Parkhomov Mikhail Noevich ( real name- Kligerman; April 26, 1914, the village of Belogorodka, now the Khmelnitsky region - May 1993, Kyiv) - writer, journalist. Member of the Union of Writers of the Ukrainian SSR (1954).

He lost his parents early, he was homeless. Then he worked as a turner, studied at the workers' faculty.

Graduated from the Faculty of Architecture of the Kyiv Civil Engineering Institute.

Worked as a newspaper correspondent.
During the war years, he got into the Dnieper flotilla, then he was a front-line correspondent, in the first years of peace - the editor of the newspaper "Dneprovsky Vodnik", a staff correspondent of "Water Transport".

He began publishing as a writer in 1948.

The reader is well aware of the books of M. Parkhomov "Caravans" (1950), "The Fate of a Comrade" (1957), "We were shot in the forty-second" (1958), "The game starts from the center" (1963), "I had a friend", "Non-Flying Weather", "Black Devils", etc.

Book compiler. - K.: Ukrainian writer. 1992.

He was a member of the editorial board of the magazine "Rainbow".

I had a friend

About Viktor Nekrasov. Memories (Man, Warrior, Writer). - K.: Ukrainian writer, 1992, pp. 238-259

Many years ago I wrote a story with that title. A weak story, although the late critic I. Kozlov approved of it. It took place in the besieged Sevastopol. In one of the enemy trenches, the orderlies found a wounded sailor commander. There were dead enemies all around. They counted a dozen and a half. And the authorities attributed them to the “personal account” of the wounded commander, who was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union for this feat. But the man was ashamed to look into the eyes of the lads. And he... committed suicide.
That was the complete truth. I didn't dare to tell her. That is why the story turned out to be tortured, weak, although one can also find honest, suffered lines in it. Now, using that old title, I want to write the whole truth.
I had a friend. Real. The only one in a lifetime. His home-style name was simply: Vika.
So his mother, Zinaida Nikolaevna, called him, so his peers and even young men who were three times younger addressed him. Not Viktor, not Viktor Platonovich, and not by a rather common surname in Russia, but simply: Vika. And he didn't take offense. Only once did he slyly protest. At a reception at the French Embassy on the occasion of the arrival of the Minister of Culture, Andre Malraux, who once attended the first writers' congress. Among the guests was my friend. He spoke with Vladimir Soloukhin. He, of course, also called him simply Vika. And then the then Minister of Culture Ekaterina Alekseevna Furtseva approached them. And she also said: "Vika ..."
- Call me Viktor Platonovich, - my friend said. - Otherwise, I will have to call you Katya.
By the way, they were the same age. And to the credit of E. L. Furtseva, it must be said that she was not at a loss and answered: - Please.
Who else from the writing brethren addressed in those memorable years to the secretaries of the Central Committee or ministers simply by name? Even the instructor of the district committee of the Komsomol, the guys should address by name and patronymic: "Valentin Petrovich" or "Gennady Mikhailovich." So, they say, "accepted." And it is also customary to wear a tie and a jacket even in the summer heat. When I was sixty years old and Literaturnaya Gazeta published a tiny photograph, adding, of course, a tie, my friend sarcastically congratulated me with a telegram: “I saw the tie for the first time period Congratulations.”
He didn't wear ties either. I remember that the tieless literary team included Daniil Granin and Konstantin Vanshenkin, Vladimir Tendryakov and many, many others. Everyone has their own taste and their own concept of decency.
How do people become friends? There are many unexplained things in life. Once my friend, returning from Moscow, said that on the third day he woke up at exactly five thirty in the morning and thought about the old Kiev photographer NN, the owner of a collection of amazing photographs of pre-war Kyiv: empire-style facades of mansions, wooden outbuildings, cozy courtyards, churches on the outskirts, cabbies on "dutiks", hawkers, the mustachioed driver of the only open "Packard" in the city, billboards ... "We need to visit the old man," my friend said. "We haven't been to him for a long time." The next day we went on foot to the outskirts. And they heard that it was on that very night at five-thirty that the old man died. How to explain it?
Isn't it strange that we, studying at the same institute at the same faculty of architecture (at that time there were only about five hundred students at the Kiev Civil Engineering Institute - now there are tens of thousands of them), meeting daily in classrooms and corridors, did not get closer? But they could! We were drawn to literature. A classmate of my future friend I. Lokshtanov already published poems in a local magazine, another future architect L. Serpilin wrote prose, and the one whom I later called Vika also wrote about caravels and corsairs, taking lessons from the then well-known Kyiv novelist. Dmitry Urin, the author of the sensational "Shpany". I tried the pen myself. And yet we never once said, even mentally, “There is contact!”
I think that all the fault was a sudden passion for the theater. My future friend, having previously graduated from the studio at the Kiev Theater of Russian Drama, became a theatrical artist and actor. I. Lokshtanov, later an honored artist of the BSSR, also graduated from the same studio.
We met again after the war, when the three-year age difference erased by itself. Both were captains, both began to write about their experiences. My future friend was demobilized due to a wound back in 1944, he tried to enter graduate school, but “didn’t pass” as before, before the war, he “didn’t pass” with Stanislavsky, although he could have become an excellent actor, but he retained his firm hand and sharp eyes for all life. In any case, when many years later he himself designed his future book “First Acquaintance” in Maleevka, his drawings were praised by such masters as the Kukryniksy. But you go, "didn't pass." And he had to enter the newspaper, which dealt with issues of art ...
It was only in films that soldiers returned from the war strewn with flowers to the bravura jubilation to the brilliance of polished brass brass bands. In life, everything happened much more prosaically. Kyiv was destroyed by three quarters. The plumbing didn't work. There was no light. But, fortunately, already elderly women managed to survive the occupation. My friend's mother and aunt had just moved to another communal apartment on the last, fourth, floor of another surviving house, which stood a little lower on the same Kuznechnaya (now named after Gorky) street. We lived in two rooms. The larger one was separated by a plywood partition. And there, by the light of the bowls, was a pencil - he always worked with a pencil, "without starting an archive" for posterity - one of the most poignant, one of the most honest books about the war was written.
At first it was called "On the edge of the earth." Then in the magazine "Znamya" it was renamed "Stalingrad". And to a wide, mass reader, she came under the title "In the trenches of Stalingrad."
Later, many years later, when we were burying the poet Yakov Gorodsky, my friend said: “You know, he was the first person to read my manuscript.”
But Y. Gorodskoy was not in power. He could only help kind word. I had to send the manuscript to Moscow. Fortunately, she fell into the hands of a talented, intelligent and honest critic Alexandrov, and then on the table of Vsevolod Vishnevsky.
"This a year will pass under the sign of "Stalingrad" by Viktor Nekrasov," Vishnevsky wrote.
He wasn't wrong. The story was awarded the Stalin Prize. And then the head of the Writers' Union of Ukraine Oleksandr Korneichuk "himself" condescended to the author.
- Vika, - he said, shining goldenly with laureate medals and orders. - Let's go in my car through Ukraine.
- With pleasure, only without it, - Nekrasov pointed to the chest of the literary general.
- Well, why? Let people see who they are dealing with, - answered Korneichuk.
The trip, of course, did not take place.
And the second conversation between Nekrasov and Korneichuk did not lead to anything. Nekrasov received a letter from his front-line friend Ivan Fishchenko, introduced in the story under the name of Chumak. A man who went through fire and water and copper pipes, wounded many times, awarded many orders, including the Order of the Red Banner of War, foolishly enlisted in the Far East. He worked in the mine, and old wounds opened up on him. How to get him out of there? Nekrasov turned to the all-powerful Korneichuk. But he replied: "Nothing, let life know."
It was Chumak, the sea soul, who was supposed to "know" life! Nekrasov wrote to Boris Gorbatov. He was friendly with the Minister of the Coal Industry and did everything to save the former warrior. After this, should we be surprised that a literary official and an honest writer did not have special sympathy for each other? “Just think,” Korneichuk complained at one meeting. - The author of the ideologically vicious story "Kira Georgievna" comes to Paris, and they write about it in all the newspapers. And you come, Vice-President of the World Peace Council, and this event is celebrated with a petite on the last page!
At that meeting at the former Institute for Noble Maidens, Nekrasov was publicly and far from nobly worked for the first time.
Only the critic Ivan Dzyuba boldly spoke in his defense, having escaped from the hospital in which he was lying for this. The speaker directly said everything that he thinks about literary officials, naming them by name. What started here! “Who is in favor of allowing Dziuba to continue his speech?” - arch-democratic, without doubting the results of the vote, asked the chairman. Only Nekrasov and I raised our hands. And the speaker was deprived of the floor. Who likes to listen to the truth that is cut in your eyes?
Depressed, we left that meeting. Nekrasov was silent. They started interfering in his life. Do this, don't do that... Previously, everything depended on him. And now... He has become different. Rigid, silent, intractable. He could no longer remain a complaisant and cheerful guy. When they interfere in your life, when they want to remake it in their own way, you either protest and resist, or you obey. But it is enough for you to bow your head at least once, just once, and you are gone. You will later make excuses, smiling wryly, that you don’t have to spit against the wind, that the smart one won’t go uphill ...
- Listen, - the writer Valentin Bychko said to me at a meeting, - tell your Nekrasov, let him write to Khrushchev, repent. Is he smarter than all of us?
- No, - I answered. - He is not smarter, but more honest.
Approximately the same, but in other words, said Nekrasov's mother Zinaida Nikolaevna, seeing us off to the next party meeting. “Boys, have fun,” she admonished us, and then turned to me alone so that Vika would not hear: “If he starts to repent, he will cease to be my son.”
A doctor by profession, Zinaida Nikolaevna studied in Switzerland. Either because she was from Simbirsk, or because the Russian colony was not very large, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin often visited her house (I saw a letter from the Moscow museum asking for a tablecloth on which he had tea). The Nekrasov family was also friendly with A.V. Lunacharsky, who helped Vika enter the institute, when it was mainly children of workers who were accepted there. And the sister of Zinaida Nikolaevna, Aunt Sonya, worked with Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya in the twenties. All this was something to be proud of. But my friend never trumped it. And his mother too. Once, when after supper we sat down to the radio, my wife, in order to occupy Zinaida Nikolaevna, began leafing through an old family album with her.
Finding in it a photograph of Vladimir Ilyich, his wife asked: “Who is this?” To which Zinaida Nikolaevna replied: "Some of my acquaintances."
I did not remember my mother, grew up an orphan, and treated her like a mother.
Her kindness was extraordinary. One day we were returning from Odessa. We took one coupe. There were no beds in it - the railway department sent all the bedding to the "conquerors of the virgin lands." Standing in the corridor, we "watered" the railroad workers. My wife tried to calm us down. And when we returned to the compartment, we saw that Zinaida Nikolaevna, having fastened part of her wardrobe with safety pins, built a “dumochka”. Handing it to my wife, she said: “Lidochka, this is for you. Otherwise, you won't fall asleep."
But her sister Sofya Nikolaevna had a proud, obstinate character. When in the early fifties the burnt-out passage was rebuilt and Nekrasov (the laureate after all!) was provided with a separate two-room apartment She flatly refused to leave her closet. And she didn’t take money from her nephew either - she lived on a meager pension. Therefore, Nekrasov had to be cunning. He brought her foreign magazines, ostensibly to be translated on behalf of some publishing house, and then sent a "fee" for this work by mail. Only at the end of her life did she “get rich”: the magazine “ New world"published her memoirs (her maiden name is Motovilova).
In this family, banknotes were treated without respect. While other laureates were hastily acquiring dachas and cars, Nekrasov gave his prize for the purchase of motorized wheelchairs for war invalids. They lived modestly. In the morning - coffee with toasts from the loaf left over from the evening, a two-course lunch (any random guest will be fed) and cold water in a carafe for mother, in the evening - a fresh bun with butter and cheese, tea from a samovar, jam ... Things - only the most necessary. "Zeissian" bookcases, a sofa for guests, a couch and an ottoman, a chest of drawers and an old two-pedestal desk. There is a radio receiver on the bookcase (later a black-and-white TV appeared). On the walls are paintings by Serebryakova and Burliuk, which had to be sold before their forced departure abroad, engravings and a friendly caricature of Igor Alexandrovich Sats, the work of the owner.
Nekrasov helped many disgraced writers - there were enough of them in those years, and when he himself became destitute, Muscovites, Leningraders and Kievans helped him in difficult days with money. It couldn't be otherwise.
I also had the simplest monetary relations with him. He could call and, asking how much I have on the passbook, say that he takes half. I could offer to go together to the house of creativity and, having heard that I have no money, buy vouchers for everyone.
Even in those days when he sat on the beans, he did not compromise his principles. It was, I remember, a pure white winter. The eminent film director Bondarchuk invited Nekrasov to a dinner party and offered to write the script for a serial film based on Leo Tolstoy's novel "War and Peace", promising fat thousands. “And what will we do with Platon Karataev? And how do you feel about Tolstoy's statements about the role of the individual in history?” Nekrasov asked. The director waved it off: "Empty ..." And Nekrasov refused. “You should have the right to put your name next to Tolstoy,” he told me.
And he loved cinema. Behind him, he already had the script for the film "Soldiers", written according to the book "In the trenches of Stalingrad." The film was shot at the Lenfilm studio by director Ivanov. This is one of the best pictures about the war (the author was awarded a prize for the script). In this picture, Innokenty Smoktunovsky starred as Farber for the first time, and Leonid Kmit, “Chapaevsky Petka,” starred as Chumak. But this is a picture of the war that soldier Viktor Astafyev and trench officer Viktor Nekrasov saw. Generals and marshals knew a completely different war. Is this why General Chuikov did not like this picture? Then Chuikov commanded the Special Kyiv Military District. He invited Nekrasov to his place. Returning from him, Nekrasov admitted: “Do you know what he told me? That the mountain gave birth to a mouse. Still, because in the picture there were no wise strategists and brave generals.
Nekrasov was already familiar with Chuikov. They met in Stalingrad. But after the war. Arriving there, Nekrasov met Boris Polevoy, and he invited the famous general, who was staying in a suite, to visit. In the evening, the writers came to the hotel and found the general ... under the stairs. It turned out that he was kicked out of the room, because the shahina was supposed to enter there. If my memory serves me right, then there was Shahin Soreyya, who was later left by the Shah and became a film star. For this reason, three former front-line soldiers drank a bottle under the stairs.
It happened that I ran to Nekrasov in the middle of the day. He usually lay on the couch with a magazine or a book. Above him, the entire wall was occupied by a detailed (can you see the facade of each house? map of Paris. In the corner above the mother’s bed, a bone crucifix was yellow. In those days, a strong dark feeling of anxiety did not let go of Nekrasov. Moments of melancholy were often found on him.
I lay down next to. And we remembered Koktebel or Yalta. The sea is very close there. Below, on the embankment, heavy dark waves crashed against the pier with a rough roar, rocking the moored boats. Resort music played there, and we dived upside down, fought with big water.
The literary fate of Nekrasov can hardly be called easy, although his first book was already awarded the prize. After the "Trenches" he wrote the play "Dangerous Way", which the Moscow Art Theater announced but did not stage. She saw the light of the ramp only in the production of S. Lungin on the stage of the Theater. Stanislavsky, and was published only a quarter of a century later in the journal Raduga. The play was followed by the story "Private Buttercups", which was immediately subjected to devastating criticism. And off we go ... The story "In the Hometown", this is the first honest work about the return from the war, published in a meager edition of the "Young Guard", also irritated official criticism. And this book was difficult to write. When Nekrasov finished the story and sent it to Novy Mir, the editor suddenly changed in the magazine.
- No luck, - said Nekrasov.
"You'll see, Simonov will print you," I encouraged.
And sure enough, a telegram arrived from Simonov, who was vacationing in the Caucasus. Konstantin Mikhailovich invited Nekrasov to his place.
Soon the magazine published the story. But, I repeat, it did not bring joy to the author. Critics were wary. An overgrown lady from a Komsomol newspaper longed for an ideal hero, imagining him as a kind of Tarzan (a trophy film about him was shown on all screens not so long ago), but, of course, of a worker-peasant origin. Pundits demanded heroes worthy of imitation - the hidalgo Don Quixote of La Mancha and Chichikov did not suit them. Well, the demobilized officer Mityasov was not fit for heroes in all respects. And got him but the first number.
But "First Acquaintance" came to the reader easily. The post office was still working, like in the good old days. Nekrasov sent the manuscript to the journal, which was again edited by Alexander Trifonovich Tvardovsky, and the next day he came to the editorial office and read the manuscript in the morning.
Nekrasov flew to Moscow.
So after the war, no one wrote about abroad. Of course, before there were honest testimonies about “that” life. But B. Pilnyak's book about America has long been banned, and Ilf and Petrov's One-Story America was considered harmful. In honor were only those works in which everything alien was rudely cursed. In them, imperialism invariably rotted, the capitalists decayed, and the workers went on strike. Photos of the slums of New York were printed in all newspapers from year to year. Well, as for the writings of international journalists, they usually began with the words: “Our silver air liner took off from the concrete path of our native airfield ...”
Nekrasov wrote about Italy with love. He was outraged that other employees of the Soviet embassy, ​​living in Rome, to put it mildly, did not respect the Italian people. He himself met many people in Italy. Then they came to visit him - the artist Renato Guttuso, the artist and writer Carlo Levi, the publisher Einaudi... Carlo Levi told about his Kyiv meetings in the book "The future has an ancient heart." And Einaudi came to Kyiv with his wife and a friend who wrote for children. They wanted to buy at least some popular print.
It was only possible to get it at the Life Bazaar. In the morning we came to the hotel "Ukraine" to accompany the guests. A young Intourist translator, obviously embarrassed, said that foreigners were not supposed to go to the market, they had a completely different “program”. But we assured her that she need not worry, the guests would not see any military installations.
Zhitny bazaar is located near the Dnieper. Once upon a time they traded zhit here.
What was Podol at that time? Huts, peeling facades of two- and three-story houses, cobbled pavements, boarded-up churches covered with green tin, a stunted boulevard that separated the Upper Val from the Lower. The boulevard ran into the square. It was here that there was a motley noisy market called Zhitny Bazaar. There was a fierce smell of tar, wet matting, sprats and fresh Dnieper fish. The guests perked up. Perhaps the market reminded them of their native Italy?
We squeezed with difficulty between the wagons, climbing into the very thick of the market-holiday crowd, drunk with excitement. Lubok pictures there were no swans and tailed mermaids this time. We reached the wall that protected the bazaar. There, on a cart with striped Kherson watermelons, a one-armed invalid was picturesquely reclining. He was in a blue shirt and faded trousers. Aypaudi aimed the lens of his DSLR at him. Inquired: "Can I?" Nekrasov replied: "Of course."
And then a fat Podolsk tradeswoman appeared before us. Her face was covered with such impressive warts that it looked like a horned sea mine. "Shi-pee-ops! .. - she yelled, showing the highest vigilance. - Take pictures of our disabled people! .."
We were surrounded by local well-wishers. A policeman appeared. He took everyone to the nearest sub-department of our workers and peasants.
It was housed in a former shop. The cramped space was full of people. A well-deserved nasal prostitute, hanygs, fidgety pickpockets, gypsies ... A young gypsy sitting on the floor in washed-out colorful chintz. breastfed the baby. The hanygs were cursing. Our guests were confused. They must have thought that they would go straight to Siberia.
Nekrasov went to explain himself to the boss. Neither he nor I had any passports with me. Certificates too. I had to call the Writers' Union.
Soon everything was settled.
This story would not be worth remembering if everything had not happened again in the summer of 1988... This was told by TV commentator Igor Fesunenko, who accompanied foreign guests when they made a world cruise along the Dnieper. Kherson vigilantes and police again detained a group of our guests. The heart rejoices: There are still very vigilant people in Russia.
And yet it was an amazing, blessed time, the history of art knows the "Golden Age of Pericles." The history of Russian literature recognized the "golden years of Tvardovsky". Ranks, awards and titles of authors did not matter to him. The only criterion was the quality of the literature. Real writers were drawn to the magazine. Memory prompts: “On the Irtysh”, “From the life of Fyodor Kuzkin”. "Wooden horses", "One day of Ivan Denisovich" ...
The magazine was read from cover to cover. Countrywide. Waited" for each number. But other editors were hardly pleased, much less official criticism.
It is a mistake to think that “their own” were somehow especially welcomed in the magazine. Alexander Trifonovich used to return manuscripts to both Tendryakov and Paustovsky. He also did not like Nekrasov's Kira Georgievna. But, having published this story, he later changed his opinion about it. Anything happened. No one is immune from failure. But it did not cause offense.
For some reason, many politicians at the end of their lives begin to "closely" engage in literature and art. Stalin, who wrote poetry in his youth, in his declining years took up questions of linguistics. Mao Zedong, also a failed poet, led a "cultural revolution" to defeat the intelligentsia. Khrushchev, whose favorite bard was the obscure writer Makhinya, having solved all economic problems so successfully that White bread they began to give out only to sick people, switched to questions of literature, painting and sculpture, calling the artists in the Manege "pederasts". Brezhnev became the "author" famous trilogy... Here it would be appropriate to say that Nekrasov, already abroad, lost his Soviet citizenship after Brezhnev was awarded the Lenin Prize for literature. This happened in April. One of the journalists immediately turned to Nekrasov with questions about what he thinks about the "Little Land" and other masterpieces. “This has nothing to do with literature,” Nekrasov answered honestly. And the retribution for these words was not long in coming. Nekrasov was immediately deprived of Soviet citizenship.
But all this will happen in a decade and a half. And then ... Incompetent rhymers, dramas and publicists who were adept at swearing, calling themselves "machine gunners of the party", set Khrushchev, who was not burdened with knowledge and taste, at all in the slightest degree talented people. Got on the first number and Nekrasov. His travel essays "On Both Sides of the Ocean" aroused particular anger. Izvestia, led by Adjubey, immediately published an opus called "Tourist with a cane." Its author is unknown to me. And yet I dare to call him a bastard.
He could stick any label to Nekrasov: “esthete”, “troubadour”, “formalist”, “snob”, “nihilist”, “graphomaniac” - the scumbags have a very extensive palette, but call Nekrasov a “tourist with a cane”! Before that, I had to think about it. And this is a man who abroad was not interested in branded consumer goods, meinecken restaurants and striptease, a man who most willingly met with commoners, preferring their company with millionaires and senators, a man who shared his currency with travel mates, indifferent to cars (only one summer we were co-owners of a motorboat, but, not feeling a craving for technology, we immediately got rid of it), a man who wore plaid cowboy shirts and plush pants ... And this, in your opinion, is a tourist with a cane? Completeness. You yourself are striving abroad only in order to “shop for goods” and taste the “sweet life”.
- You know, - he said to me, returning from some kind of trip - Here we are with you scolding our orders. And there, abroad, I protect them. In Milan, one asked me: “You are talking about the absence of the Iron Curtain, but when I went to the Soviet Union, all my books were taken away at the border.” Then I said: “All my books that I was taking to my friends were taken away from me at the border. What do you think, there are no fools in the Soviet Union anymore? And everyone laughed.
This is how he behaved abroad. I rode the New York subway at night, which, they say, is not entirely safe, spent dollars on a haircut (you need to make sure how the local Figaros work there), drank cheap wine with hard workers in Parisian bistros, bought toys for the children of their friends. The “correct” writer Vsevolod Kochetov demanded, I was a witness to this, that they only take a first-class plane ticket for him, and the “wrong” Nekrasov smoked proletarian Belomor all his life.
But the "wrong" ones are always suspicious. They are not very well-respected. Be like everyone else. Vote when others raise their Hands, together with everyone shout “Hurrah!..” What, don't you agree? Well, you know! Here is Nikita Sergeevich himself ... And then there is an article in the newspaper. How not to react?
Something, but the party apparatus knew how to guess the desires of the authorities. By the voice, but by the movement of the eyebrows... The case was opened, the car spun at full speed. Meetings. Party committee meetings. Pleasant acquaintance with members of the party commission, consisting mainly of gloomy retired lieutenant colonels of the quartermaster service. Then the bureau of the district committee. Regional committee... We survived it together. Little did I know then that I would also go through this purgatory.
They sat at my house (Nekrasov protected his mother from trouble), judged, rowed, developed plans for "action". I went with him to the last - I don't remember what number - meeting of the bureau of the district committee. When he was called "on the carpet", I remained in the waiting room. Forty minutes passed. Slow, hard. Finally, he appeared at the doors, upholstered in artificial leather, having received a “stricter” as a warning. You could breathe a sigh of relief. Some guy jumped up to us, who was threatened with expulsion for embezzlement of party contributions. “Well, how? What do they ask? ..” Then he asked: “Friend, lend me a bottle. Maybe it will work for me too. Tell me your address, I will return the money. If they forgive me, I'll be more careful ... "
Apparently, he still hasn't been forgiven. Of course, he didn't return the money.
Now I try to remember what Nekrasov was at that time. Of course, he, as they used to say in the old days, had a vast mind. Honest. Conscientious. Unmercenary. His words never matched his deeds. Of himself, he was short and thin. He spoke leisurely. Life has already taken a toll on him. And although he did not harden, did not acquire the habit of pulling his head into his shoulders, nevertheless from time to time he laughed already with some kind of flabby, forced laugh. And something senile appeared in his face, although for years he was still relatively young.
And I had to live. Work. Travel around the country. He did not know how to arrange his literary affairs. And didn't want to. With a shudder, he recalled how, in that same office on Bolshaya Gnezdnikovsky Street, where he had once been persuaded to “supplement” the book “In the trenches of Stalingrad” with a chapter on the Supreme, after the 20th Congress he was asked to change the title of the book to “In the trenches of Volgograd”, although he did not fight for the city under that name. His books came out only thanks to the efforts of others. The volume of "The Chosen One" in Goslit was "punched" by G. Makogonenko, the collection of stories in the Kiev publishing house "Dnipro" - S. Zhurakhovich, the book in "Soviet Russia" - Timur Muguev. Where was he before the current champions, who managed to reprint their novels a hundred and even a hundred and fifty times! ..
I remember another evening. As usual, we ran to the nearest grocery store for a fresh loaf and rubber Dutch cheese - Kostroma cheese and Vologda butter could already be found only in the books “On Healthy and Tasty Food”. An electric samovar grumbled impatiently on the table when the bell rang.
A black phone hung in the hallway. The owner picked up the phone.
- Victor Platonovich? The coachman is talking to you...
- Sorry...
- Assistant to the First Secretary of the Central Committee. Could you come to us?
- When?
- Now.
- Good. I'll be there in ten minutes.
There was no need to go. From the passage to the impressive building on the former Bankovskaya Street (the house was built before the war for the headquarters of the special Kyiv military district) can be reached in five or six minutes. Vika said: "Wait, I'll be right back."
However, he returned only two hours later. He was received by the then First Secretary of the Central Committee P.E. Shelest. The conversation was on par. True, the assistants did not bother to inform the secretary of the Central Committee that his interlocutor was a laureate, that he was known abroad. Shelest said, among other things, that he was proud of his son, a doctor of sciences. And then Nekrasov cunningly inquired: “Already?” Understanding the subtext of this question, Shelest answered, justifying himself that he was a real scientist. It would seem that we are talking about literature. What else should the secretary of the Central Committee and the writer talk about? But P.E. Shelest asked if Nekrasov was ready to speak at the party plenum. No, not in Kyiv, but in Moscow itself.
Later it turned out that it was the idea of ​​M. A. Suslov, who was called the “gray eminence” behind his back. To convene a plenum and definitively debunk the previously dismissed N. S. Khrushchev. Since the author of the book "In the trenches of Stalingrad" had enough reasons not to favor the former member of the Military Council of the front, Suslov remembered the disgraced writer. Say, let him settle scores with Khrushchev. Say, now it's his turn.
Party leaders did not know Nekrasov well. He refused. I think he even said that they usually don't beat those who are lying down. He had his own concepts of honor, dignity and decency. He did not understand people who were able to fawn and curry favor with the authorities, and then, when it became former, trample it into the dirt.
But he had no sympathy for Khrushchev. And not only because, according to the highest command, he took a sip of grief. Paying tribute to Khrushchev (rehabilitation of many thousands of innocent "enemies of the people", debunking "the most brilliant commander of all times and peoples"), he could not forgive Khrushchev for the mere fact that during a meeting with writers "under the tent" the head of state, tipsy and lordly lounging on a chair, scolding Margarita Aliger standing in front of him. This is not only a sign of lack of culture. This, if you call a spade a spade, gustopsovoe rudeness.
For Nekrasov, Khrushchev was black and white, like the monument erected on his grave by Ernst Neizvestny. You can finish at least three academies social sciences, acquire academic degrees, be elected to the Academy, but never become an intellectual.
Nekrasov has always been distinguished by the fact that Dahl's dictionary speaks of nobility. These are actions, behavior, concepts and feelings that are consistent with truth, honor and morality. His nobility was abused by many. Then suddenly a person will come, he will be called a Simferopol driver who has fallen behind the train. In his hands is a doll, which he is taking to his daughter from the GDR. He dared to go to his “beloved writer” because there was nothing to get home on. He will, of course, return the money, here is his passport. Without looking into it, Nekrasov hands the driver a quarter, although the cat has wept money from him (an hour later we saw this "reader" in a liquor store). Then a young man from Novosibirsk suddenly appears and tells a story about how he killed a bear in order to take possession of his liver and save his father, who was suffering from liver cancer. “You see,” Nekrasov told me on the phone. “This is the guy!” In response, I asked if Nekrasov had been in our zoo for a long time. "What are you talking about?" - he was surprised. “About that,” I answered, “that there have probably been no bears there for a long time. So many nomenklatura comrades suffer from liver cancer that all the bears have been exterminated.” In response, he laughed. But this did not prevent him, however, from taking this hoaxer with him on a trip to Central Asia. He couldn't stand being alone.
The same circumstance was used by employees of one company, by no means trading, I will add on my own. But more on that later.
After a trip to the Far East, Nekrasov sat down for travel essays. He worked at my house. After dinner, we went out for a walk. On Dalny he saw hefty men walking in knee-deep rubber boots soaked in blood. With clubs they destroyed the defenseless “our smaller brothers” who crawled ashore, fulfilling and overfulfilling the production “plan”. “I understood the nature of fascism,” he told me. Later, Chingiz Aitmatov described a similar picture in The Scaffold.
Does a writer have the right to refuse to help destitute orphans, unjustly offended? The door of apartment No. 10 on Khreshchatyk Street, No. 15 was open to everyone. And just as Korolenko once stood up for the Jew Beilis accused of ritual murder, the writer Nekrasov did not hesitate to put his signature under the letter of a group of Ukrainian cultural figures who raised their voice against arbitrariness. Ukrainian schools were closed, expelled from institutions Ukrainian language- that melodious "movie" that Mayakovsky admired. This was done to please M. A. Suslov, who with one stroke of the pen decided the national question in the country. Say, there are no longer any nations, no nationalities, but there is a new community - a single Soviet people.
So the Russian writer Nekrasov was accused of ... bourgeois Ukrainian nationalism.
- Are you Viktor's bachysh? - the poet Andrey Malyshko asked me at the meeting. - Tell him that he is a good lad.
Nekrasov was again invited to the Central Committee. This time he was received by an intelligent and intelligent person. Pointing to the phones for the visitor, he took him to the far corner of the office and, seating him on the sofa, quietly said: “They are capable of anything.”
It referred to "firms".
Nekrasov came to grips with the "firm". A young filmmaker was assigned to him. This loser quickly gained confidence. By that time, Nekrasov, having buried his mother, was left alone. And loneliness, I repeat, was unbearable for him.
One thousand nine hundred and seventy-two began ... In those days (they had already finished with Novy Mir), Nekrasov thought a lot about the past, as if already buried, which nevertheless awakened so many vivid memories. It belonged to him alone, only to him. And he was filled with a feeling of loneliness and helplessness, to which, he knew, every person is doomed. You have friends, and yet you are alone.
In the evenings he left the house. In the darkness of Khreshchatyk here and there slowly and quietly smoldered the lights of cigarettes, the lights of young human lives, and he went to them to get rid of loneliness.
In the middle of the month I was going to Moscow. On the day of departure, I went to a confectionery shop for the famous "Kyiv" cakes for friends. After buying two cakes, which the saleswoman kindly tied together, I went to the nearest deli for cigarettes. There, a filmmaker clinging to Nekrasov was whispering with some personalities. Seeing me, he retreated.
Again I saw him at the entrance. He was taking mail out of the mailbox. When he saw me, he blushed. We went up to the third floor.
Opened by Nekrasov himself. He was dark-faced. He already knew that arrests had begun that day. He joked bitterly: "If only I could get into one camp." Nekrasov's wife Galina went into the kitchen to make coffee for us. When the doorbell rang, we heard her voice: “Wow! ..”
Seven people entered. The first to open the door to the room in a businesslike way was a gloomy, burly man of about fifty years old, obviously one of those who, in the sweat of their brow, served the "firm" even in its best times. He knew his maneuver. Behind him were his young companions. - Your documents!..
Nekrasov introduced me. The filmmaker named himself. Although it was not difficult to find out who I was, the senior firm manager said something to one of his fellows, and he ordered: “Get dressed.” And the filmmaker, “a person without certain occupations,” was released by the elder. Still, after all, he completed the "task" and ensured the presence of the owner of the apartment, who - what the hell is not joking? - could leave the house.
It goes without saying that in the good fellows I recognized the same guys who whispered with the filmmaker in the grocery store.
I put on my coat. Nekrasov and I kissed - when will we see each other again? Below was a black Volga. accompanying me good fellow leaned over to the driver: "To the committee."
It must have been ridiculous, I looked with my cakes in a strict gray house in which they did not like to joke.
I was kept there until four in the afternoon. At this time, Nekrasov was being searched. What was there to look for? He himself laid out on the table those few books that were published abroad. Marina Tsvetaeva's prose, autographed collection by B. Zaitsev, "In the First Circle" by Solzhenitsyn.
- Have you read these books? they asked me.
I had to answer that a writer should not only write, but also read. And add: “Twenty years ago you would have asked if I read Bunin and who gave it to me.”
I was especially suspicious that I was going to Moscow. Are they sending me to inform about the arrests in Kyiv?
But, having found out that the tickets were bought in advance, the firms calmed down.
At seven o'clock in the evening Nekrasov called me: "Well, how?" I replied: “Nothing. And you?" “Nothing either,” Nekrasov answered.
On my way back from Moscow, I thought anxiously about what awaited me in Kyiv. The concern was justified. The clouds were thickening over Nekrasov.
We never argued, we never quarreled over trifles. For three decades, we got used to each other so much that there was no longer the slightest distance between us. And we never exchanged empty words. We had a bad life then. Only occasionally, when they sat down at the table, did it become more comforting.
This time, Nekrasov was nevertheless expelled from the party.
He started smoking more. He spoke little. But he remained himself. He was attentive to people, noticed everything. He didn't get angry, he didn't complain. Only complacency, perhaps, diminished in him, although he still refused to believe in human meanness and did not dare from himself those who only live to harm people. And where do these come from? Young, sneaky, ready to play a dirty trick, write a denunciation or let rumors circulate around the world behind your back ... And all this is smiling, with innocent eyes.
And there was no money. "City walks" not only "New World", but also the trustworthy "Moscow" was unable to publish. In front of Nekrasov, an invisible wall of the all-powerful "firm" grew up on all sides.
- Well, that's it, I went to eat potatoes, - he told me once on the phone.
Meat dinner was waiting for me. Yes, only cutlets stuck in the throat. Since then, my wife often brought food from the Bessarabian market to Khreshchatyk. In the morning, leaving the bathroom, Nekrasov delicately pretended not to see anything.
And now it's time to explain why I call one of the Republican committees a "firm." I'm just repeating what I heard from one of his employees.
The Kiev publishing house "Radyansky pisnik" edited my book. It also contained the story "Black Devils", which was later published by the publishing house "Young Guard" and the Bulgarian military publishing house. It told about sea saboteurs. The publishing house considered it necessary to send the manuscript for consultation to the State Security Committee. I found out about this when a comrade from this committee called me and asked permission to come in. He arrived at the appointed time and presented his ID. We talked about the manuscript. In the meantime, the comrade said: “You know, our company ...” So I found out that the employees of this institution themselves call it “the company”.
At that time, the "firm" gave the go-ahead. The book has been published.
But after a year and a half or two years, the "firm" showed its teeth. The bell rang again. A comrade who introduced himself as Ivan Ivanovich (he obviously had not read the essay by Nekrasov, who christened the “art critic in plain clothes” who was traveling with him abroad) asked me to call on him at a convenient time for me. Believing that it was again about a future book, I took with me the manuscript, which contained the story "Viennese Waltz", and a copy of the book "Black Devils" sent from Bulgaria.
Ivan Ivanovich, let's call him that, obviously knew me by sight. Approaching me (there were a lot of people in the waiting room), he invited me into the next room.
“We know…” he began in a low voice.
He knew a lot. Even the fact that at the end of the thirties one of our students "planted" another.
But Ivan Ivanovich's cloudy, lusterless eyes could not make out whether he was satisfied with the conversation. His soul was dark. He didn't seem to be able to smile.
“Your friend is spreading all sorts of nonsense,” he said, although not in these words. “Yes, and you, too ...
I said nothing. Then he proceeded to the main thing.
- You must dissuade your friend from going abroad.
The last two years Nekrasov was "under the hood". He was accompanied everywhere by "art historians in civilian clothes". Did they think that he was going to commit a terrorist act? Or take a picture (he had an amateur movie camera) located on Khreshchatyk military facilities? It was impossible to live like this. And he asked permission to go to Switzerland to his uncle, a pensioner Ulyanov, to whom he subscribed for all the years ... the Ogonyok magazine. (This uncle was soon publicly declared a millionaire, on whose inheritance his nephew coveted. Only in this way did the millionaire writers imagine his departure. They saw money everywhere, big money). He received permission.
I refused to fulfill the order of the "firm". Ivan Ivanovich, who proudly called himself an operative worker, did not insist. Later it became clear that he was counting on the help of a certain literary general. - What do you have? - he asked.
I showed the manuscript of the book. And "Black Devils", published in Bulgarian. He said that I was invited there. Holy simplicity! Found where to be honest.
We parted without sorrow. But soon... I was punished for my obstinacy. The publishing house "Radyansky Pisnik" received an official paper signed by the Deputy Chairman of the Committee. It said that the “firm” considered publishing my book “unreasonable.”
Well, "Viennese Waltz" was included in the collection published by " Soviet writer' after six years.
But that was not all. At the end of August, a summons arrived from the OVIR. I came. The room was chock-full of young people eager to taste the sweetness of foreign life. And about a miracle! I was shown respect, called first.
A faded young girl of about twenty, somewhat reminiscent of an SS officer from the TV series Seventeen Moments of Spring, smiling sweetly, asked where I was going. Hearing that in Bulgaria, she again asked: to whom? I was invited by a member of the Central Committee, the secretary of the Varpen city committee. The girl nodded and said:
- You were denied. If you want, in six months...
I have already been to Bulgaria. Rising heavily from my chair, I said:
- That's it, girl. Tell the guys that I will not apply again. Not for rags, I was going to Bulgaria.
Since then, I have not looked into this office.
A week later, the Nekrasovs flew away. We were not afraid to cry. Heart prompted: we see each other for the last time.
Then there were only letters. And rarely phone calls. And more photos. From a village near Paris, from Norway, from London ... Although he said on the radio that he was fed up with Kyiv chestnuts, everything that happened in his hometown constantly aroused a painful interest in him. Now he asked to send him a book, then a photograph of the monument erected in Babi Yar. Kyiv owed much to him with this monument.
When the city authorities wisely decided to fill up Babi Yar and set up a park of culture and recreation on this place. Nekrasov protested in Literaturnaya Gazeta.
Arrange a dance floor on the bones of the dead? And you think this is moral?
Those in power had to reverse their decision and answer the newspaper that a "monument-pedestal" would be erected in Babi Yar in memory of the victims of fascism.
It so happened that Babi Yar became a deep, gaping brine on the body of mankind. Here, on Judgment Day forty-one, executions of tens of thousands of Kyivans began. All the black years of the occupation, the shots did not stop there. I saw this terrible place, which went down in history along with Majdanek, Treblinka and Buchenwald immediately after the liberation of Kyiv. Everywhere there were yellow human bones and skulls.
Therefore, on September 29, the people of Kiev, without saying a word, went to Babi Yar to pay their last debt to the dead. They walked in silence. They cried out loud. Sometimes there were spontaneous rallies. People were indignant: why so many policemen? And what kind of young people are they who demand in a whisper: “Come in, come in ...”
On one of these days we came to Babi Yar together with Nikolai Atarov, who was passing through Kyiv from the south. When the indignation of the people threatened to get out of control, the voice of Nekrasov sounded. He spoke about memory, about the duty of the living to the dead, about human solidarity. He spoke Russian. Then the critic Ivan Dziuba spoke in Ukrainian. About the friendship of people different nationalities about our common responsibility for the tragedies of the past.
The local authorities ought to thank the writers, but they took up arms against them, accusing them almost of ... Zionism. Then they changed their minds. And a year later, a representative of the district committee appeared in Babi Yar, who read a speech from a piece of paper about ... the achievements of the working people of the region in the struggle to fulfill the five-year plan.
And then Babi Yar again reminded of itself. At the beginning of the sixty-first. After heavy downpours, a hastily built dam broke through, and mudflows poured from the Yar to Kurenevka. Trolleybuses, trams, one- and two-story houses were buried. And most importantly - people. Dozens, hundreds of people (later, when it will no longer be possible to remain silent about what happened, the newspapers will report that “only” more than one hundred and twenty people died). Well, then ... Standing near the church, painted by the brilliant Vrubel, Nekrasov and I saw far below a cloudy dark desert.

In the same days, seven miners died in Czechoslovakia, and the government of the republic declared national mourning.

N. S. Khrushchev also sent condolences. And in our Kyiv, it’s a shame to admit that during the tragedy all theaters were working, and letka-enka was dancing in restaurants, although everywhere, without blushing with shame, there were posters that “our people are the most precious capital.”
Shortly thereafter, a competition for the notorious "monument-pedestal" was announced. Many projects were received. Perspectives and layouts were exhibited in the Architect's House Among the competition projects there were several excellent ones. And they chose, of course, the most “correct” one, with an unfolded banner. In nature, Nekrasov could not see him, he was already far away.

N. Dubov with his wife V. M. Dubova and fellow writers:
L. N. Volynsky (left) and M. N. Parkhomov (right)

At the House of Architects in Kyiv.
From left to right: Mikhail Parkhomov, Grigory Kipnis, Avraam Miletsky, Viktor Nekrasov,
Leonid Volynsky, Boris Brodsky, Nadezhda Lazareva (Mirova), Valentin Seliber
after watching the competition projects of monuments in Babi Yar, 1965

But even in exile, he remained himself. He had nothing in common with ardent anti-Sovietists - Vladimir Maksimov had to admit this too. The same editor of "Continent" Maximov, who sent my friend a letter with the following content: "Mr. Nekrasov! The Continent magazine does not need your services. You will receive money carefully. Editor-in-Chief ... "To which Nekrasov, with his characteristic lapidarity and simplicity, replied:" Volodya. You can't send money. Vika". Even there, in a foreign land, he remained Vika. Former Vika, I will add from myself. This was also evidenced by the telegram that he sent to Kyiv, when he learned about the death of our mutual friend, former partisan commander J. Bogorad. "Ninka. I sob. Vika. ”- there were only three words in this dispatch received by a widow, also a former partisan.
Life has not changed our Vika.
Once there were four of us in Kyiv. The first to die before the age of sixty was Leonid Volynsky, a talented artist and writer, who at the end of the war saved the priceless treasures of the Dresden Gallery, for which, as usual, others were awarded. Then I saw off the State Prize laureate Nikolai Dubov, iron Kolya, on his last journey. And in September 1987 news came from Paris that Viktor Nekrasov had died.
Well, and I... I can't even put flowers on his grave, although he was very fond of flowers and brought them to his mother every day. If he had no money, then the flower girls selling in the underground passage under the square October revolution, gave them to him on credit. "The earth is empty without you..."

Parkhomov Mikhail

We're shot in forty-two

Mikhail Parkhomov

We're shot in forty-two

A Tale of Courage

In memory of Semyon Gudzenko

CHAPTER ONE Seventeen

Kharitonov was tortured today. This is the fourth death last days. First Timokhin, then Samokhvalov and Pribylsky, and now Kharitonov.

Before Kharitonov was taken away, we sat side by side. He told me about his mother. She is seventy. She lives somewhere near Kursk. "You see," said Kharitonov, "she is lonely with me, sick. Without me, she will be lost. Therefore, I must survive."

You, Petro, will certainly survive. He didn't answer, he just chuckled. He was smoking a cigarette, and I, greedily following his every movement, could not stand it and asked:

Leave forty. You promised, Kursk nightingale.

Wait, let me take one more puff, - he answered and, taking a deep breath of smoke, handed me a wet, sucked "bull". - Here, take it.

Hurriedly, burning my lips, I tried to smoke the bull to the end. It's no joke, as many as six puffs! .. Finally, happiness has come to me too

And Kharitonov leaned back. With his fingers clasped at the back of his head, he quietly, almost without opening his mouth, sang his favorite song about the black crow. "You will not achieve prey .." - I guessed the words, feeling that the song twisted the soul.

At that time I had no idea that Kharitonov's hours were already numbered. Who would have thought? We loved him too much. We called him either the Kursk Nightingale, or the Nightingale Nightingale, or the Nightingale the Robber, putting all our masculine tenderness into these nicknames. He was too cheerful and young to die so stupidly.

However, is there a "smart" death?

They came for him in the morning, and all day we knew nothing about him. Only in the evening, when the red glass sun was setting in the frosty steam, did two soldiers, tangled in their long overcoats, bring Kharitonov. They carried him by the arms and legs and, swinging him, threw him into the darkness, onto the straw.

The gates of the clooney creaked, and we surrounded our comrade. There was foam on his lips. The eldest of us, boatswain Seroshtan, bent over Kharitonov and said in a whisper:

Be patient son...

Kharitonov did not answer. He clenched his teeth.

We didn't ask him anything. Some of us have already gone through "it". When they whip with ramrods on the heels, terrible pain permeates the whole body and digs into the brain. Do not shout it out, this pain, in a heart-rending cry.

Only then, after some time, she gradually becomes dull. You seem to stop feeling it. Only the legs itch and itch. I also know this myself.

It will heal before the wedding, - someone clumsily tries to joke and falls silent under the heavy gaze of Seroshtan.

The boatswain wastes no time. Wetting a piece of rag, he unscrews it and, with all the care that his hardened hands are capable of, runs it across Kharitonov's face. With his eyes he orders me to help him.

I get on my knees. I carefully raise my friend's head. Kharitonov barely audibly wheezes and groans. It looks like he wants to say something.

I.. kayuk, - he says when I put my ear to his lips. - I know ...

He breathes harder and harder each time. Suffocating? It can not be! Incoherently, in a hurry, I mutter that he needs to get this nonsense out of his head, that he will certainly recover and live.

We will take a walk with you along Khreshchatyk, - I say, not believing myself. - We will sing with you more than once about the black crow, mark my word.

And Kharitonov, it seems, is getting a little easier. He sighs. Then again - full, deep, with all his wide, as if freed chest. But then a shiver runs through his body. He stretches out, calms down, and his eyes, open, cold, become blind, blind. Soon they completely lose their blueness.

Its end.

And we bare our heads. We are seventeen of his friends who are still alive. Each of us, I know, has the feeling that it is he who is to blame for the fact that Kharitonov died, but our turn has not come and we are still alive.

Yes, there are only seventeen of us now. Some died. Others, one must think, still made their way to the east. And some... Well, there were those who dropped their weapons and fled to their homes. But fate saved us from death only in order to scatter us among the camps, from where we were then fished out one by one and driven to the Nikolskaya Sloboda. The Germans will see the vest, notice the tattoo on the chest - and immediately dragged: sailor, sailor ...

So we ended up in this black smoky clone. Here we are kept separate from the other prisoners. Perhaps because we are afraid. But most likely because we are doomed. However, none of us really knows this.

Now it's winter, February, and we lie all day long, huddled close to each other. We lie on rotten straw, mixed with manure, which smells of something sour and sugary-sweet at the same time. There is a thick, putrid smell all around us. He follows us everywhere.

I look at my comrades. Sunken cheeks, waxy and purple faces. All overgrown with coarse hair to the very eyes. It is always twilight in the clone, and it seems as if it is filled with faceless shadows, ghosts. They toss and turn, crawl from place to place, rake straw under them, mutter something.

This is the second week I have not left the cluny. Gone are the days when, in spite of the dog cold, we took daily short walks in our rags. Previously, Senior Lieutenant Semin made sure that each of us was in the air. But since Timokhin was hunted down, and Semin got typhus, everything went topsy-turvy. The boatswain Seroshtan insisted that no one leave the kluny without his permission. Seroshtan is careful. He doesn't want us to play with fire. In fact, the guards went berserk with cold and boredom. They don't mind having fun. They will provoke him, like Timokhin, and when you lose your temper, they will shoot you. After all, it's fun for them. You have to take your anger out on someone. So it's better not to see them.

All these thoughts run through my head. I'm used to obeying orders. But some force makes me rise. And now I'm on my way to the gate. Come what may! I need to be alone. I can't be near the dead Kharitonov. "Oh, Petro, Petro! And why did you do it?" - I repeat stubbornly and stupidly, as if Kharitonov himself is to blame for his death.

Wait, where are you? - asks Seroshtan.

I need to get out,” I say without turning around.

Look, do not bury yourself, - Seroshtan warns. - Do not go on the rampage. Understood?

Okay, - I answer and pull my head into the collar of my pea coat.

There is a gray lump on the snow. This is a sparrow. Don't warm it up. It is so quiet now that you can hear the frost biting the bare branches of the trees. With a crunch they fall at my feet.

The camp is empty. People are not visible. Sheds, two or three sheds, the charred skeleton of a brick house...

That's all. Our world is small. It is bordered on four sides by barbed wire. A musty world from which there is no way out. The wooden turrets in the corners constantly remind of this - sentries loom near the machine guns.

But to hell with the clock! I try not to think about them. I look over the wire at the bright blinding snow. My eyes are watering, and I look, look, look ...

Here is a clearing. In some places it is overgrown with smoky willow. Stand, flaming in the sun, rare pines. A toboggan road winds between them. It leads to Darnitsa. From the other side, from time to time, the hoarse whistles of steam locomotives are heard.

The road, locomotives... So, the world is not so small. On the road appears buckwheat nag. Shaking her head with every step, she strains to pull a wide sled loaded with some kind of belongings. A man in a triukha and felt boots hemmed with red automobile rubber scurries beside him. Both the horse and the man trudge slowly. They are old. And I, it's funny to say, envy them, I envy even a decrepit horse. At least she's free, she can go wherever she wants, while I...

Slowly and with difficulty, I shift my gaze to the right, to the wooden houses of Nikolskaya Sloboda, which have sunk under the weight of snow. Quiet, calm, peaceful cottages. These are usually depicted in pictures. Smoke curls over them. You look at them and think: are there really still people who sleep on beds, eat from plates, bake sieve bread in ovens? You look and gradually it begins to seem as if there has never been and there is no war, as if war is a stupid fiction, delirium, an obsession, a dream that you saw in the night.

After all, you're alive. You are the same now as you were six months ago. So could the world have changed in these six months? No, it just seemed to you that people were dying nearby, that you yourself also shot at someone, strangled someone with your hands. Look around. All the same peaceful crooked houses, smoke from chimneys, silence...

And Timokhin? And Kharitonov?

Forgetful, I approach the wire. And then a long line cuts through the silence. Here you go, get it! You seem to dare to think that there is no war? Did the silence please you? So, the sentries have long wanted to warm up the machine guns. They don't care if a bullet accidentally hits you. One less POW, one more dead. Who cares?

Mikhail Noevich Parkhomov

Good guy

Tale

Chapter first. Let's make noise, brothers, let's make noise!

To be honest, Yashka disliked Nadia at first sight. It seems that she appeared either on Monday or Tuesday, in the morning, when all the cars were in acceleration. Except for Yashka, Gleb Boyarkov, and the little shaggy Sanka Chizhov, nicknamed Chizhik, there was no one in the garage. Boyarkov and Chizhik, sitting opposite each other at the table, in anticipation of a call, leafed through last year's illustrated magazines from nothing to do, and Yashka, as usual, dozed in a wide shabby armchair.

This leatherette chair had its own history. Once it knew better times: the director of the plant Pavel Savelyevich Dynnik himself was sitting in it. But then the director's office was furnished with more impressive furniture, and Yashka, who enjoyed the location of Dynnik, with his tacit consent, dragged the chair that had served the director into the garage. Yashka loved to live in comfort.

And now, lounging in an armchair, Yashka is completely softened from idleness and heat. It was an unbearable July heat, and although the garage doors were wide open day and night, there was a cloying smell of overheated rubber, gasoline and oil.

Well, it's hot! Yashka did not have the strength to fight laziness. He nods and shudders every minute so as not to fall asleep. All sorts of unpleasant thoughts entered my head. Somehow he managed to drive them away, concentrate and restore in his memory all the vicissitudes of the last football match, which the factory team won with a minimum score of 1:0. But the match was colorless, and Yashka, suppressing a sigh, began to think about Boyarkov and Chizhik sitting behind him.

Yashka usually teased Chizhik, not without pleasure.

Yes, Chizhik ... I wonder how old he is? Sixteen? Seventeen? At his age, Yashka was already firmly on his feet. And Chizhik is still quite a chick, he works a week without a year. He would have to sit at his desk, but he also became a driver. It must be not without reason.

Yashka was a little older than Chizhik, but looked down on him. He had long noticed that Chizhik was trying to imitate him in everything, and, in all honesty, Yashka was even pleased. However, in public, he pretended that he was tired of Chizhik worse than a bitter radish. More than once he said to Chizhik: “And why did you follow me? You don't have to follow me around. After all, I won’t teach you anything worthwhile!”, - and he was only embarrassed and kept quiet.

Chizhik. Chizhik-fawn ... Repeating his nickname in every way, Yashka was cunning. He was just trying to distract himself from his annoying thoughts. What tricks did he resort to to drive these thoughts away from him! But all in vain.

And why, pray tell, does a person not have a moment of peace?

Now that everything was already behind, Yashka himself did not understand why he needed to make such a mess. All this time he drove the director of the plant. He was with Dynnik, one might say, almost a friend and could do whatever he wanted. Not life, but a fairy tale! There was no need to dream about anything else, it was not for nothing that everyone envied him, Yashka. And suddenly he submits an application to be transferred to the old lorry. Not even a three-ton, but a one and a half! The question is: why? Why? And who knows ... He just got tired of carrying the director, and that's it!

Yashka did not even want to admit to himself that this decision arose from him after he accidentally found out that he was disparagingly called the “coachman” behind his back at the factory.

Since this all started.

To be laughed at! .. This will not happen! He, Yashka, was never a coachman. And it won't. Let them not think that he works at Pobeda solely because of some benefits there. Personally, he does not care about all these privileges.

And Dynnik, as expected, refused to accept Yashka's application for a transfer. The director, of course, got used to Yashka and did not want to let him go. Why, one wonders, should he look for another driver, if Yashka suits him perfectly?

And yet the director had to give in. He, Yashka, rested and managed to insist on his own. Achieved that the director eventually signed the order. After all, he had no idea then that in a day, when this order was posted near the checkpoint for everyone to see, he would regret his rash act.

However, what's done is done - you can't bring back the past. The lorry, of course, is not “Victory”, but Yashka will not disappear on it either. There is a lorry and its advantages. At least you don't have to work weekends. Unscrewed his eight hours - and be healthy. And this, if you think about it, also means something ...

Yashka tried to assure himself that he had done the right thing. He will live without director's favors. And if he is now interested in who will carry the director, then only, as they say, out of "healthy curiosity." In general, he, Yashka, does not care.

So he convinced himself. But he was far from indifferent to who was appointed as a driver for the director's car. Yashkin's indifference was feigned: he could not think of his successor without vexation and jealousy.

With a feigned yawn, he leaned back in his chair, then pulled an open packet of Belomor from his pocket and casually knocked out a cigarette from it. He lit a cigarette, stretched out his legs in smart chrome boots.

“Perhaps we can sit in the shade a little longer,” he said to himself. - Until the lunch break forty minutes, no less.

Yashka has long made it a rule to do everything beautifully, with chic. Therefore, lazily puffing on his cigarette, he looked through the smoke with almost artistic negligence, screwing up his eyes.

The factory yard was flooded with unbearably bright light. Above him hung a low, whitish sky, squeezed by the sooty firewalls of the workshops. The air hovered like before a thunderstorm.

Usually the yard, overgrown here and there with withered grass, was empty. It was recently put in order: the rusty scrap was taken out, the paths were filled with asphalt, and only at the very end of the yard lay peacefully on its side, gaping with black holes of smoke pipes, the red elephant carcass of a steam boiler.

But then, stoop-shouldered lads in faded T-shirts, apparently boiler workers, passed by the garage gate, dragging a sheet of iron behind them, and then, when these lads disappeared from sight, some girl appeared near the steam boiler in a striped blue dress, with a sports suitcase in hand.

For a minute, as if getting used to the sunlight, the girl was motionless. Then she put her hand to her eyes, looked around and resolutely headed towards the garage.

For some reason, Yashka's heart skipped a beat.

Perhaps he had no reason to be worried. He saw this girl for the first time and did not know who she was. But a premonition… What can you do if you suddenly get the feeling that this girl appeared for a reason! What does she want in the garage? Isn't she going to be put on Pobeda? This was still missing! Found a suitable replacement, nothing to say!..