The Sink
(Drama in two Acts and three Dreams)

Gicu, 40 years old
Gica, Gicu’s wife, 35 years old
Ticu, Gica’s father, 70 years old
Tica, Gica’s mother, 65 years old
Adişor, Gica’s brother, 27 years old
Uma, Gicu and Gica’s daughter, 7 years old
Elvis, Gicu and Gica’s son, 2 years old
Vava, someone living on the same street as the Ticu family
Vana, Vava’s wife, Adişor’s mistress.


Act 1
Scene 1

(The interior of the Ticu family’s house, old furniture, all the signs of former wealth. Gicu washes the dishes while the others sit around the table eating quietly).
Gica: Gicu, come and eat!!
Ticu: Leave him dear, he has two more forks to wash.
Tica: He does wash them in a very special way. A rare technique, exceptional!
Elvis: Meat.
Uma: Some bread.
Tica: Is there any more sauce, Giculeț?
Gicu: Do not call me Giculeț that is how my poor late mother used to call me when I was very young.
Ticu: Really, don’t call him like that. A bit of pasta, Giculeț!
Gicu: My late father used to call me Giculeț when I was a teenager. Gicu is enough, call me Gicu.
Tica: How sensible you are, but eat the main course quickly before we lose our appetite!
Gicu puts food on the plates with a professional cook’s skill.
Tica: Look how Giculeț is putting food on the plates!
Ticu: I was also at this level 40 years ago.
Tica (mumbles): 40 years ago... All your life you were some kind of lazybones! Sitting idly in an armchair with your paper and all those long afternoons you spent with the comrades when you buried yourself in beer!
Ticu (flings the cutlery on the table): You eat!
Gica: Mother, please, let us start eating!
Tica: What is it, dear? I did not burn him with a hot iron. And if we compare him to Giculeț, Ticu did run a household and the party was proud of my Ticu.
Ticu: Giculeț, bring that țuica over here!
Gicu: Call me Gicu!
Uma: Sometimes the clouds on the sky make shapes. Why?
Ticu: Shapes? What the hell are you talking about?
Uma: For instance, a dog or a cat.
Elvis: Woof – woof, miaou – miaou.
Tica: Look at him, a little genius. How well he is imitating a cat.
Ticu: Have you seen dogs and cats in the sky?
Uma: Trees, people’s faces and even a truck once.
Elvis: Oh, you, milksop. Vroom, vroom, vroom.
Tica: Poor Flower, she had nothing to put on her table.
Ticu: Here she goes again.
Tica: Her husband ended up beating her daily.
Ticu: If you put all these together and still it would not be enough to make you throw yourself under a train. You wake up in the morning, feed the children, go out, and you greet your neighbors as if you were going to church and...
Tica: In the good old times when you were the prime secretary and comrade Nineta was alive – children, please forgive me - but I also thought about the train.
Ticu: And how much you loved me! Would you have sacrificed your life for my happiness?
Tica: I thought about running away with Petre.
Ticu: Slutty woman, with that weakling who wasn’t even a member of the party?
Uma: Him with her, her with him, what a mystery!
Ticu: Gicuțu, I sometimes cannot believe that this rude and badly educated girl is my niece.
Elvis: Dumb Ticu!
Tica: Do you call this education, Giculeț? Why don’t you pay more attention to the children?
Ticu (puffing): He is busy.
Tica: Busy, what can I say (also puffing)?! Ring for the desert; I am sick of all those beans!
Ticu: Hasn’t Adişor come yet?
Tica: Keep some warm food for him. He is so busy now that he is in politics. He even got himself a suit.
Ticu: He is a gentleman.
Uma: Oh dear, gentlemen! What gentlemen and gentlewomen!
Ticu: Rude girl!
Tica: Bad and evil.
Uma: It’s from a couplet, I leant it in school.
Ticu: Come on, she ruined my appetite for desert.
(They all leave, Gicu cleans up the dishes; the noise of the dishes can be heard in the sink).

Scene II
(Vava’s family home. Adişor and Vana, then Vava)
Vana: So what has our great politician been doing?
Adişor (full of himself): At about 8 o’clock in the morning, I had those parrots from the NGO’s give me a cup of coffee, at 9:30 I met the guys from the Services, a little gossip.
Vana: You humble person! You are making grand plans again!
Adişor: Then the officers bought vodka, we read the party news and Tania, the secretary, did her nails while reading her psychology courses. I met the Boss; we came up with two or three strategies. If we win the elections, I will end up big, that’s what he told me.
Vana (taking Vana’s penis): But you are a true monster!
Adişor (careful): Maybe Vava is coming in.
Vana: He does not see anything; he is too taken up in your political fight. He is dreaming of posting your senator billboards all over the town.
Adişor (cocky): President billboards! A statesman with my qualities would make us known all over the world.
(Vana kisses him with passion).
Adişor: Vana, darling, I want to enter you!
Vana: Dressed like that? Make yourself comfortable, my husband will be late.
(An extremely short, thus inconsistent sex ride follows)
Vana: Adişor, when you are a great president, don’t cast me aside!
Adişor: Vana my dear, for you and mother Tica, I would burn down Paris!
Vana: Not Paris, my dear. This is where I will buy my bags and perfumes. Better Galați.
Adişor: What do you have against Galați?
Vana: That’s where Vava, the weakling, is from. Every four years he fills my house with smelly glue. He does the posting for all the people from the party and then he takes nothing.
(Vava enters; he seems sad)
Vava: Brother, my dear Adişor! (They embrace). These two months until the elections seem an eternity, there is a sponsorship crisis.
Adişor: My situation is also not very rosy; if we lose, we are burnt, the lice will eat us.
Vana: You cannot lose with this party.
Vava: If only the electorate will hear you!
Adişor: Damn those people! I am so angry that we cannot it without them!
Vana: You are, but only for a day.
Scene III
(The living room of the Ticu family. Uma, Elvis, and Ticu)

Uma: Relax! (tries to read)
(Elvis bugs her by pulling her hair).
Uma: Kid, it hurts!
Elvis: Hults?
Uma: Of course it hurts. Look! (She pulls his hair)
Elvis. Hults! My Uma!
Ticu (who is reading the paper): Shut up brats!
Uma: You have such a foul mouth. Grandpa, weren’t you the chief mechanic?
Elvis: Ttu noo.
Ticu: The little shrew is squeezing information. What do you think I was?
Uma: I could only presume...
Elvis: Ticu stoarey want.
Ticu: If I were in charge of your education, I would turn you into lambs in only a few days. Too much freedom. Two terrorists with opinions, this is what you are.
Uma: ...that you were in touch with something bad. In the street you are kind, nice, but here in the house you behave like a monster.
Elvis: Ticu, ba-bau.
Ticu (changing his voice): Let me read to these angels about uncle Adişor’s party!
Elvis (takes his paper): I reads.
Uma: Better a story.
Ticu: Nonsense, I prepare you for the real life, stories are for losers. Listen to this amazing news. (He reads). The organizations are working hard all over the territory. (Pause. He talks to the children). I can believe that. My Adişor works like a convict. He is so tired! He sleeps all the time. (Reads). But our members’ effort will be rewarded! Once we win the elections, we will reward them. For each of you we will find something. That is a slogan! Let me write it for Adişor. We will reward you! For each of you we will find something!
(Elvis grabs the paper where Ticu has written down the slogan and he tears it apart)
Ticu (yells): Oh, help, terrorists!! These little brats are destroying my research work!
(Tica enters)
Tica: What are you yelling for, dear? You gave me such a scare!!
(Uma and Elvis leave laughing)
Tica: Tica dear, these children hate us. So much fierceness I have not felt since the revolution. And when you think how many sacrifices we make in order to raise them!
Tica: They are still young, you worry too much.
Ticu: They start being dissidents since they are young. We either take radical measures or we can kiss goodbye our pension. These young ones have it in them to cut it.
Tica: Our grandchildren won’t cut anything.
Ticu: These little informants, with their knowledge in computers, can take everything from us. (Runs to the bath and urinates).
Tica: I told you, you are not allowed to say some words to them, they make you sick.

Dream No. 1

Gicu: Flower ?
Floarea: I wander in this white emptiness and countless days have already gone by. How can you reach Him? Can you see any entrance, Gicu?
Gicu: How can you reach Him? You are not expected by Him, and my name is Rascolnicov.
Floarea: I am wandering and my heart and legs hurt... Is Rascolnicov a name from our region?
Gicu: They were severed by the train under which you threw yourself. (He discovers he has an ax in his hand).
Floarea: I became astray from my people, I lost the path.
Gicu: You chose that train. You are far away from home.
Floarea: Help me get to Him and I will forget about the train. Do you have the key?
Gicu: Forget it as well as your life, the children, the people on the street, me... For me you were someone familiar with whom I was glad to share the sun, mornings, you were from that fragment of time dedicated to us.
Floarea: I am still here caught in this forest like a deer. Help me pass onto the other side, over that river.
Gicu (hitting her with the ax): You are free now, go where you want! And me... (he looks perplex, runs disoriented through the forest. He sees Gica and tries to control his breathing).
Gica: You were running?
Gicu: No, I was not running.
Gica: You were running and you are scared.
Gicu: Scared? (surprised).
Gica (with a scared voice): You are full of blood and you are holding an axe in your hands. Gicu, you have an axe full of blood in your right hand.
Gicu: The axe is from this forest, it was put into my hand.
Gica: Your face, your hands, your white shirt are all full of red dots. They seem to be blood.
Gicu: Maybe I killed Flower; she was begging me to help her cross.
Gica: Poor Flower, who wanted to kill herself, she died a few months ago.
Gicu: Between the birches...she was walking scared and disoriented...look at her, now she is on the ground among the leaves!
(looks over his shoulder, the forest is quiet, no sign).
Gica: You are hurt, drop the axe and show me your hands!
Gicu (hits her with the axe): You could have been honest. Leave the axe and show me your hands, and off to the first police station... traitor! (terrified) Did I kill you? Killer in the name of humankind’s mistrust. (Hides the axe and the body with leaves and runs. Ticu, an evil spirit of the forest, shows up in front of him. Gicu stops in front of him and falls on his knees). Help me, forgive me!
Ticu: Do not run, there is no reason to run!
Gicu: I killed twice; the first time out of the desire to help a poor soul and then out of fear and lack of trust.
Ticu: I killed out of hatred, I forgot their number, but where are the traces of my actions?
Gicu (looking at his hands): My white shirt, my cheeks are covered by small drops of blood. (He looks at himself, no trance).
Ticu: Turn back, man, follow this road on which you came!
Gicu: But I cannot live with this sin, I must confess!
Ticu: It is just in your mind, go back!
Gicu: How did you get here?
Ticu: Who knows? I was a happy child, a happy old man, but things happened in my youth for which some people believe I have to be accountable.
Gicu: I cannot live with this sin, I must confess!
Ticu: I cannot die, it is in your mind! Come back!

Scene IV
(Tica, Gicu, Gica are in the kitchen. Gicu washes his hands in the sink, angry and desperate).

Tica: Gicu, the water! Can’t you see the sink is empty? (Leaves).
Gica: You really want us to fight daily! Tell me that you did not do it on purpose!
Gicu (absent minded): What?
Gica: You forget who pays the water here. And this killer’s look! Sometimes I wonder if you would not be able to kill.
Gicu: Me?
Gica: Before you were affectionate, always caring. These people, and how they are because of their dirty past, all these hold us back.
Gicu (looking at his hands): Dirty?
Gica: I am afraid of them! At one time they seemed irreplaceable on my body. Now I see them as weapons. They live in the proximity of a destructive arsenal, poor defenseless woman. Someone could believe that I am a monster. You do so few things well; at least, Adişor took up politics. For a few years now, you have not moved from the sink.
Gicu: Something troubling happened to me. There is no connection, I dreamt it.
Gica: You dreamt! Can you dream? My work and their pension keep you in an ivory tower. We are talking about life here, something real, respect for the other, my effort, my feelings, my years, tens of hours, tens of hours while I had to lay, and you are just taking advantage, you selfish man, you treat me like I was the sink. You have been my only man for so long. You have betrayed my trust. You dream, while I struggle with life! What the hell, Gicu, do you think that what you are doing here is enough?
Gicu (confused): No
Gica: Of course not.
Gicu (exhausted): I believe...
Gica: Act like a man!
Gicu: I...
Gica: You.
Gicu: In that dream.
Gica: OK, tell me about it!
Gicu: I was doing...
Gica: A long time ago, nothing consistent.
Gicu: A deed...
Gica (interested).
Gicu: An apparently evil deed.
Gica: I am listening.
Gicu: I helped. I discovered that I was not as indifferent as I believed.
Gica: You helped?
Gicu: Yes, I helped.
Gica: You helped? ... Speak up, man!
Gicu: A being...
Gica: Some little fly that fell in the bubbly water.
Gicu: To come in... (Uma and Elvis come in with a few balloons, flags with the emblem of a party).
Uma: Mom, Dad, uncle Adişor won the elections!

Scene V
(The hallway of the Ticu family. Ticu, Tica, and Adişor)

Tica (crying): Where are you going, my darling?
Adişor: You have to understand, now that I have won, I cannot stay here all cramped up with you.
Ticu: Tica, shut up! The child is right! How do you want him to advance in politics if he lives in a cramped home? The little ones have taken all our air, they want to suffocate us. I told you we should be careful!
Tica: Do not forget us, Adişor!
Adişor (leaving abruptly): For this party I would burn Galați down!
Tica (behind him): Why Galați?
Ticu: Shut up, Tica! What do you know, woman? The opposition may be regrouping over there. Fucking scum! Our darling has a leader’s qualities; he will go to the top.
Tica: God bless my champion!! Has Gicu laid the table?
(On the street, in front of the Ticu family home, Ticu, Tica, Uma, Elvis, and Gicu, each at a window, they all watch Adişor pass by Vana without looking at her)
Vana: Adişor, honey! (She falls to his knees and embraces him. Adişor moves with difficulty).
Adişor: Move away, you bum, you evil beggar!
Vana: Have you forgotten where you started from? (She lifts her skirts). Look, this was the campaign staff, And poor Vava, my husband, he posted thousands of billboards for you and died by a fence, from exhaustion, like a dog, the bucket in his hand. The doctors had to break his fingers with a hammer, so tightly had they got glued to the handle. You made me a widow, Adişor! And you are calling me a bum? After all those grimy party people gave me all sorts of fungi! I brought you votes, Adişor. Do you know how many I squeezed in this little ballot box (she shows her behind)!
Adişor (moves forward, relentless): So that’s the problem! The votes from your ballot box were cancelled. Can’t you see the box unsealed? (Leaves laughing).
Vana: Adişor, my Paris!

Scene VI
(Gica and Gicu in the kitchen of the Ticu family)

Gica: You should go out.
Gicu: Leave for a while.
Gica: The kids?
Gicu: Just the two of us. Uma is strong.
Gica: I am late, we’ll talk about it. (Leaves).

Dream No. 2
(The bank of a dry river somewhere in the mountains of Japan. In the distance, rocky mountain tops and on a terrace the gates to a shintoist temple. A group of tourists made up of all the characters of the play. Gicu and Gica – a little behind, the others taking photos and commenting on the grandeur of the scenery).
Gicu: What if we stayed here forever?
Gica: Alone in this emptiness, among the cold and sharp rocks. That is a stupid idea!
Gicu: We would have each other and the place is so adequate for us to enjoy each other.
Gica: Feeding ourselves with mana and wild bee honey.
Gicu: I organized this trip because I felt that we had grown apart slipping away in different directions, minute by minute, alienating ourselves. We do not grow old together anymore; we have forgotten each other’s wishes. There in your parent’s house I was caught in a spider web giving up doing things for me, continuing the sisyphic work of the sink. I lift and release the faucet and this burden suffocates me.
Gica: We are missing the group; you have chosen a wrong day for this discussion. And a wrong place. Don’t you understand? I am tired.
Gica walks faster to catch the group and she gets lost in the distance.
Gicu: Breaking ourselves away here from the schizophrenia of this world, here if we listened to each other for a moment... (Notices that he is on his own). Hey, Gica, you, wait for me! (Runs and gets lost. After a while, tired and full of wounds, he get to the gates of the temple. Their grandeur, the passing of time creates the feeling that the gates haven’t been opened for hundreds of years. Gicu knocks long and hard several times, then the gates open. The audience needs to get the feeling that this movement of the gates contains life, that the gates move as the story grows. In front of the gate three monks come out caressing their long beards. Puzzled, Gicu does not know why he knocked. The three enter the temple relaxed, the gate closes behind them. Gicu makes an effort to say something). I am... (The three monks stop, the door also stops, long pause, awkward pause. The monks walk forward, the door moves. He precipitates): I will become a shintoist monk!... (The three monks stop, one turns his head looking at him blandly).
First monk: It’s not enough to want it. (The gates begin to close. The monk turns his head again towards Gicu) Why don’t you wash your face? It is luminous; it would be a good start.
Gicu (in front of the closed doors): A good start for what? I am nothing. (Action in the kitchen, Gicu washes his face in the sink, his gesture is desperate and grotesque): You see, I have a luminous face!
Gica (just entered the kitchen): Gicu, I was talking about the table cloth! You behave very strangely, we do not communicate anymore.

Scene VII
(Ticu, Gica, and then Tica)

Ticu: Get a divorce; he is no longer of any use! When we forced you to get married, it was for our benefit. His modest background made us look good in front of the comrades. That was my most important promotion.
Gica: I love him, but you and everyone else with you past took everything from him.
Ticu: Your children take only after him, they do have some genes!! I thought they had been removed 50 years ago. Someone did not do his job properly. Independence, I would call it impudence, and it will be paid for.
Gica: The children?
Ticu: Pay attention to what I am saying, maybe they have been recruited. But by who? I got along with everybody.
Gica: You are talking of such things!...
Ticu: And Gicu seems so absent. He is up to something. These dreams he has been flaunting around with at dinner.
Gica: Dad, I hope you did not retire.
Ticu: I did not say anything! If something happens, I have warned you.
Gica: What could happen? These are things that regard strictly the family.
Ticu: If only he talked to someone about the uniform or the costume, I am sure that being in the home, he saw them.
Gica: Uniform? What uniform?
Ticu: My uniform from the good old times, I still keep it. Maybe I...it will be needed.
Gica: Clothes, just simple clothes.
Ticu: Not as simple as you might think. I never got out some stains from the coat.
Gica: You say such childish things, wash them. There is water, sink. It is very easy, wash the stains!
Ticu: But are you sure that they will not be taken somewhere where they might be used against me?
Gica (laughing): A few small stains get lost automatically in the sea unless they are oil; those stains stay to the surface.
Ticu: I was not a mechanic.
Gica (leaving): Then what stains are we talking about? Didn’t you tell me you were the chief mechanic?
Tica enters bringing the coat.
Tica: A few stains, you say? From what period is this coat? (Turns the water on in the sink and washes the coat with anger).
Ticu: Shut up, Tica, and rub it! It is from my beginning, rub it well!
Tica: It is well soaked, blood clots come out, blood clots. If someone asks you, tell them that you were working in a slaughterhouse back then.
Ticu: With this uniform? Are you dumb? Do you want me to lose my pension? (Tica rubs with more anger, the sink overflows. Ticu takes the pump to clean the sink drain). Come on move along dirty water! This wretched sink is eating up the tranquility of our old days.
Tica: But that suit you used to wear in the 80’ how is it?
Ticu: I gained weight, it does not fit anymore. Also stained.
Tica: We can say that it is Gicu’s
Ticu: It is his! Did you forget that he wore it on his wedding night?
Tica: And what a fight the two of you had. You should not have told him Back then that your daughter was pregnant. (The phone rings. Tica answers.)
Adişor’s voice: Mother.
Tica: Adişor, darling, so much time has passed.
Adişor’s voice: Listen to me.
Tica: You should come home! We only see you on television.
Ticu: Tica, shut up! Leave the kid, he has something to say!
Adişor’s voice: They are doing some check-ups here, old stuff. These reporters stick their noses into people’s intimacy. If you know of anything that might be connected to the past...
Tica: Ticu and I worked for this country, be proud. (It disconnects)
Ticu (turns to Tica raising his hands aggressively, but he hugs her): Tica Tica, how cautious you are! Or you are not just a simple retiree?!

ACT II
Scene I
(Gicu and Gica)

Gica: You say that you dreamt and immediately after that blood clots appeared in the sink and nobody has been hurt in the house. Now, who is being, Gicu?
Gicu: I have used the pump, luckily that drain was only slightly stuck. Why can’t we be a family? Tica and Ticu get along.
Gica: They are connected, their past, even though sad... Let’s not talk about it.
Gicu: Two people sometime alright, hidden, bickering.
Gica: About some things they cannot talk, they would make us and the kids suffer. Do you think that someone can choose the family in which he is born? How good it would have been, my case would have closed on an abortion table.
Gicu: Is your past that dark?
Gica: Back in the day there were few options, everyone was on their own. Everyone who did not understand how perverse our free world was ended up waiting for it to come and save them.
Gicu: They ended up, but the things in which they believed are still alive.
Gica: They are alive while the people are dead. Those things alive as you call them or the sacred power of the truth, have no value without the people to keep them alive. Adişor, all the Adişor's, do you think they have anything to do with values? For them the past only contains bras and pink underwear, exotic places. Can’t you see the poverty we are struggling in?

Scene II
(House of the Ticu family. Vana and Ticu. Vana takes pictures of Ticu in slippers and robe).

Vana: May I? What a delicate situation! After the death of my husband I had to make it on my own.
Ticu: What a tragedy!
Vana: My boss at the newspaper insisted that I do this investigation.
Ticu: We are old friends, dear Vana. I and your father were volunteers in Spain. What a character he was. You know, here we had hard times.
Vana: Abandoned by everyone, the party found me a job. These accusations are gross, I know. Father told me, you were a good gentleman, then a good comrade and then a good gentleman again, a responsible father.
(Elvis runs across the stage with a coat on his head, Uma tries to catch him)
Elvis: Ticu spooky.
Uma: Put it back to soak.
Elvis (laughing): I kuup.
Vana: Darling children, beautiful uniform. Father also keeps it!
Ticu (innocent): Did you see? It is immaculate.
Vana: That’s not why I came. Recent events... I told them at the newspaper that you used to work. Should I write? You were a mechanic, right? Chief mechanic. What should you be doing on the streets?

Scene III

Ticu (reads the newspaper. Uma and Elvis play walking in and out of the living room): Listen how nicely they wrote about your grandfather in the newspaper, “People and time”, an article by Vana Petre. "Ticu Panait has crossed almost a century, and the deeds he is remembered for are full of humanity. From the start to the grand change he was a gentleman and then a devoted comrade. Since the latest change to this day when I am writing these lines, Mr. Ticu has been living his quite retiree’s life, assisting his children because his income allows him to do this. Adişor Panait is the son of this model man and even though his political success has pulled him away from the essence of the electorate that supported him, we, the civil society remind Mr. Adişor that he has a father to be proud of, and he should not forget us” (to the children) Good girl, and you, little brats, you did not get away with your coat scheme.
(Tica enters).
Tica: Call a plumber.
Ticu: The pipes need to be changed, the sink has overflown. Gica says that the entire kitchen was full of blood clots. What does this matter to us?
Tica: If only I could lie down one day, fall asleep, and the next day wake up and forget about it.
Ticu: Foolish things.
Tica: I cannot forget the look on Flower’s face that morning when she told me, “Tica, can you sleep well?” I ..., ”it’s been years since I prayed God every night to forgive us.”
Ticu: Why do you utter his name? Traitor! She had a good husband who did his duty, like all the people on our street, this neighborhood of honorable people.
Tica: I told her, “God will forgive us too, Flower! He has been forgiving people like us for hundreds of years. Can’t you see we are prospering? Times are good for us. If he were angry, we would die of hunger.” But she said no, she was full of the pain for all those dead whom she remembers, some of them, and they were good people, and their death was stupid. She said, „We buried our mind in the ground that is why one day God will take everything away from us.” Then she said that someone had to pay.
Ticu: You are driving me crazy, woman! And who should pay?
Tica: She whispered her own name while turning on the street that leads to the railroad.
Ticu: She should go to hell! They should all go to hell! I am crystal clean; I do not consider myself guilty.
Tica: You have no shame; this woman did it for us as well.

Scene IV
(Ticu family in front of the TV, Adişor reads a speech.)
Adişor: From my parents I have learned to respect the values of this country. The past with the past, the present with the present. I mean that we have to build the future without resentment. Some suffered, others did not. The present does not matter too much, the important thing is to understand that tomorrow we will still be here to maintain the balance.
Tica: (with maternal love): The apple of mother’s eye.
Uma: A bit funny, isn’t he?
Gicu: The past, but nothing has been discussed about it yet.
Ticu: Empty words, anyway you only care about the sink.
Gica: Should we lay the table?
Elvis (brings his hands together in the shape of a roof): Home, home. But you cannot cone in, you are tloo big. Adişor caaan.
Ticu: What is he saying?
Tica: He keeps hassling my darling Adi.

Scene V
(The phone rings long, Tica answers)

Tica: Hello, yes!
Adişor’s voice: Mother Tica?
Tica: What is it, darling? Your voice...
Adişor’s voice: Leave that! In the pantry, under the shelves with marmalade jars, there are some powders.
Tica: What powders, darling? I dusted there.
Adişor’s voice: Can you listen, old cow?
Tica: Darling, are you calling me old and a cow?
Adişor’s voice: Listen to me, you throw them away in the sink immediately and turn on the water tap, leave lots of water fall over them! That wretched Vana turned me in to the police. The funds for my next campaign have gone.
Tica: Relax darling, you made it so big, you cannot be responsible for all the dust in all honorable people’s houses.
Adişor’s voice: I am hanging up; I am going into a meeting.
(Tica throws a few powder packs in the sink and turns on the water, she leaves the kitchen. The powders clog the drains, the floor fills with filth, and the sink massively overflows. Gicu comes in with the pump to unclog the drain. Exhausted, he does not succeed in unclogging it).

Dream No. 3

Gicu (above Germany, a Nazi officer in a fighter plane shooting with the machine gun. In his headset he can clearly hear his superior’s order): „You head towards the last survivors, exterminate them, destroy them! That is my last order!” (A shot can be heard. A green field, tables with beer, a German garden party. An accordion can be heard, its tune is covered from time to time by the machine-gun fires. All the characters of the play, dressed in white or black, lie on the tables in different positions. Gicu watches everything very intent. On the entire field there is only one man left alive who drinks a pint of beer, very relaxed. Gicu aims at the white shirt, very intent. From a small dot the blood spreads into a large stain which covers his entire back. That man turns his head. Gicu recognizes himself). Me? (In the distance on the field, Uma and Elvis run with butterfly nets in their hands.)

Scene VI

Gicu (in the kitchen, looking out of the window at the quiet street): Uma is strong, growing up, she will manage Elvis. Gica may have loved me. These people... I am not like them. Or am I? To leave just like that. When you want to separate, you just do it and that is it. You do not leave anything written, you do not take anything. I had enough, I want to leave. I will go out like this, in a pullover, taking the garbage away. I can avoid all curious questions. I slowly go away from the house, then I walk faster, getting lost while running, alone, in the direction opposite to the railroad, if a neighbor may see me. Ever since the tragedy with Flower, everybody asks, „ But, do you have anything to do by the railroad?” I would run an hour maybe two. I do not think I could make it more than two. To be, at least, 15 km away. If you think how distances are covered nowadays, it is nothing. By plane, you are in Paris in two hours. In order to fly, I need clothes, papers, money. Where the hell can you go nowadays without money? And I haven’t been to the airport in years, what if it has moved? And I have to cross the downtown area. Gica said she worked there. Meeting her in the city, like this, only in slippers and with the apron, I would scare her for sure. I still love her. (Looks at the watch). It is late; I have not finish washing up the dishes.

Scene VII
Tica (enters followed by Ticu): In shit, up to our necks.
Ticu: It may be, I cannot say no, but this is not entirely ours, I do not recognize it.
Tica: It is in plain sight. Luckily, Vana withdrew her complaint.
Ticu: A man of honor would propose to her.
Tica: What a good wife!
Ticu: Not everything that is here, is from out sink. Gicuțule, Gicuțule.
Tica: Gicuțule, Gicuțule, we took you from the streets.
Ticu: How he wanted to turn us in. He must have done something at the pipes, for sure. I myself was here when they were installed. They are broad, they do not get stuck with small things.
Tica: Between us, it wasn’t just small things. It’s been a few decades since then.
Ticu: Little traitor. This is no time for conflicts; we have an engagement to organize.

Scene VIII
(Uma and Gicu in the kitchen)

Uma: Father, what about all this filth in the house?
Gicu (clearly troubled by the dream): We are all here to blame..., collective responsibility. (He tries to unclog the drain with the pump).
Uma: I was talking about what came out of the sink.
Gicu: Someone clogged it. It is better like this, you grow up. Sometimes we, the adults, refuse to be against. By converting ourselves, we help evil, misery, fear. In the proximity of crime, one becomes the executioner.
Uma: Are we talking about the same things? I only see here domestic waste.
Gicu: Only now can you begin to see.

Scene IX
(The Ticu family living room transformed into a huge sink where the table is laid. Adişor’s engagement is celebrated. Everyone is dressed in black and white. The living room-sink will be covered with a huge cloth which will be removed only at the end of the play).
Gicu (comes from the kitchen where he tried to unclog the drain with the pump): Do you think that this poor sink will be able to swallow all this filth?
Tica: What filth dear? We are celebrating with my darling. Vana has just withdrawn her complaint.
Adişor: She has withdrawn it, but she will be my wife (grins).
Vana: Out of love I did what I did and for our party I sacrifice myself.
Ticu: Good girl, that is devotion (Congratulates Adişor). We have been eating, my friends, ever since the sink overflew. have no more appetite. (To Adişor). Now that you have returned to the family, help your brother-in-law.
Tica: He has too higher ideals, work for others, politics. These are not to the gentleman’s taste.
Gica: Mother, shall we eat? We were supposed to celebrate today.
Ticu: I propose a toast. Even though because of human error, (looks unhappy at Gicu) this moment has been shadowed. Our home is pure, crystal pure (Tica cries).
(In the kitchen, Uma and Elvis)
Uma: It won’t stop, it is clogged and it won’t stop.
Elvis: It stinks.
Uma: I can also feel the stink, they have their nostrils blocked. I have seen a documentary „The Little Plumber”, we need a small wire. Where is your little red car? (She takes the wire from the car’s remote control). You introduce a wire into the drain and you move it up and down until the pipe is unclogged.
Elvis: Vroom – vroom.
Uma: Forget about the race, my dear, let’s unclog the drain!
(in the drawing room)
Gicu: In the third dream...
Tica: Here he goes again with his dreams.
Gicu: There was a scene similar to this one. You were dressed the same, it just that there were more tables in a field and the children were missing at the beginning.
Gica: Where are they?
Ticu: These little terrorists are playing in the kitchen. They are ok where they are.
Adişor: Cool. Have you seen how cool the car from the party is?
Vana: Our car! Poor Vava, he really liked the expensive brands when he saw them on the road.
Ticu: Let’s drink to him, what a hero!
Tica: That dream, was it a bad one? (One can hear load racking, some wire rubbing inside a drain).
Ticu: Gicu, can’t you go and see what all this racking is about? The children ... I do not have trust them at all...
Tica: Gicu, why aren’t they at the table (The noise increases) Tell us about the dream!
Gicu: What else is there to say? We are all dirty. I want to leave. It was about how we shall tear one another.
Adişor: Do you know what a black hole is? All the European states have joined forces to create a small one.
Ticu: A black hole in Europe! That is an accomplishment. Only communism... (A loud hissing noise can be heard, everyone is drained into the sink. Gicu manages to hold on to the edge of the sink, Adişor holds on tight to his legs).
Gica’s voice: Where are you going? And me, the children?
Tica’s voice: Don’t let him go, my darling, pull him up as well!
Ticu’s voice: You locked us in here, you damn brats! Pull him up, Adişor, that darn plotter; we are all stained, collective blame!
Gica’s voice: You would not do that. After all, we are a family, tormented, and scared. Let go, show them that you are a good husband!
Vana’s voice: Pull him up. He’s ruined everything. My third bride’s cake.
Adişor’s voice: I only knew about Vava.
Vana’s voice: I only cheated on you with the party.
(Gicu let’s go, voices can be heard in the distance)
Ticu’s voice: How much filth! It cannot be all ours. I am sure that these pipes are used by someone else as well.
(Uma and Elvis enter the living room laughing)
Uma: I have unclogged it. Did you see how everything went all the way down ? (Amazed, amused). They are in a mood for jokes, they are playing hide and seek and the house is full of filth!
Elvis: Creaning!
Uma: You want us to clean up? Where should we begin?
Elvis (makes some grotesque, comical gestures, then he brings his hands together): Hose, you small, you enter hose first.
Uma: Where?
The End.

Translation Madalina Cadariu