“Oh! Stalker. Well?”
“The lilies-of-the-valley have flowered.”
“Then it must be spring.”
The gun barrel poked into Artyom’s free ear, cold and metallic. Straight into the canal. It was anxious, trying to tell if it was being deceived.
“But I liked winter better.”
“Well go and hide, then.”
Artyom tried to squint at Svinolup, but the revolver wouldn’t let him. He ought to have been counting, but he couldn’t. The barrel scratched him as it squeezed into the little hole; it plugged his ear.
“What’s this crap?” the major rasped through the barrel into his brain.
“We’re cancelling the operation,” said Artyom.” Dietmar, we’re canceling …”
And then, an instant later:
Ka-boom!
Everything jumped; the ceiling fell apart; masses of dust tumbled in and hung in the air; the light blinked and disappeared; everyone was blinded and deafened.
Artyom was the only one expecting it. And it was just what he was expecting.
He dived to one side, jerked on the gun barrel with his shackled hands, tugged it out of the weakened grasp of those fat fingers and sprang sideways.
There was a blink of light.
The escort was lying on the floor, pinned down by concrete. Svinolup, cut by flying stone chippings, was bleeding and fumbling around him. The radio operator was still sitting over his apparatus, totally dazed.
Shouts forced their way through the cotton wool … Tramping feet.
Svinolup finally saw Artyom.
“Hands! Hands!”
The major raised them lazily. His eyes roamed about, already looking for the smartest way to come at Artyom.
“Get up! Over to the door! Move it! Come on!”
The Nagant sat in his hand awkwardly, badly, like someone else’s gun.
“What the hell was that?” Svinolup asked him, barely even moving.
He was doing it all deliberately, the bastard.
Artyom squeezed the trigger: it moved stiffly. The hammer shifted back threateningly.
“Get up! Walk!”
“Where was that blast?”
He squeezed it home: another thunderclap, but not as painful as in the cell when Umbach was killed. Artyom’s ears were already blocked. Svinolup grabbed at a blotch on his right shoulder with his left hand. He finally obeyed and got up. He stepped over the escort and glanced out into the corridor.
Another jailer was dithering about out there, shell-shocked. He tried to jerk up his automatic, but Artyom shot him at hazard somewhere in the stomach and kicked the automatic aside.
“Who has the keys? Who has the keys of the cells?”
“I have.”
“Open them! Open all of them! Where’s that guy who lied about the survivors? Zuev! Where is he?”
“He’s not here. We sent him to the Lubyanka. We got a request for him. He’s not here!”
“Come this way. This way. Where’s my cell? Is this it? Open it!”
The major fiddled with the soundless keys and unlocked the door. Heavily made-up Yulka and the morose hawker were alive and well.
“Come out! We’re getting out of here!”
Svinolup pulled a sour face.
“And where to?” Andriusha asked.
“Where to? Out of here. To freedom!”
“They won’t run off anywhere with you,” said Svinolup.
“Off the Line! I’ll get you out of here!”
Yulka didn’t say anything. The man batted his dust-covered eyelids, figuring something out and sucking air into his lungs. And then he didn’t just shout, he bawled.
“Push off, you ugly fucking mug! You lousy stooge! Push off! We’re not going anywhere! We live here! Here!”
“Get the picture?” Svinolup asked with a grin.” That’s love of the Homeland for you.”
“They’ll put you up against the wall here! He’ll do it himself! Svinolup!”
“Fuck off! Sit down, Yulka. Why’d you jump up like a stupid fool?”
“That’s right,” said Svinolup.” That’s exactly right. And you, you greenhorn …”
Artyom went wild.
“Get in the cell! Get in! They’re afraid of you! Give me those keys! Throw them! He’s not getting out of here, have you got that? That’s it, there he is! Now let’s go! What’s your name? Andrei. I’ll get you out of here! I’ll get you out, okay? Move it! There’s no time to waste!”
“We’re not going,” said Yulka, backing up her husband.
“You’re a fool, Fyodor, a perfect naive idiot … They’re rabbits! Docile rabbits! They not going to run anywhere!”
“What do you mean, rabbits?”
“They’re docile! Here, look!”
Svinolup hiked up Yulka’s dress and tugged down her darned tights and panties, exposing her ginger curls. She just put her hands over her mouth.
“Well?” Svinolup shouted at Andriusha.” Are you just going to stand there?”
He squeezed Yulka’s flabby backside in his massive hand. Then stuck his fingers into her crotch and worked them about there.
“Well? Still standing there?”
Andriusha stared down at the floor.
“You shit!” Svinolup slapped him with his left hand—and knocked him to the floor with that single slap.” Go on, you shit, run! Grab your fingered wife and run! Eh?”
Andriusha crawled over to the bench, sat on it, and started feeling at his cheek.
Yulka howled quietly. Her mascara was running.
“Nobody will follow you!”
“You’re lying, you bastard! You’re lying!”
Someone was running along the corridor with his boots thudding. Surely reinforcements couldn’t have arrived already? Artyom fired in that direction, into the dust. Someone in there ducked down and hid, or else died a random death.
Where was it the condemned prisoners had been?
He bounded along the corridor and found the cell. The door was wide open. There was no armed guard. They were all standing inside. Six of them. Two women and four men.
“Run! Come on! Follow me! I’ll get you out!”
No one believed him. No one moved.
“They’ll shoot all of you … Put all of you up against the wall! Well? Well? What are you afraid of? What have you got to lose?”
They didn’t even answer him.
Svinolup was coming towards him along the corridor, swaying. Sniffing at his hand. Smiling.
“Rabbits. Rab-bits. These have already tried it once. They know how it will end.”
“You foul bastard.”
“You go ahead, open all the cells. Go on, kid. Set them free. You’ve got the keys over there, and a gun. You’re in charge. Eh?”
“Shut up.”
Svinolup moved right up close—filthy, gruesome, squat—and Artyom took a step away from him, and then another.
“Nobody will follow you. Freedom, fuck it. A hero, fuck it, a liberator.”
“He was taking you all to be shot!” Artyom shouted to the condemned prisoners.” Now! Right now!”
“But now maybe they’ll pardon us?” someone mumbled.” We’re here, aren’t we, not going anywhere.”
“Maybe!” Svinolup agreed.” Anything’s possible! Now do you understand, you shit? Do you? Do you understand everything?”
Artyom shot him in the chest, fired into the center of this man, and the little bullet got stuck in him, and he staggered and laughed again. Then Artyom squeezed out another bullet for him from the unfamiliar, untrustworthy revolver—into his stomach. He couldn’t shoot him in the face; he couldn’t look into Svinolup’s eyes. Into his confident, insolent, domineering eyes.
Even so, Svinolup only fell reluctantly.
“Well?” Artyom asked the condemned prisoners again.” That’s it! He’s finished! Let’s go!”
“This one’s finished. There are others,” someone mumbled.” Where will we run to? There’s nowhere to g
o.”
Above them there was shouting, and commands were barked. They’d start coming down in a moment.
“Well stay here, then! All of you!” Artyom yelled at them.” And croak here! If you want to croak, then croak! Like shit!”
He stuck the barrel of the Nagant into his trousers, picked up the shot guard’s automatic and found the keys for the handcuffs, but he didn’t have time to take them off—guards were already running towards him. He sprayed bullets from the automatic, made it through the corridor unharmed, scrambled up the steps and darted out into the station hall.
Smoke, grime, and turmoil.
The band was still thundering away cheerily, like on the Titanic.
The mine had detonated where Artyom installed it—at the lower end of the escalator, behind the screen, directly above the cells. But it hadn’t brought everything down—instead it had blown out the gates, just as he’d hoped it would.
It was a good thing the station wasn’t too deep underground and the signal had got through. It was a good thing Dietmar didn’t trust his hireling and gave him a radio-controlled mine, not one with a timer.
He reached the break, pushed aside the bustling rescuers covered in white dust—and shot up the steps.
That idea didn’t occur to anyone else there apart from him.
CHAPTER 11
— DEBRIS —
They shouted something to him as he ran up the escalator, but Artyom didn’t look back even once. What if they were afraid to shoot him in the back, but they would shoot him in the face?
Now he was up by the turnstiles and the ticket offices, at the spot where he had chosen his route to the theater.
There was a dull rumbling down below. As if somewhere deeper down than the Metro the earth in which men had pierced their holes was coming to the boil, as if lava was eating through its thin crust in order to take over the stations and the tunnels. As if. But in fact it was a war being fought at Teatralnaya. A war that Artyom had given the order to start. Maybe now that idiotic director and his star whore had been killed down there: Maybe they were dying at that very second. But Artyom had come out alive again.
He sat down and stayed there, perched on the cold steps, although he had to go, get out of there before the war rose up, before it came splashing out of the craters of the escalators and scalded him.
He simply couldn’t go on just yet. He needed … He had to wait just a little bit. After Umbach. After those horrors in the basement. After Svinolup. After the condemned prisoners in the cells. After Umbach again. He just needed stay here for a little while, sitting on the cold surface. And listen to the echo of what was happening down there without him.
He remembered about the handcuffs, stuck the little key into them, and tore them off.
He was shaking. And then it passed.
He walked up from the turnstiles to the exit. Pushed the door.
And it was only when his chest, legs and cheeks were caressed by the wind that he realized he had come out without the protective suit. On the surface without a suit!
He mustn’t. He mustn’t. He had already breathed too much of the vile muck as it was.
He walked round the building, expecting to come across the real Fyodor Kolesnikov. The last time Fyodor had still had lots of useful things: a suit, for instance.
But now there was nothing left where Fyodor had been. Something had made off with Fyodor and all his bits and pieces. And Artyom was standing on the surface of the earth in just his trousers and jacket: without any armor, naked.
And he set out naked.
It was a strange feeling.
When was the last time he had been on the surface without a protective suit? When he was just four years old. When his mother was fighting her way into the Metro, holding him in her arms. But he didn’t remember that day. He remembered a different one: with ice cream, with ducks on a pond, with asphalt covered in colored chalk. The May breeze blew playfully into his face and tickled him behind his little knees in exactly the same way then—or was it different?
And now that wind grew stronger, swooping down to Artyom from the sky and ran, singing, along the side streets hidden behind the smart facades, flying towards him, washing over his face. What was it carrying?
Something heavy slid down inside his trousers, scratching his leg and catching on the material, clinging to Artyom the way a parasite clings to its host: Finally it fell out and jangled on the surface of the road.
A black revolver.
Artyom leaned down and picked it up. He scrutinized it and fingered it. A strange weapon. It seemed to be made out of lodestone. It was hard to let go of. But painful to hold.
He swung his arm and tossed it in the direction of the Kremlin. And then he felt a bit easier. Or started feeling easier.
Shivers began running up and down his spine.
He ought to run as fast as he could, sticking close to the buildings. To the restaurant where one of the four stalkers had cowered under a table, the one who realized he had to turn off the street and hide from his pursuers. He ought to undress the swollen man quickly, try on his stretched gear, breathe the air that he hadn’t finished breathing and gaze out at Tverskaya Street through the lenses of his gas mask. He had to, to survive again, to live.
But Artyom just couldn’t. He didn’t have the right to look at the city through that spittle-smeared glass. Or breathe dust through those tinned filters.
For a little while now—not for long, perhaps only half an hour or ten short minutes—“living” meant walking along the midnight street like this, in ordinary clothes, without any tight-fitting rubber, the way he used to walk holding his mother’s hand twenty years ago: the way all people used to walk twenty years ago.
Or the way, twenty-seven years ago, his mother had walked, perhaps on a night just like this, perhaps even along this very street, a young and quite definitely beautiful woman, arm in arm with the still nonexistent Artyom’s nameless father. Who was he? What did he say to her? What would Artyom have grown up to be if his father had stayed?
Artyom had gotten used to hating him, because he adored his mother unquestioningly. But Sukhoi hadn’t managed to graft himself onto the spot where Artyom’s father had snapped off. And there hadn’t been anyone else even to try.
But right now …
Right now Artyom could imagine that man walking beside his mother in habitual style: taking her warm, living arm and setting off, chatting about this and that. And he breathed the way that Artyom was breathing now: not through a pleated trunk, not even with his nose, but with his entire body, with every pore. And he listened to her, this young woman, with his entire body all at once, the way people listen right at the very beginning, when they are only just cautiously groping their way towards each other.
His father was a live human being, and his mother was a live human being. Artyom realized that now. The same kind of live human beings as he was.
And at this moment he was very much alive.
Only a moment ago he ought to have died. He had even seen the bullet that was destined to break off his life, and been spattered with someone else’s life in proof of the fact that people really can die, and die instantly, stupidly, pointlessly.
But now he was living. And he had never been more alive and more real before this moment. Something was unfolding inside Artyom, as if his heart had been clenched tight, like a fist, before this. But now it was unclenching slightly.
He was gradually being released.
He could imagine his father walking beside his mother after all; and he didn’t feel an urge to interfere, to squeeze in between them and push him away from her.
Let them walk along together twenty-seven years ago; let them breathe the way he was breathing now. Let them take as much joy in each other as they could. And let Artyom appear in the world after all. up here, on the surface.
It was as if everything down there under the ground had all been delirious raving—a long typhoid delirium, viscous and clammy—and real
, genuine life was only just beginning now.
He believed what the wind told him—that there was something amazing up ahead. Everything that was most breathtaking was yet to come.
Artyom reached the end of Tverskaya Street and carried on.
Straight down the middle of the street, between the Scyllas and Charybdises of various Kremlins, palaces, and State Dumas. Rollicking along, he couldn’t give a damn that something might stick its head out of anywhere, lean down to him and just gobble him up—he was out strolling, simply strolling.
And he also dismissed from his thoughts the men who had pursued him along Tverskaya Street: the first time a miracle had happened and they spared him, and it would happen again now.
Artyom’s end of the line probably wasn’t here, or at Teatralnaya; this wasn’t his point of destination.
The government buildings, so bombastic, built for the centuries, no longer seemed like granite headstones; the wind scattered the odor of the grave. They didn’t fill him with horror, but pity. There they stood in the night, empty, probably regretting that they had lived longer than all the people they were built for. Like old men suffering the pain and horror of outliving their own children.
Something licked his hand.
Then again. And now it licked his nose.
Rain.
It was starting to rain.
It was as insidious and poisonous as the air up here on the surface: It tasted like water, but the air tasted like life, and look how many it had snuffed out. Of course Artyom mustn’t walk along naked in this rain. But he strolled on and for some reason even felt glad. He even slowed his stride: He wanted to get soaked.
Rain …
Artyom stopped, threw his head back, and offered his face to it.
And suddenly he had a vision.
Streets with incredible giants strolling along them in brightly colored clothes. White, pot-bellied airplanes, flying low, just above the rooftops—not real-life airplanes, but airplanes imagined by someone: Instead of the flat aluminum struts that genuine planes used to cling to the sky, these had transparent, fluttering wings—like dragonflies, maybe? And they didn’t hurtle along; they floated. Cars: not these rusty tin cans stuffed with dead bodies crammed into them like sardines, and not what they used to be like before, but funny, tiny little carriages, exactly like the carriages in the Metro, but with places only for four.
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