Portartur. 1940

– Economy is a big deal! – winking Tikhon, he said. – Japan now has only one product for export – women. Mosume [2 – Mosume – women.] Are exported to foreign brothels.

– Wildness! – exclaimed Podkovin.

At that moment a small Japanese girl with a plump cheek came in and, falling on her knees in the middle of the room, bowed low.

“Kon-ban-va, my spring, white cherry blossom,” Lykov greeted her. – Come here, I will look into your eyes. You are slim and flexible like a young birch… Meet me. This is Tikhon-san, our future soldier.

– Sordata? – the women were surprised.

“Yes, soldier… He knows the way that it will not be boring to fight in Japan.” There are many, many charming mosume.

“Why war?”

– Ha ha ha ha… I frightened you? No, this is not a soldier, but the future Minister of Justice. We have to do this soon…

While the owner was talking, the guest silently repeated: the Minister of Justice, the Minister of Justice…

– Sit closer to him, and he will see that you have the most elegant legs and the thinnest fingers in the world.

Japanese crawling close to the feet of Tikhon. He turned away in disgust.

The owner, as if noticing anything, continued:

– My Sasha-san is a thrifty person… Honestly working, and saving thousands and a half yen – he will leave me, go home and become a prolific mother…

– You’re lying. I do not need your money. I will serve you and your wife all my life. You’re evil!..

Two large tears appeared from under Sasha-san’s eyelashes.

– What art! Playing out in love!..

– Tikhona-san! – exclaimed the Japanese. – I love him, but he does not believe. My heart hurts, it hurts… When they made a contract, I thought he was an old man. They made me… They force us to do many things… Without him, I will kill myself.

Sasha-san sobbed. The guest, having moved closer to her, embraced her. Podkovin silently examined Japanese women.

– How do you look at my home life? – Lykov asked inquisitively.

“Pampering,” Tikhon said through clenched teeth. – Sheer hangover from you. After all, you can marry a Russian girl…

– The point is said!.. – Lykov shook his head, – There are many brides in Russia. And in my eye they are. For example, Valya Inova.

Tikhon flinched, straightened his legs and pulled the pillow under his side.

– Beautiful man, a rare girl, beautiful.

“That would have been the matchmaker,” said Podkovin, almost with malice.

– Dowager! The father is the servant. How much with her? Some thousand, many – two.

Podkovin laughed.

– Did you forget about the man again? Yes, there is no price!..

The owner approached the guest to pour him liquor.

– Stay here. We heap with you business. And in the fall you get married… I have a bride. Millionaire’s daughter. Young, beautiful, interesting, educated. The same musician, as well as Valya. Looking for a husband of a young official, not a merchant’s son.

“In the fall I am called for a call,” Tikhon answered evasively.

“Ahhhh… sorry,” Lykov said. His gaze faded, his face showed fatigue.

During the entire conversation, the men Sasha-san vigilantly watched Lykov. Noticing a sharp change in his mood, she crouched down and asked quietly:

– you what? Do you have a bad deal? Failed deal?

– Yes, dear Sasha. Broke down. I found a man, so it seems that yours is not there, “Lykov said in a falling voice. – It’s a shame… Come on, honey, play, and Cherry-san will dance.

Tikhon looked puzzled at the Japanese and Lykov. Sasha-san prepared to rise, her cheeks were covered with a blush. Moist eyes looked softly, and a kind smile lay in the corners of his lips. Tikhon reached for Sasha-san, and she stood beside him full-length, adjusting her kimono.

“No, this is a rare beauty,” he thought, and when Sasha-san moved away from the table, he turned his head to Cherry.

“My God, how is it painted,” he whispered under his breath, and barely restrained himself from the squeamish grimace.

Sasha-san began to play the Japanese guitar. The rattling, dull sounds of some motive torn into small pieces struck Tikhon’s consciousness, but did not irritate him. He tried to catch the melody and could not.

“Like smoke is perceptible, but elusive,” he thought.

Lykov poured himself brandy. Tikhon drank liquor. Cherry – san danced, slowly waving her arms and shaking her body. In the faint lighting of paper lanterns, a Japanese woman, dressed in a long blue, with large white kimono flowers, seemed to be a casual, airy Tikhon. Dance and music weary him.

“The Japanese still have beauty: in music, in dances… But they are not in our character. When Russians are dancing, people walk like a walk… I would cook them here, “flashed in Tikhon’s head.

From liquor he felt suddenly sick. He jumped up and ran out into the corridor. When he appeared, three people departed from the hanger: a Chinese servant and two strangers. Booster Jacket with unfolded floors rocked.

– What the hell… How do they like brass buttons!

The servant picked up the shoe under the arm and led it out onto the porch. The cool wind fanned Tikhon’s face, and his head began to spin. Cherry-san ran up to him with a glass of seltzer water. At a sign from Lykov, she led Tikhon into the room prepared for him.

“We will sleep, my Russian hero,” she said.

At the door, Podkovin stopped and set Vishnyu-san against himself.

– I am very grateful to you, Cherry-san, for dancing and affection.

The Japanese clung to Tikhon’s chest and, gently pushing him into the room, whispered:

– I love you, my hero… You are very blue. I love blue, strong…

– Thank you, goodbye… Go home to sleep, go home.

The girl just now realized that the young man had removed her. Embarrassed, she lowered her head and, inhaling the air, muttered:

– Cy-o-nara, con-ban-va…

As soon as Lykov and Tikhon fell asleep, both women retired to the living room, taking with them the skit. Emptying their pockets, they began to look at the paper. Sasha-san, dipping the brush in the ink, wrote in beautiful hieroglyphs on thin paper:

“Passport of Tikhon Stepanovich Podkovin, a peasant from the Nizhny Novgorod province., Lukoyanovsky district, Mareseveka volost, the village of Malaya Polyana. Minister of Justice”.

Chapter two

one

In November 1903, the Podkovin had to draw lots for the fulfillment of military service. He was frontal. A brother who was fourteen years older than Tikhon received a privilege on marital status in his family. According to the law of that time, the eldest son remained in the assistance of parents to feed and raise young children. There were three of them in the Podkovins family: Tikhon, his younger brother and sister.

Very often, recruits for the latest draw numbers were not taken to military service. In that year, when Podkovin was called, 320 people were to be collected in the city of Irkutsk, and 260 people were required in military units, therefore, sixty young men could count on staying. Tickets with insignificant numbers pulled out and weakly chested, and myopic, and obsessed with various diseases. During the medical examination, the defectives fell out, and instead of them they took healthy ones, even if they had long-range lots in their hands, above the two hundred and sixtieth. In addition, every year there were both delayed and hiding from conscription.

On November 13, recruits gathered in the great hall of the city duma. When checking it turned out that twenty-three people did not come to the draw. Then they will be found, punished and sent to serve, respectively, freeing those taken with high numbers. But sometime it will be, and today the mood of the youth has been lowered: few lucky numbers remained.

With the recruits came their relatives. They passionately discussed all sorts of opportunities to get rid of military service.

The bell rang. A minute later there was silence in the hall. The chairman of the draft board, a gray-haired man in pince-nez, smiling, invited the recruits to approach the urn and gave a sign to the clerk.

– Arkhipov! – rang out in the hall.

Everything is quiet. A blond guy came out of the thick of the crowd. His steps boomed loudly on the steps of the platform. He was breathing heavily. Sweat came out in large drops on his forehead. Rolling up his sleeve, the guy ran his hand to the bottom of the urn and took out the ticket rolled up. His hand shook.

“Raise the ticket higher and unroll it,” said the chairman.

Suddenly the guy’s face lit up, and he cheerfully, but still in a hoarse voice, shouted:

– Two hundred and eighty second!

– Well done! – the public roared to a friendly applause.

Podkovin worried. He did not like the behavior of Arkhipov. “In a firm step, calmly, in a clear voice,” Tikhon suggested to himself. The hall fell silent again.

“Tell me your number,” heard Podkovin and looked at the platform.

Near the urn stood a tall, curly guy in a new coat. The tassels of the belt with which the maroon woolen shirt was girded dangled at the tops of a varnished boot. The recruit’s lips were shaking, and he, choking on tears, babbled:

– The third st…

– Louder! – shouted those present.

“He has a third number,” said the chairman.

– In the guard of the young man!

The guy moved away from the platform.

– Podkovin!

“To rummage or not to rummage in an urn,” thought Tikhon, striding towards the platform. He took a ticket from the top layer and quickly turned it around.

– Thirteenth! – shouted Podkovin.

There was a loud, universal laugh.

Happy number! Well done! Do not be lost! By God, you will not perish, – said Podkovin, when he came down from the platform.

2

In the evening, in order not to hear the mother’s lamentations, Tikhon went to the Berezkins.

– Well? – in one voice asked him Varya and her mother. Podkovin stopped at the door and cried out:

– Happy!

– happy? – repeated Varya and, putting the work on the table – she was busy sewing, – got up.

Thirteenth, – answered Tikhon.

Brother Vari, Kostya, clutching at his sides, laughed loudly.

– What is sold, you fool? – Mother grumbled. – Tikhon – a frontal one, his number is his neighbor, he could not escape soldiery.

The old woman, Berezkina, turned to the stove and raised the corner of her apron to her eyes. Her hunched figure shuddered.

– Poor Evdokia Ilinichna… I will go to her.

“And I’m with you,” said Varya.

Mother Podkovina sat at a table with tear-stained eyes. Varya ran to her and put her arm around her shoulders.

– Nothing bad will happen. Tikhon will return from the service tselehonek.

Weasel girls reassured Podkovina. The old woman loved Varia more than her other friends. Still sobbing, she said:

– God will hear the prayers of the mother. Obviously, he will return… But the human heart is changeable. Forget each other not for long…

Varya flinched. The last words of Evdokia Ilinichna burned her, as it were. She wanted to shout: “No, no, this will not happen to me. I know the price of love.”

Chapter three

one

In the barracks twilight. Near the gray walls, especially in the corners, hung haze. It was cold. The lamp, suspended under the arch, lights dimly.

Podkovin woke up from a jab in the side.

“Get up, you have to clean your boots,” he heard his neighbor’s voice.

Throwing back the blanket, he sat down on his bed and looked at his neighbor. The rookie rubbed his boots, but the desired shine did not work.

– You put on your boots and walk. As soon as they get warm, rub with a brush.

It was about six in the morning. In the second half, the barracks were still asleep: there were old soldiers there, and taking care of the boots, apparently, did not bother them anymore.

“Let me write a letter to my homeland,” said his neighbor, Podkovin, when he was finished with his boots. – In the village, I signed for others, if the paper that came. I can read the written, but the letters do not add up. Missed, – the guy sighed heavily.

– Get up! – the command of the person on duty was distributed. – Come on verification!

The barracks boomed. The air was even more saturated with the smell of rotten cloth and horse sweat. The soldiers’ clothes smelled like horses. Each rider has two horses, which he cleans daily.

Recruits went to the middle of the barracks and lined up along it in one row. All the clothes were still homemade. The lamp sparsely lit their anxious faces. The soldiers’ large red hands hung awkwardly along their bodies. Uncle came.

– Motin, why did you not clean your boots?

Motin’s bootlegs got off their feet: a minute ago he was back from the restroom.

“Just now, when I got up, I cleaned it,” answered Motin, frightened.

– Do not talk!.. Walk along the line with a goose step.

Motin turned red and out of order. He squatted on his haunches, put his hands on his sides and, without raising his body, moved along the barracks, throwing out one or the other leg. Ten more people were sent for Motin. The punished returned to their seats with bloodshot eyes. They breathed heavily and, bending down, rubbed their knees.

After checking and prayers, young soldiers were seated in beds for practicing “literature”.

“Prikshaytis, read” Our Father, “heard Podkovin. Prikshaytis – Lithuanian. He has a small face with a sharp nose, and eyes with flushed eyelids.

“Father us,” said Prikshaytis, blinking, and stopped. His lips moved, the fingers of his outstretched hands convulsively clenched into fists, his ears reddened, but no words were heard.

– Farther! – shouted uncle.

“Who else is in heaven,” exclaimed the recruit, delighted.

– What-oh! Again, “weigh”? – yelled uncle. “I suffer for fifteen days, but you have not learned five words properly!”

Prikshaytis face was covered with white spots, he wrinkled and closed his eyes.

– Why are you blinking?

But Prikshaytis still stood with his eyes closed, he only stretched his neck more towards his teacher. – So asks for a slap in the face…

The teacher came close to him and backhand hit on the cheek. Prikshaytis reeled, but resisted. Tears streamed down the rookie’s face.

Tikhona smothered anger. He jumped up, but remembering the words from the military charter, the first pages of which he quickly ran through, “Complaints about the chief can be brought individually and only for himself,” he sank down helplessly on the bed and turned away from the unfortunate Lithuanian.

2

At ten o’clock in the morning, Captain Ali-Aga Mehmetinsky, a senior battery officer, came to the barracks. On the large oblong face of the captain, a hunchbacked nose was sticking up. His head is bald, his thick mustache lay magnificently, his eyebrows raised, his brown eyes this time reflecting a grin. Small hands with thin white fingers, the captain held behind his back. Greeting, Mehmetinsky shouted:

– Antonov Valentin Pavlovich.

“I,” one of the recruits said.

– Are you illiterate?

The soldier babbled something in response, and the captain summoned Morozov.

– You are also illiterate. What is it? From the big city, and the illiterate sent. Why didn’t you study?

Morozov blushed deeply.

Mehmetinsky walked along the line and, smiling tenderly, called new recruits by last name, first name and patronymic, although he did not have a list in his hands.

– And we waited for you and thought: Siberians will not let you down… The same illiteracy as in the Baltic provinces, and in central Russia. Not good. An artilleryman must be well-educated…

The captain’s face became serious. The buggies sagged slightly, but their eyes still gleamed. Talking to the recruits, he squinted them.

“Keep your head straight and lift your right shoulder,” said Captain Podkovin. – Have you worked in the court of justice for a long time? Two years? And before that, he worked somewhere?

– Was a clerk. And my main occupation is a fisherman.

– Do you have a good handwriting?

“I, your Honor, do not want a clerk.”

– We’ll see. Who do the clerk do? See for yourself. And the clerk needs… Abramovich Moses Iosifovich! Are you a craftsman, a mechanic?

“That memory is memory. I read the list once and remembers everyone, “thought Podkovin.

– Good locksmith we need. What can you do?

– I can repair sewing machines, I made new locks.

– By the cannon lock do you make new?

– With the tool – everything is possible.

– Do you make a new gun? – Wishing to cheer the soldiers, asked the captain.

– Give the tool and the room, I’ll make you a gun. Only one mess around unprofitable.

“This is fine,” the captain laughed. – We will send you to the arsenal. Verevkin Matvey Karpovich… Was a cab driver? Do you know horses? That’s what we need. Be your ride. Good horses will give you a pair. Illiterate?.. If you quickly embrace the teaching, then you will be the senior fireworker. And you will have a riding horse, and you will command a whole platoon… Y-yes… Your diploma is weak, guys.

Twenty recruits went to their beds. Today they are exempted from general studies. The day was clear and frosty… Through the large windows, icy below, the sun illuminated the inside of the barracks. In the middle of it, between cast-iron columns supporting the ceiling, there is a wide passage along the whole room. On the sides, by the walls, in several rows were bunks of gunners; in the corners, where it was more spacious, older and younger fireworks were placed. In the aisle, young soldiers marched in groups. There were stomping and squawking platoon.

Before lunch, after being freed from classes, his neighbor approached Podkovin.

– Write me a letter something. To Oryol Province…

– Okay, I’ll write. What is your last name?

– Konevyazov.

– We will agree with you like this: you do your job, and I will write.

– How can it be without me?

– Okay. Do not bother me. I’ll write, then we’ll talk.

Half an hour later, Podkovin called him.

– Here is the letter ready. Read it out loud.

At first he stammered, and then, rather briskly, Konevyazov read:

“My dear parents! In the first lines of this letter I ask for your blessing, which will be indestructible over the grave of my life, and I kiss you warmly, and I also bow deeply in love. I send my bow to grandparents, brothers and sisters, and my uncle with my aunt and my dear wife a hot kiss, and I will write her a separate letter. May he love you all and be your own daughter.

I tell you all that my health so far, thank goodness, is good, and my soldier’s training is proceeding in its own way. And now I live in the city of Nerchinsk in the barracks, and all of us young soldiers were sent to the battery only from our lands eighty people.

We traveled for a very long time, twenty-five days, and all of Siberia. That’s where the spacious! There are few cities and villages, and more and more mountains and dense forest. In the mountains, gold is dug, and in the forests of fur animals are beaten. A resident of the local, in sight, in abundance. Log houses, under a skeleton roof. All around, even in the forest, hedges, and a lot of livestock.

Transbaikalia, where we now serve, is also a rich side, but it is painfully icy and snowless. You go out into the yard – and the boots freeze, and their tops are immediately exactly wooden. More than fifty degrees are frost.Trans-Baikal peasants (they are called here Gurans, and that is, the Old Believers are exiled) are engaged in arable farming and cattle breeding. Their cattle are small and non-dairy. Bread is eaten rye and wheat.

Although we traveled from the Oryol province to Nerchinsk for a long time, we did not get to the end of Russia. It can be said that the Amur River begins from here, which is more than three thousand miles long, and there is a gulf of different fish in it.

Once again, I wish you all good health. Write me a detailed letter.

Rookie finished and said:

– Good.

“No, not quite well,” Podkovin stopped him. – Sit down and rewrite the whole letter with your own hand, but do not forget to put your first and middle names. When you rewrite, insert more of your words…

3

A week later, Podkovina was summoned to the office of the battery and charged him with the correspondence of the lists of allowances. The senior clerk on the first day said to him:

– Read the statutes of the military service, and you will know literature better than your uncle, yes, and perhaps Feldwebel.

Every morning, until nine o’clock, Podkovin still had to be in the classroom language. He was jarred by the abnormal relationship between teachers and recruits. In the entire barracks there was not a single thoughtful uncle who would lovingly impart his insignificant knowledge on the charter of military service. They were all rough, petrified faces. Only anger was reflected in their views. They spoke or shouted in hoarse voices.

The uncle of the ten, in which Podkovin was listed, had one “tag” on his shoulder straps, that is, he was a scorer. Only with this tidbit he was different from the rest.

At first, the uncle abruptly took up the Podkovina: forced him to make jumps, turns, questioned about the ranks and names of the nearest bosses. All of his demands, which did not go beyond the framework of the training program for young soldiers, Tikhon carried out quickly and distinctly. But in the face of the guy it was clear that he was still unhappy. In his orders, a desire to set up the Shoe in front of the whole system in a ridiculous position, and Tikhon became alert. Subsequently, it turned out that the guys and fireworks did not like literate subordinates, and the Shackles for the barracks was the “black sheep”.

The unkindness of the uncles to Tikhon intensified after the first days of his stay in the office. They followed him, listened to his conversations with his comrades.

Once, on a routine basis, everyone got up early in the morning, cleaned his boots and made beds. There was a forty-degree frost in the yard. The windows were frozen from top to bottom. Despite all the efforts of recruits, their boots did not receive the proper shine.

The training in the ranks was conducted by Osipov, the junior fireworker, who was the separated chief of the fourth platoon.

– Attention! – the uncle has ordered.

Separated, pulling his chest out, walked up to a line of young soldiers.

– Great guys!

– Good morning, Mr. separate!

Junior fireworks quickly walked along the line.

The recruits kept their eyes on him. From the right flank, he turned back and frowned, staring at the feet of the soldiers.

“Why are boots poorly cleaned?” Loafers! Pay for the first and second!

Half a minute has passed.

– The first – to the right, the second – to the left!..

The soldiers turned and found themselves face to face.

– Hit each other on the cheeks!

Podkovin received a slap in the face from a soldier standing opposite, but did not beat him. Separated jumped to Tikhon:

– Bay!

Tikhon was still standing, stretching his arms at the seams.

– To the right! Two steps forward!

Podkovin out of order.

– Konevyazov, come here! Shock Podkovina.

He-hit lightly.

– Bay is stronger! The fireworker commanded.

Konevyazov hit harder. Podkovin said:

– Sir, separate, report to the platoon about my beating in the ranks.

– Oh, are you complaining?!

– Yes, I will complain and demand that you be punished.