LOST AND FOUND

"It can't be true," Peter says while rushing into the back stage. "I was sure I had it with me, but when I parked the car, it was not there."

The air is stale and hot in the small room. Marvin looks at him absently, examining some papers from his briefcase. Two other gyus lie on armchairs, seemingly half asleep.

"You're late," Marvin says without raising his eyes from the papers. "This contract is really garbage. We get too little money for the evening."

"Then why did you sign it in the first place?" says one the men in the armchairs."You still have to pay us, remember."

"I just bought it last year, old but in shape," says Peter without listening to the others. "No dimples, the valves still working fine." Sweat begins to form in his forehead.

"No kidding?" says Marvin. "What are you actually talking about?"

Peter grabs his phone and starts to press the keys. He walks rapidly towards Marvin, then back.

"When did you use it last time?" asks Marvin. "You definitely had it in the last gig. Have you been playing it in the mean time?" 

"Myrna didn't like the new hat I gave her yesterday," Peter mumbles while waiting his wife to answer his call. "Birthday present."

Peter is nearly bold with some deep wrinkles appearing now and then over his eyebrows. His left leg is shorter than the right, which makes him limp slightly as he walks.

"Oh, you had a party yesterday for Myrna?" Marvin says. "DId you play your instrument there?"

Marvin is a short, fat man. He always wears the same leather jacket and black trousers. He looks like having been too long in the music business, organizing gigs for small bands. Usually for his own.

"Darling, sorry to call you during your exercises," Peter says in the phone. "But I am in a terrible situation. I have lost my tuba."

"You have lost what?" his wife, Myrna, says in the telephone. "The line is quite bad, I can't hear you. I thought you said you have lost yout tuba."

"Myrna, listen, I want you to check, if I let the instrument at home," Peter says in the phone.

Marvin comes closer to his fellow musician, trying to hear Myrna's voice better. Suddenly there's nothing.The connection is lost. 

"How old is Myrna now?" Marvin says. "Is she still as attracting as she was?"

"She has put a little weight," Peter says. "But it's better that you forget her all the same. She took me instead of you, you know that. Five years now."

"How are you going to play in the concert without your instrument?" Marvin says. "I don't pay you just for standing still on the stage. Besides, this is a four man band, not three."

Peter is pressing the keys of his phone to call her wife again. The line is busy.

"She doesn't love Peter," says Marvin to the two men in the armchairs. He has walked to the corner of the room, where the two men, drummer and guitarist, are waiting for the gig to start. 

"We were playing in Myrna's birthday party yesterday with Peter," says the drummer to Marvin. "The tuba is there, at his home, i'm sure. Peter can go and get it with his car. We still have fortyfive minutes before we have to start." 

"You were playing in the party?" says Marvin. "Why did Peter not ask me?"

"Darling, I'm glad you answered," says Peter on the phone. "Can you search my room, if I let my tuba there. I can't find it in my car, anyway."

"It's here, I see it," Myrna answers. "Shall I bring it to you?"

"You don't have to," Peter says. "I still have time to come and get it."

"Why did you not ask me to play on Myrna's party yesterday?" says Marvin to Peter.

"She doesn't love you," Peter says, slamming the door, and hurrying out to his car.