In the middle of summer, hayfields began to boil over the Desna. Immediately on the shore they cleared a glade under a brigade camp, weaved low booths from a vine, each for their own family, at a distance they burst a cauldron under a common kulesh, and so many haystacks arose for many miles. Anfiska and her mother had a hut. Anfiska grew up in the Dobrovodye, no one noticed anything special in her: a thin-legged, a big-eyed one. In one year, the sapper company took out all military scrap from the bottom. In the Anfiskina hut, a sapper lieutenant stopped at a stand. Three months later, the company starred. And on New Year's Eve, Anfiski was born a boy.
The days passed. The collective farm’s suffering was over, and the mowers crossed over to the other side of the Desna that evening to sort out the plots: mowing, inconvenient for brigade cleaning, Chairman Chepurin handed out for yard mowing. Already at dusk, Anfisa and her son lit a fire, ate lard roasted on twigs, and cool eggs. Beyond the dark bushes the moon flared up. Vitka lay down on an armful of grass and calmed down. Anfisa took the scythe, went to the edge of the meadow. The moon finally got out of the thickets - big, clean and clear. On umbrellas of flowers dew sparkled with the finest crystal.
Soon, Anfiska mowed wide and eagerly.Listening, I caught the grunting hum of a motorcycle. He rumbled past, then stalled, was silent for a long time, he again chattered, returning. Emerged into the clearing. A tall man came out of the shade of the bushes. She recognized Chepurin by the white cap - and froze. "Help, perhaps?" “I myself,” Anfiska quietly rebelled.
They were silent for a long time. Suddenly Chepurin impulsively threw away the butt and went to the motorcycle. But he didn’t leave, but pulled out a scythe and silently began to mow directly from the wheels of the motorcycle, Anfisk was confused. She rushed to wake Vitka, then quietly, as if sneaking, she went to the unfinished swath and began to mow, all the while straying. I remembered how in the spring he brought her from the station, how numb from his rare questions about the most ordinary. “Ugh! She’s froze, ”Chepurin spat at last, stood, looking after Anfisk, who continued to mow, and suddenly caught up, hugged him, and pressed him to his chest.
The moon, rising to its zenith, glowed to a dazzling blue, the sky parted, gently brightened and now spilled onto the forest, into the clearing with a quivering smoky blue light. It seemed that the air itself was beginning to quietly and intensely invoke from its fierce radiance.
... They lay on a heap of mowed grass, moist and warm.
“I don’t want you to leave ...” - Anfiska held his hand on her shoulder and moved herself closer. I remembered how all these years I thought about this man. Once I saw a motorcycle on the road. Unfamiliar man and woman rode. He is driving, and she is behind: grabbed him, pressed her cheek to her back. She would also go like that. And even though she knew that this would never happen, she tried on him to herself.
Chepurin told how in Berlin they finally threw a grenade at him, as he was lying in the hospital. How he returned from the war, studied, married, became chairman.
Then they had a snack. In the east, timidly, bloodlessly brightened.
“Yes ...” Chepurin summed up something and jerked to his feet. “Take Vityushka, let's go.” “No, Pasha,” Anfiska looked down. “Go alone.”
Bickering, but Anfisk refused to go together flatly. Chepurin put on his jacket on Vityushka, girdled it with a belt and carried it into the stroller. He started the motorcycle and caught her eye while driving, closed his eyes and sat like that ... Then he turned the gas knob sharply.
Desna swirling in fog. Anfiska swam, trying not to splash around, listened. From somewhere the subtle rumble of a motorcycle made its way.
