Dmitry Glukhovsky - Metro 2033

While they were looking for somewhere to buy food, Artyom was able to inspect the station. He no longer knew how much time had passed since his last meal, but his aching stomach was no laughing matter. Ulman had no supplies on him: they had left in a hurry and brought only what was necessary.

Mayakovskaya resembled Kievskaya. It was just a shadow of the once elegant and airy station. In this half of the ruined station people huddled in ragged tents or out on the platform. The walls and ceiling were covered with damp patches and trickling water. There was one small campfire for the whole station but no fuel.

The inhabitants talked among themselves quietly, as if at the bedside of a dying man. However, there was a shop even here: a patched up three-man tent with a folding table displayed at the entrance. The selection was modest: skinned rat carcasses, dried up and shrunken mushrooms, procured here God knows when, and even uncut squares of moss. A price tag lay proudly next to each item – a piece of news print with carefully handwritten numbers. There were almost no shoppers except them, only an undernourished stooped woman holding a small boy by the hand. The child was pulling towards a rat lying on the counter, but his mother admonished him:

‘Don’t touch! We’ve already eaten meat this week!’ The boy obeyed, but he didn’t forget about the carcass for long. As soon as the mother turned away, he once more tried to reach for the dead animal.

‘Kolka! What did I tell you? If you are bad, the demons will come out of the tunnels to get you! Sashka didn’t obey his mommy and they took him!’ the woman scolded him, succeeding at the last moment to pull him away from the counter.

Artyom and Ulman couldn’t make up their minds. Artyom began to think that he could survive until they got to Prospect Mir where the mushrooms would at least be fresher.

‘Some rat, perhaps? We fry them in front of the customer,’ the shop’s bald owner said with some dignity. ‘Certificate of quality!’ he added enigmatically.

‘Thanks, I’ve already eaten,’ Ulman hastened to turn him down. ‘Artyom, what do you want? I wouldn’t take the moss. World War Four will start in your gut from it.’

The woman looked at him with disapproval. In her hand were only two cartridges which, judging by the prices, was just enough for the moss. Noting that Artyom was looking at her modest capital, the woman hid her fist behind her back.

‘Nothing here,’ she snarled spitefully.

‘If you don’t intend to buy anything, get lost!’

‘We’re not all millionaires! What are you staring at?’

Artyom wanted to answer, but he was carried away by the sight of her son. The boy was very similar to Oleg. He had the same colourless, fragile hair, reddish eyes and turned-up nose. The boy put his thumb in his mouth and smiled shyly at Artyom, looking at him a bit sullenly. Artyom felt as if his lips were spreading into a smile in spite of himself, and his eyes were swelling with tears. The woman intercepted his glance and flew into a rage.

‘Damned perverts!’ she screeched, her eyes glaring. ‘Let’s go home, Kolienka!’ She pulled the boy by the hand.

‘Wait! Stop for a minute!’ Artyom pressed several shells out of the reserve clip of his machine gun and, catching up to the woman, gave them to her. ‘Here… These are for you. For your Kolia.’

She looked at him with distrust, then her mouth twisted scornfully.

‘Just what do you think you can get for five cartridges? That he’ll be your child?’

Artyom didn’t immediately understand what she had in mind. Finally, it came to him and he was on the verge of opening his mouth to start making excuses, but he wasn’t able to utter a thing, and he just stood there, staring blankly. The woman, satisfied with the effect she had produced, replaced her rage with mercy.

‘Agreed certainly! Twenty cartridges for half an hour.’

Stunned, Artyom shook his head, turned and nearly took off running.

‘Jerk! OK give me fifteen!’ the woman cried after him.

Ulman was still standing there, discussing something with the seller.

‘Well, what about the rats? Haven’t you made up your mind?’ the owner of the tent inquired courteously, having seen the returning Artyom. ‘A little bit more and she’ll start bargaining with me.’

Artyom understood. Pulling Ulman behind him, he hurried from this Godforsaken station.

‘Where are we going in such a hurry?’ the fighter asked when they were walking through the tunnel in the direction of Byelorusskaya. While trying to cope with the lump rising in his throat, Artyom told him what had happened. His story did not especially impress Ulman.

‘So what? She has to live somehow,’ he responded.

‘Why is such a life necessary at all?’ Artyom’s face convulsed. ‘Do you have any ideas?’

Ulman shrugged his broad shoulders.

‘What’s the sense of such a life? You cling to it, you endure all this filth, humiliation, you trade your children, stuff your face with moss, for what?’ Artyom stopped short, recalling Hunter, who had been talking about the survival instinct, about the fact that one would fight like a wild animal for his life and the survival of others with all his might. Then, at the very beginning, his words had inflamed a hope and desire in Artyom to fight like that frog who had whipped the cream in the jar with its feet, turning it into butter. But now the words uttered by his stepfather for some reason seemed more reliable.

‘For what?’ Ulman teased him.

‘Well, all right young man, “for what” are you living?’ Artyom regretted that he had got involved in this conversation. As a fighter, he had to give Ulman his due, he was superb, but as a companion he wasn’t especially interesting. And Artyom could see it was useless to argue with him regarding the sense of life.

‘Well, personally I am “for what”,’ he answered sullenly, not able to bear it.

‘Well, for what?’ Ulman began to laugh. ‘For the rescue of mankind? Leave it. It’s all nonsense. You aren’t saving it, so it’s someone else. Me, for example.’ He shined the flashlight on his face so that Artyom could see him and made a heroic face. Artyom looked at him jealously, but said nothing. ‘And then,’ the fighter continued, ‘they all just cannot live for it.’

‘And what about you, is life without meaning?’ Artyom tried to ask the question ironically.

‘How is it without meaning? It makes sense for me, the same way as for everyone. And generally, searches for the meaning of life usually happen during puberty. But for you, it seems, it’s taken longer.’ His tone was not offensive, but mischievous, so that Artyom wouldn’t sulk. Inspired by his success, Ulman continued, ‘I remember when I was seventeen. I was trying to understand it all, too. It passes. There is only one meaning in life, brother: to make and bring up children. But let them be tormented by the question. And answer it how they can. Well, that’s the theory,’ he smiled again.

‘And then just why are you coming with me? Are you risking your life? If you don’t believe in rescuing mankind, then what?’ Artyom asked after some time.

‘First, I was ordered to,’ Ulman said severely. ‘Orders are not questioned. Second, it’s not enough to make children, you have to raise them. And how will I grow them if your riffraff from VDNKh eat them up?’ Such self-confidence exuded from him, his strength and his words, that the picture of the world was so seductively simple and organized, that Artyom no longer wanted to argue with him. On the other hand, he felt that the fighter was inspiring a confidence in him too.

As Melnik had said, the tunnel between Mayakovskaya and Byelorusskaya turned out to be peaceful. True, something was banging in the ventilation shafts but they slipped past normal sized rats a few times, and that reassured Artyom. The section was surprisingly short – they had not even been able to complete the argument when the lights of the station appeared ahead.