L. Kosmodemyanskaya

The Story of Zoya and Shura


News from Ulyanovsk

Mavra Mikhailovna
Alexander Kosmodemyansky when at the Ulyanovsk
Tank Training School

Shura wrote to me nearly every day. He had been put into the same section as his old friends, and he jokingly called it "the Ulyanovsk Branch of the 10th Grade of Moscow School No. 201."

"I'm afraid I'm no good at anything!" he complained in one of his first letters. "I can't even keep in line; today, for instance, I trod on a fellow's heel. I cannot salute the commanders either. And they don't pat me on the head for that!"

Time passed, and in another letter he wrote:

"I get tired, I don't have enough sleep but I work like a tiger. I have already learnt the rifle, the grenade and the revolver well. The other day we went out to the range, where we fired from a tank. For a beginner my results weren't bad. I got a good mark for target shooting from a tank with gun and machine gun at ranges of 400 and 500 metres! You would not know me now. I salute the commanders very well and I can keep in step with the rest of the fellows."

On the eve of the exams Shura began to beg me in every letter, "Mama, if you can, get me a wide belt, with a shoulder belt, if possible." And again a few days later, "Do your best, Mummy! What kind of officer shall I be if my belt is no good." Through these lines I could again see the beseeching eyes of little Shura. He used to carry on in almost exactly the same way, using almost the same words, when a small child, if he wanted something very badly.

Here I have about a hundred of Shura's letters before me, from the very first to the last, and as I read them again I can see how my boy grew up to manhood. One day I received this letter from him:

"Mama, my studies at the training school are drawing to an end—the exams begin on November 1. I get tired, don't have enough sleep, but I keep working. It has made a difference—my being here half as long as the others. I've fallen behind.

"These exams will be the most important in my life. I will muster all my strength, all my attention, because the Country must receive a well-trained tank lieutenant, not a junior lieutenant and certainly not a senior sergeant. You understand—it is not pride, or vanity. I simply must do everything I can in order to be more necessary, more useful. I read how the fascists burn our towns and villages, how they torture the women and children, and I remember how they tortured Zoya and I only want one thing: to go to the front as soon as possible."

And another letter:

"Mama, listen: the state examinations are over. 'Excellent' for technical 'subjects, 'excellent' for gunnery, 'excellent' for tactics and military topography…

And at the end of this proud and jubilant letter there was a postscript, "I have had a letter from Grandad—he is ill and lonely."

One warm autumn evening I sat at the window gazing into the street. Before me lay some letters which I had to answer, but still I could not tear my eye's away from the light cloudless sky. And suddenly a pair of broad warm hands was clapped over my eyes.

"Shura!" was all I could say.

"You did not hear my knock, nor the door opening," he said laughing. "I was standing at the door looking at you and you just kept sitting there!" And again covering my eyes with his hands (perhaps to make it easier for me to hear what he was going to say) he said, "I have come to say good-bye. I am leaving for the front tomorrow."

He was a full-grown man, his shoulders were even broader now, but his blue eyes were as boyishly merry and frank as before.

And again I lived through a night of sorrow and anxious foreboding. Shura slept soundly, with one hand under his cheek, and I kept getting up to look at him, and could not take my eyes off him. I was afraid to think that the night would end. But the dawn broke at the usual time. Shura jumped up, washed and dressed quickly, drained a cup of tea at one gulp, and coming up to me said, as he usually did now, "Don't see me off. Take care of yourself. And don't worry about me."

"Be true…and steadfast…write often…" I answered with difficulty.


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