When he could open his eye one last time, the commandant was already reading the sentence. The final formalities had barely been settled when the date of his departure from this world was announced to the public, and they pulled a black hood over his head and face and his vision worsened dramatically. He could see nothing, and he was even more dizzy. He barely managed to stay standing for a minute and stopped struggling when a spasm seized his body and he vomited right onto his boots.
The guard took a cautious step backwards, and the public rustled indignantly. For a moment, Artyom felt ashamed, and then he felt his head swimming and his knees buckling.
A strong arm was holding up his chin, and he heard a familiar voice, which now seemed almost to come from a dream world:
‘Let’s go. Come with me Artyom! It’s all over. Get up!’ he said, but Artyom still couldn’t find the strength to get up or even to lift his head.
It was very dark, probably because of the hood. But how would he get it off if his hands were tied at the back? Getting it off was essential - to look to see if it was indeed the person he thought it was or if he was imagining it.
‘The hood . . .’ Artyom managed to say, hoping the person would understand.
The black veil that had been over his eyes then disappeared and Artyom saw Hunter in front of him. He hadn’t changed at all since the time Artyom had talked with him, a while back now, a whole eternity ago, at VDNKh. How had he got here? Artyom wearily moved his head and looked around. He was on the platform of the exact same station where they had read his sentence. There were dead bodies everywhere; only a few candles in one chandelier continued to smoke. The other chandelier was blown out. Hunter was holding the same pistol in his right hand that had so amazed Artyom the last time, having seemed so huge with its long silencer screwed onto its barrel and its impressive laser sight. A ‘Stechkin.’ The hunter was looking at Artyom anxiously and attentively.
‘Is everything OK with you? Can you walk?’
‘Yes. Probably.’ Artyom summoned his courage but he was interested in something else at that moment. ‘You’re alive? Did everything work out for you?’
‘As you can see,’ Hunter smiled wearily. ‘Thanks for your help.’
‘But I didn’t complete the task.’ Artyom shook his head and it was burningly painful, and he was filled with shame.
‘You did everything you could.’ Hunter patted him soothingly on the shoulder.
‘And what’s happening at home? At VDNKh?’
‘Everything’s fine, Artyom. Everything has already passed. I was able to collapse the entrance and now the dark ones won’t be able to get into the metro anymore. We’re saved. Let’s go.’
‘And what happened here?’ Artyom looked around, noticing with horror that the whole hall was filled with corpses, and that other than his voice and Hunter’s, not another sound could be heard.
‘It doesn’t matter.’ Hunter looked into his eyes firmly. ‘You shouldn’t worry about it.’ He bent over and lifted his sack from the floor. A smoking army hand machine gun was lying in it. His cartridge belt was almost spent.
The hunter moved forward and Artyom tried to keep step. Looking from side to side, he saw something that he hadn’t noticed before. Several dark figures were hanging from the little bridge where Artyom had had his sentence read.
Hunter said nothing and was taking long steps, as though he had forgotten that Artyom could barely move. As much as Artyom tried, the distance between then was increasing all the time, and Artyom was afraid that Hunter would just go off, leaving him in this horrible station, which was covered in slippery and still warm blood, and where the only inhabitants were corpses. Do I really deserve this? Artyom thought. Is my life so much more important than the lives of all these people? No, he was glad to have been rescued. But all these people - randomly scattered, like bags and rags, on the granite of the platform, side by side, on the rails, left forever in the poses that Hunter’s bullets had found them in - they all died so that he could live? Hunter had made this exchange with such ease, just as though he had sacrificed some minor chess figures to safeguard one of the most important pieces . . . He was just a player, and the metro was a chessboard, and all the figures were his, because he was playing the game with himself. But here was the question: Was Artyom such an important piece to the game that all these people had to perish for his preservation? Henceforth the blood that was flowing along the cold granite would probably pulse in his veins too. It was like he had drunk it, extracted it from others for his existence. Now he would never be warm again . . .
Artyom, with effort, ran forward a bit in order to catch up with Hunter and to ask if he would ever become warm again or would he, even at the hottest firesides, stay this cold and melancholic, like an icy winter’s night on a far-flung semi-station.
But Hunter was far in the distance. Maybe it was because Artyom didn’t manage to catch him up that Hunter descended onto the tracks and rushed into the tunnel with the agility of an animal. His movements seemed, to Artyom, like the movements of . . . a dog? No, a rat . . . Oh God.
‘Are you a rat?’ The terrible idea tore from Artyom’s mouth, and he was frightened by what he’d said.
‘No,’ came the answer. ‘You’re the rat. You’re the rat! Cowardly rat! Cowardly rat!’ Someone repeated it just above his ear, and spat fruitily.
Artyom shook his head but immediately regretted it. Now, thanks to his sharp movements, the aching blunt pain in his body had exploded. He lost control of his limbs and started to stumble forward, and then he rested his burning forehead on something cool and metallic. The surface was ribbed and it pressed on his skin unpleasantly but it cooled his inflamed flesh, and Artyom froze in that position for a time, not having the strength to make any further decisions. He caught his breath and then carefully tried to open his left eye a little bit.
He sat on the floor, his forehead against a lattice of some sort. It went up to the ceiling and filled the space on both sides of the low and narrow arch. He was facing the hall, and there were paths behind him. All the nearest arches opposite him, as far as he could see, were turned into cages too; there were a few people sitting in each of them. This station was exactly the opposite of the station where he had been sentenced to death. That one was utterly graceful, light, airy, spacious, with transparent columns, wide and high arches, despite the gloomy lighting and the inscriptions and drawings covering the walls. It was like a banquet hall compared with this one. Here everything was oppressive and scary. There was a low, rounded ceiling, like in the tunnels. It was barely twice a man’s height. And there were massive, rough columns, each of which was much wider than the arches that cut across between them. The ceiling of the arches were so close to the ground that he could have reached up and touched it were it not for the fact that his hands were tied with wire behind his back. Apart from Artyom there were another two people in the cell. One was lying on the ground with his face buried in a heap of rags, and he was groaning dully. The other had black eyes and brown hair and hadn’t shaved for some time, and he was squatting, leaning against the marble wall, watching Artyom with lively curiosity. There were two strong men in camouflage and berets patrolling the length of the cages, one of whom had a big dog on a leash, and he would scold it from time to time. They, it seemed, had woken Artyom.
It had been a dream. It had been a dream. He had dreamt it all.
They were going to hang him.
‘What time is it?’ he muttered, only slightly moving his inflamed tongue, and looking sideways at the black-eyed man.
‘Happast nine,’ the man answered willingly, pronouncing his words with the same accent that Artyom had heard at Kitai Gorod: instead of ‘o’ they said ‘a’ and instead of ‘y’ they said ‘ay’. And then he added, ‘In the evening.’
Half past nine. Two and a half hours until twelve - and five hours before . . . before the procedure. Seven and a half hours. And while he was thinking, counting, time was already flying past.
&n
bsp; Once Artyom had tried to imagine: what would, what should a person feel and think in the face of death, the night before his execution? Fear? Hatred for his executioners? Regret?
But he was empty inside. His heart was thumping hard in his breast, his temples were throbbing, blood slowly accumulated in his mouth until he swallowed. The blood had the taste of rusty iron. Or was it that wet iron had the taste of fresh blood?
They would hang him. They would kill him.
He would cease to exist.
He couldn’t imagine it, couldn’t take it on board.
Everyone knows that death is unavoidable. Death was a part of daily life in the metro. But it always seemed that nothing unfortunate would happen to you, that the bullets would fly past you, the disease would skip over you. Death of old age was a slow affair so you needn’t think about it. You can’t live in constant awareness of your mortality. You had to forget about it, and though these thoughts came to you anyway, you had to drive them away, to smother them, otherwise they could take root in your consciousness and they would make your life a misery. You can’t think about the fact that you’ll die. Otherwise you might go mad. There’s only one thing that can save a man from madness and that’s uncertainty. The life of someone who has been sentenced to death is different from the life of a normal person in only one way: the one knows exactly when he will die, and the regular person is in the dark about it, and consequently it seems he can live forever, even though it’s entirely possible that he could be killed in a catastrophic event the following day. Death isn’t frightening by itself. What’s frightening is expecting it.
In seven hours.
How would they do it? Artyom couldn’t really imagine how people were hanged. They once had to execute a traitor at their station but Artyom was still little then and didn’t understand much, and anyway, they wouldn’t perform public executions at VDNKh. They would probably throw a rope around his neck . . . either they’d string him up to the ceiling . . . or there would be some sort of stool involved. . . . No, it didn’t bear thinking about.
He was thirsty.
With effort he flicked the switch and the train of his thoughts swept onto other rails - to the officer he had shot. The first person he’d ever killed. The scene arose before his eyes again, invisible bullets going into his broad chest, and how they had left burnt black marks in which fresh blood had coagulated. He didn’t feel the slightest regret for what he’d done, and this surprised him. Once, he had reckoned that every killed person must be a heavy burden on the conscience of the person who killed them - they would appear in dreams, disturb his old age . . . But no. It seemed it wasn’t like that at all. There was no pity. No repentance. Only gloomy satisfaction. And Artyom understood that if the murdered person were to come to him in a nightmare, then he would only turn indifferently away from the phantom and it would then disappear without a trace. But old age . . . There would be no old age anymore.
Time was running out. It would probably involve a stool. When there is so little time, you have to think about something important, about the most important thing, that you never found time to think about before, leaving it all till later . . . About the fact that your life wasn’t lived right, and that you’d do it differently if given a second chance . . . No. He couldn’t have had any other life in this world, and there was nothing to try to re-do. When the border guard shot Vanechka in the head should he not have rushed for his automatic machine gun but instead have stayed standing at the side? It wouldn’t have worked - he would never have managed to chase Vanechka and Mikhail Porfirevich from his dreams. What had happened to the old man? Damn, what would it take to get a mouthful of water!
First they would lead him out of the cell . . . And if he was lucky then they’d lead him through the transfer passage but there’d little time for that now. And if they didn’t put that damned cover over his head, he would be able to see something, apart from the rods of the lattice in front of him and the endless rows of cages.
‘What station you from?’ said Artyom through dry lips, tearing himself away from the lattice and looking up into the eyes of his neighbour.
‘Tverskaya,’ the man responded. Then he asked: ‘Listen, brother, what are you in here for?’
‘I killed an officer,’ Artyom slowly replied. It was hard for him to speak.
‘O-oh . . .’ the unshaved man offered sympathetically. ‘So they’re going to hang you?’
Artyom shrugged, and turned again to lean on the lattice.
‘Sure they will,’ his neighbour assured him.
They will. And soon. Right here at the station, and they won’t be transferring him.
If only to get a drink of water . . . To wash this metallic taste from his mouth, to moisten his dry throat, then, maybe, he could speak to this man for a little more than a minute. There was no water in the cage, but on the other side of the space there was a fetid tin bucket. Could he ask his jailers? Maybe they give small indulgences to those who have been sentenced? If he could only have pushed his hand out through the lattice, and wave it a little . . . But his hands were tied behind his back, and the wire was digging into his wrists and he had lost all sensation. He tried to cry out, but only a rattle emerged, which turned into a cough from deep in his lungs.
Both guards approached the cage when they noticed his attempts to get their attention.
‘The rat has awoken,’ the one with the dog grinned.
Artyom threw his head back to see the man’s face and whispered with difficulty, ‘Drink. Water.’
‘A drink?’ The guard with the dog pretended to be surprised. ‘What do you need that for? You’re just about to be strung up and all you want is to drink! No, we won’t be getting you any water. Maybe that way you’ll die sooner.’
The matter was settled and Artyom closed his eyes wearily, but the jailers apparently wanted to chat with him some more.
‘So, you scum, you’ve finally understood who you raised your fist to?’ the other guard asked. ‘And you’re even a Russian, you rat! It’s because of those morons who will stab you in the back with your own knife, those . . .’ He nodded at Artyom’s neighbour in the next cage. ‘The whole metro will be full of them soon and your simple Russian won’t even be able to breathe anymore.’
The unshaved prisoner looked down. Artyom could only find the strength to shrug his shoulders.
‘And they smacked that mongrel of yours nicely too,’ the first guard added. ‘Sidorov said that the tunnel was a bloodbath. And quite right. Subhumans! They need to be destroyed. They are our . . . genofond!’ He remembered the difficult word. ‘They ruin things. And your old man died too,’ he concluded.
‘What?’ Artyom sobbed. He’d been afraid of that, but he’d hoped that perhaps the old man hadn’t died, that maybe he was somewhere here, in the next chamber . . .
‘Right. He died. They ironed him a little bit but he up and croaked,’ the guard with the dog said happily, satisfied by the fact that Artyom was finally reacting to them.
‘You will die. All your relatives will die . . .’ He could see Mikhail Porfirevich, without a care in the world, stopping in the middle of the tunnel, leafing through his notepad, and then repeating this last line with emotion. What was it again? ‘Der Toten Tatenrum?’ No, the poet was mistaken, there aren’t any acts of glory anymore. There isn’t anything anymore.
Then he remembered how Mikhail Porfirevich had missed his old apartment, and especially his old bed. Then his thoughts started thickening, and were flowing more and more slowly, and then they stopped altogether. He rested his forehead against the lattice again and, with a dulled mind, he started looking at the jailer’s sleeve. A three-pronged swastika. Strange symbol. Looks either like a star or like a crippled spider.
‘Why only three?’ he asked. ‘Why three?’
He had to tip his head towards the man’s armband so the security guards would understand what he meant.
‘Well, how many do you need?’ the one with the dog answered indignantl
y. ‘There are three stations, you fool! It’s a symbol of unity. And, just you wait, when we get to Polis, we’ll add a fourth . . .’
‘What are you talking about?’ the other guard interrupted. ‘It’s an ancient symbol, a primordial Slavic sign! It’s called a solstice. It belonged to the Fritzs and then we took it over. Stations - you pot-head. ’
‘But there’s no more sun anymore . . .’ Artyom squeezed out the words, feeling as though there was a muddy veil over his eyes, and his sense of hearing was disappearing into the haze.
‘That’s it, he’s gone mad,’ the guard with the dog announced with gratification. ‘Let’s go, Senya, and find someone else for a chat.’
Artyom didn’t know how much time had passed while he sat there deprived of his thoughts and his vision. He occasionally regained consciousness and understood vague images. But everything was saturated with the taste and smell of blood. However, he was glad that his body had taken pity on his mind and killed all thought, and so released his sense of reason was from melancholy.
‘Hey, brother!’ His neighbour shook his shoulder. ‘Don’t sleep. You’ve been sleeping for a long time! It’s almost four o’clock!’
Artyom tried to surface from the chasm of his unconsciousness but it was difficult, as though lead weights had been attached to his feet. Reality came to him slowly, like the indistinct outlines on film that has been placed in developing solution.
‘What time is it?’ he croaked.
‘Ten to four,’ the black-eyed man said.
Ten to four . . . They’d probably come for him in about forty minutes. And in an hour and ten minutes . . . An hour and nine minutes. An hour and eight minutes. Seven minutes.
‘What’s your name?’ his neighbour asked.
‘Artyom.’
‘I’m Ruslan. My brother was called Ahmed, and they shoot him straight away. But I don’t know what they do with me. My name is Russian - maybe they don’t want mistake.’ The black-eyed man was happy that he finally managed to start a conversation.