TWO PLAYS. MAIDEN FOREST. THE ADVENTURES OF YUMI

Venya. You took her from me.

Fyodor. Lyudmila never loved you.

Venya. It doesn’t matter now.

Fyodor. And what does?

Venya. You wanted to kill my son today.

Fyodor. I did. But God interfered.

Venya. Aren’t you surprised that Artyom is my son?

Fyodor. I’ve always known it. When you take a woman with a child, it doesn’t hurt to ask her who fathered it. Lyudmila trusted me.

Pause.

Venya. Three days before she died, Lyudmila called me and asked me to come and see her in the hospital. She gave me a strand of his hair that she had kept in the amulet. The DNA test confirmed that I am his father.

Fyodor. It was a moment of weakness.

Venya. You are lying!

Fyodor. After the chemo, she didn’t know what she was doing.

Venya. Enough!

Fyodor. I am sure that Lyudmila regretted telling you. And now she can see what you are up to.

Venya. You sent her only son to prison. She became sick with grief.

Fyodor. I saved the life of this junkie but Lyudmila started hating me. It’s unfair.

Venya. When I discovered that Artyom is my son, something happened to me.

Fyodor. You went nuts.

Venya. I decided to change my life forever. For the first time in my life, I had a dream.

Fyodor. You changed your life when you threw in your lot with these bloodsuckers.

Venya. Chopper is only a tool. Now I need the cash, badly.

Fyodor. Bite me, Venya.

Venya. Where are the icons? Where’d you hide them? [Hitting Fyodor.]

Chopper enters and takes the rifle off of Venya.

Chopper. These bitches, Natasha and Khlora, slit the tire. I’ll skin them alive when I get hold of them!

Venya. Do you know what makes me happy now, Fyodor? Artyom is alive. He is far from here now. I’ll provide him with an alibi. And he is your only heir.

Fyodor. You won’t get the icons anyway.

Venya. Fyodor, it’s a matter of principle.

Fyodor. You are pathetic, Veniamin.

Venya. I don’t want it on my conscience.

Fyodor. When the Most High came down and confused the tongues / He divided the nations / But when he distributed the tongues of fire / He called all to unity…