It seemed that the whole village knew that the general was coming to live with them permanently. Moreover, there were rumors that he was a local. Vera was the most anxious of all. First of all, she would become his neighbor, and the old owner had given her the keys to his two-story cottage so that she could pass them on to the general. And besides, she was curious about who he was. Most importantly, she herself was unmarried—and the general was arriving alone. Of course, it was foolish to even dream of that. In forty years no one had ever been married, and suddenly…
Over the last quarter-century the village had transformed into a cottage community. Half the population had changed. They couldn’t even tell who exactly this general was.
On Saturday morning a “Kruzak” pulled up in front of the cottage. Out stepped an elderly man who looked around; a smile briefly played on his lips before his face turned stern once again.
He headed toward the neighboring house. The lady had already come running out to meet him.
“Hello!” he said in a commanding voice. “Are you Vera?”
“Yes. And are you Maxim Stepanovich?”
“Yes, your new neighbor. You should have the keys to my house.”
“Here they are,” the woman said, extending a bunch of keys.
“Thank you!”
“Let me show you…”
“I’ll manage on my own,” he replied, turning away and, without even smiling, heading toward his two-story house.
And Vera, puffing out her lips, walked toward her own—not bad, too—a house inherited from her parents:
“Look at him, a real stud! Generals retire at sixty. So he’s already sixty—twenty years older than me. And he didn’t even smile. Well, who do I think I am? Look at that house, that car. And his pension is probably even higher than a nurse’s salary.”
But before she could reach her little gate, her friend Raisa was already running directly toward her. They weren’t very close friends—they’d only lived on the same street for a long time.
“So, what?” Raisa asked immediately.
“Some sort of bore,” Vera smirked.
“It’s nothing—you’ve dealt with even worse bores,” replied Raisa, who was also unmarried and at forty-five considered herself irresistible. “So, who is he?”
“A general…”
“That’s obvious. He’s a local; someone has to be related to him here.”
“How would I know?” Vera shrugged.
“Then you should have asked.”
“He took the keys and left immediately.”
“Alright, I’ll figure it out!” Raisa said confidently.
Yet for some reason, Vera did not like her friend’s confident tone—especially since she had often changed her men.
Vera was watering the flowers in her front garden, occasionally glancing at the neighbor’s house and his car parked by the gate.
Then he came out, looked around, and… walked in her direction. Vera lowered her eyes, pretending to be busy with her flowers. He stopped beside her fence.
“Vera, sell me the flowers!”
“You… flowers…” stammered the garden’s owner.
“I want to visit the graves of my parents and my grandparents.”
“I’ll cut some for you.”
“No, I need a lot. I’ll pay you,” the man said firmly.
“Just a moment, please.”
She found four plastic bottles and cut off their necks. She filled a five-liter bottle with water, prepared a clean cloth, and—after doing a quick mental calculation—cut sixteen scarlet roses.
“When you go to the graves, wipe down the tombstones. Pour water into the modified bottles and place four flowers on each.”
“Vera, why did you cut scarlet roses?”
“They express true feelings and sorrow.”
“Thank you!” He produced a five-thousand–ruble banknote from his pocket and handed it to her.
“Why so much?”
“I won’t go broke!” he grumbled.
“And you’ll find the graves? I’ve lived here for forty years and have never seen you. Nowadays even city folks are being buried in our cemetery.”
“And I, for one, haven’t lived here for forty years,” the general suddenly remarked. “Vera, would you perhaps go with me?”
She was startled for a second, then quickly recovered:
“I’ll change right away.”
They entered the cemetery through the main entrance. Here the graves were well-tended with beautiful tombstones, and Maxim Stepanovich had no idea which way to go next. Vera took over the search.
Soon they reached the farthest edge of the cemetery. Here most of the graves were neglected. Beautiful tombstones appeared only rarely.
“Old graves are here,” Vera said as they got out of the car. “Can you roughly determine where your parents’ graves are?”
“No! I haven’t been here in forty years,” the general said, lowering his head.
“Then we’ll have to search. What’s their surname?”
“Shadrin, just like mine. They’re all buried close together. My parents had simple, metallic tombstones of a bluish tone. My grandfather’s had a little star on top. My grandmother’s—I don’t know. I left money with the neighbors to put up a tombstone, but I don’t know…”
“Then let’s do it this way: You go left, I’ll go right.”
For a good hour they wandered among the graves until Vera shouted:
“Maxim Stepanovich, come over here!”
Two groups of overgrown mounds lay with a small gap between them. Only on one of the remaining tombstones could one barely decipher the surname Shadrin; on the other three, instead of a tombstone, only protruding pieces of rusted iron were visible.
“There they are!” the man said, lowering his head once again.
After standing for a moment—as if silently conversing with his parents and grandparents—he walked over to the car for the flowers. When he returned, Vera was tearing up the grass at one of the graves.
“Don’t, Vera!” he said mournfully.
They set the bottles on the graves, poured water into them, and placed the flowers.
“Let’s go order some tombstones!” Maxim Stepanovich said quietly.
They ordered beautiful tombstones. As they were leaving the workshop, Vera suddenly exclaimed:
“Fedya!”
At the cemetery gate stood a small, skinny boy who had not been there until very recently.
“He doesn’t have parents; only a sick grandmother. He comes here on Saturdays, hoping someone will help. I often visit them and give her injections. She’s very ill—wants to die at home.”
“Let’s go,” the man said confidently as he headed toward the boy.
“Aunt Vera,” the boy joyfully called out as he ran toward her.
“Get in the car!” ordered Maxim Stepanovich.
“Why?” the boy asked, confused.
“Come on, get in!” Vera said, placing a hand on his shoulder. “Uncle Maxim is a good man.”
The boy looked attentively at his uncle, then at the beautiful car—a happy opportunity to take a ride.
They pulled up to a store.
“Vera, buy him whatever he needs! I’ll pay.”
With the purchases, he drove them to the house where Fedya lived with his grandmother. He helped carry the bags and then left, while Vera stayed behind to prepare lunch. The grandmother herself could barely get out of bed.
Later that evening, as Vera was returning to her house, she saw… her friend—made-up and dressed provocatively—coming out of Maxim Stepanovich’s house. Seeing her friend, she ran toward her:
“Vera, he’s definitely into you.”
“Raya, what happened?”
“He kicked me out,” her friend said, her face showing indignation and disappointment.
“What do you mean, kicked you out?”
“Almost by the collar.”
Vera struggled hard to suppress her laughter. Her friend waved her hand toward his house and hurried off.
And a thought flashed through Vera’s mind:
“If he kicked out such a beauty as Raisa, then I will forever remain only his neighbor.”
Then the working days began. Vera worked as a nurse at the local clinic. She and her neighbor met only in the evenings. And how did they meet? They simply exchanged a few words whenever they encountered each other. But she began noticing that little Fedya often visited Maxim Stepanovich.
That evening the little boy was running down the street, shouting loudly:
“Granny!!!”
Vera dashed out onto the street, followed by her neighbor. They rushed into the boy’s house. Vera touched the old lady’s neck and whispered, looking fearfully at her grandson:
“Enough!”
The boy understood and began to cry. He had only one living relative left, then he threw himself into Maxim Stepanovich’s arms, clinging to him as if seeking protection:
“Uncle Maxim!!!”
The general paid for Fedya’s grandmother’s funeral, and the day after the funeral, he himself came to his neighbor’s house:
“Hello, Vera!”
“Maxim Stepanovich… what is it?”
“I came to talk.”
“Please, come in! Take a seat!” Vera hurriedly said. “I’ll make some tea.”
He waited patiently as she set the table and sat down opposite him, took a sip of the fragrant tea, and began:
“I hardly remember my grandfather. He fought in the war, came home wounded, and died when I was five. Five years later, my parents perished. I was left alone with my grandmother. Our house stood in a clearing near an oil pump,” he said, shaking his head thoughtfully. “Now, where our house once stood, there is a cottage.”
Maxim Stepanovich grew pensive, clearly recalling his childhood.
“I finished eight grades, then technical school, and went into the army. My grandmother, in her final letters, urged me to go to a military academy. She didn’t live to see me return from the army—she died when I still had four months of service left. I was granted leave for her funeral.”
He took a sip of tea and continued.
“After my conscript service I entered the academy. I got married, and my daughter was born. She grew up and married a young lieutenant from my division. Now he is a lieutenant colonel.”
Then the general fell silent for a long while. Vera waited patiently.
“After my daughter’s wedding, my wife left me. She married some businessman and moved with him to the capital. Later I learned that they had been seeing each other for ten years. Perhaps it was partly my fault—I was away from home for months at a time—but still, I loved and trusted her in my own way.”
He fell silent again; it was not easy to recall the less happy moments of life.
“My son-in-law got a position in another city, and he and my daughter left for his station. I spent ten years alone. During the day people scarcely notice loneliness, but at night I often wondered about life after my service ended. I turned sixty. I could have stayed another five years, but I didn’t. I longed to go back to where I was born—so that I could be buried alongside my parents, grandfather, and grandmother. An agency found me, and they found a house next to yours. The rest, you know.”
Suddenly, a smile flickered across the general’s face; he looked at Vera with such eyes that her heart began to race. Vera realized that he hadn’t come merely to recount his life story—she sensed that she was about to hear something that would turn her life upside down.
“Vera, here I met you and Fedya. His life is so similar to mine… Vera, let’s get married, adopt Fedya, and live together,” he said—not in the typical hasty, military manner, but in a way that suggested that here, outside of the army, things might not turn out as expected. “I have a large pension, and I do have money. I’m, of course, not exactly young anymore, but I plan to live another fifteen years. We will raise Fedya.”
He gazed at the rendered-silent woman for a long time before asking again:
“Vera, do you agree?”
“Yes,” she replied, tears of joy streaming from her eyes.
A year later the general revised his expectations for how much longer he had to live—from fifteen years to twenty. Fedya even got a brother, and now he, too, needed to be raised.