Metro 2035

by Dmitry Glukhovsky

  Homer took his ear away and looked at Artyom intently, as if he had to demine a tripwire. And compassionately too, but he tried to hide the compassion, because he realized the fishing line was invisible and his compassion could snag it.

  “How are you?” he asked. “You look terrible, to tell the truth.”

  “It’s all up with me,” said Artyom. “There’s maybe a week left. So you write, granddad. Write it down.”

  “Write what down?”

  “Everything. Everything I just told you.”

  Homer nodded.

  “All right.”

  “It is all clear? Shall I tell you again?” Artyom half rose on his good leg and glanced out into the passage.

  “Not everything’s clear.”

  “What isn’t?”

  Homer hesitated.

  “Well … It all … sounds a bit strange. To tell the truth.”

  Artyom drew back and looked the old man over from a distance

  “Do you think … ? Don’t you believe me? Do you think I’ve flipped out too?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “Listen. I realize it all sounds crazy. But it’s true, do you understand? And vice-versa, everything you know about the Metro—that there isn’t any life on the surface, that we have nowhere to go, that the Reds are against Hansa, that Hansa are the good guys and all the rest of it … Absolutely all of it—that’s all lies! We’ve just been living with them for so long …”

  “One city could still … Maybe two …” Homer frowned and made an effort to force himself to believe Artyom. “But the whole world? And jammers. And Hansa.”

  “Never mind that. You just remember it for the time being. You can write it down later. You will write it down for yourself, won’t you? I’ll be gone soon, granddad. I don’t want all this to just disappear. This is a mission for you, understand? I found out really crazy stuff. And if you—you!—don’t put all this in your notebook … No one will ever even find out. Today I’m going to … Never mind. I might not pull it off. But you—you, do you understand?—can make a difference. Will you do it? Write it down?”

  The old man chewed on it. He stroked the chicken. It sat there drowsily.

  “Even if all this is true … Who’ll publish something like that?”

  “What difference does it make, who?”

  “Well how … People, how will they find out?”

  “Grandad! What do you mean? Why does it have to be printed? Homer—the other Homer, the real one—he didn’t write anything at all, did he? He was blind. He just spoke. Maybe he sang … And people listened to him.”

  “The other Homer—yes,” the old man agreed. “The real one,” he repeated with a bleak smile. “All right. I’ll write it down, of course. But you need to see a doctor. What kind of way is that to talk—only a week left! And let’s go … Will you take me to her?”

  “Thanks, granddad. I’ll tell you more later … In more detail. When I find out. I’ll dictate it. If things work out.”

  Homer didn’t talk as they walked. Something was ripening on his tongue, and he kept sucking at it, gritting his teeth in order not to let it go. Then he muttered something.

  “And you know what else? I had to publish a couple of short articles in their newspaper. They forced me. You know the kind of stuff. About the breakthrough at Schiller …”

  “But they forced you,” Artyom said to him.

  “Yes, they forced me.”

  * * *

  They got back.

  And everything there had changed. Dietrich and his comrade had finished eating and disappeared. And there was groaning coming from Sasha’s little cubicle. She was quite all right.

  “This is it,” said Artyom.

  They exchanged glances.

  And they sat down to wait behind the curtain, each staring into his own glass. Homer squirmed and coughed. Artyom listened intently to himself: What was happening in there? The wind was howling inside him. Turning the metal blades, creaking and transforming itself into power, so that Artyom could spend a little more time on the Earth. Where are you, white-bellied ships of the heavens? Where are you flying to on this wind? He gulped at his vodka: When he put the glass to his lips, a pink cloud spread out from the spot, and a cloud as murky as the hooch spread inside Artyom. Sleep weighed heavily on him. How long had he gone without sleep? Twenty-four hours?

  The groaning came to an end. Some goon came out, buttoning himself up. He smiled like a conqueror. What could be done about this?

  Homer darted off, shuffling in that direction. He dropped the chicken.

  “Sasha!”

  “Homer … You?”

  Artyom didn’t move. It wasn’t his conversation. But he couldn’t help hearing it.

  “My God … You, here … Why are you? Sashenka …”

  “I’m all right …”

  “I … I thought you were dead … I looked for you there, at Tula …”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me? Find me?”

  “But how did you find me?”

  “I … Artyom. Do you know him? He showed me.”

  “Is he here?”

  “You … Why are you doing this? Sasha? Why are you doing these foul things?”

  “Why are they foul?”

  “You shouldn’t. You mustn’t do this. Come on … You collect your things. And we’ll go.”

  Artyom stroked the barrel of the Nagant. Not right now. Tomorrow, or the next day—when Bessolov came to see her. Let him answer. After that—by all means. All right? The chicken looked at him with its head on one side.

  “Where to? I’m not going anywhere.”

  “What are you saying? When they hold you here like this? In slavery? We can … I’ll ask …”

  “No.”

  “I don’t understand! You can make a living from something else … If you have to be bought out … Do you have to be bought out?”

  “I’m not enslaved.”

  “Then what is it? I don’t understand …”

  “I’m in the right place for me. Why don’t you tell me about yourself, how you are. How’s … Hunter?”

  “I don’t know. Good God. What does that mean—in the right place?”

  “I’m where people need me.”

  “That’s raving nonsense! You’re not even eighteen yet! What are you talking about? This is a brothel! A den of vice! All these filthy men … This can’t go on! We’re leaving!”

  “No.”

  “Come on!”

  “Let go!”

  The chicken was listening. Worrying about Homer. But Artyom didn’t interfere. He didn’t have any right to. And whose side should he take?

  “You mustn’t do this! You have no right! You’re not a prostitute!”

  “As if that’s the worst thing that can happen to a human being.”

  “You’re … a poor little girl. I lost you … It’s my fault …”

  “It’s not your fault. And you’re not my father.”

  “I’m not even … Why do you have to be here? It’s not what you want!”

  “Is that all? You thought I was dead. Here I am, alive—what’s the difference if I’m a prostitute or not?”

  “You’re! Not! A prostitute!”

  “Then who am I?”

  A man stopped at the open door. With the shaved back of his head gathered into folds. And a leather jacket puckered across his shoulders. A security guard? Checking if the master could come in? Artyom rubbed his eyes, leaned forward, and looked right and left. Dark hair with a parting, bags under the eyes—was there a man like that in the crowd?

  “You’re not the kind of girl who lets herself … For cartridges … Who allows things to be done to her … That’s not the way I remember you!”

  “I see. And what if that’s the way I am now?”

  “No! This is disgusting?”

  “Well, make me different in that book of yours. Make me the way you’d like me to be. What difference does it
make what I do in real life? What difference does it make what happened to Hunter?”

  “What has that got to do with this?”

  “You finished your book. How? What happened at Tula?”

  “I don’t understand! A flood! The water broke in.”

  “A miracle. Do you have a miracle in there?”

  “That’s not the final version.”

  “Well, you corrected a slaughter to a miracle. So you can correct me. Make me a fairy. I’m sorry. It’s time for my next visitor. I see them by appointment. Like a doctor. Make me a doctor.”

  “I won’t leave!”

  The man with the folds on the back of his head listened to all this, spat, and went away. Artyom went limp. He stroked Ryaba with his fingers. The chicken was dozing. The Nagant was wide awake.

  * * *

  The painkillers and vodka spun the den of vice round; they spun the world round; they spun Artyom’s insecurely attached head round.

  Homer eventually came out—looking lost, as if he’d been doused with icy water and zapped with electric current.

  “Why is she acting that way?”

  “You go. Go on, granddad. Let me have a talk with her. Later … I’ll see you later. Let’s say, in the same eating joint. Where you and Ilya were. Give him my condolences.”

  “Are you … One of her …”

  “Take a look at me. What could I do? I need to talk to her.”

  “Take her away from here, Artyom. You’re a good boy. Sincere. Take her away.”

  “Sincere. All right.”

  He knocked. She’d already heard his voice and wasn’t surprised to see him. He swayed inside.

  “Hi.”

  “You’re back! Did you get to your Balashikha?”

  “Yes.”

  “You look terrible. Sit down. Would you like anything? Water? Over here. This way.”

  She was amazingly clean, Sasha. Fresh. No dirt stuck to her. After she’d been mauled and torn to pieces, she just tidied her hair and bounced right back. How did she do that? How did women do that? Maybe they drank men?

  “There … There are jammers. In Balashikha.”

  “What jammers?”

  “Sashenka. That man who you call your master … Bessolov …”

  “Wait. What’s this you’ve got here? God, what terrible sores. And this … You’re hot. You’ve got a fever.”

  “Wait. Do you hear me? This Bessolov. Who is he?”

  “You’ve got a pistol.”

  “When will he come?”

  “Poor thing. You’ve got worse, right?”

  “Is he the pervert who used you that night? Who used me? Who watched us?”

  “Who introduced us?”

  “Listen! When will he come? I want to talk to him. I need to.”

  “What for?”

  “For a good reason. He’s at the top of this pyramid. He calls all the shots here. He’s got the Reds on a string, and the fascists … Miller. I want to understand. What’s the point of it all? All of us being stuck in the Metro? What’s the plan? I want him to tell me.”

  “Look. Your scabs have dried up. From the burn. Can I?”

  “That … You said I burned myself?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why did I do that? What for?”

  “You talked to him and burned yourself. To Alexei.”

  “I did? I mean … Because of the Order? It was … It was the Order’s motto that I burned off … Did he tell me something about the Order? What it does nowadays?”

  “Have you remembered?”

  “So you knew everything too?”

  “Artyom. Do you want to lie down? You can hardly stay on your feet.”

  He squatted down by the wall.

  “Why didn’t you explain to me? What did you send me off to Balashikha for?”

  “There’s nothing you can do about it, Artyom. Sometimes all you can do is just burn yourself with a cigarette. That’s all.”

  “And about the jammers? And about the world?”

  “Yes.”

  “When will he come? When?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You do! You told me you can sense him! Tell me!”

  “What do you want from him?”

  “Hide me. Hide me. Please. Hide me here.”

  “I’ll hide you.” She squatted down beside him, stroked his bare temples tenderly, and the top of his head. “Sit here behind the curtain.”

  She closed the curtain.

  “I can still do it. Everything can still be done.”

  He carried on looking at the fabric with its design of little flowers, and in the heart of every little flower he saw the eyeless back of someone’s head, an entire meadow, flowering with the backs of heads. All the people from the Red Line were represented here, without faces, living only so that one day they would be shot in the back of the head: That was the pattern.

  “Why?” Artyom whispered stubbornly to himself, in order not to fall asleep. “Even if you are the master, even if you’re the devil himself. You’re going to tell me everything. Why you treat us like this. Why you treat people like this. Why we have to stay here. And if you don’t tell me—I’ll blow your brains out. With this Nagant here. Right between the eyes. You shit.”

  He carried on lulling himself like that—and fell asleep.

  CHAPTER 20

  — MIRACLES —

  And he died.

  He had always wondered if there was anything there or if they simply turned out the lights. And if it was possible to make a deal with someone to go back to his childhood. To the time before the war, to his mother who was still alive and an Earth that was still alive. That would be a magnificent heaven.

  But the world after death hadn’t turned out like that. The afterlife was the same way life had been: battened down tight. Except maybe a bit cleaner, with freshly painted walls. If life was painted with linseed-oil paint everywhere, then heaven and hell had to be exactly the same as that.

  Apart from the walls, there was a bed. With more beds standing beside it, made up and empty. Strange, he couldn’t be the only one who had died and come here.

  There was a metal rod too, with a transparent bag full of some kind of liquid hanging on it. A rubber tube ran from the bag to Artyom’s arm, replacing his blood with some kind of junk.

  Aha. He was alive, therefore.

  He raised his arm and clenched and unclenched his fingers. The arm wasn’t tied. He moved his legs—they were free. He threw back the sheet and looked at himself: stark naked. Bullet holes covered with plasters, white. Why had they done this to him? Who?

  He moved his back—and didn’t feel anything. The bite marks from the whip had healed up a bit. He looked at the cigarette burns: The scabs had come off, leaving pink blotches.

  What happened?

  He started remembering: There were flowers with the backs of heads. There was a conversation with Sasha. There was a revolver in his hand. How had they foisted a bed on him instead of all that and dripped a substitute into him to replace his blood?

  He lowered his feet onto the floor. Then took hold of the rod as if it was a staff. Standing on his feet felt strange. His head was swimming, sounds twisted and bent.

  A square room, one door.

  Taking the staff with the false blood along, he hobbled on his stilts towards that door. He tugged on it. It was locked. He knocked. No answer.

  But out there, on the other side of the door, life was going on. He heard the sound of voices, filtered through plywood: music, laughter. Laughter. Maybe it was heaven out there after all? And he was in the antechamber? And he just had to get rid of all his corrupt blood, replace it with this colorless, angelic fluid, and they’d let him in?

  An iron maggot appeared in the keyhole and started turning. He had been heard.

  Artyom wondered what he could use to strike a blow. But he thought too long. Missed his chance.

  A woman was standing in the doorway. In a white coat: a neatly washed and irone
d white coat. Smiling at him.

  “Well there you are. And we were beginning to get worried.”

  “Worried?” Artyom asked cautiously. “You?”

  “Of course. You were unconscious for so long.”

  “How long?”

  “Oh, a week already. You’re into the second week.”

  “At least I caught up on my sleep,” said Artyom, trying to look over her shoulder and spot what was being prepared for him in the corridor. “I don’t even know any longer what I’m going to do in the afterlife.”

  “Are you really in such a hurry?” The woman shook her head.

  She was lovely. Pale freckles, copper eyes, hair gathered back. A smile—and he could see that she smiled often: such a neatly delineated face.

  “The doctor said a week or two, and I’d be moving on.”

  “Well, I’m a doctor too. And I wouldn’t have been so categorical.”

  “How would you have been?”

  Another maggot stirred in Artyom’s chest—hope.

  “Well … You received, in my view, a dose of five or six grays. When? About two weeks before you were hospitalized? Judging from your blood.”

  “Before I was hospitalized?”

  “If everything had been done more promptly—if we’d started the treatment immediately—I would have said that your chances were fifty-fifty. And now—I wouldn’t like to mislead you … The results of therapy are quite good. Transfusions. We managed to select the right antibiotics.”

  “Antibiotics? Therapy?” Artyom narrowed his eyes.

  “Well, and some other things … I think you can feel it for yourself. The sores are healing up. Anyway, it’s nothing like a week. There’s a good chance—a quite solid one—that you’ll start to recover. Your body is responding well.”

  “Where are the antibiotics from?”

  “I beg your pardon? If you’re concerned about the expiration date, I assure you …”

  “Where am I? What is this? Is this Hansa?”