🙂 Hello dear readers! “Return from Hell” – this is the name of this unusual story from the life of ordinary people.
Galina
One woman lived in our city for a long time. Let’s call her Galina. She lived like everyone else, did not stand out much. More precisely, it did not stand out at all. An ordinary woman, an ordinary fate …
Once Galina was married. Everything was good at first. The husband is handsome, hard-working, non-drinker. But here’s the trouble: she lived with him for only 5 years, maybe a little more. Her beloved burned out from a terrible illness in just a few months. All attempts to save him have led nowhere: they went to the region, then even to Moscow. Useless.
Doctors only made a helpless gesture. But what to say, and now this disease is not treated, except that its course is slowed down, and then they did not know how to manage at all. In general, her husband died, and a young woman was left a childless widow. Such is the grief.
The peasants, of course, some drove up to her, but Galya turned them off – she kept her loyalty to her late husband. And it should be noted that, if I may say so, these suitors were no good: some had abandoned children, others did not tear themselves away from the bottle. That still contingent. So she was left alone.
She lived quietly and modestly. She worked for many years in a local factory, then in a shop. Its owner, Dmitry, favored her – everyone whispered about it. But they whispered kindly, without dirty hints. Galina’s reputation was impeccable, and Dmitry was a serious, thorough man, albeit a huckster.
Prediction
Galina once predicted to Dmitry the return of her son from Afghanistan. When everyone had already come to terms with his death. And even a paper came from the military registration and enlistment office that the guy was missing. The businessman’s wife almost thundered into the psychiatric hospital, and Galya told them: “He is alive, he has lost his memory, but he will come to himself … Do not despair – he will return.”
The unhappy parents could not believe these words. But they began to hope for a return. And, however, after a while the son came. Wounded, not quite in himself, but alive!
So, when the local factory was closed in the dashing 1990s, more than one thousand workers were left out of work. When Galya was begging, that businessman, Dmitry Yegorovich, came to her:
– What, Checkmark, how is your job? – He asked over a glass of vodka, which the hostess did not fail to put on the table.
– Yes, normal, – Galina averted her eyes.
– Really got a job? – He goggled in surprise. – I wonder where?
“Not yet, but just about,” the woman lied.
– Well, you are a shy girl! – Dmitry Yegorovich shook his head and slammed his hand on the table. – That’s what! Come to me as a merchandiser. I fired my stupid one to such and such a mother. She stole, you bastard! And you, I know, are an honest woman. Go, huh? I will not offend you for the money! I remember how you helped me with Alyoshka.
Galya did not refuse the offered job. She took the place of a commodity expert and very soon learned all the subtleties. Anything happened in her work: they tried to cheat suppliers with the quality of the goods, their own sellers dragged food and money from the cash register.
They realized that jokes with this woman are bad: they will not be able to share with her even silently, she will not cover. So Dmitry Yegorovich warned the suppliers only once, the next he broke the contract with them forever, and the conversation with the sellers and loaders was even shorter: one word from Galino, and there is no man.
And there was still no other work, everyone held on to their place with the last bit of strength.
Missing
Dmitry Egorovich’s son was taken into the army in 1983. It is clear where everyone was taken then – to Afghanistan. About 100 of our people were taken there. Not only from the city, but also from the surrounding villages.
The sons were sent immediately after the oath, across the Pyanj River. Several months of training – and under the bullets! Sometimes you walk through the cemetery, your heart bleeds: the boys are lying side by side. Who is 19, who is 18 years old. Scary and bitter! Alyoshka was the only son.
The aunts whispered that the businessman’s wife, Alyoshka, had barely given birth. She had problems in this regard. It is easy to understand how parents felt when they found out where their boy was serving. When the zinc coffins began to come, what happened to the mother – beyond words.
They calmed her down, almost with the whole yard. And a year later, after Alyoshka was summoned, Dmitry met Galina on the street.
– Well, how is Alyoshka? The woman asks. – Writing?
– No, there have been no letters for a long time … – Dmitry Yegorovich answered with restraint and turned pale. – I’m afraid, Gal. Did you hear the Kukushkins buried the kid? In one call left with ours. One day. There is a photograph: I took them off in the courtyard of the military registration and enlistment office before boarding the bus.
I hid this picture from my wife. She, Gal, is completely bad. Doesn’t sleep. Crying all the time. And when she doesn’t cry, it’s even worse. Sits silently and looks out the window.
– Yes, things are bad.
– Not that word. To be honest, I’m afraid I wouldn’t have gone nuts!
Six months have passed since that meeting. They brought Dmitry the paper, as if it were in the Patriotic War. So and so, they say, your son is missing … How, one wonders, he could be lost? In the same place, in Afghanistan, it is not the Battle of Stalingrad or even the Kursk Bulge – there armies do not go against each other, they do not iron each other with tanks and bombs.
If they kill someone, then the body should not go anywhere. This is how our local philosophers reasoned. They decided that Alyoshka had died, and the soldiers were hiding so that they would not enrage the people, and so everyone was on edge after a series of coffins.
Photo of the son
Dmitry’s wife almost went crazy. And he himself was haggard and blackened. Once I ran into Galina in the yard: she lived not far from his five-story building. Well, she asked, of course, how you were doing, although she herself knew everything – the city was small. Galya listened to our future merchant and said:
– You this, Dim, bring me a photo of Alyoshka. Don’t stare at me like that. Bring it, I say. Not a nursery. The older he is on her, the better. You said that in the military registration and enlistment office Alexei was filming with the boys. There is no other? Where is he already in the army, where in the uniform …
– There is another one, where Alexey took a picture after training. In Kushka. Before shipping. Only I can’t take it. Irina does not take her eyes off her.
– And you explain that for the case, – insisted Galina.
“There’s nothing to explain to her,” said Dmitry and wept bitterly.
I did not see that, but my brother-in-law was walking by: he heard the conversation and watched as Galya wiped the tears of a healthy peasant with a handkerchief.
Divination
The next day, Dmitry Yegorovich was waiting for Galina early in the morning at her gate, hesitated to enter. And he brought the photo, of course. The last one, where Alyoshka is in uniform with sergeant stripes. Galina took a photo on the way, ordered to come in in the evening.
Dmitry then told my friend how it all looked: Galya sat him down at the table, lit candles in the corners of the table and put the photo in front of her. She told the guest to be silent and think about her son, mentally, as it were, to call him in touch.
Then she put one hand next to Dmitry’s, and the other began to quietly move over the picture. For a long time she sat like that, closing her eyes. And suddenly she grabbed Dmitry’s hand, raised her palm to her eyes and began to study the lines on it intently. Then she exhaled and began to speak.
– Your Alyoshka is alive. People lie, the soldiers of his death do not hide. They just don’t know where he is. He doesn’t know himself. Because without memory, without documents. But he’s safe. In the hospital … Something with the head. Maybe a concussion. And there was something with his hands … They were badly burned.
So don’t despair! Will return home alive and almost healthy! Go-go to Irina, calm her down! Take the photo back before you miss it. Admit it – I took the picture without asking.
– Without asking, – Dima nodded, like a naughty student in front of the headmaster. – I poured sleeping pills for Ira. When I forgot, I stole the picture.
As Dmitry later said, he did not particularly believe in Galina’s words. But at the same time he began to hope for a miracle. And he told his wife that he had to wait. Like, a knowledgeable person said: the son will return. Wait for the return of your son.
“You’re just that,” Galina stopped Dmitry Yegorovich at the door. “Please don’t tell anyone that I… can see.” You yourself know what kind of people we have …
– Yeah, – the stunned Dima nodded. – I will not say. Thank you…
Providica
At first Dmitry Yegorovich kept his word: he did not tell anyone about what was happening with Galina. But then he could not resist. And you can’t blame him for that. There was a reason – Alyosha’s return home!
A couple of weeks before this joyful event, Dmitry and his wife were informed through the military commissar that their son Aleksey was in a hospital in Dushanbe.
He came to after a severe concussion and will soon be discharged. So Galina earned Dmitry Egorovich’s eternal gratitude. And over time, the place of the commodity expert. They have been friends ever since.
Galina was not angry with Dmitry because he blabbed about her extraordinary abilities. I understood: the man did not remember himself from happiness. Still – the son, one might say, has returned from the afterlife! According to his stories, what he managed to see and experience in Afghanistan can only be experienced in hell. And his return is some kind of accident.
Of course, after some time, the fame of the woman’s outlandish abilities spread throughout the city and a trickle flowed to her gate from those who wanted to learn about the fate of loved ones. Galina was not very happy about this pilgrimage. She helped someone, of course. And she chased others away. But these, one must think, were bad people. With impure thoughts.
Our Galya did not leave the good ones without help. It’s a pity now she’s gone. She left. In one night she gathered herself and disappeared. Dmitry, of course, knows where she got to, but he is silent. People asked him about Galya a thousand times.
Our merchant refuses, throws up his hands: they say, I don’t know myself. Apparently, this time he firmly decided to keep his mouth shut, but people hope for her return.
🙂 Friends, leave your comments on the article “Return from Hell: A Story from Real Life”.