Sofya would always come back crying. His mother always came back quiet and stayed quiet for most of the day.
There was a place to wash babies. Gas rings were laid out on the ground with metal buckets of water resting on top of them. Another bucket of cold water would be placed on the ground beside each one, so the mothers could balance the temperature of the water and then scoop and pour it over the babies. Artyom saw one mother accidentally touch her child’s foot on the metal rim of a hot bucket, burning it. The infant wailed, bellowing with such desperation that a crowd of people came outside to see what was wrong.
There was no information about his father. Not the first week. Not the first month.
People talked in the beginning about how they got here, what they were doing before the call to evacuation. They went through their whole routines: who said what, who did what. People speculated. Many thought it was the capitalists that had sabotaged the plant, infiltrated it somehow over a long period of time and caused this chaos. The capitalists were intimidated by the progress of Soviet energy, they were becoming desperate in their scheming. People didn’t stray into wider subjects, though, they didn’t talk about where they came from, what paths their lives had taken and—as Artyom came to notice—after the first week, they almost stopped talking altogether.
Nobody knew anything about what had happened to their loved ones. A great blanket of longing descended upon the building. There were guards stationed along the perimeter fence; no one could pass without bribing one of them. Some gave away all they had in the first few days and walked to the hospitals or the other shelters, but they couldn’t find any information there either and were forced to return for the food and shelter offered to them, poorer than before, no chance of release until they were told they could go—if they would ever be told they could go.
Arguments broke out over floor space. Every centimetre was a precious commodity. Some people would try to adjust the makeshift walls of their allocation, and those who had been cheated would return and scream and tussle, and Artyom saw how petty people could become when desperate.
They had been there almost a month when Artyom’s mother woke him in the middle of the night.
“Artyom,” she whispered.
He woke easily. He couldn’t sleep soundly in this place, his body so confined, the constant shuffling noise, snores, sleepy mumbles, infants taking it in turns to wail their complaints.
“Yes?”
“There’s something I need you to do.”
She pulled out a small package from the folds of her clothes, a piece of soft cloth, wrapped very tightly with some elastic cord. She unwound the cord and displayed three gold nuggets. Artyom couldn’t see them very well in such weak light, so it was only when he touched them that he realized they were teeth.
He pulled his hand back, startled.
“Where did you get them?”
“It’s not important.”
“It is important. Where did you get them?”
“I didn’t steal them.”
“Well, they’re not yours. You don’t have any gold teeth.”
She was quiet; she let him realize it himself.
“They’re Grandmama’s.”
“Yes. I’m sorry. Plenty of people do it. Before she died, your grandmother made us promise we wouldn’t bury her with them.”
Artyom was quiet for a few moments.
“Are you angry?” she asked.
“No. I just didn’t know.”
“I’m sorry, Artyom.”
She didn’t speak until she could see he was ready to continue.
“I need to find your father. Things are getting desperate. We can’t stay here forever.”
“Okay.”
“These are the only things of value that we own. You’ll need one to bribe the guard. After that, only use them if you have to. I want you to find Maksim Vissarionovich, the man who brought us here. He’ll be kind to us. See if he knows someone—a nurse, a Party official. Anyone.”
“Where will I find him?”
“Look for rubbish bins on the street. Ask any rubbish collectors you come across. If you still can’t find him, go back to Lilya’s building and wait for him at his lock-up.”
“Okay. Do we know his last name?”
“No. I never asked.”
Artyom’s mother shook her head as she said this, regretting her stupidity. She was close to him; Artyom could smell her sour breath. She took his face in her hands.
“You know not to use any of the gold unless you have to.”
“Yes.”
She kissed him on the forehead.
“Thank you, Artyushka. And remember to come back. If you went missing too, I couldn’t bear it.”
“I should go now, shouldn’t I? Maksim will be working soon.”
“Yes, you should.”
Artyom knew she was watching him as he walked softly to the door, stepping over limbs that spilled into the passageway.
At the gate, when he had given one of the pieces of gold to the guards, he asked them to point him in the direction of the city centre, but they just shrugged; they weren’t from here.
So Artyom walked through the industrial wasteland, his first time alone in the city. He saw some crows gathered around a stray rubbish bag and kicked out at them, announcing his presence on the streets, and they exploded upwards, the group splintering as it gained height. He saw the smear of streetlights ahead and made his way in their direction, passing a textile factory and a car scrapyard. When he reached the main road he followed the flow of traffic, reasoning that, at this time of the morning, people would be heading towards the city. He walked for an hour, the pavement narrowing, trees becoming more prominent, grass aisles in the middle of the road. He looked everywhere, drank it all in. There were old houses made of stone, with stone-roofed porches. The buildings here were solid, were made to last.
Artyom found himself touching everything. Now that he could see it in daylight, had time to reflect on it, the city was different in every sensory way. Even the space of the city was completely unlike the spaces he was used to, with the rectangles of sky between buildings. The sweeping streets. Statues and chiselled lintels. Gateposts. The lines in the road. The big, green lane where the officials drove. The kerbstones. The railings. All of this not alien but odd, unlike anything he was used to.
His father was safe. He had to be. He was somewhere else in the city, confined in a different area. Looking for them, just as they were looking for him.
Eventually, Artyom stopped at a crossroads and saw a street with full rubbish bins taking up half the pavement outside the houses. Artyom stopped a passerby, a man with a long, gray coat, the top button dangling from a thread. He asked if the rubbish would be collected this morning, and the man opened his eyes wide, held his arm out, and pivoted around, displaying the rubbish bins in answer, and walked on.
Artyom sat at a bus stop and waited. Every ten minutes or so a bus would pull up and the driver would open the door for him, then shake his head in irritation when Artyom waved him onwards. There were so many cars on the street: Moskviches, Volgas, Russo-Balts, Vazes, Zaporozhetses. He was in awe of the lines and colour of them, listening to the roar of their engines. All of these, having come alive from the pages of the manuals, there in actuality, speeding along the road in front of him. He approached some of the parked cars and ran his hand along their contours, but a woman in the row of houses opposite shouted at him, told him to mind his business.
If Iosif were here they’d probably find a way to pop the bonnet on some of them and slaver over the engines. Iosif was so much more adventurous than he was. Artyom thinks he remembers Iosif saying he had an aunt in the city, so he’s probably being well looked after. He’s probably watching television at night and eating tinned peaches straight from the can. Although, maybe not. Things don’t always work out the way you expect. After all, Artyom had an aunt in the city too, so Iosif could be saying the same about him.