Julia Rudenko - I am your woman!

Somebody was knocking at the door and shouting:

– Comrade Major! Comrade Major! Please, open the door!

– Private Glushko, fuck off! – major Smirnov bawled from inside.

– To you… A kind of… your wife or so has come!

The door opened half. Major Smirnov, scared, wrapping his naked body with a towel mumbled:

– Did you really see her?

Glushko who was not the least frightened lost the gift of speech completely when he saw the major’s hairy chest. So he just nodded.

– And where is she?

Glushko waved his hand towards the commandant’s office:

– Th-th-ere…

– Where?! In the office? Speak out!

Then Glushko began to mutter:

– There… A car stopped… A blue one… Or not. Not know… Forgot… A woman get off. Very pretty! Good heavens! Ryzhov said: «Such pretty things’re driving to and fro in their cars in Grozny like at home». That’s what he said! And she came up to us. Ryzhov also said to me: «Big tits!».

– Shut up! Or I’ll show you! Big tits!

– Comrade major. Please don’t punish Ryzhov! He didn’t mean anything bad.

He didn’t know she’s your wife. But if you beat him He’ll guess… And he’ll kill me!

– OK, come down! But where is Svetka* now? I hope she isn’t here, is she? – Smirnov leaned over Glushko’s shoulder examining an empty corridor in one of the hostels of the Northern Airport.

– She is… Ryzhov saw her to the office. He said: «So you’ll have to wait a little. Major Smirnov is on a secret commission.

– Ugh… Well, Ryzhov’s a brick! Now Glushko, stand at the hostel door and don’t let Svetka here while I’m dressing. Clear? Repeat!

Pleased with such trust private Glushko stood straight and said distinctly: «Stand at the hostel door and not let Svetka in!».

– That’s a good boy! But Svetlana Vladimirovna for you. Go away. You’re free!

Glushko went to the exit.

– But don’t tell her it was my order!

– Yes, sir. Not tell.

– Because I know you well! – grumbled the major, closed the sauna door and entered the sweating-room. – Now dress! That’s all! Had a good time together! Wife’s come!

Ensign Lyubov Antonova said lazily:

– I heard. You go alone. I’d rather sweat out a bit.

– As you like, – Smirnov pulled up his trousers quickly.

Five minutes later Smirnov knocked at the door of one of the rooms opposite to the exit. Before anyone inside could answer, he pushed the handle and opened the door.

There was nobody inside. Smirnov came up to the window and opened it. Then he got out of the window. High and dense grass hid him up to the waist. Smirnov walked for five meters, then he bent and put his hands on the dusty road. Smirnov thrust his hands into his wet hair, tousled and sleeked it slightly.

– Now it’s alright! – he thought. Smirnov scrutinized his camouflage uniform slowly and rubbed the trousers with his dusty hands.

Major Smirnov bent around the two-storey hostel and went impetuously towards the commandant’s office. Ten meters near it, a lonely figure of private Glushko, scrawny and small.

The major cried:

– Private Glushko! Doing nothing as usual?! Go and put yourself in order at once! Wash! Wash and press your outfit! Clean your gun! Be ready by tomorrow! You’ll go with me, to follow the column to Khankala!

– Me… to Khankala?! – Glushko gasped.

While the soldier was trying to understand what to do first, Major Smirnov entered the commandant’s office, round and low.

– Wow! Svetlana? It’s you! Or am I dreaming? Where from? With whom are our children?

*Svetka – diminutive and familiar for Svetlana.

Hardly had Malcovich passed Mozdok in his Buick when he was stopped. With their AKMs atilt two patrol soldiers came to the car at the distance of a stretched arm:

– Get off!

Malcovich was about to show them his inefficacious certificate of the navy captain, but those guys didn’t let him do so. Drawing a bead on him at once, one of them repeated:

– Get off!

«Oh, God, for what sins? Do help me, please!» – Malcovich thought.

– Hands on the hood! Feet astride! – one of the soldiers started probing Andrei’s jacket.

He took out his passport, certificate and wallet:

– Andrei Andreievich Malcovich. Born in 1966 in Volgograd. Single. No children. – the soldier read aloud the passport data.

Then opened the military certificate, but read it to himself. After thinking a bit the soldier said:

– Comrade Captain, excuse us for the delay. You may be free!

«Good heavens! They could have let me go before! Thanks, God!» – Malcovich thought.

And then when Malcovich sat behind the wheel and turned the ignition key the second soldier offered him as if reluctantly:

– Do you mind opening the trunk? Just a formality. Just to be sure. And you may go further.

Malcovich left his fingers on the key for a while. Slowly, with dignity he turned his head towards the car-window and asked:

– What?

– Open the trunk I said! – repeated the patrol soldier.

«Good Lord! What bad have I done?!» – a desperate thought flashed by in Andrei’s head.

Humming the tune of «There is an isle of Bad Luck in the ocean», Andrei switched off the ignition, put out the key, opened the door and said rapidly:

– Well, kids! Let’s arrange it! I’ll pay! 500 to each! I’m in a hurry you know! They stop and check me at every post! I’m exhausted to open and close it all the time! One and the same everywhere! I’ve lost half an hour here. I was to be in Vedeno yesterday. So what shall we do? – Malcovich tried to take out his wallet. The second patrol soldier got on the alert.

– Take off your money! Open!

Malcovich heaved a sigh and started opening the trunk… Yawning the patrol soldier wanted to close his mouth with his hand to be decent, but suddenly whistled out and cried to his friend:

– Oh, Vasya! Here’s an arsenal! Guns of all kinds! Just look!

While the patrol soldier was going to Andrei’s car, thoughts were whirling around in his head. Andrei was unable to concentrate on anything.

– OK, I’ll tell you though I mustn’t. These arms are for the commandant’s office of the Northern airport. You know our guys are killed and the Chechens «re grabbing our arms as a trophy. The detachment commanders are in trouble. The office lacks a whale of arms! But it’s useless to explain to those fat-assed generals in Moscow and Rostov that we are losing arms in battle. In battle I say! So I’m going to save my old friends – to refill the arsenal to cut it short!

– This tale will be good for your lawyer, Captain! In court! And then we are surprised why the militants have Russian arms! – said that Vasya and spit scornfully on the move. He convoyed Malcovich to the post cabin, to call the militia from Mozdok, «for detaining an offender».

Nevertheless Lieutenant Garov, 23 years of age, left his native stanitsa. «Maybe, my wife will understand me, – he thought sitting on a pile of rolled canvas tents near a porthole of the plane „Rostov – Grozny“, – Anyway, other officers’ wives share life with their husbands. They have to travel with them and put up with their duties, don’t they?».

– Oh, young lieutenant! Flying for the first time? – a tender-hearted old man near him cried out.

– Yes, first, – Alex nodded.

– Want some water? I have some mineral water left. Have a drink?!

– No, thanks. I have myself. – Alex shouted in response and half closed his eyes as if he were dosing…

When in that Lera’s Opel he took her passionately, even violently he couldn’t imagine he would be her first man. Just think: a young lady drives along the deserted highway, then picks up a stranger and – what’s more! – is ready to give in to him… Alex wouldn’t have remembered her the next morning if he hadn’t discovered some blood on his trunks taking a shower and hadn’t compared this with Lera’s cry «Oh, it hurts!» when she lost her virginity.

– Mum! Do you know the Lavrovs?

– Of course I know! Everybody knows them! He is a market director, and she is the Chief public prosecutor.

– Oh, God! What I’ve done!

– What’s wrong, my boy? – Mother didn’t hear her son’s exclamation for the water was running in the shower cabin.

– Nothing special!.. Mum, I’m hungry! Awfully hungry!

The next evening he was waiting for Lera near the kindergarten. When she appeared the last beam of sunset fell right on his face. So he screwed his eyes a bit:

– Hello!

Suddenly Lera spoke in a manly voice:

– Kid, wake up! Wake up! We’ve just arrived. The flight is over.

Alex moved abruptly and opened his eyes. The warm-hearted old man was over him:

– We’ve come I say. Had a nap? Well, don’t hurry. We have a lot of time to disembark. They won’t take you back on board. They’ll fly back only tomorrow. With the dead. Here – with alive, back – with dead. Alive and dead. As the title of that novel. By the way, who’s the author of it? Some Russian chap… Ugh… I forgot. Slipped my mind. Oh, my cabbage head! Don’t you remember, lieutenant? – The old man was smiling.

Garov was ready to hit him at the jaw. He clinched his fists, but the old man noticed that and changed his face and tone.

– Please, don’t be angry for my words, – he said. – Neither you nor I want death and war. Neither you nor I started killing people. Others began that war – those who drive in luxurious cars and sit in cozy armchairs. They don’t see any blood, any grief, they’re just getting money. But it’s always not enough for them. They don’t care a straw who is me and who is you! Their fat life is the only thing they care! They’re not at war like Napoleon. Alas, guys like you are merely cannon fodder. Ad you’ll go to make exploits! What for? For their benefit?!

Alex couldn’t deny it. He was listening to the old man gloomily. He undid and clenched his fists.

The old man stopped speaking for some time, then continued in a quiet voice:

– I met Nino, my future wife on the 9th of May. Then it became a Victory day you know. She was just a girl. She left school and was going to enter the institute. But the war began. I was in a trench near Stalingrad in 1942 when I got a small parcel. Many soldiers got such parcels. So I opened it and saw a pair of knitted woolen socks. There was a photo and a small triangle letter in one of them… Our women in the rear gathered what they could for the parcels and sent them to the front line. It was Nino who’ d knitted the socks. Besides, she looked ahead: she would marry the man who would get those socks. She told me that later when our son was one… Then I looked at her photo – a smiling pretty girl she was. That photo touched my heartstrings. I recalled my dear home, cosy and warm. So I read her letter, learned what her name was. As it turned out, we’d lived in the same street in Grozny before the war. Strange as it may seem, the war helped me to find my love. So I answered her. We wrote to each other till the victory. In April, 45 I got wounded and was taken to hospital. Was discharged on the 1st of May, could walk on crutches only. Was sent back home. Nino came to meet me at the railway station, brought me a bouquet of tulips. In a year our son was born.

The old man paused. Then he continued his story:

– Nino died. But I live. Son died. But I live. Truly, I died too… We didn’t want to leave Grozny. But everyone left. Nino and I stayed alone. On the 2nd floor. We, old people, can’t look for a new home, wander from one flat to another. So as we thought it was high time for us to go to the better world. We had lived together for ages – so we would die together as well. As I thought. But it wasn’t so… I went away for half an hour …And it began: helicopters, fire, enemies… I saw our house crash down. It was exploded. When I was leaving Nino said: «I’ll have a rest, wait for you and then feed Vas’ka. Vas’ka is our cat. As you see she didn’t feed him.