Artyom asked what was so bad about the transfer he mentioned, and the old man reluctantly answered:
‘You understand, right there in the middle of the tunnel there’s a burnt-out train. I haven’t been there in ages so I don’t know how it is now but before you could see charred human remains sitting in its seats… It was just terrible. I don’t know how this happened, and I asked some friends but no one has been able to say exactly. And it’s very hard to get through this train, because the tunnel has started to collapse and dirt has filled in all the spaces around the train. In the train itself, in the carriages, I mean, various bad things are going on and it would be difficult to explain them. I’m an atheist in general, you know, and I don’t believe in all that mystical nonsense… and now I don’t believe in anything anymore.’
These words led Artyom to the gloomy memories of the noise in the tunnel on his line, and he couldn’t restrain himself and he told the old man what had happened to his group, and then what happened with Bourbon and, after hesitating a little, he tried to repeat the explanation that Khan had given him.
‘What? What are you talking about? That’s utter rubbish!’ Mikhail Porfirevich brushed him off, sternly knitting his brows. ‘I’ve already heard about such things. You remember I was telling you about Yakov Iosefovich? Well, he’s a physicist and he explained to me that these disruptions to the psyche occur when people are subjected to the lowest frequencies of sound. They are essentially inaudible. If I’m not mistaken it’s around seven hertz, but then my mind is like a sieve… And this sound can come about by itself, as a result of natural processes, for example, from tectonic shifts and things like that. I wasn’t listening very attentively as he told me about it… But that it has something to do with souls of the dead? In the pipes? Please…’
This old man was interesting. Artyom heard things from him that he had never heard from anyone else. The man saw the metro from a different angle, an old-fashioned one, an amusing one, and everything, apparently, pulled his soul to the surface of the earth. He was clearly very uncomfortable here, as though these were his first days underground. And Artyom, thinking of the argument between Sukhoi and Hunter, asked him:
‘And what do you think…? We… people, I mean… Will we ever return to the surface? Will we survive and go back?’
And he immediately regretted asking it, because it was as though the question had cut into the old man’s very veins, and he became soft straight away, and said, quietly, with a lifeless voice:
‘I don’t think so. I don’t think so.’
‘But after all, there were other metro systems, in Petersburg, in Minsk, and in Novgorod.’ Artyom listed the names he had learnt by heart. They had always been empty shells of words.
‘Ah! What a beautiful city – Petersburg!’ Mikhail Porfirevich didn’t answer him but sadly sighed. ‘You know, Isaak’s… Or Admiralteistvo, the spire there… What grace, what grace! And evenings on Nevsky Prospect – people, noise, crowds, laughter, children with ice cream, pretty girls… Music playing… In summer especially. It’s rarely good weather in the summer there but when it happens… the sun, the sky is clear, azure… And then, you know, it’s just easy to breathe again…’
His eyes fixed on Artyom but his gaze was going right through the young man and dissolved in the ethereal distance, where translucent, majestic silhouettes of the dusty buildings rose from the dusky smoke, giving Artyom the impression that he could have turned around and seen it for himself. The old man went quiet, heaved a deep sign, and Artyom decided not to interrupt his reminiscing.
‘Yes, there were indeed other metro systems apart from Moscow’s. Maybe people took refuge there and saved themselves… But think about it, young man!’ Mikhail Porfirevich raised a knotty finger in the air. ‘How many years have gone by, and nothing… Surely they would have found us after all these years if they had been looking for us? No,’ he dropped his head. ‘I don’t think so.’
And then, after five minutes of silence, almost inaudibly, the old man sighed and said, more to himself than to Artyom:
‘Lord, what a splendid world we ruined…’
A heavy silence hung in the tent. Vanechka, lulled by their quiet conversation, was sleeping, with his mouth slightly open and snuffling quietly, sometimes whining a little, like a dog. Mikhail Porfirevich didn’t say another word, and though Artyom was sure that he wasn’t yet sleeping, he didn’t want to disturb him, so he closed his eyes and tried to fall asleep.
He was thinking that, after everything that had happened to him over the course of that endless day, sleep would come instantly, but time stretched out slowly, slowly. The mattress which had seemed so soft not long ago, now seemed lumpy and he had to turn over many times before he could find a comfortable position. The old man’s sad words were knocking and knocking around in his ears. No. I don’t think so. There will be no return to the sparkling avenues, the grandiose architectural constructions, the light, refreshing breezes of a warm summer evening, running through your hair and caressing your face. No more sky, it will never be like the old man described again. Now, the sky was receding upwards, enmeshed in the decayed wires of the tunnel ceiling and so it would remain forever. But before it was – what did he say? Azure? Clear?… This sky was strange, just like the one that Artyom saw at the Botanical Gardens that time, covered in stars, but instead of being velvet-blue, it was light blue, shimmering, joyful… And the buildings were really enormous, but they didn’t press down with their mass. No, they were light, easy, as though they were woven out of sweet air. They soared, almost leaving the earth, their contours washed in the endless height of the sky. And how many people there were! Artyom had never seen so many people at once, only perhaps at Kitai Gorod, but here there were even more of them; the space in between of these great buildings was full of people. They scurried around and there were a great deal of children among them, and they were eating something, probably real ice cream. Artyom had even wanted to ask one of them if he could try some, he’d never eaten real ice cream. When he was little, he’d really wanted to try some. But there had been nowhere to get any, the confectionery factory had long since produced only mould and rats, rats and mould. But these little children, licking the delicacy, were running away from him and laughing, deftly dodging him, and he didn’t even get the chance to look into any of their faces. Artyom didn’t know anymore what he was trying to do: take a bite of ice cream or just to look one of the children in the face, to understand if the children did actually have faces… and he got scared.
The light outlines of the buildings started to slowly darken and, after some time, they were hanging over him threateningly, and then they started to move closer and closer. Artyom was still chasing the children, and it seemed to him that the children weren’t laughing joyfully but evilly, and then he gathered all his strength and grabbed one of the little boys by the sleeve. The boy pulled away and scratched him like a devil, but squeezing the boy’s throat with an iron grip, Artyom managed to look him in the face. It was Vanechka. Roaring and baring his teeth, he shook his head and tried to seize Artyom’s hand. In panic, Artyom flung him away, and the boy, jumping up from his knees, suddenly lifted his head and let out that same terrible howl which made Artyom run back at VDNKh… And the children, randomly rushing around, started to slow down, and slowly to look at him from the side, getting closer, and the black bulky buildings towered right over them, drawing closer… And the children were filling the decreasing spaces between the buildings, and they took up Vanechka’s struggle, full of savage malice and icy sadness, and finally they turned to Artyom. They didn’t have faces, only black leather masks with mouths painted on them, and eyes, without whites or pupils.