War Photographer's Notebook

Chapter 1036

"Didn't old Ivan find out?"

In the exhibition hall reverberating with soft music, Wei Ran pretended to be affectionate and hugged old Ivan's shoulder and said, "I remember what Olga said in Kirov back then?"

Speaking of this, Wei Ran cleared his throat loudly on purpose, and imitated Olga's appearance and said, "After my father's investigation, that musical instrument is mine, and the manager of the musical instrument warehouse personally admitted that the musical instrument And the contents of that box are mine, from when I was a child."

"Shut up! I don't have an ugly and stupid daughter like you!"

Ivan patted Wei Ran's paws away angrily, and said helplessly amidst the smiles of the surrounding girls who couldn't hide their mouths, "It was indeed like this, but recently Olga invited her A few classmates and teachers came to play, and then the trouble came."

"What's the trouble?" Sui Sui, an idiot like Maya and even Jima, who was focused on eating melons, couldn't help asking questions in unison that Wei Ran wasn't even curious about, let alone want to know.

"Do you still remember the origin of these instruments?" Olga also used a wheelchair to push her new friend Sui Xin to follow after her.

Seeing everyone looking at her, Olga stopped slowly, put her hands on Sui Xin's shoulders and said, "Forget it, I guess the girls who came with you must have never heard of the origin of these things, So let me reintroduce it briefly.”

Clearing her throat, Olga pointed to the items on the booth and said, "Simply speaking, these items were stolen from our school's musical instrument warehouse when I was in college. I suspect that the bayan is the famous A relic of the musician Dmitry Dmitrievich Shostakovich, because his musical signature is on that bayan.”

As soon as she finished speaking, Jima had already embraced old Ivan's shoulder from the other side, and said with a playful smile, "Didn't Uncle Ivan help you investigate?"

"If you keep talking nonsense, I'll kill you."

"Oil barrels, right?" Ji Ma, who is not afraid of death, gestured outwards with his thumbs, "I'll find an oil barrel drill myself later—! Maya! Let go!"

Also, although Jima didn't have time to finish his words, although he was not afraid of death, he obviously couldn't bear the pain that came with Maya's habit of pinching the soft flesh between his ribs and performing a 90-degree rotation.

After this beautiful and gentle Hasa girl tamed her little pet quarter horse again, Olga continued with a smile, "Some time ago, when my classmates and teachers came here to play, they brought a shocking news."

When Olga said this, Olena had already taken out her tablet from her rucksack, and brought up a real estate sale page from it to show everyone.

At the same time, Olga continued, "This is the news from my mentor. She said that the former residence of the famous musician Mr. Shostakovich in the Benoit apartment is ready for sale."

Seeing the dazed faces of these "hillies" from Kazan, Olga had to explain in detail, "The house is located in the Petrograd district in the city center, and it takes less than 10 minutes to walk to the Petrograd subway station.

But most importantly, Shostakovich wrote the Leningrad Symphony in that house, although he only lived there for four years.

In addition, even the apartment where this house is located is not simple. Although it was built in 1914, it can be called the best apartment in Petersburg, bar none. "

"If I remember correctly, is the former residence of Kirov and Zinoviev also in this apartment?" Sui Sui asked, "It seems that the museum of Kirov's former residence is still open."

"You remember correctly"

Olena said affirmatively, "We just went shopping yesterday, and we can still see their sculptures outside that apartment."

"What level?" Wei Ran asked Suisui in Chinese.

Sui Sui also changed into Chinese, and explained without hesitation, "It is similar to the courtyard house in the second ring road, and it is also a courtyard house next to the former residence of a celebrity, and the former owner of this courtyard house is also a celebrity."

"Oh--"

Suddenly enlightened, Wei Ran followed but had a new question, "Why would such a house be sold? Wouldn't it be good to use it to build a museum?"

“really good”

Olena took the topic and said, "Actually, as far as we know these days, that house has already been built as a museum, but it has not been opened because of neighborhood disputes."

"The house is located on the fifth floor and has a full 5 square meters," Olga added. "If it can't be opened to the public, it will cost a lot of money just to maintain it."

"So what is the relationship between this house and this musical instrument?" Sui Xin, who was also eating melons, raised her head and asked the question that everyone wanted to know in a daze.

"Immediately there will be a relationship"

Olga took a deep breath, pointed to the box on the booth in the distance and said, "My mentor wants to buy that house. Of course, she couldn't afford 40 dollars at all, but she visited it in the name of buying a house." More than once, and a photograph of Shostakovich was found inside."

Before she finished speaking, Olena also flicked the screen of the tablet computer in her hand, found a black and white photo and showed it to everyone, "We saw these things on the booth in this photo."

Wen Yan moved closer, Wei Ran could clearly see that there were three people in this reproduced photo, one of them was a man in a suit and glasses sitting on the steps in front of a building and playing a bass Yang Qin.

At his feet, he could still see a wooden box, and on top of that wooden box, there was a stack of staff manuscript paper pressed down with a pen.

And a little farther away, there are two young people, a man and a woman, who seem to be dancing on the lawn.The woman in the skirt, the young guy in the Lenin cap and overalls all had happy expressions on their faces.

"Look here"

While talking, Olena has enlarged the re-taken photo, pointed to a position on the bayan piano being played, and said, "Although the photo itself is not It’s very clear. But we can be sure that the bayan that is being played by Mr. Shostakovich is now on our booth, and the blurred outline in the photo is his musical signature.”

"Since it has been proven"

Before Wei Ran finished speaking, Olena switched to another photo. In this photo, it turned out to be a stamped case record.

"Next is trouble"

Olga said with a bitter face, "As far as we know, that house was burglarized about ten years ago, and among the things lost at that time were a bayan and half of Shostakovich's music scores. draft."

"So these things are actually stolen goods?"

Jima didn't have time to think about it at all, so he said the most obvious guess first, and then got a partial massage from Maya as expected.

“It’s hard to tell if it’s stolen goods”

Teacher Daria, who had been silent just now, joined the topic, and said in a slightly mocking tone, "But because of the investigation of that idiot Ivan, this instrument has become the instrument that Olga put in with her mother more than ten years ago. It's in the school music warehouse."

"And the time that Dad made up was the fourth year after the house was stolen. Forget it, when my sister's mentor and classmates came over last time, he even bragged about it."

Olena said helplessly, "So if we don't find out the origin of these instruments, my sister and mother may be taken away by the police soon, and explain the theft more than ten years ago."

"Are you still worried about this kind of thing?"

Ji Ma, who had just been twisted purple again, muttered while kneading the soft meat between his ribs, and unsurprisingly, he got another "reward" from Maya.

"A matter of reputation"

Dalia spread her hands and said in a joking tone, "Even if we can blow up the police station, it doesn't make sense. We can't kill Olga's classmates and mentors to silence them, right? What's more, objectively speaking, these things are indeed Olga's Stolen from the school's musical instrument warehouse."

"Put it back?" Lola, who was concentrating on eating melons, couldn't help expressing her thoughts.

"It's too late." Maya and Sui Sui said in unison.

"Sending them back now is no different from surrendering themselves," Sui Sui added, "And I guess, the school is probably unwilling to admit that those stolen goods are actually the property of the school."

"So what are you going to do?"

The desperate Jima finally asked a good question that prevented Maya from attacking him, but Wei Ran couldn't help stuffing him into an oil drum, filling it with cement, and throwing him into the Neva River.

Sure enough, as this question was asked, whether it was Daria or Ivan, or sisters Olga and Olena, or even Sui Sui, Maya, or even Katenka sisters who were making soy sauce, and Lola who was sharing snacks, etc. , all looked at Wei Ran in unison.

"The next step is to ask Victor"

Dalia said with a smile, "If you don't want Olga and her mother to become burglars, we can only rely on our historians to investigate the origin of these musical instruments to see who is their owner and who they are. And how did it appear at the Petersburg Conservatory."

"I can refuse"

"I'm going to use all my savings to buy that musician's former residence." Old Ivan said pretending to be pitiful, "In order to buy that house, I not only have to bear more than ten years of loan debt, but also have to Sell ​​Olga's piano."

"I'm also going to use my life savings to buy another house that has a neighborhood dispute with that house." Dalia said with a smile, "Of course, I will also be in debt for more than ten years."

"How about I help you pay off the loan?"

Wei Ran asked too much on the road, he didn't want to find out the historical truth behind that musical instrument even more than losing his family fortune.After all, that was the Battle of Leningrad.
"We can repay the loan ourselves"

Dalia patted Wei Ran's shoulder lightly, and said with a smile like an old woman looking up to you, "You just need to help investigate the things you just mentioned, and besides——"

"It's going to be worse!"

Just as Wei Ran muttered in his heart, he heard Teacher Dalia say with a smile, "After we get through and renovate those two houses, the tourists sent by Aurora to Petersburg can visit them there, and We can guarantee that it will only be open to the tourists you send."

"make a deal!"

Sui Sui, who was obviously tempted, didn't give Wei Ran a chance to speak at all, so she happily helped him agree. In the eyes of this girl who fell into the eyes of money and didn't want to get out, no matter how difficult this matter was, it couldn't be more difficult. Is it difficult to find the American captain who has been missing for more than half a century?
As for the danger, in addition to the fact that she thought it was really dangerous when she went to Manbei last time, how dangerous is the work of turning files like historical investigation?
Ancestor
Wei Ran looked at Sui Sui, who was hanging shoulder to shoulder with him, wanting to cry without tears. Although he knew that even if the girl didn't help and agreed, he probably couldn't hide it, but this girl with rubles in the left and RMB in the right eye still helped He patted his chest and made a promise, "Don't worry, Aunt Dahlia, I'll watch him for you! Make sure he investigates the matter as quickly as possible!"

"I'm most assured of leaving this matter to Victor"

Dalia didn't give Wei Ran a chance to speak at all, and greeted with a smile, "Okay, it's almost time, we should go to lunch. Olga's mother has been busy since she knew you were coming."

Hearing that there was something delicious, everyone happily followed out of the steel-framed glass building and walked towards the row of particularly beautiful wooden houses built along the edge of the island not far away.

And Wei Ran, who deliberately stayed at the end, also looked at the booth that was not locked at all with the feeling of going to his own grave.

On the decorative cover of the bayan, there is still a small piece of staff engraved. Although it has been a long time, he still remembers that this thing seems to be called a motive. It is the musician who converted his initials into string of notes.

Pick up the small TK pistol in the box. On the wooden grip patch of this pistol, the words "Bank of the Soviet Union" and the Soviet Union's sickle and hammer logo are clearly engraved in Russian.

In addition to these two things, on the booth there was half a piece of black bread wrapped in yellowed newspaper, and a piece of dried fish that still had clear tooth marks. Judging from the size of the tooth marks, it seemed that the person who left the tooth marks was the children.

In addition to these, there was a small bottle of kosher salt on the stand, an old-looking necklace, and the all-important quarter book of music.

Undoubtedly, even if the places where these things were found were ignored, even without Olga’s detailed description, even without the bayan, the small pistol, and even just the large half of the black bread mixed with sawdust, he almost It is 900% certain that these things all came from the [-]-day siege.

Gollum!

Wei Ran looked at everything on the booth, swallowed with great difficulty, and finally decided how long he could procrastinate.

In the future, there will be a clean altar emissary at home to worship sincerely every day.
Wei Ran muttered as he walked out, and he finally wiped out the psychological shadow of starving in the desperate Pacific Ocean with several meals of braised pork and steamed buns. Leningrad starved.

It was hard not to make him stare at the tattooed prisoner on the tiger's mouth on his left hand and wonder if he had provoked something unclean.

It can't be that the little wild boar captured at Jima's house last time is Bajie's illegitimate son, right?

Wei Ran washed away the fear in his heart with wild thoughts and nonsense words, and walked to the other side of the exhibition hall, the row of wooden houses only four or fifty meters away from the shore.

From a long distance, he could smell the rich aroma of grilled food, and he also saw the row of several extraordinarily beautiful outdoor ovens, as well as Heda who was wearing an apron and was working beside those ovens. Yana, a woman of Lia's age.

When he walked to the long table on the lawn, Olga's mother Yana just brought a plate of freshly baked pies to the table. Immediately afterwards, the kind old aunt enthusiastically Hugging Wei Ran, he beckoned him to sit down and brought him a corner of the pie and stuffed it into his hands, while thanking him for his willingness to help.

How can you refuse?
Wei Ran looked at the mushroom pie in his hand that he had bitten off a corner of, and finally he could only sigh helplessly, and decided to fill his stomach before talking about anything else.

With the busyness of Yana and Dalia, the old best friends, the long table was gradually filled with various delicacies.

And those girls of the same age raised the cold Baltic beer again and again and happily bumped into each other, as if they had become good sisters who had known each other for many years.

Before finishing the meal, Olga went back to the exhibition hall to fetch the bayanqin, and Sui Xin, who had also drank a few glasses of wine, also asked Lola to help, and the golf course with luggage was not far away. In the golf cart, the Guqin Youquan that Sui Sui helped bring was brought.

After a moment of debugging and discussion, Sui Xin, who came over as a guest, played a Guqin piece that Wei Ran had never heard before.

And under the instigation of Sui Sui and Ji Ma, even Wei Ran, who had been distracted all this time, was not spared. He took over Guqin Youquan and played a song, which was considered suitable for the occasion, and made Sui Xin, who was a little drunk, stare round. "Drunkenness".

After their performance ended, Olga immediately played the cheerful Cossack song "You, You" on the bayanqin with a story, and Sui Xin even took out a piece of music from her wheelchair sundry bag. A harmonica helps accompaniment.

While the familiar music was playing, Olena had already removed two decorative Cossack cavalry swords from the wall of the log cabin, and performed a highly ornamental Cossack double sword dance without stage fright.

Seeing the skillful cooperation of the two sisters, it is obvious that this kind of playfulness is already a repertoire.

Those who take the lead naturally have those who join in the fun, and quarterma, who can barely be regarded as versatile, drank the remaining beer in the glass in one gulp, and amidst the cheers and whistles of the girls, he danced a very ornamental Cossack Knee burning dance.

I have to admit that these guys really have artistic bacteria. With the cooperation and leadership of the three young people, the rest of the people except Wei Ran also followed the rhythm and sang the folk song praising the Cossacks.

Before the end of the song, Ji Ma, who couldn't hold on, also sat down on the ground.But immediately after, Maya, who was usually annoyed when she saw him, bent down and stretched out her hands to pull him up while singing a song. Amidst the cheers of the crowd, she danced a pas de deux with Jima.

"Let's go too!" After old Ivan finished speaking, his wife Yana, who had already waved her hands repeatedly, joined in.

"Little guy, will you?" Darya stretched out her hand towards Luo La while speaking.

Seeing that even the Katenka sisters held hands and danced together, Sui Sui, who was a little confused after drinking, also pulled Wei Ran to join the ranks of the demons dancing wildly.

Fortunately, although he is an idiot in music, he stepped on the toes of countless beautiful senior sisters at the Hongqi Forest Farm, and Wei Ran's dance finally barely reached the passing line.

However, while dancing, Wei Ran couldn't help thinking of the remake photo he just saw on Olena's tablet.

He couldn't help being curious, when the photo was taken, what the musician playing the same bayan in the photo might be thinking about, and what music he was playing.

He couldn't help wondering if the young couple who were dancing at the time were as carefree and relaxed as they were - at least they had enough food.

"What are you thinking?" Sui Sui, who was almost face to face with Wei Ran, asked with a trace of drunkenness, "Why did you become two?"

"That's because you drank too much." Wei Ran shook his head dumbfoundingly, and stretched out his hand to support the glass that was almost unsteady after turning around twice.

(End of this chapter)