“But I think we’ll start with this beauty here.”
“Why do you want this thing here?” Artyom felt disgusted: It was as if Bessolov was kissing a dead person on the lips.
“Oh, come now. One needs to know one’s roots.” Bessolov turned towards him and smiled. “And so we don’t touch anything at all here. This bomb is the primogenitor of our sovereignty!” AlexeI Felixovich stroked the bomb’s immense paunch. “Essentially, it’s only thanks to this that we were able to defend ourselves against encroachments from the West. To defend our unique social order. Our civilization. If our scientists had not created it, the country would have been brought to its knees after the Second World War. Well, and after that …”
“So that in World War Three we could get hit with it and …”
“World War Three?” AlexeI Felixovich interrupted. “In number three we got a bit carried away. Too caught up, so to speak, in our own television truth. Man is good at that sort of thing in general: at substituting illusion for reality. And living in a world of complete make-believe. A useful quality, in principle. The entire Metro, for instance, manages quite splendidly in this system of imaginary coordinates.”
“The entire Metro manages quite splendidly?” Artyom asked, moving closer to him.
“What I mean is that everything works. Everyone is drawn in, involved. On the Red Line they believe that they’re fighting Hansa and the fascists. The people in the Reich believe that they’re battling against the Reds and the freaks. The people in Hansa frighten their children with Moskvin and inform on their neighbors as Red spies. As if it all really existed!”
“As if? I! Was there.” Artyom suddenly felt he couldn’t breathe in this museum. “I was in the tunnel. Between Pushkin and Kuznetsky Most. That bloody slaughter between the Reds and the fascists. Baited dozens of people. Into fighting. Real, live people. They hacked each other to death there. With pickaxes. And knives. Metal bars. That really happened. Got that, you scum? It! Really! Happened!”
“I sympathize. But what does that prove? Who was killed there? Reds? Fascists? No. A certain number of genetically damaged individuals on one side, and a certain number of saboteurs and blabbermouths on the other. A controlled conflict. And a highly original mode of autopurification, if you take a detached view of it. As if our system was a living organism … Cells that hinder survival die off and peel away. But let me repeat: We did not start that war. The midlevel command of the Reich’s intelligence service attacked the Red Line in order to curry favor with their leadership. Without having even the slightest idea that neither the Red Line nor the Reich actually exist.”
“What do you mean—they don’t exist?”
“Well, that is—of course they exist! The names exist. It’s very important for people to call themselves something. To believe that they are someone. It’s very important to them to fight against someone. And we accommodate them. We don’t have a totalitarian state here! And we offer them the widest possible product range: If you want to massacre freaks, the Iron Legion is recruiting. If you’re dreaming of free rations and a common cause—run to the Red Line. If you don’t believe in anything and just want to do business—emigrate to Hansa. Are you an intellectual?—fantasize about the Emerald City and wear a hole in the seat of your pants in Polis. A convenient system, you see. I already tried to din that into your head back at TsvetnoI Boulevard. Why do you want to go up on top? We can provide you with freedom here. What do you want with the surface?”
AlexeI Felixovich stopped at the way out, ran his glance round the bomb’s shrine, and turned out the light. Artyom was still thinking about how to answer.
“So you’re not from Hansa? All this isn’t Hansa?”
“From what Hansa?” Bessolov shook his head. “I told you: There isn’t any Hansa. All right? There is the Circle Line, and there are people who think that they live in Hansa.”
“Where are you from, then?”
“Why, from here.” AlexeI Felixovich raised his eyes to the vaulted ceiling, assembled out of tunnel liners. “From this very place. To be even more precise, from that room over there. Catch up with me.”
They came out into a little room with a parquet floor and a desk with a green lamp burning on it: a security post. The sentry on duty, wearing an officer’s uniform, got up and saluted. Someone’s reception area? Escalator steps leading up to the next intermediate level: a replica. It was like a room from a different time: not from the pretentious 2000s, but from times that seemed to be ancient but had never actually ticked by in reality.
They walked up the steps and there was a door.
An office. Bookshelves with glass doors, crammed with weighty volumes; a dais or podium in the middle of the room. And a nomenklatura desk in the corner of it, like Svinolup’s or Miller’s. A man sitting at the desk.
Motionless.
Lounging back and looking up at the ceiling. Eyes with a plastic glitter.
In a tunic with gold stars on the shoulder straps. A bushy black mustache. Hair combed across the head.
“That’s …”
“Joseph Vissarionovich. Delightful, isn’t he?”
“Stalin?”
“A life-size dummy of Stalin. Wax. You can take a look.”
Tangled up in this dream, Artyom obediently stepped up onto the podium.
Stalin had put his boneless hands on the desk: A pen protruded out of one waxy fist, as if the dummy leader was about to sign some decree. The other hand was spread out on its flat palm, with the fingers extended forward. Below the mustache was a smile—carved out with a knife, unwavering. Beside his hand lay unfading rag roses.
Unable to resist, Artyom touched Stalin on the nose. Stalin couldn’t care less. He couldn’t care less that he had died and been resurrected; couldn’t care less that now he was a dummy, that he had escaped at such a price, when the world had been reduced to dust; couldn’t care less if they laid flowers at his feet or tweaked his nose. Stalin was in an excellent mood. Everything was fine as far as Stalin was concerned.
“As large as life, eh?” said Bessolov.
“Is he … from the museum too? An exhibit?”
Artyom walked over to a bookcase, raked the dust off the glass with his finger, and looked at the shelves. They were crammed with one and the same book, repeated a nonsensical number of times. Printed on the spine of every one was: J. V. Stalin. Collected Works. Volume 1.
“What’s it for?” Artyom looked round at Bessolov.
“Stalin’s office was here when it was a genuine bunker. Although the guides say that Stalin never did spend any time sitting in here: He passed away before the facility was commissioned. But they made an effigy for the Western tourists and licked the office into shape. Stalin was already here when we moved into the bunker. And we preserved everything. One must respect the history of one’s people!”
AlexeI Felixovich clambered up onto the dais, moved over to Stalin, sat down on Stalin’s desk, and dangled his legs.
“Continuity! There he is and here we are. It turns out, as it were, that he built this bunker for us. He was thinking of our future. A great leader.”
Apart from the mustached portraits on the Red Line, Artyom hadn’t encountered Stalin before; what did he feel when he touched the great leader on the nose? Wax.
“Why continuity? The continuity’s on the Red Line.”
“Artyom. Come on, Artyom!” Bessolov tut-tutted. “Let me spoon-feed you, then. The Red Line, Hansa, the Reich—they’re dummies too. Of course, they simulate independence, competition, and struggle. They even actually fight, when they get carried away.”
“So who are you, then?”
AlexeI Felixovich chuckled.
“It’s an elegant sort of thing—a multiparty system. Like a hydra. Choose a head that suits you and fight the other heads. Believe that an enemy head is a dragon. Conquer it. But what about the heart?” Bessolov stroked the desk and gestured round the office with his chin. “This is the heart. You can’t see it, and yo
u don’t know a thing about it. And if I hadn’t shown it to you, you would have carried on fighting against a head. If not the Red Line, then Hansa.”
Artyom moved away from the bookcase and walked up close to Bessolov.
“Won’t you regret that you ever showed me?”
Bessolov didn’t back away or move aside. He wasn’t afraid of Artyom, as if he wasn’t in Artyom’s dream, but Artyom was in his.
“Go and tell someone that you were here. Even that Miller of yours. What will he say to you? He’ll say it’s sheer lunacy.”
Artyom gulped. had he really confessed that too in his drunken state?
“Why, hasn’t he been here?”
“Of course not. Why let everyone in here? This is a temple. A sanctuary.”
“What about me?”
“What about you? You’re a holy fool, Artyom. God’s fools can enter the temple. They are even shown miracles.”
Suddenly it clicked.
“The Invisible Observers.”
“Louder!”
“The Invisible Observers.”
“There now. Look at that, you’re not so hopeless after all!”
“But that’s just a tall story. A myth. Like the Emerald City.”
“Precisely,” Bessolov agreed. “A tall story. A fairytale.”
“Everything collapsed ages and ages ago. It didn’t even hold up for a month. The state. And then there was chaos. And since then … Everybody knows that. The children know it. No one governs us. We’re here all on our own. Alone. The Invisible Observers are a myth!”
“But how do you know that they’re a myth? We were the ones who told you that. Do you understand? We immediately gave you a ready-made image that you could fit us into. You’re a simple soul, after all; you think with your heart, not your head. In images. Well, all right, I’ll spoon out the clichés for you. Help yourself! The Invisible Observers! Oop-la! On the one hand, you definitely don’t believe in me, but on the other, it’s as if you already know everything about me. Rumors! Better than television.”
“But you … The previous leaders, that is … The government, the president … You were evacuated beyond the Urals, weren’t you? The system of government fell apart … The state …”
“Just think about it: Why would we move beyond the Urals? Why would we move to some separate bunker at the far end of the world? Out in the cold, all on our own? What would we do there—eat each other? Our place is with the people!” He stretched, looking like a well-fed cat.
“And where were you all the time? When we were eating shit? When we were throttling each other? When we were dying up there on top because of you, where were you?”
“Right beside you. We were always beside you. Just on the other side of the wall.”
“That! Can’t be! Possible!”
“I told you—it works. You can’t booze away real skill.”
Bessolov got down off the desk and took a pull at his amber-colored bottle.
“What are we doing stuck in here? Come on, I’ll show you how we live. Rather ascetically, by the way. So you won’t go getting any ideas.”
He carefully hoisted up the slumping Stalin and stepped down off the podium. Artyom lingered, glutted with all this knowledge.
“You’re bastards.”
“But what did we do?” AlexeI Felixovich asked. “On the contrary—minimal intervention! We are merely observers! And invisible ones, at that. Only if the system starts keeling over, then we have to straighten it up.”
“The system? People are so hungry they eat their own children!”
“So what?” Bessolov shot a hostile glance at Artyom. “We’re not the ones who like to eat your children. You’re the ones who like doing that. And we don’t like the fact that you eat your own children. We just like governing you. But if we want to govern you, we are obliged to allow you to eat your own children!”
“Lies! You stuck us in here and you keep us here! You treat people like pigs! Stoolpigeons everywhere … Some have a Security Service; some have the KGB; some have … There are Svinolups everywhere … It’s true, there is no difference between the Reich and all the rest …”
“And that’s because our Russian man can’t be managed any other way,” Bessolov replied sternly. “That’s the way nature made him. Loosen the screws a bit and you get rebellion! He needs constant watching. What was all that business of yours at Komsomol Station? Look at them, they demanded their rights. They rebelled. How did it all end? In a bloodbath! And has that undermined the Red Line? No in the least! Why, the security services are a God-given gift to our Russian man! He’s riotous by nature! Those machine guns of yours … Why, they pressed up as close as they could to the machine guns, jostling into the front row. But the patient ones survived. At least that’s some kind of selection process. And how else can our man be governed? He has to be distracted all the time. Restrained. Channelled, so to speak. He needs to have some kind of idea foisted on him. Religion or ideology. He needs to have enemies invented for him all the time! He can’t live without enemies! He’s completely at a loss without them! He can’t define himself. He knows nothing about himself. We had really excellent enemies in reserve two years ago. The Dark Ones. You couldn’t possibly invent a better external threat than them. They scrabbled about on the surface. They were coal-black, without even any whites in their eyes, like devils. And they filled our Russian man with horror and loathing. Wonderful enemies. Everything’s clear immediately: If they’re black, then we’re white. We were saving them for a rainy day. The ‘threat to mankind’ scenario. But no, some imbecile appeared and wound up that old fool from the Order, and they went and bombarded our pet devils with missiles in their own safarI park. Can you imagine that?”
“Yes.”
“We tried to intervene via the Council of Polis; we hinted that there wasn’t any danger from the Dark Ones as yet. Basically, the scenario just got bogged down. We had to domesticate that Miller of yours too. I’d chop hands off for initiatives at the local level. If we had a dictatorship. Are you coming?”
Shell-shocked and crushed, Artyom plodded after Bessolov. They walked past the sentry, who jumped up again and saluted again. Then they found themselves in a narrow passage, with their steps echoing hollowly on an iron floor. They passed the turnoff where the restaurant was located. A bright glimmer from the mirror-globe darted straight out into Artyom’s eye. The globe was spinning like Artyom’s head—once there was broad sheet of mirror, and the reflection of the whole world fitted into it. But the mirror had been smashed to smithereens and glued onto hell knows what, and now they were lashing at it with a searchlight for the amusement and beauty of it.
They passed the turn and carried on.
“How did you get a grip on him? How did you get a grip on all of them?” Artyom asked obtusely. “Did you buy them? Moskvin? The Führer?”
“Well now. I can’t generalize about that. There’s a right approach to every man. Moskvin values money, and he poisoned his cousin. And Yevgeny Petrovich, for instance, has a little daughter growing up with no fingers. She was born like that. A sentimental man. He passed all those laws about the fight against deformity and he can’t observe them himself. And we send him some photos. Here you are, Yevgeny Petrovich, and here is your little daughter in your arms, and your wife beside you, so there can’t be any doubt. So play by the rules, Yevgeny Petrovich, and play with gusto, because your citizens have to believe you. Not even a single one of your very lousiest citizens must doubt that your Reich is absolutely the most authentic of Reichs. He must be prepared to give his life for the Reich.”
“There isn’t any Reich any longer. It gobbled itself up, digested itself, and shat itself out. And your Führer bolted.”
“And we’ll bring him back and plant him there again. And we’ll arrange a new Reich for him, better than the previous one. We’ve already picked up his wife and daughter, and the Führer will be reeled in.”
“Why do that? He’s an absolute monster!”
“Because, you droll little man, we are accustomed to working with Yevgeny Petrovich. And we know how to do it. The incriminating evidence hasn’t been disclosed yet. Why should we look for a new man, find out about his weaknesses, lure him with the bait and sink in the hook, when there’s such a wonderful, ready-made option? He messed things up, it’s true—well, we’ll penalize him for that. Where would we be without the Reich?”
“They’re all scumbags there! Animals! Some are animals, and some are cowards!”
“The animals aren’t only there, but right throughout the Metro. And look what a wonderful, beautiful enclosure has been built for them. And the animals crawl into it themselves from all over. The Iron Legion and so on and so forth. To fight the freaks. To let off steam. If there’s no Reich, where will they go to? Think about the people. No, let them go and fight for the Reich. Or for the Red Line. Or for the Order. Choose what suits your taste. Freedom! There it is, that’s freedom!”
“That’s not what people need!”
“Yes it is. Precisely that. So they won’t be bored. So they’ll have something to keep themselves busy. So they’ll have a choice. We have a genuine, self-sufficient world here under the ground! And we don’t need any other world up on the surface.”
“I need it!”
“Well, so you need it, but no one else does.”
“Maybe they have family up there! If only for that, at least!”
“Their families are all here now. And really and truly, I can’t understand you. All you did was damage your health. They barely managed to revive you, you little fool. What is it that you’re looking for up there?”
“We were born on the surface. Our place is up there. In the open air. You breathe differently up there! And think differently. There aren’t enough directions here for me! Here there’s only forwards and backwards. I feel cramped here—can you grasp that? Don’t you feel that yourself?”
“No. You know, it’s the quite the opposite for me: I feel dizzy outside. I immediately want to come back down into the bunker. Into the coziness. Right. This is our accommodation block. Little apartments.”
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