Dmitry Glukhovsky - Metro 2034

Would they see that Sasha was different? Would she be able to hide in the crowd, pretend to be one of them, or would they attack the outsider, bite the albino to death, like a pack of rats? At first she fancied that everyone’s eyes were fixed on her, and every accidentally caught glance threw her into a fever. But after a quarter of an hour she got used to it. The people who looked at her included some who were hostile, or curious, or too insistent, but most of them were indifferent to her. They brushed their eyes gently over Sasha and pushed on through the crowd, taking no notice of her. It occurred to her that these absent-minded glances with nothing jarring about them lubricated the gear wheels of the human bustling, like machine oil. If they took an interest in each other, the friction would be too great and the entire mechanism would be paralysed.

In order to fit in with the crowd, she didn’t need to change her clothes or even cut her hair. Instead of that, it was enough to dive into other people’s pupils and coldly pull her glance back out after barely dipping it in. Once she had smeared herself with feigned indifference, Sasha could slip between the moving, intermeshing inhabitants of this station without getting stuck at every step.

For the first few minutes her nose was scalded by the simmering brew of human odours, but soon her nose became less sensitive as it learned to pick out the important components and skip all the others.

Weaving their way through the sour smells of stale bodies came the subtle, tantalising aromas of youth. Occasionally the crowd was bathed in waves of fragrance emanating from well-groomed women; and mingling with them was the smoke from meat on braziers, and the stink of the cesspits. In short, for Sasha the passage between the two Pavelets stations smelled of life, and the longer she listened to this deafening smell, the sweeter it seemed.

A full exploration of the boundless passage would probably have taken her an entire month. Everything here was astounding…

Stalls with jewellery woven out of dozens of little yellow metal discs with patterns stamped on them – she wanted to examine them for hours. And immense heaps of books containing more secret knowledge than she could ever master.

A man shouting his wares at a stand that had a sign saying ‘Flowers’ and a rich collection of greeting cards. The pictures on the cards were faded photographs of all sorts of fancy bouquets. Sasha had been given a card like that when she was little, but there were so many of them here!

Babies glued to their mothers’ breasts, and children a bit older, playing with real cats. Couples still only touching each other with their eyes, and couples already touching each other with their fingers.

And men who tried to touch her.

She might have taken their attention and interest for hospitality or a desire to sell her something, but the way they spoke, in a slippery, breathy kind of tone, gave her an awkward, slightly disgusting feeling. What did they want with her? Weren’t there enough local women here for them? And some of them were genuine beauties too, the bright-coloured fabrics they were wrapped in made them look like the half-open flower buds on the cards. Probably they were just laughing at her… Was she really capable of provoking a man’s curiosity anyway? She suddenly felt a prick of unfamiliar doubt – at that spot just below the triangular arch of her interlocking ribs, where the tender hollow began… Only deeper. In the place she had only discovered a day ago.

Trying to drive away her anxiety, she wandered along the stalls crammed with all sorts of goods – armour plate and trinkets, clothes and tools – but they didn’t hold her attention so strongly any more. It turned out that her internal conversation could be louder than the commotion of the crowd, and the human images drawn by her memory could be more vivid than live people

Was she worth his life? Could she condemn him after what had happened? And most important of all, what point was there to her stupid musings now? When she could no longer do anything for him…

And then, before Sasha even realised why this was happening to her, the doubts receded and her heart calmed down. Listening closely to herself, she caught the notes of a distant melody, seeping into her from the outside, where it was flowing along beside the murky current of the multitude of human voices, without mingling with it.

For Sasha music had begun, as it does for everyone, with her mother’s lullabies. But it had also ended with them: her father had no ear for it and he didn’t like to sing – wandering musicians and similar buffoons were not welcomed at Avtozavod. And the sentries droning their dolefully hearty soldiers’ songs round the campfire were incapable of drawing real music from the drooping strings of their plywood guitars or the taut strings of Sasha’s heart.

But what she could hear now wasn’t dismal strumming on a guitar… It was more like the tender, living voice of a young woman, or even a little girl – but too high, beyond the range of the human larynx, and at the same time unnaturally powerful. But what else did Sasha have to compare this miracle with?

The song of the unknown instrument enchanted the unwary, bearing them off to somewhere infinitely far away, to worlds that no one born in the Metro could know, worlds that were impossible – only they weren’t supposed even to suspect that. The song set them dreaming and suggested that any dreams could come true. It aroused a vague, indefinite yearning and immediately promised to satisfy it. It made Sasha feel good, as if she had been lost in an abandoned station, but suddenly found a flashlight and the light of its beam had shown her the way out.

She was standing at a bladesmith’s booth, right in front of a tall sheet of plywood with various kinds of knives attached to it – from little baby folding penknives to predatory hunting knives. Sasha froze, gazing spellbound at the blades, with the two halves of her inner self clashing in a frantic struggle. The idea that had come into her head was simple and tempting. The old man had given her a handful of cartridges, and there were just enough of them for a knife with a broad, sharp serrated, burnished blade, which was absolutely perfect for what she had in mind.

A minute later Sasha had made up her mind and smothered her doubts. She hid her purchase in the breast pocket of her overalls – as close as possible to the spot with the pain she wanted to stop. She walked back to the infirmary, no longer feeling the weight of the soldier’s jacket and with her aching temples forgotten.

The crowd was a whole head taller than the girl, and the distant musician, breathing out his amazing notes, remained invisible to her. Yet the melody was still trying to overtake her, turn her back, make her change her mind.

But it was futile.

Another knock at the door.

Homer got up off his knees with a grunt, wiped his lips with his sleeve and tugged the chain of the cistern. A short brownish streak was left on the dirty-green fabric of his padded jacket. It was the fifth time he had puked in twenty-four hours, although he hadn’t really eaten anything to speak of.

His illness could have several explanations, the old man tried to convince himself. Why did it have to be accelerated development of the disease? It could be something to do with…

‘How much longer in there?’ a woman squealed impatiently in a high falsetto.

Oh God! Had he really been in such a hurry that he’d confused the letters on the doors? Homer blotted his sweaty face with his dirty sleeve, put on an imperturbable air and clicked the latch.

‘Drunken lout!’ the gaudily dressed floozy exclaimed. She pushed him out of the way and slammed the door shut.