‘You what – gone crazy or something? Why are you staring at them so hard – you want to lose your eyes? You’ll be as blind as a puppy, and what’ll I do with you?’ Bourbon’s voice resounded in Artyom’s ears. ‘You’ve already gone and given them your balalaika, so you might as well go and have a look around… at what the lamps are trying to show you!’
Artyom cast a hostile look over at Bourbon but he obeyed him anyway.
There weren’t all that many people at the station but they spoke so loudly, trading, beckoning, demanding, trying to out-yell each other, that it became clear why it was all so audible from afar, from the approach to the tunnel. On both tracks there were scraps of train structures – and some wagons were converted for habitation. Two rows of trays were arranged along the platform that displayed various utensils – some in orderly piles, others in sloppy heaps. On one side of the station there was an iron curtain which stood in the place where there was once an exit to the surface, and on the opposite side there was a line of grey bags which clearly demarcated a line of firing positions. An unnaturally white banner hung from this ceiling on which was painted a brown circle, the symbol of the Ring. Beyond the firing line were four escalators, which led to the Ring circuit, and that’s where the territory of the powerful Hansa began (which was closed to foreigners). The frontier guards beyond the fences were dressed in waterproof overalls with the usual camouflage, but for some reason they were grey in colour.
‘Why do they have grey camouflage?’ Artyom asked Bourbon.
‘They’re fat animals, that’s why,’ he answered contemptuously. ‘You, now… You go ahead and look around while I do a little trading here.’
There was nothing of particular interest to Artyom. There was tea, sticks of sausage, storage batteries for lamps, jackets and raincoats made from pig skin, some tattered books, most of which were pornography, half-litre bottles of a suspicious looking substance with the inscription ‘home-brew’ written on crooked labels. And there really wasn’t one trader selling weed which you used to be able to get hold of anywhere. Even the gaunt little man with the blue nose and watery eyes who was selling the dubious home-brew told Artyom to get lost when he asked if he had a little ‘stuff’. There was a trader selling firewood, knotty logs and branches that some stalker had brought down from the surface. It was said to burn for a long time and produce little smoke. Here you paid for things in dimly gleaming Kalashnikov cartridges. A hundred grammes of tea was five cartridges; a stick of sausage was fifteen cartridges; a bottle of home-brew was twenty. They fondly called them ‘little bullets’: ‘Listen, man, look at this, what a cool jacket, it’s cheap, just thirty little bullets – and it’s yours! OK, twenty-five and you’ll take it now?’
Looking at the neatly arranged rows of ‘little bullets’ on the counters, Artyom recollected the words of his stepfather: ‘I once read that Kalashnikov was proud of his invention, that his automatic weapon was the most popular gun in the world. They say that he was particularly happy that thanks to his device the borders of his homeland were kept safe. I don’t know, if I had invented that thing I think I would have gone mad. To think that most murders have been committed with the help of your device! That’s even scarier then being the inventor of the guillotine.’
One cartridge – one death. Someone’s life removed. A hundred grammes of tea cost five human lives. A length of sausage? Very cheap if you please: just fifteen lives. A quality leather jacket, on sale today, is just twenty-five so you’re saving five lives. The daily exchange at this market was equal in lives to the entire population of the metro.
‘Well, so, did you find anything for yourself?’ Bourbon came up and asked.
‘Nothing interesting here for me.’ Artyom brushed the question away.
‘Aha, you’re right, it’s full of garbage. But, boy, this little station used to be the one place in this stinking metro station where you could find everything you want. You go there and they’re all vying with one another: weapons, narcotics, girls, fake documents.’ Bourbon sighed dreamily. ‘But these cretins,’ he nodded at the Hansa flag, ‘have made this into a nursery school: you can’t do this, you can’t do that… OK, let’s go and get your hoe – we need to keep going.’
After getting Artyom’s machine gun, they took a seat on the stone bench before entering the southern tunnel. It was murky there, and Bourbon had picked this spot especially in order to get their eyes used to the weaker light.
‘Basically, this is the deal: I can’t vouch for myself. I’ve never done this and so I don’t know what I’m doing and if we’ll run into trouble. Touch wood, of course, but even so, if we run into something… Well, if I start snivelling or go deaf, then that should be OK. As far as I heard, everybody goes crazy in their own way. Our boys didn’t make it back to Prospect. I think that they didn’t get far, and we might bump into them today… So you… get ready for that, because you’re a little soft after all… And if I start to see red, I’ll shut you up. That’s the problem, you see? I don’t know what to do… Well, OK.’ Bourbon finally felt resolved after his hesitations. ‘Boy, you’re all right I guess, and you won’t shoot a guy in the back. I’m going to give you my gun while we go through this passage. Watch it,’ he warned, looking Artyom tenaciously in the eyes, ‘and don’t be funny. I have a limited sense of humour.’
He shook some rags out of his rucksack, and then carefully pulled out a machine gun that was wrapped in plastic packaging. It was also a Kalashnikov but it was cut-off like the ones held by the Hansa border guards, with a hinged butt and a short socket instead of the long one that Artyom had. Bourbon took the magazine out of it and put it back in his rucksack, throwing the rags in after it.
‘Hold this!’ he gave Artyom the weapon. ‘And don’t pack it away. It might prove useful. Though the passage looks quiet…’ And Bourbon didn’t finish his sentence but jumped onto the pathway. ‘OK, let’s go. The sooner you go, the sooner you get there.’
It was frightening. When they went from VDNKh to Rizhskaya, Artyom knew that anything could happen, but at least people went back and forth along those tunnels every day, and he knew that there was an inhabited station ahead of them where they were expected. It was just as unpleasant as it always was for anyone leaving a lighted and peaceful place. Even when they were headed for Prospect Mir from Rizhskaya, despite his doubts, he could amuse himself with the thought that ahead of him lay a Hansa station: that there was somewhere to go where he could relax in safety.
But it was terrifying here. The tunnel that lay before them was totally black, and an unusual, total, absolute darkness reigned – it was so thick you could almost touch it. As porous as a sponge, it greedily swallowed the rays of their flashlight, which was hardly sufficient to illuminate even a foot ahead. Straining to the limits of his hearing, Artyom attempted to distinguish the smallest germ of that strange and painful noise but it was in vain. Sounds probably had as hard a time getting through this darkness as light did. Even the bold crashing of Bourbon’s boots sounded limp and mute in this tunnel.
On the right wall suddenly there was a gap – the flashlight beam sank into a black spot, and Artyom didn’t immediately understand that it was simply a side-passage which exited sideways from the main tunnel. He looked at Bourbon questioningly.
‘Don’t be scared. There was a transfer passage here,’ he explained, ‘so that trains could get directly onto the Ring without transferring at other stations. But the Hansa filled it in – they’re not fools. They wouldn’t leave an open tunnel pointing straight at them…’