‘And we have banks here, too, you know… Many of them, from the Reich, come to us supposedly for goods, but really they come to invest their savings,’ his companion shared with Artyom.
‘I doubt that they will touch us. We are like Switzerland for them,’ he added incomprehensibly.
‘You have it good here,’ Artyom noted politely.
‘It’s not just us, it’s all about Byelorusskaya… So where are you from?’ Leonid Petrovich finally asked out of respect. Ulman pretended that all his attention was on his cutlet and he had not heard the question.
‘I’m from VDNKh,’ Artyom replied, glancing at him.
‘What do you say! How terrible!’ Leonid Petrovich even put down his knife and fork. ‘They say things are really bad there? I heard they are hanging on by a thread. Half the people have died… Is it true?’
A lump stuck in Artyom’s throat. For better or for worse, he had to reach VDNKh, see his own kind, perhaps, for the last time. How had he been able to waste valuable time eating? Moving the plate away, he asked for the bill and, despite Ulman’s protests, pulled him along with him, past the counters with meat and clothing in the openings of the arches, past the piles of merchandise, past the bartering peddlers, bustling loaders, the sedately strolling fascist officers, towards the crossing to the Ring line. Over the entrance hung a white cloth with a brown circle in the middle. Two machine gunners in the familiar grey camouflage checked their documents and inspected their things. Artyom had not succeeded in getting through to the Hansa territory with such ease before. Ulman, still chewing a piece of cutlet, dug into his pocket and presented an unknown type of ID to the border guards. They silently moved away a section of the barrier, allowing them in.
‘What kind of a pass is that?’ Artyom was curious.
‘So… The award booklet for the medal, “For Service to the Fatherland’,” Ulman laughed it off. ‘Everyone is indebted to our colonel.’
The crossing to the Ring was a strange mixture of fortress and warehouses. The second Hansa border began beyond the footbridges over the tracks: real redoubts had been erected there with machine guns and even a flame-thrower. And further away, next to a memorial – a bronze, bearded guy with a machine gun, a frail girl and a pensive lad with weapons (most likely, the founders of Byelorusskaya or heroes of a battle with mutants, Artyom thought) – a whole garrison of not less than twenty soldiers was deployed.
‘This is because of the Reich,’ Ulman explained to Artyom. ‘It’s like this with the fascists: trust but verify. They didn’t touch Switzerland, of course, but they subjugated France.’
‘I have gaps in my knowledge of history,’ Artyom acknowledged with embarrassment. ‘My stepfather couldn’t find a tenth grade textbook. Though I have read a little about ancient Greece.’
An endless chain of loaders with bundles on their shoulders trailed past the soldiers like ants. The movement was well organized: the bearers descended on one escalator, and they came up, unladen, on the other. A third was intended for the remaining passers-by. Below sat a machine gunner in a glass booth, watching the escalator. He checked Artyom and Ulman’s documents again and issued them papers with the stamp, ‘Temporary Registration – in Transit’ and the date.
This station also was named Byelorusskaya, but the difference from its radial twin was striking: they were like twins separated at birth, one of whom ended up in a royal family and the other who was adopted and grew up poor. All the prosperity of that first Byelorusskaya faded in comparison with the Ring station. It gleamed with shining white walls, fascinated with intricate stucco work on the ceiling and dazzled with neon lamps, of which only three were burning in all the station, but even their light was more than enough. The loaders on the platform were divided into two parts. One group walked to the tracks through arches on the left, the other to the right, casting off their bundles into piles and returning at a run for new ones. Two stops had been made at the tracks: for merchandise, where a small crane had been installed, and for passengers, where a ticket office stood. Once every fifteen or twenty minutes a cargo handcar went past the station. They were outfitted with a peculiar body – board planking on which they had loaded boxes and bundles. Besides the three or four men who stood at the handles of the handcar, there also was a guard on each.
The passenger handcars arrived more rarely – Artyom and Ulman had to wait more than forty minutes. As the ticket collector explained to them, the passenger handcars waited until enough people had gathered so as not to send the workers on errands for no reason. The fact that somewhere in the metro it was still possible to buy a ticket – a cartridge for each stage – and pass from station to station, as before, completely fascinated Artyom. He even forgot about all his problems for a while and simply stood and observed the loading of the merchandise. It showed him how fine life in the metro must have been earlier when huge sparkling trains, not manual handcars, moved along the tracks.
‘That’s your carrier coming!’ the ticket collector announced and he began to ring a small bell. A large handcar, to which was attached a tram with wooden benches, rolled to a stop. Having presented their tickets, they sat down on unoccupied seats. After waiting another few minutes for tardy passengers, the trolley moved on. Half the benches were situated so that the passengers were sitting facing forward and half facing to the rear. Artyom had got a seat facing backwards and Ulman was sitting in the remaining seat, with his back to him.
‘Why are the seats arranged so strangely, in different directions’? Artyom asked of his neighbour, a hale old woman of about sixty years old who was wearing a woollen shawl riddled with holes. ‘It’s uncomfortable you know.’
She threw up her hands.
‘And what? Would you leave the tunnel running wild? You young people are thoughtless! Didn’t you hear what happened over there the other day? Well, such a rat,’ the old woman gestured in dismay, ‘jumped out of an interline, and dragged away a passenger!’
‘It wasn’t a rat!’ a man in a quilted jacket interrupted, turning round. ‘It was a mutant! They have a lot of mutants running about at Kurskaya…’
‘And I say, a rat! Nina Prokoievna, my neighbour, told me. Do you think I don’t know?’ The old woman was indignant.
They argued for a long time, but Artyom was no longer listening to their conversation. His thoughts once again had turned to VDNKh. He had already decided that, before he went up to the surface to set out for the Ostankino tower with Ulman, he would definitely try to get through to his home station. He still didn’t know how he would convince his partner but he had a bad feeling that this might be his last chance to see his home and friends. And he couldn’t ignore it. Who knew what would happen later? Though the stalker had said that there was nothing complicated about their task, Artyom didn’t really believe that he would be meeting him any time again. However, before starting his own, perhaps, final climb up, he had to at least return to VDNKh for a little while. How it sounded… VDNKh… Melodic, endearing. ‘I could listen and listen to it,’ Artyom thought. Had his casual acquaintance at Byelorusskaya really been speaking the truth? Was the station really on the point of falling to the onslaught of the dark ones? Were half its defenders already dead? How long had he been absent? Two weeks? Three? He closed his eyes, trying to imagine his beloved arches, the elegant, but reserved lines of the domes, the delicate forging of the copper ventilation grids between them and rows of tents in the hall. The handcar gently swayed in time to the lulling chatter of the wheels, and Artyom didn’t notice that it was putting him to sleep. He was dreaming about VDNKh again…