14. The Escape
I landed in Moscow without incident. I immediately mailed the other person’s passport, and then, now with my own documents, went to visit my dissident-activity friend, Viktor Yelistratov. Viktor speaks excellent English, and it was through him that I arranged meetings with diplomats and correspondents. I told Viktor why I had come. The next day I went to see Boris Chernobylsky, an activist in the Jewish immigration movement who later served a term in the Kolyma camps — at the time he was there, I was also serving my second term there, only he was on the ordinary regime and I was on the strict one. “I think you ought to represent your movement on your own in Western political and public circles. You need to operate without intermediaries who don’t understand the nuances of your problems. I’ll help you connect with the right people from Western political circles. When the opportunity arises, I’ll send a birthday telegram to some innocuous address you can give me. When you get that telegram, you’ll know that in a week’s time you must be in Moscow,” Chernobylsky told me.
When I walked out of his apartment building a couple of hours later, KGB agents were standing by the entrance, making no effort to hide. There were two of them. I walked on, paying them no attention. They immediately fell in behind me, about fifteen paces back. “Are they going to grab me, or just play on my nerves?” – I was thinking that as I reached an intersection. Just then a car pulled up in front of me. Two men instantly jumped out of it, and the KGB agents who had been following me seized me by the arms from behind. A few seconds later I was already being driven away. “Well, what pros,” I thought. “Even the passers‑by didn’t notice a thing.”
They took me to some militia station and left me under the watch of militiamen. About two hours later a KGB officer named Boldin appeared. He read out an order for my expulsion from Moscow, signed by the city commandant, and asked:
“Do you have money?”
“What does your order have to do with my money?” I asked.
“So we can buy you a ticket for the return trip.”
“When I need to, I’ll manage without your services.”
“So do you have money or don’t you?” I’m asking, Boldin said, trying to keep calm.
“You’d do better to answer me,” I said. “Why are you grabbing me on the street like bandits without bringing any charges?”
“So, do you actually have the money?” Boldin was already getting angry. I demonstratively ignored him and started reading a newspaper that was lying on the table.
“Fine,” said Boldin, and he summoned two militiamen. I was taken to Domodedovo Airport. They led me into some room on the second floor and stationed two men in civilian clothes to watch me. The boarding call was announced for Magadan. At that moment Boldin came in and said:
“It’s time for us to go.”
I was ordered to go with them, and ten minutes later we were at the boarding stairs of the plane. It was an Il-18. Those didn’t fly to Vladivostok; the Vladivostok flights used the Il-62. “Is it really to Magadan? What kind of joke is this? Could they still be playing on my nerves?” I wondered as I climbed the stairs, but I didn’t ask any questions. Boldin and the two guards led me to the last — the third — cabin in the tail section of the plane. Two army officers were sitting there. They indicated the seat at the very back of the cabin for me. The two guards remained standing near me, while Boldin, the officers, and the stewardess moved toward the cabin exit. Boldin was telling them something, nodding in my direction, and they nodded back as if in full understanding. The engines were already roaring and I couldn’t hear anything, but I guessed what the conversation was about. Boldin and the guards left, leaving me with the officers. Once the plane began gaining altitude, the officers paid me no attention whatsoever; in the air I wouldn’t run anywhere anyway. They pulled out a bottle of vodka and started drinking it, even though that was forbidden on the plane. I pretended to doze off and thought, “Maybe they’ll talk about me, about what they plan to do with me next?” But they had their own conversation.
You couldn’t fly to Magadan without a special pass. It was a restricted zone. Buying a ticket out of Magadan also required special permission — a stamp in the passport. “They couldn’t jail me in Moscow without a reason, so they’re shipping me to Magadan in order to arrest me there for entering the restricted zone without a pass,” I figured. I didn’t want to end up in prison that stupidly and get a year in the camps, so I decided to escape at the first opportunity.
A few hours later the stewardess announced that the flight was landing in the city of Krasnoyarsk for refueling.
The plane touched down. The boarding stairs were brought up. Passengers were told to leave the plane and go inside the terminal building. I wanted to get out too, but the officers blocked my way and ordered me to sit back down. I could certainly have tossed the two of them aside; I could see I was physically stronger than both of them, and on top of that they were already tipsy. But they could have provoked a fight and shot me. I went back, but I sat down a little closer to the exit. The officers calmed down. They began chatting with the stewardess, showering her with compliments, and she laughed merrily.
It grew very hot inside the plane. The ventilation was off. The officers were flushed from the vodka. One of them asked the stewardess to open the side door that was used as an entrance and exit. She opened the door. The cabin grew cooler. The officers unbuttoned the collars of their service shirts and began to stretch. I also stood up and stretched.
I had only a single moment, and I couldn’t let it slip. Two jumps, and I was at the door and leaped out of the plane. After my not entirely successful landing I felt a pain in my leg, but ignoring the pain I scrambled up and ran, not yet fully aware of where I was running. I knew I had to run. Behind me, brandishing pistols, the bewildered officers were shouting. I ran, orienting myself on the move. Ahead of me was a fence. To the left it stretched off somewhere far away, and to the right it ran right up against the terminal building. Almost straight ahead, about a hundred meters away, there were gates. I headed straight for them.
Dashing through those gates, I saw old barracks. I rushed toward them in order to hide among them and get as far away from the airport as possible. I ran through crooked, filthy lanes, leaping over puddles and some kind of rubbish heaps. Squawking chickens scattered from under my feet. Some dog rushed after me barking, which only added to my speed, and I ran on. The barracks ended, and I found myself on a wide street. High-rise buildings began on the other side of the street. Here I stopped and walked calmly along the pavement, considering my situation. I weighed how long it would take the officers to report my escape, how long it would take for that report to go up through the proper channels, and how soon the local KGB and militia could start hunting for me.
A reckless idea came to me: to go right away, as quickly as possible, back to the terminal building and, if possible, fly immediately to Moscow. I had only seventy rubles on me; the rest of the money and my things had stayed with Viktor. That money should be enough for a ticket. I entered the terminal, found the ticket window for departing flights. About fifteen people were standing there. I got in line. The line moved slowly. When two or three people remained ahead of me, an announcement blasted through the terminal: “Citizen Perchatkin, arriving from Moscow, please go to the militia room.”
I was stunned by the stupidity of the local KGB. “Fat lot of luck they’ll have,” I muttered to myself and walked out of the terminal. I knew there would be a hunt for me, but I hadn’t expected it to begin that quickly. Perhaps what saved me was that they hadn’t had time yet to reproduce my photographs and distribute them to KGB secret agents, militiamen, and the taxi drivers who moonlighted for the KGB.
Leaving the terminal building, I realized I needed to walk close along the walls, without stepping out into open space, because the square could already be under surveillance. I skirted roads where patrol cars might already be circling and came out again near some barracks. I knew the KGB had no business in that backwater. I decided to make my way through those slums as far from the terminal as possible. I emerged again near the high-rises, beside which ran the city highway. I had to break out beyond Krasnoyarsk. I decided to stop some car and persuade the driver to take me out of the city, and then — whatever God provides. I stood there waving my hand, stopping cars, and thinking, “Just don’t let a taxi pop up.” I didn’t wait long, maybe three minutes. A white Zhiguli stopped next to me.
“Where to?” the driver asked.
“What’s the nearest town from here?”
“Achinsk.”
“Can you give me a lift to Achinsk?”
“How much will you give?”
“How much do you need?”
“A thirty will do.”
“Fine,” I said and got into the car.
In Achinsk I asked the driver to take me to the railway station. I immediately bought a ticket to Novosibirsk and decided to wait there for the Vladivostok–Moscow train that Zina was supposed to be taking. By my reckoning, the train she was on should arrive in Novosibirsk in two days. In Novosibirsk the train stopped for twenty-five to thirty minutes, and that was enough to find Zina.
The next morning I was already in Novosibirsk. I had to somehow get through those two days. I had very little money left; I hoped I would meet Zina and that she had money. But despite that hope, I decided not to spend any money, and I allowed myself to buy only a toothbrush, toothpaste, and a razor. I was wary of going around unshaven; I didn’t want my unkempt appearance to draw the attention of the militia, who might check my passport. If I had been in jeans or athletic clothes, it might not have stood out, but I was in an elegant suit. I shaved meticulously. I wiped my shoes with paper. During the day I wandered aimlessly around the city to pass the time, and at night I dozed sitting in the railway station, trying to sit where there were lots of people. Those two days were sheer torment for me. Hungry, exhausted, and almost without sleep, I roamed the city. On the second day I grew used to resting on city buses. I dozed while the bus made its loop from the station through the city and back to the station. I couldn’t spend the night in a hotel — I had little money, and more importantly, to check into a hotel you had to show your passport.
Two days later I ran through the cars of the train arriving from Vladivostok. I peered hopefully into every car, into every compartment, but all around me were unfamiliar faces. I thought maybe I had made a mistake, or maybe Zina had left a day later, so I decided to wait for the next train. I already had little hope of meeting her, but still I ran through the cars again. I didn’t find Zina. “She’s been detained,” I understood, but I didn’t want to believe it, and I ran through the train again, peering into every compartment. Zina wasn’t there. I bought a ticket to Moscow. I realized that there was no road home for me, because in all likelihood an order had been given to fabricate a criminal case against me and put me away. I already knew of many such cases, so I had to get to Moscow by any means possible and inform Western diplomats and correspondents about everything.
The train was leaving in twenty-four hours. I had only five rubles left. That was the money I needed to get from the station to Viktor’s place. Hungry, I roamed the city again, but now I had the prospect of sleeping it off on the train in a day’s time.
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