Summary Red wine of victory
EI Nosov
Red wine of victory
Spring of the 45th found us in Serpukhov. After all that was on the front, the hospital whiteness and silence seemed to us somewhat improbable. Budapest was fallen, Vienna was taken. The ward radio did not turn off even at night.
“In the war as in chess,” said Sely Sivanov, lying in the far corner, a swarthy Volgarian with a Tatar ridge, “E-two-e-four, bang, and there’s no pawn!”
Sasha’s thickly bandaged leg was sticking out above the bedcover like a cannon, for which he was nicknamed Self-propelled.
“Was not you in any trouble?” – My right-wing neighbor Borodukhov used to work. He was from the Mesensk muzhiks-loggers, already in the years.
On the left of me lay the soldier Kopeshkin. Both Kopeshkin’s hands were broken, cervical vertebrae were damaged, and there were some other injuries. He was immured in a solid breastplate plaster, and his head was bandaged
In recent days, Kopeshkin was ill. He spoke less and less, and even then, without a voice, only with his lips. Something was breaking him, burning under a plaster suit, he had completely withered his face.
Once in his name came a letter from home. The leaves were unfolded and inserted into his hands. For the rest of the day the sheet protruded in Kopeshkin’s motionless hands. Only the next morning he asked to turn it over to the other side and for a long time considered the return address.
Finally, Berlin itself collapsed and capitulated! But the war still lasted on May 3, and the fifth, and the seventh… How much more?!
On the night of the eighth of May, I woke up from the sound of boots hacking along the corridor. The head of the hospital, Colonel Turantsev, talked with his deputy on the estate of Zvonarchuk: “Give everyone a clean bed and linen, Pin a boar, then it’s good to have wine for dinner…”
Steps
A crimson rocket blossomed out of the window, splashed with clusters, and a green one crossed it.
Hardly had they waited for the dawn, all who could have poured out onto the street. The corridor was buzzing with creaking and the sound of crutches. The hospital garden was filled with homon people. Before dinner, we were changed to linen, shaved, then Aunt Zina, roar, distributed the boar soup, and Zvonarchuk brought in a tray with a few dark-red glasses: “With the victory, comrades.” After dinner, drunk, everyone began to dream of returning to their homeland, praised their places. Kapeshkin wiggled his fingers. Sayenko jumped up, leaned over him: “Yeah, it’s clear.” Says they’re fine too, this is where it’s? Ah, it’s clear… You’re a penny. ” I tried to imagine Kopeshkin’s homeland. He drew a log cabin with three windows, a shaggy tree, like an inverted broom. And he put this plain picture in his hand.
and suddenly an unknown orchestra broke out : “Get up, the country is huge…”
Before dusk he kept my picture in his hands. And he himself, it turns out, was no more. He went unnoticed, no one noticed when.
The orderlies carried the stretcher. And the wine, to which he did not touch, we drank in his memory.
In the evening sky, festive rockets flashed again.
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