"Have you seen it?" Wei Ran's tone was filled with just the right amount of surprise. He originally wanted to see if the other party could recognize these photos, but he didn't expect the process to be so easy.
"Where did you find this negative?" The old man turned around and asked.
Wei Ran paused for a moment and replied in a calm tone, "I found it by accident while investigating some things. What about you? Where did you see these photos?"
"The relics left by my father"
The old man put all the newly developed photos and negatives into a paper bag and handed them to Wei Ran, and then took the initiative to invite, "If you are interested, you can Come and check with me upstairs, maybe I remembered it wrong."
"Of course I'm interested." Wei Ran nodded simply and accepted the invitation.
"Come with me!" The old man said, and he had already reached out and opened the wooden door of the darkroom.
Following the other party out of the darkroom and slowly walking up the creaking wooden stairs to the second floor, Wei Ran did not hide the surprise on his face.
In this room, which is also not too big, there is a particularly conspicuous glass cabinet against the wall facing the stairs. There are several cameras of various models in this cabinet, including a Leica. There is even a bullet embedded in the body of the camera, and next to the camera, there is a harmonica with a German trademark on it.
"Most of those are my father's relics"
The old man opened the glass cabinet and took out the photo album in Wei Ran's hand. Almost the same plastic leather notebook.
Seeing that Wei Ran had been staring at the camera with bullets in the glass cabinet, the old man smiled and explained, "That was the camera my father used when he participated in the Battle of Rzhev. If it weren't for It helped block a bullet, and my father might not survive the end of the war."
"Is he a war reporter?" Wei Ran asked as he sat on an old sofa. road.
"No"
The old man shook his head, "He is just an ordinary soldier who likes photography. Even before World War II, he was a member of the choir."
Having said this, the old man took out a pair of reading glasses from his coat pocket and put them on, opened the photo album in his hand, and said while searching, "The photos in this album are all before he was injured and left the battlefield. Taken by his comrades. After the war, he sent a copy to each of them according to their address. When I was a child, I often heard him tell me the stories of his comrades."
"Tonya took it?"
Wei Ran frowned secretly. These photos were obviously taken by himself. How come they were taken by Tonya? But considering that the film used when taking these photos was provided free of charge by Tonya, who has the title of artist, it makes sense that these photos were taken by the other party, and she just pressed the shutter a few times for him.
Barely convincedWei Ran went up to take a look, and then found that the photo album in the old man's hand was not much different from his own, except that the film corresponding to each photo was missing.
"Found it"
Just when he was distracted, the former had stopped what he was doing, pointed to the fixed photo on one of the pages and said, "It seems that my memory is still there. Yes, young man, take out that photo of yours."
Opening the paper bag he had been holding, Wei Ran took out the newly developed photo and placed it on the album. There may be more than half a century between the old and new photos, but the Soviet Red Army soldier in the photo is still the same young.
“Where are the negatives of these photos?” Wei Ran asked knowingly.
“I don’t know that”
The old man returned the recently developed photo to Wei Ran and asked again, “Where did you get that photo? Film?"
"Rzhev"
Wei Ran replied cheerfully, "I found it in an abandoned wooden house on the outskirts of Rzhev."
"Only one negative?"
The old man asked doubtfully, then put on his reading glasses again and looked at the address recorded under the photo in the album. Unfortunately, the address was far away. The distance between Yekaterinburg and Rzhev is like a thousand miles.
After hesitating for a moment, Wei Ran shook his head and replied calmly, "Actually, what I found was also a photo album, the same photo album as the one in your hand. Each photo in it has a corresponding negative. . And..."
"And what?"
Wei Ran spread his hands and said with regret, "And there was a photo written in it. There was a note with the address of this camera store, but unfortunately, I couldn’t save it. I actually found it by following the address on the note.”
“No wonder”
p>The old man took off his reading glasses again and asked with a smile, "So young man, what do you want to do here?"
"I want to hear the story behind that photo album. "Story" Wei Ran paused and continued, "I also want to ask you something."
"Just for this?"
Seeing Wei Ran nod, the old man sighed, "Looking at my age, you should know that my father passed away a long time ago."
Wei Ran hesitated for a moment, picked up a pen from the table in the middle of the sofa, and filled it with On the back of the paper bag of the photo, he wrote, "I am looking for a story about these three people. They are Danila, Llano and Revry."
Take the bag with three names written on it. Paper bag, the old man leaned on the sofa and thought for a while, and finally said, "When I was young, my father Tonya told me a story more than once. Maybe this story can give you some clues."
Seeing that Wei Ran was listening attentively, the old man said leisurely, "In my father's case,In my dear story, after he was injured on the front line, he was sent to the first aid station behind the battlefield for rescue. During the days when he was recuperating in that first aid station, he listened to the doctor who treated his injury and a wounded soldier who was also injured. Mentioned it.
At that time, there was a nurse named Lano, and her fiancé, a sniper named Danila, with the help of a postman. Oh, the postman seemed to be named Reveli. In short, the nurse, her fiancé and the postman escorted an artillery observer named Andre to sneak into the German position to cause damage. "
The old man paused here, picked up the photo album on the table, flipped through it, pointed to the photo of Dr. Pasha and the photo of the soldier named Boris and said, "At that time, I Every time my father talked about this, he would open the photo and point to these two people and tell me that the story came from their mouths. "
"What happened next? "Wei Ran calmly turned the recording phone upside down on the table and asked.
"There will be no later"
The old man closed the photo album and said, "At that time I I asked my father more than once, but he said that although the first aid station where he was recovering at that time was not far from the artillery position, he only heard those artillery fire once, and then before those people came back, he He was sent to the rear field hospital to recover from his injuries.
But when he was in the field hospital, he also met the brother of nurse Llano. But he didn't know whether Nurse Lanno, his fiancé, the postman and the artillery observer returned in the end. "
Having said this, the old man looked at Wei Ran and asked, "What about you? Where did you hear these names?
Wei Ran pointed to the envelope that the other party was still holding in his hand, "I found the names of those three people near the wooden house on the outskirts of Rzhev that I mentioned just now." The tombstone, along with the photo album I just mentioned and the address of this camera store. "
"That's all I know."
The old man said this, took the initiative to extend his hand, and added a belated self-introduction, "Sergey is my name. , my father’s name is Tonya. During World War II, he was an ordinary soldier in the 673rd Regiment of the 220th Division under the 31st Group Army of the Soviet Red Army. "
"Victor" Wei Ran held the other person's hand and said his name, "Temporary consultant of the Patriotic War Museum. "
"I thought you were a digger," Sergey said with a smile.
"Mr. Sergey, I can regard the story you just told as an investigation. Is the information used? "
"There aren't many people left who remember those poor guys, so go ahead and use them. "
Sergey generously let go of his hand and said generously, "Also, remember to take away the flushing fee you paid later.
Wei Ran smiled, did not answer the question, and asked instead, "Mr. Sergey, how was your father...how was his life in his later years?" ”
“Not bad”
A flash of memory appeared on Sergey’s old face, “That war left him with a lame leg and injured his throat. His voice sounded like he was scratching glass with a stone, but at least he survived. After the war, my father became a photographer. Although he was not very famous, he did some photography. Pretty good work."
"Like those in the darkroom?" Wei Ran asked with a smile.
Old Sergey nodded, "The photos in the darkroom are almost the most satisfying works of my father and I in this life."
"That photo album, maybe It's his most satisfying work..."
"That photo album?"
Sergey shook his head imperceptibly, "That photo album brought him perhaps It’s just a pity that most of the people in that photo album died in that battle, and my father was one of the few survivors.”
“At least he survived,” Wei Ran murmured. He muttered to himself, and then changed the topic to this old man named Sergey.
To his surprise, this old man's life experience was much richer than the dry records in the metal book. He did serve as a reporter for Komsomolskaya Pravda for a short time.
But during that time, the kind-faced old man in front of him and his colleagues covered the entire process of the 1980 Moscow Olympics. However, in this old man's evaluation, there were actually more reporters than athletes at that Olympics, and he was just the most inconspicuous among them.
But even so, Wei Ran couldn't help but sigh secretly. This incident started from the relics of the owner of a certain house in the ring-shaped apartment built for the 1980 Moscow Olympics, and ended in A reporter who covered the 1980 Moscow Olympics. This may just be a coincidence, but he is willing to believe that this is a joke played by the so-called fate, not too big or too small, but not funny at all.
More than half the time passed by, the only one who still remembers those people at that time was a child who was born after the war and only listened to stories from his father's mouth. Even the child who was chasing him at that time was The children whose father asked "what happened next" have now become a dying old man.
But he may have been the only person in the world, other than Wei Ran, who knew about the death-like mission at that time.
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