Struggle: The Path to Power - Владимир Андерсон

class="p1">Another half hour passed and the place was hidden behind a bend in the river. They followed parallel to it, but at such a distance that the current did not sound too strongly.

The girl felt uncomfortable again: they were walking and not saying a word; maybe because there was nothing to say now?

Now the road went upward; the slope is so steep that, given its height of seven or eight meters, you can't see anything further. Only a lone birch tree peeks out with its branches — lively, vigorous branches, as if nature had decided to show its beauty here.

Climbing to the top, Masha saw seven wooden crosses. Each had flowers growing in an even rectangle in front of each cross. A cemetery.

Daddy had told her what it was, that the ancients buried their own in this way — they put up a cross as a symbol of faith. Only when she saw it with her own eyes could she understand what it meant to those who buried them.

Vladimir Ivanovich put his backpack on the ground, nodded to the deceased and began pulling out the weeds that occasionally grew between the uvets. Maria Sergeevna took a small steel spade out of her backpack and, sitting down by one of the graves, began to dig up the earth — in some places the flowers were growing unevenly — not toward the sky, but slightly to the side.

"Let me help," said Masha, seeing how much work there was around.

"Don't, my daughter. Sit down next to me. Have a rest. Let's talk about something," Grandma said in a way that made it seem as if all the words were lifting some stone stuck in her throat before they came out.

Looking at their eyes, at the diligence with which they shared it all, Masha felt how dear it was to them, that it was their need to take care of the graves of their departed relatives; that it would be harder for them to live without it.

— Do you come here often?

— Twice a month… We have to clean everything to make it pretty. They like it nice.

Masha had long wanted to know how old they were, how long they had lived together, whether they were having a hard time, but how to do it? It's not something you can just ask.

— Our daughter Lena doesn't look like me at all, I mean internally, externally there is a little bit: lips and cheeks, and also a nose… but internally — no. Vova wanted his daughter to be like him. That's how it turned out… And my sons, on the contrary, are both like me. Interesting, isn't it?

"True," the girl nodded.

— Here… We have three children… All are already there… They are well…..

— Are your children already dead?

— Yeah… Well, there's Lena's grave, over there is Gavi's. And there's Kolya's.

Masha did not immediately come to her senses: these people — how long have they been living here! It's just unbelievable.

— Go and see how Vladimir Ivanovich is doing, my daughter.

Masha barely got to her feet, walked around the row of crosses and approached Grandpa:

"Can I help you, Vladimir Ivanovich?"

— No, that's okay. Thank you, my daughter. Why don't you sit next to me and we'll talk about something?

They are like notes together, even responding in the same way.

Now Vladimir Ivanovich took out a leather tub from his rucksack and began to water the cross, wiping it with a sponge; he had already pulled all the weeds around it — apparently there were not many of them.

"This is Vasily Ivanovich. My great-grandfather, a metallurgist… I was born when he was no longer alive. I've never seen him, but I have such respect for him," my grandfather smiled.

— You must have been coming here a long time?

— Yes, a long time ago… First I went with my father, and then I met Masha. At that time only my ancestors were lying here, but she categorically said "I'll go" that I didn't even think of dissuading her. It was as if she knew that it would become obligatory at some point… Then we got married, we had children… And we started coming here as a whole family… Well, many years passed and we started coming here just the two of us, with my wife… Do you visit anyone? Masha shook her head negatively, "I don't know where to go… We just buried in the ground and didn't put crosses… We lived differently…" — Different? Have you ever been in love?

— I was. And it still is. I just don't know if it's the right one.

"Well, love is… well, it's like Bunin's. If you love a woman, you love her with everything:

with tears, and with hysterics… Love is when you think about her all day long, you think about her at night, it constantly disturbs your sleep, but you don't mind it. You still want to think like that all night and all morning… And then, the next day, to be happy and happy if she just looks at you… And if she smiles! That's it. — Vladimir Ivanovich made such an imaginative face, which showed simply indescribability of sensation. — But this is my love, and yours is more like Maria Sergeyevna's."

And Masha walked back.

"Well, how is Vladimir Ivanovitch?" — Maria Sergeyevna asked.

— He told me what love means. To him.

— Ahh. You said Bunin, didn't you? You like it with everything: tears and tantrums?

— Yeah, that's what I said.

— Bunin's is actually a little longer. And with tears, and hysterics, and thighs… But he always threw out the last part. I've always been slim.

Masha smiled at the way these people openly behaved with her: Maria Sergeyevna said that she threw out this part because she was slender, so "tears" and "tantrums" still happened and not once. Well, how can you do without it? It's also a component of love,