Sofia forced the key to turn in the tight old lock, and the heavy oak door opened with a soft creak, letting her into another dimension, into a world frozen in time.
The air in Artem Ilyich’s spacious apartment was motionless, thick, and sweetly spicy. It smelled of dusty velvet curtains hiding the stained-glass windows, of old paper in the tall bookcases, and of something subtly medicinal, like a pharmacy, that hovered around the owner himself. That smell was his invisible companion, a silent witness to the years he had lived and the strength that was fading. Her own scent—a sharp, citrusy, expensive perfume bought in a boutique on Petrovka—seemed alien in these dim rooms, almost aggressive, like a challenge to the quiet order of this place.
“Artem Ilyich, you’ve forgotten to air the place out again!” she sang out, trying to keep her voice light and caring as she walked farther into the half-dark living room, where the heavy furniture looked like stone statues.
The old man sat in his usual throne-like armchair, wrapped in a worn but soft camel-wool plaid. His dried-out, almost transparent hand trembled slightly on the dark wooden armrest.
“Sonya, my child… I thought you weren’t coming today. I was left completely alone.”
Sofia smirked inwardly, hiding a flicker of irritation. She knew this well-rehearsed performance of “the last lonely aristocrat,” this “poor old man” act by heart after six months of visits. She sat down on the edge of a hard ottoman, holding her back perfectly straight, showing off the flawless line of her shoulders in a fuchsia dress that hugged her toned, carefully maintained figure.
“Oh, don’t say that. How could I ever abandon you? Who else needs me the way you do?”
Her gaze, sharp and calculating, slid past him toward the half-open door of his study. To where, in the semi-darkness, It stood. Massive, made of dark, almost black wood, the bureau with dozens of secret drawers and the main, central one locked with a small brass key. Sofia was absolutely certain that it was there, behind that polished door, that all the shares, all the property deeds, all the wills were kept—his quiet, enormous power. She had spent an entire month, day after day, trying every possible way to persuade him to open that bureau and show her what was inside.
“Just old letters, child, drafts,” he would wave her off, shaking his large, clever head. “Deadly boring, nothing but dust. Not worth your beautiful eyes.”
She knew he was lying. And he knew that she knew. It was their silent, strange game, the tango of two completely different creatures, each pursuing its own goal.
“I brought you something today…” she said, opening her leather bag with theatrical elegance. “Rabbit liver pâté—from that same butcher. Your favorite. And fresh éclairs, with custard cream.”
She had gone especially to that very expensive shop, grinding her teeth at the traffic and the wasted time, but her face now showed only an angelic, almost daughterly care.
“You’re my clever girl,” his eyes, pale as the sky at sunrise, were watering—either from the light or from emotion. “No one, no one takes care of me the way you do.”
Sofia stifled a persistent yawn. “Taking care of” this old man was incredibly exhausting. He demanded attention like a capricious, spoiled child, yet his mind remained sharp and his will—iron, hidden under the mask of frailty. Her sister Alena had once said, with a shrug: “Sonya, I honestly feel sorry for him. He’s so helpless, so lonely.” Sofia had only laughed then, short and dry. Helpless. This “helpless” old man, by her calculations, owned three prime commercial properties in the very center of the city, plus a legendary collection of antiques locked away in that ill-fated bureau. Alena. Eternal Alena. Simple as a wildflower, with her naïve principles, her job at a charity foundation and her belief that everything in the world can be fixed with kindness. Sofia had even brought her here a couple of times, under the pretext of helping around the house.
“Let me introduce you, Artem Ilyich, this is my younger sister. She’ll help me rehang the curtains, dust the shelves.”
Alena had fussed with the heavy, dusty fabric, while the old man had watched her with his keen, inquisitive eyes.
“You have kind hands, Alenushka,” he had rasped, and there had been some note in his voice that Sofia had never heard before. “Hands that give, not take.”
Sofia hadn’t thought anything of it. To her, Alena had always been just background. Convenient, predictable, but unimportant.
“Child,” the old man’s hoarse, muffled voice pulled her back into the present.
“Yes, Artem Ilyich? Is something wrong?”
He looked at her with a long, steady, appraising gaze. For a second, something sharp and alive, something not at all old, flashed in his faded eyes, making her shrink inside.
“Marry me.”
Sofia froze as if doused with ice water. She had been waiting for this. She had been leading him to this for six long months, playing tenderness and care. Her whole being, every cell in her body, filled with exultation—cold, pure and dazzling, like a cut diamond. She lowered her eyes, feigning shyness and confusion, playing her part flawlessly.
“Artem Ilyich… I… I don’t even know what to say. This is so unexpected.”
“Say yes,” he smiled, showing perfectly even teeth that were clearly not his own, and there was something ancient and wise in that smile. “I want you to be my wife. I want everything I have to become yours. I want you to be the mistress here.”
Everything will be mine. The thought exploded in her mind like a blinding firework, eclipsing everything else—her fatigue, her irritation, even the faint disgust.
“Yes,” she whispered, with a light, well-rehearsed tremor in her voice, taking his dry, cool hand in her warm, living palm. “I agree.”
The next two weeks turned into one tight, sweet ball of anticipation, sharp impatience. She immediately, with her usual energy, threw herself into organizing. Artem Ilyich was surprisingly compliant and agreed to everything.
“The registry office? Child, pick any one you like. Only, let’s do without…” He grimaced as if from a toothache. “Without that vanity fair. Quiet. Modest. You, me, and two witnesses.”
His docility, his willingness to go along with her, was both suspicious and pleasing. He behaved like a man who had completely surrendered at the mercy of the victor and laid down his arms. But Sofia was not so naïve as to rely on words alone. She needed solid legal guarantees. Paper stamped and signed.
“Artem Ilyich, darling,” she began one evening, gently massaging his bony, dry shoulders through the thin wool of his sweater. “We’re modern, sensible people, aren’t we?”
“Oh yes, child,” he chuckled, closing his eyes. “Especially me, an ancient old man.”
“I’m talking about… formalities. A prenuptial agreement. So that everything is clear and precise, according to the law. So that no one has any questions in the future.”
She was prepared for anything: indignation, bargaining, stubborn old-man resistance, hurt feelings. But he merely opened his eyes slowly and looked up at her with a strange expression.
“An agreement? You don’t trust me, Sonya?”
“Of course not!” She pressed his head against her chest, hearing the even, slightly quickened beating of his heart. “I trust you completely. Absolutely. But… it’s for my peace of mind. For security. So I can feel protected. You understand, don’t you?”
He sighed—deeply, heavily, as if the breath were coming from the depths of his old body.
“All right. Let it be as you wish. You’ll have your agreement. Draw it up yourself, as you think right and fair. Bring it to me, and I’ll sign everything.”
Sofia could not believe her ears. I’ll sign everything. Those two words sounded sweeter to her than any symphony. She spent two days with the best, most cynical and most expensive divorce lawyer in town. He rubbed his hands with professional pleasure, dictating to his little army of subordinates clauses that left no loopholes.
“This isn’t an agreement, Ms. Sofia Artemovna, this is an impregnable fortress,” he smirked, handing her the finished document. “He’ll be stripped bare, whether you marry him today or in a year. Everything he owns before the marriage, and everything acquired during the marriage, in case of divorce or his… ahem… natural demise… will unconditionally and irrevocably pass to you. All the rights—to you, all the obligations—to him, assuming he still owes anything to anyone.”
The agreement they put together was a true masterpiece of oppressive law. She brought him the folder with the document the very next day. Her hands, usually so steady, trembled slightly from excitement. He was sitting in his throne-like armchair, wrapped in the same plaid, reading a book in an old leather binding.
“Ah, so here’s our… constitution,” he said, putting the book aside carefully.
He took the papers from her—thick, weighty sheets smelling of printer’s ink. Sofia held her breath, her heart pounding in her throat. Now he would start reading. Now he’d see those predatory clauses, those enslaving conditions. Now the mask would fall, and he would explode with anger and accusations.
He didn’t even skim the first paragraph. He simply picked up from the table his heavy, old-fashioned fountain pen, slowly, with a bit of effort, unscrewed the cap, and without a word signed his ornate, looped signature at the bottom of the last page: “Artem Polyakov.”
“Happy now, my predator?” he asked gently, lifting his gaze to her.
The word “predator” pricked her somewhere deep inside like a needle. Could he read her thoughts? Was he mocking her? But his pale eyes were warm, slightly teary, full of some strange tenderness. No. Just a decrepit, lovestruck old man willing to do anything for his young wife. She leaned down and kissed his wrinkled, cool forehead.
“I’m the happiest woman in the world, Artem.”
She tucked the precious, signed agreement into her bag. The main task was done. Only one last obstacle remained. The bureau.
“Darling,” she cooed, walking over to the dark mass of wood, “you promised. The most important wedding gift. Show me what’s in there.”
Her slim, manicured fingers lovingly ran over the carved, polished lid.
“Don’t rush, child,” he wagged his long finger at her. “We had a deal. After the registry office. Everything in its own time.”
His voice was still gentle, but suddenly there was a thin, razor-sharp steel note in it that allowed no argument. It infuriated her. What was he hiding there? What secrets? But she only smiled, flashing white teeth.
“All right. I can wait. I’m your patient wife now, aren’t I?”
Only one final, purely technical detail remained—the witnesses. On her side, she had decided not to invite anyone, so as not to share her triumph. The groom was supposed to bring some acquaintance of his. And on the bride’s side… She called her sister.
“Alena, hi. I’ve got news. Big news. I’m getting married.”
On the other end of the line, there was a long, heavy, echoing silence. She even thought the connection had dropped.
“Sonya…” Alena’s voice was quiet and frightened. “To whom?”
“To Artem Ilyich.”
Silence again. Then a muffled, strangled sob, as if pressed into a handkerchief.
“Alena, are you crying?” Sofia snapped, irritated.
“Sonya, don’t do this, please, I beg you,” her sister whispered, her voice trembling. “He… he’s not who he says he is. He… he knows everything. He’s been watching you.”
Sofia laughed loudly and defiantly.
“What do you mean, ‘watching’? He’s an old man who hardly ever leaves his apartment!”
“He asked me questions… indirect, but very precise ones. About your previous job, the one you were asked to leave after that shortage scandal. About your… former friends who all somehow disappeared. Sonya, I got scared. There was such… such icy precision in his questions.”
“So you went ahead and laid everything out for him, didn’t you? You and your charity work and your eternal old sweaters, always trying to ‘save’ me?”
“I didn’t tell him anything! Not a word!” Alena’s voice broke, and tears were clearly audible in it. “I just… I just feel it in my heart. He’s playing some kind of game with you. Please, Sonya, think again…”
“Listen very carefully,” Sofia’s voice dropped low, icy and absolutely uncompromising. “I don’t need your advice, your premonitions or your moral lectures. I need a witness. This Saturday, precisely at eleven, at the Wedding Palace on the embankment.”
“I can’t,” Alena said, suddenly firmly. “I won’t take part in this… in this performance. I can’t watch it.”
“Well then, consider that you no longer have a sister. We’re strangers now.”
Sofia was about to hang up, her finger already hovering over the red button, but Alena hurriedly, with despair in her voice, said:
“All right. I’ll come. I’ll be there.”
Sofia smiled a cold, victorious smile and ended the call. That was it. The mousetrap had snapped shut. The last pawn was in place on the board.
The night before the wedding, she barely slept. She stood at the huge window of her stylish but rented apartment and stared at the night city strewn with lights like scattered jewels. She mentally went over all his assets: that very apartment with oak parquet and stucco, three income-generating buildings on an upscale street, the dacha in the famous settlement. And, of course, the grand prize—the mysterious bureau and its contents. Tomorrow all of this, down to the last speck of dust, would be hers. She laid her palm against the cold, perfectly clean glass, as if touching that future wealth. Tomorrow her real, long-awaited, luxurious life would begin.
Saturday morning was gray and raw, with drizzle that shrouded the city in a dirty haze, but to Sofia it felt as though blazing sunshine were shining outside. For the ceremony she chose not a fluffy wedding gown but a strict, impeccably tailored ivory pantsuit by a well-known Italian designer. The suit fit her like a second skin, emphasizing every line. Nothing extra, no romance. This was her battle uniform for signing the most important contract of her life. She called for a business-class taxi. The driver, silent and professional, opened the door for her.
The Wedding Palace she had chosen for the quiet ceremony was almost empty at that hour. Echoes rolled under the high ceilings. Alena was already there. She stood by the huge window in her shapeless, ridiculous gray coat that made her look like a frightened little bird. Her eyes were red and swollen from crying.
“Pathetic, weak sight,” flashed through Sofia’s mind as she walked past, her heels ringing over the polished floor.
“You’re always late, even for your own… execution,” Alena whispered after her, without turning her head.
“Stop croaking,” Sofia tossed over her shoulder without even looking at her sister.
Exactly at eleven, to the second, Artem Ilyich walked into the hall. For a moment Sofia was surprised: he was not in the wheelchair he had started using in the last few weeks, but came in on his own, leaning confidently on a dark carved cane with a silver handle. He wore an expensive, perfectly fitted dark blue suit she had never seen on him before. He was clean-shaven and smelled of costly cologne. He looked… oddly younger, more collected—and therefore dangerous. Next to him walked an unfamiliar man of about fifty, in formal glasses and carrying a leather briefcase. His witness.
“Child,” Artem Ilyich approached her with a firm step and took her arm. His hand was dry and cool, but she felt unexpected strength in his fingers. “You are magnificent. As always.”
His gaze slid to Alena, frozen by the wall.
“Alenushka. Thank you for coming to share our happiness. It means a great deal to me.”
Alena recoiled as if from an invisible blow, her face turning pale.
They were invited into a small, cozy hall paneled in wood. The registrar, a tired woman with unnaturally purple hair, began droning the memorized text about the ship of family life, respect, love, and mutual understanding. Sofia wasn’t listening. She stared at the ornate plasterwork on the ceiling and thought about how the first thing she’d do was a full renovation of Artem’s apartment. She’d rip down those suffocating velvet curtains, paint the walls in light colors, get rid of all that oppressive antiquity. And finally open the bureau.
“Do you, Artem Ilyich Polyakov, take Sofia Artemovna Orlova to be your wife?”
“I do,” his voice rang out unexpectedly firm, loud and clear, without its usual rasp.
“Do you, Sofia Artemovna Orlova, take Artem Ilyich Polyakov to be your husband?”
“I do,” her voice was clear, bright, and full of unshared triumph.
“Exchange rings.”
They slipped simple wide gold bands onto each other’s fingers. Sofia had to use some effort to push the ring over his swollen, knobby joint.
“I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may congratulate each other.”
The man with the briefcase and Alena silently signed the registry book.
Sofia turned toward her husband. The softest, most loving smile played on her lips—the one she had rehearsed for so long in front of the mirror. That was it. Victory achieved. Final chord.
He took her hands in his. His fingers were cool and firm. His eyes looked straight into hers, unblinking. There was no dampness there now, no frailty, no old-man weakness. In them was a cold, mocking, vividly alive and razor-sharp mind. He smiled. The same familiar smile she had seen when he signed the prenuptial agreement.
“Well then, my love,” he said quietly, squeezing her fingers a little. “It’s done.”
She waited. Now he would say that the key to the bureau was in his pocket. Now he’d hand it to her as a wedding gift.
“I’ve waited for this moment for a long time,” he went on, and there was a new, metallic undertone in his voice. “I had to prepare a real wedding present for you—one worthy of you.”
“Artem…” she began, already imagining how her fingers would close around the cold metal of the key.
“I put all my affairs in perfect, crystal-clear order,” his voice was quiet, but every word pierced her like a sharpened needle. “Exactly as you wanted. Everything according to the law. Everything fair.”
He made a small theatrical pause, enjoying the expression on her face before it had time to change from expectation to confusion.
“I transferred everything to your sister. Every last cent.”
The air in the hall suddenly grew thick as syrup and Sofia wasn’t able to draw breath.
Her smile froze on her face, turning into a hideous, rigid grimace. Her brain refused to process the meaning of the words.
“What?”
“Every last cent, child,” he stroked her hand as if soothing a child. “This apartment. The buildings on the main street. The dacha in the woods. Even that bureau you liked so much. All the shares, all the accounts. They all belong to Alena now.”
Sofia turned her head slowly, as if in slow motion.
Alena was standing there with her face buried in her hands, her shoulders shaking helplessly with silent sobs.
The first thing Sofia felt was not rage, not hatred. It was complete, utter, deafening bewilderment. She tore her hands out of his.
“What kind of… stupid joke is this, Artem?”
Then her mind, shaking off the shock, kicked back into its usual predatory speed. She looked at him and laughed. Short, dry, barking.
“You old fool. Do you really think that changes anything? Did you forget who you are to me now?”
Her hand confidently dove into her bag and pulled out the precious document folded in quarters. The prenuptial agreement.
“You must have gone senile and forgotten that you signed this.” She jabbed a finger hard into the text. “ ‘All property belonging to the spouse at the moment of concluding the marriage, as well as acquired during the marriage…’ You’re my husband! Which means that everything you just ‘transferred’ to her automatically becomes our joint property, and under this agreement—mine! You have no idea what you’ve done!”
She looked at him with bold, defiant triumph. Checkmate. Game over.
But Artem Ilyich did not look frightened or confused. He looked… utterly pleased. Satisfied.
“Ah yes, our agreement,” he drawled with a slight smirk. “A remarkable document. A genuine masterpiece of legal thought. I truly admire its elegance.”
He nodded to his witness, the man with the briefcase. The man in glasses stepped forward, snapped the locks, and opened his case.
“Aleksei Petrovich Volsky, notary,” he introduced himself in a dry voice, lifeless as the rustle of parchment. “I am sorry to disappoint you, Ms. Sofia Artemovna.”
He pulled out several blue folders stamped with crests.
“All deeds of gift in the name of Ms. Alena Artemovna Orlova were signed, notarized, and registered in full accordance with the law the day before yesterday. They came into legal force yesterday, at exactly noon.”
Sofia’s gaze locked onto those folders, on the blue seals, on the neat typed pages. Her eyes jumped between the papers and the notary’s face.
“At the moment you entered into the marriage,” the notary continued, ignoring her condition, “at exactly eleven hundred hours Moscow time, Mr. Artem Ilyich Polyakov was…”—he glanced into one of the folders—“the owner of one woolen suit, a pair of leather shoes, two gold wedding rings, and cash in the amount of five thousand rubles.”
He gave her a polite smile.
“Your prenuptial agreement, which you so kindly provided to Mr. Polyakov and which he signed without reading, is absolutely valid and fully enforceable. You have every right to half of that property. Congratulations.”
The ground disappeared under Sofia’s feet. It was as if she had been flung into open space, into absolute, soundless emptiness. Yesterday. He had done it the day before yesterday. He had outplayed her, used her greed and her confidence against her.
She turned to Alena. Her sister finally took her hands away from her face. Her eyes were full of tears, but there was no triumph in them—only suffering and pity.
“You…” Sofia hissed, and all the poison of her soul was concentrated in that hiss. “You!”
“I’m sorry, Sonya,” Alena whispered.
“You set this all up! You, you gray, pathetic mouse! You wormed your way into his trust!”
“I didn’t want this!” Alena stepped back, as if recoiling from her hatred. “He came to me. A month ago.”
“I came,” Artem Ilyich agreed calmly, watching the unfolding drama with open enjoyment.
“He showed me…” Alena burst into tears again, “he showed me your… your personal notes. Your plan. What you would do when… when he got really bad. How you were going to sell the collection from the bureau at auction… How you were going to send him to… a state nursing home to get rid of him faster.”
Sofia’s breath caught. How? Her personal, password-protected laptop. Her digital diary where she kept all her calculations.
“I worked in an analytics department for forty years, child,” Artem said softly, almost affectionately. “I read people like open books. And when I had doubts, I hired people who read laptops.”
He gave a short, dry chuckle.
“Especially when their owners so carelessly use my computer in my study and forget to log out of their cloud storage. You left your ‘plan’ open in a separate tab there. Very detailed, I must say. Thoroughly thought out.”
He walked over to Alena and gently put an arm around her shoulders in a fatherly gesture. She flinched, but did not pull away.
“Alenushka didn’t want to accept my gift. She begged me just… to talk to you, open your eyes. She believed, right up to the last day, that there was something good in you, some spark that could be fanned into flame.”
He looked at Sofia, and his gaze became utterly empty, cold as interstellar ice.
“But I know there isn’t. You’re sand. Dry, cold, barren. You cannot bring anything to life; you can only absorb. And she…”—he nodded at Alena—“she is salt. The salt that gives life flavor, that preserves and cleanses.”
Sofia stood like a stone statue. Her perfect, expensive ivory suit suddenly felt tight, scratchy, unbearable.
“So what now?” she asked in a dead, lifeless voice. “You’re going to live together? That saint of yours and you? One big happy family?”
“Oh no,” Artem shook his head, and a shadow of tiredness flickered in his eyes. “Alenushka and I signed another, final agreement. Didn’t we, Mr. Volsky?”
The notary, as if he’d been waiting for that cue, dove back into his bottomless briefcase.
“Agreement on asset management,” he announced. “By which Ms. Alena Artemovna Orlova immediately, on the very day she obtains the rights, transfers all the property received as a gift, all shares, all real estate and funds…”—he paused for effect—“to the free trust management of, and onto the balance sheet of, the charitable foundation ‘Rebirth,’ established by Mr. Artem Ilyich Polyakov. The same foundation where she works as executive director.”
Sofia stared at her sister, trying to comprehend.
“You… you gave it all away? The millions? You gave them to some foundation?”
“They were never mine, Sonya,” Alena said quietly, but very distinctly. “I just… couldn’t let you destroy all of it, squander it, turn it to dust. It wasn’t just money, not just stones and papers. It was his life, his memory, his legacy. Now that money will be used to build hospitals, help children, save the elderly. That was his plan.”
And then Sofia finally understood everything. She had been outplayed. Outfoxed. Put in her place by two people she had always considered beneath her, weaker, more foolish. A decrepit old man and a drab, inconspicuous mouse. They had turned her own weapons against her—her greed, her arrogance, her blind faith in her own infallibility.
“Well then,” Artem straightened his perfectly knotted tie. “It seems all the formalities are observed, all matters settled. Mr. Volsky, if I’m not mistaken, we have a table waiting at the Metropol. Time to celebrate… such a remarkable event.”
He turned to Sofia one last time.
“Wife. You were absolutely right. We are modern people. And we’ll have the most modern kind of marriage. A guest marriage. You may go wherever you please and do whatever you wish. You’re free.”
He smiled at her one last time, and in that smile was everything—triumph, contempt, and that very steel will she had so badly underestimated.
“Oh, and about the bureau. You can stop worrying. There were never any valuable papers in it. Only stacks of letters. Letters from my late wife, Lydia. We exchanged them for forty-three years. Alenushka promised to sort them and donate them to a literary museum. They’ll be very much appreciated there.”
He nodded to her, took the notary’s arm, and they slowly walked out of the hall, without looking back.
Only the two sisters remained, standing opposite each other in the echoing silence of the empty wedding hall.
Sofia looked at Alena. There was no anger left in her, no hatred, not even resentment. Only a scorched, icy, absolute emptiness. A desert he had so aptly called sand.
“Congratulations,” Sofia said in a flat, lifeless voice. “You saved the world. Enjoy your victory.”
She spun on her heel and walked toward the exit without looking back. The expensive suit whispered with costly fabric. Her steps, clear and loud, echoed in the empty hall like hammer blows on the coffin of her hopes. She stepped outside. The same fine, nasty autumn rain was falling. Sofia slipped the thin gold ring off her finger. A simple, unremarkable ring. The only thing she had received from this marriage. She looked at it—the cold, dull gleam of it. Then her fingers opened, and the ring fell with a small, pitiful click into a dirty puddle by the granite curb. She didn’t even watch where it rolled. She just lifted the collar of her coat and slowly walked down the wet street, dissolving into the gray veil of rain, going nowhere.
A year passed. A long, changeable year.
Artem Ilyich Polyakov died quietly and peacefully in his sleep exactly three weeks after that strange wedding. The doctor said his heart, that old, worn-out engine, simply stopped. His funeral was arranged by Notary Volsky and Alena. On the modest tombstone, next to the grave of his beloved Lydia, only three words were carved: “Analyst. Philanthropist. Husband.”
The “Rebirth” Foundation, which had received all his fortune, launched frantic, bustling activity. Alena was no longer that “gray mouse.” Now she was Ms. Alena Artemovna, a respected manager of a multimillion fund, a person on whose decisions many lives depended. But she did not move into a fashionable office in a glass tower. The foundation still squeezed into the same semi-basement space in the old neighborhood, except now they had bought and renovated the entire floor. They finally had money. Money for expensive surgeries for children, for shelters for stray animals, for supporting lonely old people. Alena worked sixteen hours a day, finding in it a kind of painful but necessary solace. On the desk of her simple, ascetic office stood a single photograph in a plain wooden frame: she and Sonya as little girls in identical white dresses with ribbons in their hair, holding hands and laughing into the camera. She had never been able to forgive herself. Not for accepting the gift and helping carry it out, but for what she had felt that day at the registry office, at the very moment when Sofia walked away. She had felt a bitter, piercing, forbidden taste of triumph. That fleeting, inhuman triumph over her own sister was now her eternal, invisible punishment—and her main fuel. She atoned for it every day, helping others and giving herself away completely.
She never saw her sister again. It was as if Sofia had evaporated. For the first couple of months she tried to sue, contest the deeds of gift, find any loophole. She went to that same lawyer who had crafted the “impregnable fortress” for her. He listened, studied the copies of the deeds carefully, and then spread his hands with professional regret.
“Ms. Sofia Artemovna, they stripped you beautifully and, most importantly, absolutely legally. The deeds of gift were signed and came into force before the marriage came into force. Your prenuptial agreement covers only the property your spouse owned at eleven a.m. on the wedding day. And as you know, he had none. I’m sincerely sorry, but this is… a fiasco.”
He presented her with a hefty bill for the consultation. The money from the sale of her car and her last designer jewelry melted away at a catastrophic pace. The landlord of her rented apartment, having not received payment for two months, simply set her few belongings out onto the stairwell without further discussion. She had to sell her last beloved designer handbag to pay for a bunk in a cramped, cheap hostel on the outskirts. Sofia had to look for work. Any work.
They found her six months later. In the perfume department of a large, upscale department store in the center. She stood behind a gleaming glass counter, wearing that same perfect beige suit, only now it was a corporate uniform issued to her in the stockroom. Her hands, which she had once believed were meant for diamonds and silk, now skillfully and automatically wrapped fragile bottles in crinkling glossy paper. She was still stunningly beautiful. But her beauty had become hard, impenetrable, enamelled—like that of an expensive, cold mannequin. She sold fragrances similar to the ones she had once worn herself. Citrusy, bitter, expensive. She smiled at women she would once have despised for their taste or manners. She recited memorized lines: “An excellent choice, madam,” “This scent really suits you, it highlights your individuality.” Sometimes, in rare moments of lull, she caught her reflection in the mirrored displays of the endless aisles. She saw a woman locked in a huge, glittering cage of glass, light, and intrusive music. She was still Sofia Artemovna Polyakova. A wife. And now a widow. Artem Ilyich had never filed for divorce. And she hadn’t either. It was his last, quiet joke. She had gotten his last name—and nothing else.
One evening, right before closing, she saw Alena walking past her display, down the wide carpeted aisle. She didn’t recognize her at once. Alena wore a simple but impeccably tailored sand-colored cashmere coat. She carried a leather business briefcase and looked tired, but strong and confident in herself and her path. Alena did not notice her. She walked by, looking straight ahead, got into a modest but decent company car with a driver, and drove away into her own world—a world of work, responsibility, and real, not ostentatious significance. Sofia turned back to the display, pretending to rearrange the bottles.
“Miss,” a plump, important lady in a mink coat called sharply, “are you listening to me? This is the second time I’ve asked you to show me that bottle with the gold cap!”
Sofia blinked very slowly, shaking off her stupor like a thin, invisible web. She turned to the customer, and her lips stretched into the brightest, most professional and dead smile she could muster.
“Of course, I’m sorry. This is our new, exclusive fragrance. ‘Sand and Salt.’ Let me tell you about it.”
And in the quiet of the museum hall, where Alena had donated Artem Ilyich’s letters, they lay under glass—testimonies of a long life and a true love. In a small frame nearby hung his final note, found in his desk: “Life is not in what you gather. It is in what you give away. And in that giving—finding yourself. Thank you, Alenushka, for becoming the salt of my life and my strongest bridge to eternity.” And everyone who read those lines felt something warm and bright settle in their soul forever, reminding them that the greatest wealth cannot be measured in bank accounts, and that true victory is victory over one’s own ego, opening the door to something infinitely greater