A Familiar Smile

Ivan Rakhillo, A Familiar Smile (1961)

 

Soviet-Russian writer and military aviator Rakhillo here connects recent Soviet achievements in space with previous Soviet pioneers of flight from the 1930s and the Great Patriotic War.

Original Source: Vecherniaia Moskva, April 14, 1961, p. 1

Today the land of the Soviets salutes one of its winged heroes, the first pilot-cosmonaut. Moscow festively rejoice, greeting the bravest of the brave …

I had the honor to serve with the generation of airmen who gave our homeland its first Heroes of the Soviet Union, those who crossed the airways across the polar regions. They struck a Russian warrior’s blow to the treacherous blow of the enemy.

The vicious hurricane of war swept over our planet. These young airmen who today pierce the blue stratosphere on swift winged arrows, were still teenagers in those years.

Over the years of service in aviation, I learned to respect my humble, hard-working comrades-in-arms, who usually seemed unremarkable, ordinary, but were heroes in their deeds.

I always recognize them by smile. It is special, barely perceptible, full of gravitas and mysterious silence.

In my circle of aviation friends is not accepted to ask unnecessary questions. This is the unwritten rule of our partnership.

Every man — said Chkalov – needs to have one thing — the most important thing — his life’s work.

And, as a rule, that job is always hidden behind seven locks. You can guess or speculate about it, but to ask — never. At best, a friend can answer your unspoken question with a faint smile: “Understand, they say, you know.” And he can say no more, he doesn’t have the right. This smile always accompanies something important that can’t yet be spoken.

In the late 1930s pilot Anatoly Serov went on a long trip. We guessed where he might go: the Spanish were at war with the Nazis. But we did not ask our friend questions. Serov came back six months later. He told us of the exploits of an acquaintance – the Spanish pilot Rodrigo Mateo, who shot down forty-four Nazi aircraft in aerial combat over Madrid and was nicknamed by the people “Spanish night hawk.”

Certain signs and details in which the truth is revealed let us know who exactly was this anonymous Spanish pilot, but we didn’t ask unnecessary questions. That familiar smile let us know. But Serov could say no more.
I saw the same smile on Chkalov when he was preparing for his flight over the North Pole.

I saw it during the war on the faces of comrades on long-range aircraft, when they flew off in unthinkably overcast weather.

EVERY time I ran into the blue insignia of the military on the street, in the subway, in the theater, at a literary evening, I always looked into his face with inquisitive emotion and thought, is this him? Will he be the one who first opens the way into space? Sometimes I imagined that smile, and it brought a guess to mind: maybe this is one of them …

And recently from somewhere in the starry world of unexplored space, a man’s voice interrupted by static spoke from the radio. He was racing somewhere over South America, and then over Africa. It was difficult, impossible to hear his voice without deep emotion.

With amazing stereoscopic clarity we meet the first astronaut: he rushes through thick indigo space and looks at our Blue Earth … sees its continents, seas and oceans, mountains and cities covered with a silvery mist. And when the TV screen showed his manly face, Russian, open, bold, with wide-set intelligent eyes, I immediately recognized its long familiar smile, by which I always recognize my heroes.

It was him, our Soviet winged hero – Iurii Gagarin.

Translated by James von Geldern.

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