The Memories of Dead Pilot. Yuriy Sobeshchakov

said the party organizer, “let me have some chairs for the communists. Tomorrow I have a meeting about the plan.”

      “I won’t give you any,” answered the priest. “The last time, they carved indecent expressions on them with their pocket knives."

      “Well, then, I won’t be sending you any more pioneers to sing in the church choir,” answered the party organizer.

      “Then I won’t send you any monks for Saturday volunteer work,” the priest parried.

      “Then I won’t give you any members of the Young Communist League for the procession of the cross.” As a true communist, the party organizer refused to give in.

      But the priest had an ace up his sleeve.

      “Then there won’t be any more nuns for the sauna.”

      The party organizer fell silent for a moment, and then barked into the telephone:

      “For such words, Father, you are going to have to surrender your party membership card.”

      We laughed heartily at the joke, but in a few days the good major became the object of a serious investigation by our Party Committee. Who wrote the denunciation I was unable to ascertain. I was not a party member and so the suspicions of my coworkers passed me by. The unlucky comic was excluded from the party by a majority vote, and then after a time, as was to be expected, he was removed from his post.

      The next day I was summoned for an interview with the squadron commander. The fact that the entire staff of our squadron had gathered in his office was a surprise to me. I stood opposite the commander’s desk, in the middle of his heavily-worn rug, and began to ponder. Why is such a pompous meeting being held in my honor?

      The chief of staff asked me several questions about my biography, and checked my answers against the data contained in my personnel file. It was as if he were trying to convince himself that I was indeed the man I put myself forward as being. And if I am not that man, then did I have my cover story down pat. Apparently my answers coincided with what was written in the red file folder, because, after closing it with a smirk, he put this secret document on the desk in front of the commander.

      The squadron commander lowered both hands to the file, concealing the coat of arms of the Soviet Union, which was embossed on the top. He glanced over all his assistants and deputies who were ranged against the walls, sighed deeply, and said:

      “Well, then, Popov, your time has come. The Motherland in my person and the Party in the person of the deputy commander of political affairs have decided to entrust you with the position of rocket carrier commander.” The highbrow words, cheesy as they were, caused a lump of pride to rise in my throat. Even my shoulders straightened involuntarily. Apparently oblivious to my newfound reaction to praise he continued on… “However, we do have a few unresolved issues with you.”

      The lump formed of pride was replaced by an urge to gag as I waited for the hammer to fall.

      “You must promise me that you will carry out the following conditions: first, you must enroll in the communist party; second, you must marry; and third, but not the least in importance, you must curtail your drinking.”

      Somehow, the hammer stayed aloft and in the space of a breath I managed to process the demands. First, if the Party was blind enough to have the likes of me, fine. Marriage, how tough can it be? And drinking, well that is a problem. Vodka has always been a good friend. But friends come and go, right? I sighed with relief and perhaps too quickly, signed the papers pushed my way across the desk. In essence, I had just promised to fulfill all three conditions – within the next six months.

      Chapter 2

      The promotion, along with the elevated respect of those around me and a small raise in pay, meant a large number of new responsibilities. I could no longer disappear for my two days off and spend them in Lyudmila Salnikova’s bed, or present myself to the doctor for pre-flight exam with a face puffy from vodka. Sometimes while measuring my blood pressure the doctor would say, “Popov, I wish you’d at least breathe in some other direction. Your exhaust fumes are making my eyes water.” Yes, my carefree youth was at an end. And as it happened the cause for my newfound sense of pride would be very short-lived.

      Two days later I sat with all the other aircraft commanders listening to the flight assignments for the following day. The heads of the various flight services took turns reporting about what we could expect tomorrow in the way of weather, potential enemies, supply, maintenance and communications. All of this barely registered in my consciousness. To me, the high points were: tomorrow morning at 0800 hours I would take off first, and, four hours later, would return to base. In another four hours I would be drinking a beer in the officers’ mess with my friends, celebrating the successful conclusion of my first battle mission. For the hundredth time I looked over the couple of dozen nine-by-six foot placards depicting various catastrophes involving TU-16s over the past ten years and for the hundredth time was surprised by what monumental screw-ups some of the pilots before me must have been. Almost all of the crashes had been caused by pilot error or by improper decision-making: translated in official terms, “the human factor.” Poor, unlucky and unskilled bastards. There is no way to get me to fly into a hill like them. I won’t let anyone kill me. It’s no accident that I’ve been entrusted with flying on battle watch to the Aleutian Islands. I grinned at the thought.

      I had flown there many times as a co-pilot, but only one thing had been part of my responsibilities then – not to interfere with anything. Now the situation had changed. But I couldn’t change. My crew and I had devoted in fact all of one hour of preparation for the flight along the American border, but then more experienced pilots from other crews approached us and we went to the sports arena of the garrison to play volleyball. The last two hours of preparation for tomorrow’s flight we spent playing cards in the doctor’s office. The doctor had hung a sign saying “Do Not Enter: Patient Exam in Progress” on the door, which was padded with cotton and covered with black leatherette. Our excited and at times disappointed cries were not audible to anyone.

      On the morning of the next day I sat in the pilots’ mess and waited for the waitress Lyudmila to bring me breakfast. My little dalliance with her had come to an end some six months earlier, but until recently we had remained friends. However, when the rumor circulated around the garrison that I had got married, her attitude toward me changed sharply.

      Nobody knew yet who my wife was and why a confirmed bachelor had undertaken such a big step. Returning from leave I informed the commander about the fulfillment of one of his three conditions, and he hadn’t made any secret of it. As a consequence of his lack of reserve, the service provided for my crew in the pilots’ mess had markedly worsened. The squadron humorists had missed no chance to make jokes about this.

      “It’s best not to share a table with you now, Alex.” Or: “That’s it, Popov. You’re past it now. Now that you’re married, you’re gonna be last in line to eat.”

      On any other day I probably would have stayed until the end of breakfast without reacting to the jests of my comrades. And after waiting for all the flyers to leave, I would have had a heart-to-heart talk with Lyudmila. But this was a special day for me. I was in a hurry to get to the pre-flight briefing, and I had no time to wipe away the tears of my erstwhile mistress. Trying to get the waitress’s attention, I first put one hand up like a diligent student, and then the other. The pilots started to turn around and look in my direction. Many of them set down their forks to await developments. And when Lyudmila passed my table by in the usual way, she said contemptuously: “Popov, you could raise your leg as well, but you’re going to be the last to eat anyway.”

      I answered fairly loudly, pronouncing each word distinctly, and tried to put into each of them all the sarcasm of which I was capable: “Lyudmila, raising legs, especially parted, is more in your line, I’d think.”

      The squad burst into laughter. The girl was caught out by the malicious jest, and threw the tray full of dishes on the floor. Bursting into tears, she fled to the personnel room. In a few minutes the person on duty in the mess sent over a new waitress, Veronica, who immediately came over to our table, and while we chose our breakfast took the opportunity to say to me:

      “I