Vyhľadávanie
The home and surgery of a vet provide the setting for a narrative of tragic and joyous situations in which people act like animals and animals like people. Mankind takes from the animal kingdom only the worst, the most predatory. If the animals try to be like humans, they become as unbearable as people are, whom the vet has longed since ceased to understand. A typical example is a man and wife team of terrorists - wolves who are trying to resemble people. They are aggressive, greedy, and incapable of rational thought. The vet escapes from his dysfunctional family into his surgery, into the kingdom of animals. He replaces the breakdown in communication in the family - his wife, the rebellious daughter and the workaholic son - with communication with his patients, a cow and an elephant. The animal world is closer to him that the human. He finds the life of humans superficial, deceitful and that, as his son puts it, the important thing is not the sense but the taking-part. Many creatures resemble humans, but only few of them are humans. The vet has come to understand only animals; he has empathy with them as they with him. In their world he finds understanding, kindness and variety. People are all much of a muchness.
7)
Nurse, Cow and Vet
Nurse (into the phone): Hi. Who do you think? Oh, so, we don’t know, do we? Well,
let’s have a guess.
Cow: Here I am again, doctor.
Vet: Good morning.
Cow: I’m so sick and stirred that I forgot to say good morning.
Nurse (into the phone): You’ve forgotten your watch at my place. (She takes a
men’s watch out of the drawer.) Here it is. It showed three o’clock then. (Shows
it.) The hands were like this, they’re quite different now.
Cow: My bladder’s become a problem. The joints are even worse. Just watch the
way I walk (she walks up and down the consulting room). Can this possibly be
the gait of a domestic cow?
Vet: It’s your age.
Nurse (into the phone): You’ve really cleaned out my fridge.
Cow: The calves are laughing at me. The bulls, too. I’ve tried out a mighty lot of
things. Now it’s your turn to give it a try.
Vet (looking into the Cow’s chart): Is your ruminating O.K.?
Cow: My stool’s also normal.
Nurse (into the phone): Don’t even say it as a joke. I wasn’t born yesterday. I know
what does it. You’re dead wrong, buddy.
Vet (puts the chart away): Lie down, let’s have a look at it. Curl your tail under
you, please.
Cow (lays down painfully): I’m no heifer any more, doctor. My dreams, too, are less
about sex and more about death.
Nurse (into the phone): You should’ve made your mind up somewhat earlier. Come
on. You telling me all this now, it’s easy to talk about it after a miserable night.
You should’ve seen yourself.
Nurse (into the phone): I’ve got to go.
Cow: The horns, too. They’re more of a decoration than use.
Vet (examining the Cow on the bed): Mrs. Daisy, pleasures change into utilities over
the years, utilities into a purpose, and then it’s all nothing but a document. In this
respect, there’s hardly any difference between men and animals.
Nurse (into the phone): I’ve told you, I’ve got to go. Don’t forget to ring three times,
otherwise even a password won’t make me open, idiot, you. Before you ring, have
a good look around. I’ve got to go.
Cow: It hurts a mighty lot here. And when it’s heavily overcast, it’s a regular
disaster. Don’t tell me it’s rheumatism, doctor. You’ve told me that already.
Vet: Were you not a cow, I’d suggest treatment at a spa. Unfortunately, you’l I have
to look for mud elsewhere.
Nurse (into the phone): Don’t bring that. It’s only you drinking it. Bring something that
everybody drinks. Better not bring anything, otherwise we’d only be drinking.
Cow: What’s so special about milk? It’s even white. Water’s fine, it’s liquid. But milk?
Vet: I don’t drink milk. Once I had a terrible stomach ache from it. I said to myself,
once is enough.
Nurse (into the phone): We’ll call her from my place, she’s good fun. There she’d be
sitting quietly, without having the slightest idea what’s going on while the rest
have a good laugh.
Vet: Sometimes, I find myself talking a load of bull, doctor.
Vet: That’s O.K. After all, you are a cow.
Nurse (into the phone): Up to here... I was stripped up to here. You should’ve heard
those nuts yelling: More, more, we’ve lots of time.
Cow (gets up from the bed): I can’t enter a beauty contest, no doubt about that. I’d
be hardly placed third. I’ve got to live with that, I guess.
Vet (pats the Cow): One never knows. Sometimes, even a lot more that one never
knows. Excuse me.
Cow: Your fingers are trembling, doctor. Are you cold? Or is it that you’re waiting for
a good piece of news?
Vet (embracing the Cow gently): It isn’t much of a deal back home. First each of
them and then the whole bunch got on my nerves. The only thing I’m looking
forward to at night is the morning. And then there’s only my consulting room and
my animal patients. You’re the ones I look most forward to. That characteristic
breath and smell of yours, your hair and sweat, your hooves, tails, horns, necks,
and mane.
Cow (stroking the Vet): Come on, don’t cry. Who’s hurt you so badly? I’ll stand up for
you. I personally have confidence in you even in difficult times.
Nurse (into the phone): It looked like a paper bag at a distance. Then like creased
overalls. Imagine, it turned out to be an old and yellow newspaper with a dead cat
underneath it. It was half five, I reckon.
Vet (sobbingly to the Cow): I don’t understand them. What’s even worse, Mrs. Daisy,
I don’t want to understand them. Why isn’t there a little more of the animal in
men, I wonder? Why? Believe me, it would make them more human.
Cow: The grass grows low, the sky is high - is truth in between? Hard to say. We
mused over it the other day at the cowshed. But a hundred cows, a hundred
views.
Nurse (into the phone): I put on something blue with something red. It looked
good against the white. But he got it all off me and said: „There goes our Czecho-
Slovak flag.“ The idiot.
Vet (nostalgically and affectionately): Being with you makes me feel so good. Don’t
go yet, please...
Cow: There’s more of a man than doctor in you now, I reckon.
Vet: Did you know what the nicest question was? Silence.
Nurse (into the phone): Bring three. Or five. Yes, five. No more. I said five, is that
clear?
Cow (takes out her glasses, looks at packs of pills. Takes out a pill and places it on
her palm): So mud would be the best, is that what you’re saying, doctor...
Vet: It also might be something else. But what, I can’t tell.
Cow (throws the pill into her mouth and chews it): Let me try this sweet.
Vet: It shouldn’t do you any harm.
Cow: Quite good. Especially for someone without teeth.
Nurse (into the phone): I’ve got to go. Just when you should be getting started.
Hangs up.)
Cow: I shouldn’t remember that much. Dying would be easier. For instance, that day
in August: the storm was so near and the village so far. And no solution at hand.
One farmer took shelter under a trailer and the other under me. It was rumbling
outside and he had nothing to do. So he took me by the thing that helps to meet
the milking targets.
Vet (still nostalgic and lost in dreams): Men, oh, men.
Cow: I hit him without notification in a spot where reminiscences are most painful...
and here I am with reminiscences worth a long talk...
(The Nurse tunes in a small radio in the consulting room, a naive waltz is heard. The Vet dances with the Cow, the Nurse talks to someone over the phone saying intimacies into it. The Elephant takes out yet another magazine from his briefcase, then official papers, a laptop and sets to work. We keep listening to a nice song from the radio, as if a solo played especially for the Cow and the Vet).
8)
Ivana (storms into the consulting room, addresses her Father who is not willing to listen since he’s having a great time. Hence, she talks to herself: They’ll be also coming to you. But you’ll have to lie. You’ll tell them I was at home at that particular time. That I was developing prints. Fixing fuses. Extinguishing a fire. Tearing out dedications from books. Playing with myself like with a doll. Or better tell them> „She was at home, and she was sleeping alone - just imagine, alone. The whole family watched her with anxiety. Only twice did she wake up, I remember that exactly.“ Or better tell them: „She laid her hand on the kitchen table and she was tracing it with a pencil the whole day long.“ Or tell them: „She took a bath in her winter clothes, laughing like crazy, and then her teeth chattered till late at night.“ Just tell them something. You’ll have to tell a lie of some sort. They’ll be telling you all kinds of nonsense but don’t be taken in. That I’ve been with guys doing things. Father, some things can never be true. And the rest may be just a sad story about your daughter... They’ll be informed. But you say to yourself: „I’ve always detested uniforms and brase bands.“ That moment you’ll be hating the men in uniforms deep from your heart and you’ll quit thinking about thousands of things, instead, you’ll be thinking about one thing only: how to avoid getting me behind bars, how to be lying successfully and not have truth be the most important thing in the world. To have your daughter be the most important thing. I hate that disgusting school at which you passed your G.C.E. once and where I don’t want to pass mine. Since I want something quite different. I don’t want to know what. But I want it real fast with everything that goes with it. I want it, understand, I want it.
(Rushes out of the consulting room, the waltz reaches its climax. The Vet bows deeply in front of the Cow and thanks her for the nice dance. The Nurse finishes off her phone call, opens two bottles of beer and pours it into three glasses. Meanwhile, the telephone is ringing but no one’s willing to take it off the hook since everybody is having such a good time. The telephone keeps ringing for a long time and they all are enjoying themselves longer than just a short while. The dialogue continues after the phone rings for the last time.)
9)
Nurse, Cow, Vet
Nurse (looking at the Cow’s chart): What am I to write in, doctor?
Vet: Nothing for the time being, Nurse. Mrs. Daisy’s fine, more or less. Actually,
she’s fit.
Cow: You’re a great dancer, you’ve got that really great cow’s dancing gait.
Vet: I was at a loss in the beginning: where was I to hold you? Here or better there?
Nurse (bites into an apple): I’ve such a strange feeling sometimes, as if you quite
naturally understood animals, doctor. They moo, bleat, whinny, baa, and you
seem to know where the problem is. You must have your secrets.
Cow (into the Vet’s ear): Is there anything else you might know, doctor?
Vet: Nothing, as usual. Or nearly nothing which isn’t much more than nothing. Has
anyone been calling me, Nurse?
Nurse: Not for the time being.
Cow: I was scared a little. He’d find something, and that never makes a cow cheerful.
In most cases you doctors are quite miserable at not finding anything in an
animal.
Vet: You’d better be happy.
Nurse: Actually, a White Swan’s been calling. She still hasn’t started. And a Dog’s
been inquiring about the weather. Nothing special.
Cow: I don’t like bad news.
Vet: Sometimes bad news is better than no news.
Nurse: The phone mustn’t be working, one can communicate one way only.
Cow: Actually, I don’t like good news, either. Usually, bad news follows, and I rather
prefer no news at all. The news is over.
Nurse: When did you learn to understand animals, doctor? You needn’t answer right
away if you don’t feel like it.
Vet: Why not? When I lived with men. When I stopped understanding them. When I
started detesting them real bad one day. I remember that happy moment well.
Cow (puts on her coat, the Vet helps her into it): So I should be lying around in the
mud, is that what you’re saying, doctor...
Vet: In your own, in the worst case.
Cow: Actually, I could’ve prescribed that myself. But it has an official value from you.
Farewell. (Peeps out of the window). It’s grown quite dark. Hope, no bull will jump
at me: it’s in nowadays.
Nurse (looks at her sighing): What a beauty, that cow.
Vet: Lucky, her. But what about us?
Nurse (smiling at the Vet): About us?
(The Nurse laughs wildly and turns the radio to its full volume. It’s broadcasting the news, followed by a local commercial and brass band music. With an animal - like laughter, the Nurse flings herself on the Vet as if wanting to test on his body whether anything human was alien to him. Of course, the telephone keeps ringing and no one takes it off the hook. For a while, the Vet manages to escape from the Nurse but eventually there’s nowhere for him to escape and there he stands, terrified and wondering. Roman, the Vet’s son, enters the consulting room. His Father wants to listen to him in good will but the Vet’s nurse prevents him from doing so very energetically. The sound of a local brass band fills the stage and the auditorium.)
Translated by Mária Švecová
