He stopped a couple of times to help someone who’d fallen. He lingered with one of them for a moment. Leaning against the ribbed wall of the tunnel, sat an old man, totally grey, with a painful grimace on his face, clutching his heart. Next to him stood an adolescent boy who was looking serenely and dully. From his animal looks and his turbid eyes, you could see that this was an unusual child. Something squeezed Artyom’s soul and when he saw this strange pair, even though he was pressing himself forward and cursing himself when he met obstacles, he stopped.
The old man, feeling the attention that was being focused on him and the boy, tried to smile at Artyom and to say something but he didn’t have the breath for it. He frowned and closed his eyes, gathering his strength, and Artyom bent over the old man, trying to hear what he was trying to tell him.
But the boy suddenly started to bellow threateningly and Artyom noticed that there was a thread of spit coming from his mouth, and that he was baring his small yellow teeth. Not wanting to deal with any attack, Artyom pushed him aside and the boy moved back and settled clumsily onto the rails, issuing plaintive howls.
‘Young… man…’ The old man struggled. ‘Don’t… he… That’s Vanechka… he… doesn’t understand.’
Artyom just shrugged.
‘Please… Nitro… glycerine… in the bag… at the bottom… One pill… Give it to me… I can’t myself…’ The old man wheezed horribly and Artyom dug into the bag, quickly finding a new-looking package and he cut through the foil with a fingernail. The pill jumped out and he gave it to the old man who extended his lips into a guilty smile and said:
‘I can’t… my hands… don’t listen to me… Under my tongue…’ Then his eyelids closed again.
Artyom looked at his black hands in doubt, but he obeyed and put the slippery little ball in the old man’s mouth. The stranger nodded weakly and said nothing. More and more fugitives were striding past them hurriedly, but Artyom could only see an endless row of dirty boots and shoes. Sometimes they stumbled on the black wood of the cross-ties and then there was an outburst of swearing. No one paid any attention to the three of them. The teenager was sitting in the same place and was quietly mumbling. Artyom noticed with some indifference and even a little smugness that one of the passers-by kicked him hard and the boy started to howl even more loudly, smearing his tears with his fists and swaying from side to side.
Meanwhile, the old man opened his eyes, sighed heavily and muttered, ‘Thank you very much… I feel better already… Will you help me to get up?’
Artyom supported him by the arm while the man rose with effort, and he picked up the old man’s bag, which meant he had to put his machine gun over the other shoulder. The old man began to hobble forward, and went to the boy and started encouraging him to get up. The boy bellowed, offended, but when he saw Artyom come up to them, he started to hiss maliciously and spittle again dripped from his protruding lower lip.
‘You see, I just bought the medicine,’ the old man said. ‘Indeed, I came here especially for it, to this far away place, you know. You can’t get it where we live, no one brings it in, and there’s no one to ask for it, and I had just finished my supply, I took the last tablet on the way here, and when they didn’t want to let us through Pushkinskaya… There are fascists there now, you know, it’s just a disgrace to think that at Pushkinskaya there are fascists! I heard that they even want to rename it, either to Hitlerskaya or to Schillerovskaya… Though, of course, they haven’t even heard of Schiller. And, imagine, they didn’t want to let us through. Those swaggering fellows with their swastikas started to tease Vanechka. And what could he answer, the poor boy, in his condition? I was very worried, my heart went bad, and only then did they let us out. What was I saying? Oh yes! And you see, I especially put them deep into my bag in case anyone searched us, and they would have asked questions, and you know that they could get the wrong idea, not everyone knows what kind of medicine this is… And suddenly there’s all this firing! I ran off as fast as I could, I even had to drag Vanechka because he had seen some chickens on sticks and he really didn’t want to go. And to start off with, you know, it wasn’t squeezing so hard, I thought, maybe it will go away, and I don’t have to get out the medicine, it’s of course worth its weight in gold, but then I understood that I wouldn’t manage. And as I reached for a tablet, it got me. And Vanechka, he doesn’t understand a thing, I’ve been trying to teach him for a long time to give me tablets if I don’t feel well but he just can’t understand it, and he either eats them himself or he gets the wrong thing out of the bag and gives it to me. I tell him thank you, smile and he smiles at me, you know, with such joy, he bellows merrily… God forbid something happens to me – there’s no one to take care of him at all, and I can’t imagine what would become of him!’
The old man talked and talked, ingratiatingly, looking into Artyom’s eyes, and Artyom felt very awkward for some reason. Even though the old man was hobbling with all his strength, Artyom thought that they were moving too slowly – everyone was overtaking them. It looked like they would soon be last. Vanechka clumsily walked to the right of the old man, holding his hand. His former serene expression had returned to his face. From time to time he pushed his right hand forward and excitedly gurgled, pointing at some object that had been thrown away or dropped as the fugitives ran from the station, sometimes pointing at the darkness that was thickening in front of them.
‘Forgive me, young man, but what’s your name? Because we’re talking, right, and we haven’t even introduced ourselves… Artyom? Nice to meet you, and I’m Mikhail Porfirevich. Porfirevich, that’s right. They called my father Porfiry, an uncommon, you know, name, and in the Soviet times he was even questioned by various organizations because at that time there were other names in fashion: Vladilen or Stalin… And you’re from where? VDNKh? Well, me and Vanechka, we’re from Barrikadnaya, I once lived there.’ The old man smiled, embarrassed. ‘You know, there was a building there, it was such a building, so high, right near the metro… But you probably don’t remember any buildings do you? How old are you, if you don’t mind? Well, of course, that’s not important. I had a little flat there, two rooms, on a high floor, and there was such a wonderful view of the city centre. The flat wasn’t big but it was very, you know, comfortable, the floors, were of course, oak, and like all flats then there was a gas stove. Lord, I’m thinking right now about just how comfortable. A gas stove! And back then no one cared for them – they all wanted electricity but they just couldn’t get it. As you walked in there was a reproduction of a Tintoretto painting, in a pretty gold-plated frame, what beauty! The bed was real, with pillows, with sheets that were always clean and a big desk, with a lamp and it burned brightly. But most importantly, there were bookshelves to the ceiling. My father left me a big library and I collected them too. Ach, why am I telling you all of this? You probably aren’t interested in all this old man nonsense… And yet still now, you see, I remember, I really miss the things, particularly the desk and the books and recently I really miss the bed. You don’t know such luxuries here but we had these wooden beds, handmade, you know, and sometimes we slept right on blankets on the floor. But that’s nothing, what’s important is what’s here.’ He pointed to his chest. ‘What’s important is what goes on inside, and not outside. The important thing is that what’s in the head stays the same and who gives a fig about the conditions – ’scuse my French! But you know that bed, it’s especially…’
He didn’t shut up for a minute and Artyom listened the whole time with great interest, even though he couldn’t at all imagine what it would be like to live in a tall building, and what the view would be like, and what it would be like to go up in a lift.