"Daddy!" What's wrong with you? What happened?

He silently pointed to the table where the card lay, and he sobbed loudly, sobbing. We sat for a long time, hugging, on my mother's bed, I also shed tears, but I kept trying to calm my dad. And for a long time he could not say anything because of his sobs. The first thing he said was: "How difficult it was for me to say: thank God for everything!"

He poured out his grief by writing a book about Kolyusha in blessed memory, or Monument over the grave of his son. Then he renamed his work, calling it "Life for Eternity". For about fifty years, this book was circulated as samizdat literature [3].

By the end of the war years, my father stopped hiding his beliefs. He covered all the walls of his office with icons and religious paintings (reproductions) by Vasnetsov and Nesterov. Nikolai Evgrafovich went to church and was not afraid to meet his colleagues or students there. One day he saw a girl, his student, taking communion. As she stepped down from the ambo, she met Nikolai Yevgrafovich's eyes and was embarrassed. But the professor warmly handed her a prosphora and congratulated her on receiving the Holy Mysteries.

Students loved their father. He did not force them to memorize formulas, did not fight with cribs, so no one used them in his classes. For exams and tests, he allowed students to bring with them and have any textbooks, notebooks and notes on the table. "If only they could cope with the tasks assigned to them," my father said. "And they will always be able to have these textbooks and notebooks with them in life, so why remember something by heart?" "I don't want to deprive anyone of a scholarship," he said.

In the first years after the war, when I was also a student, I became very close to my father. He guided my life, gave me books. I also read his works, made comments that my father always appreciated very much. We often discussed with him some topics of the Christian worldview. My father often said to me: "After all, you are the dearest thing I have in this world."

My student years. Polygraphic Institute

After passing the exams for grades 10-11 as an external student, I entered the Polygraphic Institute. Why there? Because they accepted me without exams, from which I was very tired, because it was not far from the institute, only three kilometers, which I walked, because drawing was taught at the printing institute. And I entered the art department. I dreamed of the Surikov Art Institute, but it required training, which I did not have. And it was a long way to get there, because during the war the streets were not illuminated, transport ran poorly, weakness from constant malnutrition made itself felt. In the printing school, I enthusiastically listened to a course of lectures on world history. And the teacher of drawing and painting (watercolor) soon paid attention to me. It happened like this.

In the last days of August, in the morning, I felt that my brother Kolya, who was already at the front, was quickly approaching my bed and passing further. Through my sleep I heard the words: "I was in battle, and I went out, and I am alive, and I will never die..." I woke up with the feeling that my brother was there with me. I told my parents about this dream, but I did not convey the words "I will never die" to them. Dad and mom were happy to sleep with me, as they believed that the Lord would save Kolya. Letters from him were still coming. But I felt that they would soon be gone. The news of Kolya's death came, and on the fortieth day we held his funeral service. Our friends, many members of the "Marosey" circle, gathered at our home. They sang quietly and touchingly. Preparing for the wake, I was at the market. In October, it was difficult to find flowers, but I still bought carnations with juniper greens. I put this modest bouquet at the icons, as if on the grave of my brother. I wanted to capture this bouquet forever, and I painted a still life in watercolor: a blue jug, a window curtain, farewell evening light falling on flowers and twigs. When I was writing, I felt the grace-filled breath of Kolya's soul — after all, these were his flowers.

When the teacher saw this still life, he gasped and froze. Apparently, his soul felt the presence of grace in my work. Now, when I write a lot in my old age, I appreciate the first impression of the viewer, when he sometimes involuntarily bursts out: "Ah!"

Teacher Koshevoy told me: "You don't belong here. You need to take up painting seriously. And here we will work only with watercolors." From then on, he paid special attention to me, constantly sending me to learn how to paint in oil. At the end of the second semester, Koshevoy helped me to go back to high school, but this time to the art school, where in high school they painted in oil. I gladly parted with the company of students, among whom I was like a black sheep. I didn't have any intimate friends, I didn't go to the parties and generally avoided society in every possible way. We were taught military science: the ability to shoot, clean weapons, be on duty at night... All theoretical subjects in my record were passed with "A", but I could not disassemble and assemble PPD or PPSh assault rifles piece by piece (I was so weak that I could hardly lift weapons). And on night duty, the students had such immoral conversations that one of them warned me:

"Oh, Natasha! What a terrible night it was, what I have not heard. As if they spat on my soul. Watch out – it's waiting for you too!

And the students looked at us with a snide smile, saying: