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made the scar on his forehead turn bright crimson. Then he suddenly became serious.
    “Do you realise how difficult it is to fly into space?” he asked. “And what if your Motherland requires you to lay down your life? What then, eh?”
    “If it comes to it …” I said with a frown.
    He stared me right in the eyes for maybe three minutes.
    “I believe you,” he said. “You can do it.”
    When he heard that Mitiok, who had wanted to fly to the moon since he was a baby, was joining too, he noted down his name on a piece of paper. Mitiok told me afterwards that the old man spent a long time asking him why he particularly wanted to go to the moon.
    Next day after breakfast, lists of the successful applicants appeared on the columns of the garrison club: my name and Mitiok’s were beside each other in the list, out of alphabetical order. Some of the boys trudged off to appeal, some of them jumped up and down for joy on the criss-crossed white lines of the asphalt, some ran to call home, and I recall, high above it all, the white streak of a vapour trail in the colourless August sky.
    Those of us who were enrolled as first-year cadets were summoned to a meeting with the flight-training staff—the teachers were already waiting for us in the club. I remember heavy velvet drapes and a table across the full width of the stage, with officers sitting at it looking strict and official. The meeting was chaired by a youthful-looking lieutenant-colonel with a skinny pointed nose: while he was talking, I imagined him in flying suit and pressurised helmet, sitting in the cabin of a MiG fighter covered in blotches, like expensive jeans.
    “Okay, boys, we don’t want to begin by talking about scary stuff, do we? But you know well enough we don’t get to choose the times we live in—the times choose us. Maybe I shouldn’t be giving you this kind of information, but I’m going to tell you anyway …”
    The lieutenant-colonel paused for a second, bent down to the major sitting beside him, and whisperedsomething in his ear. The major grimaced, rapped thoughtfully on the table with his pencil, and then nodded.
    “Right,” said the lieutenant-colonel in a quiet voice. “At a recent closed session of the political instructors of the armed forces, the times we are living in were defined as a Pre-War Period!”
    The colonel paused, waiting for a response, but clearly the audience hadn’t understood a thing—at least Mitiok and I hadn’t.
    “Let me explain,” he went on, even more quietly. “The meeting was on July 15, right? So up until July 15 we were living in a Post-War Period, but since then—a whole month already—we’ve been living in a Pre-War Period. Is that clear or not?”
    For a few seconds there was silence in the hall.
    “I’m not saying this to scare you,” the lieutenant-colonel went on, in a normal voice now, “but we have to remember the responsibility we bear on our shoulders, don’t we? And make no mistake about it, by the time you get your diplomas and your ranks, you’ll be Real Men with a great big capital M, the kind that exist only in the land of Soviets.”
    The lieutenant-colonel sat down, straightened his tie, and touched the edge of a glass to his lips—his hands were shaking and I thought I could hear the faintest echo of his teeth rattling against the glass. The major stood up.
    “Boys,” he said in a melodious voice, “although it would be more correct now to call you cadets, but I’m just going to call you boys anyway. Boys! Remember the story of the legendary hero Alexei Maresiev, immortalisedby Boris Polevoi in his book
The Story of a Real Man!
The hero our college is named after! He lost both legs in combat. But after losing his legs, he didn’t lose heart, he rose up again on artificial legs and soared into the sky like Icarus to strike at the Nazi scum! Many people told him it was impossible, but he never forgot what was most important—that he was a Soviet man! A Real Man!