Karma

Petersky, the institute companion, often dragged me to the country. We helped his grandfather in the farm. Some rotten boards were ripped away from the house, and in their place others, just as rotten, were grabbed. Grandfather – Pavel Alekseevich, strictly controlled the process, screaming at us and we tried. My grandfather fed us well. Salo, home eggs, a bottomless barrel of fermented cabbage. For the hungry nineties, it is not bad at all.
One winter evening, my grandfather was lying on a tap, and my friend and I were throwing wood into the stove and my grandfather spoke:

I was summoned at the very end of the forty-first, brought to Leningrad, there accelerated training, such as the course of a young fighter before the front.
So, I made friends there with one guy, he himself from under Vologda, named Sasha Stepanov. I remembered the name all my life.
Service in the school we were not brought, lords, as I remember, until I don't believe that he was alive. It was even harder than it was on the front. We were feeding worse dogs, apparently stealing a lot. We didn’t complain, the Leningrad civilians lived even worse.
During the day class on combat training, at night in the warehouse the boxes were tapped, or the mountains of bricks after the bombings were dismantled.
I didn’t sleep every night. Many people were sick, almost everyone. I suffered pneumonia on my legs. Some died of hunger. Apparently, a healthy guy, blood with milk, and you look, in some two months, it's all. So what did you think? If you are almost not fed at all, but only to give hard work, and even in the barracks sometimes the water freezes, you knock your teeth in your sleep.
There was no hospital for us. I recovered – well, no – sorry.
We had a rotting boss, now I can’t remember the name. I once knew. After a slight injury, he reached us, had time to fight. He was a bad man, a bad man. We were all very afraid of him.
Imagine a company of about 150 people and almost every morning one of us didn’t wake up.
The senior approached, saw that the student died and ordered him to be thrown into the yard.
That is, naturally, they opened a window in the barracks and dropped the poor man from the second floor right into the yard. So fast that you do not drag the stairs and circles around the building. People get used to everything, we were not surprised by anything.
And here one day my friend Stepanov Sasha was seriously ill, Maybe a cold, maybe from hunger, and most likely, all at once. He was getting worse and worse every day, and was afraid to confess to the senior, could easily be shot, as a sabotage and deserter. There were cases. I helped him as I could, even from my bread.
In the morning, the chief cries: Race up!
Everyone jumped, and Stepanov lies, silent, can’t even move, but he breathes hard.
The senior saw, approached, bended and commanded us: - Open the window, take, take out!
Well, then he was picked up, pulled, and I grabbed Stepanov in the shirt, I don't let it go, I pulled back, I began to beg the senior, say how-so, Stepanov is still breathing, alive yet. Maybe wait until he dies first. The senior was angry, of course, hit me in the chest, began to scream about the failure to execute the order in wartime. I was lucky, only with a broken rib. Sasha Stepanova was thrown into the yard. Yet another living. None of us did anything more to the senior. Even though I was dropped...
How sorry I was for the guy, still in nightmares. not let go.

Grandfather silenced and began to sneak in the dark. One minute later, he continued unexpectedly:

But that is not the whole story yet.
Fifty years, I don’t remember, ten years after the war. I lived at the time in my village near Tossno, I’m digging in the garden, there are two men: one younger, the other older, 60 years old.
They say goodbye, they say, are you like that? Yes, I say, I. The older one shows me a photo and asks – who is he?
I looked and immediately found out, I answer – this is my combat companion, Stepanov Alexander.
The older one says, “All right, Pavel Alekseevich is Sasha, my son, and this is his older brother. We have never been able to get from the military committee how he died and where he was buried? They say that in the training unit, and how and what, it is not known. Some archives have disappeared. There was only one letter from him, and here it is. Here Sasha writes that he has a friend — it’s you.

I could, of course, “tell them” that their son and brother fell to the death of the brave defenders... but I couldn’t. Who am I to hide the truth from them? He also told me about the boss as well.
We drank all night for the memory of the soul of Alexander. The guests stayed with me, and after light, said goodbye and left.

Maybe two years later, maybe it was the 60th. Again, the father of Alexander Stepanov came to me, at that time he was alone, greeted and began without preface: - Pavel Alekseevich, I could not write to you about this, but you also have the right to know it. Here, specifically, I came to tell you: - Everything you told us then, the chief confirmed. Confirmed and repented before death.

Grandfather was still breathing in the dark, then told us to close the inflatable in the oven and go to bed.