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KATYA (slowly): Mama you can trust me… But, Mama, your identification book must have said that you were the daughter of a priest?

MOTHER: I burned my papers. I got a new identification book. I changed my origin and my past… With the new papers I could go to the university…

KATYA: I didn’t know about your identification… You didn’t tell Grandmother, that you burned it…

MOTHER: Of course not! I was afraid, that she would tell somebody… Now… you see why I’m afraid, and why I’m afraid for your future? Remember, our Grandfather was a teacher. Do you understand? He was a teacher…

KATYA: Yes!

MOTHER: Repeat!

KATYA: My Grandfather was a teacher…

MOTHER: Where was your Grandfather a teacher?

KATYA: I don’t know where he lived…

MOTHER: Good! And soon you will have to join the Komsomol. What will you say when they ask you if you believe in God?

KATYA (torn): I do not believe in God!

(Pause)

MOTHER: Correct…

KATYA: Mama, at school they teach us to honor Comrade Stalin who led us in the Great War against Germany. Should I also honor him who ordered my Grandfather shot?

MOTHER (holding Katya’s hand): You have to do what is expected… but always try to know yourself.

(Pause)

Now you see why we have to tell half truths?

KATYA: Yes, I have to… to survive… but Mama, what about God? Is it a sin to tell half truths?

MOTHER (hugging Katya): We call this telling… a “Saintly Lie.

THE END

THREE FRIENDS

CAST:

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

SCENE:

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: (wakes up and throws the clothes back onto the floor). Why did you throw these things on me? I’m a human being, and I’m tired. We’re in a free country. May I just be tired and have a nap? You know that I get up at 5 a.m. almost every day, and look, she throws clothes to wake me up.

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.