MiG Pilot: the Final Escape of Lt. Belenko

Looking for a pencil after school, he found some of her papers and records, studied them, and made a discovery. She was maintaining two bank accounts. Into one she put all of his father's salary and part of her own for general family use; into the other she sequestered some of her salary for the separate benefit of her children. That evening Viktor confronted her with his findings, and during the shouting, abusive argument that ensued, their mutual animosities spilled out. In front of the family Viktor's father took off his belt and flogged him furiously for three or four minutes until his own exasperations were spent. Maybe Viktor could have stopped it sooner, had he cried, but he did not.

The next day he enlisted a schoolmate into a compact to run away, south to the sunshine and orchards of Tashkent. Eluding railway police, then an aged conductor, they slipped aboard a train just as it started to roll out of the Rubtsovsk station. The train, however, was headed north, and they got off at a station some fifty miles away. As they attempted to sneak onto a southbound train, police grabbed them by their collars, dragged them into the station, interrogated and beat them. Unable to verify their false identities, authorities interned them in a detention center for orphans and delinquents pending investigation. The second night they escaped into the countryside by scaling a barbed-wire fence and hid on a kolkhoz for a few days before venturing back to the railroad station. There the police again caught them, beat them, and dragged them back to the center. Some three weeks later Viktor's father arrived to bring him home. He was calm. «I cannot stop you from running away. But if you do it again, they will put you in reform school. That is like a prison, and once you have been there, you will never be the same. Think about it; you must decide.»

Father is happy with Serafima Ivanovna, and they are good for each other. I am a problem for them both. I do not belong with them. Yet I am forbidden to leave. I cannot change what is. So until I am older, I will stay away as much as I can. Then, on the first day I can, I will leave.

The school maintained a superb library with a large collection of politically approved classics. The room was warm and quiet and it became a sanctuary into which Viktor retreated in his withdrawal from home. Pupils were not permitted to choose specific books; instead, the librarian selected for them after assessing their individual interests and capacities.

Viktor wondered about the librarian because she was so different from others. Although elderly, she walked erectly and held her head high, as if looking for something in the distance, and her bearing made him think of royalty. He often saw her walking to or from school alone; he never saw her fraternizing with the other teachers or, for that matter, in the company of another adult. There were stories about her. It was said that her husband had been a zek and that many years ago she had come from Moscow, hoping to find him in the camps. Some even said that she herself had been a zek. Viktor never knew what the truth was. But whatever her past or motives, the librarian elected to invest heavily of herself in him.

Having questioned him for a while, she said, «Well, tell me, young man, what interests you? History, geography, science, adventure…?»

«Adventure!» Viktor exclaimed.

She handed him a copy of The Call of the Wild, which he brought back in the morning. «You disappoint me,» she said. «Why do you not want to read the book?»

«But I have read it.»

«Really? Please, then, recite to me that which you read.»

His accurate and detailed account of the novel by Jack London evoked from her the slightest of smiles and a nod. «Let us see if you can do as well with these,» she said, handing him copies of Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, and Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. «However, do not neglect your studies. You have time for many adventures.»