“I won’t pay”, I said then to a major — the head of the Commissariat’s 1st Department.
“Nobody asked them to assign my mother a pension instead of my pay.”
But then this idea entered my head: “However, let the Kalinin Region Commissariat exact my unpaid bonuses for combat sorties successfully carried out from the Air Force. Take as much as you need out of it, and send the rest to my home address!”
“Write a memo!” — The major ordered. I did. But more than half a century has gone since then, and not a peep out of them!
After more than a month of illness, mum made it to the church with difficulty and arranged with the priest to read the Orthodox burial service over me for the peace of the soul of the fallen ‘Warrior Anna’. By the way, the commemoration record — a booklet with a cross on its cover, in which there are records of prayers for my health, and separately, for my repose — is still kept in my desk. In the box for ‘repose’ is written ‘Warrior Anna’, and then (angrily!) the record is crossed out in a different sort of ink, by mum’s hand…
After the ‘funeral’ there was a wake. Only old women gathered for it: there were no young people at all in the village. Aunty Anisya — mum’s sister — told me about this wake later. She was a wonderful character! Whilst my mum was strict, truthful in everything, Aunty Anisya was a mischievous and merry jester. Sisters they were, but polar opposites. My Aunt had worked at the Kouvshinovo paper factory from the age of twelve — she’d bound notebooks. She married a seaman from the Baltic Fleet, her countryman, but he was killed during the Kronstadt rebellion173. All that Aunty Anisya had left from him was an enlarged photo of the dashing seaman and their two kids — Kolya and Panya, who she had had to raise on her own. With the years the pain of his loss had begun to pass away, and Anisya had acquired her cheerful character again.
After all my misfortunes I had at last arrived at mum’s in the village of Volodovo… We were sitting with our arms around each other, with my Aunty at the table covered by a festive homespun white tasselled tablecloth. A samovar polished with brick dust to a glitter close to gold — as it had seemed to me in my childhood — was boiling on the table. This samovar was the ‘medium’ one. It was called that because we had three samovars at home, presented by the priest Gavriil — mum’s uncle, brother of my Grandmother Anna. The first samovar was the biggest — a bucket of water would fit into it; the medium one contained half a bucket, and the smallest five glasses. Mum used to boil it up quickly early in the morning, and first of all drank tea from it. The big one would be heated up with charcoal beforehand, and only when the whole family was together. It was especially good at home on Saturdays. The banya174 would be heated, and at the beginning, when the heat was highest, the menfolk would bathe, and after that the womenfolk. After the banya we would drink tea till we sweated. On the table there would be dishes of soaked red bilberries, cranberries and whortleberries…
We had a lot of fiction literature at home. Where had those many books come to a remote village from? That same priest Gavriil used to bring them to us kids, as presents, and a lot of books had accumulated at our place. He used to tell us a lot of history, geography, knew plenty of verse. I remember Father Gavriil advising us what to read. And now, in 1945, when with my Aunty I sat at the festive table laid in honour of my ‘resurrection from the dead’, and when mum had come out of the kitchen bringing plates of snacks, Aunty announced loudly (so mum would hear it):
“And now, my little niece, I’ll tell you how your mum held your wake. I won’t tell a lie”, my Aunty began. “There was plenty of food on the table, there were wine glasses, and she went and took the decanter from the locker, poured each of us a full wine glass, and put the decanter back in the locker, and then turned the key around to lock it up!”
“What you’re saying is not true, Anisushka!” mum beseeched.
But Aunty Anisya, giving me a wink, went on: “What do you mean, not true? It’s the truth, the plain truth!”
Mum was distressed, having failed to understand another of Anisya’s jokes, but Aunty kept clowning, and so cheerful, so warm was it in my soul after all I had been through, that now I can’t convey all this, I can’t find the right words…
Here is another episode from that distant time. When mum had received a message from me, and the neighbours had confirmed that she hadn’t lost her mind and that her younger daughter Anyutka was alive, mum put on her holiday clothes in celebration and headed to the District Military Commissariat.
Later the military commissar would recall that visit: “A babushka175 came in agitated — and went straight to me. ‘Sonny’, she says, ‘get me rid of this accursed pension!’ I begin to question the babushka, ‘what’s your surname, who are you, who is the pension for’, but she kept on about the same thing: “Get rid of the pension, and that’s it!’ At last I sorted out what was what, gave her a seat, gave her some tea — and she left, pacified…”
36. The Colonel’s suit
When the zampolit of our regiment, Major Shvidkiy, found me in the 16th Aerial Army Headquarters, he handed me a letter. It began with somewhat unusual words:
Dear Annoushka! I am very sick, writing from bed, but it’s a pleasure to write to you. When we’d lost you, I couldn’t come to my senses from grief for quite some time. Do you understand that feeling? I don’t understand it clearly myself, but I know for sure that you mean a lot to me. Maybe it’s not the right time to write about it, because you’ve got other stuff to think about. I’ve been doing everything I can for you and even a bit more than that. Be as cool-headed as you can, but be persistent. I hope Major Shvidkiy will bring you back to the regiment! I beg you to come and see me first thing, for otherwise I’ll be offended. Everyone in the regiment is waiting for you. If they don’t allow you to come — be patient and remember that you’re always on my mind and I will be nagging the commanders. But I do want to believe that you will come…
I embrace your slender shoulders as a friend and wish you well.
With deep respect,
This letter was written by the Commander of our 197th Ground Attack Aviation Division Colonel Vyacheslav Arsenyevich Timofeev. His words amazed and delighted me, and its content made me pensive. Why was he writing to me like that? I didn’t know much about him… Moreover, I’d always related to the commanders with a certain alienation and mistrust. They even joked in the regiment that Egorova simply ignored the commanders, and because of that still hung around with the lieutenants while acting as a lieutenant-colonel. I had even had a ‘conflict’ with the Division Commander. Back then the regiment was relocating to the Dys aerodrome near Lublin. I’d been scheduled to move there with the last group. Whilst I was standing and talking to the pilots, the Division Commander appeared out of the blue. He came up to us, and I reported by the book and said that an Il-2 would soon be ready after repairs and we would be taking off.
173
Translator’s note — the rebellion of the Red Baltic Fleet naval personnel against the Bolshevik dictatorship ‘for Soviet Power without Communists’ in 1921, thwarted by Red Army troops.