Dynamic music is playing.
The music stops, the shouts of a man and a woman break into it, swearing.
SUSANNA (Susanna's voice, a nervous cry): Have you completely stopped understanding words? So it is necessary to be able to succeed in degradation! What's complicated? I asked to take a queue at the checkout! And so we are late, we have lost another ten minutes.
YAKOV (Yakov's voice, a nervous cry): To degrade, my dear, is a natural process, with such a wife. I have no other prospects a priori, and I have not had any since the very happy day when I married you.
Yakov and Susanna enter the stage with a quick, nervous step. They are dressed relatively simply, gray, inconspicuous. This style of clothing and overall appearance will be preserved until the last scene. Yakov carries in his hand a package with gifts for his mother's birthday.
SUSANNA (indignantly): So stop.
They stop. Susanna puts her hands on her hips.
SUSANNA (indignantly): Come on, in more detail!
Yakov tries to soften the situation, changes the subject.
YAKOV (justifying himself): And about the cash register – it's not my fault. I took my turn and defended it. I missed it once, twice, and you're still not there. So I made room. As long as you can look out. And anyway – if you were going faster, no one would be late anywhere! Go, Susanna, go!!! In five minutes, everyone will be sitting down at the table, and we are still here.
Yakov grabs Susanna by the hand, but she resists, pushes Yakov's hand away.
SUSANNA (indignantly): So I have to get ready quickly? So go and celebrate your mother's birthday yourself, since you are so fast! I've never been welcome there anyway, and they never will be. Aurora Moiseevna does not consider anyone else in this world as people except you. But my beloved son Yashenka is always there for the court. In any condition and no matter what he did. Go ahead, you're late!
Susanna turns around and goes in the other direction.
Yakov catches up with her, grabs her hand and tries to stop her.
YAKOV (justifying himself): Oh, come on! What are you inventing? Come on, they're waiting for us!
A skirmish. Yakov pulls Susanna, who resists. The case is not moving in any direction.
On the other side of the stage, a couple Valentin and Alla come out arm in arm in complete idyll. They notice familiar faces. Valentine calls out to his old friend.
VALENTIN (to Yakov): Yashka! What are you doing?
Yakov turns around, Susanna improves the moment, gently nods to Valentin and Alla and quickly leaves the stage.
Yakov turns back, sees his Susanna running away, desperately waves his hand in her direction and goes to greet a friend.
VALENTIN (to Yakov): Valentin? Hi! How many years.
YAKOV (to Valentin): Yes, it's been a long time… they say
hello.
VALENTIN (to Yakov, pointing after the runaway Susanna): And what is this? It's Susanna, wasn't it my imagination?
YAKOV (to Valentina, doomed): She…
VALENTIN (to Yakov, delighted): Wow. You've been friends since the institute. So we got married! Congratulations!!!
YAKOV (to Valentina, doomed): Thank you, of course, but there is nothing special to congratulate. We are with her from day to day, like a cat with a dog.
Alla gently hugs her husband.
VALENTIN (to Yakov, proudly): By the way, I want to introduce you. Alla. My wife.
YAKOV (Hello, politely): Very nice, Yakov.
VALENTIN (Hello, playfully, imitating the hero of the film, comrade Saakhov): A student, a Komsomol member, an athlete, finally, she is just a beauty!
Alla laughs, is embarrassed, looks playfully at her husband, reciprocates Yakov.
ALLA (to Yakov, nodding delicately): Alla, I'm glad to meet you.
YAKOV (to Valentin, openly envious): Yes…, buddy, I'm jealous! I'm jealous and I don't hide it!
ALLA (smiling): Thanks. (Takes a short pause) Well…, I understand that you need to talk. I'll run around for now (he points with his hand, addressing his husband) to that boutique over there, okay, honey?
VALENTIN (Alle): Of course, honey. Come by, I'll be there soon.
Alla kisses her husband and elegantly leaves the stage, exchanging farewell nods with Yakov.
Both men follow the chiseled figure of Alla with coveted glances.
YAKOV (openly envious):
Yakov turns
to Valentin to say something, but his thoughts are still there… somewhere in the area of Alla's lower back. He turns again in the direction of the departed Alla, looking for something there, carefully watching her silhouette that has long disappeared from the stage.
YAKOV (openly envious): Dddaaaa…
VALENTIN (complacently, turning his friend's head in his direction with his hand): Uh-huh …
YAKOV (openly envious): Listen… how? How do you manage to find such beauties? How did you persuade her to marry you? In the sense.. you, of course, are a prominent man, but she… she…
VALENTIN (optimistically): You're right, my friend, I'm not an oligarch. And I don't have anything special… well, except maybe a couple of tens of millions in accounts, a decent house and three Mercedes cars.
YAKOV (openly envious, indignant): Hah! Well, there! And you say there is nothing like that…
VALENTIN (seriously): But listen, all this came to me only after I met Alla. It was she who made me what I have become. Before that, I was a loser and a sucker… Well, like those … (stops himself, does not seek to offend a friend, tries to steer the situation) like those men who are always dissatisfied with everything, always fussing about something, and there is not much use in this. Something like that.
YAKOV (resigned): Come on… Of course, I'm no different from those men. I have never done anything so grandiose in my life. I worked like everyone else…, I always dreamed of something, I tried to succeed in my swamp, but… I realized too late that the only way to succeed in the swamp is to get stuck in it more strongly. And so it turned out. My years raced by a high-speed car along the highway of life. Leaving somewhere there all the brightest, most interesting and expensive.
