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
