‘Why not?’ objected Artyom in some agitation. ‘What? Is there somebody there, in that tunnel?’

‘No one, of course,’ the man patiently explained. ‘Who’s going to mess around in there? You can’t go there now, anyway, I’m telling you. So, sit down.’

‘Thank you.’ Artyom took a tentative step forward and sank to the floor across from the bust. They were over forty. One was grey-haired, with square glasses, and the other was thin, with fair hair and a small beard. Both of them were wearing old quilted jackets. They were inhaling smoke through a thin tube rigged up to something like a calabash, from which there issued a head-spinning fragrance.

‘What’s your name?’ asked the fair-haired one.

‘Artyom,’ the young man replied mechanically, busy with studying these strange people.

‘His name is Artyom,’ the fair-haired man said to the other.

‘Well, that’s understood,’ he replied.

‘I am Yevgeny Dmitrievich. And this is Sergei Andreyevich,’ said the fair-haired man.

‘We don’t have to be so formal, do we?’ Sergei Andreyevich said

‘Sergei, as you and I have reached this age, we might as well take advantage of it. It’s a question of status and all that.’

‘OK, and what else?’ Sergei Andreyevich then asked Artyom.

The question sounded very odd, as if he were insisting that they continue something that had not ever started, and Artyom was quite perplexed.

‘So you’re Artyom, but so what? Where do you live, where are you going, what do you believe in, what do you not believe in, who is to blame and what is to be done?’ Sergei Andreyevich explained.

‘Like it used to be, remember?’ Sergei Andreyevich said suddenly, for no apparent reason.

‘Oh, yes!’ laughed Yevgeny Dmitrievich.

‘I live at VDNKh… or at least I did live there,’ Artyom began reluctantly.

‘Just like… Who put their jackboot on the control panel?’ the fair-haired man grinned.

‘Yes! Nothing left of America!’ Sergei Andreyevich smirked, taking off his glasses and examining them in the light.

Artyom looked warily at them again. Maybe he should just get out of here, while the going was good. But what they had been talking about before they noticed him, kept him there by the fire.

‘And what’s this about Metro-2? If you’ll excuse me, I overheard a little,’ he admitted.

‘So, you want to find out the main legend of the metro?’ Sergei Andreyevich smiled patronizingly. ‘Just what is it you want to know?’

‘You were talking about an underground city and about some kind of observers…’

‘Well, Metro-2 was generally a refuge for the gods of the Soviet Pantheon during the time of Ragnarök, if the forces of evil were to prevail,’ began Yevgeny Dmitrievich, gazing at the ceiling and blowing smoke rings. ‘According to the legends, under the city whose dead body lies there, above us, another metro had been built, for the elite. What you see around you is the metro for the common herd. The other one, according to the legends, that’s for the shepherds and their dogs. At the very beginning, when the shepherds had not yet lost their power over the herd, they ruled from there; but then their strength gave out, and the sheep ran off. Gates alone were what connected these two worlds, and, if you believe the legends, these were located right where the map is now sliced in two as if by a blood-red scar – on the Sokolinskaya branch, somewhere behind the Sportivnaya. Later something occurred that closed the entrance to Metro-2 forever. Those who lived here lost any knowledge of what had taken place, and the very existence of Metro-2 became somehow mythical and unreal. But,’ he pointed upwards, ‘despite the fact that the entrance to Metro-2 no longer exists, that does not at all mean that it has ceased to exist. On the contrary, it is all around us. Its tunnels wind around our stations, and its stations could be just a few steps behind our stations’ walls. These two structures are inseparable; they are like the circulatory system and lymphatic vessels of one organism. And those who believe that the shepherds could not have abandoned their herd to the mercy of fate, say that they are present, imperceptibly, in our lives, direct us, follow our every step, but do not reveal themselves and do not let their existence be known. And that is the belief in Unseen Watchers.’

The cat, curling up next to the soot-covered bust, raised her head and, opening her enormous, lustrous green eyes, looked at Artyom with a startlingly clear and intelligent expression. Her stare was nothing like that of an animal, and Artyom could not immediately be sure that someone else was not studying him carefully him through her eyes. But the cat yawned, stretching out her sharp pink tongue, and, burying her muzzle in her bedding, dropped back to sleep, like an illusion that had vanished.

‘But why don’t they want people to know about them?’ Artyom remembered his question.

‘There are two reasons for that. First of all, the sheep are guilty of having rejected their shepherds at their moment of weakness. Second, since the Metro-2 was cut off from our world, the shepherds have developed differently from us, and are no longer human, but beings of a higher order, whose logic is incomprehensible to us and whose thoughts are inaccessible. No one knows what they think of our metro, but they could change everything, even return us to our wonderful, lost world, because they have regained their former power. Because we rebelled against them once and betrayed them, they no longer have anything to do with our fate. However the shepherds are everywhere, and our every breath is known to them, every step, every blow – everything that happens in the metro. They only observe for the present. And only when we atone for our dreadful sin will they turn to us with a gracious gaze and extend a hand to us. And then a renaissance will begin. That is those who believe in the Unseen Watchers say.’ He fell silent, inhaling the aromatic smoke.

‘But how can people atone for their guilt?’ Artyom asked.

‘Nobody knows except the Unseen Watchers themselves. Humans don’t understand it, because they do not know the dispensation of the Watchers.’

‘Then people might never be able to atone for their sin against them?’ Artyom was baffled.

‘Does that bother you?’ Yevgeny Dmitrievich shrugged his shoulders and blew two more big, beautiful smoke rings, one slipping through the second.

There was silence for a time – at first light and limpid, but gradually getting thicker and louder and more palpable. Artyom felt a growing need to break it any way he could, with any senseless phrase, even a meaningless sound. ‘And where are you from?’ he asked.

‘Before, I lived at Smolenskaya, not far from the metro, about five minutes’ walk,’ Yevgeny Dmitrievich replied and Artyom stared at him in surprise: how could he have lived not far from the metro? He must have meant that he lived not far from a metro station, in a tunnel – right? ‘You had to walk past food stalls, we sometimes bought beer there, and there were always prostitutes standing around near the stalls, and the police had… uh… a headquarters there,’ Yevgeny Dmitrievich continued and Artyom had started to realize that he was talking about the old times, about what had gone on before.

‘Yeah… Me too, I also lived not far from there, at Kalinsky, in a high-rise,’ said Sergei Andreyevich. ‘Someone told me about five years ago that he’d heard from a stalker that they had crumbled to dust… The House of Books is still there and all the cheap paper-backs were sitting on the tables untouched, can you believe it? And all that was left of the high-rise was a pile of dust and blocks of cement. Strange.’

‘So what was life like back then?’ Artyom was curious. He loved to ask old men this question and they would stop whatever they were doing and describe the old days with such pleasure. Their eyes would assume a dreamy, distant look; their voices would sound totally different; and their faces looked ten years younger. Images of the past, which were brought to life before their minds’ eyes, were nothing like the pictures that Artyom conjured up while they told their stories, but it was nonetheless very enjoyable for all. It was sort of sweet and sort of torturous at the same time and it made the heart ache…