East Berlin's June Boat Song

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It's snowing again, and it's never ending snow in Russia.

"Would you like some black tea?" I turned and asked him who was sitting in front of the fireplace reading a book.

He nodded silently, not bothering to lift his eyelids.This temper is exactly the same as when he was young. I walked over and rubbed his silver hair and said, "Don't get mad at me, you old man."

He gave me a dissatisfied look, threw the book aside childishly, opened his mouth, but said nothing.

This person had to go out for a walk on a snowy day. After being caught by me early in the morning, he was angry with me until now. He didn't think about how old he was, and he thought he was a young man.I made him a cup of black tea, but he thought it tasted too bland. Sure enough, the older he gets, the harder it is to take care of him. As a doctor, I am taking good care of his heart.

This is the tenth year we have lived in Suzdal. We lived together in Sochi for two years at first, because he said he would take me to see the sea when he was young, so he had to go no matter what.Later we returned to Suzdal, bought an old house, and lived together until now.Let me see, what year is it now? God, it's already 2003. At that time, who would have known that we would live to this year that begins with the letter 2?

We lived very comfortably in the country and were happier than ever. Sometimes George would come to visit us by train from St. Petersburg. Of course, Alyosha, who is now the second in command of the GRU, came to visit us most often. After Julian stepped down , with the last strength to support him to the stage, he has risen steadily among the GRU with his strong strength, and now he is already a famous big shot.

He fulfilled the promise he made to Julian on the battlefield and devoted his whole life to his chief. Now even though he had no relationship with superiors and subordinates, he still came to report to Julian every week.When I chatted with him later, I realized that at least [-]% of the KGB that was chasing me was blocked by Julian, and that he finally gave up chasing and killing me was also a bargaining chip for Julian to use his own complete decentralization.

I caressed my lover's old but still beautiful face, and kissed his soft face, and he shyly hid away, his cheeks flushed again.

"I want to take a walk!" He raised the book in his hand and said, "I want to take a walk!"

Seeing his childish appearance really made me love and feel distressed. In recent years, his memory has seriously deteriorated, and the old wounds left by the war have made his health go from bad to worse, even a little bit of a precursor to Alzheimer's disease.As his personal doctor, I can only take good care of him, and of course, I also enjoy it.

Every day, I go for a walk with him, sometimes together, sometimes I put him in a wheelchair.I would tell him over and over again about the thrilling days of our past, our glorious but hopeless years.Julian listened carefully, but he never answered me.Years of being monitored made him used to being silent, although after so many years, he always kept silent.

When I think of the days when I was hunted down, my eyes hurt.The damn KGB agents always use a hot eye powder and throw it on me when they come across it, luckily I have a relief potion with me, thanks to Sasha.

Sasha taught me everything in advance, maybe he had foreseen that I would have such a down-and-out day.

Speaking of Sasha, my voice trembled.He was full of guilt towards me, so guilty that he had to love me.At first he tried his best to send me to Julian, but after he sent me, he began to regret letting me live in such a bloody world.But everything is irreparable, he committed suicide in pain, and finally proved his love for me with his life.

Thinking about it now, he was really a braver man than any of us.I told Julian that Sasha didn’t choose the West, he didn’t choose anyone, neither America nor the Soviet Union, he just chose himself.He took the first step because of an idea, and he couldn't turn back in the end.When it was irretrievable, he made a choice for us and exchanged his own life for the safety and happiness of both of us.

Hearing Sasha's name, Julian's eyes began to moisten. I know that killing Sasha with my own hands is an indelible pain in his heart. Although his memory is blurred now, as long as he hears this name, he will cry .

My Julian, my Sasha.

I also shed a lot of tears for you...

I was wandering outside, how many days and nights I stood under the wall, imagining that I could dig a hole out of the wall and come to you.

But a full 30 years, a full 30 years have passed...

I remember that on the day the Berlin Wall was built, Julian drove me away in person, perhaps at that time he was in despair that he would never see me again.

Despair, who doesn't despair?

If Sonia didn't despair, would she commit suicide by jumping off the building in front of me?

Julian, have you ever hated Sonia?She forced us to separate for so many years.I hated her at the time, but I don't hate her now. What she did at the time was the best solution she could think of.Because the two of us have lost our heads, and we actually want to fight against that behemoth, against that era.

Then the only thing that has run over us is the ruthless wheel of the times.

In the end, I still couldn't hold him back, and pushed him on the gravel road leading to the river. The surrounding birch forest turned golden, and a thin layer of snow fell on the ground, and two shallow marks were made by the wheelchair. I selfishly put my own footprints on the imprints, as if branding some kind of brand.

Mid-autumn in Suzdal is beautiful, and I haven’t seen enough of it for so many years, no wonder he is always stubborn to go out for a walk.Turning the avenue we came to the river, and I gathered his scarf and adjusted the blanket over his lap.

He looked at the river in a daze, and we seldom talked, which was a habit he had formed all the year round.

I put his hands under the blanket and he suddenly turned to look at me, his eyes becoming suspicious.

"Who are you?" he asked.

I chuckled, leaned over and said to him: "I have many identities, which one do you want to hear?"

"I want to hear it."

I thought about it, and said with a smile: "I'm a medic, a street thug, a cleaner in a general's mansion, a nurse in a medical clinic, but more often than not, I'm a secret Stasi The police are your intelligence informants in East Germany, your personal doctor, or your underground lover."

His green eyes flickered, and he asked, "Why is it underground?"

I was about to explain the desperation of our predicament when he suddenly took my hand.

"Rhein, there are no bugs here anymore, even if there are, we don't need to be afraid anymore."

He looked at me, his cloudy eyes brightened, and I realized that he was back at this moment, back to the Julian who remembered everything in the past, my Julian, my General Azrael.

He reached out and touched my face, as if to comfort me: "It's over."

It's passed.

As if back in the summer of East Berlin in 1950, I was 19 years old, and with a passion for attacking him with a revolver, I was imprisoned in the Karlshorst underground prison for three months and was used by him. After reading Pushkin's poem at the gun point, he asked him tearfully: "Will everything pass?"

He was leaning halfway on the desk at that time, with his head slightly tilted, his silver-gold hair was full of dreamy color, and the warm yellow light of the desk lamp made him look very gentle and beautiful.

"Everything will pass."

He said with a smile.

So many years ago, he had already given me the answer.

All will pass, the walls will come down, the Iron Curtain will fall, and we will meet again, in a golden light.

*************

The last is the end of their story.

Rhein Müller and Julian Azrael, just like their miraculous meeting, went to the other shore together in their sleep on a bright morning in the spring of 2005.Their sincere friend Alyosha overcame all opinions and buried them together in the birch forest behind the banks of the Suzdal River.They were buried with a fir tree sculpture, a glass ball, a silver crucifix necklace, a badly worn notebook, and several yellowing photographs.

At the funeral, Alyosha invited a famous pianist to play the somewhat inappropriate "June Boat Song" in front of all the soldiers who came to the funeral. Soon afterward, the guests mourned silently in the song. Only one person cried so uncontrollably that he fell out of his wheelchair with such disregard for his image.

They all knew him, the legendary spy from England, but they didn't understand why he was crying so sadly.Because there are not many people who know his heart, and not many people know the past story of the deceased... because it is...

It was an era about love, about faith, and about survival.

It was a treacherous, changeable, and intriguing era.

But that was their time.

They are alive, they are confused, they are suffering, they are struggling...

But that's all in the past.

They will live in the memory of future generations, wandering on the other side of happiness.

And what we have to do is to remember.

Because we do not forget, they will never pass away.

End of full text

BY: Meidai

2022.1.6