The middle of World War II, a prisoner of war camp in Austria near the Lahtal Alps.

At night there was a bombing, and in the morning five prisoners of war found an unexploded bomb in a dilapidated factory floor. Replacing the damaged fuse, the prisoners threw lots - who will hit the striker. The consumptive geftling (captive) had to die, but he no longer had the strength to take an exact blow, and Ivan Tereshka took the sledgehammer. Suddenly a German officer approached the group, although usually the Germans stayed away from prisoners who neutralized unexploded ordnance. The officer called Ivan and ordered his dusty boots to be cleaned.

Captured women were working nearby, and Ivan caught the scornful look of one of them. "This look as if boiling water splashed into his soul with the unbearable pain of reproach ... Something that still allowed itself to be controlled, suddenly broke in him." Ivan jumped from his knees and hit the German in the jaw. The German pulled out a gun, but then there was an explosion, the workshop was shrouded in a cloud of dust. Ivan tore the weapon from the hands of an officer and ran. Miraculously, without falling into the funnel, he jumped over the fence, studded with iron peaks, and found himself on a potato field.

There was a dense forest behind the field, but Ivan did not have time to reach it - the dogs caught up with him. He shot one, on the second shot the gun jammed. Wolfhound jumped, but Ivan managed to grab the collar and break the ridge of the dog. The road to the forest was clear.

Only when he was in the forest, Ivan noticed that someone was following him. It was a girl, a young, black-eyed and petite Italian Julia. In the distance, Ivan saw another geftling. Tereshka was not needed for the escort - it was much easier to run alone, but he could not leave the girl either. She was too naive and reckless.

Despite the fact that a weak girl followed, Ivan did not slow down. Only now, making his way up a steep slope through stones and fallen trees, Ivan noticed that the dog managed to bite him. In addition, even during the explosion, he lost wooden blocks (klumpes), which served as captive shoes, and now made his way through the wilds barefoot. The chase is behind - Ivan heard behind him only the tapping of the pads of his companion.

A cold, rainy night "caught the fugitives in some stony, overgrown with crooked pine gorge." Wading through the Lahtal Alps was difficult, but the mountains were an obstacle between the fugitives and German motorcyclists. Ivan, who had crouched beneath an overhanging rock, had an ever-recurring dream, where he was captured again and again. It happened in a village near Kharkov. Ivan's squad was surrounded. Tereshka himself was wounded with a bayonet and woke up already in captivity.

In the morning, Julia woke up. They managed to explain themselves in a mixture of Russian and German. Ivan had already learned a few German words in Germany, and her friend, also a prisoner, taught Julia to speak a little Russian. Ivan had a plan: to cross the Alps and get to Trieste, where, according to rumors, there were resistance groups. The main thing is not to fall into the hands of the Germans, not to "hang yourself under a drum fight on a black silk noose."

Having escaped from the gorge, the fugitives fell into a dense pine forest, where they met a local resident, an Austrian. Threatening with a pistol, Ivan took a leather jacket and a loaf of bread from him. The man was elderly and poorly dressed. Tereshka did not want to become a robber, but he had no other choice - to cross the Alps, he needed food and clothing. In the distance, Ivan noticed the estate, where, apparently, the Austrian lived.

The prisoners ran away and climbed into the cleft overgrown with rhododendrons to eat. Suddenly shots came to them. Peering out of the crevice, Ivan saw the very geftling who was following Julia. He fled from the manor in their direction, and the Germans were beaten from machine guns. The prisoner fell behind the rock, and the shots fell silent. Ivan hastened to go away from this place.

Ivan escaped from captivity more than once. During the last escape, their company made it to Ukraine. Having stopped near some village, comrades sent Ivan for provisions. The Germans noticed him, but Ivan managed to whisk in the first hut that came across and hide under the stove. The Germans did not find him; a local policeman “smoked” him from Ivan’s shelter. He set out to set fire to the house, and the master's wife gave the fugitive away. “He had no anger at this woman,” but he wanted to shoot the traitor-policeman on the spot.

Climbing out of the crevice onto a bare slope, Ivan was surprised to see that the geftling, whom Julia called crazy, was still alive. He followed them and demanded food. I had to give a piece of precious bread - Ivan was afraid that this terrible geftling would give them out. Ivan understood that he should have been killed, but the insane was defenseless, and Ivan did not raise a hand, which he later bitterly regretted.

On the slope, they found a path and moved along it. It was cold, and their camp clothes did not warm at all. On the way, Julia told about herself. She grew up in a wealthy family, but left everything for her beloved, who was a communist. The girl considered the Soviet Union a fabulous country where everyone is equal and happy. Ivan did not begin to tell how hard life is in this country.

By evening it began to snow. Ivan stubbornly walked, he wanted to pass this mountain range as quickly as possible, but Julia's strength ran out. And again, Ivan could not leave the girl. He shouldered her and carried her down a slippery path. Only in the morning they passed the pass and went down to the meadow zone.

Until now, Ivan has not had a girlfriend. When his father died of hunger, Ivan had to raise a family - there was no time for love. The only example of such a relationship for Ivan was the love between a senior lieutenant, in whom he served as an orderly, and a young nurse. Their feelings were strong and serious, but when the lieutenant died, the girl very quickly fell in love with another. Since then, all the girls seemed to Ivan fickle and treacherous. He decided that "the girls are not for him."

In a beautiful alpine meadow, where the fugitives found themselves, a lot of wild strawberries grew. For the first time in a few days, Ivan and Julia were able to eat. Tereshka tried to tell Julia the truth about his life in the Soviet Union, but the girl was offended and became isolated. She did not want to lose her illusions, the only thing left for her. Julia and Ivan considered a hero, but Tereshka himself was of a different opinion. He believed that he should have committed suicide, and not fall into German captivity. Ivan also considered his country the fairest, which he tried to explain to the girl. Hunger in Belarusian villages was a temporary phenomenon for him, and depression was an accidental mistake.

The love between Ivan and Julia arose suddenly and captured them without a trace. “Something unsaid, secondary, all the time keeping them at a distance, was overcome, experienced happily and almost suddenly ... Amidst the primeval mountains, one step from death, the unknown, mysterious and domineering was born, it lived, longed, scared and called out. " The lovers spent a day in the meadow - everything that they measured in this life.

Here they were again overtaken by crazy geftling. I had to give him some more bread. Ivan again began to bleed a wound on his leg - a ragged dog bite did not heal. Crazy geftling disappeared for a while, but a day later it appeared again, and this time more than one. He led the Germans along, repeating that they would give the Russian a lot of bread. The Germans spread out in a narrow chain in the meadow, and Ivan and Julia again had to flee.

The wound made itself felt - Ivan was no longer running, but was moving in races, dragging a heavy and swollen leg. He understood that a blood poisoning had begun. The fugitives hurried to climb as high as possible, where the German bullets could not get them. Julia climbed onto the edge of a steep scree overgrown with elfin, and with difficulty dragged Ivan along. Then I had to wade through the thorny thickets. They had to get to the saddle at all costs. The Germans overtook, and Ivan tried to shoot back, but Julia asked not to spend all the ammunition, leave two - for himself and for him.

Breaking through the elfin, the lovers ran to the saddle. Then they noticed that the chase was behind, as if the Germans had decided to let them go. Ivan was in no hurry to rejoice, and he was right. The Germans lagged behind only because the lovers themselves ran into a trap. The gorge into which they fell ended in a bottomless abyss. The fugitives were already on the edge of the cliff when the Germans lowered the dogs. Then Ivan noticed far below, on a slope, a snowdrift of un-melted snow. He grabbed Julia in an armful and threw himself with all his might towards the snowdrift. I couldn’t jump myself - a wounded leg interfered. Dogs attacked Ivan. “An unbearable pain pierced the throat, for a moment the gloomy sky flickered in my eyes, and everything went out forever ...”

Instead of an epilogue

Many years after the war, the relatives of Ivan Tereshki received a letter from the Italian Communist Julia Novelli. Partisans picked it up, warmed it and saved it. During the war, Julia joined them, and then began working in the Union for Peace. During this time, she raised her son Giovanni, who was already eighteen. Julia insisted that Ivan’s son learn Russian. She herself did not forget her beloved for a moment and regretted only one thing: that she did not have a single photograph of Ivan.