Isaac, Ostap's grandson

Stavl Zosimov

Isaac, Ostap's grandson

CHAPTER ONE

Adaptation of the novel "12 Chairs" by Ilf and Petrov. Russia, Chelyabinsk. Today.

Casino panorama. Holy Father Fyodor(45) is sitting at the card table in his cassock, with his sleeves rolled up to the elbows, and he is losing a large sum. The dealer DEALER continues the game.

DEALER

Your card is beat, Holy Father. Do we continue playing?

HOLY FATHER FYODOR

Yes. I'm betting on the cross. May God forgive me.

Holy Father Fyodor takes a gilded cross from his neck and puts it on the table. DEALER looks at the manager standing next to him. The manager nods his head vertically. DEALER begins to deal the cards. Holy Father Fyodor picks them up, looks at them with a frightened expression, and opens them. DEALER slowly takes one card from the deck and places it face up on top of the pop's cards.

DEALER

Your card is beaten again, Father Nshan.

DEALER takes the cross from the table and puts it in the drawer under the table.

DEALER (continuing)

Do we continue playing?

The priest takes off his church hat and wipes his face with it.

HOLY FATHER FYODOR

Yes. On credit.

DEALER

What as collateral?

HOLY FATHER FYODOR

My soul.

DEALER smirks displeased.

HOLY FATHER FYODOR (continuing)

Then a kidney. I'll sell it for an organ. I have a client. The rector.

DEALER shrugs his shoulders and looks at the manager in surprise. The manager waves his hand and goes to inspect the gambling hall. DEALER deals the cards. Pop loses again.

DEALER

Your card is beat again. When can you pay off your gambling debt?

HOLY FATHER FYODOR

(crying)

I've already lost everything, even the church land. God help me. Give me a sign, Father.

KITTYBOY works in an indoor market and sells bee honey, all the colors of the rainbow. Above his table is the sign: "Flower Honey". Woman approaches and looks at the colorful jars of honey. She takes a jar of blue honey.

KITTYBOY does not know, but he is the biological grandson of Ippolit Matveevich Vorobyaninov.

WOMAN

Is this honey?

KITTYBOY

Yes.

WOMAN

Why is it blue?

KITTYBOY

It's chicory honey. Its petals are blue.

WOMAN

And the yellow one is dandelion honey?

KITTYBOY

Yes, the color of the flowers determines the color of the honey. I have Australian bees.

GRANDMOTHER

He's lying. He's melting it in Vinokur's sugar-and-dog-fat-filled doghouse. And then he's painting it with Easter dye.

KITTYBOY

Get out of here, you old hag. Where did you come from?

WOMAN

No, I won't take it.

KITTYBOY

It's a pity, but this black man treats impotence and cancer.

Woman leaves, and so does the grandmother.

We see the conductor opens the door and descends from the car to the platform. ISAAC (56) leaves the car on the platform of the station.

ISAAC – grandson of Ostap-Suleiman-Berta-Maria-Bender-bey

ISAAC descends and shifts from foot to foot. Not far away, young girls with expensive cars near the casino. Passing by, towards the station, visitors. A kid (13) runs up to him.

KID

Uncle, give me 100 rubles, will you? Uncle, give me 100 rubles, I'm telling you!

ISAAC

Go steal, I don't have any money.

KID

Give me a cigarette, uncle!

ISAAC

Maybe I should pour you a shot?

KID

Then buy an iPhone?!

ISAAC takes the iPhone from the boy's hands and examines it.

ISAAC

Who did you take it from?

BOY

Do you really care? Do you want it or give it back?

ISAAC

I'll take it.

ISAAC puts the iPhone in his pocket and goes to the girls. The boy grabs ISAAC by the sleeve.

BOY

(whining)

Give me the iPhone, or give me a thousand dollars!

ISAAC

Maybe I should give you the key to the apartment where the dollars are? Let go.

BOY

(crying)

Give it to me…

ISAAC

I'll give you two in the evening. Now get lost and don't bother me while I'm still alive.

BOY

Are you telling the truth? Tell me your name.

ISAAC

I give you my word. And now don't bother me.

The boy stops. ISAAC goes on.

ISAAC approaches the girls. The girls make eyes at him and giggle with each other.

ISAAC

Hello, beautiful girls. Nice cars. Does your mother need a son-in-law?

FIRST GIRL

Son-in-law, what's the matter? We know.

SECOND GIRL

No, I don't need that.

ISAAC takes an iPhone out of his pocket.

ISAAC

Then take the iPhone as collateral for three thousand rubles until evening?! The latest model. Branded, natural from Vintella.

FIRST GIRL

Is it safe?

ISAAC

No. I bought it for twenty thousand. I'd sell it to you, but only for five, and that's with tears in my eyes. It has a ten-core processor and 1 terabyte of internal memory.

SECOND GIRL

Wow, really 1 terabyte? Why is it so cheap?

ISAAC

I need to get home urgently. I need to get a bank card. I have a million dollars there.

GIRL NUMBER ONE

Well, look, if you don't pick it up in the evening, don't come in the morning.

Girl number one takes out a stack of bills and counts out three thousand rubles. She gives it to ISAAC. In return, she takes an iPhone.

GIRL NUMBER ONE

What's your name?

ISAAC

ISAAC is the great-grandson of Bender.

GIRL TWO

(laughing)

Maybe the son of Captain Schmidt or Baron Munchausen?

ISAAC

No. Ostap is my biological great-grandfather, I can prove it, and I am ISAAC, a former Komsomol member. I planned to join the Communist Party, but the USSR collapsed.

CHAPTER Two

ISAAC approaches the boy, who still stands in place with a sad face, and hands him 1,000 rubles. The boy wipes away his tears and takes the money.

ISAAC

Keep it and remember, ISAAC is honest. ISAAC said it, and ISAAC did it.

BOY

You said two?!

ISAAC

In the evening, but it's morning now. Your offer still stands… now tell me, where can I crash for the night?

BOY

In the morning – at the janitor Vinokurov, and in the evening – at these prostitutes.

The yard is surrounded by high-rise Khrushchevki and in the middle of the yard there is an old three-storey building, with the inscription: "HOSPITAL FOR PENSIONERS". Dvornik VINOKUR in the yolk drunk sleeping on a bench. ISAAC comes to him and pushes him with his foot, like a sack. He wakes up and sits down.

Dvornik VINOKUR

What's the matter? Who are you?

ISAAC

Puss in Boots.

DOORKEEPER WINOKUR

Ugh.

ISAAC

So maybe we should go to the store? There we can explain ourselves.

ISAAC and the janitor Vinokur leave the store. ISAAC has a shopping bag in his hands.

THE JANITOR VINOKUR

We'll explain it somewhere else. Can I have a cigarette with a filter?

ISAAC gives him a cigarette with a filter, gives it to the janitor Vinokur, and lights it. The janitor Vinokur lights up.

ISAAC

Are you looking for a husband in your city, father? Do you have any brides?

DOORKEEPER WINOKUR

To whom a hand is a bride.

ISAAC

Do you have any brides in this house?

DOORKEEPER WINOKUR

This is a state almshouse, a nursing home. The old women live here. They are fully boarded. They can't die. Some of them even remember the tsar.

ISAAC

Are these people who were born before historical socialism?

WINEMAKER DOORKEEPER

You're right.

ISAAC and the janitor Vinokur sitting at the table in the kandeyka. On the table is a package with a bottle of port wine and snacks.

ISAAC

Pops, it would be nice to drink wine?

DZHIMON VINOKUR

Treat me, please?!

ISAAC

So I'll spend the night with you?

DZHIMON VINOKUR

Live all your life, if you are a good person.

ISAAC takes out a bottle and opens it with his teeth. He pours it into a glass and a mug. He sees a gold-plated strainer on the table. He takes it and puts it in his pocket.

ISAAC

What was here under the old regime?

DOORKEEPER VINOKUR

The chairman of the regional committee lived here. The son of the master himself, Ippolit Matveevich Vorobyaninov.

ISAAC

A bourgeois?

DOORKEEPER VINOKUR

You're the bourgeois. The leader of the nobility, and his son is a communist. The chairman of the regional committee.

ISAAC

Proletarian, is it?

DOORKEEPER WINOKUR

You're the proletarian. I told you: Chairman. And then, after the Union collapsed, he became an entrepreneur. The police officer saluted him.

ISAAC

Oh, how?!

THE DISTILLER'S JANITOR

You come to him, let's say, on New Year's Eve with congratulations, he gives you a three-piece. At Easter, let's say I'll say another three. He promised to present the Medal of Labor to me.

That's what I said: you, DISTILLER, consider yourself already with a medal. I didn't have time. The union collapsed.

ISAAC

Do they give you a medal for janitor's service these days?

WINOKUR DOORKEEPER

Nowadays, they don't give it out anymore. And his son was later tried.

ISAAC

How is that?

WINOKUR DOORKEEPER

It's simple. When the Soviet Union collapsed, he embezzled all the money from the regional committee and invested it in business.

ISAAC

Is that so? And was he tried for that?

WINOKUR DOORKEEPER

And then… He was tried with confiscation of property. And he was given a ten-year sentence… Here I come! KITTYBOY! Have you been released from prison?

ISAAC

Who?

Dvornik VINOKUR

Well, he's the grandson of Ippolit Matveevich, and they call him Leps, after his father and great-grandfather.

ISAAC

I understand. So what?

Dvorik WINOKUR

Yes at all not from the zone I! And he to me…

The front door opens and KITTYBOY enters the janitor's kandeyka.

KITTYBOY

Hello, WINOKUR. I'm not from the zone at all. What's gotten into your head? Have you prepared the goods?

ISAAC

With the release, however. Welcome to our hut!

KITTYBOY

I'm not from the zone at all! I sell honey at the market.

Dvornik Vinokur

What about the trial?

KITTYBOY

Have you gone completely crazy from port wine?! First of all, VINOKUR, I was there as a witness, not as a defendant. And they were trying my daddy. Who strangled himself in prison.

THE DISTILLER'S JANITOR

Well, as I say, he strangled himself in prison.

KISABABY

And now I've come from the kolkhoz market to visit my late grandmother.

THE DISTILLER'S JANITOR

Our market is called Paris.

ISAAC

My last name is Bender. Maybe you've heard? So you're from Paris?

KISABABY

No, I haven't heard of it.

ISAAC

Yes, how could the name of ISAAC-Ostap-Suleiman-Berta-Maria-Bender Bey be known in Paris?!

KITTYBOY

Berta-Maria… It's nonsense. I didn't come from Paris, and certainly not from the zone.

ISAAC

It's wonderful, wonderful. From Morshansk. Is it warm in Paris now?

GRIGORY LEPS

At the market? You know, I'd better go.

ISAAC

You have no hurry. The FSB will come for you.

KITTYBOY

I don't understand you.

ISAAC

You will understand now. Sit down. Which border did you cross? Polish, Finnish, Romanian?

KITTYBOY

I swear, I am a Russian citizen. I can show you my passport.

GRIGORY LEPS takes out his passport and waves it in front of ISAAC's face. ISAAC snatches the passport from Niletto's hands and starts flipping through it.

ISAAC

With the modern development of digital business, it is a trifle to produce a Russian passport. So that's it. A: there is an emigrant who returned from Paris to his hometown. B: the emigrant is afraid that he will be taken to the FSB.

KITTYBOY

I am not an emigrant!

ISAAC

And who are you? Why did you come here?

KITTYBOY

I came on business!

ISAAC

What kind of business?

KITTYBOY

On a personal matter! And to pick up honey on the way. That's why I came to VINOKUR.

ISAAC

Eh! On a personal matter! And after that, you say that you are not an emigrant! What, will we admit it ourselves or will we continue to deny it?

KITTYBOY

(VINOKUR)

Who is this?

VINOKUR shrugs his shoulders. KITTYBOY turns to the cameraman and gestures to imaginary viewers. The cameraman takes a close-up.

KITTYBOY (continuing)

Good! After all, it's difficult without an assistant, and he seems to be a big crook. Such a person can be useful.

ISAAC

Did you say something?

KITTYBOY

That's what I said to myself. I like to talk to intelligent and honest people.

ISAAC

Are you talking about yourself?

KITTYBOY

Of course, … Well, I'll tell you the secret of my mother-in-law… So, I'm standing behind the counter selling honey…

CHAPTER Three

KITTYBOY is standing behind the counter in the indoor market, selling homemade honey and counterfeit vodka.

A man approaches and looks around.

MAN

Do you have any vodka?

KITTYBOY

If you want to borrow, I don't have any.

The man hands over the money. KITTYBOY takes it and gives him a bottle wrapped in a black bag. A kid runs up.

BOY

KITTYBOY, uncle VINOKUR said that your mother-in-law is dying. She's calling for you.

KITTYBOY

What, right now?

BOY

Yes, she's dying!

KITTYBOY quickly takes off his apron and leaves the counter. He turns to his neighbor.

KITTYBOY (continuing)

Will you look at it?! … Where is she?

BOY

Mother-in-law?

GRIGORY LEPS

No. Father Christmas. Don't play the fool?!

BOY

On the bed, in the orphanage?!

GRIGORY LEPS

Why didn't you bring it?! You're the one who pushes the carts? … Just kidding…

END OF THE MEMORY

KITTYBOY approaches the door of his mother-in-law's bedroom, and a priest in a black, washed-out cassock and a large wooden cross in his hands immediately emerges from the room.

KITTYBOY

You?

HOLY FATHER FYODOR

My dear.

KITTYBOY

She's an atheist?!

HOLY FATHER FYODOR

Not anymore.

KITTYBOY

And why is the cross made of wood?

HOLY FATHER FYODOR

It's necessary. Confessed. Pure soul. Be strong, KITTYBOY.

END OF MEMORY

KITTYBOY enters the women's room, where there are four beds and old pensioners are lying on them. On one of the beds lies his mother-in-law, who is near death. And Holy Father Fyodor stays outside the door and eavesdrops on the conversation.

MOTHER-IN-LAW

KITTYBOY! Come here to me. I must tell you an important secret.

KITTYBOY

I'm all ears!

mother-in-law

Do you remember our Italian living room set in Tarasovka from the 17th century?

KISABABY

I remember it perfectly. A sofa, a dozen chairs.

mother-in-law

I sewed a sleeping pill jar into the seat of the chair, and in it is the key to the safe deposit box where my diamonds are.

KISABABY

Weren't they taken away then? During the search?

mother-in-law

When my husband called and told me that the feds had searched his office, I hid his gifts in a safe-deposit box in a bank, to the bearer, and the key to it was sewn into a chair.

KITTYBOY

Your diamonds? Why didn't you give them to me?

MOTHER-IN-LAW

How could I give you the diamonds when you spent my daughter's dowry on heroin, hid it in the office, and framed my husband by giving the investigator false testimony that he was a drug lord? As a result, the court gave him 25 years in prison and confiscated all our assets. My beloved husband died suddenly from a heart attack in prison.

KITTYBOY

To plant 70 million euros worth of diamonds in a chair! In a chair, on which no one knows who is sitting!

MOTHER-IN-LAW

There's a key, you fool.

KITTYBOY

What?

KITTYBOY turns around and sees his mother-in-law, who is already dead.

Holy Father Fyodor steps away from the door of the bedroom where Niletto's mother-in-law died and runs away.

Holy Father Fyodor quickly walks across the yard.

END OF THE MEMORY

CHAPTER Four

Holy Father Fyodor stands and cuts off his beard. His wife approaches him with a surprised expression.

POP'S WIFE

Fedya! What have you done to yourself, eh?

HOLY FATHER FYODOR

Listen carefully, silly Woman. But don't tell anyone! I confessed to Vorobyaninov's mother-in-law, and she revealed to me that in their cottage on the Rublevka, in one of the living room chairs, there was a key to a safe-deposit box containing her husband's diamond gifts. She bequeathed these diamonds to me!

POP'S WIFE

For you?

Holy Father Fyodor

Me! Soon we will live in a new way and we will start our own candle factory and something else.

KITTYBOY sits with a drooping face, and ISAAC looks at him carefully. A swaying janitor Vinokur comes in with a broom and stops at the door. ISAAC gets up, approaches him and gives a banknote. The janitor Vinokur bows and goes away.

ISAAC

Diamonds!

KITTYBOY

I'll find them, I'll definitely find them!

ISAAC

I think all this music is worth 150 million dollars right now.

KITTYBOY

Is that really so much?

ISAAC

At least! Just forget about it.

KITTYBOY

How to spit?

ISAAC

With saliva. It won't work. Your set has long been burned in the furnaces.

KITTYBOY grabs his heart.

KITTYBOY

What?

ISAAC

Calm down! I'm taking over. By the way, we need to sign a contract. If the treasure is discovered, I, as the technical director, will receive 60 percent of the proceeds.

KITTYBOY

This is daylight robbery!

ISAAC

How much did you think to offer?

KITTYBOY

At least 5 percent, 10 percent, at the very least.

ISAAC

Do you want me to work for nothing, and give you the key to the apartment where the money is?

KITTYBOY

In that case, I have reason to believe that I can handle the matter on my own.

ISAAC

In that case, I have no less reason to believe that I can handle your case on my own.

KITTYBOY

You're a fraud!

ISAAC

Listen, Mr. from Paris, do you know that your diamonds are almost in my pocket, and I'm only interested in you because I want to provide for your old age.

KITTYBOY

20 percent.

ISAAC

Yes, and my food.

KITTYBOY

25!

ISAAC

And the key to the apartment!

KITTYBOY

30 percent!

ISAAC

Well, fine! Out of respect for your past communist noble background, I'm willing to work for a measly 40 percent.

KITTYBOY

It's 60 million euros!

ISAAC

You're a pretty vulgar person. You love money more than you should.

KITTYBOY

Don't you love it?

ISAAC

No!

KITTYBOY

Then why do you need 60 million?

ISAAC

On principle. So, is the ice breaking?

KITTYBOY

You're a crook!

ISAAC

What?

ISAAC close-up turns to the cameraman and gestures to the audience.

ISAAC (continuing)

The ice has broken, gentlemen of the jury, I will command the parade!

Holy Father Fyodor holds an Iphone in front of him and talks on video communication.

HOLY FATHER FYODOR

Received money on the card? … In general, Alexander Yakovlevich, agreed. You will leave the chair in the back. Boxes, fill with garbage. And I will take it at lunch, when the office dwellers will not be scurrying around the courtyards.

POP'S WIFE

Nshan, zateryukha is ready, let's have a meal.

In kandeyku runs ISAAC and sits down at the table. Begins to eat food intensively. KITTYBOY washes his soapy head. On the couch sleeps drunk janitor Vinokur.

ISAAC

Good morning, leader! There's good news: the first chair has been found.

KITTYBOY

My God!

ISAAC

The chair is here, in your former apartment. Finish your morning toilet and let's get to work.

KITTYBOY

I'm ready!

ISAAC

I see. But we'll need someone to make us look like gentlemen…

KITTYBOY

VINOKUR will go.

ISAAC

Play along with me…

ISAAC shakes the sleeping drunk janitor Vinokur.

ISAAC (continuing)

Hey, VINOKUR, get up. Do you remember how you lost to me?

JANITOR VINOKUR

No?!

ISAAC

You have lost your soul to me in a fool and now you will serve me until I consider it unnecessary … KITTYBOY eyewitness.

KITTYBOY

Yes, yes, yes … Saw. Played. Lost …

DOORKEEPER WINOKUR

Eh, my life, a tin … Must, give myself, with all the property.

CHAPTER five

We see on the big screen panorama of the assembly hall. On the stage there is a table and on the table lies a synthesizer and a laptop. Head of the second house of the HOME FOR PENSIONERS, Alexander Yakovlevich, comes to the table. Deep sigh, pats the laptop on the body, wipes a tear and makes a whining face. Addresses the sky.