Fulcrum

by Alexander Mikhaylovich Zuyev

  When I had first met Yuri’s parents in Moscow two years before, he had simply told them, “Sasha is one of us.” They had no reason to believe I had changed — unless the KGB had alerted them that I was under investigation for suspicious behavior.

  That week construction workers had unearthed an unmarked mass grave in a pine forest south of Minsk. The trench contained hundreds of skeletons. Each skull had been shattered by a single, large-caliber pistol bullet. And the few actual bullets recovered were found to have been fired from the big Nagant revolvers carried by Stalin’s NKVD execution squads. This secret grave was just the latest of more than a dozen discovered in that region alone. Private groups investigating the massacres now estimated that more than 200,000 Byelorussians had been executed during the Great Terror of the late 1930s. And Byelorussia was a small republic. Now Memorial and other unofficial organizations were demanding a complete government accounting of these atrocities. Again, opening the secret KGB archives was the principal demand.

  “What do you think of all this, Sergei?” Yuri asked. “Do you believe they’ll let the television crews into the basements of the Lubyanka?”

  Yuri was referring to the Lubyanka prison adjacent to KGB headquarters, where the NKVD archives were said to be kept.

  “I hope they do not,” Sergei said flatly. “At least not in my lifetime.”

  “They contain information on actual atrocities?” I asked, looking levelly at Sergei.

  He nodded grimly, and seemed to suppress a shudder, as if what had already been discovered and made public was relatively minor compared to the horrible record in those dusty files. “Yes, Sasha,” he said softly, “there were terrible events. But the people should never learn the details. It simply will not help them at all.”

  Yuri and his family seated opposite me nodded in unison. For them, glasnost had already gone too far.

  “A nation has the right to know its history,” I said, keeping my voice as calm as possible. The four of them stared at me, their eyes going hard. I cleared my throat, and the painful silence spread.

  Finally Sergei sighed and spoke. “Sanya,” he said, reaching over to touch my arm, “you are a nice fellow. I hope we will end up on the same side of the barricades.”

  I looked into his eyes. “Do you think it will all come to fighting in the streets?”

  Sergei sipped his cognac and smiled now. “Sasha, where do you think perestroika will eventually end?”

  I knew from his tone this was a cynical Moscovite’s sophisticated riddle. “I don’t know.”

  “Perestrielka,” he said, “gunfire.” The others at the table nodded again. Their faces wore a strange mix of apprehension and mirth.

  “It’s a fact, Sasha,” Sergei added. “You’re always reading. Check the dictionary.”

  In the latest State lexicon, the next entry after the word “perestrielka” was, in fact, “perestroika.” This was an accident, of course, but for hundreds of thousands of hard-liners, the coincidence was an omen.

  Sunday, March 26, I went to the hospital gym to exercise. I had no intention of voting. Officers on my ward had told me the Air Force had sent unofficial word as to which candidates standing for election in Moscow districts were “acceptable.” Certainly Boris Yeltsin, who had supported the campaign to expose the gross excesses of Raisa Gorbachev during her shopping sprees in foreign capitals, was not a favorite of the Air Force. Yeltsin was standing in the north-central Moscow district that included this hospital. If I were going to vote for anyone, it would be him. But, because I was stationed in Georgia, I was not registered to vote in Moscow. Almost all the officers voting were also stationed elsewhere. The whole exercise was a fraud in which I refused to participate. Then my case physician, Lieutenant Colonel Merkulov, found me in the gym.

  “Captain Zuyev,” he said sternly, “you haven’t voted yet. Colonel Golubchikov sent me to find you.”

  Golubchikov was the director of the internal medicine division, a professional surgeon trying to do the best job he could, which naturally included pleasing his superior officer, Colonel Ivanov. This was not an easy task for a dedicated physician.

  Ivanov was known as a harsh taskmaster, a wealthy Communist zealot, as close to its own Mafia boss as this hospital had. His position would have brought him a constant stream of “gifts” and favors. He had many influential friends in the Defense Ministry. They no doubt expected him to deliver a solid block of military votes for the Party’s handpicked candidates.

  “Comrade Lieutenant Colonel,” I told Merkulov, “I do not intend to participate in this election.”

  Merkulov was hardly a troop commander. He seemed more disappointed than angry. “Then you’ll have to report to the colonel to explain.”

  That meant a shower and changing into a clean uniform. But, at least for the moment, I was still a Soviet Air Force officer, and direct insubordination did not come easily.

  Fifteen minutes later I stood before Golubchikov’s desk. What’s the problem, Alexander Mikhailovich?” he asked quietly, more weary than angry.

  “If I were to vote, Comrade Colonel, I’d do it at my base in Georgia where I knew the candidates.”

  Sheepishly Golubchikov slid a sample ballot across his polished maple desk. The names of the three “acceptable” candidates had been circled in red ink. We were ordered to vote for notorious Party apparatchiks who were cronies of the Defense Minister, Marshal Yazov. “You know your duty, Captain,” the colonel said. “Go to the registry desk in the Lenin Room and cast your ballot. All the other officers in this hospital have already voted.”

  “For these candidates, Comrade Colonel?” I let the irony ring in my voice. All across the eleven time zones of the Soviet Union on this long Sunday, military officers and employees of institutes and factories under tight Communist control were undoubtedly also being pressured to vote for the candidates approved by the Party. This was the bosses’ version of democracy.

  “The vote is secret, Captain Zuyev,” Golubchikov said, his voice neutral. But his meaning was clear; once I registered, his responsibility ended.

  The colonel handed me my registry card and a blank ballot. For a moment I felt like ripping it up. But this hardworking doctor was not my enemy. I took the papers and came to attention. “I serve the Soviet Union.”

  In the Lenin Room a young captain sat warily at the registration desk, obviously concerned that my minor rebellion might land him in the middle of something unpleasant. He was clearly relieved when I approached the desk, then bent to sign in the one remaining empty space on the page. I was, indeed, the last officer to vote.

  I took the ballot into the booth, slid shut the blue curtain, then dropped the ballot, unmarked, into the slot of the varnished box. Now I whispered the ritual phrase of military obedience: “I serve the Soviet Union.”

  Two days later I saw Colonel Golubchikov on the third-floor corridor. He looked like a boxer who had just lost a fight. That morning Pravda had announced the election results. Communist candidates had been defeated in every important district. No important Party man had been elected in Moscow, Leningrad, or Kiev. The Party bosses in the Baltic Republics had been defeated, as had the general commanding the KGB in Estonia and the four-star general commanding all Soviet forces in Germany. Boris Yeltsin had been elected to the Congress of People’s Deputies by a massive majority, defeating the Party hack whom the Air Force had found so “acceptable.”

  “Good morning, Comrade Colonel,” I said pleasantly as we passed. “It’s a great day for our nation.”

  Golubchikov stopped, his hands thrust deeply into the side pockets of his starched white medical coat. He seemed about to speak, but then scowled silently and turned on his heel.

  For the next eight days I had my final round of X rays, blood tests, and orthopedic examinations. This was an official review of my physical condition required as part of my formal permanent removal from flight status. In principle, I could have petitioned to remain on limited flying duty in low-performan
ce aircraft, as had my friend “Karpich” Karpov, who had suffered the spine injury when his stupid zampolit shot him down with an R-23 missile. Karpich hoped to end his military career flying an old An-2 Anushka biplane, dropping scared cadets at Armavir in parachute training. He could not imagine a life outside the protective blanket of the military. To me that blanket had become a suffocating shroud. I declined my right to appeal.

  During those days, shuttling among the laboratories and radiological service, I learned from friendly nurses about a medical scandal of explosive proportions. The previous autumn, there had been five officers from the Republic of the Congo at the hospital undergoing complete physical examinations as part of their jet fighter pilot training in the Soviet Union. At that time, I had also been in the hospital briefly for a physical exam. The African pilots had stayed in a small ward of their own, just beside my six-bed ward. Their Russian was poor, but they seemed friendly enough fellows, and I always made a point of exchanging small talk about the cold Moscow weather and soccer matches with them. The Defense Ministry placed great stock in such “golden friends.” Selling both military equipment and training to third world countries was a major source of hard currency for the government.

  And these handsome, ambling black fellows certainly had plenty of hard currency. Like many Middle Eastern or African pilots, their selection had more to do with tribal or family connections than natural aptitude. Their main interest in Moscow seemed to be buying luxury goods at a special Voyentorg that accepted only hard currency. After a week, their ward was piled high with cartons of stereo equipment and television sets.

  Their other main interest was Russian girls. Although it was strictly against hospital regulations, the five of them dressed in well-tailored civilian suits each night and marched out of the ward, bound for the city center. When they returned late each night, they had obviously been drinking. A Soviet pilot who spoke some French learned that the fellows from the Congo thought highly of Russian girls, but found them “tres cher” very expensive.

  Then one morning I saw a whole covey of senior doctors in their flapping white medical coats, led by Golubchikov, rushing toward the office of Colonel Ivanov. I had not thought too much about the incident then. But when I returned to the hospital in March, Natasha, a pleasant Urkainian nurse, had told me that three of the Congolese pilots had tested positive for HIV, the virus that caused “SPID,” AIDS.

  The ominous news had flashed around the hospital within an hour, she said. Not only had those fellows slept with Russian girls, the hospital had used the same hypodermic syringes to draw blood from the Congolese and other patients, including me. Although the Central Aviation Hospital had a West German CAT scan, computerized Japanese laboratory equipment, and the latest imported surgical devices, the Ministry of Defense was unable to obtain disposable syringes. And the nurses told me that lazy and incompetent medical orderlies rarely sterilized the reusable syringes correctly. And, six months earlier, I had sat in the laboratory with these African fellows while blood samples were taken from all of us.

  After a sleepless night, I went to see Olga, the friendly technician in charge of the blood chemistry section of the medical laboratory.

  “You’re not the only one who’s scared, Sasha,” she told me. Olga had a tiny supply of German plastic disposable syringes. She used one to draw my blood for an unauthorized test for HIV. I paced the corridors for three hours until she brought me the results. From her smile, I knew immediately I was negative. But over a glass of tea in the officers’ cafeteria, Olga told me the scandal had caused an uproar in the hospital. The five Congolese pilots had already been sent back to Brazzaville. The hospital staff had been sworn to secrecy.

  “By regulation, they should have been tested for SPID the first day they were here,” she whispered. “The Congo is right next to Zaire. All those countries are rife with the virus. And they should have been quarantined until they were tested.”

  “Aren’t they trying to trace the women those pilots were with?” I realized the question was absurd; the hospital obviously did not intend to even have Soviet military patients at the hospital tested for possible infection from contaminated hypodermic syringes. It was only my friendship with Olga that gave me the opportunity to put my mind at ease.

  Olga shook her head, again whispering. “No. There was no investigation. Senior officers want to pretend the incident never happened.”

  That night I again had trouble sleeping. But my insomnia was not caused by the sour dread of possible AIDS infection. I sat up in bed. Outside the ward, the dull orange glow of the fire alarm lamp lit the silent corridor. Sleet clicked unpleasantly on the windows. I realized the whole sordid business offered me a last, desperate chance to win my medical discharge through blackmail.

  Apparently the hospital was trying to suppress a scandal of major proportions. Some of the patients who could have been infected from those needles included senior pilots. But the hospital probably felt they had too much to lose to ever allow the story to surface. I now had other plans.

  April 6 was a drizzly spring day with the birch and maple trees in the park coming into their first full bud. I went to Lieutenant Colonel Merkulov’s office and asked for an immediate meeting with Colonel Ivanov. Something in my manner must have jarred Merkulov because he didn’t protest this unusual request.

  Half an hour later we were in Ivanov’s handsome office. The first thing I noticed were the ultimate symbols of status on the corner of his wide desk: four squat telephones. The telephones complemented the deep leather armchairs. Suddenly I remembered visiting the apartment of my young friend Elena’s family all those years before in Samara’s exclusive Microrayon 4. Then, I had naively assumed these accouterments of wealth and power were the reward for hard work. Now I knew better.

  Ivanov, unlike the professional physicians on his staff, saw himself as a gruff frontline troop commander. “Is this the officer who refused to vote?” he snarled, hardly looking at me.

  “Yes, Comrade Colonel,” Merkulov answered. “Captain Zuyev wants to discuss the matter of a medical discharge.”

  Ivanov glowered, already shaking his head. Again I tried to reasonably explain that I could serve the State better as a civilian, and that I had no need of the small pension due an officer discharged for medical reasons.

  Ivanov hardly seemed to listen. Instead, he flipped through the pages of the final review board determination. “You are officially removed from flying duty, Captain,” he said, reading from the dossier. “But you are fit for ground duty. I see no reason whatsoever to grant you a medical discharge.”

  He flipped closed the dossier and reached across his desk for Merkulov to take it back. My chance to end this business reasonably had passed. Ivanov, a good apparatchik, was using all that paper in the dossier to keep his ass clean. I could bellow about this injustice for the next seven years in Kirghiz or Uzbekistan and no one would hear me. It was time to gamble.

  “Comrade Colonel,” I said slowly, “when was the last time you granted an interview to members of the independent press?”

  Ivanov’s head rotated slowly, like a startled land tortoise. He fixed me with his sharp eye. “What are you talking about?”

  “Do you remember you had pilots from the Congo in the hospital last autumn?”

  Again, his large head moved with the languid wariness of a startled reptile. Beside me, Merkulov was almost trembling with fear.

  “What’s wrong with that, Captain?” Ivanov shot back.

  “How many had AIDS?” I neglected any honorific title of address. This was not the time for courtesy.

  “That’s not your business, Captain.”

  “Why not?” I let my anger surface now. “When I was here, I used the same toilets as them and probably was injected with the same hypodermic needles.”

  “We handle medical matters here, Zuyev,” the colonel shouted. “All of this is none of your affair.”

  “It’s my business if I’ve been infected.” I tried to
reason now. “How can you be sure none of the other pilots were exposed to the virus? Shouldn’t we all be tested?”

  Now Ivanov sunk deeper into the thick folds of his bemedaled uniform blouse, the tortoise in defense. “Again, Captain, this is not your affair.”

  I swallowed, and licked my dry lips. “It seems to me that this scandal has been covered up very well. But, you know, Comrade Colonel, with glasnost, it is my duty as a Communist to bring this matter to the attention of the independent press.”

  Finally Merkulov tried to intervene. He realized my intent. “Zuyev, how can you talk to the colonel like this?”

  I did not have time to answer. Ivanov leapt to his feet, a bull, no longer the wary tortoise. He was actually sputtering with rage. “Merkulov,” he shouted, “I give you two hours to get this captain out of the hospital. Then we will write a formal report on this outrage to his regiment.”

  Merkulov had me by the arm, but I hung back. “Comrade Colonel,” I tried to reason, “you still have a chance to stop this matter before I go to the press. Otherwise, you are making a big mistake.”

  Ivanov glared at me, his face a mask of hatred. “Get out!”

  I was discharged from the Central Aviation Hospital before noon that day. Normally the bureaucratic process of discharge from a military hospital took several days. But Ivanov’s staff was obviously motivated to be unusually efficient.

  PART FOUR

  CHAPTER 12

  Massacre

  April 7–14, 1989

  The Aeroflot flight from Moscow to Sochi on the Black Sea was scheduled to land in midafternoon. As always, the twin-jet Tu-134 airliner was filled to capacity. This flight went on to Yerevan and many of the passengers were Armenians. I noticed one group of young men seated behind me who seemed nervous, almost apprehensive. They were whispering among themselves and at one point called over the Armenian flight attendant for a hushed conference.