War Photographer's Notebook

Chapter 40 The Old Man Riding a Harley

In the early morning of the next day, Wei Ran left a note before his aunt came to look for Professor Alexei who hadn't returned all night, and hurried to the airport by car, and boarded a direct flight to Kazan.

After the plane took off, Wei Ran took out the black and white photos that had been put in the photo frame to look at them from time to time.He wanted to know about Nikolai's memories of the Don 19 position, but he was worried that the other party would recognize him, and at the same time, he was afraid that the other party's memory did not include "Postman Vic". much" this person.

In this mood of worrying about gains and losses, the flight landed at Kazan Airport ten minutes earlier, and Wei Ran, who had no luggage at all, left the airport as quickly as possible, and hired a taxi to go straight to the address recorded in the notebook.

Compared with Volgograd (Stalingrad), which was almost completely overthrown and rebuilt after the end of World War II, Kazan retains more ancient buildings, and the sense of history of the whole city is also extraordinarily thick, but like Volgograd, this same In the cities on the banks of the Volga River, you can also see monuments about that war.

Sitting in the taxi, Wei Ran would raise the Leica camera from Zoya from time to time, and while waiting for the traffic lights, he would aim at the building outside the window and press the shutter again and again.

When the last film was exposed, the taxi stopped in a small village surrounded by forests on the edge of the city.

After paying the fare, Wei Ran declined the taxi driver's suggestion that he would wait for him to go back, and walked into the village on the rain-soaked gravel road, looking for the same house number as the address on it.

However, to his disappointment, he almost searched the small village with only a few dozen households, but he couldn't find the address provided in the notebook. Instead, he attracted a few young people with malicious intentions to watch.

"Outsider, are you here to steal from us?"

One of the young men who smelled of alcohol had already raised the beer bottle in his hand while asking a question, and his greedy attention had already been focused on the Leica camera hanging on Wei Ran's chest.

Wei Ran, who was in Stalingrad and the 19th position, has seen life and death countless times, so that the provocations of these young people in front of him did not make him feel any danger at all.

"I'm looking for an old gentleman named Nicholas. He is about 90 years old this year. His house number is 44, but I don't have one."

"Why are you looking for the old principal?" The young man who was just about to give Wei Ran a head bump was taken aback when he heard this, and then accurately threw the empty bottle in his hand into the garbage dump not far away.

"Old principal?" Wei Ran raised his eyebrows, "Is he a principal?"

"Answer my question first, why are you looking for Mr. Nicholas?" Another young man with fancy dyed hair who looked like a high school student at most urged him to ask.

"I'm a postman." Wei Ran patted his backpack, "I have some things here that I need to personally deliver to Mr. Nicholas."

Several young people surrounding Wei Ran looked at each other, and the leading young man took a step back and waved, "Come with me, Principal Nicholas doesn't live in the village."

"Thank you"

Wei Ran calmly touched the tattoo on the tiger's mouth. There was also a bayonet from the Battle of Stalingrad in the cowhide book. If these young people really had any bad intentions, that bayonet might be his only weapon.

Under his secret guard, these idle young people walked ahead, leading Wei Ran through the village and onto a concrete road leading to the forest outside the village.At the same time, the young man at the head also took the initiative to explain, "Principal Nicholas has been living in the school, as long as you ask in the village, anyone is willing to take you there."

"Has Mr. Nicholas been the principal here?" Wei Ran, who was walking at the end, asked curiously.

“been there for a long time”

A young man with a red Mohawk haircut said, "As far as I know, that school was a mental hospital in the Soviet era, when even our village moved here, and Mr. The dean of the hospital.

Later, the Soviet Union was gone, and the mental hospital was turned into a school under the efforts of Mr. Nicholas, and even my father was still studying in that school. "

“My brother also went to school there”

The leading young man continued, "Even I went to school there, but that school closed down ten years ago, and now only Principal Nicholas himself still lives there."

Wei Ran didn't ask any more questions, but his inner doubts grew more and more. If what these young people said was true, could the information provided in the cowhide notebook be wrong?Or is it that the Nicholas he is looking for is not the same person as the principal Nicholas described by several of them?

Suppressing the doubts in his heart, Wei Ran quietly followed the unreliable young people ahead along the cracked old road.When the village behind was completely blocked by tall and dense pine trees, an extraordinarily neat and clean courtyard with high walls quietly appeared at the end of the road.

Different from the school in Wei Ran's impression, the courtyard wall of this school is two or three meters high. What's even more exaggerated is that there is even a guard tower with a sense of age at the corners of the walls on both sides of the gate. .

In the half-open gate, there is a bluestone-paved corridor in the center of the lush green lawn, and the thick oak trees on both sides provide a large area of ​​shade for it.A few fat cats who came from nowhere were lying wantonly in the middle of the road, as if arrogantly blocking the road.

Hearing the roar of the engine coming from the end of the corridor from time to time, Wei Ran looked at those young gangsters who didn't know their names in puzzlement.

The young man in the lead spread his hands out of surprise, "Go ahead, you will see it later."

Before Wei Ran could take a step, the melodious sound of horseshoes approached from far to near. An old man in leather pants and shirtless was driving an old black Harley motorcycle from behind the two-story building at the end of the corridor. , and then stopped in front of everyone in a stable manner, hooked the high-waisted boots, and skillfully opened the feet.

This is Nicola?
Wei Ran looked at the scribbled tattoos on his body with age spots and the thin white hair braided. It was really difficult to match him with the skinny little postman in the 19th position back then.

"Why do you bastards come to my place?" The shirtless old man was full of anger. He took out a pack of cigarettes from his trousers pocket and lit it himself, then threw the pack to the leader. Young punks.

"Principal, a postman came to you and said that some things will be delivered to you personally." The young gangster took the cigarette case skillfully, lit the cigarette by himself, turned to look at Wei Ran and asked, "By the way , what's your name?"

"Wei Wei Burn"

Before he knew whether the old man on the motorcycle was the little postman Nikolai from position 19, and before he knew whether there was "Postman Victor" in the other party's memory of position 19, before he deliberately used the postman's When meeting the other party with his identity, he didn't want to say Victor, the Russian name that might make the other party ring something.

"Tail..." The young gangster tried to repeat Wei Ran's Chinese name, but after a few times he simply gave up, and said to the old man who was holding the fuel tank with both hands, "Anyway, he is the one looking for you."

"Huaxia people?" The old man asked abruptly.

Wei Ran froze for a moment, nodded with a smile but didn't say anything more.

Principal Nicholas took a few puffs of cigarettes, stretched out his hand and turned the key to turn off the motorcycle. After the sound of the wind blowing through the oak leaves was clearly audible, he asked plainly, "The last time I saw Huaxia When I was born, the Soviet Union had not yet disintegrated, so young man, what do you want from me?"

"I want to invite you to take a look at this photo." Wei Ran opened the backpack under the gaze of the other party, took out the photo frame inside and handed it to the old man who was still riding on the motorcycle.

Suspiciously taking the photo frame and looking at it, Nicholas looked up at Wei Ran with a questioning look on his face.

"Don River, position 19." Wei Ran briefly answered the other party's question while staring at his facial expression.

　Thanks to Alex Frozen for tipping 1500 points

　　Thanks to book friends 20170517200601902 for rewarding 200 points

　　
　
(End of this chapter)