Yury Valentinovich [Trifonov] thought: "The winter came to an end, I endured it, on the streets are damp piles of snow, them are not taken away, not raked, they disappear autonomously from warm air, and something similar occurs in my destiny: piles melt...".
It was remembered to him: "... began to call doctors. ... they said Kate can't be left alone ... had to call Kate's aunt Zhenya ... there was no wish for it ... was harsh, judgemental face, dragged a huge bag of food, oranges, loaves of bread doctoral, it was all for show and absolutely not necessary - Katya did not want to eat ... She took me into the kitchen, whispering: "I will never forgive you!" - "What exactly?"- "Your an animal indifference. It's low, inhuman. You threw the girl into a whirlpool and stepped aside...."
Yury Valentinovich took a book from the shelf and began to turn the pages.
Vladimir Bogomolov. "The Moment of Truth. (In the August of '44)".
""Faynaya" [beautiful], it was noted by almost all. During the occupation, dressed deliberately sloppy, dirty. As if she hadn't washed for weeks to avoid the Germans. According to other sources, she secretly met with some German and from him begot the child - the girl is one and a half years old, the name is Elza ...
In the forenoon I observed. Yulia Antonyuk pottered near the hut, was tidied up, shook out some mangy sheepskins, with a heavy rusty axe, not on her puny strength, cut firewood ...
I noted that Julia was dressed poorly and her face was not happy, but even from a distance it was easy to see that she was beautiful, slender and rich in femininity or something, as it is called, because of what women are pleasant to men.
Her daughter-an interesting small girl, cheerful and very mobile - played near the door of hut, sang something and scratched every minute, which, however, did not spoil her mood...
... I even caught myself on feeling of pity to this girl, which showed a stupidity, who begot from someone the child, - life at her turned out unsweetened. Having considered a her daughter's face with the binoculars, I quite assumed that she was born from a German, and here with Pavlovsky as I represented him on a description and photos, she had, in my opinion, also no slightest similarity ...
... I instantly tensed. I saw his face and partly his figure, and I recognized him not so much from the photograph as from the verbal portrait: "Pavlovsky!"
How did he get to a hut?! How didn't we, morons, see or listened of his arrival?! If this night - for certain because of wind noise!
Somewhere nearby he was expected, apparently, by accomplices (near the hut they were not, otherwise Yulia would not jump out in the one shirt), but to take him with inevitable firefight here, on her eyes, - an opportunity, psychologically quite favorable for me, I rejected immediately.
They said good-bye at the hedge; embraced, she kissed him several times, and he her, then he released and, without looking back, went. And she remained ..., she made three times the gesture of cross toward his side and silently, completely silently, began to cry. And, seeing them together, seeing how they said goodbye, I thought that about a "Fritzs" - it's all pure nonsense, child probably from this very Pavlovsky...
When he reached the end of the clearing, he turned and waved his hand to Julia, holding the post, she sobbed, opening her mouth wide and ugly, but only muffled sobs could be heard. Of course, she knew who he was and what to expect if he was caught....
I saw Pavlovsky first. Lying on his back, his face tense, he frantically inserted a new magazine into the automatic rifle. I rushed to him, there were some meters - and then the worst thing happened, what I did not foresee and from the Pavlovsky did not expect: before I in a throw got him, he suddenly poked a gun barrel under his jaw and pulled the trigger...
... I turned around: Julia in the same nightgown was walking from the bushes...
... and then came a wild scream she saw Pavlovsky...
... crying and Yulia's shrieks were remotely heard - Fomchenko still could not drag her in a hut ...
... Now, of course, there was no doubt that Pavlovsky was an active enemy agent, and not some German accomplice hiding in the woods from punishment.
Collecting things Pavlovsky, his weapons and papers, I hurried into the house of Julia. Where not pleasant, but compulsory, procedure - a search - was necessary ...
Julia herself lay motionless on an old iron bed facing the wall and from time to time quietly moaned, like in oblivion...
... Only what was of interest in the sentsakh [the small entrance room], - a pair of underwear of Pavlovsky. It did not need to be looked for - it must have been washed at night, still damp, it dried on a rope...
... Fomchenko, as one would expect, found nothing in the hut, except for the products lying on the furnace: two cans of the American stewed pork, five packs of a millet concentrate, two loaves of bread, paper bag of salt and sugar. All this was received by Pavlovsky on our food points according to certificates with which he was supplied by Germans, and, certainly, was was subject to seizure. But I decided to leave products for Yulia, having specified presence at her of the hungry child in the official report".
Yury Valentinovich continued to leaf through the book.
"Once again I dreamed of my mother.
I didn't know where her grave was, or if she was even humanly buried. I had no photo of her, and for some reason I could not imagine her clearly in reality. In the dream she appeared to me quite often, I saw her clearly, with all the wrinkles and tiny scar on his upper lip. More than anything, I wanted her to smile, but she just cried. A small, thin, helpless sobbing, wiping her tears with a handkerchief and crying again. Just as in port when still the boy, the greenhorn I was going away into a long-time floating, or the last time at the station, before the war, when, after a vacation, I returned to the border.
From our shack in Novorossiysk did not survive and the Foundation [base], from mother - it dread to think - there is neither left a grave, nor a photograph, a nothing ... She had a sad life, lonely, and with me she recieved a various troubles... How much I felt sorry for her now and how much I lacked her ...
With dreams I was devilishly not lucky. Mother, exhausting from me soul, certainly cried, and Leshka Basos - he dreamed me the last weeks more than once - he was surely tortured. He was tortured in front of my eyes, I saw and could not do anything, even could not move a finger as if I was paralyzed or did not exist at all.
Mother and Leshka were presented to me distinctly ...
... Heavy, dreadful it is dreams - Wake up exhausted, like gutted."
Yury Valentinovich returned the book onto the shelf.
He put the manuscript in front of him. He wrote several phrases about his grandmother T.A. Slovatinskaya:
"T.A. Slovatinskaya remembers:
"In 1912, fleeing from exile, Stalin came to St. Petersburg... and then it turned out that this Caucasian with the party nickname "Vasily" for several days living with Aron, without leaving the room...
That's how I met Stalin. He seemed to me at first too serious, withdrawn and shy. It seemed that most of all he is afraid of what is to hamper and embarrass someone. With difficulty I insisted that he sleep in a larger room and with greater comfort. Leaving for work, I each time asked him to have dinner with children, I left the corresponding instructions to the servant-woman...".
"Moscow surrounds us like a forest." "We crossed it, " - Yury Valentinovich thought, - "Everything else does not matter."
March 8, 2019 13:57
Translation from Russian into English: March 8, 2019 17:51.
Владимир Владимирович Залесский "Рассказ о весенних сюжетах".