"Mikhail Evstafiev. Two Steps From Heaven " - читать интересную книгу автора

... what does a man really need in wartime?..

he wondered, returning from the bath-house.

-"food, medals, vodka and dames!" according to Morgultsev ....well, the
food situation is bearable, there are never enough medals to go around, nor
enough vodka, either, but especially women ... you'd think they'd bring in
enough for everyone, so you wouldn't have to think about it! ... good thing
the replacement's arrived, it will mean a drink or two! ..

The orderly on duty pulled himself to attention and reported that
Chistyakov's replacement had arrived , and that the company had gone off to
eat.
Sharagin hung out his washing, lay down on his bunk and turned his head
to the wall, facing the photograph of Lena and Nastyusha. The gray cardboard
was cut unevenly around the edges to palm size, because for some time he
carried the photo in his pocket. Wife and daughter were frozen in unnatural,
tense poses before the camera, having taken inordinate pains to look as good
as possible.
The tasteless provincial hairdresser had given Lena a "stylish" hairdo,
hiding her beautiful long hair. For some reason she had colored her lips and
eyelashes with something. Her wide-spaced, usually bright and warm eyes,
high forehead and clear, touching face were immobile, as though they had
frozen Lena, enchained her, frightened her. Meek and helpless, but strong in
her love for him, and fearful for him, she seemed to look into the camera
lens as though trying to catch a glimpse of the future, the day when he
would receive this photo, in order to tell him of her love, her anxiety,
about all that surrounds a woman who is left for a long time without the
husband who has gone off to war. Nastyusha had huge bows of ribbon on both
sides of her head, making her look like a funny toy.

... it would have been better to take the photo at home ...

At the moment when "the birdie" flew out they, naturally, were thinking
of Daddy, who was serving in a distant country, and their fears were
involuntarily captured on film.
He had never known the pulling power of photographs before. That a
glance at a photograph is like a voyage in time: a moment of human life is
permanently fixed on a card, so tiny that the person probably did not even
notice it or attach any significance to it, it's like a trip into the past,
a projection into another dimension.

He closed his eyes and imagined the hairdresser's they usually went to
- on the corner near the railway station, possibly the only one in town.
Then - how they stood in line holding the receipt until their time came,
probably going to the mirror a few times to check how they looked, tried to
tune themselves up to smile and then headed back home, dressed in their
Sunday best, along the pitted, dirty streets.