“Look what this pipsqueak’s trying to pull!”
“Skip it, fellas, there’s no point … They’re not carrying anyway!”
“Let me check that!”
The sharp sense of smell of short-cropped Lyokha with the cross hadn’t deceived him. Cotangent wasn’t carrying any cargo.
He spread his arms good-naturedly and let Artyom and Homer get down.
“This here is the boundary of my domain.”
And he trundled off back into the darkness, whistling something excruciating.
The watch perfunctorily familiarized themselves with the new arrivals and let them through; the traders who had descended on them dispersed. Only the very first one, Lyokha, was left, he was clearly the hungriest.
“How about a guided tour, lads? We have plenty of stuff here for tourists to look at. When was the last time you saw a train? Our hotel’s in one. The rooms are real swanky. With electricity. In the corridor. I’ll get you a discount.”
“I know everything here inside out,” Artyom explained amicably and strode on. Homer shuffled after him.
Riga consisted of two happy colors, red and yellow, but to discover that, you had to scrape the layer of grease off the tiles that covered the walls of the station. One of the tunnels was plugged with a dead Metro train, adapted as hotel accommodation. And all the life of this place was conducted via the other tunnel.
“Do you know our bar? It’s only just opened. The local brew’s first class. And they distill stuff too, of course, from—”
“No thanks.”
“But you’ll have to amuse yourselves here somehow, guys. The Prospect is closed. Quarantine. There’s a barrier right across the tracks, and machine-gunners with dogs. Didn’t you know about that, then?”
Artyom twitched his shoulder.
“So what, is there no way at all? It must be possible to arrange things somehow.”
Lyokha snickered.
“You go and try to arrange things. They’ve got a campaign on in Hansa right now. They’re fighting corruption. You’ll get there at just the wrong moment. Those on the take will get let off the hook later. Their own kind, aren’t they? But they have to put someone away.”
“But why did they close the border?”
“Some kind of mushroom disease. Like rot. It’s either carried on the air or people spread it. So they’ve put everything on pause for the time being.”
“They’re persecuting me,” Artyom muttered to himself.” They won’t let me go.”
“Eh?” asked Lyokha, wrinkling up his forehead.
“I loathe those damned mushrooms,” Artyom said clearly and distinctly.
“I understand,” Lyokha agreed.” A miserable kind of business.”
Several men rushed by with their tin buckets rattling. Lyokha twitched and almost set off after them, but stopped himself. He probably calculated it would be more interesting to stay with the stubborn tourists.
“Your business is more cheerful,” Homer remarked.
“Don’t be like that, granddad,” Lyokha said with a frown.” Not everyone can be a broker. It takes talent.”
“A broker?”
“Well, yeah. Like me. Like the lads over there. A broker. Why, what do you reckon it’s called?”
Homer couldn’t even make a guess. He was too busy trying not to smile. But the corners of his lips stretched upwards anyway, no matter how hard he tried to coerce them.
And then Artyom spotted a sudden change in his expression. His face turned cold and frightened, like a dead man’s. He was looking past the broker, off to one side.
“Don’t be like that,” Lyokha told the old man, who had suddenly turned deaf.” As it happens, shit is the lifeblood of the economy. What do mushrooms grow on? What do they fertilize the tomatoes with at Sebastopol? So don’t talk like that.”
But Homer nodded to Lyokha at some random word in the middle of a phrase and started sidling away from him and Artyom. Artyom traced out the line of his trajectory with a glance: he saw, but he didn’t understand.
A slim girl with white hair was a standing several steps away from them, kissing a very substantial, beefy broker: As he kissed her, the broker inconspicuously pushed his bucket away with his foot, so that it wouldn’t take the edge off the enchantment. This girl was the target of Homer’s uncertain advance.
“And how much do you reckon we pull in on this lark?” Lyokha asked, switching to Artyom now that he’d lost the old man.
Homer stole up to the snogging couple and started tortuously trying to find an angle from which he could glance at their faces. Maybe he had recognized someone? But he didn’t dare to interfere and drag them out of their kiss.
“What are you up to?” the beefy guy asked, sensing Homer with the folds on the nape of his neck.” What d’you want, old man?”
The face of the girl, torn away from her kiss, was steamy and shriveled, like the sucker of a leech that has just been pulled off an arm. It was the wrong face, not the one Homer was seeking, Artyom realized.
“I’m sorry.”
“Push off,” said the leech.
And Homer, sullen now but still agitated, rejoined Artyom and Lyokha.
“I made a mistake,” he explained. Artyom decided not to ask any questions, though: Open the tap of the old man’s revelations and they could strip the thread.
“Of course, she couldn’t have … No way, not with someone like that … Old fool …” Homer said to himself.
“What, you mean you work at a loss?”
“You could call it a loss … Hansa takes half of every delivery in customs duty. And now, anyway, with this quarantine…”
Hansa was what the Commonwealth of Circle Line Stations called itself. All kinds of goods from every end of the Metro had to pass through Hansa’s markets and its custom posts. Many shuttle traders, rather than risk their necks traveling right across the Metro, preferred to take their goods as far as the nearest market at an intersection between the Circle Line and a radial line and pass them on to local merchants. And it was less bother to leave the profit here, in one of Hansa’s banks, in order to avoid having your head chopped off in the dark tunnels by evil characters who had spotted a successful deal. The stubborn individuals who insisted on lugging their goods further themselves had to pay customs duty in any case. And no matter how well the other stations lived, Hansa grew richer. No one anywhere in the Metro could lay down the law to Hansa. That made its citizens proud and happy, and everyone else dreamed of obtaining Hansa citizenship.
From the center of the platform Artyom could see a line of goods trolleys that hadn’t been allowed into Riga, running into the tunnel: That was what the brokers did—raced each other to buy their commodity in the northern tunnel and sell it in the southern one. After that other people made a living from it.
“Trading’s come to complete standstill,” Lyokha complained.” They’re strangling the entrepreneur, the fuckers. Fucking lousy monopolists. A man goes about his own honest business, but oh no! Who gave them the right to get rich off our backs? I have to slave away, and their bellies will just keep getting fatter? That’s oppression, bugger it! It they let us trade freely, the entire Metro would thrive!”
Artyom felt a sudden liking for Lyokha, despite the smell. He wanted to continue this ludicrous conversation.
“There’s no shortage of the stuff in Hansa,” he said, remembering.” One time I had to work at Pavelets. On the Circle Line. Raking out the crap house. They sentenced me to work for a year. I escaped after a week.”
“Consider that your baptism,” Lyokha said with a nod.
“They dumped all that stuff into cesspits and shafts. They didn’t stoop to trading in it.”
Lyokha chuckled darkly.
“They live in grand style.”
He took out a cigarette case with ready-cut papers and a tobacco pouch and offered some to them. Homer declined, but Artyom took some. He positioned himself under a lightbulb dangling from the ceiling and glued his e
yes to the words on the paper before rolling the homemade “tobacco” in them. A yellow page from a book with painstakingly printed letters, ripped out by hand and torn along just the right line for making a roll-up, but not so that he could make sense of the words. God only knew what they meant!
And the newly born propensity of gravity—
Such were the origins of the rule of the few.
And so, prepare yourself to live in time’s
Hegemony; here, neither tapir nor wolf exist,
And the sky is pregnant with the future,
That satiating grain of the well-fed source.
For just today those that were victorious
Managed to avoid flight’s burial ground
By tearing the wings off the dragonfly
And the wings had been torn off precisely. Artyom stuffed these useless letters with homemade baccy, rolled them up neatly, slavered them so that one edge stuck to the other and asked for a light. Lyokha clicked his alcohol-filled cigarette lighter, made from a machine-gun cartridge case. The paper burned with delicious sweetness. The baccy was lousy.
“So, you need to get into Prospect really badly, do you?” Lyokha whispered, squinting through the smoke.
“Into Hansa. Yes we do.”
“Got visas already?”
“Yes.”
They both took another drag. Homer started coughing. Artyom couldn’t care less.
“How much are you willing to pay?”
“Name the price.”
“It won’t be me naming the price, brother. Other people decide that there. I can only introduce you.”
“Introduce us.”
Lyokha suggested they should take one for the road in the uproariously merry local bar with the sign that said “The Last Time,” but Artyom remembered what they distilled the spirits from.
They agreed Lyokha would take them there and introduce them for ten cartridges. A fair agreement, made in a brotherly spirit.
The sanitary cordon cut across the tracks right just before they entered Peace Prospect. Formally speaking, only the Circle Line station belonged to Hansa, and the radial line station supposedly existed on its own terms; but that was only formally and supposedly. If they needed to cut off the other lines, then they did it like a shot.
The Hansa border guards in their gray camouflage gear stabbed the sharp beams of their torches into people’s faces and barked demands at them to turn round and go back to where they had come from. A placard perched on a pole like a scarecrow with the word QUARANTINE! And a picture of a mushroom pitted with ulcers. The sentries refused to talk to shuttle traders, and it was impossible even to make eye contact with them: They hid their eyes behind the forward-tilted visors of their camouflage-mottled caps. There was no way to take this bastion except by storm.
Lyokha the broker lingered, looking for acquaintances of his behind the visors. Eventually he dived down and whispered something under one of them, winked at Artyom with his face half turned towards him, and twitched his chin to beckon him over.
“They’re under arrest!” the snout under the cap explained to the smoldering crowd about why these three were suddenly being let through.” Come on, get ba-ack now! You’ll carry the plague in!”
They were led under armed guard through an oddly quiet Peace Prospect: Trading stalls closed off with screens, buyers besieging the cordon, disheveled saleswomen chilling their asses on the granite, chattering about life, death, and destiny—and it was almost dark: The market wasn’t working; light had to be saved. At any other time this place would have been seething with life. Peace Prospect was a sort of center point, where people brought all sorts of stuff from all over the place. Clothes to suit any taste, stalls of books (which Artyom used to be unable to walk past), burnt-out smartphones in a heap—and what if you suddenly come across one that works, and it has photographs in it, in full color, jerked straight out of someone’s memory … Buy it? Only to remember someone else’s children: but on a thing like that the only call you could make was into nowhere. And guns, of course. All kinds. Everything priced in cartridges. Sell what you don’t need, buy what you do and clear off out of it.
The armed escort were strict: They watched carefully to make sure that Artyom and Homer didn’t run off, prodding them in the back all the way from the radial line station to the Circle Line. Then they had them stand and wait by a little metal door in a white stone wall.
After about ten minutes they were called.
They had to duck down, then again and again: The service premises seemed to have been made for Morlocks. But then the entire generation that had been born already underground was stunted, and it would have fitted in here perfectly.
Two men were ensconced in the little room. The first one had an impressive round face and glasses, but not enough hair; the rest of his body was hidden away somewhere in the depths of a massive polished desk. It looked as if there was nothing there but the entirely autonomous head.
The second little man had nothing interesting about him at all.
“Deputy Station Master of Peace Prospect, Circle Line, SergeI Sergeevich Rozhin,” said the inconspicuous man, respectfully indicating the fat-faced one.
“I’m listening” the fat face said in a staid, deep voice.
“It’s like this, SergeI Sergeich. These guys need to get into Hansa. They’ve got visas,” Lyokha told him.
The head in glasses strained rustily to aim its puffy nose at him and sucked in air noisily. Catching a sniff, it contorted in a sudden spasm. Apparently brokers weren’t often admitted to this office.
“Until further instructions entry to the territory of Hansa is whatchamacallit to be denied, full stop!” Rozhin proclaimed.
This was awkward.
“So are there no options?” Artyom asked morosely, but Lyokha hissed at him.
“What options bribing an official is the most immediately right now that’s it and don’t you ever dare again, is that clear or not!” Rozhin’s head declared menacingly.” At a time when people throughout the entire Metro, you simply have no right! That’s what we have quarantine for; otherwise the situation could get out of hand. Do you understand that or not! And if we’ve been put here to keep order, then we’re going to keep order and keep order right to the bitter end, because you know what’s at stake! Phytosanitary control measures! Dry rot, incidentally! This conversation is over!”
He stopped talking, and silence established itself in the room as if the refusal had been recorded in advance on a cassette: It had played right to the end and clicked—and no music followed.
Rozhin seared Artyom and Lyokha with his gaze through the thick lenses of his glasses, and the silence carried on accumulating, as if something was expected of them.
A dung fly buzzed past, as heavy as a bomber plane. had Lyokha brought that in his pocket, then?
“Then I’ll go over the surface,” Artyom said with a shrug.” You’re a bungler, Lyokha.”
“I’m still due my ten anyway.”
“Why go over the surface?” the inconspicuous man finally spoke up.” That’s not safe.”
Unlike Rozhin, he hadn’t wrinkled up his face or snorted even once during the entire meeting. And in general it was clear that he didn’t wrinkle up his face very often. His face was smooth; his features were serene; his voice was lulling.
“SergeI Sergeevich has expressed the official position. He is on duty, after all. We can understand his position. And SergeI Sergeevich has correctly identified the problem: Our task is to prevent the spread of dry rot, a dangerous fungoidal infection that affects mushrooms. If some compromise has matured in your mind, discuss it with me. The situation is serious. A hundred cartridges for three.”
“I’m not with them,” said Lyokha.
“A hundred cartridges for two.”
Artyom glanced to see how Rozhin was doing: Such perfidy ought to have set him squirming. But no, the deputy station master hadn’t suffered at all, as if the inconspicuous man was producing
ultrasound that was simply inaudible to his ears.
A hundred cartridges.
Three and a bit clips of the six that Artyom had brought with him, just for the opportunity to get into Hansa. And this was only the start of the journey, after all … But even so, all the other routes, including the one across the surface, could cost him more—his head, for instance.
The map was there in front of his eyes: Down through Hansa; ride on its comfortable, rapid passenger trolleys all the way to Pavelets; and from there a quick leap, no difficulties or obstacles, straight to Teatralnaya. And no need to set foot across the border of the Red Line, and the Reich could be bypassed …
“A deal,” said Artyom. Should I get them out right here?”
“Well naturally,” the inconspicuous man replied benignly.
Artyom took off his backpack, unfastened the bundle, felt to find the clips hidden in among the junk, and started clicking out the dull, sharp-nosed cartridges onto the desk.
“Ten,” he said, pushing the first batch towards SergeI Sergeevich.
“How very tactless!” The inconspicuous man was aggrieved. He got up off his seat and raked the cartridges towards himself.” The man is on duty, and what do you go and do? What do you think I’m here for?”
Fortunately SergeI Sergeevich hadn’t seen the cartridges.
Frowning formidably, he cleared his throat and started sorting out the documents dumped on the desk, shifting them from one heap to another. Now he seemed to have been left in the office alone: He was quite incapable of registering the presence of all the others with his sense organs.
“Eight, nine, ten: one hundred.”
“All correct,” the inconspicuous man concluded.” Thank you. You will be escorted.”
Lyokha patted his Christ approvingly.
“And let there be no more whatchamacallit!” Rozhin’s head piped up.” Because there have to be some kind of principles. And at a difficult moment like this, when solidarity is required! Dry rot! Urgent matter. Best regards!
Homer, who had remained dumb in amazement throughout this meeting, bowed to the talking head with genuine reverence.
“Beautiful,” he said.