Only One Year [antikvár]

Last Day in the U.S.S.R.It never crossed my mind on December 19, 1966,that it was to be my last day in Moscow and in Russia. Stillless could others around me have imagined anything of thekindmy son Joseph, his wife Helen, my daughter Katie,and many friends who dropped in that day.A very cold daya frosty five degrees (Fahrenheit), reach-ing four below by nightfall. Snow kept falling, threateningto turn into a regular storm. My plane was due to leave theSheremetyevo Airport at one o'clock at night, but no matterhow often I called the dispatcher's office, no one there couldtell me whether a flight would be possible in such weather.It seemed as if Moscow was determined not to let me go.Friends and acquaintances kept calling up"Is it true? Areyou really flying away today?"and for the hundredth timeI had to repeat the same thing. It was indeed extraordinarythat I should have been given permission to take my latehusband's ashes to India, and people just couldn't believethat I would actually leave that evening.This was to be my first journey abroad, not counting theten days during the summer of 1947 that I had spent with mybrother in East Germany, where he was stationed at the