The Luster of Stars in Moscow
⁇ 7
"I wouldn't complain if the boy was really as talented as Rafael said" Demian Ivanov told Sesha Montrosecova.
Demian Ivanov was a burly man carrying a cup of hot drink in the administration room on the first day that Cheri arrived in Moscow. And Sesha Montrosecova was the girl who replaced Mikail's duties as long as the man went to St Petersburg.
The two men were standing near the entrance of the training room watching Cheri who was stretching near the railing.
"She's very pretty" Demian said. "That factor could attract the public's attention."
"I hope so too" Sesha responded. "If not other young and beautiful girls would feel envious." He added while straddling. But his gaze remained focused on Cheri.
Cheri raised his leg up, straightening it until it formed a vertical line.
Some of the girls warming up nearby gasped at him.
"Surely he is much more pliable than us" commented a girl who had just entered the practice room and eavesdropped on Sesha and Demian's conversation.
"Well, yeah!" A man behind her chimed in. "I love her gym clothes!"
Cheri was actually wearing ballet clothes without ballet. Only the top of his body was covered in a thin, wide-collared sweater.
The girl who had just entered approached him. "Hi, Cherie!" sapana.
"Hi" replied Cheri, lowering his leg.
The other girls started to join behind the girl who greeted Cheri earlier.
"Eh, Cherie! Are you really living with Rafael?" One of the girls asked frankly.
Cheri removed his grip from the railing and turned to them with squashed eyes.
The crowd of girls is growing now.
"I.." Cheri answered hesitantly. "I was just hitchhiking for a while until I found an apartment that was close to the school and also the theater" she explained.
"Didn't you say you didn't want to play theater?" The first girl to greet him began to interrogate him. "Have you changed your mind now?"
"Rafael asked me to come here to see the rehearsal if I wasn't on schedule at school" she replied.
"You're a ballet whiz, huh?" Ask the other enthusiastic girl. "How many years have you studied ballet?"
"Fourteen years," replied Cheri.
"Well! It's great!" And another girl.
"But.." the girl who first greeted him interrupted. "For a person who has studied ballet for a long time, his skills in ballet will be a weakness when he enters the world of theatre."
What say?
Ballet will be a weakness?
Cheri did not reply, feeling stung by the girl's words.
The training room was suddenly rowdy.
"Rafael's coming!" Someone screamed as they left the crowd.
The crowd immediately broke down. The girls were going here and there.
Some pretend to be busy warming up, some pretend they just finished warming up and exhausted.
The girl who first greeted Cheri bowed pretending to fix his shoelaces.
Rafael burst into the room with Mikail. The two men passed by Cheri just like that and neither of them turned their heads or greeted him.
They ignored me, Cheri thought feeling devastated.
While everyone began to crowd in the middle of the room forming a circle, Cheri remained standing still in his place while watching the two familiar men with hurtful expressions.
Rafael pulls the only bench, then sits in front of the only table in the middle of the room. Mikail stood not far beside him, while everyone kept their distance, forming a circle around them.
"Today we will start from the first half" Rafael said, laying down a stack of scripts and setting up headphones.
Until now Cheri still does not know, what exactly the use of the headphones.
Rafael distributed the script on his desk to several people. "You'll keep repeating it until I tell him to stop. So…"
"Excuse me!" Someone interrupted. "Katia's not coming today."
"Again?" Rafael groans. "What the hell is he working on?" his gerrick. He let out a short sigh and looked at the script in his hand while thinking hard. "Then, for a while the cast of Jessifer would be replaced.." Rafael hung up his sentence and looked around, combing through the crowd with a sharp looking gaze, like someone on the hunt, and looked at the crowd, but what hunt is he looking for? Cheri curious.
Then, quietly and without warning, the man suddenly looked at her, and Cheri found himself just frozen under the man's gaze.
Cheri couldn't move, barely even breathing.
Being under the sharp observation of the man, made Cheri feel trembling by his sensual glare.
From across the room, the man's warmth seemed to envelop him. Then a faint mischievous smile fell on the corner of her lips, "You're going to play Jessifer," she told Cheri and she felt her knees suddenly wobbly.
All eyes in the room were now on Cheri.
A man rushed towards her and pulled Cheri into the middle of the room. The man once passed Cheri in the corridor as he handed Mikail the letters. His name is Saul Evanskov.
"I've never played theater at all" Cheri admitted.
"Don't worry," Rafael said as he thrust the script in his hand at Cheri. "No one expects you to act well! Just read the dialogue and move to and fro at my command like a wooden doll."
The deg!
Cheri swallowed. He loves to quip, his mind is sour.
Everyone looked at Cheri enthusiastically. Makes Cheri feel like an alien. A strange creature that makes people curious.
"Come, start!" Rafael gave instructions. "Put the marionette in the middle!"
A twenty-year-old man stepped forward and placed a marionette in the middle of the crowd circle.
Cheri read the title on the cover of the script in his hand.
MARIONETTES.
Screenplay by: Rafael Moscovich
A red full moon is burning in the night sky.
Silent!
Suddenly…
Sound effect: The rumbling sound followed by an explosion.
Slowly the spotligh lamp highlights the marionette.
Marionette: "Where is this? Why am I asleep?"
Sound effect: the sound of wood crimping.
Marionette: "My body can't move. I'm scared!"
Sound effect: tense music.
Marionette: "Oh, my plane crashed on an uncivilized planet—B-29 (earth)."
"Marionette in this story is an extraterrestrial being who fell to earth," someone's voice made Cheri aghast.
Mikail knew already standing next to him.
"Marionette is the source of the chaos that surrounds all extraterrestrials with superpowers" Mikail added.
Did Rafael tell me to act as an extraterrestrial? Cheri wondered in his heart, then stole a glance towards the man.
"Jessifer's out with the others!" rafael's orders.
Cherry did not react.
Rafael turned to Cheri and rebuked him. "Jessifers!"
Cheri. Oho! That means me, huh?
"There is no need to force yourself to play well" Mikail cheered as she placed her palm on Cheri's shoulder. "Just speak your lines clearly and out loud!"
"Very loud earlier," the first male-figure dialogue-played by Saul Evanskov.
"I think it came from this place" said the other man.
"I also saw a very bright light hurtling towards the earth" said the other man.
"Jessifers!" one of the three men in front of him shouted.
Cheri is still trying to learn the script.
Well, there's something in there. ah, there's something in there!
Can't not, huh?
"JESSIFER!" Rafael rebuked him again.
Cheri uttered his first dialogue with a bit of nervousness. "Ah, there's something... there!"
"Pointer with your hand!" rafael's orders.
"ah! There's something in there!" cheri shouted a little too excited.
Mikail chuckled in the audience.
"You just go!" dialogue played by Saul. "I'm not feeling well. My vision suddenly blurred and darkened. I can't see anything!"
"I'm coming!" dialogue Cherry. "Today I'm not afraid of anything…"
The whole room listened to Cheri and watched him.
"Materi X will fall" continued Cheri. "But I'm not worried that there will be a lot of corpses lying around, because." Cheri hung up his sentence realizing that everyone was watching.
Cheri swallowed his saliva and tried to focus his concentration. "As I looked at the vast sky." Cheri looked up. "I see shooting stars flickering."
The skies…
The star…
Cheri catapulted his imagination and managed to portray something in his mind.
The sky is strewn with stars!
"I've made my plea three times" he said solemnly. "It will surely come true! Something good is about to happen!"
The whole room was suddenly quiet.
Everyone held their breaths and stared at him without blinking.
Rafael gasps.
"So, for a moment it felt like I was looking at the stars" whispered someone.
"Sama" whispered the other.
Cheri looked around and turned to Rafael.
Rafael linked the fingers in front of his mouth with a smile.
Rafael smile?
Chery surprised.
The man glanced at him. His pair of blue eyes sparkled happily.
He smiled at me! Cheri.
