But near the statue he came across a wonderful place – a real restaurant, set up in a spacious and clean tent of a pleasant, dark-green colour, like at his own station. Inside, plastic vases of flowers with cloth leaves were in the corners, and a pair of tables had oil lamps on them, suffusing the tent with a comfortable, soft light. And the food… It was the food of the Gods: the most tender pork with hot mushrooms which melted in your mouth. Restaurants served that at VDNKh on holidays, but it had never been so delicious…

The people sitting there were solid, respectable types with good and tasteful clothes. Apparently they were important merchants. Carefully cutting pieces of fried crackling, which oozed with hot fat, they unhurriedly placed small pieces of it in their mouths. Meanwhile they sedately conversed with each other, discussing their business, and sometimes threw a politely curious glance over at Artyom.

It was expensive, of course – he had to give over a whole fifteen cartridges from his supply and put them in the wide palm of the fat inn-keeper, and then he regretted that he’d succumbed to temptation, but his stomach was nonetheless happy, calm and warm so the voice of reason was silenced.

And the mug of fermented mixture was sweet, and it pleasantly swirled his head but it wasn’t strong, it wasn’t that poisonous, turbid home-brew in the dirty bottles and jars that would make you weak at the knees with one sniff. Yes, and it was only for three more cartridges, and what’s three cartridges if you exchange them for a phial of a sparkling elixir which helps you to come to terms with the imperfection of this world and restores a certain harmony?

Drinking the fermented mixture in small gulps, sitting alone in silence and peace for the first time in a few days, Artyom tried to resurrect recent events in his memory and to understand where he had got to and where he had yet to go. There was still another section of his designated journey to overcome, and he was again at a crossroads.

He felt like the hero of the almost forgotten fairy tales of his childhood. The memory of them was so distant now that he didn’t remember who had told them to him… Was it Sukhoi or was it Zhenya’s parents, or was it his own mother? More than anything Artyom liked to think that he’d heard them from his mother, and her face even would swim out of the fog for a moment and he could hear her voice reading to him with smooth intonations: ‘Once upon a time…’

And so, like the fairytale hero, he was standing there and in front of him there were three roads: one to Kuznetsky Most, one to Tretyakovskaya, and one to Taganskaya. He savoured the intoxicating drink, his body seized by a blissful languor. He didn’t want to think at all, and all that was circulating in his head was: ‘Go straight – you’ll lose your life. Go left – you’ll lose your horse…’

This probably could have gone on forever: he really needed this rest after his recent experiences. It was worth waiting at Kitai Gorod – to look around, to ask the locals about the tunnels. He had to meet up with Khan again, to find out if he would be going further with him or if their paths would diverge at this strange station.

It hadn’t gone at all according to the lazy plan that Artyom had made. He exhaustedly contemplated the small tongue of flame that was dancing in the lamp on the table.

CHAPTER 8. The Fourth Reich

Pistol shots began to crack, slashing through the merry din of the crowd, and then there was a shrill female scream, and a machine gun rattled. The chubby inn-keeper snatched a small gun from under the counter and ran to the entrance of the tent. Leaving his drink, Artyom leapt up after him, throwing his rucksack on his shoulder, thumbing the safety catch on his gun, regretting as he went that they had made him pay in advance, otherwise he could have slipped away without settling his bill. The eighteen cartridges he had spent could prove very useful one day soon.

At the top, from the stairs, he could see that something terrible was happening. To get down there, he had to push through the crowd of people who had lost their senses out of fear and who were throwing themselves up the stairs. Soon the crush was so bad that Artyom asked himself whether he really needed to get down there, but his curiosity pushed him forward.

On the pathways lay several prostrate bodies, clad in leather jackets, and on the platform, right under his feet, in a puddle of bright red blood, lay a dead woman, face down. He quickly stepped over her, trying not to look down, but he slipped and almost fell. Panic reigned, and half-dressed people were jumping out of their tents, hysterically looking around. One of them was left behind, his foot still stuck in one leg of his trousers, when he suddenly bent over, clutched his stomach and tipped over to the side.

But Artyom couldn’t figure out where the shooting was coming from. The firing continued, and heavy-set people in leather were running from the other side of the hall, throwing squealing women and frightened traders out of the way. But these weren’t the ones being attacked – it was the bandits themselves, the ones who controlled this side of Kitai Gorod. And along the whole platform, it wasn’t clear who was creating this slaughterhouse.

And then Artyom understood why he didn’t see anyone. The attackers were in the tunnel – and they were opening fire from there, apparently afraid of showing themselves in open space.

This changed things. There was no more time to reflect: they would come out onto the platform when they felt that there was no more resistance – he had to get away from that entrance as soon as possible. Artyom ran forward, tightly gripping his machine gun and looking over his shoulder. The echo of the thundering shots, resounding through the arches, made it difficult to tell from which tunnel the shots were coming – the right or the left.

Finally, he noticed camouflaged figures in the opening of the left-side tunnel. Instead of faces, there was blackness and Artyom felt a chill inside. Only after a few moments did he remember that the dark ones who had encroached on VDNKh never carried weapons and weren’t dressed in clothes. The attackers were just wearing masks, balaclavas of the kind you could buy at any arms market (they would even give you one for free when you bought an AK-47).

The Kaluga reinforcements had also arrived and were on the ground, hiding behind the corpses, returning fire. You could see how they smashed the plywood boards mounted on the wagon windows, breaking open hidden machine gun positions. Heavy fire thundered.

Looking up, Artyom managed to get a glimpse of the plastic tablet that showed the stations and hung in the middle of the hall. They were attacking from the direction of Tretyakovskaya – so this route was cut off. To get to Taganskaya, he’d have to go to a part of the station that was now on fire. The only route left to him was to Kuznetsky Most.

Jumping onto the path, Artyom headed for the blackened entrance to the one tunnel he could get into. He couldn’t see Khan or Ace anywhere. He thought he saw a figure who reminded him of the wandering philosopher but when he stopped for a moment Artyom realized he was mistaken.

He wasn’t the only one running into the tunnel – almost half of those escaping were heading that way as well. The passage was ringing with frightened cries – one person was sobbing hysterically. The lights of torches shined here and there, and there was even the uneven flickering of a few fire-torches. Each person was lighting the path for himself.

Artyom took Khan’s present out of his pocket and pressed on the handle. After directing the weak light of the torch to the path under his feet, trying not to trip, he rushed forward, catching up to small groups of fugitives – sometimes whole families, sometimes lone women, old men, and young, healthy men, who were dragging parcels that probably didn’t belong to them.