Boris

Boris and Zoya met when they were assigned to the same unit. They quickly became close, but Boris sometimes struggled to pretend they were just comrades in arms. Sometimes he'd stare at her short, boyish dark hair and peer into her thoughtful gray eyes. And Zoya wouldn't have minded if she'd noticed.

And so it happened that they lost many of their comrades in a firefight and split into two groups of three. Zoya and Boris were joined by Vasya Klubkov. Together, they went to carry out the order: the village of Petrishchevo, occupied by the Germans, was to be burned to the ground.

When Boris finished with his side of the village, he returned to the forest, to the meeting place, and began to wait for his comrades.

He sat there without closing his eyes until the morning, but still did not find anyone.

And then his eye caught a familiar silhouette. Boris didn't even fully understand what was happening, didn't even have time to see that he was already holding the girl in his arms, before his revolver was pointed at the figure of the German, who, a few seconds later, fell in the cold snow with a bullet in his chest.

So they returned to the unit with Zoya, and a month later it was time to send the wounded girl home to rest from the fascist torture she had endured.

They walked to the station, which was about seven kilometers from the unit. They walked in silence until Boris said, addressing her formally out of habit:

• Zoya, let me ask you...

The girl looked at him, nodding and listening attentively.

— Where exactly in Moscow do you live?

Zoya smiled slightly and looked away, looking at the road and sometimes at her feet so as not to slip.

• Why do you need it?

“I need to write letters to you...” Boris answered, blushing a little, but not from the cold.

Zoya laughed.

"Why should I write? Do I really understand you as well as, say, Lesha?"

Lyozha is Boris's best friend, whom he has rarely mentioned lately.

• Forgive me for my tactlessness...

Boris looked at her with some hope, as if this look would somehow help him not to blush even more.