CHAPTER 16. The Songs of the Dead

‘There are no secret entrances there, and there never were. Really, don’t you know that yourself?’ Tretyak had raised his voice with displeasure, and his words flew at Artyom.

They were returning from duty – back to Kievskaya. The stalker and Tretyak walked a little behind the others and animatedly discussed something. When Artyom also fell back to take part in their conversation, they began to whisper, and he was left to join the main group again. The young Oleg, who was skipping along, trying not to drop behind the adults, and refusing to climb onto his father’s shoulders, immediately and happily grabbed him by the hand.

‘I’m a missile man, too!’ he announced.

Artyom looked at the boy with surprise. He had been alongside when Melnik introduced Tretyak to him and most likely had heard this word by chance. Did he understand what it meant?

‘Only don’t tell anybody!’ added Oleg hurriedly. ‘The others aren’t allowed to know it. It’s a secret.’

‘OK, I won’t tell anyone.’ Artyom played up to him.

‘It’s no shame, quite the opposite. You should be proud of it, but others might say bad things about you out of envy,’ the boy explained, although Artyom hadn’t even intended to ask anything.

Anton was walking about ten paces ahead, lighting the path. Nodding at his frail figure, the child loudly whispered:

‘Papa said not to show anyone, but you know how to keep secrets. Here!’ He took a small fragment of cloth from an inside pocket.

Artyom shined his flashlight on it. It was a torn tab – a circle of a thick, rubberized substance, about seven centimetres in diameter.

On one side it was completely black, on the other was portrayed the intersection of three incomprehensible oblong objects on a dark background, not unlike one of the six-pointed paper snowflakes with which they decorated VDNKh for the New Year.

One of the objects was standing upright and Artyom recognized it as a cartridge from a machine gun or a sniper’s rifle, but with wings attached to the bottom. But he did not recognize the other two identical, yellow ones, with rings on both sides. The mysterious snowflake was enclosed in a stylized wreath, such as on old cockades, and there were letters around the circle of the tab. But the colour on them was faded so that Artyom was able to read only, ‘… troops and ar…’, and also the word ‘.. ussia’, which was written below, beneath the figure. If he had had a little more time, he might have been able to understand what the boy showed him, but he didn’t.

‘Hey, Olezhek! Come here, there’s something for you!’ Anton called to his son.

‘What is it?’ Artyom asked the boy, before he grabbed the tab from him and concealed it in his pocket.

‘RVA!’ Oleg carefully articulated, beaming with pride, then he winked at him and ran to his father.

Having climbed to the platform by stepladder, the outlook members began to disperse and go home. Anton’s wife was waiting for him right at the exit. With tears in her eyes, she flung herself to meet young Oleg, caught him by his arm, and then bawled at her husband:

‘Are you trying to upset me? What am I supposed to think? The child left home several hours ago! Why am I supposed to think about everyone? You’re like a child yourself, you couldn’t bring him home!’ she cried.

‘Len, please, not in front of people,’ Anton muttered, looking round in embarrassment. ‘I just couldn’t leave the watch. Think about what you are saying, an outpost commander and suddenly he leaves his post…’

‘A commander! Go ahead and command! As if you don’t know what is going on here! Over there, a neighbour’s youngster disappeared a week ago…’

Melnik and Tretyak quickened the pace and didn’t even stop to say goodbye to Anton, leaving him and his wife in private. Artyom hurried after them. For a long time after, although one could no longer make out the words, the weeping and reproaches of Anton’s wife reached them.

All three were heading to the office facilities, where the station’s chief of staff was located. After several minutes they already were seated in the room with the hanging threadbare carpets. The chief himself, having nodded knowingly, left when the stalker asked to leave them alone.

‘It seems you don’t have a passport?’ Melnik remarked, turning towards Artyom.

He shook his head. The document had been confiscated by the fascists and, without it, he had been turned into a social outcast.

Hansa, the Red Line and Polis would not accept him. While the stalker was beside him, no one asked personal questions of Artyom, but, having found himself alone, he would have to wander between the cast-off flag stations and the uncivilized stations, such as Kievskaya. And he couldn’t even dream of returning to VDNKh.

‘I won’t be able to take you to Hansa without a passport. I’ll have to find the necessary people for it first,’ Melnik said, as if confirming his thoughts. ‘It may be possible to obtain a new one, but of course this will take time. The shortest route to Mayakovskaya is along the Ring, like it or not. What do we do?’

Artyom shrugged his shoulders. He was inclined to agree with the stalker. It was impossible to wait, and he also wasn’t able to get around Hansa to Mayakovskaya himself. The tunnel that adjoined it from the other side came straight from Tverskaya. To return to the lair of the fascists, let alone to the station that had been transformed into a dungeon, would be folly. A dead end.

‘It will be better if Tretyak and I go together now to Mayakovskaya, ’ Melnik said. ‘We’ll look for an entrance to D-6. We will find it, return for you, and perhaps something will come up about a passport. If we don’t find an entrance, we’ll come back anyway. You won’t have to wait for us long. We can get there quickly. We’ll get it done in a day. Will you wait?’ He looked at Artyom quizzically.

Artyom shrugged his shoulders again. He felt that they were treating him like a child. He’d served his purpose and told them about the danger and now they didn’t want him under their feet.

‘Excellent,’ the stalker said. ‘Expect us us towards morning. And we’ll travel straight here so as not to lose any time. As regards food and lodging, we will discuss it all with Arkadiy Semyonovich. He won’t hurt you. It seems that’s it… No, it’s not all.’ He felt in a pocket and withdrew from there that same bloodstained sheet of paper on which was the layout and keys. ‘Take it, I copied it for myself. Who knows how things will turn out. Only don’t show it to anyone…’

Melnik and Tretyak left in less than an hour later, having spoken beforehand with the station chief. The punctual Arkadiy Semyonovich immediately took Artyom to his tent and, inviting him to have dinner with him in the evening, left to rest.

The tent for guests stood a little out of the way and although it also was maintained in fine condition, Artyom felt very uncomfortable in it from the very outset. He glanced outside and again was convinced that the rest of the quarters were crowded together, and all of them were located as far as possible from the entrances to the tunnels. Now that the stalker had gone and Artyom was alone in the unfamiliar station, the sensation of unease that he had experienced earlier returned. It had been scary at Kievskaya in just the same way, simply frightening, without any obvious cause. It was already getting late. The voices of the children were dying away, and the adults only rarely left their tents. Artyom did not want to stroll around the platform at all. Having read through the letter from the dying Daniel a third time, Artyom couldn’t stand it and left for dinner with Arkadiy Semyonovich half an hour earlier than the agreed time.

The office facility’s anteroom now had been converted into a kitchen, and an attractive girl, a little older than Artyom, was working there. Meat and some kind of root vegetables were stewing in a large frying pan, and boiling next to them were some of the white tubers which he’d eaten at Anton’s. The station chief himself sat next to a stool and paged through a tattered booklet, on the cover of which was painted a picture of a revolver and women’s legs in black stockings. Seeing Artyom, Arkadiy Semyonovich laid the book aside with embarrassment.