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  But I had answered with brutal honesty the six-hundred-question psychological test that Frolov’s staff had administered in the quiet room down the corridor on Monday. The test had been one of a battery of examinations designed to evaluate my manual dexterity and coordination, professional judgment, and personality in the wake of my aborted February flight. Only two hundred of the questions, the test staff had assured me, actually dealt with “personality traits.” And these questions were often linked to control questions salted throughout the exam to expose any attempt at deception.

  I had no problem with that. Rather than attempt to deceive the authorities by espousing reverence for the ideals of Marxism-Leninism, I had proceeded to vent my disgust for the system. And I also honestly revealed the bitter depression I first felt when I’d learned about my country’s history of bloody repression.

  Each question had three possible answers: Yes, No, or Uncertain.

  To such questions as “Do you believe in God?” and “Are people conspiring against you?” I had answered Yes.

  There had been the usual collection of questions to test my loyalty and faith in the wisdom of the Party’s leadership. “Do you read foreign magazines?” “Do you like foreign clothes?” to these I had answered Yes.

  My answers to the questions that were obviously testing my attitude toward “collective decision-making” made clear my individualist nature.

  One section of the test concerned personal and family relations. “Do you look forward to coming home after duty?” The questions were subtle, but clear in their intent. My answers made it obvious that I was not happy in my marriage.

  To make certain my answers would be taken seriously, I searched for the control questions. “Do you like to watch fire?” Yes, I had answered. Any Russian who had camped and fished in the Volga heartland liked his campfire. “Have you ever been attracted to fire?” Yes again. And I had been careful to answer “Uncertain” several times.

  In the two hours allotted, I had diligently answered all six hundred questions, then carefully reviewed my answers.

  Now Lieutenant Colonel Frolov sat across his tasteful hardwood desk, his lips pursed as he tapped the graphed test results and precisely verified my answers to certain key questions. From his calm, exact manner, I assumed he was a man accustomed to reaching important decisions after some deliberation.

  While Frolov reviewed my file, I gazed past the inevitable framed portraits of Gorbachev and Lenin and out the office window at the park. Warm, weak sunshine lit the trees. Pilots in red-trimmed, blue warm-up suits were out on the exercise paths, the younger men jogging, the older officers walking at a steady pace.

  I focused on the short figure of a lieutenant colonel who had commanded a fighter regiment in Germany. His name was Peotr Petrov and I had been shocked to learn when I’d met him in my ward that he was only forty-two years old. He looked like a man in his sixties.

  A doctor at the centrifuge G-stress unit in the Aerospace Medical Center near Dynamo Stadium had frankly revealed to me the disastrous cumulative effects of flying high-performance fighters. During Lieutenant Colonel Petrov’s twenty years of service, he had chalked up thousands of hours of high-G flight in MiG-21s and MiG-23s. The human body could only take so much of that punishment. When you combined almost daily high-G maneuvers with the adverse effects of breathing pure oxygen, and the hazard of ionizing radiation from supposedly well shielded aircraft radars, the result was a pilot like Petrov, a man we younger pilots called a “squeezed lemon.”

  This brave and loyal officer had flown several combat tours in Afghanistan. For years, he and his family had endured the harsh existence of primitive, isolated bases in the Far East and Central Asia. All those years he had flown, in good weather and bad, in blizzards, dust storms, and frozen fog. And the cruel physics of high-performance flight had inevitably taken a toll. The connective tissue of his abdomen was so distended that he had to cinch up his G-suit as tightly as a weight-lifter’s belt during his entire last year on flight status.

  He was now receiving his final medical examinations before retirement. The standard pension for this officer’s long service to the Socialist Motherland would be 250 rubles a month. Today, in Moscow, a dinner in a cooperative restaurant costs 100, a decent overcoat, over 1,000. If he was very lucky, he would be retired with a “generous” disability bonus: an additional 50 rubles per month. In either case, the reward for his long and courageous service was poverty. Depending on his connections, he might also be fortunate enough to be granted a lease on a one-room apartment in a shoddy high-rise block of a microrayon near some reasonably prosperous city. But a lieutenant colonel Sniper pilot with a good combat record was probably not so politically astute as to have secured such luxurious retirement housing.

  One of Lieutenant Colonel Frolov’s telephones rang, the muted double ring of the hospital’s internal switchboard. “Yes, good morning,” he said cheerfully, reaching for a small notepad. The person at the other end spoke for almost a minute, and I watch Frolov writing a neat, two-column list on the pad. The caller was from the Voyentorg, the military supply exchange that served all branches of the Soviet armed services.

  But the Voyentorg in Moscow’s Central Aviation Hospital was clearly different from that in a motor rifle regiment in some forlorn garrison on the Mongolian border. Out there the troops might be lucky to find rusty razor blades one month and tins of bitter peach jam another. Supplies at the military exchange at my own base in Georgia had become increasingly scarce in recent months. Now officers’ wives had to wait in line for hours each week to buy their subsidized sugar and obtain the milk ration for their children. And when they did receive their supplies, their cabbage was often rotten and the milk sour.

  But Frolov was not writing a list of sour milk. The column on the right side of his pad was headed, “Package with Salmon,” the other, “Package with Caviar,” the Voyentorg’s weekly offering to the hospital’s nomenklatura. From what I could read on his lists, both packages included East German salami, Hungarian frozen chicken and fruit compote, coffee from Africa, Darjeeling tea, chocolate candy, and sweet biscuits. The main difference was in the “luxury” item, smoked salmon from the Siberian Pacific or two hundred grams of Caspian sevruga caviar. In reality, of course, every item on both lists was a luxury far beyond attainment by all but a few of the privileged.

  Frolov’s careful deliberation showed me he was human, after all. Maybe I had a potential ally in him. And I certainly was going to need all the influential allies I could find to win my discharge.

  Only the day before here at the hospital, I had seen how an officer who did not have connections was treated. Major Beryozovoy was a middle-aged MiG-23 pilot, whom I had first met at Gudauta on the Black Sea. This poor old fellow was a “squeezed lemon” if ever there was one. He had given his all to the State. Now he had only two years remaining before retirement and wanted desperately to stay on the Black Sea. His fourteen-year-old son, Misha, was asthmatic and could not tolerate the long northern winters. The boy had almost died the year before on a visit to the Ukraine. Now the Air Force intended to transfer the major to the Transbaikal Military District deep in Siberia. So far he had been able to obtain a medical waiver. The major was a brave and honest Soviet soldier. Not a politician.

  I had recently learned just how powerful the politically well connected rear-echelon bureaucrats were. My friend Valery, a decorated veteran of almost four years in Afghanistan, where he had served as a forward air-ground controller in the combat zone, confronted a typical staff-rat personnel officer. This arrogant idiot told Valery, “You may well be a hero of Afghanistan, but I have more power.” He held up a pencil in one hand, an eraser in the other. “Today,” he continued, pointing to a pilots’ personnel roster, “Ivanov is in Moscow and Siderov is in Siberia.” He erased the two names and reversed their assignments. “Tomorrow, things are different. That is my power.”

  “Then it will be the Package with Caviar,” Lieutenant Colonel Fro
lov finally said. “Of course, I would like to exchange the salami for a double portion of coffee.”

  I couldn’t hear the other side of the conversation, but I saw Frolov neatly cross out the salami and write “2” beside coffee on the caviar list. Frolov was proving himself astute. Caviar was doubly valuable, not only as a luxury item for barter here in Moscow but also as one of the few available Soviet commodities that could be sold for hard currency, valuta. Most caviar was exported, of course, but enough was doled out to the nomenklatura to help meet their hard-currency needs. Such transactions kept their children in Western clothes and their wives in French silk scarves and designer sunglasses.

  At a higher level, the unofficial benefits of office increased with rank, as did ostentation. Raisa Gorbachev’s escapades with her American Express credit card were well known, thanks to glasnost. But another scandal was emerging about the Gorbachevs’ new luxury holiday villa in the Crimea. Apparently Raisa-herself a professor of Marxism-Leninism-had not been pleased with the dark marble entrance staircase. She had ordered it demolished and replaced with snow-white marble.

  Frolov politely thanked the Voyentorg and replaced the telephone receiver. “Excuse me, Alexander Mikhailovich,” he said with an almost conspiratorial smile. “My son is due to take his eight-form foreign language examinations soon. We are planning a small party for him.”

  More likely the “small party” would be a small prezant of Caspian caviar to the chairman of the examination board. Or perhaps Frolov could arrange a prescription for a hard-to-find medication needed by that chairman’s ailing mother. The possibilities were limitless within the network of influence and privilege bounded by Moscow’s Ring Highway. For men like Frolov, many doors were open. It was well known among my fellow pilots that doctors in this hospital would barter treatment with the German ultrasonic kidney-stone machine in the basement for access to good restaurants or entry to Beryozka hard-currency stores. Smaller favors were arranged with the discreet presentation of an appropriate prezant. Among the elite of Moscow, Kiev, Gorkiy, or a dozen other Soviet cities, influence and wealth were interchangeable.

  There was an expression known to every Soviet citizen above the age often: Rukha ruku moyet, “One hand washes the other.” The opulence of this hospital’s Voyentorg was clear proof that this system was flourishing, despite all the sanctimonious nonsense about glasnost and perestroika.

  Frolov was now neatly sorting the test pages and graph. He folded his fine, white hands precisely on the desk and smiled.

  “Well, Comrade Lieutenant Colonel,” I said, as sincerely as I could, “how are my test results?”

  Frolov shook his head. “We have some problems here, Captain Zuyev.” In his precise manner, Frolov lifted the chart with the plotted test results. “I am convinced these results are not valid.” He tapped the red peaks on the graph paper with the tip of an expensive imported pen. “These answers go far beyond the norms. Are you absolutely certain you read the questions carefully?”

  “Absolutely, Comrade Lieutenant Colonel.”

  Again, Frolov shook his head. Then he smiled reassuringly. “No, Alexander Mikhailovich, I think you were feeling some temporary confusion during this examination.”

  “I answered each question as honestly as I could,” I said with open-faced sincerity.

  Frolov nodded and held up another document. I could see it was a printed extract of my service record. Again he slipped on his reading glasses. And again, he used his slim gold pen to emphasize the points of his argument. “Captain Zuyev, there is clearly nothing in your personnel file to indicate the type of unstable personality or antisocial attitudes evidenced by this test.” He seemed honestly confused, eager to find a logical explanation for this strange dichotomy.

  I nodded without speaking, then turned away to glance out the window toward Sokolniki Park once more. Poor old Colonel Petrov had tried jogging behind a group of younger officers, but now he was walking stiffly along the path, taking a shortcut to the hospital.

  Frolov was reading from my service record. His accent and diction were pure Moscow staff officer, not the rough edge of a Soviet Army field commander berating an insubordinate junior officer. “Comrade Captain,” he said, smiling again to show his concern, “I have reviewed the records of hundreds of pilots during my career. As you know, the Army’s selection process is rigorous, designed to identify the best-qualified young men for flight training.” He looked down again at my service record and frowned with concentration. “Everything in your background is absolutely normal… your school records, the entrance test scores at the Armavir Academy. Your flight training and academic records there demonstrate the highest possible aptitude…” He shook his head and smiled again. “Alexander Mikhailovich, I simply cannot believe that you possess an undetected personality flaw that would account for the answers on this test.” For emphasis, he placed his open hand on the test booklet and the plotted answer graph.

  I was carefully weighing Frolov’s sincerity. He might be the critical factor in my campaign for a discharge from the Air Force. If I could convince him I actually was psychologically unstable, he might facilitate the discharge with a minimum of notoriety. On the other hand, Frolov had the power to brand me as a shirker, and incorrigible egoist, which was anathema in the collectivist dogma, of Marxism-Leninism. “Comrade Lieutenant Colonel,” I finally said, “I answered those questions honestly.”

  Frolov cleared his throat and frowned more deeply. “Let me quickly review your record.” His voice was cooler now. “Born Kuybyshev, 1961.” He smiled. “Only twenty-seven years old, Alexander Mikhailovich, and you have been a First Class pilot for four years, a captain for two. You are a flight leader and a respected tactics instructor in one of the Air Force’s leading combat fighter regiments.” He hefted the service record for emphasis, then continued. “Last year you qualified for the military test pilot school at Akhtubinsk. You’ve been a full member of the Party for four years.” He flipped over the carbon copy of an official form. “And I see you have recently received the Defense of the Motherland Medal.”

  I nodded. These medals were a joke to good pilots in line regiments. We called this particular citation “the medal for sand from your ass.” It had nothing to do with professional skill, but the staff rats in Moscow put a lot of stock in medals. In fact, you could usually spot a true rear-echelon hero by the number of medals on his chest.

  Frolov was staring at me now with a fatherly expression of concern. “Your wife is the daughter of a distinguished Air Force officer. Comrade Captain, your career to date has been nothing short of exceptional. You have an extremely promising future in the Air Force. Yet you seem determined to make us believe that you are some kind of mental defective. Honestly, Alexander Mikhailovich, what are we to make of this?”

  Suddenly I knew that it was time, finally and irrevocably, to state my case. I had to accept the fact that all medical tests would be inconclusive, at best, and that this officer was too skilled and politically astute to accept the results of my psychological test as valid grounds to grant me a discharge. “Comrade Colonel, I no longer wish to serve.”

  Frolov sighed audibly and closed the dossier. Clearly he was frustrated. He impatiently flipped open my dossier again. “In September 1978, when you entered the Higher Aviation Academy at Armavir, you took an oath, a solemn oath to serve the Soviet Union.” He fixed me with his intelligent eyes. “You told all your superiors that your sole ambition in life was to become a fighter pilot.” He sighed again. “Now you sit there and tell me you no longer wish to serve. Comrade Captain, what has happened? Tell me more about yourself. Help me understand.”

  I understood his frustration. The man was a Communist in a privileged position. He had no reason to doubt the system that treated him so well. Until recently, I had been like him, a believer, one of the Communist elite. How could I explain my transformation?

  “Well,” I finally asked, “where can I begin?”

  Frolov smiled warmly now.
“Why not begin at the beginning?”

  PART TWO

  CHAPTER 3

  Samara

  1961–78

  I was brought up in Kuybyshev, a major river port on the Volga, in the heartland of the Russian Federation. Kuybyshev had been named for a hero of the Revolution, but most people called the city Samara, a name well known in Russian history. Both my parents were engineers. My father, Mikhail, was a technical manager at one of the city’s aviation factories. My mother, Lydia, was a construction engineer at the Kuybyshev Hydroelectric Institute.

  During the Great Patriotic War, when the Nazi armies threatened Moscow, Kuybyshev had become the temporary capital of the Soviet Union. Our aircraft factories had turned out thousands of combat planes. Assembly lines had worked day and night producing the Ilyushin-2, the famous Shturmovik that had helped defeat the Nazi panzers. And since then, military and civilian aviation manufacturing, as well as the precision-machine-tool industry needed to support those plants, had remained the economic backbone of the city.

  The broad blue Volga had always been vital to the life of Samara, just as it still was to present-day Kuybyshev. My mother’s institute had responsibility for an immense, multiyear and multibillion-ruble construction project, eventually meant to harness the power potential of the vast upper Volga system, which included the huge Kuybyshev Reservoir.

  My father was a good amateur photographer and supplemented his salary by selling scenic pictures to a local postcard publisher, by photographing wedding ceremonies and sports events, and by producing much better family portraits than available through the crowded State enterprise photo shops in town. We didn’t have money for luxuries, but my clothes were not ragged, we ate well, and I always had five kopeks to buy a sweet roll after school. Every New Year’s there were brightly wrapped presents under the decorated fir tree. We lived in a one-room, hundred-and-twenty-eight-square-foot apartment in an older building. I had my small bed in one corner of the room, and my parents slept in a curtained alcove. The kitchen was hardly big enough for all three of us, but as with so many Russian families, it was the heart of our home.