Julia Rudenko - I am your woman!

Alex couldn’t help asking:

– And your son?

– My sonny died in the air-crash. He was a pilot. Now I’m coming back from my daughter-in-law. She lives in Rostov, with my granddaughter. She asked me to stay, but I can’t stay, Can’t live without Nino. It’s all the same for me – to die. Better to be buried near her.

– You two, get off! You can talk outside! – someone said.

The officers of the commandant’s office met Sasha Garov friendly. Major Smirnov called him just Garik and offered him to follow a provision pack to Khankala.

– I’d love to! – Sasha answered with great alacrity. – When do we start?

– Oh, not so fast! Steady on! Not today but tomorrow! Major Smirnov squinting a little looked straight into Garov’s eyes.

But meeting the same sight, sharp and steady Smirnov turned aside and bawled:

– Glushko!

Private Glushko came in a great hurry. Hearing his commander’s voice he’d run out of a wooden john, fastening his fly on the run. So he got to the office quicker than fastened all the buttons on his trousers.

Major Smirnov couldn’t help mocking at Glushko:

– So you see, lieutenant, – he said to Garov, – what blockheads I have to rule?

– Comrade Major!.. – Glushko tried to clear himself.

Then he got abashed and turned red.

– Well, come down, Private Glushko! Clasp the last button! Stand up properly! Now tell me and Lieutenant Garov how the detained militants feel.

Glushko set straight his shirt, pants and belt, then straightened up at full length. After short silence he cried out as if dashing on the embrasure:

– Comrade Major! Let me speak! The two militants detained by you yesterday are in the cellar quietly. But not because they are always quite. I gather they are weak after you taught them a lesson so to say last night. So they’re still lying, bleeding. Sometimes they say: «Bitches, Bastards all the same tear them all!»

– Hey, and you? Sitting above them and listening to their trash with pleasure?! – Smirnov frowned. – You’d better read books! There’s some truth in them sometimes! What’s the book you like by the way?

The soldier thought for a moment and said:

– «Three bears».

Garov burst out laughing and turned aside pretending he was coughing. But Major Smirnov continued seriously:

– What?! Is it a fairy-tale or so?! You like tales, don’t you? Tales are a good thing anyway. But what’s the latest book you read, Glushko?

Glushko was a bit confused, thought again and uttered:

– «Three bears».

Garov was half laughing, half coughing louder and louder. He was choking with laughter. Smirnov threw a glance at him, smiled slightly and said pretending to be serious:

– Glushko! Your silly answers made lieutenant Garov choke. Think of what your speak! You’re nineteen, aren’t you?

– Yes, sir!

– You couldn’t have read books last in the 3rd form?

– Oh no, – Glushko smiled. – It’s under my pillow. I read it before sleep.

– What… read? This tale? – Smirnov was stunned.

Garov was unable to hold back and now was laughing boisterously. Glushko looking at Garov and laughing Smirnov really didn’t grasp what was going on. Turning redder than he he’d been with his fly he tried to understand what he’d said wrong.

– Comrade Major! I’ve told you the truth but you…

– Glush-ko!.. Did you read «Ryaba the Hen» for example? – Smirnov said stammering with laughter – I’ll give it to you to read! Very in-te-res-sting!

Then ensign Merdyev entered the office carrying a large bag:

– Laughing? Glushko said something stupid again?

Smirnov still choking with laughter asked Merdyev:

– Lyokha! Did you read a Russian folk tale «Three bears»?! Ha-ha-ha! Glushko recommends us reading it! A good book – a bestseller – he says. It’s a handbook for him! Like the Bible!

Merdyev putting the food from his bag into the fridge cast a glance at Glushko:

– «Three bears» is an excellent tale! My mum read it to me! It’s not so absurd! But it’s bad Glushko doesn’t read other books. Romka, would you like «War and peace», the first volume? Once I found it in an empty flat in Grozny. «Perhaps, it’ll come in handy!», – I thought. OK?

– OK, – muttered Glushko frowning.

Hearing them laughing Svetlana, Smirnov’s wife, came out of the next room:

– Stop mocking at this laddie!

– Who is a laddie here?! – the Major asked sharply. – Glushko is a soldier on duty. He defends his Motherland and hence his mother and his village Glushkino. As a real soldier and citizen he must know about his country, its national heroes and its best writers as well. He is a man-of-war like those militants in the cellar who cry «tear you, bastards!». Or he is different because he reads «Three bears»? And if the Chechens attack us right now, will he jump off the window and run to mummy like Masha from this tale?! I hope he won’t! – Smirnov grinned scornfully.

Meanwhile they heard a tumult of explosion not far from them. After the explosion there came a cross-fire. Smirnov turned around, seized his tommy-gun from the bed and dashed to the door pushing away Glushko. Then he looked back on the move:

– Garov? Are you with me?!

– Yes, yes! – Alex seized a tommy-gun too and followed Smirnov.

– And I? – What I should do? – Glushko’s voice came out of the office.

– Read «War and peace»! – Smirnov’s voice echoed.

– Just a moment! I’ll give you the book! – Merdyev said. He was pottering with the food he’d brought.

– Where are these pretty cakes and pelmens from? – asked Svetlana. – Is there a shop nearby?

– Of course not. – Merdyev said smiling. – The point is the Chechens try to earn their living in some or other way. That’s why they set a market in the airport. When I see them I ask: «Where’s your license? No license? Get off!». So they give me packets with food to stay there. That’s all!

Then to Glushko:

– Here’s the book for you!

Ensign Merdyev took the book by Tolstoy out of the mattress and gave it to Glushko.

The rhythm of time came out of the hospital staff lounge distinctly and monotonously. The ward-door was ajar. Dasha Sviridenko hated the rest-time since childhood, since her mother had to take her out of the day-nursery because she was constantly ill. She wasn’t asleep alone in the ward. She tried to plan beforehand the forthcoming mysterious event – the sacrament of the childbirth. Sometimes she took her knitting-needles – the panties were nearly ready.

The clock struck four, when the bottom of her stomach became unusually wet. There was no pain but Dasha got frightened. Perhaps her child was eager to be born. Dasha didn’t dare to wake up any of her ward-mates. She stood up in silence and hurried to the exit. According to her calculations there were 2 days left before the supposed date of confinement. An obstetrician nurse examined her lying in the armchair and shook her head:

– The amniotic fluid has gone. So you’ll bear drily.

To bear normally, without a Cesarean section was impossible for Dasha. 13 hours later Dasha exhausted by birth pangs and nearly unconscious was shown to the surgery. A medical brigade was sent for. Tatyana, a reanimation nurse who used to be Dasha’s classmate came up to her, tortured by numerous injections, and whispered tenderly:

– A good doctor will operate you! I told him: «Don’t cut our beauty too much!

Tatyana smiled and stepped aside.

– Well, where is your little vein? Do make a fist! – the anaesthesiologist said to Dasha flirting with one of the nurses. Almost all in the surgery knew they were lovers. Dasha also knew that. So it was nice for her to fall asleep surrounded with the fluids of secret love floating over her. She closed her eyes. The anaesthesiologist’s last words: «Dasha, count up to 10!» – sounded as if in the microphone, then dissolved like an echo in the mountains. She was smiling full of trust towards the doctor.The she fell asleep…

Though Cadet Sviridenko was preparing himself to the forthcoming change in his life, the telegram about it was all of a sudden for him. It came like a bolt from the blue. He was shocked. What to do? Where to go? What to speak and to whom? «Son born.» His son was born. HE… HAS …A SON!!! No! – can it be? Maybe it’s just a mistake. Is it real? Maybe, it’s merely a dream. Perhaps, some other man became a father. SON! He is a father now, isn’t he? What does it mean – father? What does it mean – son? It happens time and again. But could it happen with him. At that moment he was eager to be a free poet, to die young like Pushkin? And now he has a son! It’s time to write a cradle song – that’s what he must do! He went to the company commander. An hour later Cadet Sviridenko got a leave warrant for a day.

Arriving in Rostov, he headed for the local maternity hospital. But he wasn’t allowed to his wife. He wrote her a message and went to his mother-in-law. She cried nervously at him: «You’d better buy flowers! Daddy!».

Then he was silent – Dasha’s mother was calling the shots around:

– Wash your hands! Change!

He was exhausted by her commands completely. Why doesn’t she realize? His son was born! He became a father! Not she!

When she was ironing diapers hurriedly to carry them to the maternity hospital as soon as possible and asked him to do something again he threw on his jacket and was off. Cadet Sviridenko spent a night under the hospital windows. The words of a cradle song occurred to him. He wrote them down on a sheet of paper.

In the morning he returned to his military school. «I have a son!».

Malcovich met Major Smirnov during the Afghan war. But he wasn’t sure if he could rely on him. Nevertheless, Malcovich couldn’t invent anything better. So Andrei phoned his old chum and told him what had happened. Asked him to appear in court in Mozdok as a witness.

After that Smirnov grew very gloomy, as black as thunder. Well, a pretty kettle of fish! Malcovich lived easier. Neither wife nor children! Free as a bird. But Smirnov couldn’t afford risking. Malcovich was in the soup now, Smirnov could be as well. Smirnov has a whale of problems himself. Everybody is stealing arms now, concealing and transporting illegally! But it was absolutely idiotic of Malcovich to be caught in such a way. «Well, Malcovich, Malcovich, a smart man! But sometimes a silly ass!».

Garov noticed at once Smirnov get grim.

– What’s wrong?

– Of course, all is wrong! That bloody Malcovich, damn it! «Carrying arms to the commandant’s office!» – He dared say so in the militia! Couldn’t invent anything better? «Smirnov, do come and help me, please! I beg you! Save me! I’ll remember it forever! If we sell the arms we’ll share the money fifty-fifty». Fico to him! And if I don’t go what’s then?!

– Don’t worry, Major! Is it impossible to say in court Malcovich was really transporting the arms to us?!

– So you’ll tell it, won’t you?! Right? Bloody genius you are! The cleverest man I’ve ever seen! Don’t be silly! – Smirnov was walking to and fro, took things and put them back. He couldn’t concentrate. At last he sat by Garov with his hands upon his knees. – OK. Perhaps you are right. You will go to Mozdoc. Tomorrow.

It was a turning point in Garov’s life. MALCOVICH NEVER FORGOT THOSE WHO ONCE HELPED HIM…

Malcovich and Garov came back from Mozdok to the Northern airport together. Malcovich’s joy was exuberant. Garov was happy too that their affair came off.