‘Well, you see, it was a wonderful time. Back then… ah… we were on fire,’ Yevgeny Dmitrievich replied, drawing out his answer.

Here, Artyom definitely did not imagine what the grey-haired man had in mind, and when the other old man realized that, he quickly elucidated.

‘We were very lively, we had good times.’

‘Yes, that’s exactly what I mean. We were on fire,’ Yevgeny Dmitrievich confirmed.

‘I had a green Moskvich-2141 and I’d spent my whole salary to buy it, to give it a sound system, to change the oil. Once, like a fool, I even had the carburettor replaced with a sports car model and then I used nitrous oxide.’ He had clearly transported himself to those good old days, when you could so easily get an old sports car carburettor to put in your car. And his face took on that same dreamy expression that Artyom so loved. It was a shame that Artyom understood little of what he was saying though.

‘Artyom probably doesn’t even know what a Moskvich is, never mind what a carburettor is.’ Sergei Andreyevich interrupted his friend’s sweet reminiscences.

‘What do you mean he doesn’t know?’ The thin man threw Artyom an angry look. Artyom took to studying the ceiling, gathering his thoughts.

‘So why are you burning books?’ He changed the subject as a counteroffensive tactic.

‘We’ve already read ’em,’ Yevgeny Dmitrievich responded.

‘There’s no truth in books!’ Sergei Andreyevich added in explanation.

‘Anyway, perhaps you should tell us something about how you’re dressed – are you a member of a cult or what?’ Yevgeny Dmitrievich delivered a decisive blow.

‘No, no, of course not,’ Artyom hurried to explain. ‘But they did pick me up and help me when I was in trouble.’ He explained in broad strokes in what poor shape he’d been but didn’t go as far as explaining quite how bad it was.

‘Yes, yes, that’s exactly how they work. I recognize the tactics. Orphaned and wretched… ah… or something in that vein,’ nodded Yevgeny Dmitrievich.

‘You know, I was at one of their meetings, and they say very strange things,’ said Artyom. ‘I stood around for a while and listened, but couldn’t stand it very long. For example, that Satan’s principal wickedness was that he wanted glory and adoration for himself, too… Before, I thought it had been a lot more serious, but it just turned out to be jealousy. Is the world really so simple, and does everything revolve around the fact that someone didn’t want to share glory and worshippers?’

‘The world is not that simple,’ Sergei Andreyevich assured him, taking the hookah from the fair-haired smoker and inhaling.

‘And one more thing… They say that God’s principal qualities are his mercy, kindness, and willingness to forgive, and that he’s a God of love, and that he’s all-powerful. At the same time, the first time man disobeyed Him, he was kicked out of paradise and made mortal. So then a whole lot of people die – not scary – and in the end, God sends His son to save everyone. And then His son dies a horrible death, and calls out to God before he dies, asking why God had forsaken him. And all this is for what? To purge, with his blood, the sin of the first human, who God had Himself provoked and punished, and so that people could return to paradise and again discover immortality. It’s some kind of pointless baloney, because He could have just not punished everyone so severely to begin with for stuff they didn’t do. Or he could have discontinued the punishment because the offence had taken place so long ago. But why sacrifice your beloved son, and even betray him? What kind of love is that? What kind of willingness to forgive? Where’s the omnipotence?’

‘Roughly and bluntly stated, but correct, in general terms,’ said Sergei Andreyevich approvingly, passing the hookah to his companion.

‘Here’s what I can say on the subject,’ said Yevgeny Dmitrievich, filling his lungs with smoke and smiling blithely. He paused for a minute, and then continued, ‘So, if their God indeed has some qualities or distinguishing aspects, they certainly don’t include love, or justice, or forgiveness. Judging from what’s happened on earth from the time it was… uh… created, only one kind of love has been unique to God: He loves interesting stories. First He sets up an interesting situation and then He stands back to see what happens. If the result is a little flat, He adds a little pepper. So old man Shakespeare was right, all the world’s a stage. Just not the one he was hinting at,’ he concluded.

‘This morning alone, you’ve talked your way into several centuries in hell,’ observed Sergei Andreyevich.

‘That means you’ll have someone to talk with there,’ Yevgeniy Dmitrievich told his companion.

‘On the other hand, many interesting acquaintances may be made there,’ said Sergei Andreyevich.

‘For example, among the upper hierarchy of the Catholic Church.’

‘Yes, they are surely there. Yet strictly speaking, so are ours…’

Both of Artyom’s companions clearly didn’t much believe that there would someday be a reckoning for everything said now. But Yevgeniy Dmitrievich’s words, about how what has happened to humanity is just an interesting story, led Artyom to a new thought.

‘Now, I’ve read a good many different books,’ he said, ‘and I’m always amazed that they’re nothing like real life. I mean, look, events in books are arranged in a nice straight line, everything is tied to everything else, causes have effects, and nothing doesn’t “just happen”. But in reality, everything’s completely otherwise! I mean, life is just full of senseless events that happen to us randomly, and there’s no such thing as everything happening in a logical sequence. What’s more, books, for example, come to an end just where the logical chain breaks off; there’s a beginning, a development, then a peak, and an end.’

‘A climax, not a peak,’ Sergei Andreyevich corrected him, listening to Artyom’s observations with a bored look.

Yevgeniy Dmitrievich also did not evince any particular interest. He moved the smoking apparatus closer to himself, inhaled some aromatic smoke, and held his breath.

‘OK, climax,’ continued Artyom, slightly discouraged. ‘But in life, everything’s different. First, a logical chain might not come to an end, and second, even if it does, nothing comes to a close because of it.’

‘You mean to say that life has no plot?’ asked Sergei Andreyevich, helping Artyom formulate his words.

Artyom thought for a minute, then nodded.

‘But do you believe in fate?’ asked Sergei Andreyevich, inclining his head to the side and examining Artyom studiously, while Yevgeniy Dmitrievich turned away from the hookah with interest.

‘No,’ said Artyom decisively. ‘There is no fate, just random events that happen to us, and then we make things up on our own later.’

‘Too bad, too bad…’ sighed Sergei Andreyevich disappointedly, austerely looking at Artyom over his eyeglasses. ‘Now, I’m going to present a little theory of mine to you, and you see for yourself if it matches your life or not. It seems to me that life, of course, is an empty joke, and that there’s no purpose to it at all, and that there’s no fate, which is to say anything explicit and definite, along the lines of you’re born and you already know that you’re going to be a cosmonaut or a ballerina, or that you’ll die in your infancy… No, not like that. While you’re living your allotted time… how do I explain this… It may happen that something happens to you that forces you to perform specific actions and make specific decisions, keeping in mind you have free will, and can do this or that. But if you make the right decision, then the things that happen to you subsequently are no longer just random, to use your word, events. They are caused by the choices that you made. I don’t intend to say that if you decided to live on the Red Line before it went communist that you’d be stuck there and that corresponding events would happen to you. I’m talking of more subtle matters. But if you again were to find yourself at the crossroads and once more made the needed decision, then later you will be faced with a choice that will no longer seem random to you if, of course, you realize and can understand it. And your life will gradually stop being just a collection of random events; it will turn into… a plot, I suppose, where everything is connected by some logical, though not necessarily straight, links. And that will be your fate. At a certain stage, if you have travelled sufficiently far along your way, your life will have turned into a plot to the extent that strange things will occur that are unexplainable from the point of view of naked rationalism or your theory of random events. Yet they will fit very well into the logic of the plot line that your life has by then turned into. I think fate doesn’t just happen, you need to arrive at it, and if the events in your life come together and start to arrange themselves into a plot, then it may cast you quite far… It is most interesting that a person may not even suspect that this is happening to him, or may conceive what has happened based on a false premise, by attempting to systematize events to match his own world view. But fate has its own logic.’