Burning Moscow

91 Long-lost old friend

The taciturn major driver drove a car on the streets of Moscow.

General Vlasov and I sat in the back row and nodded in satisfaction and said to me: “I said, Comrade Lieutenant Colonel, our gains today are really not small. According to Comrade Stalin’s estimation, if you want this General Lin to stay When we come down, we have to go four or five times. According to the Chinese saying, what is called “three visits to the cottage” will make things stand out. Unexpectedly, you just said lightly and made General Lin make up his mind to stay, you It’s not easy!”

I smiled and didn’t speak.

General suddenly remembered something and asked: “Did you know General Lin before?”

I replied without hesitation: “I have heard of his name, but I have never met him in person.” What I said is not false. When I was born, his old man had already broken Wenduerhan, I I have only seen his image in documentaries and books.

The general supported the spectacle frame suspiciously and asked: “I remember the battle of Pingxingguan. There was only one short message in our newspapers. How do you know that the ratio of casualties between the Eighth Route Army and the Japanese Army reached 1:1? And what about you? Do you know the offensive tactics used by General Lin when he was the regiment commander?”

Seeing that he was suspicious of me, I quickly explained: “You have just arrived in Moscow and may not understand the situation. Although our officials have not reported it, the intelligence agencies have collected similar information, and general commanders of the army can access it. This type of information. I once served as an assistant to General Zhukov, so I had the opportunity to read this information.”

The general laughed: “Well, what you said makes sense.” He is a flexible-minded, well-rounded person in officialdom, and has a long experience. Knowing that some questions cannot be asked casually, he immediately switched to other sensitive topics. , He asked: “I’m going to report to Comrade Stalin later, where do you get off?”

I don’t know how Krochkov arranged it, so I quickly asked the major who drove: “Comrade Major, where is the accommodation Comrade Krochkov arranged for me?”

Without looking back, he said, “It’s a military hotel. It will be here soon. After you get off the bus, I will send the major general to the Kremlin.”

When the car stopped, I looked out the window. This place I knew was the hotel I stayed at that night from Leningrad to Moscow. I said goodbye to Vlasov, then pushed the door and got out of the car.

Just walked into the familiar hotel lobby, a female officer with the rank of second lieutenant greeted me with a smile on her face and greeted me: “Comrade Commander, hello!”

“Hello! Comrade Liu Da, we meet again.” At a glance, I recognized the female officer in front of me, Liu Da, who arranged a place for me in the first place, so I took the initiative to say hello to her.

When she heard me call out her name, she was stunned for a moment, but then she came back to her senses and said in a little surprise: “So it’s you, Comrade Commander, please forgive me for not recognizing you. Unexpectedly The commander who arranged the room by the comrades of the Ministry of Internal Affairs is you. Welcome to our hotel.”

I nodded, and then asked: “Is my room arranged?”

“Everything is ready, please wait a moment, I’ll arrange for someone to take you there.” Then she turned her head and shouted in the hallway: “Aksala, where are you? Come to the hall quickly.”

Following her shouting, a female soldier hurried over and asked: “Liu Da, are you calling me?” Liu Da pointed at me and said to her: “Aksala, you send me Comrade the commander went to her room.”

is another acquaintance. I smiled at Aksala who was stunned after seeing me, and said jokingly: “What’s the matter? Honey, I haven’t seen you for a month, don’t you know me?”

“Lida Chika, is that you? Are you still alive?” she said, rushing towards me. I took her in my arms and said with a smile: “Of course I am alive. As soon as I get back to Moscow, I will come to see you, an old friend.”

“Let’s go, Lida, I’ll take you to the room.” After Aksala released me, she took my hand and walked upstairs, chattering non-stop: “The room is up The single room you lived in. Today, the superior said that a commander would come to us, so Liu Da asked me to clean up the room you used to live in.”

When I stayed here last time, the ranks of the residents seemed to be higher than mine, which made me have to raise my hand to salute every officer I met since I left the room. On the way to the room, we met several officers from time to time, but their ranks were lower than mine. Seeing them take the initiative to salute me, my vanity got a little satisfaction.

Aksala didn’t notice this detail at first. Later, when I saw more people saluting me, he said with envy: “It’s great to be an officer. There are so many people saluting, but I have to keep saluting. Salute others.” When she saw an oncoming major officer also saluting me, she asked in a bit of surprise: “Lida Chika, what is going on, how come Comrade Major will give you this Lieutenant salute?”

“I’m no longer a lieutenant.” I was really speechless for Aksala’s **** character. After chatting with me for so long, I didn’t realize that the rank of my collar was different from the original one.

“Isn’t it a lieutenant? Was demoted?” She was surprised when I said this, but after seeing my collar, she said excitedly: “Wow! So you are already a lieutenant colonel. Lidachka, you are so too That’s amazing.”

had come to the door of the room while speaking, Aksala took out the key from his pocket, unlocked the door, and then pushed hard, and the door opened in response. “Please come in, Lida.” She turned on the light in the house, then turned to me and said, “Look, see if the furnishings here are the same as the last time you lived here.”

“Yes, it’s still the same, it hasn’t changed at all.” I said, putting the submachine gun in my hand on the table. Then he asked Aksala, “My dear, can you help me find something to eat? I’m almost starving to death if I haven’t eaten for a day.”

“Oh, it’s so late, you haven’t eaten anything yet, I’ll go to the restaurant to help you eat it. Wait a minute, it won’t take long, at most five minutes.”

After Aksala left, I closed the door gently. I know Lao Maozi’s habit, saying that it’s five minutes, and it’s relatively fast to be back within fifteen minutes. So I hung the camouflage suit and short fur coat on the hanger, and went to the bathroom to take a shower.

After taking a shower, I think it’s been almost 20 minutes, but Aksala, who claims to be back in five minutes, can’t even see the shadow. My lower back suddenly felt sore, and I didn’t know if it was because of being injured by a brick and stone a few days ago. Anyway, I felt particularly uncomfortable, so I lay flat on the bed to rest.

Just when I was asleep, I heard Aksala’s voice in the dimness: “Lida, something is coming, get up and eat.” I opened my eyes and struggled to sit up and saw Ah. Kesala was putting tableware at the table, then got up and walked behind her, hugged her waist, put her head on her shoulders, and asked lazily: “What’s so delicious?”

“It is during the war, and the material is relatively scarce, even the restaurant of our hotel is no exception. You see, I have been churning in the kitchen for a long time, and I found five or six cooked potatoes, a portion of buckwheat porridge, and one A bowl of red cabbage soup, you can just eat it. There may be something good in the restaurant during the day tomorrow.”

At this moment, I was so hungry that I almost collapsed, so I’m not welcome, I just sat down on the table, took the spoon and started drinking soup. Although the soup was a bit cold, it tasted good. I drank the soup in a few mouthfuls, and then started to wipe out the buckwheat porridge on the table.

Aksala saw me eating, and did not sit idle. He picked up a potato, peeled it, dipped it in the salt in the dipping dish, took a light bite to his mouth, and then asked me slurredly: ” Lida, how did you eat when you were on the front line? Was it so rich?”

I looked at the humble food in front of me. In any case, it was not equated with abundance, but I didn’t want to discourage her, so I replied vaguely: “It’s okay. My food in the headquarters is similar to here. .”

“That’s good,” she took another bite of the potato. “If you don’t drink hot soup every day, you will become thinner.” After hearing her theory, I was a little dumbfounded. If you don’t drink the soup, you will change. Thin, those people who don’t like to drink soup still look like hunks.

“You must have fought many battles when you are on the front line. Tell me your story.” After nibbling a potato, she wiped her mouth with a napkin, and actually pestered me to tell her a story.

I smiled. When I was about to speak, my lower abdomen suddenly hurt like a knife. I threw away the spoon in my hand, covered my abdomen with my hands and groaned. Aksala was shocked when she saw my painful expression. She hugged my shoulder and asked anxiously: “Lida, my dear, what’s wrong with you?”

“I don’t know,” I felt sweating on my head, and replied with a weak voice: “I don’t know, my stomach hurts so badly, maybe my old wound has opened.”

“Wait a minute, I’ll go to the doctor.” After saying this, she opened the door and rushed out.

I lay flat on the bed, slowed my breathing, and gently rubbed the painful area with my palm. In a short while, the pain began to slowly diminish, and my hanging heart finally let go. It doesn’t seem like the old injury has recurred. Maybe it’s just a bad food At this moment, Ah Kesala returned with the doctor, followed by Lieutenant Liu Da.

The doctor is also a woman. She put the medicine box she carried on the table, took out the stethoscope, and came to auscultate me. After an examination, she took off her mask and said, “Don’t worry, it’s not that the injury has returned.”

“Then why the pain is so severe, you see, even the cold sweat is coming out.” Liu Da couldn’t help but interject.

Doctor smiled and asked me: “Comrade Commander, can you ask when was your last menstrual period?”

what! I was stunned. In my impression, I haven’t been here since I borrowed Lida’s body. So I hesitated and said, “I don’t remember clearly, probably I haven’t been here since August.”

“That’s no wonder, maybe it’s because of abdominal injury, which leads to endocrine disorders, so it has been so long. Have you ever had a history of dysmenorrhea?”

Dysmenorrhea, this word thundered me fiercely again. It turned out that the lower abdominal pain just now was dysmenorrhea. For the doctor’s question, I couldn’t help but answer, so I had to say vaguely: “There shouldn’t be.”

“Oh, maybe I only showed up after being injured…” Then the doctor BLABLA said a lot. When she was speaking, when Aksala left, I didn’t notice until she He appeared in front of me with sugar water. “Lida Chika, drink some honey water, it won’t hurt if you drink it.”

I took the honey water in her hand and drank a few sips, and I suddenly felt much better. I didn’t expect honey water to have the same effect as brown sugar water.