Fragile! (NHB Modern Plays)

by Tena Štivičić

  I’m joking.

  GAYLE (relieved, smiling). Oh . . . Oh, God. Either I’m appallingly gullible or you’re really good.

  MARKO. No – I’m good. You see, I’m not really a bartender. But hey, I’m not an actor!

  GAYLE. Writer?

  MARKO. Comedian.

  GAYLE. Really? I think that’s a noble profession.

  MARKO looks at GAYLE suspiciously.

  No, I do. I think it’s one of the few professions that make sense. Making people laugh.

  MARKO. Well, thank you. I think that exact thing.

  They look at each other and smile. GAYLE is suddenly embarrassed and breaks the silence.

  GAYLE. I’m not really a social worker. Not that you knew I was a social worker. But I’m not, really.

  MARKO. I’ve got a theory about social workers.

  GAYLE. Hm, do I want to hear it?

  MARKO. Maybe on our second date.

  GAYLE smiles. It’s not very professional but she can’t help being won over.

  GAYLE. In fact, I wouldn’t mind, I’m sure. I’m not particularly proud of it. Or good at it, I’m afraid.

  MARKO. I’m sure you are. You have a kind face.

  GAYLE smiles, embarrassed.

  So, what are you then?

  GAYLE (with mock solemnity). I’m a conceptual artist.

  MARKO. Uh, I’ve got a theory about them as well.

  GAYLE. I’m sure.

  ERIK comes back in. Seeing MARKO with GAYLE, he suddenly realises where they are. MARKO, MICHI, MILA, really don’t need to know about this. He looks at MARKO, suggesting that he leaves and gives them privacy. MARKO goes back to the bar.

  ERIK. We should go somewhere else.

  GAYLE wouldn’t exactly mind leaving, but she’s alarmed by ERIK’s erratic behavior.

  GAYLE. Why?

  ERIK. It’s stuffy in here.

  GAYLE. It’s pouring outside!

  ERIK, trapped, sits back down at the table.

  ERIK. Okay. I’ll come to meet her tomorrow.

  GAYLE. If you can’t handle it, I can . . . understand that completely. I think she’d be broken, but I understand if you have a relationship and your career . . .

  As she says ‘relationship’, she vaguely gestures in MARKO’s direction.

  ERIK. Not an idle second with you, huh?

  GAYLE. Look, I just . . . I think the worst thing would be that you come back into her life and then decide to drop her. She’s not strong enough for that.

  ERIK. You’re an artist, yeah?

  GAYLE. You’ve done your homework as well.

  ERIK. Yeah, I like to do detective work on people. Relaxes me during those long night shifts.

  GAYLE (bitterly). Better that than child pornography.

  ERIK. Or sleeping with victims of trafficking.

  Pause. GAYLE looks at him sternly.

  Sorry. That wasn’t funny. (Pause. Then, in a tone that’s inappropriately threatening:)Do you find inspiration in the people you work with? Do you feed on the tragedies? Do you think you possess awareness?

  GAYLE. What?!

  ERIK (casually). I’m sure they’re not paying you to monitor my lifestyle.

  GAYLE. No.

  ERIK. Then why?

  GAYLE. I want to help her.

  ERIK. Why?

  GAYLE. She’s . . . worth it.

  ERIK. She never liked pity.

  GAYLE. It’s not pity. It’s admiration.

  Pause.

  ERIK. Four o’clock then?

  GAYLE (hesitates). This is the address.

  They get up to leave.

  (To MARKO.) Bye. Thanks.

  MARKO. Goodbye, Gayle. Drop by sometimes. Feel as free as a stranger. We all do.

  GAYLE. Yes, um . . . Maybe.

  ERIK and GAYLE exit. MICHI observes MARKO.

  MICHI. Easy, boy.

  MARKO. I’m just being a good host.

  MICHI. You should better think about business than skirt.

  MARKO. I am thinking about business. I’ve got two amateur festivals next week and notice how my English is progressing daily.

  MICHI. Fooling around. I mean real business.

  MARKO (carefully). What kind of business?

  MICHI. Marko, my boy, the map of Europe –

  MARKO. – is changing even as we speak. I know.

  MICHI. . . . even as we speak. Excellent. You are better. I know from first day you will go far.

  MARKO. Oh, yeah?

  MICHI. Oh, yes. And this is moment to act.

  MARKO. How?

  MICHI. How? All this people will come to UK now, some to work, some to visit, some to try luck. All will think – easy, we are one now! But, haha, what a surprise, do you think England will say – welcome brothers, what can we do for you? Bollock!

  MARKO (faking naivety). No . . . you think?

  MICHI. This is where we come in. Expand business. Offer rooms, offer entertainment, offer ‘comfort’, food maybe. Compass, so to speak.

  MARKO. With UK prices.

  MICHI. Competitive. But not rip off!

  MARKO. Risky.

  MICHI. No risk no profit.

  MARKO. And what do you want me for? Make beds? Grill ćevape?

  MICHI. We will need starting capital.

  MARKO. Should I rob a bank?

  MICHI (seriously). You could get some capital. And then you could be full partner.

  There is a moment when the two men look at each other intently like they have a secret.

  MARKO. I don’t know what you’re talking about.

  MICHI. Come on –

  MARKO. No.

  MICHI. You think that is mature. But it is stupid, it is juvenile. It would be mature to accept what can help to become independent.

  Pause. They stare into each other’s eyes.

  MARKO. No.

  MICHI (retreating). All right. Mimosa. You don’t know this because you are young. But when time starts running out, there is moment when you have to decide. I am going to splash around safe in the shallow or I’m going to jump on the big wave. (His phone rings.) Think about it. (Into the phone.) Halo!

  MICHI exits. MARKO absentmindedly washes glasses.

  *

  MILA is on the other side of the stage, speaking into the phone. He is not picking it up.

  MILA. Erik, where are you? Hey, you know how I blew that audition for . . . Well, turns out assistant director is a director himself. Yes. Well, not high profile, obviously, but he rang me to say that he thinks I would be perfect for a part in a play he is directing in . . . Can’t remember what the theatre’s called. Isn’t that great? A proper part. With singing. Call me, we have to celebrate.

  Scene Six

  The hostel.

  TIASHA is waiting. She is visibly nervous. She straightens the sheets on the bed. She fluffs up the pillow. She adjusts her hair, looks at herself in the mirror, picks her hair up then releases it. ERIK appears silently. He watches TIASHA in front of the mirror. She didn’t notice him but there is a moment when she feels his presence. She turns around. They stand some way apart from each other. The silence is charged with years of unspoken words.

  TIASHA cries out. She encloses her nose and mouth in her hands and produces a sound of excitement; it is an icebreaker of sorts. ERIK opens his arms, and gives her a charming, inviting shrug. She rushes to his embrace and gives into it completely. He is somewhat reserved but trying to hide it.

  Still, no words. Heavy breathing.

  Finally . . .

  ERIK. Hey.

  TIASHA breathes.

  Hey.

  TIASHA wants to speak but can’t.

  Hey, cricket.

  TIASHA. Hey.

  ERIK. Let me look at you.

  TIASHA takes a step back.

  Silence.

  TIASHA. Woman.

  ERIK. Beautiful.

  They look at each other. ERIK looks down.

  TIASHA. What?

  ERIK (quickly looks back into her eyes).
What? Nothing.

  TIASHA. I . . . think, thought, all the time I thought, what I will say when I will see you. All the time. One time I thought I will see you in the street and I thought I will say I will ask for direction and you will then see it is me and be surprised. Other time I thought I will see you on airport, and many other times, I have hundred conversations in my head, so many first thing I will say to you when I see you and now I don’t know and I don’t remember even one of them.

  She stops abruptly. She has to take some air.

  ERIK. Your English is better.

  TIASHA. It can be much better. I have learned it. (Getting angry.) I don’t know why is it so bad now. I learned. I got tapes and walkman. Dado think, thought I am listening to music.

  ERIK. Dado? The bastard is still alive, ha?

  TIASHA. Dado is in Sweden. He is running jewellery shop.

  ERIK. What? (With sudden rage.) He should be doing a million years in jail.

  TIASHA. No one is in jail.

  ERIK. How come he gave up slave-trading? Became too soft for him?

  TIASHA. Everybody gives up sometime. It’s not so easy when there isn’t war going on.

  She stops again. Looks at ERIK and grins. ERIK smiles back, but awkwardly.

  You are shocked.

  ERIK. Tiasha . . . I dream about you sometimes.

  TIASHA. You do?

  ERIK. They are not good dreams.

  TIASHA. Oh.

  ERIK. I mean they’re nightmares and . . . You know.

  TIASHA. But I’m here now. Look, real, live. And it’s not nightmare here.

  ERIK. Well . . . Tiasha, we have to . . . I don’t know what we have to do. Isn’t that just what you need . . .

  ERIK’s phone rings. TIASHA notices. He doesn’t pick up. When it stops ringing he switches it off.

  TIASHA. I know. You have a life. Gayle said. But I know that. That is all right. I can wait. I have no problem to wait. It is much easier to wait now because now I am here and I am free. I am happy. So I wait. Until you are ready.

  ERIK. I tried to find out, when I got better. They said everybody died. No survivors. Not even any evidence of them ever being there. Convenient, isn’t it? The place was bombed to the ground the next day.

  TIASHA. You looked? For me?

  ERIK. Yes.

  TIASHA. Because . . . you said you would.

  TIASHA holds him as if to comfort him.

  ERIK. Gayle said they took you all over Europe.

  TIASHA (after a pause). Dado took me to Kosovo. And he sold me there. He said I was bad luck. He said women are never safe investment. Then they took me to Italy. On a boat. In a bag. Italy was all right. Woman who had the brothel, had a sick husband. I wash him and massage him. Not much he can do. Sometimes he wants to watch me touch myself. He says he doesn’t care what happens to her, bitch. He promised when he is dead, important people will get letters telling everything about me, and business and bitch. I will be saved then. He died and I wait. But nothing. He was a liar. I got so sick waiting, my hair falled off and I lost six kilograms. Bitch got angry and passed me to go on. (Mapping her journey in her head.) After that Finland. Finland was rough. Men drink lot. And they are violent. But violent in different way. More imagination.

  ERIK. Wh . . . Never mind.

  TIASHA (amused). Did you know there are places where men drink more than in Balkan?

  ERIK gives a slight laugh. The story is nauseating to him, especially the strange humour TIASHA seems to find in some of it.

  You remember there was UN guy from Finland in Bosna? You remember? He was always trouble.

  ERIK. The one that used to cut and burn girls.

  TIASHA. Yes! That one. I come to Finland, my second customer – knock knock – he is there.

  ERIK stares.

  World is village, no? But, he don’t cut me or do anything very bad any more. Because, I am different. I’m not shivering and shaking and crying any more. I am strong. And also, I am very good.

  ERIK. And by that you don’t mean obedient.

  TIASHA. It’s funny. First I just lie there and wait to be over. Then I understand if I do effort it can be much more easy and much more quick. More easy to be a good prostitute than a bad prostitute.

  ERIK. You weren’t a prostitute.

  TIASHA considers. Then she switches back to her story.

  TIASHA. In Finland I am cold all the time. I would think – oh, my God, what if Erik wants to go back home to live? Norway is too cold for me!

  She laughs again like she said, sometimes silly, like a little girl. ERIK smiles, but it is a sour smile. He touches her face.

  ERIK. My dear, my dear, dear . . .

  TIASHA. And then I saw you!

  ERIK. You saw me?

  TIASHA. On television! When you were reporting from South Africa. And I saw you were with news agency again. Oh, you look just the same. A little less hair, maybe, yes?

  She giggles and strokes his face. He doesn’t know how to react.

  ERIK. Tiasha . . . How did you get here?

  TIASHA. The last year, I knew ways. To get out. To run away. Because, sometimes they make mistakes. Very . . . How do you say opposite from ‘often’?

  ERIK. Seldom.

  TIASHA. Sel-dom. They make mistakes seldom . . . seldomly?

  ERIK (impatiently). No, just seldom. Go on.

  TIASHA. Sometimes they are not careful. But I am so busy being scared that I don’t notice. But, last year, I’m not much scared any more – then I can pay more attention. I find this nice man from Montenegro. He worked like . . . like . . . man kicking people out of a club?

  ERIK. A bouncer.

  TIASHA. Yes. And he got me fake passport. Then I wait. House where I was living and some other girls – one time a month they would have parties for their regular clients. Especially if there was new girl, virgin that was just brin . . . brought to Finland. Then they would have like a spectacle, like a show in the house. But I was always with this one same man, very nice, older, sweats a lot, very kind. But I had to hit him with his laptop. And I jumped out of the window. I twisted my ankle but I didn’t feel it until I got on the plane. On the plane! Alone!

  And then I am here.

  Silence. TIASHA is waiting for ERIK to say something.

  ERIK (after a long pause). It’s been years.

  TIASHA. Yes. Tell me about you.

  ERIK. So much has happened.

  TIASHA. Yes. Tell me.

  ERIK. We are different.

  TIASHA. I’m not. I’m the same I was last time. Well except I am little thinner. And I don’t use drugs.

  ERIK. Really? Did it get very bad?

  TIASHA. Not very bad. But you can’t trust your instinct when you use drugs. And I had to trust it. That was everything I had.

  ERIK. I’m not the same.

  TIASHA. You look same. (Smiles.) You talk less.

  ERIK. Half of me is not me, Tiasha. They gave me a kidney of an eighteen-year-old boy who crashed his bike into a wall. He crashed his fifteen-year-old girlfriend along. Her head cracked open on the road in front of the Sheraton Zagreb Hotel. She was dead instantly. On the way to the hospital, he must have been thinking, I killed a girl. My girl. Someone’s daughter. Fifteen year old. Old enough to have a baby, not old enough to drive. I carry his kidney around. The blood I got back in Bosna. Imagine where that blood’s been.

  TIASHA. Your mind and heart is still your, yes?

  ERIK. Yes.

  TIASHA. Then you are still the one I know.

  ERIK looks at a map on the wall. It’s hand made, with newspaper cuttings glued to a piece of white paper.

  ERIK. What’s this?

  TIASHA. My map. Where I was in the world.

  ERIK stares at the map.

  Erik . . . you still want me?

  ERIK sits on TIASHA’s bed, puts his head in his hands and massages it.

  Erik?

  ERIK. Of course.

  TIASHA. You said. Always.

  ERIK. Yeah
, I did, didn’t I.

  ERIK fixes his eyes onto a point somewhere in the empty space in front of him. TIASHA sits next to him, looking ahead as well. But her face shows the issue has been settled. The wind opens the window.

  TIASHA. Windy. Is it always windy here?

  ERIK. Almost.

  TIASHA. Like it’s pushing you somewhere.

  ERIK nods. TIASHA snuggles up to him.

  I am sorry for people in this hostel. They are free but they are not. They can go where they want, but where do they want to go when nothing is familiar.

  ERIK nods.

  ERIK. We should close the window.

  Scene Seven

  MILA and MARKO’s flat.

  GAYLE and MARKO kissing. Food and wine around them on the floor.

  GAYLE. Wait –

  MARKO. No –

  GAYLE (giggles). Hey, wait –

  MARKO. I hate waiting.

  GAYLE (giggles again). No. This. Is this desperation?

  MARKO. If it is, I’ll volunteer.

  GAYLE. Because if it is, it might taste bitter afterwards.

  MARKO. Bitter is a good solid taste. ‘Bitter’ is better than ‘bland’, than ‘watery’, and definitely better than ‘nothing’.

  GAYLE. I think ‘nothing’ is better than ‘bitter’.

  MARKO. Then you’re missing out on a lot.

  GAYLE. Am I?

  MARKO. But I promise it won’t be bitter.

  They kiss.

  GAYLE. I got turned down by an exhibition I worked three months for. I got yelled at by a beggar with green teeth whom I’ve almost stepped on. I got proposed to by a sixty-eight-year-old Sudanese refugee who shits in his pants when he forgets to take his medication. And now I’m about to sleep with a man I hardly know.

  MARKO. See, a cherry on top.

  She pulls away.

  (Sighs, but gently.) Wanna talk about it?

  GAYLE. In Wellington, I’d always walk a miserable day off.

  MARKO. Well, granted, I’m not as exciting as a walk down Wellington High Street –

  GAYLE laughs.

  But . . . I’m ‘Pick of the Day’ in Deptford.

  GAYLE laughs. Then she turns sad again.

  GAYLE. When I’ve had a miserable day, I start intensely missing things. Sitting in cafés. That lovely wave-like pace of living where you can allow yourself to sit in cafés.

  MARKO. Yeah. Four hour meals, that’s us.

  GAYLE. Knowing there will be familiar faces in particular cafés.