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Portartur. 1940
1940
Boris Trofimov
© Boris Trofimov, 2019
ISBN 978-5-4496-8258-1
Created with Ridero smart publishing system
Portartur
Part one
Chapter one
one
Tikhon Podkovin fun counting down the steps of the wide staircase, heading for the exit. An hour ago, the secretary of the Irkutsk Court of Justice told him:
– You can be our registrar.
The huge words on the marble plaque “Truth and mercy and reign in the courts” today seemed to him especially important.
In the evening, at the insistence of his sister, Fima, and her friend Vari Berezkina, Tikhon explained in detail how he was “produced” to the registrars.
Varya laughed loudly.
“So everything will go well,” she said. “You will be an official soon.”
– It will go… But I will not be an official. You need a higher education. I even will not reach the regular registrar.
Varya looked inquiringly at Tikhon.
“You still forget that I should go to the soldiers…”
Varya lived in the same yard with her mother-nurse and her brother in the same room.
“I never even took my hand,” the girl thought, running across the courtyard. – What is he like? Don’t you dare or not love?”
Mother Wari sat at the table and sewed.
– Tikhon registrar appointed.
– I did not doubt him. He can be appointed as clerk.
– And he says: I will not be an official. Soldatchina hurt.
– Reasonable guy. He will not marry before the end of military service.
Varya sighed heavily. Mother looked at her daughter.
– I approve Tikhon. You should not marry head-on, a lot of family soldiers have misfortunes… We will wait. He is more than a year old before being drafted…
Varya turned away and began to uneasily smooth her dark hair; her wet eyelashes shuddered.
2
Prior to entering the court chamber, Podkovin was a clerk in the fish shop of a merchant Kytmanov. He was tired of naughty lady-buyers. But in the clerical work, he did not find satisfaction.