But we were simultaneously informed that now I could not be allowed to leave. The reason was the same: purported knowledge of state secrets. (I had been graduated from the mechanicsmathematics department of Moscow State University. and had stayed on to work for the university in applied mathematics.) After long and painful indecision. we decided that Viktor would leave with our son while I remained behind with my daughter and my aged mother. With this decision. we went to the visa office. But no visa was forthcoming. We wrote a new declaration. once again we obtained all the necessary papers. but these only seemed to disappear in the bureaucratic maze. Finally.