The events described in this story have happened many years ago.The love story of two people who, having met at the crossroads of destinies at a difficult moment for one of them, were able to stay together, in spite of the troubles that could break their relationship being not started even, is still kept in memory.
Quite the contrary, they chose one path of love and devotion.
First, the train went through the desert.As it moved north, the usual landscape outside the window began to change: the steppes, then the forests.Maksat, who was born in a distant village in the south of Turkmenistan and never traveled anywhere beyond Ashgabat, looked with curiosity at the cities and villages that swept past, at the trees painted with colorful autumn colors.
It was Russia, where Maksat was intended to serve for two years.
The military unit was located next to a small village surrounded by a forest.In the mornings, running out to exercise, Maksat breathed in the frosty air, flavored with the tart smell of pine needles, so unlike the dung smoke of his father’s house, recalled his mother milking a cow, his father who started an old UAZ, brothers and sisters who gathered for dastarkhan and the road to school washed out by rains … He was homesick.
When you young, it seems that the time lasts for ever.The first year was hard for Maksat.Then it became easier.He made friends, learned Russian and even met a girl.
On one of the leave, Maksat went to a local disco club.He did not know how to dance, so he stood more against the wall, watching others dance.
“Shall we dance?” there was a clear voice. Turning around, Maksat saw a big-eyed girl looking at him expectantly. She barely reached his shoulder.
“I’ve seen you before,” the girl said as they entered the dancing ground. “Where?” Maksat was surprised. “Last year my friend married a soldier from your unit, and I saw you at the wedding. You were the tallest among your comrades.
This is how they met.The girl’s name was Vera.A week later, they met again, and then began to see each other almost every day.
Having finished her work, Vera ran to the opening in the unit’s fence, disguised by branches, to be with her new friend for a few minutes.She walked home with an airy tread, and her eyes shone.
Maksat was returning to his soldier’s staff, but for a long time he heard her sonorous voice and saw her big gray eyes.He had never seen a girl’s eyes and lips so close before.
The next calendar holiday was coming soon, and Maksat, as an “old man”, was entitled to a one-day “holiday” leave pass.Vera invited him to visit her at home and introduce him to her parents.
The night before, Maksat had polished his boots to a shine, rubbed the belt badge with tooth powder, and was already ironing the mold when he heard screams.
There was a first-year soldier on the parade ground. He brandished a machine gun, preventing anyone from coming close to him. “The guy apparently got drunk on the occasion of the holiday,” thought Maksat and stepped towards him. “Don’t come close to me! I’ll shoot you!” shouted the soldier, jerking the bolt of the machine gun.
“Listen, buddy, don’t be silly!” Maksat said as calmly as possible, and held out his hand to pick up the weapon. The last thing he saw was the crazy eyes of a soldier, then he heard the crackle of a machine gun fire, then the pain broke him in half, and he fell down.
She was born and raised in a large and friendly family.Parents loved and appreciated work, so the children were prepared for independent life from an early age.
While still in school, Vera worked part-time at a local cannery during her holidays.And she dreamed of becoming a doctor.As a girl, she felt the need to take care of someone.
There were lame, sick puppies and kittens, smeared with brilliant green, iodine and bandaged from head to toe in accordance with all the rules of infirmary science, in the house always.
After graduating from the eight-year school, Vera applied to the medical school, but she missed only one point.Deciding to enter the next year, so as not to waste time, she got a job as a librarian in the village library.
But the next year she did not succeed in enrolling her father fell seriously ill, and there are three more younger children in the family.Her earnings, though small, are still help.
Vera liked the work in the library. With the same warmth with which she took care of sick animals in childhood, she began to take care of books. She arranged them alphabetically, put in order the card index, glued the spines, bound the pages that fell out, and devoted her free time to reading the textbooks.
And then she met Maksat. No one would have guessed or thought that invisible, strong thread would tie her, a girl from the Russian outback, and a guy from a distant Turkmen village. For years, for life. She did not think about any threads at all. She just fell in love.
That day, after waiting until evening, Vera came to the gates of the unit. Upon learning of what had happened, she stopped the ride and went to the regional center, where Maksat was evacuated.
The surgery took about six hours.By helicopter, on a call from the regional center, surgeons arrived.When the operation was over, Vera asked the doctor who came to see her: “Will he live?” “We did our best to save him.
The guy is tough, I think he will get over,” said the doctor. “Can I visit him?” “No, he is now in intensive care.Come to see him in a few days.”
But even a few days later Vera was unable to see Maksat. The hope of recovery that had appeared suddenly began to fade. Maksat underwent the second surgery, then the third and most difficult one a leg was amputated.
All these endlessly long days, Vera felt restless. The library, so spacious before, now seemed to her small, dark, uncomfortable and she was looking forward to the hour when she could turn off the light, close the door and go to the regional center. She went there every day.
… When Vera entered the ward, Maksat smiled sadly. Well, he thought, the last date has come. No need for her to be friends with a disabled person.
Vera brought him apples, a jar of sweet honey, homemade bread and milk.Then she looked at Maksat with an enigmatic smile: “And I also have a gift for you.” She took a fragrant melon bound with dry stalks out of her bag.
She bought the melon at a railway station in the regional center from the Uzbeks street vendors.The smell of heat filled up the ward.
Vera spoke, and Maksat looked at her, trying to read the pity in her eyes and guess when she would finally say that she had business, that she needed to return home, wave her pen goodbye, and would never return again.
While Vera talked to him, Maksat looked at her, trying to see the pity in her eyes and guess when she would finally say that she had business, that she needed to return home, wave her pen goodbye, and would never return again.
Vera was sitting next to bed, when Maksat groaned with pain. He was injected and fell asleep. When he woke up, Vera was no longer in the ward. There was night outside, bright stars were shining, and the yellow melon was on the bedside table as a small dune with a smell of home in the air.
“It’s even good that she left without saying goodbye,” he thought. “Farewell is when living threads that connect you with another person are torn.It always hurts.
The best parting is without words.Who am I now?Disabled person.What can I give her?The joy of caring for a cripple?Not.
Let it be a lonely life, to be alone is better that to feel a pity.”
He fell asleep in the morning. When he woke up, he saw Vera. She was still sitting on the stool by the bed. “Have you come already?” -Maksat asked being surprised of seeing her. “I didn’t leave. I spent the night on a couch in the corridor. I was allowed to spend night here.”
Maksat carefully looked at her, and then made up his mind. “You know, you probably don’’ need to come to me anymore. One-legged is like half a person. Who needs him? Thank you for everything. I will always remember you.”
Vera listened and thought: “Why am I attracted by this guy?Why do I want to see him every day?” She looked for answers to these questions, but could not find.
Then she thought: Is it worth laying out your feelings like books on the shelves?If I want to be next to him, to hear his voice, to touch his hair, to feel his breath, then this is what my heart prompts.
And you don’t need self-analysis. “Half a person doesn’t exist,” Vera answered.He is either there or not.For me, you are a dear person, my loved one, you know what I mean.
And I will not leave you.”
The next day Vera took a vacation.Then she came to the head of the hospital department and asked: “Teach me how to dress.” First, she did dressing under the supervision of a nurse, then herself.
She tied up Maksat and was amazed with what courage he endured the pain: some scream, cry, but this person clenches his teeth and only the nodules on his cheekbones go.
All days she was with him, sleeping on the couch in the corridor as before.
It took a long time until Maksat finally got up; he was learning to walk a little on crutches. It was still far from complete recovery; however, it was decided to send him to a hospital in Ashgabat.
Soon father of Maksat arrived. Noticing how an unfamiliar girl was caring for his son, he asked: who is this? Maksat answered. They spoke in Turkmen, and Vera did not understand anything. The father looked at his son in surprise, then at the girl. Then Maksat repeated again, this time in Russian: “This is my wife.”
They left.Vera returned to the village, left her job in the library, packed her travel bag and went to the station. “Well, you yourself chose your destiny, daughter,” said father, giving a hug to Vera. “Be happy,” mother added, giving a kiss to Vera.
They stood for a long time on the platform, watching the leaving train and making her farewells.What were they thinking about?Probably about how time goes imperceptibly, how quick children grow up, becoming independent and choosing their own destiny.
… There was a light rain in Ashgabat.The sun was shining, and the sheer falling large drops boiled in bubbles in puddles.Coming out to the platform, Vera looked around and headed to the taxi rank.
Through the glass of the car, she looked at an unfamiliar city, at houses, squares, at straight streets, at mountains visible in the distance, and suddenly she was seized by a feeling of tenderness for this cozy, sunny city, for children splashing through puddles, for women in unusual colorful clothes, for old people in big white caps.
Tenderness overwhelmed her so much that she cried.Tears ran down her cheeks, Vera brushed them away with her palm, as the tears continued to come.
The taxi driver, noticing that the girl was crying, asked: “What happened, daughter? Any problem? Have you been stolen in the train? It is impossible as here nobody can steal nothing.”
“No, no,” Vera answered, “Everything is fine. I just really liked your city.”
The taxi driver looked at her in the mirror and smiled.
When Vera entered the ward, Maksat was asleep. Vera sat down on the edge of the bed, looking at native features, and then put her face in the pillow.
The next day, she asked the head of the department to allow her to dress Maksat. “Do you have a medical degree?” asked the head of the department. “I do not have a degree, but I have experience of dressing.” “Okay, let’s see what you can do.” So, she temporarily became a ward nurse.
During the day, she did dressings, injections, helped the nurses to carry out the bedpans, washed the floors in the wards.In a free time, Vera went to see Maksat.
In the hospital, Maksat underwent the fourth operation. Vera’s duties have increased. Only at night, when the hospital fell asleep, she was able to have a little rest. She sat on a stool by his bed, laid her head on the pillow and, listening to breathing of Maksat, closed her eyes. She woke up from the slightest noise.
What was the most painful thing for her?To see the trace of sympathy in looks and conversations.When the doctors allowed Maksat to walk a little, with the support of Vera, around the hospital yard, she tried to keep Maksat talking so that he would not see the women shaking their heads compassionately from the benches, as they say, “it’s pity to live with disabled person.” At such moments she wanted to shout: “ Just try to understand, I love this man!”
Closer to winter, Maksat was allowed to leave the hospital, and they returned at his parents’ house.There they played a wedding.Maksat learned to be a radio master, and Vera got a job as a nurse in a regional hospital.
A girl was born, who, on advice of Maksat’s father, was named Vera.So, there were two Vera in the family a big and a small one.
They had just a few years as a happy family. Maksat’s wounds subsided for a while, but then reopened. At some point, the body got tired of fighting, and a sad end came. Before leaving, Maksat managed to hug his daughter, touch her curly hairs and feel his wife’s bitter tears on her cheeks.
When all the prescribed memorial days had passed, the mother-in-law anxiously asked Vera: “Do you want to return home, daughter?” Vera shook her head: “Here is my home, my husband, my family. Where should I go?”
The merit of love … What is it? Probably, it is a self-sacrifice, a faithfulness to the one who lives in your heart. It is a decency, an honesty to your conscience.
Well, the fire of love crazy, reckless, which happens only in youth, dies out over the years, but does not disappear without a trace.And if love is a fire that flared up and illuminated the souls of two, then tenderness is a continuation of that fire.
It turns into soft, warm light that sweeps through the years.And even through the whole life.