Recently there was a story of Someone Leish https://www.anekdot.ru/id/983484. She reminded me of something like that. I immediately warn you, the story is a bit miserable, don’t judge strictly.


“The wedding trip.”

Year 1946, August

"For a long time, the guns were silenced, only the sunlight was above us." My grandfather is old. The 77th Separate Light Transportation Park, which he commanded during the war with Japan, is no longer in existence. Finally, the Sinekura subverted, appointed as the chief of the weapons warehouse of the brigade. Oh, how wonderful, it is much better than leading a squadron to attack, crawling kilometers on the mine fields day and night, making passages, or leading crossings under a square fire. Automates, pistols, explosives, ammunition, machine guns, trophy weapons, inflatable boats, sapphire supplies quietly sleep in the warehouse waiting for their hour, no longer it would attack. Only when teaching, there is trouble, and so - silence and grace.

And there is another surprise, what!
You, Comrade Lieutenant, are on vacation.
On vacation? to me?
Well yes. You are an officer, you can go on vacation. Even a train ticket is free once a year.

It is a miracle of miracles. Called in 1940 as a soldier, there ordinary leave is not given. From the summer of 1941 to the autumn of 1945 there was much to do. Continuous "holidays" and trips to "resorts" with a break to the hospital. The Crimea, the Caucasus, even abroad to Poland, East Prussia, Korea, and China brought. The truth is, everything came out somehow, then float, then march, then run, then run. Not even looking at beauty. And the people on the road did not come up to be very spiritual. Here is a full vacation.

Where to go? There were no two thoughts. Of course, the Union is large in size, occupies a sixth part of the land, but there is no place in it more sweet than the native village in Belarus. This is the same house, where it was only once in six long years, for a couple of hours in 1944, when Gomelskiy was liberated. And the main thing is to see his parents and sisters, whom he saw only once in the same six years for one day and one night.

He is already on the train. Of things only a small suitcase, the poor to dress - only to belt. And that the road from Salzburg to home is not close, so it is not a problem. As the saying goes, for a crazy dog, seven verts is not a hook. Flying like wings on wheels.

Home is joy, father, mother, sisters, the roof, and a small yard that once seemed big. He fell asleep under the haunting noise of the cycades and joyfully woke up from the usual, but forgotten knock of the hammer on the hammer of his father's carpet, which stood in the fence. During the day, I helped my parents, because August is a hot season in the village. In the evenings he went either to a few surviving acquaintances or to a village club, where there were dances under the patéfon.

There he met her, my grandmother, in a sitze dress. She hasn’t been home and hasn’t seen her parents for six years. Institute and work as a surgeon in a military hospital - not before the holidays was. They knew each other before the war, because they studied in parallel classes, but then did not communicate. They had very different families, she was from a wealthy family, the granddaughter of a rabbi, and he was the son of a simple carpenter. Now the times are completely different.

From the meeting to the offer - 3 days, because the vacation is over. A week from the proposal to the wedding. And then, seeing that he was late, I tapped the telegram in part, saying "I will marry, I will be out of vacation a little later." Not according to the rules of course, but "more front will not be sent, less company will not be given."

It was a strange wedding. The bride had no underwear and no fat – her entire wardrobe consisted of three dresses. There was no costume for the bridegroom - only a military kitten with three orders and four medals. There were no engagement rings - there was no gold money, and where to get them, tea is not the city. Do we need this community? There were not even half of relatives on both sides - they had been lying under a hill outside the outskirts of the village for 5 years, where they tried not to go without a reason. There was no majority of friends and girlfriends (From grandfather's class of the 39th year of issue in 1946 from the 21st boy left... three. Contured Are, the handless Yang, and he himself, but whole. There were no fashionable DJs - only a pathefon and a harmonist. There were no delicacies and wedding cake - they were able to get only a couple of strawberries of boiled potatoes, cooked the soup, and extracted a couple of basins of strawberries and 20 liters of muddy sameon, for which the last money went.

What will you live for? My aunt broke. You don’t have a living penny. And we cannot help.
“Don’t say nonsense, mom,” the bridegroom said, “we need to live today, and today we have a holiday.
And tomorrow?
Tomorrow may not be. And he knew what he was talking about, from the height of his 25 years and with the wisdom of an old man. He saw too many boys and girls for whom tomorrow never came.

So what happened at the wedding? And there was genuine joy, love, and the desire to live. Probably it is a lot. However, there was another desire, they both really wanted to go somewhere together, like on a wedding trip. But then there was no money, and he went to service back to the Far East, and she returned to Ukraine to a military hospital, where the last wounded were treated. They decided - she will come to him, and there they will definitely go on holiday together and spend their honeymoon.

About 8 months later, she came to him in Spassk. Grandfather broke out the young family's royal chords in the form of a room in a barracks of 10 square meters. In pleasure, he went to the chief-major and asked for an extraordinary leave. Imagine your dream of honeymoon. But the Major was astonished:
On vacation? Well, you can also consider. Just that. You write me a box of dynamite and an inflatable boat from the warehouse. Dynamite as an exercise, and a boat as an ineffective.
How will I do it? I am responsible. Give me a written order, I’ll give it.
Not officially, but by friendship. You are the store manager, you can write anything.
I will not go into theft.
Do you call me a thief?

Word for word, they fought terribly. In revenge, instead of a vacation, the mayor sent his grandfather to the hauptwacht. And I found the reason - the delay from the vacation, although so much time has passed.
If you don’t think about it until tomorrow, you’ll get seven days.

In the evening my grandmother asked:
I will not go to fake. Should I go on fighting with him? Or maybe at the headquarters? Or just go to the haunt?
You will not help the matter. It is better to sit on the hood. You will rest. I am angry with him on his honeymoon. Then we come together.

The officer is well on the hauptavahta - "if you want to sleep, go to bed, if you want to sing." He fell asleep, mostly playing dominoes and cards with officers. Very glorious rest, although from the planned honeymoon haupтвахта is very different. One sad thing, the vacation is over.

We never had a honeymoon together. Then came the daughter, and then another. Demobilization, work, students, sick, surgery, and again work, with children to the village to grandparents, and again to work. After - grandchildren, wounds, emigration. So for sixty years of life together, the two have not gone on vacation. There was no time, we had to live today.

"For sixty years, we have not been able to go on vacation together. Here are strangers. Everything was postponed for tomorrow. People just didn’t know how to live,” you might say.

You may be right, but I disagree with you. I think they knew, “Tomorrow may not be.”