Tamara took after her mother in stature and face, and most importantly in character, who throughout her life was the commander of the quietest captain 1st rank Adrianov. She made a dizzying career for her husband by the standards of Soviet times.
Tamara was born in Leningrad, where the Adrianov couple moved from the most terrible place in the Northern Fleet - Gremikha - after two years of service. Next is the Leningrad naval base and the fast commander's shoulder straps of the Izhora Arsenal, and then a warm place at the weapons department of the Frunze Naval School. Techniques for the spouse’s career development were constantly being improved: from light flirting with superiors during a festive feast, a permanent meeting in women’s councils, and to writing reports on the advantages of the Soviet system, which were necessarily attended by the highest political leadership of the formation, base or school.
The daughter of captain 1st rank Adrianova hooked up with her future husband at a dance in naval school, where her father headed the department by the age of 50. The cadet's name was Slava Sukhobreyev, with a "completely stupid" surname for a naval officer, according to his future mother-in-law. At the registry office, fourth-year cadet Sukhobreev has already become Adrianov. A year later, as expected, with the birth of Artemka, the young family grew to an ordinary naval family of three people. The only unusual thing was that the family arrived at their first duty station consisting of 4 people: two-year-old Artemka, the beautiful Tamara with the most ordinary lieutenant and his extraordinary mother-in-law.
The wife of “comrade of the first rank” Adrianov pestered the lieutenant until he gave the order to the head of the KECH to allocate Adrianov a one-room apartment. To which the head of the KEC, Captain Dzozikov, quietly asked the head of the medical unit about the health status of the base commander. He answered him something along the lines of that the youngsters were completely “overwhelmed” and they were coming to serve with their mothers-in-law, and hence the possible health problems of Captain 1st Rank Dub himself, the commander of the base. Adrian's mother-in-law was a clone of Oak's wife, who wisely decided to give in on the small things so as not to lose on the big ones. The base commander had just graduated from the logistics academy, and had not yet forgotten strategy and operational art as a science.
Having received full instructions from her mother about the points of Lieutenant Adrianov’s career growth, Tamara was left with Artemka alone to wait for Slava, who went to sea the very next day after her mother appeared in Dub’s office. The rest of the young lieutenants: Ponamar, Fima and Starov, who were given two whole weeks to settle down as bachelors, “rejoiced for their friend” with quite decent beer, believing that the hasty departure to sea of a “green lieutenant by the standards of the service” and the acquaintance of his mother-in-law with the command were phenomena same order. Friends sometimes dropped in on Tamara, helping to arrange her happiness in a separate family nest, which “according to the concepts and naval tradition” was reserved for lieutenants, with the only difference being that by that time they had become lieutenant-commanders. Young families lived in two or even three families in one apartment for 3-4 years. It all depended on how the couple endured “the hardships and hardships of military life.”
The return of Slava Adrianov coincided with his birthday, so Tamara, following her mother’s instructions on career growth tactics, decided to arrange everything on a grand scale, inviting captain 1st rank Dub and his wife and the head of the political department with his wife to visit, hinting that perhaps she would come from Peter and mom. Dub, having learned about this, called the “chief of medicine” into the office and after a two-hour meeting, agreeing with the doctor’s arguments, in confusion, washed down a blood pressure pill with an awl (pure alcohol - fl. slang) from a decanter that he kept in the commander’s safe.
Slava’s friends had to not only rush to the city for groceries, but also empty their pockets to arrange a grandiose table, giving away the last of the due allowances. The table turned out to be royal, and could decorate the reception of the Commander-in-Chief of the USSR Navy.
Finally, Slava returned “from the seas” three days late for his birthday, but this no longer mattered for the career start plan approved by the great mother-in-law over the phone. Mother Andrianova herself, to Vyacheslav’s quiet joy, could not come, but the cunning Tamara did not inform the base commander’s wife about this, and therefore Pyotr Andreevich Dub and his wife, the director of the military camp school, arrived, as befits a commander’s couple, at the time established by the regulations.
The unexpected fact of the presence of the base commander himself at the birthday party of the young lieutenant gave rise to many rumors: from the family ties of the Adrianov family with one of the members of the CPSU Central Committee, to the piquant details of the pranks of the fleet commander during his lieutenant time in Gremikha, and hence the birth of the illegitimate beauty Tamara.
Frida Romanovna was not only the head of the school - the cultural center of the village, but also a writer by vocation. For her, in addition to home and school, poetry evenings in the House of Officers were a necessary attribute of power, where she could outshine the “ignorant upstart” - the first lady of the formation, the admiral’s wife herself. Any feast for Frida turned into another creative idea, so the young lieutenants had to learn poems for Adrian’s birthday in accordance with the editing and literary treatment of Frida herself. She liked to conduct rehearsals with young lieutenants on weekends, when her husband went hunting or fishing. It was rumored that she also indulged in “little pranks.” But that’s what a closed garrison is for, to give a reason to gossip, even for the sake of boredom. The fleet is strong in tradition, so why not?!
As expected, the innovations in the regulations for visiting the “star Adrianov family” were not entirely successful. The young part of the officer corps was too squeezed by the high presence at Slavka’s name day, and the “high presence” itself, understanding the idiocy of the situation, kept silent and leaned on the “Olivier”, showing that its mouth was busy and “it” did not intend to lavish pleasantries on the birthday boy. Mikhail Svetlov’s poems didn’t help either.
Starov tried, after short toasts to his colleague and his family, to pick up the guitar and growl to Vysotsky, but, faced with the disapproving glances of Toma and Frida, he fell silent, and never “Singed to the end...” Having recited their part of the montage, Fima and Ponamar ran away to kitchen, supposedly to smoke; but Starov, squeezed on one side by the elastic thigh of the wife of the head of the political department, and on the other by the skinny relics of Captain Dzozikov’s wife, thought sadly about the “free friends” who were “secretly” applying themselves at that moment to the neck of the steel awl. The birthday boy was sitting at the head of the table and, not knowing how to behave, pretended to pay attention to the idiotic reasoning of the quickly developed doctor about the possibility of women also participating in “autonomous missions” on submarines in the near future. So an hour passed in agony for everyone. To the horror of the hostess, Frida Romanovna, dissatisfied with the table behavior of some young girls leaning on the “dry”, whispered something in the ear of the satisfied Oak. The situation was aggravated by the sound of jackhammers and the rumble of an excavator in the yard.
Artemka saved the festive feast. He burst into the room from the street in a suit smeared with clay. The grimy little face made cute faces. As he walked, tearing off his hat with a blue pompom, like his overalls, throwing off his wet and dirty mittens under his feet, he shouted loudly, not paying any attention to the guests: “Piss, mom. Quickly, pee!”
Artemka began to talk early, and by the age of 2.5 he spoke so clearly with amazing diction that in response to ordinary questions: “How old is yours?” he aroused surprise and a certain distrust among his neighbors, especially since he was a big man beyond his years.
Before being escorted outside, Artemka ran in to the guests. Frida Romanovna, leaning her powerful torso towards the cute boy, lisped and asked the traditional: “What are our names” - she was indescribably delighted with what she heard in pure Russian, and not in the gibberish of an infant: - Artem!
- Good God, what an admiral! – the table unanimously supported the enthusiastic remark of the base commander’s wife. The commander himself stopped chewing and moved to Starov’s place closer to the baby.
– Will you be an officer, like your father?! – Senior Adrianov proudly contemplated what was happening, spinal cord feeling that it has passed and the festive dinner has been saved.
- No, a football player - a hockey player! – Artemka shouted to enthusiastic applause, accepting the adults’ game.
- Did you go to the street?! – Asked a satisfied Frida. A curly little head with eyes like lakes swayed as a sign of approval of the affectionate question, and a plump finger ended up in the nose.
“We remove our fingers,” Frida Romanovna began to sing, “And I tell you what we saw on the playground,” gently removing her small hand from her beautiful face, as women like to say: “in bandages.” The little one hid his hand behind his back and said loudly:
– I saw that the hole was buried at X...!
The table froze and quietly exhaled, although the drunken doctor voiced a little louder the three Russian letters in which the sailors working in the yard had buried a hole. The cackle shook the room. Artemka, picked up strong hands the enthusiastic captain 1st rank Duba flew to the ceiling. Frida Romanovna, who instantly looked like Faina Ranevskaya, laughed merrily, leaning back on the sofa. Stunned by her son’s prank, Tamara sank helplessly into a chair. Artemka flopped around in Oak’s arms, “somewhere up there,” and burst into joy.
Starov realized that the baby had destroyed in a second the wall separating young families and families that had taken place in these harsh northern everyday life. He is the one for whom nuclear submarines and long voyages are needed! Artemka is the center of the universe, around which this complex world adults with their eternal questions of career and the harsh Soviet life of military camps.
Released, Artem, to the first ovation in his life, ran out into the street to the big “boys” and lonely pensioners - in one impulse, rejoicing that they managed to fill the hole in the yard, correctly (“before the severe northern frosts”).
Deep after midnight, a friendly song “about an island melting in the fog” rushed over a courtyard with shabby houses and flew to that same Rybachy Island. Oak in the kitchen with Ponamar and Slava were “sipping” from a flask of alcohol and smoking “Rhodopi”. Tamara was placing a pillow more comfortably under the head of the doctor, who was fast asleep to the songs of the sea. Fima passionately kissed Captain Dozikov's wife in the bathroom, and the captain himself squatted with the enthusiastic Artemka and rattled, playing excavator on the palace, which was portrayed by Lieutenant Starov.
The life of young lieutenants, thanks to Artemka Adrianov, was getting better. Unlike Ponamary, Starov and Fima, Slava received senior lieutenant three days earlier, but they still celebrated it a year later all together in the presence of high authorities. Maybe because the Dubov couple liked the young lieutenants graduated in 1978, or maybe because Slavka’s mother-in-law came for such a significant event for her.
AB-SA-RA-KA
Stories of an Officer's Wife
Colonel Henry Carrington
DEDICATION
This story is dedicated to Lieutenant General Sherman, whose proposal was accepted in the spring of 1866 at Fort Kearny, and whose energetic policy to solve the Indian problems and the rapid completion of the Union Pacific to the “Sea” crushed the last hope of armed insurrection.
Margaret Irwin Carrington.
PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION
Absaraka truly became a bloody land. The tragedy, which in 1876 resulted in the loss of twelve officers and two hundred and forty-seven brave soldiers by the army, was but a continuation of a series of conflicts which led to peace after the disaster of 1866. It is now possible to learn more about the country that was so dependent on the military to expand settlements and solve Indian problems.
In January 1876, General Custer told the author, “It will take another Phil Kearny massacre to get Congress to give generous support to the army.” Six months later, his story, like Fetterman's, was made monumental by a similar disaster. Having great experience on the frontier - Fetterman was a newbie - and with faith in the ability of white soldiers to overcome superior numbers of Indians, fearless, brave, and peerless horsemen, Custer believed that the army should fight hostile savages under all circumstances and at every opportunity.
Short story events in this country, is of great value to all who are interested in our relations with the Indians of the northwest.
The map attached here was considered sufficiently detailed by Generals Custer and Brisbin. General Humphreys, chief of the US engineers, indicated additional forts and agencies on it.
The first appearance of the military in this country is accurately represented in the text. Never was there a wilder American impulse than that which forced the army into the Powder and Bighorn country in 1866, carrying out the will of irresponsible emigrants, regardless of the legal rights of the native tribes. Never was there a more savage grab for gold than the appropriation of the Black Hills in the face of solemn treaties.
Time brings to the surface the fruits of an unfounded policy - the agreement of 1866 at Laramie - a simple deception, so far as it concerned all tribes. These fruits are ripe. The fallen can attest to this. I am prepared to declare that at the time of the massacre, if this line had been broken, it would have required four times as much force in the future to reopen it; Since then, more than a thousand soldiers have encountered a problem that was then solved by fewer than a hundred. The battle for the Bighorn Country was presented in one statement: “Having had partial success, the Indian, now desperate and bitter, looked upon the rash white man, as a sacrifice, and the United States had to send an army to deal with the Indians of the northwest. It is better to bear the costs immediately than to delay and provoke a war for many years. This needs to be understood here and now.”
There's no glory in Indian War. If too little has been done, the West complains; if too much is done, the East condemns the beating of the Redskins. The lie of justice lies between the extremes, and here is represented the quality of that Indian policy which has been discovered during official deadline President Grant. There is so little truth, mixed facts, and such a strong desire to be popular by scapegoating the first public condemnation of a war that lasted for six months that, even now, public opinion learned only a few vague lessons from the massacre. Indeed, it took another tragedy to try to understand the relationship between Americans and Indian tribes and solve this problem.
Henry Carrington
Journalist and writer Vasily Sarychev has been recording the memories of old-timers for fifteen years, recording the history of the western region of Belarus through their destinies. His new story, written specifically for TUT.BY, is dedicated to Soviet women, which in 1941 Soviet authority left to the mercy of fate. During the occupation, they were forced to survive, including with the help of the Germans.
Vasily Sarychev is working on a series of books “In Search of Lost Time.” As the author notes, this is “the history of Europe in the mirror of a Western Belarusian city, told by old people who survived six powers” ( Russian empire, German occupation during the First World War, the period when Western Belarus was part of Poland, Soviet rule, German occupation during the Second World War and again Soviet rule).
Fundraising for the publication of Sarychev’s new book from the series “In Search of Lost Time” ends on the “Beehive” crowdfunding platform. On the page of this project you can familiarize yourself with the contents, study the list of gifts and participate in the publication of the book. Participants will receive the book as a gift for the New Year holidays.
TUT.BY has already published Vasily about his incredible fate common man caught in the millstones big politics, "polite people" from 1939 and a naked escape from prison. New story dedicated to the wives of Soviet commanders.
When Western Belarus was annexed to the USSR, they came to our country as victors. But then, when their husbands retreated to the east with the active army, they turned out to be of no use to anyone. How did they survive under the new government?
I'm on you like I'm at war. Abandoned
“Let your Stalin feed you!”
Many years ago, in the sixties, there was an incident at the entrance of the Brest factory. The enterprise is predominantly female, after a shift the workers rushed home like an avalanche, and conflicts arose in the crush. They didn’t look at their faces: whether it was an editorial or a deputy, they applied it with proletarian directness.
At the turnstile, as in a bathhouse, everyone is equal, and the wife of the commander from the Brest Fortress, who headed the factory trade union - not yet old, not twenty years since the war, having survived the occupation - was pushing towards general principles. Maybe she hit someone - with her elbow or during distribution - and the young weaver, who had heard from her friends things that are not written about in the newspapers, lashed out: “German prostitute!” - and she grabbed them by the breasts and croaked: “If you had small children...”
So in one phrase - the whole truth about the war, with many shades from which we were carefully led away.
In conversations with people who survived the occupation, at first I could not understand when they made the remark “this is after the war” and began to talk about the Germans. For the Brest man in the street, military actions flashed in one morning, and then another government, three and a half years of deep German rear. Different categories of citizens - locals, Easterners, Poles, Jews, Ukrainians, party workers, prisoners who escaped from behind the wire, commander's wives, Soltys, policemen - each had their own war. Some experienced trouble at home, where neighbors, relatives, where walls help. It was very bad for those whom hard times found in a foreign land.
They arrived before the war in “liberated” western edge ladies - yesterday's girls from the Russian outback, who pulled out a lucky ticket (we are talking about the events of 1939, when Western Belarus was annexed to the USSR. - TUT.BY). Marrying a lieutenant from a dislocated regiment meant a jump in status. And here is a “liberation campaign” and a different world in general, where people, when meeting them, lift the brim of their hat and address themselves as “sir,” where in a store without an appointment there are bicycles with wonderfully curved handlebars, and private traders smoke a dozen varieties of sausages, and for a penny you can get at least five cuts on the dress... And all these people look at her and her husband with apprehension - they look right...
Nina Vasilievna Petruchik - by the way, the cousin of Fyodor Maslievich, whose fate was already discussed in the chapter “Polite People of 1939”, recalled that autumn in the town of Volchin: “The wives of the commanders were in boots, cotton dresses with flowers, black jackets with velvet and huge white scarves. At the market they began to buy embroidered nightgowns and, out of ignorance, wore them instead of dresses...”
Maybe the weather was like this - I’m talking about boots, but they meet you by clothes. This is how an eleven-year-old girl saw them: very poor people had arrived. People, laughing, sold their nighties, but laughter was laughter, and those who arrived became masters of life in the pre-war year and a half.
But life counts for random happiness. It was these women, perceived with hostility, with children in their arms, who, with the outbreak of the war, were left alone in an alien world. From a privileged caste they suddenly turned into pariahs, thrown out of queues with the words: “Let your Stalin feed you!”
This was not the case with everyone, but it happened, and it is not for us now to judge the methods of survival that young women chose. The easiest thing was to find a guardian who would warm and feed the children, and somewhere protect them.
“Limousines with German officers drove up to the building and took away young women, the inhabitants of this house.”
Photo is for illustrative purposes only. A boy from the occupation times, Vasily Prokopuk, who was hanging around the city with his friends, recalled that on the former Moskovskaya (we are talking about one of the Brest streets. - TUT.BY) you could see young women with soldiers walking in the direction of the fortress. The narrator is convinced that it was not the local girls who “spaced” her by the arm, for whom such advances are more difficult to accept: there were parents, neighbors, in whose eyes she grew up, the church, and finally. Maybe Polish women are more relaxed? - “What are you talking about, Poles have arrogance! - answered my respondents. “There was a case when a lady was seen flirting with an occupier—the priest included this in his sermon...”
“The war is sweeping through Russia, and we are so young...” - three and a half years is a long time in a short Indian age. But this was not the main motive - the children, their eternally hungry eyes. The poor boys did not delve into the subtleties, they muttered contemptuously about the women from the former houses of the officers: “They found themselves...”
“In the center of the courtyard,” the author writes, “stood a rather exotic outbuilding in which a German major, our current commander, lived, along with a beautiful young woman and her small child. We soon learned that this was the ex-wife of a Soviet officer, left to the mercy of fate during the tragic days of June 1941 for the Red Army. In the corner of the barracks yard stood a three-story brick building, inhabited by abandoned families of Soviet officers. In the evenings, limousines with German officers drove up to the building and took away the young women who lived in this house.”
The situation allowed for options. For example, weren’t the commander’s wives taken away by force? According to Ivan Petrovich, “it was a small barracks, converted into a residential building, with several apartments per floor. Young women lived here, most with small children. It is possible that before the war this was the house of the command staff, where the families were caught up in the war: I did not see guards or any signs of forced detention.
More than once or twice I witnessed how the Germans arrived here in the evening: our camp was across the parade ground from this house. Sometimes they dropped in to see the commandant, other times straight away. This was not a trip to a brothel - they were going to the ladies. They knew about the visit and smiled as if they were good friends. Usually the Germans arrived in the evening, went upstairs, or the women themselves came out dressed, and the gentlemen took them, one might assume, to a theater or restaurant. I didn’t have to witness the return; I don’t know who the children were with. But everyone in the camp knew that these were the commanders’ wives. They understood that for women it was a means of survival.”
That's how it happened. IN last days Before the war, commanders and party workers who wanted to take families out of the city were accused of alarmism and expelled from the party - and now the women were left for the use of Wehrmacht officers.
The son's name was Albert, the Germans came and became Adolf
Photo is for illustrative purposes only. It would be wrong to say that the abandoned women were all looking for such support; it was just one of the ways to survive. Unpopular, overstepping the line beyond which lies gossip and piercing glances.
Women who came to Western Belarus from the east often lived in groups of two or three, which made it easier to survive. We went to distant villages (they didn’t give money to nearby villages anymore), but you couldn’t live on alms alone, and got a job washing carriages, barracks, and soldiers’ dormitories. A German once gave the wife of a political commissar from an artillery regiment a large postcard, and she hung it on the wall to decorate the room. Many years passed after the war, but the old women remembered the picture - they kept a watchful eye on each other during the war.
The wife of the battalion commander of the rifle regiment, which was stationed in the fortress before the war, at the beginning of the occupation transferred her little son from Albert to Adolf, she came up with this move, and after liberation she made him Albert again. The other widows moved away from her, turned away, but that was not the main thing for the mother.
Some will be closer to her truth, others - to the heroic Vera Khoruzhey, who insisted on going to occupied Vitebsk at the head of an underground group, leaving a baby and little daughter in Moscow.
Life is multifaceted, and those who survived the occupation recalled different things. And the romantically inclined person who was leaving the terrible SD building, clearly not after torture, and the German’s love for a Jewish girl, whom he hid to the last and went to the penal company for her, and the city plantation worker who hastily appeased the Wehrmacht soldiers nearby in the park, until she was gone shot by a client who had contracted a bad disease. In each case there was something different: where there was food, where there was physiology, and somewhere there was feeling, love.
Outside of service, the Germans became gallant, wealthy males. The bright beauty N., who was bright in her youth, told me: even if you don’t go beyond the threshold, they stick to you like ticks.
Statistics will not answer how many red-haired babies were born during the war and after the expulsion of the Germans from the temporarily occupied territory, as, indeed, with the Slavic appearance in Germany at the beginning of 46... This is a delicate topic to take deeply, and we went somewhere- then to the side...
Maybe it’s in vain to talk about commander’s wives at all - there were enough restless women of all statuses and categories, and they all behaved differently. Some tried to hide their beauty, while others, on the contrary, turned it to their advantage. The wife of the reconnaissance battalion commander, Anastasia Kudinova, who was older, shared shelter with young partners who had also lost their husbands in the fortress. All three of them with children are like a nursery. As soon as the Germans appeared, she smeared her friends with soot and kept them away from the window. I wasn’t afraid for myself, my friends joked, our old maid... They pulled their motherly burden and survived without the enemy’s shoulder, then they joined the fight.
They were not the only ones, many remained faithful, waiting for their husbands throughout the war and later. However, the contrasts - those who came, those who are here - are not entirely correct. Everywhere there are people who are cultured and those who are not, those with principles and those who are creeping, those who are pure and those who are vicious. And there are depths in any person where it is better not to look, the nature of all sorts of things is mixed up, and what will manifest itself with greater force largely depends on the circumstances. It so happened that since June 22, 1941, the most disadvantaged, stunned by these circumstances, were the “Easterns”.
We wouldn’t miss anything else—the reason. How did it happen that we had to flee to Smolensk and further, leaving behind weapons, warehouses, the entire personnel army, and in the border areas, also their wives, to the delight of the Wehrmacht officers?
Then there was noble rage, the science of hatred in journalistic execution and real, which increased tenfold in strength in battle. This hatred helped to fulfill combat missions, but surprisingly was not transferred to the direct culprits of much suffering.
The train flashed its luminous windows, whistled a long farewell, and we were left alone with two suitcases at a dimly lit stop. Rare lanterns, one-story wooden and brick houses with tightly closed shutters, the lights of high-rise buildings flickered in the distance... After the measured knock of carriage wheels, silence fell upon us.
Our independent life began.
We had nowhere to spend the night. The compassionate hostel attendant offered to stay in the “red corner”, where a young married couple had already settled in for the night. Probably, our confusion touched the heart of the unknown lieutenant, because late at night, when the four of us gathered at the long conference table covered with red staple, and were wondering what we should do, he knocked softly and, apologizing, handed us the key to his room. He and his friend went to bed in the gym...
My husband and I once studied in the same class, sat at the same desk, copied from each other, and gave hints in class. How I didn’t want him to become a military man!.. Golden medal, excellent knowledge on natural sciences- the doors of all the universities in the city were open to him, but family tradition (in his family all the men were officers) tipped the scales.
When my scientific adviser at the university he found out that I was marrying a cadet, he spent a long time convincing me not to do anything stupid. I studied well, received an increased scholarship, and developed a promising topic that could become the basis for a dissertation. But youth and love do not care about the advice of elders, career and well-being. In addition, in self-denial, I imagined myself as Princess Volkonskaya, going into exile to follow her husband...
Our town was considered one of the best. Representative commissions were taken here, flying back in helicopters filled to capacity with shortages from military trade warehouses and modest gifts from the local nature.
Everything was in that prosperous, exemplary garrison, and the cleanliness that was brought in the mornings by soldiers instead of regular janitors, and the pond dug and cleaned by their own hands, and the flower beds, abundantly filled with water, while it did not reach the upper floors of the houses, and even a fountain with cascades. There was only the smallest thing missing - housing for officers.
Every day, young girls just like me besieged the instructor of the communal and operational unit, who was in charge of resettlement, and she calmly threw up her hands: “Wait”...
But not everyone was waiting. Those who were smarter and who had money soon moved into the apartments. The rest, who did not want to give expensive gifts and bribes or simply did not have the required amount, lived in the hostel for a long time, moving from room to room.
There, in a communal apartment, for the first time in my life I saw bedbugs. The proximity to blood-sucking insects was combined with the cry of a baby behind the wall, the rumble of stomping boots along a long corridor, the howl of a siren in the morning, calling officers to a drill, with the voice of a singer coming from someone’s old tape recorder, or the strumming of an out-of-tune guitar.
A year later, I was no longer surprised that someone suddenly needed salt or a piece of bread at three o’clock in the morning, or even just wanted to pour out their soul.
Anyone who has not had problems with housing is unlikely to understand the depth of happiness of owning their own corner. One of my friends, also an officer’s wife, who has traveled around the world, lived in private apartments for crazy fees, once confessed to me: “You know, when I get my own apartment, I will kiss and stroke its walls...”
We were almost the last to leave the hostel, the day before the New Year. And together with the new neighbors, they burned unnecessary trash, boxes and crates. We silently watched as the flames licked the dry cardboard, shooting out the bugs, and it seemed to us that we were incinerating our recent past in smoldering firebrands. It was believed that this cleansing fire would forever carry away all our sorrows and hardships into the blackness of the night.
And then we returned to our empty apartment, where, instead of a light bulb, two bare wires hung lifelessly, and on rickety chairs with official numbers, which replaced our table, we celebrated the holiday by candlelight.
It was only three years later that we finally received a warrant for a separate apartment.
After work, we hurriedly ate store-bought cutlets and went to renovate our new home. We rejoiced, like children, at every painted window and wallpapered wall. And in the rare breaks we imagined how great it would be for us to live here. No one will wake you up in the morning with the sound of heels, no one will greet you at the door and hand over your two-month-old baby to sit. In the evening you can watch the rented TV yourself, without neighbors.
I don’t remember when the first well-knitted box appeared in our house, but only then did they become ours constant companions. Wooden and cardboard, large and small, were neatly folded “just in case.”
This state is amazing - temporary. It is difficult to grasp at what moment it becomes dominant in your destiny, powerfully subjugates you to its laws, predetermines your desires and actions.
I was absolutely sure that even the most stern administrator could not resist my honors diploma, optimism and energy, and I would find a job without much effort. Not so! At first everything really went wonderfully (pleasant smile, friendly tone), but as soon as I was informed that I was the wife of an officer... At first it was even interesting to observe the drastic change that was taking place with my employers. Where did their administrative enthusiasm, friendliness, and sympathetic intonations go? The answer followed immediately and categorically: there are no vacancies and none are expected in the near future.
I continued to knock on the doorsteps of institutions until the instructor for working with military families patiently explained to me that there was a long and hopeless queue for every place in the town. And you have to get out on your own if you want to work. The only thing she could offer me at that moment. - administrator's position in a hotel. Still, I was lucky. Something touched the heart of the elderly editor of the local newspaper, and he accepted me as a correspondent for a month's probationary period, thus insuring himself from further obligations.
Seryoga was given the rank of major. Before he didn’t have such a title, but now he does, he sits there, doesn’t know what to do. Until the evening he was tormented by the question of whether he should drink to celebrate, or not stain the honor of the senior officer, at least on the first day. The worst thing is that you don’t even want to drink anymore. The army does terrible things to people.
Seryoga came home from work, Olya opened the door for him, and looked - her husband was standing there, sober, thoughtful and already a major. Life officer's wife full of surprises, in the morning you wake up next to the captain, and in the evening the major crashes into the house. It’s not clear how to feel like a decent woman. Olya let Seryoga into the house, touched his forehead, and said:
Why are you so sober, are you not sick?
wife Russian officer easily frightened, she quickly gets used to the fact that her husband is disciplined and predictable. Sobriety for no reason is an alarming symptom, it will make anyone nervous. Seryoga, of course, is a decent person and drinks little, but everything has its limits.
The life of an officer's wife has never been easy. You can find many examples in history. Some Parisian women from medieval Paris must have sometimes gathered for a bachelorette party and complained to each other about their husbands.
“Mine, can you imagine,” said one, “had a fight with the cardinal’s guards yesterday!” I washed the blood off my camisole until nightfall, and then sewed up the holes. I tell him: “Can you be more careful with the camisole? Might as well try not to bump into every sword. Why don't you just lie down and go fight again, you damn duelist! What am I, a seamstress for you?
And her friends nodded understandingly and told her:
What is he?
What is he?
And what is he?.. He lied some nonsense, to make the chickens laugh. Secret, supposedly, task, state secret! Bullets whistled overhead!.. As usual, everyone around was a rascal, he was the only d’Artagnan. Then I rummaged through his pockets, and you know what he had there?.. Diamond pendants, that’s what! I’m telling you exactly, girls, I went to see the woman.
The friends then shook their heads sympathetically and felt sorry for the officer’s wife.
And the wives of the Pechenegs had it even worse. Some Pecheneg lieutenant would easily drag in another young wife from abroad. He brought her into the house and said to his first wife:
Meet, dear, this is Masha, she will live with us.
Better than pendants, honestly.
Now, of course, it has become easier. The officer walked off today balanced and reasonable. Give him a pension for long service and an apartment from the state, and all sorts of Londons with pendants did not give up for nothing. On weekends, the officer goes to the theater, and when he is given a major, he already thinks about whether he should drink to celebrate, or give his liver a pleasant surprise.
Seryoga came into the house, kissed his wife, walked the dog, ate dinner, and then called me. He told me how he and Olya went to the theater on the weekend to see Romeo and Juliet. A very instructive story, by the way.
People don’t lie, there is no sadder story in the world. Romeo seemed to be high, muttering something under his breath all the time, staring stupidly at his beloved Juliet, as if he couldn’t decide whether she had plucked her eyebrows, or whether last time she had a hooked nose. His ardent love was so unconvincing that the public suspected intrigue, whether the director had decided to make Romeo a gigolo and a marriage swindler. By the second act, this Romeo had tired everyone out so much that when he finally died, the audience shouted “Bravo!” and demanded to die for an encore. This was the only moment in the performance that everyone wanted to remember.
“Some kind of junkie, not Romeo,” said Seryoga. - Ears are spread out, eyes are running. If only we could draft him into the army, we would make a man out of him. Maybe he would even rise to the rank of captain.
Of course, a combat officer Russian army no Capulets would dare to contradict, they would give Juliet as a wife, like dear ones. He would have taken her somewhere to Kaluga or Kaliningrad, to her place of duty. On weekends we would go to the theater and wait for an apartment from the state. Juliet would settle down, go to work as an accountant at TSUM, get a dog. At times, of course, she would complain about Romeo:
Mine yesterday, after the service, again ran off to the tavern with his friends. He arrived after midnight, his entire jacket was wrinkled, a button had been torn off somewhere. Am I, a seamstress, supposed to mend his jacket every time?..
But all the same, where would she be without him? An officer's wife will not leave her officer. She loves him.
One thing is bad, sometimes you wake up next to the captain, and in the evening the major shows up to see you.
And how can you feel like a decent woman?..
Unclear.
