Portartur. 1940. Boris Trofimov
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the squeamish grimace.
Sasha-san began to play the Japanese guitar. The rattling, dull sounds of some motive torn into small pieces struck Tikhon’s consciousness, but did not irritate him. He tried to catch the melody and could not.
“Like smoke is perceptible, but elusive,” he thought.
Lykov poured himself brandy. Tikhon drank liquor. Cherry – san danced, slowly waving her arms and shaking her body. In the faint lighting of paper lanterns, a Japanese woman, dressed in a long blue, with large white kimono flowers, seemed to be a casual, airy Tikhon. Dance and music weary him.
“The Japanese still have beauty: in music, in dances… But they are not in our character. When Russians are dancing, people walk like a walk… I would cook them here, “flashed in Tikhon’s head.
From liquor he felt suddenly sick. He jumped up and ran out into the corridor. When he appeared, three people departed from the hanger: a Chinese servant and two strangers. Booster Jacket with unfolded floors rocked.
– What the hell… How do they like brass buttons!
The servant picked up the shoe under the arm and led it out onto the porch. The cool wind fanned Tikhon’s face, and his head began to spin. Cherry-san ran up to him with a glass of seltzer water. At a sign from Lykov, she led Tikhon into the room prepared for him.
“We will sleep, my Russian hero,” she said.
At the door, Podkovin stopped and set Vishnyu-san against himself.
– I am very grateful to you, Cherry-san, for dancing and affection.
The Japanese clung to Tikhon’s chest and, gently pushing him into the room, whispered:
– I love you, my hero… You are very blue. I love blue, strong…
– Thank you, goodbye… Go home to sleep, go home.
The girl just now realized that the young man had removed her. Embarrassed, she lowered her head and, inhaling the air, muttered:
– Cy-o-nara, con-ban-va…
As soon as Lykov and Tikhon fell asleep, both women retired to the living room, taking with them the skit. Emptying their pockets, they began to look at the paper. Sasha-san, dipping the brush in the ink, wrote in beautiful hieroglyphs on thin paper:
“Passport of Tikhon Stepanovich Podkovin, a peasant from the Nizhny Novgorod province., Lukoyanovsky district, Mareseveka volost, the village of Malaya Polyana. Minister of Justice”.
Chapter two
one
In November 1903, the Podkovin had to draw lots for the fulfillment of military service. He was frontal. A brother who was fourteen years older than Tikhon received a privilege on marital status in his family. According to the law of that time, the eldest son remained in the assistance of parents to feed and raise young children. There were three of them in the Podkovins family: Tikhon, his younger brother and sister.
Very often, recruits for the latest draw numbers were not taken to military service. In that year, when Podkovin was called, 320 people were to be collected in the city of Irkutsk, and 260 people were required in military units, therefore, sixty young men could count on staying. Tickets with insignificant numbers pulled out and weakly chested, and myopic, and obsessed with various diseases. During the medical examination, the defectives fell out, and instead of them they took healthy ones, even if they had long-range lots in their hands, above the two hundred and sixtieth. In addition, every year there were both delayed and hiding from conscription.
On November 13, recruits gathered in the great hall of the city duma. When checking it turned out that twenty-three people did not come to the draw. Then they will be found, punished and sent to serve, respectively, freeing those taken with high numbers. But sometime it will be, and today the mood of the youth has been lowered: few lucky numbers remained.
With the recruits came their relatives. They passionately discussed all sorts of opportunities to get rid of military service.
The bell rang. A minute later there was silence in the hall. The chairman of the draft board, a gray-haired man in pince-nez, smiling, invited the recruits to approach the urn and gave a sign to the clerk.
– Arkhipov! – rang out in the hall.
Everything is quiet. A blond guy came out of the thick of the crowd. His steps boomed loudly on the steps of the platform. He was breathing heavily. Sweat came out in large drops on his forehead. Rolling up his sleeve, the guy ran his hand to the bottom of the urn and took out the ticket rolled up. His hand shook.
“Raise the ticket higher and unroll it,” said the chairman.
Suddenly the guy’s face lit up, and he cheerfully, but still in a hoarse voice, shouted:
– Two hundred and eighty second!
– Well done! – the public roared to a friendly applause.
Podkovin worried. He did not like the behavior of Arkhipov. “In a firm step, calmly, in a clear voice,” Tikhon suggested to himself. The hall fell silent again.
“Tell me your number,” heard Podkovin and looked at the platform.
Near the urn stood a tall, curly guy in a new coat. The tassels of the belt with which the maroon woolen shirt was girded dangled at the tops of a varnished boot. The recruit’s lips were shaking, and he, choking on tears, babbled:
– The third st…
– Louder! – shouted those present.
“He has a third number,” said the chairman.
– In the guard of the young man!
The guy moved away from the platform.
– Podkovin!
“To rummage or not to rummage in an urn,” thought Tikhon, striding towards the platform. He took a ticket from the top layer and quickly turned it around.
– Thirteenth! – shouted Podkovin.
There was a loud, universal laugh.
Happy number! Well done! Do not be lost! By God, you will not perish, – said Podkovin, when he came down from the platform.
2
In the evening, in order not to hear the mother’s lamentations, Tikhon went to the Berezkins.
– Well? – in one voice asked him Varya and her mother. Podkovin stopped at the door and cried out:
– Happy!
– happy? – repeated Varya and, putting the work on the table – she was busy sewing, – got up.
Thirteenth, – answered Tikhon.
Brother Vari, Kostya, clutching at his sides, laughed loudly.
– What is sold, you fool? – Mother grumbled. – Tikhon – a frontal one, his number is his neighbor, he could not escape soldiery.
The old woman, Berezkina, turned to the stove and raised the corner of her apron to her eyes. Her hunched figure shuddered.
– Poor Evdokia Ilinichna… I will go to her.
“And I’m with you,” said Varya.
Mother Podkovina sat at a table with tear-stained eyes. Varya ran to her and put