East Berlin's June Boat Song

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At that time, his name was Alexander Alexandr Kopatsky, and no one knew him by that name except his parents nicknamed him "Sasha".

Until that person appeared, there was another person named "Sasha" in this world.

The birch forest behind the Suzdal River turns a rich golden color in autumn. He likes this color very much, so he often goes there after school to do his homework or practice playing the flute.He likes to wear a white shirt and black trousers, sitting on the stone steps, dangling back and forth with two legs in stockings and small leather shoes.

He raised his head, the sun fell on his light brown hair, and his whole body was glowing.

Squinting his eyes, he smiled foolishly towards the light, and threw aside his homework book and flute, the wind blowing the leaves down, as if there was a golden rain, and he felt that it would be very pleasant to be in such a rain.He thought he was the only one who had this idea, but that day he suddenly saw a strange child his age standing alone in the birch forest, running happily under the flying leaves.

"Who are you?" He had a feeling that his territory was being invaded.

The boy stopped chasing the fallen leaves, turned to look at him suspiciously, his green kitten-like eyes slightly widened, and then smiled and said, "I am Julian Konstantinovich Azrael .”

Well, a polite boy, he likes polite people, so he held out his hand: "I'm Alexander Alexandr Kopatsky."

"I know you." Konstantinovich reached out to hold his hand together, and the moment the two immature hands touched, he was startled by the scorching temperature of the other's palm.

"How do you know me?" He squinted his eyes and suddenly exclaimed in surprise: "You are the neighbor who just moved next door to our house!"

Konstantinovich blushed suddenly and nodded.

"Do you like this place too?" He stared at the blush on the boy's face in front of him, feeling like two May roses, and couldn't help reaching out to touch it.

It was hot, like burning coals.

"I like it, it's beautiful here. It's like rain when the wind blows."

"That's right! The next golden rain is coming!"

He was excited that someone had the same views and preferences as himself, and it was obvious that the boy in front of him was the same. The two soon got together, chasing and fighting in the woods until night fell, and then reluctantly returned home.

"I go there every day, how about we go together? There are many interesting places here, and I want to take you there."

Konstantinovich still looked timid as a newcomer, he nodded and said, "Okay."

Alexandre was very happy. He had a beautiful friend that day, and that night he dreamed of those green eyes.It was the first time he had seen someone with such pure green eyes.

Without any impurities, it is a deep and clear green.

How strange... He thought, like gems, maybe he wants to be friends with him because of his beautiful eyes.

This year, they are five years old.The white and tender faces of the two extremely beautiful children were pinched by their parents, and they were warned, you should have fun with each other, but don't fight.

Alexandre and Konstantinovich looked at each other and stuck out their tongues, they wouldn't fight, they liked each other before it was too late!They go to play in the woods every day, run freely on the grass by the river, and sometimes fish in shallow water, but they are always unsuccessful.

"Perhaps we should throw stones," Konstantinovich said angrily.

"They will hurt!" He hurriedly stopped the little friend who had picked up the stone: "The stone will hurt them, they will bleed, and the bleeding will hurt."

Konstantinovich put down the stone resentfully, glanced at him, and said, "You're right, I cut my hand when sharpening a pencil last time, and it hurt for a while."

He laughed and said, "My father has a kind of medicine that can make you feel painless. They say that kind of medicine is used during surgery, and it's called an anesthetic."

Six-year-old Konstantinovich apparently couldn't understand the drug and thought Alexandre was lying.So once he fell down the stairs and broke his head, and was taken by his parents to the clinic of Aleksander's house to be treated by the old doctor Kopatsky, he experienced this miraculous medicine for himself.

But it could only make him feel better for a while. After the anesthetic wore off, he was still tearing up in pain, and Alexandre cried helplessly beside him.

"Don't cry, don't cry for me, because I want to cry when you cry."

"But you're already crying."

The two pairs of teary eyes looked at each other, and laughed again.

Konstantinovich, his friend, after getting rid of the shyness of being a newcomer, is actually a brave little warrior. He took him to explore many places where he dared not go before.But he seemed as lonely as himself, with no other friends except each other.

"Because they're annoying," Konstantinovich said. "Don't you think so? They just read the text every day."

"Hmm... I just think they're too noisy."

"Maybe we mean the same thing." Konstantinovich jumped down from the stone steps and began to read some words he couldn't understand.

"what are you saying?"

"I'm speaking English."

"You can speak English?" He was very curious.

"Yes, my mother taught me." He blinked and said with some pride: "There is also French, and I can read a lot of poems. But my mother won't let me read them outside. She said that people won't like these poems." , but I think you'll like it."

"But I don't understand." He pouted, feeling inferior for the first time in front of his friends.

But Konstantinovich didn't look down on him in any way, he just walked over and held his face, and said with a smile: "You don't understand, just let me explain it to you."

So since they were seven years old, Konstantinovich began to read poems to him, and he also stole some books and newspapers from home. He couldn't read a word, and Konstantinovich didn't know much. But I can always say something piecemeal.Many evenings, they would sit on the stone steps in the woods, looking at those novel illustrations and paintings, and reading English and French poems.

Sometimes some illustrations really aroused Alexandre's curiosity, so Konstantinovich would give him the book and ask him to take it home to read, so that a year or two passed, and he learned a lot A French poem, and some books Konstantinovich had brought hidden in the small bedroom.

"Because my mother said that those books are not liked by everyone, so they should be hidden."

He wrote down what his good friend said, so he carefully hid the books and picture albums until his parents went to bed and took a look at them with the desk lamp.In fact, he can't understand anything, just relying on a child's imagination, because he has never read these books anywhere else.

Look at this gentleman in a tuxedo, a beautiful lady holding an umbrella, and a child surrounded by a group of people... These children are not wearing red scarves, which is strange, the older children in the school will wear red scarves, he and Constance Dinovich also looks forward to being able to wear that bright red after the age of ten. They think it is very beautiful.

Everything was peaceful and beautiful, and they walked all over Suzdal with their tender little feet, and Konstantinovich, like a little adventurer, was always ahead of him in his adventures.

"Because I want to protect you." He turned his head and said to him, "You are a crybaby."

"Obviously you like to cry too, I don't want your protection!" He argued.

"But I'm taller than you!"

Konstantinovich beat the tall grass ahead with a long wooden stick, and held him with the other hand, as if afraid that he would get lost.They walked along the river step by step, stepping on the stars to go home.

But the home that day was different from what they saw in the past.

There are many strangers, the house is very messy, books, picture albums, and other things are scattered everywhere.Those people in leather clothes were tall and menacing. Konstantinovich's parents were pale, trembling as if resigned to their fate, and hugged their son into their arms.And Alexandre's home is exactly the same, but his parents are defending something hoarsely, saying that those things are not theirs, and they have never seen these books and picture albums.

But those people in leather clothes didn't listen to what his parents were saying. Isn't the evidence right in front of them?Many adults hide things in children's rooms in order to hide their secrets. You see, it matches their experience in performing tasks. There is nothing to argue about.

So that day, Konstantinovich and Alexandre got into the same car and were sandwiched by two cold men in the back, while their parents were in a bigger car in front, so strange , what happened?

He wanted to ask Konstantinovich, but his friend turned pale and seemed too frightened to even look at himself.It was only later that he realized that Konstantinovich, his brilliant friend, had realized on the very night that it was his fault that he had put Alexandre in the car.

His memory seems to have been blurred since that night, and he entered an extremely cold world.

When he was ten years old, he saw such a cold sea and such a lonely island for the first time.

Every day seems to have endless snow shovels, endless cold winds, and endless potatoes.

He was so cold that he couldn't fall asleep all night. He wished so much that he could go back to his home in Suzdal and have a good sleep in front of the fireplace with a warm bonfire.He was still looking forward to the end of this bitter cold trip, until one month later, his mother suddenly stopped moving one morning.

He stretched out his bruised index finger, put it under his mother's pale nose, and checked it, but he didn't breathe.

He realized that his mother was dead, and he wanted to cry but didn't have the strength to cry.His father gave him a cold look, and then threw him out of the wooden house with air leaks on all sides.

He dragged his frail body through the snow for a long time, not knowing where he was going, but he knew that someone had been following him, and since he came to this island, he had been following him.When he was tired from shoveling snow, he would take over the snow shovel in his hand, and when he was about to faint from hunger, he would give him some rations that he didn't have enough.

He asked suspiciously, Yulia, why are you doing this?

But whenever he asked this question, Konstantinovich would start to cry, and dry up his tears when he couldn't cry.He looked so sad that he dared not ask the question again.

But before long, Konstantinovich would overcome his fear and tell him himself.

That day, the always strong Konstantinovich finally fell ill.

His parents were still working, and only Alexandre was holding him on a wooden bed in the cabin.

"You have a fever." He said tremblingly, "Have a headache?"

Konstantinovich's cheeks were flushed, and his purple mouth was gashed with blood.He reached out to touch Alexandre's eyes, and tears fell from them.

"Sasha, I want to drink water, hot water, the temperature of your tears."

Alexandre let go of him temporarily, picked up a rusty porcelain cup, went outside the wooden house, and found some clean and unstained snow under a fir tree.Shrunken, he filled a glass of snow and hurried into the cabin.

Panting heavily, he climbed onto the bed and took the drowsy Konstantinovich in his arms.Take a mouthful of snow, warm it up in your own mouth, and then feed it mouth to mouth into the mouth of the friend below you.

One bite at a time, until his face turned blue from the cold, until the bottom of the full glass was drained.

Many years later, someone was surprised that the two of them would actually kiss and perform intimacy that many friends would not do. They would look at each other and let the memory drift back to this cold evening.

Each other's lips are so soft, as if they are the only warm thing in this world.At that time they were infatuated, of course, and each other's bodies, when hugging each other in the cold wind, the temperature rise made them feel the hope of living.

Konstantinovich woke up, looked at the tearful Alexandre, and finally opened his heart.

He almost burst into tears again, and after drinking the water, he began to waste his energy.He hugged his friend and apologized desperately.

He yelled heart-piercingly.

"Sasha, I'm sorry! I hurt you!

I gave you what I shouldn't have given you.

Killed your whole family.

Killed your mother. "

But Alexandre was stunned, because he was not stupid, and he fully understood it within a few days of coming here.But he never blamed Konstantinovich, not at all.He told his friends truthfully that there was no need to feel sorry for the past.

But his friend didn't believe it, or in other words, couldn't beat himself.

Konstantinovich lived in guilt for Alexandre all his life, he pursued him and protected him in this guilt, but this feeling was so heavy that Alexandre couldn't breathe, Because what he wanted was never guilt and apology.

—but pure love.

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third person warning