Yefremych

Translated from Russian by me
Russian text http://proza.ru/2018/10/15/872


-Ain’t nothing in my box! ( it was told another word,an obscene, which has the same sense)

My old and gray-haired neighbor  with a cap of railway worker, with a wooden stick in his hand has closed the postbox. I saw a sadness in his face.

-My dear reader, do not rush to condemn the man who told a bad word: he was a brave man, a WARRIOR.

-Hello, Nikolay Yefremovich!

-Hello, Sasha (its from Alexander).

-There is nothing for you? Are you waiting for a letter from someone?
-Yes, a letter from my son, he lives in Leningrad. He does not write to me…
I was sorry for Yefremych: we, his heighbours, called him like this. He was kind, laconic. His actions told about his good heart.
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I remember that once I was at work, and my mother from the town where she lived came to us, we were not at home and she called to him. He let her in  and  she  wait for my coming home from work. And later  I myself also stayed with him for a couple of hours until my wife came home from work. At that time I was leaving for Warsaw. Yefremych lived in a communal apartment of so-called Khrushchovka-type. In another room lived  a married couple: a man who was  little younger than him with his wife.
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On the Victory Day (the 9 May in Russia), Efremich put a jacket with awards, lit a cigarette and walked slowly, with a stick in his hand to Victory Square. Once I saw on the lapel of his jacket an Order of Glory and asked him about this award. He told that is for taking a German prisoner. Many years passed before I found out what the WARRIOR was awarded for ..
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…He was a reconnaissance man. He was called to the Red Army in 18 years in the spring of 1943. He fought on the Karelian Front, and beginning the end of 1944 - on the 3rd Ukrainian Front. In July 1944, he was in reconnaissance and destroyed a German light machine gun  with a grenade. He was wounded, but remained in battle. For this feat, he was awarded the medal "For Courage". In March 1945 he was awarded the Order of Glory for the fights near Vesprem, Hungary, when he was the head of the reconnaissance group: he  threw grenades at the Germans and killed  10 Nazis, set fire to an ammunition depot, and captured 15 Germans.
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And in April 1945  the Warrior was awarded the Order of the Patriotic War, 2nd degree for  reconnaissance (the order to him was to learn the firing positions of the enemy) behind enemy lines: he shooted with a machine gun and killed 8 Nazis. After receiving the intelligence, the Soviet artillery destroyed the enemy's mortar battery. It is interesting that in the description of the combat feat it is not said that the warrior was earlier wounded: it means that he was silent about being wounded.
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Yes, he was very modest ...
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In 1985, to the 40th anniversary of the Victory in Great Patriotic War, he was awarded the Order of the Patriotic War, 1st  degree.
When I went downstairs I saw him again near the postboxes.
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-No letters, Sasha ...
-Your son will write, Nikolay Yefremovich ... You have to wait!
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I answered him so as I wanted to bring hope in this Great man.
He was dead before next Victory Day. I remember the people bringing his coffin with his body carelessly: they knocked right on the walls, the stairs  and even small fragments of stairs fell down from the stairs down ...
The soldier of the Guard Nikolay Yefremovich died. His son from Leningrad came to the funeral ....
The bright memory of a Warrior!
26 May 2015