When Mikhail Porfirevich paused for a little while, in order to catch his breath, Artyom decided to use the break to turn the conversation in a useful direction. Somehow he had to get through Pushkinskaya and to make the transfer to Chekhovskaya, and from there get to Polis.

‘Are there really real fascists at Pushkinskaya?’ he asked.

‘What’s that you’re saying? Fascists? Ah, yes…’ The old man sighed confusedly. ‘Yes, yes, you know, the skinheads with the armbands, they’re just awful. These symbols are hanging at the entrance there and all over the station. You know they used to mean that you couldn’t go there – it’s a black figure in a red circle with a red diagonal line through it. I thought that they had made some kind of mistake and I asked why they were there… It means that the dark ones can’t enter. It’s some kind of idiocy, basically.’

Artyom turned to him when he heard the words ‘dark ones.’ He threw a frightened look at Mikhail Porfirovich and asked carefully:

‘Are there dark ones there now too? Don’t tell me they’ve reached there too?’ A carousel of panic turned feverishly in Artyom’s head. How could it be? He’d only been in the tunnel a week and the dark ones were already attacking Pushkinskaya. Had his mission already failed? He hadn’t succeeded, hadn’t come good? It was all for nothing? No, that couldn’t be, there would have been rumours, they would have distorted things but there still would have been rumours, right? But it might be the end to everything…

Mikhail Porfirevich cautiously looked at him and, stepping a little to the side, carefully asked:

‘And you, yourself, what ideology do you adhere to?’

‘I? Basically, well, none.’ Artyom hesitated. ‘And?’

‘And how do you feel about other nationalities, about Caucasians, for example?’

‘What do Caucasians have to do with anything?’ Artyom was puzzled. ‘Generally, I don’t know much about nationalities. There used to be the French there, or the Germans, the Americans. But I guess none of them are left… And as for the Caucasians, if I’m honest, I don’t really know any,’ he admitted awkwardly.

‘It’s the Caucasians that they call the “dark ones”,’ Mikhail Porfirevich explained, still trying to figure out if Artyom was lying, playing the fool.

‘But Caucasians, if I remember right, are regular people?’ Artyom said. ‘I saw a few of them here today…’

‘Completely normal people!’ Mikhail Porfirevich assured him. ‘Completely normal people, but those cutthroats have decided that there’s something different about them and they persecute them. It’s simply inhuman! Can you imagine, they have a ceiling there, right over the pathways, fitted with hooks, and there was a man hanging from one of them, a real man. Vanechka got so excited, that he started to poke it with his finger, to bellow, and then these monsters turned their attention to him.’

At the sound of his name the teenager turned and fixed the old man with a long stare. Artyom had the impression that the boy could hear and could even partly understand what the conversation was about, but when his name wasn’t repeated, he quickly lost interest in Mikhail Porfirevich and turned his attention to the cross-ties.

‘And once we started talking about nations and, by the looks of it, they really worship Germans. It was the Germans after all who invented their ideology, and you, of course, know, what I’m going to tell you,’ Mikhail Porfirovich added quickly and Artyom vaguely nodded even though he didn’t actually know, but he didn’t want to look like an ignoramus. ‘You know, there’s German eagles hanging everywhere, swastikas, which are self-explanatory, and there are various German phrases, quotes from Hitler: about valour, about pride and things in that vein. They have parades and marches. While we were there, and I was trying to persuade them to stop antagonizing Vanechka, they were all marching across the platform and singing songs. Something about the greatness of the spirit and contempt for death. But, generally, you know, the German language was perfectly chosen. German was simply created for such things. I can speak a little of it, you see… Here, look, I have something written somewhere here…’ And, breaking step, he extracted a dirty notebook from his inside pocket. ‘Wait a second, put your light here, if you don’t mind… Where was it? Ah, here it is!’

In the yellow circle of light, Artyom saw some jumping Latin letters, carefully drawn on a page of the notebook and even thoughtfully surrounded with a frame of drawn vine-leaves:

Du stirbst. Besitz stirbt.

Die Sippen sterben.

Der einzig lebt – wir wissen es

Der Toten Tatenruhm.

Artyom could also read Latin letters. He had studied them in some textbook for schoolchildren that they dug up at the station library. He looked behind him and he pointed his torch at the notebook again. Of course, he couldn’t understand a thing.

‘What is it?’ he asked, again helping Mikhail Porfirovich along, and quickly pushing the notebook into the man’s pocket, and trying to get Vanechka, who was rooted to the spot and growling unhappily, to move forward.

‘It’s a poem,’ the old man replied, and he seemed a bit offended. ‘It’s in memory of those that perished in war. I, of course, am not planning to translate but broadly speaking, it means this: “You will die. All those close to you will die. Your belongings will disappear. But one thing will cross the centuries – glorious death in combat.” But it comes out so pathetically in Russian, doesn’t it? While it just thunders in German! Der Toten Tatenruhm! It just sends a chill through you. Hm, yes…’ He stopped short, apparently ashamed by his outburst.

The walked on quietly for a time. It seemed silly to Artyom and it angered him too that they were probably the last ones walking the tunnel and it wasn’t clear what was going on behind their backs – and now the guy was stopping to read poetry. But against his will he was still rolling the last lines of the poem around on his tongue, and for some reason he suddenly recalled Vitalik with whom he went to the Botanical Gardens. Vitalik the Splinter, who the robbers had shot down as they tried to break into the station through the southern tunnel. That tunnel was always considered to be dangerous, and therefore they put Vitalik there. He was eighteen years old, and Artyom was just coming up to his sixteenth year. But that evening they agreed to go to Zhenya’s because there was a weed trader who had brought in some new stuff, some special stuff… And he got it right in the head, the little black hole was right in the middle of his forehead and the back of his head was blown off. That was it. ‘You will die…’ For some reason the conversation between his stepfather and Hunter came vividly to mind, particularly when Sukhoi said, ‘And what if there’s suddenly nothing there?’ You die and there’s nothing beyond that. Nothing. Nothing remains. Someone might remember you for a little while after but not for long. ‘People close to you will die too’ – or how did it go? Artyom really felt a chill now. When Mikhail Porfirevich finally broke the silence, Artyom was actually glad of it.

‘Will you, by any chance, be going the same way as us? Or are you only going to Pushkinskaya? Do you intend to get out there? I mean, get off the path. I would really really not recommend that you do that, Artyom. You can’t imagine what goes on there. Maybe, you’d like to go with us to Barrakadnaya? I would be most happy to talk to you along the way!’

Artyom again nodded indistinctly and mumbled something noncommital: he couldn’t just discuss the aims of his journey with the first person he met, even if that person was an inoffensive old man. Mikhail Porfirevich went silent, having heard nothing in answer to what he’d asked.

They walked for quite a long time more in the silence. Everything sounded quiet behind them too and Artyom finally relaxed. In the distance, lights were shining, at first weakly, but then brighter and brighter. They were approaching Kuznetsky Most…