They have already lost count - how many days they have been sitting here. A week? More? And what to do next, they also don’t know. None: neither two adult women, nor girls. And there are six girls. And all the sisters. The eldest, Checkmark, is fifteen, and Olya is little six. It’s good that their mother is with them. She will feed and soothe. Even washing here in the basement manages to them and himself. Aunt Lina is their neighbor, and she is also hiding from the bombing here. At night, she and her mother go upstairs and in someone’s garden from the cellar, the cover of which was covered with earth and snow from the explosion, they take out food. There is still left: pickled cucumbers, cabbage, tomatoes. There is even fat. True, there is already quite a bit left. Because fat is not only for food, but also for lighting.
Valya and Lina drown it, pour it into a bowl, put a wick twisted from threads there, set it on fire - that’s the whole world. Olechka was the easiest of all because she managed to get out of the house when they began to bomb in the middle of the night and they ran out into the street to grab their little book, Cinderella. And there are pictures. A lot of. Here she looks at all the pictures and shows them to the cat Syoma - he was also taken with him. And the worst of all is Verochka. She is eleven. And here, in the basement, her period began. For the first time. She was scared, thought she was hurt. But Valya reassured her daughter. Explained everything. But Vera is still afraid, because she is sick and freezes all the time. Lying on the boards in the corner, and piled on it, that only there is warm - still trembling. Sometimes one of the elders lays down to her to warm herself. But Verochka is still waiting for mom. And calls her, often even in a dream. Bad for her. And a lot of blood.
Unbearable Valais was watching her daughter suffer, and therefore went up in broad daylight. I thought maybe in the pharmacy, which had long been ravaged by the bomb, it would find something, or gather it in abandoned apartments. And here, it seems, the bombing became quieter, moved somewhere outside their city, further to the river.
Before the war, they had a city, oh, how glorious it was. And the river is nearby, and the forest. And there are mushrooms in the forest. They loved to collect them all together. Most of all, my mother always found. And dad said everything, he was surprised: “And what a mother is our big-eyed! I’ll pass by a hundred times, but don’t see. She immediately knows where he was hiding, under what bush he was hiding! .. ”Mom only laughed, sparkled with her elegant teeth, and the dimples on her cheeks then showed especially clearly. Such a mother is beautiful! And the girls then laughed with her. And then dad, hugs them all with his huge hands: “Wow, my rainbow! One more beautiful! .. ”And the rainbow because he had seven women in the family: a mother and six daughters, like flowers in a rainbow. Now all this has gone, as if it had never happened ...
And mom left ...
And Aunt Lina and older girls started cleaning in their strange house. Strange - strange, but somehow you still need to live. So, then, they sprayed the floor with water and with brooms this floor is clumsy, concrete, swept away. They sweep a corner, so that at night then they can take them upstairs - they are still afraid. They sweep everything, even Olya, the youngest, left a book and Shoma and scrabbles with a small broom, swarming. Verochka, too, was trying to get up all in order to help Aunt Lina and her sisters. But they all waved her hands together: lie already, you’ll outline yourself in life! You’ll get married, when you grow up and when the war ends ...
But mother is not everything ...
Already started to cook dinner. And cooked. Such a borsch is liquid, and finely-finely fat was cut there. They cooked on two large stones, right here, only closer to the entrance, so that the draft would draw out smoke. So they fed the little ones. But Galya and Aunt Lina are not eaten, they decided that they would wait for Valya. And everything cooled down. And they warmed up twice.
But mother is still gone ...
Galya was about to go look for her, but Aunt Lina didn’t let her go. She even threatened that she would beat her and did not look that she was so leggy and hefty as the father of the deceased.
And the deceased father is already two months old. They killed. At the front. On the second day after he volunteered. Went here and did not return. There was no one to even bury, because some dirty people in military uniforms poured and set fire to him and other people killed by gasoline. This is all Nagyka, the younger sister, Galina, she saw, because she was idle and wanted to “run to the front to the baht, see how he fights there,” because the front passed only three blocks from their house. Nadia could not see full of tears with her eyes, only she heard everything, as someone shouted: “Glory to Ukraine! Glory to Ukraine!! Glory to Ukraine !!! ”And she ran home and in rhythm with these cries she repeated:“ My dad was killed! My dad was killed !! They killed my dad !!! ”
Here! The basement door opened. Mum has come home. Galya rushed to the door - she wanted to meet. And to meet her three uncles hefty with machine guns at the ready. She got scared, and hid behind Aunt Lina. She understood everything and wants to block the back and hands of all six:
- Do not go here! Do not go!! I won’t give children, you filthy !!!
One, the healthiest, did not say anything: only once shot at Aunt Lina. She went limp and crawled onto the newly swept floor. She didn’t even have time to close her eyes. And no one screamed ...
... When Valya woke up, she remembered everything at once: this flash, and a push in the chest, and a terrible pain in the leg. The leg hurt terribly now ... Well, what is left of the leg is some rags. But for some reason she was not afraid. I thought about one thing: it is necessary for children, for girls. It’s time to feed them ...
... there was already no one to feed ...
Thanks for your attention!