Eva

The story begins at the end of 2022 with a summons that came to Baran Valentin Yuryevich, 55 years old, engineer captain of the Air Force reserve, to come with things to the military registration and enlistment office of the Obolonsky district of Kiev. According to the mobilization order, the captain with a group of territorial defense servicemen is leaving for a military unit at the Bila Tserkva military airfield not far from Kyiv. Upon arrival at the duty station at this very time, the airfield is captured by Russian paratroopers, and those who arrived with Valentin surrender. Each of them has a conversation. Due to the work of a sniper, during the surrender of the territorial defense detachment, a liaison agent was killed, who was supposed to deliver important information to the command of the paratroopers. The lieutenant colonel offers Valentin cooperation with intelligence, and Valentin Baran becomes an agent. Returning to Kyiv, with the money he received from the lieutenant colonel, Valentin buys from the military commissar a deferment from mobilization for 2023. Soon, a messenger from Russia arrives at Valentin and passes on an encryption code and access to communication with a covert agent. What was Valentine's surprise that it was a girl of heavenly beauty with a romantic name Eva, who develops a romantic virtual romance with the head of the CIA unit, a colonel named Bill, who is in charge of Western arms supplies to Ukraine. Valentin and Eva, real name Irina Andreevna Sumskaya, have an indescribable feeling of love, which makes its own adjustments to their future fate, realizing that they are no longer destined to live without each other. Romantic and mythical events are unfolding around their love, going back to the deep antiquity of their relationship developing over the centuries…

For me, this story began with an ordinary agenda, which said that Captain Baran Valentin Yuryevich, who lives on the street of the heroes of Azov (the former street of Marshal Malinovsky 25, apt. 273, Kiev), should arrive at the Obolon military registration and enlistment office within forty-eight hours with things for military service in wartime conditions, as a military reserve.

It was a beautiful August evening. I had just returned home from work at Auchan Supermarket, where I was working as a security guard at this fine French food mall, when I caught sight of a subpoena in the mailbox in a pile of utility bills. I will not say that she frightened me to death or caused any uncomfortable sensations, at that time nothing kept me at home, since I was divorced and led a bachelor lifestyle. I had no friends, since all those with whom I was friends remained on the side of my wife, and I no longer had any desire to make new ones while the memories of my family life were fresh. I turned the subpoena between my fingers and thought that the execution on my account had delivered a fair verdict in mobilizing me. I began to look at the printed text on a yellowed form from the storerooms of the Soviet-era military registration and enlistment offices. Judging by this agenda, it was not difficult to guess that the Ministry of War was saving money even on draft forms. The next day, quickly collecting the necessary uniforms of a security guard and right with things, he appeared at the employer's office. I handed over the form and received the calculation at the appointed time arrived at the military registration and enlistment office. Having waited in line, he entered the office and silently handed the summons to the military commissar and began to wait for what he would say. The major turned the form of the summons in his hands, checked it against the list lying on the table, silently made a note in front of my last name, then fixed me with an unblinking look, asked:

– How old are you? – his voice sounded not with irritation, not with evil, I did not understand. – Fifty five!

– I see that you don’t look fifty-five, I can give you half as much, – he paused, lowering his eyes to the folder of my personal file in front of him, and continued, – you served in the Soviet army for two years, after graduation, demobilized with the rank of senior lieutenant? – he asked, adding, – Have you already been awarded the title of captain in civilian life?

– Yes sir! – I confirmed in a military way, and put my passport on his table. – And in what specialty? – the major continued.

– I think you know that I served as an engineer lieutenant in the Air Force. – I answered as calmly as possible.

– Yes, I know, – taking my passport to the safe, – that in your personal file there is a note about your unreliability for military service, although in terms of technical you kept training vehicles in excellent condition and reviews of senior colleagues are positive, in what are the problems of unreliability? – continued the military commissar, drilling me with a brown look of brown eyes.

– In one of the questions asked at a lecture by the colonel of the headquarters of the military district about the leader of the world proletariat, Vladimir Ilyich. – I answered as seriously as possible.

– Interesting, and what did you ask this? – with extreme interest asked the military commissar. – I did not understand the political information about the leader, I did not understand that it is

possible so frankly, avoiding the negative qualities of Lenin, to speak about him ideally only in a positive way. But he was a man and he could not have negative qualities? So I asked: “Why didn’t you say anything negative about the leader”? – Commissar rolled his eyes, looking at me, grumbled:

– Found, lieutenant, to whom to ask such questions. Don't you understand that you were confronted by a "celestial being", a colonel of the political department of the elite of the military district?!

– So what, I'm wrong, so you and I, like every person, have flaws, the leader, for example, had a mistress in addition to his legal wife Krupskaya, he liked playing cards and did not like to lose to the writer Maxim Gorky, and died in Gorki at the age of fifty-five from syphilis.

– I hope you did not tell this to the colonel, because you were given a term to serve there?

– Otherwise, Comrade Major, I wouldn’t be standing here in front of you, as if in court, and I wouldn’t justify myself.

– So, not Comrade Major, but Mr. Major, we are in a free European country. Well, as far as your loyalty is concerned, you are loyal to our European power, and we will deal with this misunderstanding like this! – having said this, the major again opened my personal file in a greenish cardboard book with a five-pointed star on the front side, leafed through, found a characteristic about my expressed unreliability and tore out the page, tore it into pieces, throwing it into the wastebasket. Then he looked at me, took a prescription from the table and handed it to me with the words:

– I hope you know where the settlement is Bila Tserkva, and how to get there?

– By bus from the bus station, which is at the Lebedskaya metro stop. – I answered.

– Give it to the commander of the aviation regiment, he will tell you what to do and what to do. Any questions?!

– No way, Major! May I go?

– In six months you will be given the proper rank of major, go! – Eat!

I went out into the corridor, a big man stood up to meet me, grumbling asked: – Why did you drink vodka there, what took so long?

– Come find out! I threw after him.

After leaving the draft board, I decided to get to my place of service tomorrow, since it was already five o'clock in the evening. And on the way home, I went to the Velyka Kyshenya supermarket, where I bought a bottle of Armenian brandy Noy, smoked sausage for a snack, a pack of ground aromatic coffee LAVAZZA in a red metal box, and went home. Having made himself a feast, he lay down in bed and began to think:

“It turns out that I was seconded to a military airfield in my military specialty, it would be nothing in peacetime, but in wartime, still not in the trenches,” – agreeing with this thought, I fell asleep quite early. The sun was still shining, it was still day in the room … At night, I jumped up for no reason. He glanced at his watch, the hands showed ten minutes to one in the morning. I went out into the kitchen, there was an unfinished bottle of cognac on the table. Having poured himself half a glass, he drank a couple of sips and suddenly the roar of an explosion thundered.

– Wow! I said as I sat down on a chair. I went out to the balcony and saw the glow of a fire not far from the Vinogradar residential area. Just in case, I put on trousers, socks, a shirt and a jacket, then added a first-aid kit with medicines and iodine to my travel bag. And so he lay in his clothes until the morning. At six in the morning I left the house and went down to the subway. At that time, to my surprise, there were no passengers anywhere. Near the ticket office, two military men on duty noticed me, and both moved in my direction. One of them addressed me: – Dear, a curfew has been announced until eleven in the morning, it is allowed only with official IDs, your documents!