His eyes fixed on Artyom but his gaze was going right through the young man and dissolved in the ethereal distance, where translucent, majestic silhouettes of the dusty buildings rose from the dusky smoke, giving Artyom the impression that he could have turned around and seen it for himself. The old man went quiet, heaved a deep sign, and Artyom decided not to interrupt his reminiscing.
‘Yes, there were indeed other metro systems apart from Moscow’s. Maybe people took refuge there and saved themselves . . . But think about it, young man!’ Mikhail Porfirevich raised a knotty finger in the air. ‘How many years have gone by, and nothing . . . Surely they would have found us after all these years if they had been looking for us? No,’ he dropped his head. ‘I don’t think so.’
And then, after five minutes of silence, almost inaudibly, the old man sighed and said, more to himself than to Artyom:
‘Lord, what a splendid world we ruined . . .’
A heavy silence hung in the tent. Vanechka, lulled by their quiet conversation, was sleeping, with his mouth slightly open and snuffling quietly, sometimes whining a little, like a dog. Mikhail Porfirevich didn’t say another word, and though Artyom was sure that he wasn’t yet sleeping, he didn’t want to disturb him, so he closed his eyes and tried to fall asleep.
He was thinking that, after everything that had happened to him over the course of that endless day, sleep would come instantly, but time stretched out slowly, slowly. The mattress which had seemed so soft not long ago, now seemed lumpy and he had to turn over many times before he could find a comfortable position. The old man’s sad words were knocking and knocking around in his ears. No. I don’t think so. There will be no return to the sparkling avenues, the grandiose architectural constructions, the light, refreshing breezes of a warm summer evening, running through your hair and caressing your face. No more sky, it will never be like the old man described again. Now, the sky was receding upwards, enmeshed in the decayed wires of the tunnel ceiling and so it would remain forever. But before it was - what did he say? Azure? Clear? . . . This sky was strange, just like the one that Artyom saw at the Botanical Gardens that time, covered in stars, but instead of being velvet-blue, it was light blue, shimmering, joyful . . . And the buildings were really enormous, but they didn’t press down with their mass. No, they were light, easy, as though they were woven out of sweet air. They soared, almost leaving the earth, their contours washed in the endless height of the sky. And how many people there were! Artyom had never seen so many people at once, only perhaps at Kitai Gorod, but here there were even more of them; the space in between of these great buildings was full of people. They scurried around and there were a great deal of children among them, and they were eating something, probably real ice cream. Artyom had even wanted to ask one of them if he could try some, he’d never eaten real ice cream. When he was little, he’d really wanted to try some. But there had been nowhere to get any, the confectionery factory had long since produced only mould and rats, rats and mould. But these little children, licking the delicacy, were running away from him and laughing, deftly dodging him, and he didn’t even get the chance to look into any of their faces. Artyom didn’t know anymore what he was trying to do: take a bite of ice cream or just to look one of the children in the face, to understand if the children did actually have faces . . . and he got scared.
The light outlines of the buildings started to slowly darken and, after some time, they were hanging over him threateningly, and then they started to move closer and closer. Artyom was still chasing the children, and it seemed to him that the children weren’t laughing joyfully but evilly, and then he gathered all his strength and grabbed one of the little boys by the sleeve. The boy pulled away and scratched him like a devil, but squeezing the boy’s throat with an iron grip, Artyom managed to look him in the face. It was Vanechka. Roaring and baring his teeth, he shook his head and tried to seize Artyom’s hand. In panic, Artyom flung him away, and the boy, jumping up from his knees, suddenly lifted his head and let out that same terrible howl which made Artyom run back at
VDNKh ...
And the children, randomly rushing around, started to slow down, and slowly to look at him from the side, getting closer, and the black bulky buildings towered right over them, drawing closer . . . And the children were filling the decreasing spaces between the buildings, and they took up Vanechka’s struggle, full of savage malice and icy sadness, and finally they turned to Artyom. They didn’t have faces, only black leather masks with mouths painted on them, and eyes, without whites or pupils.
And suddenly there was a voice that Artyom couldn’t place. It was quiet and the vicious battle was drowning it, but the voice repeated itself insistently and, listening closely, trying not to pay attention to the children who were getting closer and closer, Artyom finally figured out what it was saying. ‘You have to go.’ And it said it again. And again. And Artyom recognized the voice. It was Hunter’s.
He opened his eyes and threw off his covers. It was dark in the tent and very muggy, his head was filled with lead weight, his thoughts turned over lazily and heavily. Artyom couldn’t seem to come to his senses, to figure out how long he’d slept and whether it was time to get up and get on the road or whether he should just turn over and try to have a better dream.
Then the tent flaps were pulled aside and through it poked the head of the border guard who had let them into Kuznetsky Most. Konstantin . . . What was his second name?
‘Mikhail Porfirevich! Mikhail Porfirevich! Get up now! Mikhail Porfirevich! Has he died or what?’ And not paying any attention to Artyom, who was staring at him in fright, he climbed into the tent and started to shake the sleeping old man.
Vanechka woke up first and started to bellow badly. The guard didn’t pay him any attention, and when Vanechka tried to pull on his arm, he boxed him on the ear. And then the old man woke up.
‘Mikhail Porfirevich! Get up quickly!’ the border guard whispered urgently. ‘You have to go! The Reds are asking for you to be handed over as a slanderer and enemy propagandist. I’ve been telling you and telling you: while you’re here, while you’re at our lousy station, don’t start with your University talk! Did you listen to me?’
‘Please, Konstantin Alexeyevich, what is all this?’ The old man’s head turned in confusion, rising from his cot. ‘I didn’t say anything, no propaganda. Perish the thought. I was only telling the young man about it, but very quietly, and there were no witnesses . . .’
‘Well, take the young man with you! You know what kind of station this is. On Lublyanka they’ll gut you and string you up on a stick, and your friend here will be put against the wall straight away so that he doesn’t go talking again! Come on, be quick, why are you hanging around? They’re coming for you right now! They’re just conferring for a moment to decide what to ask the Reds for in exchange - so hurry up!’
Artyom had stood up and had his rucksack on his back. He didn’t know whether to get out his weapon or not. The old man was also fussing but a minute later they were already on the road, walking quickly, whereupon Konstantin Alexeyevich himself pressed a hand over Vanechka’s mouth with a martyred expression, and the old man looked over at him anxiously, afraid that the frontier guard might twist the boy’s neck.
The tunnel leading to Pushkinskaya was better defended than the other had been. Here they passed two cordons, at one hundred and at two hundred metres from the entrance. At the first one there was concrete reinforcements, a parapet that cut across the way and forced people along a narrow path by the wall. And to the left of it was a telephone and its wire led right into the centre of the station, probably to the headquarters. At the second cordon there were the usual sandbags, the machine gun and the searchlights, like at the other side. There were duty officers at both posts but Konstantin Alexeyevich led them through both cordons to the border.
‘Let’s go. I’ll walk with you for five minutes. I’m afraid that you can’t come here again, Mikhail Porfirevich,’ he said as they walked slowly toward Pushkinskaya. ‘They haven’t yet forgiven you for your old sins, and you’ve done it again. I heard that comrade Moskvin is personally interested, you hear? Well, OK, we’ll try to think of something. Be careful as you go through Pushkinskaya!’ he said as they carried on through the darkness. ‘Go through it quickly! We’re afraid of them, you see! So, be off and be well!’
Meanwhile, there was nowhere to rush to so the fugitives shortened their stride.
‘What made them so bitter about you?’ Artyom asked, curiously looking over at the old man.
‘Well, you see, I just dislike them very much, and when the war was on . . . Well, basically, you see, my little circle put together some texts . . . And Anton Petrovich - he then lived at Pushkinskaya - had access to a typographical press. There was a press at Pushkinskaya, where some madmen were printing news . . . And that’s where he printed it.’
‘But the Reds’ border looks harmless: there’re two people there, there’s a flag hanging, there’re no reinforcements. Nothing like the Hansa has,’ Artyom suddenly remembered.
‘Of course! From this side everything is harmless because their main force is on the inside not the outside.’ Mikhail Porfirevich smiled maliciously. ‘That’s where the reinforcements are. On the borders - it’s just decoration.’
They went on in silence, each thinking their private thoughts. Artyom was listening to his sensations about the tunnel. It was a strange business but this tunnel and also the one that led from Kitai Gorod to Kuznetsky Most were both empty and you didn’t feel anything inside them. They weren’t filled with anything, they were just soulless constructions.
Then he remembered the nightmare he had just had. The details of it had already been wiped from his memory and all that was left were vague, frightening memories of faceless children and black masses against the sky. But there was the voice . . .
He couldn’t follow the thought to its end. In front of him he heard the familiar awful squeaking and the rustle of paws, and then there was the suffocating, sweetish smell of rotting flesh, and when the weak light of their torches reached the place where these sounds were coming from, they saw in front of their eyes such a scene that Artyom thought it might perhaps be preferable to return to the Reds.
At the wall, face down in a row, lay three swollen bodies, their hands tied behind their backs with wire, and they had already been gnawed at by the rats. Pressing his jacket’s sleeve to his nose so that he wouldn’t smell the heavy sweetish and poisonous air, Artyom bent down over the bodies, and shined his light at them. They were stripped to their underwear, and their bodies showed no evidence of injury. But the hair on each of their heads was stuck together with blood, especially thickly around the black dot of the bullet hole.
‘In the back of the head,’ Artyom pointed out, trying to make his voice sound calm and feeling that he might suddenly vomit.
Mikhail Porfirevich half opened his mouth and his eyes began to shine.
‘What they do, my God, what they do!’ he said, sighing. ‘Vanechka, don’t look, don’t look come here!’
But Vanechka, without showing the slightest unease, hunkered down next to the nearest corpse and began to point a finger at it, bellowing animatedly. The torch’s beam slipped up the wall and it light up a piece of dirty paper, which was stuck right above the corpses at eye level. Above it, the letters ‘Vierter Reich’ were painted, accompanied by a depiction of an eagle. It went on in Russian: ‘Not one swarthy animal is allowed within three hundred metres of the Great Reich!’ And the same ‘No through way’ sign was also displayed with its circular black outline and little man crossed out.
‘Swine,’ Artyom said through clenched teeth. ‘Because they have different colour hair?’
The old man just shook his head sadly and pulled on Vanechka’s collar. He was busy studying the bodies and did not want to be lifted up from his squatting position.
‘I see that our typographical machine still works,’ Mikhail Porfirevich said sadly, and he moved on.
The travellers went on more slowly. After two minutes they saw the words ‘300 metres’ had been painted on the walls in red paint.
‘Three hundred metres to go,’ Artyom said, listening uneasily to the echoes of a dog’s barking in the distance.
About a hundred metres from the station they were struck by a bright light, and they stopped.
‘Hands above your heads! Stand still!’ a voice roared through a loudspeaker. Artyom obediently put his hands at the back of his head and Mikhail Porfirevich thrust both his hands into the air.
‘I said, everyone, hands up! Walk slowly forward! Don’t make any sudden movements,’ the strained voice continued, and Artyom couldn’t look to see who was speaking because the light was beating right into his eyes and it was too painful to do anything but look down.
Walking with small steps for some distance, they again stood still when they were told and the searchlight was finally turned to the side.
There was a whole barricade erected there, and there were two machine gunners in position and another guy with a holster in his belt, and they were all dressed in camouflage with black berets, aslant on their shaved heads. They had white armbands - with something looking like the German swastika on them but with three points not four. There were some barely visible dark figures in the distance and there was a nervously fidgeting dog by their feet. The surrounding walls were painted with crosses, eagles, slogans and curses aimed at non-Russians. They puzzled Artyom somewhat because they were partly in German. In a visible place, underneath a panel with the silhouette of an eagle on it and a three-pronged swastika, there was that sign again, lit from underneath, the one with the unfortunate little black figure and Artyom thought that it was being displayed like some sort of religious icon for them.