“Get off him! Get off!” Yulka squealed.” He doesn’t know anything, not a thing! Guards! Help!”
“It’s all garbage.”
“What if it isn’t?”
“So what? So what if it isn’t?”
“Then that’s it! Then we can sling our hook, get out! Out of this Metro!”
Half hoisted up off the floor, Andriusha shook his head and pulled an ugly face.
“If they’re so well off up there, why would they come barging in on us?”
Artyom filled his lungs to answer, but he couldn’t think of anything to say.
“Put me down. Put me down where I was standing, you louse,” said Andriusha.
Artyom put him down. Then he turned away and went back to the door.
He was about to press his forehead against it when it opened.
“The one from Teatralnaya. Out you come!”
“That was a mistake. You should have told me,” Artyom told Andriusha.
“Now you can ask them yourself.” Andriusha hawked up.
* * *
“Here you are, Comrade Major. This is the subversive.”
“Where are his bracelets? Let’s have him in bracelets.”
The handcuffs clicked on.
“That’s just, when they confess themselves … They always have to wear bracelets,” the comrade major explained to Artyom, meeting him in the doorway.” Call me Gleb Ivanich. And who are you?”
But Artyom already knew that this was Gleb Ivanich. He knew his hoarse, low voice. And his lace-up low boots.
“Fyodor Kolesnikov.”
The name in the dead man’s passport.
“Well, Fyodor, let’s hear it.”
Gleb Ivanich was stocky and hardy: a beef breed. His head was balding above its large forehead, his thick lips looked rouged. He was the same height as Artyom, so he wasn’t very tall, but he was twice as broad and four times as powerful. His tunic wouldn’t close on him, the collar was too tight for his bull neck, and his trousers were hummocky.
Gleb Ivanich sat down at the desk and left Artyom standing there.
“You picked up the wrong man.”
“What wrong man?” the major asked cautiously.
“Umbach. At Teatralnaya. He’s not guilty of anything. You confused him with someone else.”
“And who should we have picked up?”
“Someone else.”
“Ah. Aha. And have you come to get him out?” The major was bored immediately.
“He’s no saboteur. He’s a technician in the theater,” Artyom told him.
“Well, he confessed to being a saboteur.”
“Well then … That isn’t true. He slandered himself.”
“That’s his problem. We’ve got everything signed off.”
So now what?
The room was spacious, but simple to the point of severity. The linoleum on the floor was curling up; the safe in the corner was a gray cube; only the desk was luxurious, a trophy item; and there was a double profile on the wall. That was everything.
Ah, but no. Not everything.
There was something ticking too. Artyom looked round: Behind him there was a clock hanging above the door. One that he’d seen, not long ago, in a completely different place. A simple clock, a piece of glass set in blue plastic. The dial had an image of a shield with a sword thrust into it, and some letters in a line—all capital letters, with hyphens. VChK-NKVD-MGB-KGB. It was ten minutes to ten.
“In a hurry to get somewhere, Fyodor?” the major asked him and smiled.” Are you late?”
“That’s an interesting clock.”
“A first-rate clock. And from this clock I gather that I have business waiting for me. Is that all you have to say, Fyodor? I’d like to carry on with you later.”
“I need to talk to him.”
“Ah, well, there’s no way that can be arranged. Who is he to you? A relative? Or a colleague?
“What has he confessed to? He isn’t a saboteur. He’s never been in the Reich. It wasn’t him you were looking for. It was someone else.”
“No, Fyodor. We were looking for him. Pyotr Sergeich. And the Reich hasn’t got anything to do with it. Look.” The major waved a thick piece of paper.” The briefing material. From Central Office. Central Office can’t be wrong.”
So it wasn’t Artyom that they’d come for? So Umbach himself was to blame?
“Is that all?” Gleb Ivanich got up.” I’ve an appointment at ten.”
He leaned down to the safe, fiddled with something, and the door creaked. He took out a dull, scratched, greyish black revolver.
And then Artyom remembered exactly what kind of appointment Gleb Ivanich had.
“And what … what will happen to him now, to Pyotr Sergeevich?” Artyom asked with a dry throat.
“It’s the supreme penalty for him,” the major pronounced.” All right, Fyodor. Wait until tomorrow. We’ll talk tomorrow. I have a feeling it will be quite a long talk. You want to tell me something, but you’re hemming and hawing. I’ve got to speed you up somehow, but as luck would have it, time’s too short today. Business to deal with.”
He rummaged in the safe, took out a handful of little brass plugs, and tipped them onto the desk. He swung open the cylinder of the revolver and started stuffing it with blunt-nosed death. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. And there were more left on the desk.
“You mustn’t shoot him!” Artyom shouted.” Umbach!”
“Why?”
“He has information … He’s a radio operator. And he knows something …”
“Everything he knows, we know too,” the major reassured him.” He can’t have any secrets from us. That’s it. Go and get some sleep. There are … people waiting for me.”
Gleb Ivanich scratched and stroked himself on his taut fly and stretched sweetly.
“But you have no idea! He has information! Valuable information … He …” Artyom bit his lip and weighed things up one last time.” He found survivors! He contacted them! Other people! Do you understand? Other survivors! Not in Moscow!” He glanced into the major’s broad, flat face.
Nothing changed in it and nothing moved.
“That’s bullshit.”
Then the shadow of a smile flitted across his lips. Gleb Ivanich straightened his hair with his hand, with a dreamy air. He was waiting, waiting for the evening, waiting for ten o’clock, and waiting for what would come afterwards—the date he had made with his little bitch in a tutu. That was what he wanted to think about.
Artyom flung up his shackled hands.
“But what if there are places where it’s possible to live? If we don’t have to, we’re not forced to stay here in the Metro … Until the end … Eh? And he … He might know about it!”
The major weighed the revolver in his hand, squeezed one eye shut and peered at the table through the sight.
“That’s quality for you,” he said pensively.” They were executing people with this gun a hundred years ago. But even so … There’s no machine more reliable than a Nagant. Especially for this business. It won’t jam or get overheated.”
“Aren’t you listening to me then?” Artyom flew into a fury.” Or do you know something?”
“Okay, that’s enough. Escort!”
“No, it isn’t enough. If you shoot him now we’ll never know anything … Never!”
“Escort, fuck it!” the major barked.
“Never! He’s the only one, do you understand that? No one else has managed to do it! To find them and contact them … You mustn’t kill him!”
“So I mustn’t?
“No!”
“Valuable information?”
“Yes!”
“Survivors?”
“Yes, survivors!”
“All right, let’s go.”
The major grabbed Artyom’s shoulder in the hydraulic press of his massive hand, kicked the door open and led him out into the corridor. A guard came running up, guilty and frightened, taking a last dra
g on a roll-up, but the major just shoved the burnished gun barrel in his face and pushed him away.
He pulled a bundle of keys out of his pocket and jangled them at a door. Then he scraped it open and pushed Artyom into the cell.
“Umbach!”
“Here.”
Pyotr Sergeevich with the droopy mustache got up with an anxious, searching look in his eyes. He was smeared all over with something reddish-brown that was drying out: the bridge of his nose was split open and his mouth was gap-toothed. He was holding his head thrown back a little so that his nose wouldn’t run.
Patches of shadow and light flickered across his face by turns: What should he expect?
The major raised the revolver to his forehead, and the crash immediately smashed into Artyom’s ears, slamming into them like a sledgehammer, and a fine red mist spattered in all directions, settling on the major’s hand and face and uniform tunic. Umbach went limp and sat down on the floor, turning into a sack of sand. Pale-faced, the other prisoners covered their ears, and a woman started squealing. The wall was covered in scraps of something wet and gleaming. A jailer stuck his head into the cell and swore inaudibly and then asked something, still speaking inaudibly. Artyom’s ears were ringing painfully.
The major grabbed Artyom by the shoulder, dragged him out into the corridor, and slammed the door. He growled through the ringing.
“Who mustn’t? I mustn’t? Me? You little son of a bitch! I mustn’t?”
A sick, dizzy feeling.
Artyom swallowed it down, held it inside. If he puked it would be a sign of weakness.
“Lead out the condemned prisoners! As many as possible!” the major shouted to the jailers, his voice barely audible through that ringing.” How many are there?
“There were seven including Umbach.”
“Just right, then. One cylinder will do it. And wash down the cell!”
The major took a step forward and stood right in front of Artyom’s eyes.” Bring him with me,” he told the men who came running up from the guardroom.
They went back into the office.
“You say I shouldn’t. But I should! I should shoot you. And in public. An execution is a useful thing. Every damn bastard thinks he’s playing the lead and this is a movie shot about him. But there, just look at the way people turn into sacks of shit. Click! All done and dusted. Now you won’t go getting above yourself like that!
He picked a cartridge not yet allocated to anyone up off the table and stuck it under Artyom’s nose.
“Look. That’s for you. I wanted to take care of you tomorrow without hurrying things. You and your raving nonsense. But you just go looking for trouble.”
He jerked out the cylinder and rammed Artyom’s own personal cartridge into it.
“Put him with the rest!”
“No!” Artyom shook his buzzing head.” No!”
“Get out there!”
“Today … Right now … The Reich … Is going to … Teatralnaya …”
“Get out there, you bastard!”
“Umbach … He’s their agent. He was. I had to … Get him out of here. I’m … I’m a spy too.”
“You’re a blabbermouth …”
“Wait. Wait. Everything I said about the radio operator was a lie … Don’t kill me … Really, I swear … There are two … groups there now. Mining the passages.”
Gleb Ivanich finally turned towards him.
“What for?”
“They’re going to take Teatralnaya.”
“Are they now?”
“They’ve got assault brigades standing in the tunnels. At the ready. And two sabotage groups at Teatralnaya … In five minutes … They’ll be there.”
“What did Umbach do? Why him?”
“He’s a radio operator. He was supposed to receive the signal to start.”
“And you?”
“I’m attached to him. His liaison.”
“Who set the assignment? Who briefed you?”
“Dietmar.”
“We’re acquainted.”
The major was transfixed. The clock above Artyom’s head kept counting: ts-ik, ts-ik, ts-ik. Exactly the same kind of clock as the Hansa major had. Only the ending of the abbreviated history of the Cheka was different, premature.
“But you’re here, aren’t you? We have you. And we have Umbach. So they’re still waiting. How long will they wait?”
“They were supposed to strike before the end of the performance. If we drag it out, they’ll send someone to check. And they’ll blow the place up anyway.”
Ts-ik. Ts-ik. The major’s eyebrows knitted together.
“Do you know what the others look like? In the two groups?”
“I know the leaders.”
“Will you help?”
Artyom nodded once with a stiff, rusty movement.
“We won’t be able to get the men together that fast,” the major said out loud.” We have to drag things out. We have to drag things out.”
Artyom wanted to suggest something, but he was afraid: The major would do the opposite, wouldn’t he? He had to think of it himself. Think, Major, think. Well?
“How about disinformation? Tell them the groups have already been neutralized?”
“How? There’s no time.”
Artyom wanted to squeeze his eyes shut, hide, screen off his insides so the major wouldn’t guess at his suggestion, his prayer, but he made himself keep his eyes wide open, as if he was inviting Gleb Ivanich into himself. And the major clambered inside Artyom though his pupils, scraping through the corneas, smearing everything in there with fine spatters of Pyotr Sergeevich.
“Have you got a password or a response for radio communication?” he eventually decided to ask.
Artyom tilted his head forward without saying anything. Then he cautiously raised it again. He was afraid of frightening off the major’s decision—the only one that would save Artyom.
“Let’s go.”
They walked along the corridor, past the cell that was already unlocked, with the condemned prisoners standing there, staring at the floor and the walls, as if they were hastily trying to save their souls by hiding them in the joints of the tiles, under the turned-up edges of the linoleum, and went into a different room with the word COMMUNICATIONS on the door.
An exhausted communications officer with a harelip stood to attention. A desk with a phone, green boxes with switches and dials, headphones.
The escort stopped in the doorway, and Artyom was prodded to invite him to go over to the equipment. But before that Gleb Ivanovich picked up the telephone receiver and jingled the buttons.
“Hello. This is Svinolup. Yes, Svinolup. Get me Antsiferov.”
Artyom did a double take. Now the identical clocks were linked by that idiotic and unusual name. A coincidence like that was impossible. It couldn’t be a coincidence.
The other one was Boris Ivanovich. This one was Gleb. With the same patronymic. They didn’t look much like each other. But even so he believed it straightaway, fantastic as it was.
“Yes, Comrade Colonel. I have an operative here who has confessed. He says the Reich is going to take Teatralnaya. Right now.”
The voice. Lying there under the stage, Artyom had recognized the voice, because the brothers had one voice between them. They spoke different words with this voice, and put together different sentences; and they had different uniforms, and their clocks had stopped at different times. But even so it was the same voice.
Gleb was probably older. He looked older. So that meant Boris had risen faster through the ranks. How did he manage that? Artyom wondered for some reason, instead of wondering if the fine thread that he was planning to walk along over the abyss would snap. How did it happen that the two brothers ended up with the same rank on different sides of the front? Did they know about each other? They must. It was impossible for them not to. Were they at war? Did they hate each other? Try to kill each other? Were they playing games? What?
“Do you give the go-
ahead? Yes sir. And then you’ll just have time to send us reinforcements … Yes. I agree. We didn’t start it. And I also can’t see any other … Yes sir. Accepted.”
Artyom waited quietly, not even thinking any more about the noise of his thoughts scaring off the magical firebird of luck that had landed on his shoulder. It was one chance in a thousand.
“What’s the frequency?”
The communications officer with the twisted face sat down at the radio set; Artyom told him the frequency. They started combing the airwaves. They set the headphones crookedly on Artyom’s head: covering one ear and leaving the other open on the side towards the other men.
“Did you run the aerials out onto the surface?” he asked.” How do you pick anything up here?”
“You think about your own job,” Svinolup advised him.” Our job.”
“But have … Haven’t you ever … Heard any other cities?”
As if he was being asked, the radio officer shook his head.
“There aren’t any other cities, kid,” said the major.” Forget it.”
“But people came … People have come from other cities, haven’t they? Come to the Metro?”
“Hogwash.”
“And they were eliminated. By your people.”
“More hogwash.”
“And anyone who blabbed about it …”
Gleb Ivanovich narrowed his eyes. He banged his gun against a metal box.
“No fucking point passing on a pack of lies! We’re stuck here and that’s it! Why get people all worked up? Let them dream about what they’re told to dream about. About us defeating Hansa and putting all the bourgeois up against the wall, and then there’ll be communism in the Metro. And a full ration of mushrooms for everyone. Things will be good here. Here. Where we are. You have to love your homeland, got that? After all, there’s no place like home.”
“I was born up on the surface.”
“But you’ll die down here!”
Svinolup slapped him on the shoulder and chortled. It was his first joke.
A voice emerged from the mush of the airwaves. The major nodded to Artyom and set the gun barrel to his head, encouraging him, admonishing him.
“Dietmar.”
“This is your stalker.”
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