Darragh McKeon - All That Is Solid Melts into Air

He returns to the portico and shows his mother the map.

“Did you steal it?”

“Of course I stole it. You think there’re shops selling maps for tourists?”

“I don’t like you stealing.”

“Fine.” He walks towards the door. “I’ll leave it back.”

He has his own mind now. She can’t scold him anymore.

“No. You’re right. It’s fine.”

They’ve been fighting more in the past year. She can tell from his eyes that he’s chalking up another victory. She’ll win very few arguments from now on—not that she wants a competition, just a recognition that she still has some authority, that she knows things.

He lays the map on the ground in front of her.

“Her place is near the bus station. Get us to the bus station and I’ll find it from there.”

Artyom runs his finger over the districts and finds it.

“Okay. It’s not far.”

“Did you get any food?” Sofya asks.

“No. All the shops have been cleared out. There were probably hundreds of buses before us. I’m sure people have stocked up.”

Artyom takes his mother’s sack. Sofya can carry her own.

“How do we know when Father gets in?” Sofya asks.

“He’ll find us at Lilya’s.”

They head out into the road in single file, Artyom leading. He stays close to the walls. A man passes by with his head down, looking at his shoes. There are women and children sitting in the middle of the tarmac, quaking through tears. Artyom’s mother approaches them and coaxes them into doorways, sheltering them from the pressing crowd. A woman in her forties walks backwards, screaming obscenities at the arrivals. She uses a term they don’t understand: “glowworms.”

They cross through the park, still keeping close. His arms are aching from the sacks, but he doesn’t want this to be known, otherwise his mother will insist on carrying her own. Eventually, though, he stops, places them on the pathway, and shakes out his shoulders.

His mother looks at him, concern weighing on her. Artyom sees her differently here, away from home, under the iron lamps of the pavement. She looks older than her age. The land, the work, has hardened her. Hardened her skin and face, but maybe also made her more determined. He thinks about how she works at harvest time, bent low over the straw, tying it together, gathering it into ricks. All day bent over, stopping only for the occasional drink of water. She’s determined to get them where they need to go. A different strength to his father’s.

“You’re tired.”

“Yes.”

“Let me take them.”

He leaves the sacks on the ground, and she heaves them over her shoulder and begins walking again. He’ll take them back in a few minutes, when his shoulders have had a rest.

At the bus station there are more people, more chaos. The confusion is relentless, but they are becoming accustomed to it. They move through the crowd more quickly now, spotting the gaps, less tentative in their steps. Artyom’s mother doesn’t hesitate in her direction, and he and Sofya know that she recognizes where she is.

They reach a tree-lined street of apartment blocks. It’s quieter here. They pass a group of men gathered around the opened bonnet of a car, drinking, one underneath with a torch, tinkering away. The men stare as they pass, carrying their belongings. The group don’t say anything, but Artyom can feel their eyes trailing him, aggression in their look. So this is what Minsk is like, he thinks.

“They don’t like us here, do they, Mama?” Sofya says.

“No. I suppose they don’t,” Artyom’s mother replies.

They find the building and, pushing open the door to the entrance, they see the lift doors are wide open with the lights off and wires hanging out where the buttons should be. Artyom’s mother lays the sacks on the ground and looks dolefully up the steps, and arches her back, stretches her neck from side to side.

“What floor is she on?” Artyom asks.

“The eighth.”

“I’ll take the bags from here.”

“Thank you, Artyom.”

The steps are crumbled at the edges, stones peeping through. So Artyom steps sideways, keeping the sacks at an even height to balance himself. There’s a smell of piss in the enclosed space, and it joins together with the scent of potatoes ingrained in the cloth, which rises up as he swings the sacks. The walls are covered in writing. Names in huge, black letters, connected in a fluid scrawl, a series of interlocked curls. On the fourth-floor landing there’s a kid’s disembowelled bear, its cotton insides greyed and trampled upon.

He pushes into the corridor and looks at his mother as she knocks on the fifth door down.

No answer. She waits and knocks again. No answer. She calls: “Lilya. It’s Tanya. We need your help.”

They wait. She looks at Sofya, who is staring at the ceiling, her fists curling around the opening of her sack. Sofya always looks upwards when she’s angry. Artyom’s mother leans against the wall and puts her ear to the door.

“You’re in there. Your light was on. I can hear you. I have Artyom and Sofya. We need to come in. Please, Lilya.”

Artyom stays at the end of the corridor. He understands there’s something private about the moment. He needs to let his mother go through this on her own.

His mother steps away from the door. Movement, a voice from inside.

“I can’t help. It’s too dangerous. You need to go to the shelter.”

His mother bangs on the door.

Some neighbours appear. Stripes of light cross the green tiled floor. A shirtless man stands in the corridor, his chest hair curled into dots. He fills the gap between the walls, hands on his hips, like a goalkeeper waiting for a penalty.

“Lilya. I’m your sister. Let us in.”

“You’re poison, don’t you know this? You can’t stay around other people.”

Artyom’s mother starts to cry. He hasn’t seen his mother cry since he was a child. Sofya kicks the door, but his mother brushes her aside. They both lean against the wall, hiding their faces.

The man with no shirt speaks.

“You heard. You’re fucking poison. Get out of here.”

This half-naked bastard shouting at them. Artyom drops the bags and runs towards him, arms wide, a slur of dense breath in his throat, but the man sidesteps him easily, and Artyom skids along the ground, tearing the knee of his trousers, skinning his flesh. The man steps into his doorway.

“If you’re not gone in five minutes, I’ll come out with my knife.”

He spits in Artyom’s direction, the blob landing near Artyom’s shoes.

“Five minutes.”

The man closes his door, and the three of them bunch on the floor in individual piles, beaten. After a few moments, Artyom’s mother walks over to him, cradles his neck in her hand, and kisses the top of his head.

“Let’s find a bed.”

They walk back towards the stairwell, their feet echoing in the corridor.

In Pripyat, night has drawn in and Grigory walks through the town alone. He passes a small carnival with a Ferris wheel creaking in the breeze. The apartment blocks are dark, uninhabited now, looming.

Coloured paper still lies scattered around the town, mocking the tone of the day. Dead dogs littered everywhere, stagnant blood glistening through the darkness. Grigory occasionally catches the darting gait of wolves, drifted in from the forest, attracted by the scent of blood, courageous in the emptied streets.

He makes his way back to the operations centre in the main square, approaching from a side street, and as he enters the square he pauses in realization at the statue in the middle, the iron figure half kneeling, raising his open arms to the heavens, full of fury. He has passed it a dozen times in the last day, unaware of its subject: Prometheus, the Greek god who gave fire to the people.