Marija received a part with two lines and studied them everywhere: washing her hair, waiting for a green light, sorting white laundry. She was fifty three and had never stood on a stage. Her daughter enrolled her in the amateur company because her mother kept saying she would like to do that someday. Now someday arrived every Tuesday at seven. At rehearsal her voice disappeared precisely when she said the name of the imaginary visitor.
Hamza, playing her theatrical husband, knew the entire scene but constantly lost his hat. He left it on a radiator, in the dressing room, and once among another production's props. Marija began announcing where she saw it, while he quietly supplied her first word when she froze. He was an electronics technician working reduced hours before retirement. Confident on stage, offstage he was unexpectedly shy and inclined to lengthy explanations about the weather.
Two weeks before the premiere Marija said she would withdraw. The director was already tired of her apologies. Hamza did not insist she had nothing to fear. He invited her to read the scene with him after rehearsal in the empty auditorium, without lights. They sat among the audience seats and delivered the text like an ordinary conversation. When her line finally sounded natural, Marija laughed, then cried with relief that surprised her more than stage fright.
Hamza fetched a tissue from his car. He admitted his first wife had called theater a waste of time, and he had resumed attending only after their divorce. Marija said her former husband had forbidden nothing. She had postponed her own wishes until everyone else finished theirs. They did not conclude that everything could now be recovered. They went for hot chocolate and discussed things they still wanted to attempt, including some they would probably never be good enough at.
At the premiere she delivered both lines, one slightly too quickly. Hamza forgot his hat, and she had to hand it to him outside the script. The audience laughed, convinced it belonged to the play. After the bows, her daughter hugged her, and Hamza waited until they were alone beside the dressing room. He asked whether she wanted dinner tomorrow without rehearsed lines. Marija accepted, adding that she would probably be nervous again. He said that was fine. This time she did not have to learn exactly what to say before appearing in front of someone.