Arkady Strugatsky - Roadside Picnic

I wipe away my tears and turn on the water. I take a long shower, first in hot water, then in cold water, then again in hot water. I use up a whole bar of soap. Eventually I get sick of it. I turn the water off and immediately hear rapping on the door, and Kirill yelling cheerfully, “Hey, stalker, come on out! It smells like money out here!”

Money—that’s always good news. I open the door, Kirill’s standing there wearing only boxer shorts, in great spirits, no sign of melancholy, and he’s handing me an envelope.

“Take it,” he says, “from grateful humanity.”

“Screw grateful humanity! How much is it?”

“For extraordinary courage under danger, just this once—two months’ pay!”

Ah. That’s real money. If they paid me two months’ salary for every empty I brought in, I’d have told Ernest to fuck off a long time ago.

“So, are you happy?” says Kirill, beaming, grinning from ear to ear.

“I’m all right,” I say. “How about you?”

He doesn’t say anything. He grabs me around the neck, presses me to his sweaty chest, hugs me, then pushes me away and disappears into the next stall.

“Hey!” I shout after him. “Where’s Tender? Washing out his undies, I bet.”

“No way! Tender is surrounded by reporters, you should see how important he’s gotten. He’s giving them a real perspicuous account…”

“What kind of account?” I say.

“A perspicuous one.”

“All right,” I say, “sir. Next time I’ll bring a dictionary, sir.” Then I feel an electric shock go through me. “Wait, Kirill,” I say. “Come out here.”

“But I’m naked already,” he says.

“Come out, I’m not a girl!”

All right, he comes out. I take him by the shoulders and turn his back toward me. No, I imagined it. His back is clean, nothing on it except some rivulets of dried sweat.

“What’s with you and my back?” he asks.

I kick his naked ass, dive into my stall, and lock the door. Nerves, God damn it. I keep imagining things: first there, now here. To hell with it all! I’ll get plastered tonight. I gotta beat Richard, that’s the thing! The bastard sure knows how to play… You can’t win no matter what you’re dealt. I tried cheating, even blessing the cards under the table, nothing worked.

“Kirill!” I yell. “Are you going to the Borscht today?”

“It’s pronounced ‘borshch,’ not ‘borsht’—how many times do I have to tell you?”

“Cut it out! The sign says BORSCHT. Don’t you try to force your customs on us. Are you coming or not? I’d like to beat Richard.”

“I’m not sure, Red. You simple soul, you don’t even understand what we found today…”

“And you do?”

“To be honest, I don’t either. That’s fair. But at least we now know what these empties were used for, and if one of my ideas works out… I’ll write a paper and dedicate it to you personally: ‘To Redrick Schuhart, honored stalker, with reverence and gratitude.’”

“And then they’ll put me away for two years,” I say.

“But you’ll go down in science. This thing will forever be known as Schuhart’s jar. Sound good?”

While we’re joking around, I get dressed. I stuff the empty flask into my pocket, count the money again, and get on my way. “Have a good shower, you complicated soul.”

He doesn’t reply; the water’s very loud.

In the hallway I see Mr. Tender himself, completely red and strutting like a peacock. A crowd has formed around him—coworkers, journalists, even a few sergeants (fresh from dinner, picking their teeth), and he’s blathering on: “The technology we command practically guarantees a safe and successful expedition…” Here, he notices me and immediately dries up, smiling and waving tentatively. Shit, I think, I need to escape. I take off, but it’s too late. I hear footsteps behind me.

“Mr. Schuhart! Mr. Schuhart! A few words about the garage!”

“No comment,” I reply, breaking into a run. But I can’t get away: a guy with a mike is on my right, and another one, with a camera, is on my left.

“Did you see anything unusual in the garage? Please, just two words!”

“I have no comment!” I repeat, trying to keep the back of my head to the camera. “It’s just a garage.”

“Thank you. What do you think about the turbo-platforms?”

“They’re great,” I say, heading straight for the john.

“What’s your opinion about the goals of the Visit?”

“Talk to the scientists,” I say. And I slide into the bathroom.

I hear them scratching at the door. So I call out, “I highly recommend you ask Mr. Tender why his nose looks like a plum. He’s too modest to mention it, but that was our most exciting adventure.”

Man, they shoot down the hallway! Just like horses, I swear. I wait a minute—silence. I stick my head out—no one’s around. So I walk away, whistling. I go down to the lobby, show my ID to the beefy sergeant, then I see that he’s saluting me. Guess I’m the hero of the day.

“At ease, Sergeant,” I say. “I’m pleased with you.”

He flashes a huge grin at me, as if I paid him the greatest compliment. “Good job, Red,” he says. “I’m proud to know you.”

“Well,” I say, “you’ll have something to tell the girls back in Sweden, huh?”

“Hell yeah!” he says. “They’ll be all over me!”

Really, the guy is OK. To be honest, I don’t like these hale and hearty types. The girls go crazy over them, and for what? It can’t just be the height… I’m walking along the street, trying to figure out what it could be. The sun is shining, no one’s around. And suddenly I want to see Guta real bad. Not for any particular reason. Just to look at her, hold her hand. That’s about all you can manage after the Zone: hand holding. Especially when you remember the stories about the children of stalkers—how they turn out… No, I shouldn’t even be thinking about Guta; first I need a bottle, at least, of the strong stuff.

I pass the parking lot, then I see the checkpoint. Two patrol cars are waiting there in all their glory—wide, yellow, bristling with searchlights and machine guns. And, of course, a whole crowd of cops is blocking the street. I walk along, looking down so I won’t see their faces; it’s best if I don’t look at them in broad daylight. A couple of guys here I’m afraid to recognize; there’d be one hell of a scene if I did. I swear, they’re lucky that Kirill convinced me to work for the Institute, otherwise I’d have found the assholes and finished them off.

I’m pushing my way through the crowd, almost past it, when I hear, “Hey, stalker!” Well, that has nothing to do with me, so I keep walking, pulling a cigarette from the pack. Someone catches up with me and grabs my sleeve. I shake his hand off, turn halfway toward him, and inquire politely, “What the hell are you grabbing my sleeve for, mister?”

“Wait, stalker,” he says. “Two questions for you.”

I look up at him—it’s my old friend Captain Quarterblad. He has completely dried up and turned a shade of yellow. “Hello, Captain,” I say. “How’s the liver?”

“Don’t you try to distract me, stalker,” he says angrily, boring his eyes into me. “You better explain to me why you don’t stop immediately when called.”

And two cops instantly appear behind him, pawing their guns. You can’t see their eyes, just their jaws working away below the helmets. Where in the world do they find these guys? Did they send them to Harmont to breed or what? I’m not usually afraid of the guards in the daytime, but the toads could search me, and that wouldn’t suit me at all right now.

“I didn’t know you meant me, Captain,” I say. “You were yelling at some stalker.”