“Afterwards you’ll …”
“There isn’t going to be any afterwards, Artyom. It won’t happen.”
Her eyes were dry. Her father had taught her not to cry. She had a father. Her own, genuine father.
She swung round and walked away. Artyom was left with his mug of mushroom infusion: a white mug with a chipped gold rim. Homer sat beside him discreetly, without speaking. People started coming back to the kitchen. They talked about the mushrooms being infected with some kind of white rot and sighed, hoping there wouldn’t be another war, tattled about who someone’s husband had grabbed by which part on the pig farm. A little pink piglet darted past with a pale, consumptive little girl chasing it. A cat walked round the table with its tail as erect as a chimney, rubbed up against Artyom’s knee, and looked into his mouth. The steam above the mug had cooled, and the tea had grown a skin of scum. And everything inside Artyom started growing over with scum. He put the mug down and looked straight ahead. That old man was there.
“So that’s the story, Granddad.”
“I’m … I … I’m sorry.”
“A waste of time coming, eh? That won’t delight our descendants. Those of us who have any.”
“It wasn’t a waste.”
Artyom drew in a sharp breath through his teeth. What a stubborn old fart.
He hoisted his ass up off the bench and dragged it out of the kitchen: Breakfast was over. Now he had to fulfill his work obligations. Homer tagged along behind.
“What was that you … I’m sorry … What was that girl talking about? An aerial … Amateur radio enthusiast … It’s none of my business, of course, but … you go up on the surface. Right? And listen on the radio?”
“I go up and I listen.”
“Are you hoping to find other survivors?”
“I’m hoping to find other survivors.”
“And how’s it going?”
Artyom didn’t hear any mockery in his voice. The man was simply curious, as if Artyom was doing something absolutely normal. Say, ferrying cured hams to Hansa.
“It isn’t.”
Homer nodded to him and frowned. He was about to say something, but he changed his mind. Would he commiserate with Artyom? Try to talk sense into him? Pretend to be interested? Artyom couldn’t give a damn.
They reached the enclosure with the bicycles.
Artyom didn’t like mushrooms because Anya liked them; he didn’t like pigs because of the stink—he was the only one here who could smell it. And he had come to an arrangement; as a hero, he had been excused from those things. But they didn’t feed spongers at Exhibition. Once you’d served your watch at the checkpoint in the tunnel, you had to do a shift in the station as well. And Artyom had chosen the bicycles.
There were fourteen of them in a row, handlebars pointing towards the wall, on which there were posters. The first poster showed the Kremlin and the Moscow River, the second showed someone’s faded charms in a pink swimsuit, the third the skyscrapers of New York, and the fourth a snowbound monastery and the Orthodox Christian holy days in a calendar grid … Choose your mood and spin the pedals. The bicycles stood on struts, and straps ran from their back wheels to electric generators. Attached to each bike was a little lamp that faintly illuminated your poster dream for the day. The rest of the electricity went into batteries to power the station.
The bicycles stood in a caved-in southern tunnel, and outsiders weren’t allowed anywhere near them: a strategic facility. The old man apparently hadn’t glanced in here yet.
“He’s with me,” Artyom said for some reason, waving to the sentry, and Homer was allowed through.
Artyom mounted a rusty frame and took hold of the rubber handles. Berlin, scrounged from some Hansa book dealers, loomed up indistinctly in front of him: the Brandenburg Gate, the TV tower, and a black sculpture of a woman with her hands raised to her head. Artyom realized that that gate was very similar to the entrance to the Exhibition of Economic Achievements; and the TV tower, although it had a spherical node halfway up, reminded him of the Ostankino Tower. And that statue of the woman, either screaming or squeezing her ears shut … He might as well never have gone anywhere.
“Fancy a spin, granddad?” Artyom asked, turning towards Homer.” It’s good for the heart. You’ll hold out longer. Here.”
But the old man didn’t answer—he was staring glassy-eyed at the flat tires spinning, trying to catch a breath of air. His face was skewed, as if he was paralyzed: one half was smiling and the other was lifeless, dead.
“Are you all right there, granddad?” Artyom asked.
“Yes. I just remembered something. Someone,” Homer wheezed. Then he cleared his throat and recovered.
“Ah.”
Everyone had someone to remember. Three hundred shadows each. Just waiting for you to think about them. They set out their snares, installed their trip wires, reeled out their long lines with hooks and suspended their webs—and waited. A bicycle with no front wheel will remind someone how he taught his children to ride a bike in the courtyard of their apartment block; a kettle will whistle exactly the way it used to do in the kitchen of someone else’s parents at the weekend, when guests came to have lunch and shared the news about their lives. Blink, and in that instant between now and now, your eyes suddenly see yesterday, your eyes see their faces. True, as the years go by, they see them less and less clearly. Well fine.
“How did you find out about me?”
“You’re famous,” Homer said with a smile.” Everyone knows about you.”
Artyom made a wry face.
“Famous …” He spat the word back out.
“You saved the Metro. All the people. If you hadn’t hit those creatures with those missiles … To be honest, I don’t understand … Why don’t you want to talk about it?”
There in front of him were the gates to the Exhibition of Economic Achievements and a black woman with her arms raised. He ought to move to another bike, but all the others were already taken, and this was the one that had been left for Artyom. He felt like spinning the pedals backwards, away from that tower, but that way no electricity would be generated.
“I heard about you from Miller.”
“What?”
“Miller. Do you know him? The commander of the Order. You are aware of the existence of the Order, of course? The Spartans, they call them … As I understand it, you were a member yourself … before?”
“Did Miller send you to me?”
“No. Miller just told me about you. He said you were the one who informed them. About the Dark Ones. That you walked right through the Metro, all the way … and then afterwards … I started digging things up for myself. What I could. But even so, there’s a lot that remains unclear. I realized that I couldn’t make sense of it all without you, and I decided …”
“Did he say anything else?”
“Ah? Who?”
“Did Miller say anything else about me?”
“Yes.”
Artyom stopped turning the pedals. He swung his leg over the bicycle frame and jumped down onto the floor. He crossed his arms.
“Well?”
“He said you’d gotten married. That you’d started living a normal human life.”
“That’s what he said?”
“Yes, it is.”
“A normal human life …” Artyom smiled.
“Unless I’ve got something confused.”
“And did he tell you it was his daughter that I married?”
Homer shook his head.
“Is that all?”
The old man chewed on his lips. He sighed and confessed.
“He said that you’d gone crazy.”
‘Well of course. I’ve gone crazy.”
“I’m only passing on what I heard …”
“Nothing else?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“That he was going to kill me, for instance? Because of his daughter? … Or …”
“No, nothing like that.”
“Or that he’s expecting me back … In the ranks?”
“I don’t recall that …”
Artyom said nothing while he digested all of this. Then he remembered that Homer was still there, studying him.
“Crazy!” Artyom tried his best to laugh.
“I don’t think that,” Homer warned him.” No matter what anyone says, I’m absolutely certain that—”
“How would you know? You?”
“Just because you carry on searching for survivors? Just because you refuse to give in—they think you’re mad. Listen,” said the old man, looking at Artyom seriously.” You’re destroying yourself for people’s sake, and on my word of honor, I don’t understand why they treat you like this.”
“I go every single day.”
“Up there?”
“Every day—up the escalator onto the surface. Then up a high-rise. On foot—up the stairs onto the roof. With an army knapsack.”
People on the bikes nearby started listening more closely and racing more slowly.
“And no! Not once have I heard anyone reply! So what? What does that prove?” Artyom wasn’t just shouting at Homer now, but at all these fucking cyclists, hurtling straight into the wall, into the earth.” It doesn’t prove anything! Why can’t you feel it! There must be other people! There must be other cities! We can’t be the only ones, in this hole, in these caves.”
“You’re a fine one, Artyom! Now you’ve really fucked me off!” exclaimed a young guy with a long nose and little eyes.” The Yankees bombed everyone to hell! There’s nothing left. Why do you have to keep on suffering? They hit us; we hit them. Full stop!”
“But what if we aren’t the only ones?” Homer asked, almost as if he was asking himself.” What if I were to tell you that …”
“He clambers up there like he’s going to work. He’s radioactive himself, and he contaminates other people! A walking corpse!” The young guy just couldn’t stop.” Do you have to poison all of us in here now?”
“If I were to tell you that there are … survivors? That there have been signals from other cities? And they were picked up?”
“Say that again.”
“There have been signals from other cities,” Homer said firmly.” They were picked up. And there were conversations.”
“You’re lying.”
“I myself know a man who handled the radio traffic.”
“You’re lying.”
“And what if I tell you he’s standing right here in front of you? What will you say to that?” Homer winked at Artyom.” Eh?”
“That you’ve flipped your lid, granddad. Or you’re deliberately lying. You are lying, aren’t you? You’re lying!”
CHAPTER 3
— THE PIPE —
The ceilings at the station were low, to suit people. But the tunnels had not been built for people: they measured five meters from wall to wall and the floor and ceiling were separated by the same distance.
Far away, at the other end of the Metro, there dwelt wild savages who believed that the tunnels were passages dug through the solid ground by the Great Worm, the god who created the Earth and gave birth to human beings from out of his belly; and it was only afterwards that people had repudiated their Creator and adapted these passages for their own needs. And instead of the Worm they had built trains of metal for themselves and started themselves the lie that they had existed in the beginning, and there had never been any Worm. Why not believe in a god like that? He was better adapted to a life underground.
The tunnels were dark and frightening; the ground water oozed into them in little rivulets and threatened to smash through the cast-iron tunnel linings at any moment and engulf entire lines. The rivulets gave off water vapor, and the cold mist prevented the light of torches from penetrating very far. The tunnels had not been created for man, no doubt about that, and man had not been created for the tunnels.
Even here, only three hundred meters away from the station, it felt creepy. And the men prattled to drown out the whispering dread.
The campfire of half-dried billets smoked slightly.
The tunnel, of course, was alive: it wheezed as it breathed, drawing in the hazy smoke from the campfire with its perforated lungs, savoring it, as if it was smoking a cigarette. The smoke whirled and eddied, then flew upwards, disappearing into the shaggy, overgrown bronchial tubes of the ventilation shafts.
A little distance away stood the hand-powered rail trolley on which the watch had arrived. It was three hundred meters to the station. If someone advanced towards Exhibition Station out of the northern darkness, the watch had to bear the brunt of the attack, sacrificing their lives if necessary, and send one “survivor” to the station. To warn people. So that the children would have time to hide and the women could take guns and join the men in blocking off the entrance with their own bodies.
It had always worked: That was why Exhibition Station was still here, still inhabited after two and a half decades. But for the last couple of years, if anyone had ever turned up here, it was only by mistake. The final terrible threat to both the station and the Metro as a whole, the Dark Ones, had disappeared, annihilated by a barrage of missiles about two years ago.
And everyone at the station remembered who had saved the station from those brutes: Artyom.
Now to the north of Exhibition there was only a chain of frozen, empty stations, of which the first was Botanical Gardens. That station lay very close to the surface, and the hermetic doors that were supposed to cut off the world on the surface from the world down below stood wide open and broken. It was impossible to live at Botanical Gardens, and people weren’t interested in what came beyond it. So the limit to which the light of the camp extended marked the precise end of the world. Everything after that was outer space.
The watchmen sat there, walled off from the vacuum by sandbags heaped up into parapets. Their Kalashnikovs were arranged in a pyramid, leaning against each other. A battered, smoke-blacked kettle warmed its belly on the flames.
Artyom sat down with his face towards the campfire, setting the back of his head towards the emptiness of the tunnel. He sat Homer down right beside him—Artyom had deliberately brought his visitor into this quiet void, as he didn’t want to listen to the old man’s story back there, beside the bicycles, in front of everyone. He couldn’t do it completely without witnesses, but at least let there be as few as possible.
“You shouldn’t sit with your back to the pipe!” Levashov hissed at him.
But Artyom trusted this pipe just at the moment. He had learned to feel it.
The others had sat down so as to keep their eyes trained on the open mouth of the tunnel. Homer had been warned to tell his tale quietly in order not to excite the others, but Homer didn’t know how to do things quietly.
“The town is called Polar Dawns. It’s up on the Kola Peninsula. There’s an atomic power station close by—and in working order too, note. The station has an operational life of over a hundred years in reserve! Because it’s only powering one town. And the town has been transformed into a fortress. They built a log stockade and other fortifications. Organized sound defenses. There were military units close by, guarding the power station, and the garrison of Polar Dawns was drawn from them. The area around it is deadly—the Far North. But they’re holding out. The station provides them with light and warmth—for farming. So …”
“Stop making it all up, will you?” Levashov shouted from the other side of the campfire. He had red eyes, fleshy ears and a higgledy-piggledy mustache that pointed upwards.” What fucking dawns are you talking about? After Botanical there’s no one in the pipe at all, apart from the wandering dogs! As if one crackpot wasn’t enough, now another one’s shown up!”
“They’ll have their own club here now,” said Armenchik, winking and picking at his teeth with his fingernail to winkle out a fiber of pork that was stuck between them. The Crimson Sails’ Dreamers and Romantics club.”
“Who picked up the signal
? Who talked to them?” asked Artyom, looking at the old man’s beard and his moving lips, trying to read them like a deaf man.
“I …” Homer began.” I’m from that part of the world myself. From Arkhangelsk. So I kept hoping to find someone, thinking maybe some of my folks had survived. I kept listening and searching. And eventually I found something. There was nothing from my Arkhangelsk, that’s true. But Polar Dawns! An entire town, can you imagine it? up on the surface! Hot water, light … But the most fascinating thing is that they have an electronic library, still intact. On magnetic media and CDs. The whole of world literature and cinema … Do you understand? They have all the electricity they could need …”
“What’s the wavelength? What’s the frequency?” Artyom asked abruptly, interrupting Homer’s cozy narrative.
“So it’s a kind of Noah’s Ark, which hasn’t saved all the animals two by two, but the entire culture of our civilization …” the old man continued, as if he hadn’t heard.
“When was the contact? How frequent was it? Where was your radio set located? What kind of equipment was it? From what height did you pick up the signal? So why didn’t anything work for me?”
The old man had been expecting a conversation, not an interrogation: a cozy conversation beside the fire. But Artyom wanted this moment too much to waste it on rose-tinted schmaltz. The first thing he had to do was make sure this was true.
Artyom knew all about the vague mirages that loomed up in the desert on the surface. He didn’t want to admire them; he wanted to touch them, believe in them.
“Well?” He wouldn’t let it go, kept pushing: He couldn’t let the old man slip out of his grasp.” Remember exactly! Why doesn’t it work for me any longer?”
“I …” Homer began, smacking his lips and pondering, turning his eyes away towards the darkness and eventually giving in.” I don’t know.”
“What do you mean, you don’t know? How’s that possible—for you not to know? If you picked up the signal yourself?”
The old man squirmed a bit in embarrassment and then confessed, the bastard.
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