Artyom didn’t immediately understand what she had in mind. Finally, it came to him and he was on the verge of opening his mouth to start making excuses, but he wasn’t able to utter a thing, and he just stood there, staring blankly. The woman, satisfied with the effect she had produced, replaced her rage with mercy.
‘Agreed certainly! Twenty cartridges for half an hour.’
Stunned, Artyom shook his head, turned and nearly took off running.
‘Jerk! OK give me fifteen!’ the woman cried after him.
Ulman was still standing there, discussing something with the seller.
‘Well, what about the rats? Haven’t you made up your mind?’ the owner of the tent inquired courteously, having seen the returning Artyom. ‘A little bit more and she’ll start bargaining with me.’
Artyom understood. Pulling Ulman behind him, he hurried from this Godforsaken station.
‘Where are we going in such a hurry?’ the fighter asked when they were walking through the tunnel in the direction of Byelorusskaya. While trying to cope with the lump rising in his throat, Artyom told him what had happened. His story did not especially impress Ulman.
‘So what? She has to live somehow,’ he responded.
‘Why is such a life necessary at all?’ Artyom’s face convulsed. ‘Do you have any ideas?’
Ulman shrugged his broad shoulders.
‘What’s the sense of such a life? You cling to it, you endure all this filth, humiliation, you trade your children, stuff your face with moss, for what?’ Artyom stopped short, recalling Hunter, who had been talking about the survival instinct, about the fact that one would fight like a wild animal for his life and the survival of others with all his might. Then, at the very beginning, his words had inflamed a hope and desire in Artyom to fight like that frog who had whipped the cream in the jar with its feet, turning it into butter. But now the words uttered by his stepfather for some reason seemed more reliable.
‘For what?’ Ulman teased him.
‘Well, all right young man, “for what” are you living?’ Artyom regretted that he had got involved in this conversation. As a fighter, he had to give Ulman his due, he was superb, but as a companion he wasn’t especially interesting. And Artyom could see it was useless to argue with him regarding the sense of life.
‘Well, personally I am “for what”,’ he answered sullenly, not able to bear it.
‘Well, for what?’ Ulman began to laugh. ‘For the rescue of mankind? Leave it. It’s all nonsense. You aren’t saving it, so it’s someone else. Me, for example.’ He shined the flashlight on his face so that Artyom could see him and made a heroic face. Artyom looked at him jealously, but said nothing. ‘And then,’ the fighter continued, ‘they all just cannot live for it.’
‘And what about you, is life without meaning?’ Artyom tried to ask the question ironically.
‘How is it without meaning? It makes sense for me, the same way as for everyone. And generally, searches for the meaning of life usually happen during puberty. But for you, it seems, it’s taken longer.’ His tone was not offensive, but mischievous, so that Artyom wouldn’t sulk. Inspired by his success, Ulman continued, ‘I remember when I was seventeen. I was trying to understand it all, too. It passes. There is only one meaning in life, brother: to make and bring up children. But let them be tormented by the question. And answer it how they can. Well, that’s the theory,’ he smiled again.
‘And then just why are you coming with me? Are you risking your life? If you don’t believe in rescuing mankind, then what?’ Artyom asked after some time.
‘First, I was ordered to,’ Ulman said severely. ‘Orders are not questioned. Second, it’s not enough to make children, you have to raise them. And how will I grow them if your riffraff from VDNKh eat them up?’ Such self-confidence exuded from him, his strength and his words, that the picture of the world was so seductively simple and organized, that Artyom no longer wanted to argue with him. On the other hand, he felt that the fighter was inspiring a confidence in him too.
As Melnik had said, the tunnel between Mayakovskaya and Byelorusskaya turned out to be peaceful. True, something was banging in the ventilation shafts but they slipped past normal sized rats a few times, and that reassured Artyom. The section was surprisingly short – they had not even been able to complete the argument when the lights of the station appeared ahead.
Being close to Hansa had a profound influence on Byelorusskaya. It was immediately apparent that it was rather well protected. A blockhouse had been constructed ten metres before the entrance: a light machine gun stood on sacks filled with dirt, and the guard detail consisted of five men. Checking their documents (and here the new passport came in handy), they asked them politely whether they were from the Reich. No, no, they assured Artyom, no one here has anything against the Reich, it was a trading station, observed full neutrality, and did not interfere in the conflicts between the powers, as the chief of the guard called Hansa, the Reich and the Red Line.
Before continuing their trip along the Ring, Artyom and Ulman decided they could take a break and have a bite. Sitting in an affluent, even chic, snack bar, Artyom obtained information about Byelorusskaya as well as eating an excellent and inexpensive cutlet.
A round-faced, fair-haired man sitting at the table opposite, who introduced himself as Leonid Petrovich, was tucking away an epic portion of bacon and eggs, and when his mouth was empty, he told them with pleasure about his station. Byelorusskaya survived because of the transit of pork and chicken. Huge and very successful enterprises were located beyond the Ring – closer to Sokol and even to Voykovskaya, though the latter was dangerously close to the surface. Kilometres of tunnels and engineering lines had been converted to a huge livestock farm that fed all of Hansa, and delivered goods both to the Fourth Reich and to the eternally half-starved Red Line. Moreover, the residents of Dynamo had inherited from their enterprising predecessors an aptitude for the tailor’s trade. They sewed the pigskin jackets that Artyom had seen at Prospect Mir. No external danger from this end of the Zamoskvoretskaya line existed, and in all the years of living in the metro, no one even once had put either Sokol, Airport, or Dynam out of business. Hansa laid no claims to them, being satisfied by the ability to collect a duty from the transportation of the goods, and at the same time they rendered them protection from the fascists and the Reds. Nearly all of the residents of Byelorusskaya were involved in business. Farmers from Sokol and tailors from Dynamo had the sense to make a profit from the wholesale deliveries. Bringing a batch of hogs or live chickens on handcars and trams pulled by men, the people from that side, as they called them here, unloaded their belongings – for these purposes special cranes even had been installed on the platforms – settled up their accounts and left for home. Life bustled at the station. The resolute traders (at Byelorusskaya they were called ‘managers’ for some reason) drifted from the ‘terminal’ – the unloading locations – to warehouses, jingling bags with cartridges and dispensing instructions to sinewy loaders. Small carts on well lubricated wheels, laden with boxes and bundles, rolled noiselessly towards rows of counters, or to the Ring boundary line, from where Hansa buyers took the merchandise, or to the opposite edge of the platform, where Reich emissaries awaited the unloading of their orders. There were quite a few fascists here, but not the ordinary ones, mainly officers. However, they behaved themselves. They were a little arrogant, but within the bounds of decency. They looked with hostility at the swarthy dark-haired men, of whom there were enough among the local tradesmen and loaders, but they didn’t try to impose their beliefs and laws.