“The ones that haven’t crashed or gone through the ice,” I said, unable to stop myself.
The metal of the hatchway was, as promised, still warm. Snow had melted underneath the spacecraft, in fact. I crawled in first, and immediately discovered another challenge: The seats were to one side and on top. (Even seeing the spacecraft on its side, I had hoped that they might be on the bottom.)
I curled up in one corner, my side against the control panel, as Shiborin entered and saw the layout. “This isn’t training,” he said, “this is torture.”
The hatch was closed behind us, as it would be on landing, and with a final radio check, the test officially began. It was like hide-and-seek, with Shiborin and me counting off fifteen minutes until we could open the hatch from the inside (necessary, because the air quickly began to get stifling) while our instructors ran and hid.
At the stroke of fifteen minutes, I used the radio to call them, was given permission to crack open the hatch. As soon as I did so, Shiborin said, “Let me out of here. I don’t feel so good.”
The rules allowed him to exit the craft at any point. Better yet, his “sanitary exercise” was also allowed. Even if it were forbidden, were Voronin and his team going to search the area for frozen piles of shit?
Then we settled down to an extremely dull morning. I broke out the rations and water — we had very strict rules about how much water to consume — and amused myself by speculating on how quickly the spacecraft was cooling down, while Shiborin dozed.
When I tired of that, I went back to considering my situation. Maybe it was due to my agitated mental state, but sitting in a cramped, cold Soyuz mockup on the tundra seemed not that far removed from an L-3 parked on the lunar Sea of Serenity. If anything, the L-3 would be more comfortable! And I would have the added pleasure of seeing the surface of the Moon outside my window.
On the Moon there would be no Uncle Vladimir, no General Nikolai Ribko, no Ustinov or the Hammer or their clans. There might be Americans, but there would be no Communist Party.
No matter what, I had to find some way to save my cosmonaut career. I wanted that visit to the Moon.
After our midday reports, and a meal of dry, sublimated curds and nuts, I dozed off, waking in pain and confusion less than an hour later. “What the hell is going on?” Shiborin snapped.
Someone was rapping on the cold metal of the spacecraft! We feigned joy at our “rescue,” and opened the hatch all the way.
Voronin was standing there. The others were climbing off the truck with a line to attach to the spacecraft. “The test is canceled,” he announced.
“What did we do?” Shiborin said, fearful that his early visit to the toilet might have derailed his cosmonaut career.
“Nothing. You will complete the training another time.” Voronin turned to me. “Lieutenant Ribko needs to return to Moscow immediately on personal business.”
After a stop at the barracks to collect my belongings, I was driven down to the airport and put on another An-12 heading south.
I had to leave Shiborin and the others behind. Poor Shiborin was told he and Voronin would be teamed for another survival “flight” the next day.
No one had any idea of the nature of my “personal business,” which, of course, allowed me several hours to fret. Was I being arrested? Possibly, though surely someone would have arrested me in Vorkuta so I could be returned to Moscow in custody.
I was alarmed that Colonel Belyayev and Ivan Saditsky were at Chkalov to meet me when I arrived. But Belyayev looked elsewhere as Saditsky put his arm around me. “I’m sorry to tell you this, Yuri, but your father is dead.”
50
Vagankov Cemetery
These were the facts: At six o’clock that morning, about the time, allowing for the different zones, that Shiborin and I were eating our breakfast in Vorkuta, a militiaman taking the train back to Moscow from his post in Monino happened to get off at the Tsiolkovsky Station, the one closest to Star Town, to buy a newspaper, he said. (One of his fellow officers conceded that it was to buy vodka, which was always in stock at that station.)
He noticed a man’s body at the end of the platform, under a dusting of snow, a man in a full military uniform, dead from a gunshot wound to the left temple. No weapon was found in the area, ruling out suicide. This was the official information, of course, which meant nothing to me.
My father, Colonel-General Nikolai Tikhonovich Ribko, Hero of the Soviet Union, Pilot First Class, graduate of the Red Banner Air Force Academy, and holder of the Order of the Red Star.
That was how he was described in a column in Red Star, the newspaper of the Soviet armed forces, two days later. He died, of course, “while fulfilling his duties.” I could have written a more interesting obituary: shameless tool of the Communist Party, poisoner of hundreds or thousands of Soviet citizens, murderer of at least two, or shall we count my mother as three?
Add coward.
That word could also have been applied to me during the tortured days that followed my return from Vorkuta. I was taken to see the body in the morgue at the Central Aviation Hospital, and gave my permission for its cremation. My father’s stars and medals entitled him to burial in the cemetery at Novodevichy Convent, the final resting place of many heroes of Soviet aviation and industry, but I insisted that his ashes should rest in Vagankov, next to those of my mother.
Since there were no other survivors, I inherited the contents of the flat in Frunze Embankment — though not the flat itself, of course. One of my father’s adjutants, a Lieutenant Colonel Kozlov, explained that it would be assigned to another member of the Air Force high command, though not for several weeks, at least. They would give me time to dispose of my father’s possessions, a process I was not eager to begin.
Katya joined me in a brief visit to the flat, however, the day before the funeral service. I expected to find some explanation, some note, but found nothing unusual, though Katya pointed out that everything was clean and in its place, as if the owner had planned to take a long trip….
The funeral took place on Saturday, December 6, 1968, a cold, bright day — the day when Bykovsky or Leonov could have commanded a manned L-1 launch, had things gone differently.
Had my father not interfered.
There was a good crowd: Shiborin and his wife. Lev and Marina, together but not, I judged, truly together. Filin and Triyanov. Saditsky and several other cosmonauts, plus my father’s immediate associates, and General Kamanin himself. (How many of them would have come if they’d known how much more difficult the late General Ribko had made their lives?)
And, of course, Katya and Uncle Vladimir.
I had received a genuinely warm call of condolences from Uncle Vladimir the day I returned from Vorkuta, which was especially painful, given my long suspicions of him. His manner at the funeral was completely proper, and caused me to doubt my own feelings.
But then, doubt was my most dominant emotion that week, and for several that followed.
Katya, who had rushed to Star Town the moment she heard the news of my father’s death, had won my gratitude (if not my heart) for all time for the way she stayed by my side, helping me deal with the awful postmortem rituals and necessities, ultimately organizing and serving as hostess for a reception following the funeral that we held at the flat. Here I accepted condolences for what seemed like the tenth time, and drank far too heavily toasting the memory of General Ribko — whose official portrait, now bordered in black, dominated the living room.