Dmitry Glukhovsky - Metro 2034

‘Who do you want to save him from?’ ask Homer, jerking his head up.

She looked at him mistrustfully – did the old man really still not understand, after she had tried so hard?

‘From the man in the mirror.’

‘Is this place taken?’

Sasha started and stopped absent-mindedly prodding at her mushroom casserole with her fork. The green-eyed musician was standing beside her with a tray in his hands. The old man had gone off somewhere for a moment, and his place was empty.

‘Yes.’

‘A solution can always be found!’ He put down his tray, jerked across a free stool from the next table and sat down on Sasha’s left before she could protest.

‘Just remember I didn’t invite you,’ she warned him.

‘Will granddad scold you then?’ the musician asked with a knowing wink. ‘Allow me to introduce myself. Leonid.’

‘He’s not my granddad,’ said Sasha, feeling the blood rush to her cheeks.

‘So that’s the way it is?’ asked Leonid, stuffing his mouth as full as he could and arching up one eyebrow.

‘You’re brazen,’ she remarked.

‘I’m assertive,’ he said, raising his fork in the air didactically.

‘You’re too sure of yourself,’ Sasha said with a smile.

‘I believe in people in general, and myself in particular,’ he mumbled indistinctly as he chewed.

The old man came back, stood behind the intruder and pulled a sour face, but sat down on his own stool anyway.

‘Aren’t you feeling a bit crowded, Sasha?’ he enquired peevishly, looking straight past the musician.

‘Sasha!’ the musician repeated triumphantly, glancing up from his bowl. ‘Pleased to meet you. Let me remind you that my name’s Leonid.’

‘Nikolai Ivanovich,’ Homer introduced himself, squinting at the young man sullenly. ‘What was that melody you were playing today? It sounded familiar…’

‘That’s not surprising, this is the third day I’ve been playing it here,’ the young man replied. ‘Actually it’s my own composition.’

‘Yours?’ said Sasha, putting down her knife and fork. ‘What’s it called?’

‘It’s not called anything,’ Leonid said with a shrug. ‘I hadn’t really thought about a title for it. How can I transcribe it in letters? And what for, anyway?’

‘It’s very beautiful,’ the girl admitted. ‘Really incredibly beautiful.’

‘Then I can name it in your honour,’ the quick-witted musician replied. ‘You’re worthy of it.’

‘No, don’t,’ she said and shook her head. ‘Leave it as it is, without any name. There’s a point to that.’

‘And there’s a definite point in dedicating it to you, too.’ He tried to laugh, but choked and started coughing.

‘Well, are you ready?’ The old man picked up Sasha’s tray and stood up. ‘It’s time. Excuse us, please, young man…’

‘That’s all right! I’ve finished eating already. May I see the young lady on her way?’

‘We’re leaving,’ Homer said abruptly.

‘Great! So am I. Going to Dobrynin.’ The musician put on an innocent air. ‘Are you by any chance going my way?’

‘Yes we are,’ said Sasha, surprising even herself. She tried not to look in Homer’s direction and her gaze kept slipping across to Leonid.

There was something light and easy about him, a good-humoured affability. Like a little boy fencing with a twig, he struck with light jabs that didn’t hurt and were impossible to feel angry about. And he presented his hints to Sasha so affectedly and amusingly, that she never even thought of taking them seriously. And what was wrong with him liking her?

And then, she had fallen in love with his music long before she met him. And the temptation of taking this magic with her on her journey was simply too great.

It was all down to the music, no doubt about that. Like the Pied Piper of Hamlyn, this damned youth enticed innocent souls with that sleek flute of his and used his gift to debauch all the girls he could get his hands on. Now he was trying to get his hands on Alexandra, and Homer didn’t know what to do about it!

The old man found it hard to swallow Leonid’s brash jokes, and before long they started sticking in his throat. And Homer was also annoyed by how quickly the musician had managed to reach an agreement with the obstinate Hansa boss for the three of them to be allowed to walk the stretch of the Circle Line to Dobrynin, even without any documents! The musician had walked into the spacious offices of the station commandant – a bald, aging dandy with a moustache like a cockroach’s whiskers – with his heavy flute case full of cartridges, and come back out smiling, with his load lightened.

Homer had to admit that Leonid’s diplomatic abilities had come in handy at just the right moment for them: the motor trolley on which they had arrived at Pavelets had disappeared from the parking area at the same time as Hunter disappeared, and going the long way round could have taken them up to a week. But what provoked the old man’s suspicions most of all was the flippant way the minstrel had uprooted himself from a profitable station and parted with all his savings, just so that he could set off into the tunnels after Homer’s Sasha. In different circumstances, this flippancy would have been a sign of being in love, but in this case the old man could see nothing but frivolous intentions and the habit of rapid conquests.

Yes, little by little Homer was turning into a crotchety chaperon. But he had good reasons to be on his guard and grounds for jealousy. The last thing he needed now was for the muse who had been miraculously restored to him to run off with a wandering minstrel! With an absolutely superfluous character, who had no place waiting for him in the novel, but had simply dragged in his own stool and churlishly seated himself right smack in the middle of it.

‘Is there really no one left anywhere on Earth?’

The trio was striding towards Dobrynin, accompanied by three guards: the correct use of cartridges could make even the boldest dreams come true.

The girl, who had just given the others a gushing account of her expedition to the surface, broke off and turned sad. Homer and the musician exchanged glances: Who would be first to dash in and console her?

‘Is there life beyond the Moscow Orbital Highway?’ the old man snorted. ‘Does the new generation wonder about that?’

‘Of course it does,’ Leonid declared confidently. ‘The trouble is that no one else survived, there’s simply no contact!’

‘Well I, for instance, have heard that somewhere beyond Taganka Station there’s a secret passage that leads to a certain curious tunnel,’ said the old man. ‘A normal-enough looking tunnel, six metres in diameter, only without any rails. It lies deep, forty or even fifty metres below ground. And it runs way off to the east…’

‘Would that be the tunnel that leads to the bunkers in the Urals?’ Leonid interrupted. ‘And is this the story about the man who wandered into it by accident, then came back with a supply of food and…’

‘Walked for a week with short halts, then his provisions started to run out and he had to turn back. There was still no sign of the tunnel coming to an end,’ Homer concluded scrappily, put off his folk-narrative tone. ‘Yes, according to the rumours it leads to the Urals bunkers, where there could still be someone left alive.’

‘That’s not very likely,’ said the musician, yawning.

‘And then an acquaintance of mine in Polis told me how one of the local radio operators had established contact with the crew of a tank who had battened down their hatches and withdrawn to somewhere so remote that no one ever even thought of bombing it,’ said the old man, ostentatiously speaking to Sasha.