OLGA— Russian, middle-aged woman
MASHA – Russian, 50-aged woman
IRINA – Russian, 55-aged woman
Place: one-bedroom apartment in a town, like Brighton or Brooklyn in America.
Time: 1990’s
Room in a one-bedroom apartment occupied by three women who came to the U.S. from Russia illegally. Olga sleeps on the bed, her clothes are scattered all over the floor. Enter Masha, silently collects the clothing and throws it on the sleeping Olga.
OLGA: (
MASHA: And who asks you to get up this early?
OLGA: Have you forgotten? I have to take a walk along the beach.
MASHA: Well, give up this vain pursuit. You’ll never find anybody.
OLGA: It’s not vain at all. A man on the beach has become familiar to me. He always sits on the same bench. I used to wave to him when I went by. But yesterday I took a seat on the same bench, next to him, and we had a talk.
MASHA: What were you talking about? Hi! Big waves today?
OLGA: No, not only. His mother was from Poland. He knows a few words in Polish: dzenkuyu, sginela, ne sginela. Yesterday he drew a house with a stick on the sand. But I couldn’t get whether he invited me to live in his house or not. It’s hard to flirt without knowing the language.
MASHA: And where’s your friend Irina? She promised to teach us English.
OLGA: She’ll probably come soon.
MASHA: Instead of teaching us, she talks on the phone all day long.
OLGA: She got acquainted with somebody and so she has to talk a lot. Has the right. She has to get married too to stay in America legally…
MASHA: Just look where Irina has been looking for a husband. Here is the paper of ads.
OLGA: Just think! Now then, read a personal ad.
MASHA: Listen. “Man seeks a young “partner in crime”.
OLGA: What crime?
MASHA: Don’t you understand anything? He seeks the same sex President Clinton and Monica Lewinski had.
OLGA: Just think, so inventive! No, it doesn’t suit me. I love romance. Read something about sunsets…
MASHA: There’s really nothing about sunsets here. Though, here it is. “Like to walk on ocean beaches…”
OLGA: Well, come on, come on, what else does it say?
MASHA: No, this doesn’t suit you.
OLGA: Why?
MASHA: Here a man seeks another man… To hell with this paper.
IRINA. Good evening. Was there a phone call for me?
OLGA: None while I was here. Are you tired?
IRINA: Yes, I am. There are some clients who ask me to clean here and to clean there. They demand what I’m not supposed to do.
OLGA: Give up those who demand.
IRINA: And what I will send to my daughter in Moscow? Otherwise she won’t last long.
OLGA: And my son won’t last long either without my money.
MASHA: I have nobody to send money to.
OLGA: What about your husband? He is in Russia too.
MASHA: Things will settle one way or another.
IRINA: You told us that they don’t pay him anything at all.
OLGA: Masha, why don’t you want to help him?
MASHA: Because he isn’t worth it.
IRINA: Why?
MASHA: Didn’t I tell you?
IRINA: Please, tell us.
MASHA: When the “perestroika” started in our country, and they stopped paying salaries to us, some companies were founded to send people to America for babysitting. “Well, – I said to my husband, – I’d rather go to America than sit here and get nothing”.
OLGA: What did he say?
MASHA: ”Go,”– he says. Before leaving you have to pay a deposit to the company, the rest they take from your pay in America. The deposit is about three hundred dollars, plus you should collect money for the ticket. My husband and I started a small business of our own: we raised pigs and rabbits.
IRINA: Did your husband help you?
MASHA: Of course, he worked like a slave to send me to America.
OLGA: Then, why don’t you want to help him?
MASHA: Well, listen on. I myself did six jobs, and we scraped up those dollars. I flew to New York, that company met me, put me on a bus, gave three dollars in small change, a telephone number. They said that if nobody met me at the last stop I should give this number a call.
IRINA: Could you call in English?
MASHA: Of course, not.
OLGA: Yes, girls, all of us suffered when we came here.
