About the book: 1960 / Our “grandfather,” Grisha Afanasyev, often loved to tell this story. We heard it every time after some hard day at sea or in the parking lot. The first time I heard this story was in the morning, after a terrible stormy night, when we were battered by an eleven-force nor’easter on a spit at Cape Midia, racked and thrice fatal. I heard it. I read this story in the Atlantic, when we were coming from America. Then the storm beat us for eight days, the swells overtook us - a terrible force! And in the morning, on the ninth day, “grandfather”, having shaved, was already telling us that story - about the passenger. And when they bombed The Spanish fascists at Alicante and sixteen thirty-five-kilogram bombs burst behind us on the left and right sides, from the stern and from the bow, and through our smokestack the stars lit up like in a telescope - so many holes were made in it by fragments - then I heard again from “grandfather » his story...