucharest. They occupied the Romanian National
Television building. A flow of people appeared on the screen,
telling of their miseries in a chopped language, for they had
never talked normally before. They were calling for help. They
were frightened that they would be killed by the Security
commando groups. They were exhausted. Their unshaven faces on the
TV screens called to us over and over again to go there and be
with them and face the better armed aggressors together. In those
hours I wasn't cursing my fate, as I used to like many other
Romanian youths, I was proud that I was born there and not 1000
kilometers further West. I was even proud to be a human being.
The everyday cynicism left us, we loved each other! The whole of
Europe seemed willing to love us. They sent trucks with food and
medicine to help us... All the years of eating pig hooves and
being afraid to talk to your neighbor who may have been an
informer, all the winters when we were going to sleep dressed
with our coats as if we went to ski, for we had no heat, seemed
to belong to the past. Dreams of living in a free world, where
your letters from abroad reached you, seemed to become real...
Suffering. Humiliating suffering. How we hated to switch on the
TV on which you could see only the same illiterate face of our
benefactor president who kept on reelecting himself, leading us
to 'the golden era of communism'... I forgot all these now...
John: The whole world was pretty ignorant of how
deprived you were in Romania. I knew nothing about Romania until
the revolution... I was just like any other stupid American, I
thought it was Dracula country.
Anna: But I thought that Ceausescu was
notorious, that Romania would be known to everybody through his
infamy...
John: Who was? Ceausescu? Well, he was, but to a
semi-educated American from Missouri it wasn't a household
name... I had such a good time in Romania, I went with three
Romanian guys who came here; they were friends of Anca Andrea?
Anna: Ihi.
John: And they said "come on! come back
with us!" I said "alright!" so we got in a car and
we got to around Timisoara and one of them had an uncle who lived
on a farm there. We drove all night and we showed up about 8
o'clock in the morning at this man's farm. And everybody's up
working and he's standing on the porch and these guys say
"Hey, this is our friend, John from America!" and the
guy says "America? I've been waiting for Americans for 50
years and now they send me one?!" He was very nice. We ate
and we got drunk at 8 o`clock in the morning.
Anna: We have a joke with an old man who for
years, since the beginning of communism, kept on mowing his lawn:
"What are you doing here, father?" a youth asked him.
"I'm mowing." "But why everyday?!" "So
that the Americans can land here. For they have to come
soon!" (silently they drink the tea) We never knew
what's going on. You remember the Chernobyl? They announced
officially only four days after the explosion. They gave us some
pills which afterwards they said would have been better if we
hadn't taken because they damaged your digestive system. They
gave us also iodine and checked our goiter. People said if you
put a spoon on your chest and it didn't fall when you stood up
that meant you were radio-activated. That year we had huge early
red radishes, like apples. After the revolution there was a
scandal with some German barrels with lead or radioactive
residues, which they put in an orchard in the open, surrounded by
barbed wire. It's good business for us, Germans said.
John: Isn't it? If you have a barrel of waste
that costs so much to process and if your government says you
can't keep it in your country and you say to a country like
Romania: "Can we take this barrel of waste to your country?
We'll give you $5,000" and they say"yeah, sure!"
If it's legal in that country, maybe it sucks, but if the people
of the country don't change its laws, it's legal! If nobody does
anything about it! I don't think it's terribly immoral!... It's
legal!
Anna: It's immoral.
John: (to the audience) She's
manipulating you! I never said such things, actually her lines
were mine and mine were those of a colleague at the radio, who
said these just to make fun of her.
Anna: (blank) Shut up, this is not
Brecht.
John: Well, if a country is willing to accept
your money for it, fine!
Anna: That's really screwed up, John! The people
don't know what's going on, they don't even know what they were
living next to!
John: Well, they should get mad at the
government! If something like that happened in the US there'd be
protest marches in front of the White House.
Anna: These are peasants, people who raise cows,
they can't even walk in a cafe!
John: You are right!
Anna: Maybe here would work Portrait of a
Man. Let's see.
John: To say my life couldn't be better, would
be an exaggeration, but I have no reason to complain. When I got
out they hired me on the spot as a guard at a storage yard and
although the pay is nothing the work is light. All I have to do
is watch 5,000 containers of sulfuric acid and several hundred
two-hectoliter iron barrels of industrial alcohol which are kept
behind barbed wire. My job is to make sure none of it is stolen,
which is good business when you prevent others from stealing
while you walk off with the stuff yourself. Unfortunately I don't
go for such things, especially since I've been released on
amnesty. Consequently I had to look for an extra something on the
side, which was difficult considering my state of mind. My case
produced its share of disappointment and I swore never to trust
anyone again. I would do everything alone and starve if I must,
but rely solely on myself.
However, luck was with me from the first step. I read an ad and I
went to the Timar Street Immunology Institute. "Do you want
to give blood?" they asked, "Yes, blood," I said.
I have not only become one of their regulars but can safely say
our relationship has become more fruitful with each year.
I couldn't furnish you with precise figures, though I keep
accounts, because once my notebook got soaked in my pocket.
Anyway, allowing for a narrow margin of error, between 1951 and
now I have sold approximately 68 litters of blood to the
Institute. As it is known during this time there have been
significant fluctuations in price. At first they paid 30 forints
per deciliter which under those
days circumstances was not an insignificant amount. That's when I bought this
hat and these socks, garters and whatnot. Later, when they
recruited volunteers, they cut the price to 25 forints which of
course resulted in the disadvantage that regular, reliable donors
deserted the clinic. Then, as it is known, on the first of
January, 1956, they upped the price of blood to 50 forints, and
this tariff is still in effect today.
I wouldn't like to use the phrase "it was a good trick for
me to do," because I continued giving blood even during the
25 forint times without a word of complaint because of my nature,
being what it is. I think by then they grew fond of me, because a
young doctor came and asked if I'd consider switching to bone
marrow. I inquired if the bone marrow would exclude the blood but
he assured me it wouldn't, and the bone marrow would mean a
little extra income, something I badly needed. I do not like
shabbily dressed people, and my undergarments were in a sorry
state.
I found out that they needed bone marrow because the radioactive
infections contracted during modern physics research attack the
bone marrow and the only hope of a cure lies in transplants.
As far as I was concerned, I got a pretty good deal out of it.
They give you a shot, all you feel is a little sting in your
chest and with the same needle they pierced your bone with they
extract the marrow right then. They draw off 5 cubic centimeters
at a time, for which they pay you 150 forints. Strictly speaking,
this is not a whole lot, but I didn't grumble, I was getting the
money for nothing so to speak because, after all, the marrow
cells regenerate completely in a matter of three to four months.
I was pleased with my success and I did not dream my career at
the Institute would continue to flourish. But it did! Three years
ago the same doctor to whom I'm grateful for letting me into the
marrow deal approached me again. Thanks to him I was among the
first ones to be given blood infected with isotopes. I can safely
say that here too I stood my ground. In a scientific institute
like this however, though it's understandable, they didn't have
the common sense enough to weed out cheats and people without a
steady income who in their impudence often resort to shameless
tricks.
This is what happened with the isotope-infected blood. As it is
known, when they conduct this test they draw off 20 cubic
centimeters of blood, infect it with isotopes, and inject it
right back into the bloodstream. The price is 150 forints. But
this is not all. An hour later they measure the effect with some
sort of counter and at the same time as a check, immediately draw
off another 5 cubic centimeters for which they pay 50 forints.
It is very sad but the truth is, for I can't keep it quiet, that
there are persons, and not few of them, that'll take the 150
forints and never show up at the Institute again. Many
experiments have been ruined on account of them. I am not
bringing this up to crown myself with the laurels of honesty,
believe me...
If I take all this into consideration and add up the year's
earnings I can't say the total will be astronomical. It's true, I
have neglected to mention certain minor remunerations which are
not considerable in themselves but which help to boost my humble
budget. For instance each time, even when I give just blood, I am
given a snack consisting of bread, a piece of cheese, a tin of
pork liver pate, two cup cakes and a bottled soft drink. I also
get reimbursed for my traveling expenses: two valid tickets for
the tram.
My state of health is good. It is also significant that I have no
unhealthy habits, I don't even smoke. I am not put out by the
heat. I never wear a hat. Summer and winter, I wash in cold
water. I like walking, I enjoy the open air, the evening crowds,
the colorful shop windows. I also like the rain and the quiet
snowfall.
I am lucky also that by nature I am optimistic but not because I
am looking at the future through rose colored glasses. In other
words just as I wouldn't cheat others, I wouldn't swindle myself
either, neither in a positive nor in a negative way. If I can go
on donating blood and marrow simultaneously for a few more years,
and I don't see why not, then I am not worried about providing
for essentials.
I have achieved all this on my own. I have asked no one for help,
and so I am protected from the disappointments of the past."
(silence) Yea, it's fine.
Anna: But it's a man again. It's unfair, you
have all the good monologues!
John: It could be a woman, poopy, we can change
it...
Anna: Haha!
John: ... just as easily say it's a woman!
Anna: Because you have the guy standing, and now
also this! I want to speak also. So this, we change John, because
one can see that I'm not properly fed.
John: Well, that reminds me...
Anna: Haha!
John: I want some... do you want something to
eat?
Anna: No no no!
John: I want something to eat. Let's eat
something!
Anna: We keep on eating something you know!
Hahaha! I will roll you on the stage!
John: Oh, yeah, I might get fat.
Anna: So this is great, okay?
John: Okay (imitating Anna's accent)
Anna: Don't make fun of me.
John: I'm not making fun of you.
Anna: Don't make fun of me. So we are great,
okay?
John: Yes.
Anna: Okay. Break! We do a 10 minute break.
(lights off) |
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