Early the next morning, Wei Ran left a note before his aunt came to look for Professor Alexei who had not returned home all night, drove to the airport in a hurry, and boarded a direct flight to Kazan.
After the plane took off, Wei Ran occasionally took out the black and white photos that had been placed in the photo frame and looked at them. At this time, he was also feeling particularly uneasy. He wanted to know Nikolai's memories of Don Position 19, but he couldn't.
I was worried whether the other party would recognize me, and at the same time I was worried that the person "Postman Victor" would not be in the other party's memory at all.
In this anxious mood, the flight landed at Kazan Airport ten minutes early. Wei Ran, who had no luggage at all, left the airport as quickly as possible, hailed a taxi and went straight to the address recorded in his notebook.
Compared with Volgograd (Stalingrad), which was almost completely demolished and rebuilt after the end of World War II, Kazan has retained more ancient buildings, and the entire city has a particularly strong sense of history. But like Volgograd,
In this city, which is also located on the bank 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 buildings outside the window and press the shutter again and again.
When the last piece of 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 his return, and walked into the village on the rain-soaked gravel road, looking for the house number that matched the address.
However, to his disappointment, he almost visited this small village with only a few dozen households, but could not find the address provided in the notebook. Instead, he attracted a few young people with malicious intentions to watch.
"Stranger, are you here to steal something from us?"
One of the young men, who smelled of alcohol, had already raised the beer bottle in his hand while asking questions, and his greedy attention was already focused on the Leica camera hanging on Wei Ran's chest.
Wei Ran had already seen life and death countless times in Stalingrad and Position 19, so that the provocations of the young people in front of him did not make him feel any danger at all.
"I found an old gentleman named Nicholas. He is about 90 years old this year. His house number is No. 44, but I didn't..."
"Why are you looking for the old principal?" The young man who was just about to give Wei Ran a slap on the head was stunned when he heard this, and then accurately threw the empty bottle in his hand into the garbage pile not far away.
"Old principal?" Wei Ran raised his eyebrows, "He is a principal?"
"Answer my question first, why are you looking for Mr. Nikolai?" Another young man with fancy dyed hair, who looked like a high school student at most, urged.
"I'm a postman." Wei Ran patted his backpack, "I have some things that I want to deliver to Mr. Nicholas personally."
Several young people surrounding Wei Ran looked at each other. The leading young man took a step back and waved, "Come with me. Principal Nicholas does not live in the village."
"Thanks"
Wei Ran calmly touched the tattoo on the tiger's mouth. There was a bayonet from the Battle of Stalingrad in the cowhide book. If these young men really had any bad intentions, that bayonet might be their only weapon.
In his secret vigilance, these idle young people walked in front, leading Wei Ran through the village and onto a cement road leading to the forest outside the village. At the same time, the older man
The young man also took the initiative to explain, "Principal Nicholas has always lived in the school. Just ask in the village and anyone will be willing to take you there."
"Has Mr. Nicholas always been the principal here?" Wei Ran, who was walking at the end, asked curiously.
“Been here for a long time”
A young man with a red mohawk said, "As far as I know, that school was a mental hospital in the Soviet era, and even our village was moved there at that time, and Mr. Nikolai was the mental hospital at that time.
Dean of the hospital.
Later, when the Soviet Union disappeared, the mental hospital was turned into a school through Mr. Nikolai’s efforts, and my father even studied in that school.”
"My brother also went to school there"
The leading young man then said, "Even I went to school there, but that school closed down ten years ago, and now only Principal Nikolai himself still lives there."
Wei Ran didn't ask any more questions, but he had more and more doubts in his heart. If what these young people said was true, was the information provided in the cowhide book wrong? Or was the Nicholas he was looking for similar to them?
The Principal Nicholas described by the individual is not the same person at all?
Suppressing the doubts in his heart, Wei Ran quietly followed the young men in front of him who looked unreliable and continued along the old cracked road. When the village behind him was completely blocked by tall and dense pine trees, the end of the road also
Quietly, a high-walled compound appeared that was exceptionally neat and clean.
Different from the school in Wei Ran's impression, the courtyard wall of this school is two to three meters high. What's even more exaggerated is that there are even two ancient sentry towers at the corners of the walls on both sides of the gate.
.
Inside the half-open gate, in the center of the lush green lawn is a corridor paved with bluestones. The thick oak trees on both sides provide a large area of shade. A few fat cats who ran from nowhere were lying on the road wantonly.
In the center, he looked arrogant and stood in the way.
Listening to the roar of engines coming from the end of the corridor from time to time, Wei Ran looked at the young gangsters whose names he didn't know yet in confusion.
The young man in the lead spread his hands indifferently, "Just keep going forward, you'll see it later."
Before Wei Ran could take a step forward, the sweet sound of horse hoofbeats came from far away, and a shirtless old man wearing leather pants drove a black old Harley-Davidson motorcycle from behind the two-story building at the end of the corridor.
, then he stopped in front of everyone smoothly, hooked his high-waisted boots, and skillfully opened the footrests.
Is this Nikola?
Wei Ran looked at the man's body covered with age spots, the tattoos that could be described as graffiti, and the sparse white hair tied into braids. It was really hard to compare him with the skinny little postman who was at Position 19.
"Why are you bastards here?" The shirtless old man said in a contented voice. He took out a pack of cigarettes from his trouser pocket and lit them, then threw the cigarette pack to the leader.
Young gangster.
"Principal, there is a postman looking for you, saying that he has something to deliver to you in person." The young gangster took the cigarette case skillfully, lit the cigarette, turned to look at Wei Ran and asked, "By the way
, what’s your name?”
"Wei...Weiran"
Before he knew whether the old man riding the motorcycle was the little postman Nikolai from Position 19, or whether the other party's memory of Position 19 contained "Postman Victor", before he deliberately used the postman's name to
When he met the other party, he didn't want to say the Russian name Victor that might make the other party ring something.
"Tail..." The young gangster tried to repeat Wei Ran's Chinese name. After a few times, he simply gave up and said to the old man who was pressing his hands on the gas tank, "In short, he is the one looking for you."
"Chinese?" the old man asked abruptly.
Wei Ran was stunned for a moment, then nodded with a smile but didn't say anything more.
Principal Nicholas flicked away the cigarette he had taken two puffs from, reached out and turned the key to extinguish the motorcycle's engine. After the engine stopped making noise, he curiously asked, "The last time I saw Chinese people, the Soviet Union
It hasn’t been disintegrated yet, so young man, what do you want from me?”
"I want you to take a look at this photo." Wei Ran opened his backpack under the other person's gaze, took out the photo frame inside and handed it to the old man who was still riding the motorcycle.
Taking the photo frame and taking a look at it doubtfully, Nicholas looked up at Wei Ran with a questioning look on his face.
"Don River, position 19." Wei Ran answered the other party's question briefly while staring at his facial expression.
