Chapter 27

It was about ten o'clock in the evening when I got back to the hotel.

When Korolev and I passed through the hotel lobby and were ready to go to the dining room to see if there was any dinner left, Lieutenant Yoda, who was on duty at the front desk, stopped me.

"Comrade oshanina." She trotted up to me and said, "the hotel has arranged a new room for you. It's on the second floor, No. 16. It's a single room. If you don't have any luggage, you can go directly to the new room to see if our arrangement is satisfactory to you. "

"Are you telling me?" I asked vaguely, "the single room is for the generals. I'm just a lieutenant. Aren't you mistaken?"

"I don't know. I don't know. It's the decision of the hotel Commissar." She handed me the key, with a meaningful smile, as if to let me know that her way is far more than what I'm talking about now.

Korolev took my shoulder and said with a smile, "it can't be better arranged! Come on, Rita, let's go and show me your new house

"Why is the hotel arranged like this?" With this question, I went to my new room with Korolev. He took the key in my hand and opened the door. This is a small room, but there are a lot of furniture in the room: there is a writing desk against the wall, there is a black dial-up telephone on the desk, there are two armchairs in front of the desk, a bed with dark blue printed sheets, and there is a small round table in the middle of the room, facing an electric light hanging from the sky flower and covered with sky blue cloth lampshade. The door of the bathroom is half open. From the door, the decoration inside is much better than that in the staff dormitory.

"Why did you suddenly arrange a single room for me?" I looked at everything in the room at a loss, and asked Korolev with some trepidation, "Uncle Bavier, are they wrong?"

"No," he said with a smile, "don't worry, the hotel political commissar will not make a mistake. Let's eat and talk. " Then he went to the desk, picked up the phone on the desk, dialed a number, and said to the microphone, "Hello, restaurant? I'm on the 16th floor. Give me... "

After a while, aksala brought the dinner Korolev ordered on a large tray, which was very rich for laomaozi: roast beef with potatoes in a metal basin, herring with pointed red onions, barbecue with shredded onion and tomato sauce, a bottle of Georgia red wine, two tall glass glasses. Aksala put these things on the table, then handed me a cotton army cap matching with the army coat, refused our request to ask her to stay for dinner, and turned away.

"Now let's sit down, my dear." Korolev moved the two armchairs to the small round table and made a gesture of invitation to me“ OK, come on, come on! Let's start eating. "

He opened the cork of the wine bottle with a bottle opener, filled the two goblets in front of us, held up one and handed it to me, saying, "there is no doubt that the hotel political commissar arranged this arrangement because he knew your performance on the Kremlin podium and would give you such special care. Tell me, how did you have the courage to go to the podium? When I think back to that time, I feel like a dream. "

I took the glass, put it on the table in front of me, and said with some embarrassment, "I just heard the dispute between marshal shaposnikov and general konev. I felt that the general's speech was very reasonable and should support him, so I handed a note to the rostrum. I don't even believe the note can be delivered... That's what happened. "

He gave me a look, shook his head in disbelief and gave me a smile“ Honey, you said, you handed me a note. I wrote a few words on it, and that's what happened? " Seeing that I didn't say a word, he kept asking“ No matter who you are, did you still write a note? Maybe, people regard you as a general? By the way, military rank, do you name your military rank? "

"There's no doubt about it. I wrote my name and rank." At this point, I quickly turned off the topic, "let's have a drink, uncle Bavier?" Then he lifted the glass in front of him.

"No, wait a minute!" Korolev exclaimed excitedly, quickly reaching over and covering the tall glass in my hand with his broad hand“ I just want to find out. If anyone tells me that Rita mushdakova oshanina is going to charge with the soldiers, I believe it. I personally shot down the German Devils' planes and destroyed the tanks... I think it's completely possible. But now it is... Strange! You know, there was Stalin in the hall at that time! Members of the people's Committee! Marshals! I'm surrounded by generals. All of a sudden, I heard the marshal announce: Comrade oshanina speaks, the leader of Leningrad's front army! At first, I was confused: I seemed to know all the leaders of the front army. How could there be an o'shanina?, And she's a woman. I looked up and I was startled. My mother! It's Rita. You're walking down the aisle. Listen to me, I promise you, if I had been standing there instead of sitting there, I would have been so scared about you that my legs would have softened! "

I just laughed and didn't speak.

Korolev put his hands together again, then shook his head hard and said, "come on. Let's have a drink. I congratulate you! No, wait a minute! " He suddenly remembered and covered my glass with his palm“ First, let's talk about the most important thing. What did Comrade Stalin say to you at last? "“ Didn't you hear that? "I can get a higher rank," he said I asked, puzzled. At that time, Stalin and I were in front of the microphone. We should have heard everything clearly“ Yes, yes! However, just because I heard it with my own ears, I felt a little incredible. You know, in our military system, the highest rank of a female soldier is only a lieutenant, and you have already won this rank, so it's impossible for you to go up again. "“ It's a matter for the supreme commander to think about. It's not our turn to worry about it. We'll still have a bar, uncle Bavier We touched the glasses and drank them all. Korolev filled the glass with wine again, then forked a small piece of barbecue, dipped it in the tomato sauce, chewed on the onion, and continued, "of course, if he says that on the platform, you can be promoted to captain tomorrow. Although the previous highest rank was lieutenant, maybe this time because of you, he personally ordered to cancel the rank restrictions on female soldiers. On the whole, you are really lucky! Let you speak at a meeting like this, and it caught his attention. " When he said this, he emphasized the word "his" in a more emphatic tone. "You see, the effect is so obvious. The political commissar of the hotel has arranged it very well." He picked up his glass and looked around the room“ The colonels are still two in a room. But now you have the privilege of a single room. Come on, for your good luck, let's have another drink So we drank it again. Korolev emptied the bottle, just enough to fill two glasses for the third time. Looking at his way of pouring wine, I feel sorry to myself. It's too wasteful to drink good wine with a meal like this and drink it in such a cow's way. According to the drinking method of later petty bourgeoisie, it should be to pour half a glass, then gently shake the glass, nose close to the mouth of the glass, smell the wine, gently inhale a mouthful of wine, and taste it carefully, instead of drinking it all in one gulp like us, so that the wine can stay in the mouth for no time, and then go straight through the throat to the stomach. I fork up a piece of beef and ask Korolev, who is bending over to eat herring: "Uncle Bavier, when are we going back to Leningrad?"“ Tomorrow night. " He was eating something in his mouth, and some of them answered me indistinctly“ Is it going back by train? " The train station in Moscow is in gonchamonisgaya. If I want to take the train, I can just go to Kajia's family and inform them of her sacrifice“ No, we don't take the train. " He swallowed the fish, wiped his mouth with a cloth, and said solemnly, "the situation is very serious. Leningrad is besieged by the German aggressors. The land traffic with other places has been cut off, and the railway traffic with Moscow has been cut off. We can only go back by plane. "