Burning Moscow

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When my friend Andre walked into the store, I was calling a friend in China to talk about the recent forest fires in Moscow. Seeing him coming in, I nodded at him, gestured to him to sit down with my finger to the chair next to him, and then continued on the phone and said, “…Do you think the person who wrote the song “0.5 Mile” has ever crossed here When I saw Moscow surrounded by forest fires, I wrote’Let the red burn Moscow, memory smear Leningrad’. Such classic lyrics…”

Andrei is a frequent customer in my shop. Seeing that I was on the phone, he just nodded at me without saying a word. He put a white paper box wrapped with scotch tape several times on the table and did not sit down. Instead, he turned around and ran to the water dispenser, opened the lower cabinet, took out a disposable cup from it and started drinking.

The summer in Moscow was extremely hot this year. As it had not rained for nearly two months, the prolonged scorching heat and drought caused forest fires in the suburbs. People trapped in the city by the fire became smoked on the grill. The barbecue, so the air-conditioning fan, which was not popular in the past years, has become a popular item now. Buy an electric fan at home, plug it in and use it. Air conditioners need professionals to install air conditioners. The staff who install air conditioners in major shopping malls cancel all vacations and go to customers everywhere to install air conditioners every day. Because there are too many people waiting to install air conditioners, even if the staff work seventeen or eight hours a day, many customers are scheduled to install air conditioners after November.

In such a harsh environment, as a businessman, I still have to travel between my home and the market every day with unbearable heat waves and choking smoke. It’s easy to handle at home, and when it’s too hot to stand, just take a cold shower. In the market, it is definitely hotter than at home. It is hard to think of being shirtless, which is too detrimental to the image of the Chinese. But on such a hot day, even wearing T-shirts and shorts is too hot to bear. The owner of the market is afraid that the transformer station will not be able to withstand too high a load, and the trip will cause a large-scale blackout, so it is stipulated that all shops are not allowed to install air conditioners. There are such hard and fast regulations in the market. In order to cool down, I can only consider buying a fan. Because too many people buy fans, the dealers who sell the fans have already sold them out. No way, I can only take time to go to other shopping malls or markets in the city after get off work every day to see if I can buy them. It’s a pity that after running for several days, I still got nothing. Andre, who often visits my shop to find out about it, promised to buy one for me, saying that he was familiar with the land and that he often drove around. The chance of buying a fan was definitely higher than mine.

I was calling and staring at the one-foot-square paper box in front of me, thinking in my heart, this box contains an electric fan, and its size is too small! It’s a table fan at best. And there is no pattern on the packing box yet, it feels like Andre put the old table fan in his house. But after thinking about it, a table fan should be a table fan. After all, it is also a fan, better than nothing. Besides, other people have contributed all the fans in their homes. What can I say?

Maybe it was because I was patronizing the fan, talking to my friends on the phone, and then I started to lose my mind, and I didn’t answer the wrong questions several times. My friends in China heard that I was absent and asked if I had something to do. I hurriedly followed her words and said, “Yes, yes, yes! I have something to do now, so I can call you another day.” As soon as I heard the other party say goodbye, I hung up the phone without hesitation.

I threw the phone on the table, patted the paper box on the table lightly, looked at Andre, who was standing in front of the water dispenser, drinking ice water from glass to glass, and asked tentatively: “Andre, this is Did you buy an electric fan for me?” Before he could speak, I said to myself: “It seems too small, is it a plastic table fan?”

Andre squeezed the paper cup in his hand and threw it in the trash can. He walked over and pulled a chair and sat down opposite me. He said apologetically, “I’m sorry, Don. I failed your expectations. You asked me to buy it. I didn’t buy an electric fan.” Seeing my calm face, I couldn’t help but stunned for a while, and then explained: “You know, this year’s weather is really too hot, and the recent forest fires in the suburbs have made electric fans like this. Electric appliances that no one bought in previous years have become hot sellers. When I helped others to buy them at the beginning of last month, they only sold for more than 300 rubles. Now, less than a month later, the price has risen to more than 3000 rubles. There are still prices but no goods. I drove half a city today, and I couldn’t find any store that has electric fans for sale.”

I don’t know if he is joking with me, so I pointed to the paper box in front of me and asked him curiously: “Then what’s in it, isn’t it a fan?”

“It’s not an electric fan, it’s something I bought myself.” When he said this, he showed a smug expression on his face, and said to me pretendingly, “Guess what good stuff is in it?”

I picked up the paper box and squeezed it. It was not too heavy; I pressed it inward with my hands gently, and it felt like a round object. I muttered in my heart, could it be that Andre bought the cooking pot? So I asked tentatively: “Is it your new pot?”

“Wok?! What kind of pan?” He looked at me blankly and asked.

“Isn’t this box containing the wok you bought for cooking?” I said and patted the box lightly with my hand.

“Hahahahahahaha! A cooking pot? You thought it was a cooking pot?” Hearing this, he couldn’t help laughing and burst into tears.

I said a little displeased: “It’s not a cooking pot, what’s that? Don’t sell it, open it and show it to me.”

Andre stopped his laughter, tore off the tape and opened the carton. When the carton was opened, the contents were clear at a glance. What caught my eyes was indeed not a cooking pot, but an unexpected thing.

I couldn’t help but be stunned, thinking that I had made a mistake, so I rubbed my eyes with my hand and blinked vigorously before re-evaluating the stuff in the box. Inside the box is a steel helmet, a German-style helmet, to be precise, a rusty German helmet with a bullet hole on the side.

I watched stunnedly as Andre took the helmet out of the box and held it in my hand, completely stunned.

Andre saw this expression on me and said proudly: “I didn’t expect the box to contain a helmet, right?”

“I didn’t expect it, I didn’t expect it.” I shook my head and asked puzzledly: “What are you doing with the helmet of a German devil?”

While putting his helmet in the box, Andre explained: “Next month there will be a war game organized by military fans in Smolensk to reproduce the scene of the defense of Smolensk during the Soviet Patriotic War. I am playing the German side, and of course I have to prepare some German equipment.”

“Then why don’t you buy a new helmet, you want to buy such a tattered one?”

“You don’t understand this. If you want to restore history, of course, you still have to choose the old things. Don’t underestimate this helmet. When I went to the flea market to buy it today, the stall owner said that the German soldier wearing this helmet was His grandfather killed him personally, which is a commemorative meaning. I was supposed to charge me 10,000 rubles. Fortunately, I will bargain and cut the last 6,000 for a long time.”

I got up to pour two glasses of water, handed him a glass, and then reminded him: “A broken helmet is ashamed to say that it is a family heirloom, right?”

He took the cup and took a sip of water. He didn’t speak for a long time, as if he was thinking about the sentence I just said. Seeing him staring at the helmet in a daze, I thought to myself that he would not go to the flea market to return the goods later, right?

After spending a long time, Andre drank another sip of water, then pointed to the newspaper on the table and asked me, “Is there any news in your newspaper today?” Although his Chinese is good, he doesn’t. Knowing Chinese characters is just like my spoken Russian is fine, but I can’t read Russian newspapers, so we often read newspapers for each other.

I picked up the newspaper and said, “It’s not about the Moscow forest fire. I’m here to read you a paragraph.” I took a sip of water from the cup on the table, and then began to read to him: “The Russian capital, Moscow, has experienced recently. The worst siege since the German army was repelled in 1942-the siege of fire and heavy smoke. On August 4, the smog enveloped Moscow and the scene was extremely tragic. Looking at it, the city in the forest looked as if it had just Like being bombed, the visibility in some places is so low that you can only see your arms…. The doctor advises people to stay at home and not go out. It is better to stay at home and be boiled by the heat wave than to breathe smoke outside….”

He interrupted me when he heard this, and said: “I heard a joke last night, tell you.”

“Let’s talk, I’ll listen carefully.”

“There was a couple who quarreled and wanted to break up. The two agreed to walk back to back for a hundred steps and then turn back. If they can see each other, they will reconcile; if they can’t see each other, they will break up. Then the two started to move and walked back to back two steps. , I couldn’t help but turned back. As a result, the two broke up.”

Andre’s joke was too cold, and I was confused. I asked inexplicably: “Why the two people walked two steps and then looked back, and then they broke up?”

“The love expert advises couples in love not to play this kind of love game in the fog.” After speaking, he burst into laughter.

Andre’s explanation made me realize that when the visibility was only as good as I could see my arm clearly, the two of them walked two steps in the opposite direction. Hell when they could see each other, I couldn’t help but smile a little. sound.

After laughing, he suddenly asked curiously: “What did you say to your friend on the phone to burn Moscow and **** Leningrad?”

After hearing this, I was a little bit dumbfounded. How did he listen when he was sitting next to him just now, he actually meant that the error would be so far away. But he explained to him patiently: “It’s not about’burn Moscow, blood stains Leningrad’, it’s two lyrics:’Let red burn Moscow, memory smear Leningrad’. My friend is a corn, so I chat with her. I will only talk about the lyrics of this song when it’s time.”

“What is corn?” He asked very curiously.

“Corn!” I took the opportunity to supplement him with an entertainment lesson: “There is a famous singer in our country called Li Yuchun. She sings very good songs. There are many fans who like to listen to her songs, and these fans are collectively referred to as corn.”

“Song fans, I know this, but I want to know what “corn” is, how should I say in Russian?”

“Oh!” It turned out to be like this. This time I had a bad understanding, so I quickly read the word in Russian: “Goo Guru!”

“What?” Maybe I said too fast, and he didn’t hear clearly: “Please say it again.”

So I slowed down and re-said aloud: “Goo Guru!”

As soon as the voice fell, an old lady’s voice came from the door: “Are you going to buy corn?” I followed the sound. It turned out to be an old lady selling boiled corn on the street. It was estimated that she happened to be pushing a cart by my shop and just heard me. I was talking about the word corn. I thought I was going to buy it before I stopped to ask.

Andre and I looked at each other and laughed with joy. I laughed twice, and hurried to the door of the dazed old lady and asked, “How is the corn sold?”

“Fifty rubles each.”

“It’s too expensive. Last year it only sold for 30 rubles. Can you sell forty rubles?”

“No, fifty rubles apiece.”

“Forget it, this is one hundred rubles. Give me two good ones.” At the end, he also specially exhorted: “Sprinkle more salt. The salt will not taste good.”

While Andrei and I were sitting in the shop eating corn, he suddenly asked, “Are you going home after closing the door?”

“Yeah, of course!” I gnawed corn and pointed to the wisps of smoke that occasionally drifted outside, and then said: “Look, there is smoke everywhere outside, so that people can’t open their eyes. Stay safe at home.”

“Will you go swimming in the Moskva River and breathe fresh air by the way?”

go swimming? ! I haven’t swam in almost ten years, and sometimes I really want to swim, but I was reluctant to let me go swimming in the Moskva River in this harsh environment.

“Forget it, let’s not go.” I began to find reasons to evade: “The smoke is so big these few days, it is estimated that there will be thick soot floating on the water.”

“No, I only went to swim yesterday, the water is very clear.” My first reason was overthrown lightly by him.

“Also,” I continued to find excuses for myself: “I don’t have swimming trunks, and I can’t swim.”

“Don’t worry about this, I just bought two new ones today, I can give you one.” It seems that he came prepared, and he easily denied my second reason.

When I was thinking about how to tactfully reject him so that he wouldn’t be able to get off the stage, he leaned into my ear and said in a low voice: “The place I usually go to swim, there is a celestial camp in the woods opposite. Every day, there are many beautiful girls basking in the sun by the river or swimming naked in the water.”

“Swimming crush!” My saliva almost ran down the corn on my hand, I quickly pulled a piece of paper and wiped it off. This Andre is simply a roundworm in my stomach. He even knows what I think. If I shirk at this time, it would be a little too hypocritical, so I hurriedly nodded and agreed: “Well, there is no business today anyway. I’ll close the stall early. The air here is really bad. I need to hurry up to the river to breathe fresh air.”

After nibbling the corn, I told Andre to go to the parking lot first, and I went to him after I packed up.

I closed the door, went to the security guard to sign, and after turning on the alarm in the store, I hurried to the parking lot to find Andre. Andre’s sky-blue Volkswagen was easy to find, and I saw it all the way. I ran over and found that the door of the car was empty, but there was no one in the car. I was wondering where Andre had gone, and suddenly heard him calling me. After looking around, I found out that it was Andre crouching in the shadow of a medium-sized truck.

I walked over and asked him why he didn’t stay in the car and why he ran here to squat. He cried and said, “Oh, don’t mention it. As soon as I sat in, I felt like a steamer inside. I almost got heat stroke. I turned on the air conditioner and ran out and waited for the car to cool down.”

Hearing this, I squatted in the shadow of the truck like him, waiting patiently for the temperature in the car to drop. After another five or six minutes, he got up and got into the car. With little effort, he stuck his head out of the door of the co-pilot and said that the car was already cool, so I got into the car as soon as possible.

The city is still full of fog, and the visibility is only 20 to 30 meters, causing traffic jams. I heard from Andre that the swimming place was only ten kilometers away from the market, but after more than an hour, our car was still moving slowly on the road.

drove for more than half an hour, and when I was so anxious, Andre suddenly said: “Drive two kilometers further, we can find a place to park, and then walk to the river.”

Hearing what he said, I was relieved. On such a hot day, sitting in a car, even with air conditioning, is also at risk of heatstroke. If I don’t have it, I would rather go down and walk. I was thinking about it, and suddenly I saw a tank on the left side of the road, and it was the oldest one. It was driving in the same direction as us, but it was driving very fast and disappeared from my vision in a blink of an eye. I fought a cold war with anger, and then pointed to the direction where the tank disappeared, and said to Andre: “Did you see the tank over there just now?”

Andre looked in the direction of my finger, and said disapprovingly, “You mean the tank sculpture over there, but the visibility is not high in the fog today, and you should not be able to see it at this position.”

“It’s not a sculpture,” I saw that he didn’t understand what I meant, so I quickly corrected him: “It’s not a sculpture, it’s a fast-moving tank, or an old-fashioned tank, a bit like a T-34.”

He glanced at me and said jokingly: “The visibility on the road is low. You don’t think the truck is like a tank, right?”

Hearing what he said, I can’t explain any more, maybe I was really dazzled just now.

The car drove forward for another two to three hundred meters. Andre, who was driving, patted me on the shoulder, then pointed to the left side of the road, and said to me, “You mean this sculpture, right?”

I followed the direction of his fingers, and there was a tank on the side of the road. The back half of the car was sunken deep into the ground, the front half of the car was raised high, and the long barrel pointed straight at the sky. The tank body is painted with green paint. Judging from the oldness and newness of the color, it should have been maintained not long ago.

The car drove forward for a while and stopped. Andre turned to me and said, “Here, let’s park the car here, and then walk to the river.”

After Andre took out a handbag from the trunk, he locked the car. He led me through a dense grove to the swimming area by the river. Standing on the edge of the woods, looking at the dense crowds or standing or sitting or lying on the grass, I asked Andre curiously: “Why is this riverside a lawn instead of a beach?”

“There is a beach.” He pointed to the other side of the river, “The opposite side of the celestial body camp is the beach, and this side is the grass.”

I followed the direction of his fingers. On the opposite side of the wide Moskva River, there was indeed a golden sandy beach, but the fog on the river was still a bit thick, and I could only vaguely see the densely packed sandy beach on the opposite side of it. You can’t see clearly without wearing a swimsuit.

I looked around, and there were no more buildings except for a few kiosks selling things. I couldn’t help but curiously asked, “Where shall we go to change clothes later?”

Andre pointed to the side casually, and said, “Just change here, this grove is a natural dressing room.” With that, he had already started to take off his clothes quickly, and he kept urging me to hurry. Click to change. Although this is in the woods, I am really embarrassed to change clothes in full view. While hesitating, I accidentally caught a glimpse of a few girls nearby who took them off without anyone else, put on a three-point swimsuit, and ran out of the grove talking and laughing. Seeing that the girl’s house is so generous and natural, I am no longer reserved, and I also took off all the time, and then put on my swimming trunks without a hassle.

After Andre changed his swimming trunks, he did not rush into the water. First put the clothes we changed in a bag, and then took out two large bath towels from the other backpack and spread them on the grass, asking me to lie down and dry. sun. I asked him strangely, “Why don’t you swim in the water?”

While applying sunscreen, he said slowly: “Don’t worry, don’t worry, look at the river, the surface of the water is full of soot, wait until the water is clean before going down.”

I saw it, no, there was a layer of gray soot floating on the river, most people stayed on the bank, and there were no swimmers in the water. Alas, so dirty water tells me to go down, I won’t go either. So I lay on the bath towel and closed my eyes to rest, but I did not expect to fall asleep unconsciously.

In my sleep, I felt that someone was shaking me gently, and a familiar voice whispered: “Tang, Tang, wake up.” I opened my eyes in a daze and saw Andre squatting beside me. I sat up abruptly and asked, “Is it possible to swim now?”

Andre replied: “Yes, the water is clear, you can go into the water.”

Because of not swimming for many years, half an hour before I got into the water, I only dared to swim near the river bank for safety. Andrei knew that I hadn’t been swimming for a long time, and was afraid of what might happen to me, so he kept swimming around me, preparing to take a cameo as my full-time lifeguard when necessary.

While swimming, he suddenly called me: “Tang, Tang, look, there are two beautiful girls swimming naked in the middle of the river. Let’s swim over and say hello to them.” Then he speeded up and swam towards the center of the river. Passed. I cursed inwardly: lascivious. He also swam behind him towards the center of the river.

Although he was swimming forward desperately, he was still pulling farther and farther. This is the difference between people who have been swimming every day and those who have not been swimming for ten years. When he swam to the two girls, I had been thrown away by him by a distance of about 20 meters. UU Reading www.uukahnshu.com

As I was struggling to swim towards the three of them, I suddenly heard the noise on the opposite bank of the river. The people who were originally on the beach and in the woods screamed like crazy, plunged into the river and swam towards us. I looked at the crowd moving closer and closer, wondering what happened.

Andre also stayed in place for a while at a loss, and then swam to me quickly with the two girls. He swam and shouted loudly, because the voices were so loud, I couldn’t hear what he was shouting. , They have stayed in a daze. It wasn’t until he swam to my side that he could not hear clearly what he was shouting: “Tang, Tang, hurry back, the woods over there caught fire, hurry back to the shore.”

At this time, wisps of choking smoke had drifted down the wind, shocked me, and quickly turned around and swam back. More and more people passed me from behind and swam desperately to the shore. When I was about to swim to the shore, I turned my head and looked back. I was shocked. The raging fire was raging from the direction of the woods. Rolled over, the trees by the river are relatively humid, and the smoke becomes more pungent when it burns. Although the fire is still far away, the smell of suffocation has blown across the beach and the river nearly 100 meters away…

I couldn’t see Andre’s figure long after I landed ashore. I could only rush towards the grove with the crowd in a daze, wanting to quickly take my clothes and leave this dangerous place.

Only a few steps away from the place where I put my backpack, I couldn’t help but slow down and bend over to pick it up, but unexpectedly someone slammed into me from behind. Under the influence of the huge impact, my whole body involuntarily swooped forward and hit a tree impartially with my head. As I felt the severe pain, my eyes fainted.