Departure From Moscow

...They wanted to get a good night's sleep before the ordeal tomorrow and told me not to call them anymore and to give the same message to my husband...

...I only remember the thought "so, that's how it happens, this is what it is" pulsating in my temples...

...He was, indeed, very nice: it was no real search at all—we could have smuggled out anything we had not been allowed to the day before, if we had known...

...Would they permit her to go...

...And then something unpredictable happened...

...The various types were represented here...

...I felt nothing...

...What a miracle of creation a human being is...

...Her presence did miracles for me—she was so calm...

...It had all seemed to be a very long time, but probably it was only a few minutes...

...Convulsions sieze me even now...

...She approached our almost scattered group majestically (she was seeing the young mathematician off), triumphantly, solemnly shook everybody's hand, and said the only right thing that could be said, but that only she was able to say: "Congratulations...

...So we sat there, in a cozy little bedroom, holding each other, echoing each other's sobs...

...we had to pay an extra twenty rubles...

...I was scared—not of this, of course—I thought it might be a provocation, a revenge for you know what, but suddenly he changed his mind...

...You can't imagine what I've been through," he said...

...And anyway, would I not be afraid to visit a socialist country...

...After they left, my father-in-law called to say it was too late for them to come either to the airport or to our apartment...

...Sitting in a soft leather armchair I murmured to myself, "No, it can't have happened, not to us...

...My father came for "his" goodbye, bringing his stepdaughter—a fat, good-natured girl...

...it is a bad dream, we're just imagining it as we used to so often...

...DAYS OF AWE 5741 Elena Tsypkin, who lives in Boston, is a recent emigre from the Soviet Union...

...Neither he nor his parents could decide whether they should try to find him in that corner of Sheremetjevo International, come to our place, or wait at home...

...We decided that my aunt would not come to the airport tomorrow...

...I had always tried to discern his figure when waiting for a bus across the street, but now there was no soft, furry, fuzzy white spot to be seen...

...His mother, a Holocaust survivor, was talking to another woman in Rumanian...

...Who knows," I thought, "how long this will take...

...Only on this day could I allow myself the luxury of a taxi ride from Sheremetjevo to my mother's place—they are situated at two opposite ends of Moscow...

...There are such moments in human life, moments impossible to believe in, moments of absolute, absurdly complete reality...

...They were going in the same cab with us...

...He cut the collar of my old Ceylon shirt, for some reason, but only found pieces of cotton, for the shirt was very, very old...

...This familiar image, when I saw him appear at the door, suddenly pierced me with pain: for a brief, but very terrible moment, I had the feeling that I would never see him again...

...Sometime around 1:00 a.m...

...By the early afternoon I was completely lost: "Should I go to my mother's or should I let him rest and wait until his father is back from work to say goodbye...

...My father acted like an efficient administrator...

...After making sandwiches for my husband and putting them on the window still, where they would stay fresh together with the champagne, I went to bed, thanking God for the fresh linen sheets, my single comfort...

...When the alarm clock rang the next morning, we didn't feel half as bad as we expected to...

...Some held their farewell parties right there at the airport, while waiting for their luggage to be searched...

...We wondered if we could squeeze all the bags and suitcases into a single car or whether we should call for a cab...

...Customs had not even opened, but already the people in line were quarreling about whose turn would be first...

...We boarded it, still talking to new friends, trying to look at the white glittering plane but all the time attracted, as if magnetically, to the small group near the airport building...

...My husband to his parents, of course...

...I was here with my family, but my husband . . . would he be able to see his father, and what was happening to him now...

...In the meantime my stepfather, grandfather and aunt tactfully left the apartment to leave me alone with Mother...

...There was also a musician, young and apparently going alone...

...He was sweating, exhausted (the elevator was not working) but he was here whole and alive...

...We had mentally rehearsed this moment so many times, but now it was impossible to believe it was happening, physically and inevitably...

...then they took my husband and the artist away— something "rang" on them when they were passing the check point, but nothing was discovered and they let the two men go...

...He threw the bags on the floor with a sign, afraid of more hysterics from me...

...it would, we hoped, happen to us tomorrow...

...Then my former roommate appeared...

...I can recall them only because I recall also that a few hours after our "death" at Sheremetjevo airport, everything changed as if magically: a new life started, we walked around Vienna, talking to new people as if all the tortures had been forgotten, in much the same way women forget delivery...

...It was a rehearsal for the final trip tomorrow...

...The walls and doors were made of glass though, and our family and friends could still see us filling in customs declarations, placing our hand luggage on the scale...

...Only we were very slow in washing and dressing, and were not ready when Father and our best friend arrived...

...And then the worst of them—they told me his nickname was Fascist— found some undeclared silver trifle and threatened to start a case against us...

...I had to find packers who charged me three rubles per suitcase and all the time I was afraid that I would not have enough cash on me...

...I left, and as I was going to the taxi stand I turned around incessantly to wave goodbye to my mother...

...I didn't very much rely on visiting my aunt in Poland and meeting my mother there...

...And we cried resolutely, bitterly, despairingly—there was no feasible hope for us to see each other again...

...And then the others were back...

...Don't leave your parents alone"— my husband...

...A young man from Kishinyov, kind, shy and handsome, played with a little girl who would not get off his lap for anything, not even to go to her parents...

...I am, or rather we both are, lone wolves...

...I was not able to fall asleep and so I switched to my favorite occupation—watching people in line...

...I helped him with his shower, put him to bed, set the alarm clock (we had three or four hours to sleep) and then, without any bitterness, just mentioning it as a fact, taking it for granted, he said, "And I never said a proper goodbye to my father...

...Don't worry too much"—my mother...

...We drank with "Cheers," and then everybody started talking...

...My in-laws could have come here to visit their son, my husband, but what if he is sent to the search area where no one else is allowed...

...My husband was still sleeping...

...He called approximately every hour only to inform us that they had just started, were not in a hurry but in a bad mood, that there were still four people ahead of him, that yes, he had eaten, and would I please call his mother and suggest it might make sense for her and Father to come and try to catch him before his turn came up...

...Then, as the bus moved further, closer to the plane, we could no longer distinguish one group from the other...

...Sheremetjevo airport was almost empty at this early hour, but we were not the first emigrating Jews in line...

...From its window I looked at our building, found our windows and the balcony on which our cat so often used to sit...

...On this trip I could see for the last time almost all of the city...

...I heard footsteps and jumped out of the bed to meet my husband...

...I could not read, walk, or go out for a breath of fresh air, and mentally I was preparing myself for not being able to say "farewell" to my mother and for the guilt my husband would experience for not spending some time with his father before tomorrow morning...

...We were waiting for him in our lovely courtyard where the trees and grass were brightly green and fresh in the morning cool...

...Only a woman walking a dog was there besides us...

...I know that even people who felt enthusiastic, almost euphoric, about leaving barely survived these days...

...But the time for real tears came when we had to go up the famous staircase, from which you are seen for the last time by all those who came to bid you farewell...

...And then suddenly everybody was silent as if the source of these urgent messages was dead...

...When, in my narration, I approach these last days I see very well why nobody has ever written about them...

...Only our house, the stores and the trees—our home that we were seeing for the last time...

...By this time all our friends and relatives were standing outside looking at us through the transparent wall...

...He left glasses and champagne for the next morning on the window sill (the refrigerator had been sold), and checked if everybody planning to come to the airport had been provided with appropriate transportation...

...After the last kisses, we went holding hands into the area where only passengers are allowed...

...At that moment an indifferent voice announced a search of hand-luggage for our flight...

...We passed through the machine...

...Unlike some minutes earlier, we could also hear each other, but all the wishes and exclamations were mixing with others from another group...

...Good luck...

...We had extra money because the customs officials had charged us much less than we expected for the luggage...

...We could not hear each other—the walls were thick—but spoke with gestures...

...She stopped to wish us good luck and to ask where we would be living in the U.S...

...I entered the building and sat down in an armchair prepared to hold our place in line until the afternoon...

...Mother, I want to kiss you again"—me...

...After we left the luggage at the locker room, our friend drove my husband home to get some sleep...

...Then he started checking every address in my old phone book, asking who all these people were, and then he searched me personally...

...Then they did not let me take some piece of silver shit,"—here he pushed a bag with his foot—"the canned food and all the medicines...

...No sense in coming," he told his parents...

...But the people in line, quarreling and doing business, were getting more and more aggressive, and I was alone...

...she would have to stay with my grandmother who, it seemed, did not completely understand what was going on...

...We had to leave the stairs and go away...

...I'll join you in a couple of years"— our Russian friend...

...She had not been able to come to the farewell party...

...The artist had gone home, leaving a friend to reserve his place, and a young mathematician, also sharing many acquaintances with us, was here, but busy with his parents who had come to support him...

...The young customs officer allowed me to run out to the waiting area and to stay there a little longer than was necessary to pick up the money...

...A second part of her memoirs will appear in a forthcoming issue...

...My husband still did not know when he would be searched—in half an hour or two hours from now...

...It did not matter that we had to go through the routine security check for weapons...

...My mother cried out but I yelled: "Mother, don't, don't let them see us cry...

...Pajv tially responsible for our marriage, she would not have the chance to say goodbye to my husband...

...thinking "It really is happening to us, we are really going up this notorious staircase we have heard so much about...

...We were all standing there, ready to cry, not knowing what to do or say, when a big, handsome, middle-aged woman appeared—the mother of a friend of ours and by now an established leader of Jewish activists...

...False hope—he called again and told us the search would begin half an hour later...

...I knew that anything could still happen, but my only thought as I gazed spellbound at my mother was that I would not see her anymore, ever again—and I could not believe that...

...Like a magician, my father produced the champagne...

...I kissed my husband goodbye, not knowing when or where I would see him next—at home late at night, or not until the flight the next morning...

...In a way, it was good to have them back...

...Then the bus made an abrupt turn towards the plane and we saw no more...

...It was happening to them today...

...In the morning our friend had done the same for my husband...

...Suddenly, tired from worrying and from the emotional stress, I grew dumb with sleepiness...

...It was like a funeral—flowers, groups, dislocated bits of dialogue: "We'll apply soon"—my husband's cousin...

...Cabs were expensive and people had to share rides...

...The cab was already waiting when we got downstairs...

...As the bus started, we could still discern their silhouettes, were still able to tell "our" group from the others...

...My husband, himself crying, I think, dragged me away...

...One woman, however, had to undergo a humiliating gynecological examination...

...But I was composed, served him supper and listened...

...But it was dark already...

...The time went slowly...

...Could they see our bus...

...They were all standing there in a small, helpless but picturesque group like many others...

...But when an especially aggressive person hinted that he had not seen me here before, I knew it was no time for feelings of guilt, or other such fine emotions: I called my husband from the pay phone and he soon arrived, wearing his usual summer attire and a bag over his shoulder...

...person when we get to the U.S...

...Yet that was what was happening, and the next moment we went through the corridor to the bus...

...Try to get the information I asked you for"—my father-in-law...

...Mother, let's cry a little bit together," I said...

...We arrived at Sheremetjevo after my in-laws and mother...

...When I was running back into the search area (it was like returning for a moment from the other world) I told him, "Thank you, God bless you for that...

...Of all the people I know, we were the only ones to spend the night before departure alone...

...Periodically I called my mother-in-law...

...She was envious, but in a good-natured way...

...Fascinated, we watched them...

...She was waving to me from the window of their apartment as she had done so many times before—happily when I was approaching, with melancholy when I was going away...

...Could we really be leaving for the West, for a better life...

...When I came home, endless phone calls and negotiations with my in-laws began again...

...Nothing...

...We could only guess who was who and where by the vague shapes and blurred colors...

...I hugged my father and stepfather simultaneously—a thing impossible in any other situation...

...And then the worst moment came...

...Our luggage weighed too much...

...Did we see or imagine them waving at us...

...I was in shock, but with at least one part of myself I knew our parents were still downstairs, hoping to see us once more when we were on the field already...

...and she stopped...

...It was not 7:30 yet, and the families leaving today were just beginning to undergo their hand-luggage search and to board the airplane...

...Great...

...I remember even making funny faces at my sad, tired mother, who was on the verge of tears...

...Gradually others began to arrive...

...What...

...he had driven him home through the Moscow Beltway, with all its woods, and beloved, familiar places...

...I could not make out her features, even her shape was vague, but I saw desperation in the waving gesture...

...I saw my in-laws, both crying, saw sad faces trying to look cheerful, heard funny jokes from the other group...

...These people were even more tired than I was, for they had come from their native towns for these final procedures and were staying in shabby hotels far from the airport...

...Or should they come to my place, as well as my parents, and wait there...

...Then he did not call for some time and we hoped that he had finally been asked to go into the search area...

...I met an artist, intelligent and snobbish—we had seen each other before, at the embassy, and discovered that we had many common acquaintances...

...First, I learned that they don't repack the suitcases after they are searched...

...Yet the trauma remains: looking at our friends, relatives and parents for the last time, so intently it was as if we had been forced to do it by some super-human interference...

...If your English is really so good," he joked, "I'll hire you as my P.R...

...I was virtually torn in two by guilt...

...Finally we started...

...For one last time I turned, standing at the farthest point from which ? could still see her...

...People were already telling chilling stories about searches, arrests and people not showing up at home between the early morning of the day of the search and the flight the next day...

...But all this was premature...

...Our last night in Moscow was beginning and it was obvious that no matter what, he would not be able to come to their place...

...sickness and dizziness prevail...

...I was hesitant and reluctant to leave him, but it was time for me to go to my mother's...

...When at my mother's I could not say a proper goodbye to her, nor to my aunt, grandmother, or stepfather...

...I think he was a connoisseur of human nature and guessed just by looking at us that we did not have diamonds to smuggle...

...Now we are standing on the top of the staircase, seeing everybody clearly for the last time...

...And suddenly, if even for a brief moment, everything changed—we were getting out of here, it was a moment to rejoice, a time of triumph despite all the pain...

...But we'll keep it—it is the kind of thing you show to your grandchildren...

...I kissed my mother again...