—— Red Army Sniper ——92‘Is this yours? Take what you need, and I’ll put the rest back.’
‘You know, Tina, I’m sorry, of course, but this is not my wallet!
Mine’s not like this; it’s a bit bigger, also black, but a little newer
than this one... ’
‘That’s impossible!’ she said in exasperation. ‘I couldn’t have
mixed them up! That’s never happened... All right I’ll go and
have another look.’
‘Wait a minute, Tina! I wanted to ask you something else: you
couldn’t help me write a letter to my mother, could you?’
‘All right! I’ll finish my shift and call back. So, your wallet’s
bigger than this, you say?’
A few minutes later she returned with another wallet, which
was, of course, not mine either.
‘You know, Tina. That one’s not mine at all! Seems I didn’t take
a proper look at the other one.’
‘All right,’ she answered patiently. ‘I’ll bring the other one back
again, and you can take a look at it. But that’ll be a bit later.’
By evening we were already real friends. And I found out a lot
about Tina. She lived with her mother right there, at the hospital.
Her mother worked as a senior departmental sister. Her father
was a distinguished seaman. She had a fiancé, and his name was
Fedya. He was away fighting somewhere, only not on our front.
There had not been any letters from him for a long time, and she
did not know what had happened to him. But no, she did not take
offence at my tomfoolery with the wallet, when I told her frankly
that I just wanted to get to know her.
‘Tina, you don’t play chess, do you? If you like, I’ll teach you
and we could have a game.’
‘All right, only tomorrow. I’ll be completely free of duties. I’ll
get a chess set and bring it along. Well, are we going to write this
letter?’ she reminded me. ‘I’ve found you a real envelope and some
good paper.’
She crouched by the bedside table and got ready to write:
Letter from the front to a mother in Tambov: