Chapter 1634

I took the special bus that Zhukov arranged for me and went back to Lenin street where I lived. As soon as I got out of the car, I saw the chubby old lady Liuba, locking the door. I sped up and walked towards her. At the same time, I cried anxiously, "Liuba, wait a minute!"

Liuba, who was locking the door, heard someone calling for her. She quickly turned around and saw that the person calling for her was me. She immediately showed a friendly smile on her face: "Comrade commander, you are back!"

I went up and took her hand and said friendly, "yes, I'm back!"

"How many days can I stay here this time?" Liuba continued.

"I don't know. I'll leave as soon as I have an order." After I answered Liuba, I found that she was dressed up to go out and asked, "where are you going?"

Liuba nuzui toward the small building I live in, said: "you see, while the four families in the building are not at home, I go out to buy some daily necessities back."

I thought that I had just returned to Moscow today, and I didn't have anything to eat at home, so I pushed the boat along and said, "wait for me. I'll go up and change my clothes and come down."

When I said that, there was a look of embarrassment on Lyuba's face. But the expression flashed away, and she nodded her head and said, "well, I'll get you the key first." With that, he pushed open the iron door which had not been locked in time and took the key to open the lock of the duty room.

When she handed me the door key, she handed me a thick envelope. Holding the envelope, I asked, "what's in it, Liuba?"

"It's said to be an allowance for you." Liuba respectfully replied, "a soldier sent it that day. You had just left, so this envelope was always here."

The first thing I did when I got back in the room was to check that the treasure hiding place behind the tapestry was intact. After checking, I found that the hair lines stuck on the box didn't move. It seems that I'm worried about nothing.

When I was ready to go out after changing my casual clothes, I suddenly saw the envelope I threw on the table when I entered the door. I picked it up curiously to see how much money was in it. I opened the envelope and saw that there was a thick stack of five roubles and ten roubles, at least five hundred roubles.

After I went downstairs, Liuba immediately urged: "Comrade General, it's late. Let's go quickly. If it's too late, the store will close."

I know that Russians are rather rigid in their work, especially those salesmen in the shopping malls. As soon as they get off work, even if there are hundreds of customers waiting to go shopping in front of them, they will not hesitate to pick up their things and get off work. He didn't say anything more. He helped Liuba lock the door and walked along the street towards the nearest food store.

Although Liuba's leg is a bit lame, she walks so fast that I have to trot to keep up with her speed. Maybe she saw that I was a little panting, so she deliberately slowed down and said to me with a smile: "Comrade General, it seems that you need to strengthen your exercise. Look how far you have just walked, you are so tired."

"I've been in the headquarters for a long time and lack of exercise, so I can't keep up with your walking speed." After I explained myself with a smile, I added: "Liuba, you don't have to call me the general all the time in the future. It seems that you are too sentimental. You'd better call me Rita."

When I said that, Liuba was not polite, so she changed her name directly: "Rita, although the supplies in Moscow are not as tight as those in the previous two years, there are still very few goods in the shops. Even for bread, butter, eggs and sausages, it takes a long line to get a chance

Liuba's words made me understand why she was so worried just now. Nowadays, people have to queue up everywhere to buy things. If they go late, it's really possible that the salesperson will get off work at the right time before they reach the counter.

We walked for more than ten minutes, and finally came to the door of a shop, let me once again see the shopping dragon. Although the people in line in order to shorten the distance, deliberately into the S-shaped, but still out of a 78 meters long line. Seeing this situation, Liuba stamped her feet and said, "Oh, I'm still late today. There are so many people. It's estimated that before I get into the store, the salesperson should be off duty."

With that, she turned to me and said with a disappointed face, "Rita, let's go back. We have to come early tomorrow."

I followed the dejected Liuba for a long distance. Suddenly, I remembered the officer shopping shop I had seen in Lublin. I stopped Liuba and asked in a low voice, "Liuba, do you know where there is an officer shopping shop nearby?"

"Yes, there is a very large military officer's shopping shop at the intersection north of Lenin street." Liuba said casually, "but we can't get in at all..." she stopped abruptly in the middle of her words. She looked at me with a surprise expression on her face. "By the way, Rita, you're an officer. You can go in and out of these stores at will."

As we headed back, I asked Liuba anxiously, "can we make it now? The shop won't close, will it? "

"How can that be, my dear." Liuba replied with a smile: "since it's a store dedicated to serving soldiers, it's naturally open 24 hours. Unless it's inventory, it will never close."

There is a dark curtain on the glass door of the military officer's shopping shop, which may be because they don't want passers-by to see something inside. When I opened the glass door and walked in, a middle-aged man came up from behind the table beside the door and politely said to both of us, "two female citizens, this is an officer's shop. It's not open to ordinary people. Please go out."

"I'm an officer," I said politely to each other. "Should I be qualified to shop here?"

The other party hesitated for a moment, then said: "if you can prove your identity, then as the manager of the store, I welcome you. If not... "

"What if it can't be proved?" Liuba did not wait for him to finish.

"Of course, I asked you to leave." After the man finished this sentence, he held out his hand to me, "comrades in the military, please show me your identification!"

I took out the identification in my satchel and handed it to the man. The man turned out to be a soldier. He opened his mouth carelessly. He couldn't close his mouth for half a day. After a while, he said to me in a flurried way, "sorry, comrade general, I didn't know you were wearing casual clothes today. I'm Mikhail lovic, the store manager. I'm very happy to help you

I took his military ID card and put it into my bag. Then I asked, "Comrade manager, if we buy a lot of things, can you send someone to take them home for us?"

"No problem, no problem." Mikhailovic nodded and said, "no matter how many things you buy, we can send someone to take them home. May I have your address, please

I didn't know the address very well, so I turned to Liuba for help. When Liuba saw me looking at her, she guessed that I was not familiar with the address of my home, so she took the initiative to tell the manager about our residence.

After recording my address, the manager respectfully asked, "Comrade General, do you want me to send someone to accompany you shopping?"

"No, Mr. manager. We're just browsing." After declining the manager's kindness, I took Liuba to the counter where the goods were placed.

Looking at the variety of goods in the store, Liuba said excitedly, "Rita, this store is really wonderful. Not only does it not have to wait in line, but also," she said, pausing for a moment. After taking a deep breath, she continued, "you smell, the air smells of smoked ham and fish, and the smell of cigarettes and coffee. God, I've almost forgotten the taste of these things since the outbreak of the war. "

"Liuba, since you are here today, you can buy whatever you want. You are welcome."

"Really?" Liuba's face showed an incredible expression. When she saw me nodding in affirmation, she immediately rushed to the nearest counter and made a shopping list for the salesman standing in the back.

Liuba is very sophisticated. When she talks about a product, she has to ask the salesperson if she has it or not. If not, she just ignores it; Some words, said a number, let the salesperson move to the empty space in front of the counter. When she reported all the things she wanted to buy, I was surprised. She bought ten kilograms of black and white flour, eight kilograms of oatmeal, ten kilograms of rice, five kilograms of sugar and five kilograms of white granulated sugar, a lot of smoked ham, sausages and fish, and several kinds of canned vegetables and meat.

When I saw so many commodities, I couldn't help beating my heart. I said that although it was cold in Moscow in September, it was not easy to keep so many things at one time. I asked Lyuba tentatively, "your duty room is not big enough. Can you hold so many things?"

"Don't worry," Liuba said in a low voice close to my ear, "next to the duty room, there is an air raid shelter, which has a large space. Even if you buy ten times more things, you can put them all down."

When we called the manager to check out, the manager politely asked me, "Comrade General, we still have the lamb chops that just arrived today. Would you like some?"

"Lamb chops?" When Liuba heard the manager say this, her eyes lit up. She quickly asked, "besides the lamb chops, are there mutton and leg?"

"There is no leg of lamb," the manager said, shaking his head. "Half an hour ago, it was bought by several other officers. They said they were going to make roast leg of lamb tonight, so there was no leg of lamb left. But there is still a lot of mutton left. Would you like it? "

"I'll give you five kilos." After I said this, I pointed to the pile of things in front of me and said to the manager, "please send someone to take these things home."

"Don't worry, comrade general," the manager swore to me, "I'll do it right. I'll make sure you're satisfied."

The manager himself took a staff member, pushing a cart full of clothes, and followed us to the residence. When they got there, they moved things to the basement again and again under the command of Liuba.

Out of curiosity, I ran down to have a look. Judging from the decoration of the basement, it used to be the wine cellar of the count's house, but now it has become a place for food in liubatun.

After seeing off the manager, Liuba said to me excitedly, "Rita, we have bought so many good things today. What would you like to eat in the evening?"

Before shopping, I felt quite hungry, but now I see a house full of food, I have no appetite. I waved to Liuba and said, "forget it, your legs are inconvenient. It's not easy to go to the store. I'll leave it to you." I picked up a paper bag with bread on the side and said casually, "that's enough for me."“ Rita, that's not good. Bread alone is not nutritious. " Liuba said, snatching the paper bag from my hand, took out a big Leba from it, put it on the table, cut it into pieces with a knife, put a slice of salmon on each piece of bread, and then spread a thick layer of mayonnaise. After that, she put the prepared bread on a big plate, handed it to me solemnly and said, "OK, Rita, this is my dinner for you. I hope you'll be satisfied."“ Satisfied, satisfied. " I took her plate, nodded my head and said, "I'm very satisfied. Thank you, Lyuba!" When I came out of the basement with bread full of salmon slices and was about to go upstairs, I was stopped by Liuba. She hurried into the duty room and took out a tightly wrapped paper package from the drawer of her desk. She came up to me with a paper bag, put it on the edge of the plate, and said with a smile, "this is a small piece of Salo that a Ukrainian friend of mine gave me when she came here to see me two months ago. I hope you like it." Although sallow is a famous Ukrainian dish, it's actually salted fat meat. I'm tired of it, let alone eating it. So for Liuba's kindness, I can only politely refuse: "thank you, Liuba, the dinner you prepared for me is rich enough. This is a gift your friend brought to you from Ukraine. You'd better keep it and eat it slowly. After all, it's someone else's wish. You can't let others down! " With that, I held the plate with one hand in my left hand. With the other hand, I took out sallow and handed it back to Liuba. Liuba saw that I gave sallow back to her, but she didn't want to take it. She pushed it back and forth for a long time, and then reluctantly accepted it. When I came home with my plate and grabbed a piece of bread to eat, the telephone on the table rang suddenly. I threw the bread in my hand into the plate, ran quickly to the phone and picked up the receiver. Zhukov's voice came from the receiver. He said displeased, "Rita, where did you just go? I called twice and no one answered."“ I just went shopping, "I briefly explained the reason why I was not there just now, and cautiously asked," marshal, do you have anything important? "“ Comrade Stalin wants to see you tomorrow morning. You should be ready first, and the car to pick you up should arrive at eight in the morning. " Zhukov did not dispute with me, but directly explained the reason for looking for me. After that, he didn't immediately put down the phone, but hesitated a little and said, "I have another thing to do. I'll talk about it with you tomorrow."