Was Artyom mistaken?
“Of course, there isn’t anywhere to put a table here, but you can work with everyone else … The bookshelves are over there, though … The only thing is—you can’t keep animals here. You’ll have to part company with the chicken.”
“Is that compulsory?”
“It is.”
“Well, then …”
“Homer!”
The old man looked round.
“Granddad … What are you doing here? How did you get here? Did our boys hide you? Did you manage everything … with the print shop? Did it go okay? Do the presses work? Was the paper still dry?”
Homer looked at Artyom as if he was a dead man—with sadness and detachment.
“Why don’t you say anything? Did it work? Show me!”
“Artyom.”
“What do you want?” the boy with the mustache asked irascibly.
“Where are the leaflets, granddad? Did you go to Chekhov?”
“Shall I call the guards?”
“No, don’t.” Homer shook his head.
“Wait. Why didn’t you go there? They had a meeting here at Arbat, started pulling the wool … Their usual lies. And everyone believes them.”
“It’s not for me, Artyom.”
“What?”
“I can’t do that sort of thing.”
“What? What sort of thing?”
“Propaganda. Printing leaflets. All this revolutionary activity … I’m too old for all that stuff.”
“You didn’t even go there? To Chekhov?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t believe in it, Artyom.”
“In what? The jammers? The Invisible Observers? In what? The world on the surface? That everything down here is pointless?”
“I don’t believe that people need that. That people want to know that.”
“That is the truth! The truth! People need the truth!”
“Don’t shout. What truth am I supposed to tell them?”
“The whole truth! Everything that you’ve seen! About the woman whose head was smashed in with a reinforcing rod. About his privy!” Artyom jerked his head, which was almost falling off by now, at half-dead Ilya Stepanovich, who had dragged along here after him too. “About how they shoot their own people in the back! How they put babies down for a little tail! How they blow people’s brains out for gossiping! How they drive men out to build wind generators without any protection! So there’ll be enough electricity for the jammers! About the jammers! About the dogs eating them—the dead men!”
“Is that really the truth?” Homer asked.
“What is it, then?”
“It’s gory trash, Artyom. Do you think they don’t know all that anyway? They live in it. They don’t want to remember about it, and the last thing they want to do is read about it. Perhaps I should write about the life of the cannibals? Or about how the Party high-ups debauch young orphans? Hansa or the Red Line, it’s all the same.”
“What has this got to do with anything?”
“It’s the truth too. Do people want to read that kind of thing? Is that what they need? We shouldn’t stuff them with that shit. They need heroes. They need a myth. They need beauty in other people, so that they can remain human themselves. What can I tell them about here? That some bunch of bureaucrats has been governing them since the beginning of time? That there’s no point in them hanging about in the Metro? That there’s nothing that can be done here? That has a whiff of paranoia about it. It’s darkness. But they need light! They search for it. If only from a candle stub. At least little gleam. What do you want to tell them? That they’re all slaves? Nonentities? Sheep? Nobody will listen to you! They’ll string you up! Crucify you!”
“And you—what will you give them? Instead of the truth?”
“What will I give them? This … I’ll give them a legend. About Artyom. Who was the same kind of simple young guy as all of them. Who lived at an outlying station by the name of the Exhibition of Economic Achievements. And whose home, along with all the rest of the Metro, was threatened by an appalling danger. From nightmarish monsters who lived on the surface and were trying to deprive the besieged human race of its final refuge. About how this young guy walks all the way through the Metro, how he is hardened in battles and changes from being a plain lummox to a hero. How he saves the human race. That’s a story that people will like. Because it’s about them, about every one of them. Because it’s beautiful and simple.”
“You’re going to write that? That? What about everything that just happened?”
“That’s politics, Artyom. It’s propaganda. It’s the struggle for power. It will pass away too soon. Everything will change. I don’t want to write leaflets. They turn stale as soon as they’re written.”
“And what do you want? The eternal?”
“Well … The eternal—that’s too high-flown …”
“I forbid you to write about me. I forbid it. All right?”
“How? It doesn’t belong to you any longer, but to humankind.”
“I don’t want to be a sugar lollipop in your cock-sucking little book!”
“People will read it. They’ll learn about you.”
“But I couldn’t give a shit if people learn about me or not! What’s that got to do with anything?”
“You’re young, Artyom.”
“What has—that—got to do—with anything?”
“Don’t talk like that … to me. You’re a hero. People will find out about you. Word of you will remain. Perhaps you’ll have children as well. But what about me? What am I supposed to do? What will remain of me? An anonymous leaflet? A scrap of paper?”
“Wait … They’re giving you … They’re giving you a room here … Are they giving you a room?”
“They’re providing me with the conditions for work.”
“The conditions for work. Are you going to write this for them? For Bessolov? About me? Is this how they bribed you?”
“Did they bribe me or I bribe them? There’ll be a book. About you. A genuine book, and a decent print run. What doesn’t suit you about that? I don’t understand it.”
“Artyom!” Anya calling him.
“Ask Ilyusha. He’ll tell you. Who would turn down something like that? A genuine book, signed with my name! Not a textbook for cannibals. A myth. A legend. For the ages.”
“They drown us in shit. They treat us like cattle. Like building material. Don’t even regard us as human … And you … You help them …” And then Artyom was hit by a blast wave; he realized—and the understanding concussed him; his voice disappeared completely, and he was left sculpting air soundlessly, with his throat only whistling slightly on the outbreath. “Fuck it. He’s right. He’s right about everything, that lousy scumbag. There isn’t any ‘us’ and there isn’t any ‘them.’ That’s the hydra. We ourselves are the hydra. They consist of us. All the aristocracy was shot a hundred years ago. Who can we blame? There isn’t anyone. We did this to ourselves. All of them down in the bunker—who were they recruited from? From us. And now … You, Lyokha … How can the hydra be defeated? No one even thinks seriously about fighting it. The only thing everyone dreams of is offering it their own head, of becoming one of its heads; they say—here, bite, take me, I want to be inside you, to be with you. There’s isn’t a single Hercules out there, but there’s an entire line of heads queuing up … What has power got to do with it? My God, what an idiot I am … You know what? Write it, granddad. Get it into print. And a long life to you. My God, fuck it …”
He laughed himself into stitches.
He’d been afraid of bursting into tears, but laughter poured out of his mouth like foam out of a rabid dog’s.
“Artyom!”
He saw Anya. And went down on his knees in front of her.
“Forgive me.”
“Artyom, what’s wrong with you?”
“Well, are we really off to Chekhov, then?” Timur asked. “The fascists w
ill get back there any moment now. Maybe Polyanka after all?”
“No. Open the hermetic door. up. I’m going up on top.”
“What?”
“Artyom!”
“Open the door! Open it up!”
“Artyom, what’s wrong with you?”
“Let’s go up, Anechka! up! up.”
CHAPTER 23
— HIS OWN PEOPLE —
“There they are! Over that way!”
Down below, through the bars of the banisters, he fancied he saw, no, he did see them—black boots.
“Run!”
“Open the doors! Open them, I tell you!”
“Have you totally flipped? You haven’t got a suit …”
“I’m just fine! Do it! We’ll croak here because of you, you cretin! Come on!”
“Where is he? Where are they?”
“Give me your hand! Don’t let go!”
“I’m with you. I’m with you. I don’t want to stay here.”
“Screw you … Where could you go up there? What is there for you on the surface?”
Overturning tables, jumping over benches, knocking down cackling Brahmins, they dashed to the far end of the station. Soldiers of the Order came pouring out of the passage and scattered across the platform like lead shot.
They reached the hermetic doors at top speed, stuck a gun barrel in the sentry’s face, spun the locking screws, and dragged the tonne of steel along the rails; it started shifting reluctantly; they squeezed through a crack and flew up the steps.
How could Artyom still have any strength left? Or any life?
The pursuers came after them. Clattering over the granite. Hot on their heels. Firing as they ran, but missing because they were running. The clamor of a shattered chicken coop. One door froze. Only a narrow crack was left through to backstage. The soldiers in black squeezed through it, but the Brahmins cowered back, keeping well away, to avoid picking up someone else’s dose of radiation.
They darted out into the vestibule: Artyom, Anya, Timur, and Ilya. In the second they had gained they managed to break open the outer door and tumble out, naked, into the freezing Moscow night.
“So what’s here?”
“Here … They left it here … Wait … There it is! Your hand. That way!”
Hunched over, at a run, along the silent library, where Artyom once left behind his fear; under its blind windows, under the elephantine pedestals of its columns, over marble slabs that had come away from the walls. Behind them black figures shot out in pursuit from the Borovitskaya Station vestibule that looked like the entrance to a mausoleum. They hesitated, wondering about running down the street with no protection.
“We’ll get hammered here! Do you know what the background level is like here …”
“There it is. Here. Is that it! Yes!”
Savelii’s towed Japanese auto. Abandoned after Letyaga had brought them away them from the jammers. When? It was ages ago. SaveliI was gone—the people had swept him away and trampled him at Komsomol Station: On the very first day of his service in the Order he had been killed, gone missing in action. But his car was right here. Standing and waiting for its owner.
Artyom swung the handle and climbed in through the car’s forgotten hatch. Under the little mat on the passenger side there was a spare key. Savelii had told him about it at Komsomolskaya. As if it was a bequest. Artyom put in the key and turned it. The car came alive.
The black figures broke away from Borovitskaya after all and took the plunge.
“Get inside!”
“Where are you going?”
“To Exhibition! To my people. Home. To tell them!”
“Not me. I’ll stay here. What would I do there? I’ll come to terms with them.”
“Get into the car, you idiot!”
“They’re our guys! I’ll come to terms. Wait … I forgot. There. Is this yours? They gave it to me.”
He took it out—grayish black, dull; the Nagant.
“It’s mine.”
Timur stuck it in through Artyom’s open window.
“Thanks a fucking heap.”
“That’s it! Go!”
Timur raised his hands, swung round, and set off towards the black devils running in his direction. In his mind, Artyom made the sign of the cross over him. And stepped on the gas.
From Okhotny Ryad, from Tverskaya Street, the wind brought a brief spurt of sound: the growl of a motor.
They shot off. Swung round with a squeal of smoking rubber. Anya on his left, on the front passenger seat; Ilya Stepanovich, their redundant tail, dangling free behind them. They battened the windows tight.
In the rearview mirror Timurchik tumbled mutely to the ground, like a rag doll, falling forward with his arms raised. And then, a second later, the armored off-roader darted into the same black frame.
It braked by the body. Doused its lights. Dwindled. And dissolved.
They hurtled along Vozdvizhenka Street, through all the places where Artyom had strolled a hundred times: But now—this was the last time. Someone’s pecked-out skulls, gnawed-out buildings, and dried-out trees gazed emptily after the speeding Japanese car from the side of the road.
And the empty sky was highlighted slightly by a gnawed-away moon. There were lots and lots of stars pinned to the sky, like on that night when Artyom went out on the surface with Zhenya, after tricking him and Vitalik into opening the hermetic door to the Botanical Gardens.
“Remember, Zhen?”
“Stop it, Artyom. Please.”
“Sorry. I won’t do it again. Honestly.”
The bone-white limestone of the Ministry of Defense blinked and disappeared; the little crypt of Arbat Station whisked by. On the right, tall buildings with twenty-something stories stood straight and narrow, looking like soldiers forgotten at a victorious parade. The fatuous and bombastic buildings of Kalininsky Avenue passed by on the left, with the very biggest advertising screens in somewhere called Europe, now burnt-out and black. The sentries saluted Artyom. The screens showed him his past and his future.
“How does the air feel?”
“Different.”
He remembered the first time he had been here—two years ago. How different everything here was then. There was life here then—a twisted, weird, alien life, but it was teeming. And now …
Artyom looked in the mirror. He thought he saw a little patch of darkness pursuing them somewhere in the distance; did he only think it?
He turned sharply, with a squeal, onto the Garden Ring Road and set off along it in a gnawed-out rut, past the Embassy of the United States, burnt on a pyre, past the high-rise on the Krasnopresnenskaya Embankment, built for the living dead, with a pointed stake on its roof, past the huge, substantial, granite buildings that were called “stalinkas’” in honor of the dummy, past the bomb-crater squares, past the trenches of the side streets.
He looked and thought: The dead for the dead.
“Home?” Anya asked.
“Home,” Artyom replied.
The right-handed Japanese bullet darted out onto Peace Prospect, violating the road markings, and hurtled off to the east. They slid by under a flyover—the intersection with the Third Ring Road—which brought them out onto a bridge over a railway laid somewhere right on the very bottom of the darkness. A bit farther on—and a rocket rose up above the trees, frozen in the sky, the museum of stupid space exploration, a signal that the Exhibition of Economic Achievements was close.
Again Artyom fancied there was some movement behind them. He even looked back for a second; and almost crashed into a crooked, battered truck, only just swerving away in time. He darted between the rusty tins, picking his way along a familiar track to the entrance pavilion—to his home station; he drove the car in behind a currency exchange kiosk—a metal cube. And hid it.
“We got here quickly. Maybe the dose won’t be too big,” Artyom told Anya.
“Okay,” she replied.
They climbed out and listened. There was a roaring
somewhere in the distance.
“Run.”
They made their way into the vestibule—Artyom cast a final glance through the dust on the plexiglass—were they following? had they caught up?
He didn’t think so. If they were still chasing, they’d fallen behind.
The upper hermetic door was open; they had to go down the escalator, fifty meters down into the depths. Down below it was pitch dark, but in a year Artyom had learned these steps off by heart. Ilya stumbled and would have gone flying nose-first onto the steps and farther on—to break his back; they barely caught him in time.
Eventually the steps ended. At the other side of a short platform there was a steel wall—the hermetic door. Artyom stepped with blind precision to the left, feeling as he moved for a telephone receiver on a flexible metal tube on the wall, the first out of two.
“Open up! It’s me, Artyom!
The receiver was as deaf as if the wire had been snapped. As if he was calling into one of those buildings on the outside, not into his own, living station.
“Do you hear me? This is Artyom! Dark!”
The echo of his voice jangled in the coal dust, in the fine metal plates. There wasn’t any other sound in the receiver.
Artyom felt for Anya’s fingers. He squeezed them.
“Everything’s fine. He’s just sleeping.”
“Yes.”
“When you left, was everything …”
“Everything was fine, Artyom.”
Ilya Stepanovich was breathing laboriously and loudly.
“Don’t breathe so deeply,” Artyom advised him. “The background radiation, you know.”
He hung up the phone. Picked it up again. And pressed his mouth to the cold, plastic circle.
“Hello! This is Artyom! Open up!”
No one had any intention of opening up for them. As if there was no one to do it.
He walked up to the wall and hammered on the metal with his fist. That wasn’t any good. Inaudible. Then he remembered about the revolver. He grabbed hold of the barrel in order to slam the handle against the steel. Then thought better of it. What if it was loaded? He pulled out the cylinder. For some reason there were two cartridges inserted in it. He squeezed them out and put them in his pocket.
Then he started beating that Nagant against the iron curtain, as if it was a bell. Boom! Boom! Boom!
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