Almost three weeks had passed since he was gone.
The first days went by in a haze, then came the memorial on the ninth day.
The apartment, scrubbed until it squeaked, felt empty and echoing.
Her son Oleg came with his wife Sveta. Not just to visit, but to help.
“Mom, how are you?” Sveta set the bags of groceries down in the kitchen.
Katerina Ivanovna shrugged. How? No way, really. Forty years spent with a man, and now he was gone. Stepan. Stepa. Her quiet, taciturn Stepan Petrovich.
“Mom, we need to start slowly going through his things,” Oleg said gently, avoiding her eyes. “I know it’s hard. But it has to be done. And the fortieth-day memorial is coming up.”
They started with the wardrobe. The suits Stepan hardly ever wore, his worn work trousers, a couple of sweaters. Everything smelled the same—of home and mothballs. Katerina sorted mechanically: this to give away, this for the dacha, this—to throw out.
And then Oleg, having moved the bed aside, pulled out from under it an old iron-bound chest.
Katerina had forgotten about it. It had always stood there.
“What’s in here?” Oleg asked, trying to shift the heavy box.
“Oh, nonsense,” Katerina waved it off. “He said there were some old tools from the factory in there. Or army stuff. ‘Don’t touch it, Katyusha,’ he’d say, ‘it’s all dusty.’”
A small but sturdy padlock hung on the chest.
“Where’s the key?”
“I have no idea. He always carried it with him, on his key ring.”
Oleg went to the hallway and came back with the toolbox. After a few minutes of fiddling, the lock yielded with a click.
“That’s it,” he said, lifting the lid.
A strange, unfamiliar smell hit their noses.
Not dust. Not mustiness. Something sharp, like cheap cologne mixed with the smell of old leather and… gun oil?
“Wow,” Oleg breathed.
Sveta peered over his shoulder. Katerina stepped closer.
On top lay a bundle of papers. Oleg took it out. Underneath were several thick stacks of money, wrapped with rubber bands from a pharmacy.
Oleg whistled. Sveta gasped and covered her mouth with her hand.
“Is this a stash? From you, Mom?” Oleg asked, bewildered.
Katerina was silent, staring at the money. A sixth-grade locksmith. With a stash like this? It was a sum comparable to the price of their apartment.
“There’s more,” Oleg said, reaching deeper in.
He pulled out several passports.
Katerina took one. A dark red Soviet cover. Stepan’s photograph, but about fifteen years younger. And the last name… Egorov. Egorov Yegor Nikolaevich.
She opened the second. Again his face. But now he was Sinitsyn Pavel Andreevich.
The third. The fourth.
“Mom, what is this?” Oleg had gone pale. “This is…”
“Fake,” Sveta whispered, backing toward the door. “Oleg, these are fake passports.”
Katerina Ivanovna sank down on the edge of the bed. Her hands wouldn’t obey her.
But that wasn’t all.
At the very bottom, under a pile of papers and stacks of money, lay a small black notebook in a leather cover. And a stack of letters tied with a faded ribbon.
Oleg opened the notebook. Sveta darted out into the hallway.
“Mom, I don’t understand…” Oleg flipped through the pages. “There are… lists here. Names, addresses, numbers.”
Katerina took the letters. The handwriting was a woman’s, sweeping and free.
“My dear, beloved Yegor!”
Yegor. Not Stepan. The name from the fake passport.
“…I’m so glad you came. Valerka has been waiting for you so long. He looks so much like you, always tinkering with something, just like you…”
“…I got the money, thank you, my love. Just be careful at that ‘other job’ of yours, I pray for you every day…”
Signature: “Yours, Veronika.”
Katerina’s hands were trembling so badly the letters blurred. She pulled a photograph from one of the envelopes.
Her Stepan, only under the name Yegor, was smiling. Smiling as happily and openly as she didn’t remember him ever smiling with her. He had his arm around an unfamiliar woman, and next to them stood a boy of about ten, the spitting image of her husband.
For forty years I thought my husband was a simple locksmith. Quiet, gloomy, as simple as three kopecks.
“Is this… a second family?” Oleg dropped the notebook. “Mom!”
Sveta came back holding a glass of water.
“Katerina Ivanovna, please drink.”
“Mom, this… this is criminal,” Oleg paced around the room. “Fake passports. God-knows-what money. Another family. What was he?”
Katerina put the glass aside.
“I don’t know.”
“We have to call the police,” Oleg said firmly.
“Call who?” Katerina was frightened. “Why?”
“What do you mean, why? Mom, this is dirty money! This is… I don’t know what! And that notebook? ‘Overdue’, ‘Talk’. Do you understand what that means?”
Katerina picked up the black notebook.
Her fingers found the right page on their own.
“Nikita. Lesnaya St., 12, apt. 4.”
She knew this Nikita. The son of her old friend Vera. Vera had complained that Nikita had gotten into some debts, got mixed up with the wrong people.
“Overdue. Talk.”
Katerina Ivanovna remembered Vera crying in her kitchen. That was… six months ago? Back then Nikita had been badly beaten in the stairwell. Two ribs broken. The police never found anyone.
Stepan had snorted over the newspaper then: “Their own fault. Shouldn’t borrow money from just anyone.”
His quiet, even voice.
Her breath caught.
She turned the page. “Masha. Mira Avenue, 30. Paid.” “Andrey. Vokzalnaya, 5. Overdue. Talk.”
“Talk.” That word now rang in her ears.
All at once Katerina Ivanovna understood that for forty years she had not just lived with a stranger. She had lived with a monster.
“No,” she said, looking at her son.
“No what?”
“No police,” she said firmly. “He’s dead.”
“Mom!” Oleg exploded. “You don’t understand! We’ll be accomplices! We have to turn this in! This money… it might as well be soaked in blood!”
“Oleg, please,” Sveta touched his elbow. “Your mom feels awful. Not now.”
“When then?” Oleg shouted. “When the people he worked with come to us? Or the ones he owed?”
Katerina stood up. She went to the wardrobe, pulled out his old work jacket, and thrust her hand into the pocket.
There was a pack of cheap cigarettes and a lighter.
He’d told her he quit smoking twenty years ago.
A lie. Everything had been a lie. Small and big.
“These… these are your father’s affairs,” she said, hardly believing her own words. “I don’t want his name…”
“Name?” Oleg laughed bitterly. “Which name? Stepan Petrovich? Or Yegor Nikolaevich? Which name do you want to preserve, Mom? The name of the locksmith or the name of the thug?”
Katerina was silent.
“I can’t,” Oleg grabbed his jacket. “I won’t be part of this.”
“Oleg, wait!” Sveta rushed after him.
“I’m giving you a day, Mom. Think about it. If you don’t decide what to do, tomorrow I’ll call myself. The proper authorities. I don’t want to live knowing that… this is lying in this apartment.”
The door slammed behind him and Sveta.
Katerina Ivanovna was left alone. The room was filled with that strange, harsh smell from the chest.
She sat for several hours. Shock gave way to a cold, dull pain.
He hadn’t just lied. He’d lived another life. A happy one. Judging by the photo—a happy one.
And here? Here he was Stepan. He brought home a locksmith’s wage. He silently ate whatever she cooked. He watched TV.
Sometimes he went away. “Fishing.” Or “to help a distant relative in the village.”
She had never asked. He didn’t like questions.
She had to do something. Oleg would call. She knew her son. He was straight. Honest.
But something held her back. Not fear. Not the desire to protect his memory.
Curiosity.
She had to see that other woman.
She took the letters. Found Veronika’s address. It was in the same city. Half an hour away by bus.
Katerina started getting dressed.
The next morning she left the house.
The bus crawled along the outskirts, carrying Katerina farther and farther away from her familiar life.
She looked out the window, but didn’t see the houses or people. Inside she was empty. There were no tears, no anger.
The address from the letter brought her to an ordinary five-story building buried in greenery. A quiet, cozy courtyard. Geraniums in pots on the windowsills in the stairwell.
She climbed to the third floor. The door was covered in faux leather, like everyone else’s.
Katerina pressed the doorbell.
She heard footsteps behind the door. A woman slightly younger than her, with tired but beautiful eyes, opened. In a housecoat.
She looked questioningly.
“Who are you looking for?”
“Hello,” Katerina’s voice sounded strange and even. “I’m looking for Veronika.”
The woman went pale.
“I’m Veronika. And you are…?”
“I’m Katerina Ivanovna. Wife of Stepan Petrovich.”
Veronika grabbed the doorframe. She understood at once.
“Stepan?..” she whispered.
“He was Yegor with you,” Katerina didn’t ask, she stated.
Veronika silently stepped aside, letting her into the apartment.
It smelled different here. The same sharp cologne as in the chest, but mixed with vanilla and something homey.
The apartment was small, but very alive.
Photos hung on the walls.
There he was, her Stepan. But not Stepan. Yegor. He was smiling.
There he was with this Veronika by a river. There he was holding a small boy in his arms. The same boy, now a teenager, stood with his arm around him, both holding fishing rods.
This was a life. A real, full, happy life. The kind Katerina had never had.
“What… what happened to him?” Veronika’s voice trembled. “He hasn’t called in a long time. I… I didn’t know what to think.”
“He died,” Katerina said. “Almost three weeks ago. His heart.”
Veronika slowly sank onto a chair. Tears rolled down her cheeks. She didn’t wail, she cried quietly, bitterly, the way you cry for someone truly close.
Katerina looked at her without sympathy.
“You knew everything?” Katerina asked.
“What?” Veronika looked up at her with red-rimmed eyes.
“That he had me. And a son. Oleg.”
“No!” Veronika jerked up. “No! He said that… that he was divorced. Long ago. That his wife was… bad. That his son wanted nothing to do with him. That’s what he told me!”
Lies upon lies.
“He lied to you,” Katerina stated. “Just like he lied to me.”
“He couldn’t…” Veronika shook her head. “He was so… kind. He adored Valerka. He helped us so much. He…”
“That ‘other job’?” Katerina asked.
Veronika flinched.
“He said it was dangerous. Something… to do with debts. He didn’t like to talk about it. He just brought money. Said it was for Valerka. So his son would have everything.”
At that moment the lock clicked in the hallway.
“Mom, I’m home!”
A seventeen-year-old boy walked into the room. Tall, dark-haired.
And he looked at Katerina.
It was Stepan’s gaze. That same heavy, piercing look she had known for forty years.
This was Valerka. Yegor’s son.
“Mom, who’s this?” he asked, staring at the stranger in surprise.
“She’s… Katerina Ivanovna. An acquaintance,” Veronika stammered.
The boy nodded and went into his room.
Katerina watched him go.
This was where her life had gone. This was where his “fishing trips” and “business trips” had gone. This was who that smile in the photograph had been for.
And then Veronika said the thing that became the last straw.
“He was so scared,” she whispered, looking at Katerina. “The last time. He said there were problems.”
“Where?” Katerina didn’t understand.
“Well… with you. With your son. With Oleg.”
Veronika looked at her pleadingly.
“He said Oleg was… kind of… well, no good. That he didn’t trust him. That he wanted to leave all the inheritance to Valerka, because Oleg would just waste it anyway.”
Katerina froze.
Oleg. Her Oleg. Who couldn’t sleep because of the “dirty money.” Who wanted to do things “the right way.”
Her husband, her quiet Stepan, considered her son—his son—“no good.” And was going to rob him. Again.
She stood up. The trembling was gone.
Suddenly she felt very strong.
“He’s dead,” she repeated firmly, looking Veronika straight in the eye. “Stepan Petrovich. My husband.”
She walked to the door.
“Wait!” Veronika rushed after her. “But… what about us? He… he promised money. For Valerka to go to college…”
Katerina turned in the doorway.
She looked at this deceived woman. At the door to the room where sat a boy who was the exact copy of her husband.
“He promised everyone,” she said. “And he owed everyone.”
She stepped out of the apartment and closed the door firmly behind her.
She walked down the stairs, and there was only one crystal-clear plan in her head.
Oleg would call. Today. He had given her a day.
The life of Stepan Petrovich was over. But the life of Yegor Nikolaevich she would have to end herself. And she had only a few hours.
Back home, the first thing Katerina Ivanovna did was pull from the closet the old metal basin she used to use for making jam.
She sat down on the floor in the middle of the room.
She opened the chest. That smell hit her one last time.
She dumped everything out onto the floor: the stacks of money, the black notebook, the bundle of letters from Veronika, the photograph and all the fake passports.
She looked at this heap of lies.
Here it was, the “inheritance.” The inheritance for Valerka. And the “dirty money” for Oleg.
Her husband had considered her son unworthy.
Katerina picked up one stack of banknotes. Then a second. And began methodically putting them into the basin.
She didn’t return anything to anyone. She didn’t know everyone he had wronged. She didn’t want to play his games, becoming judge and distributor.
She didn’t want a single one of these bills to go to that other boy who looked like him. And she especially didn’t want her Oleg to live under this curse.
She threw the passports into the basin. The letters. The photograph. The black notebook.
She left only one small stack on the kitchen table. For a grave marker. Simple, without a name. Just a stone.
She struck a match.
The paper caught reluctantly. Yegor’s smiling face on the photograph blackened and curled.
Katerina watched as the fire devoured forty years of her deception.
She did not cry. She could feel that alien, harsh smell leaving the apartment, giving way to the acrid smoke.
When everything had turned into thick, black ash, she opened the window and stirred the mess for a long time with a poker.
In the evening Oleg arrived. He was alone, pale and determined.
“Mom… I called.”
“I know, son.”
“They’re coming. I… I couldn’t not call.”
“You did the right thing,” Katerina looked at him calmly. “Don’t worry. They won’t find anything.”
She showed him the empty chest. Only one stack of money lay forlornly at the bottom.
“Where is it?” he whispered. “Mom, where is it?!”
“It’s burned. All of it.”
“But… the money?”
“The money too.”
Oleg stared at her, and in his eyes horror slowly mixed with understanding.
“Mom… you…”
“You were right, Oleg,” she said, coming over and, for the first time in many days, hugging him. “You’re a good man. An honest one.”
She looked him in the eyes.
“He wasn’t a simple locksmith. He was a very bad man. He betrayed both of us. Me—because he lived a double life. And you…”
She hesitated.
“He betrayed you because he didn’t believe in you. Thought you were weak.”
She saw her son’s fists clench.
“He wanted to leave everything to that other son. And rob you.”
Oleg was silent.
“So you no longer have a criminal for a father,” she said firmly. “And I no longer have a monster for a husband.”
She nodded at the empty chest.
“There was a man. Stepan Petrovich. A locksmith. He died. And that’s that. There’s no one else.”
Oleg exhaled. Slowly, heavily.
The doorbell rang.
“And… that woman?” he managed to ask.
“They were his victims too,” Katerina said. “Let them live as they will. Their swindler is dead as well.”
She went to open the door.
Epilogue.
Six months passed.
The police, of course, had come after Oleg’s anonymous call.
Two sullen men in uniform. Katerina Ivanovna met them calmly.
“My son,” she sighed, dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief. “We’re grieving. He lost his father. So he’s imagining things. He’s upset.”
She flung the wardrobe door wide open. Opened the empty chest.
“See? Just old junk. My husband was a locksmith, he kept his tools in here.”
They asked about the smell of burning.
“Well, we had the memorial,” she sobbed even more bitterly. “A candle fell, I was burning his old photos for remembrance. Look, I even scorched the carpet. Barely put it out. One misfortune after another.”
They looked at her, at her reddened (she had rubbed them with onion just in time) eyes, at the modest furnishings. Looked at Oleg, standing white as a sheet.
They shook their heads and left. They never came back.
And life… life went on. But completely differently.
Before, Katerina’s apartment had been her fortress. Now it was just an apartment.
She no longer feared the creak of the door. No longer listened for heavy footsteps in the hallway.
Oleg started visiting more often. Not out of a sense of duty, as before.
He brought Sveta and their granddaughter, and they would sit in the kitchen for a long time.
Before, they talked about the weather and prices. Now Oleg could simply sit silently next to her, his hand resting on hers.
They both knew the truth. That dark, ugly truth.
And that truth, which should have destroyed them, made them truly close.
He was no longer the son of a “simple locksmith.” He was his mother’s son. And he respected her endlessly for that silent, fiery judgment she had carried out.
Once, at the beginning of winter, Katerina Ivanovna went to the market.
She was walking between the stalls, choosing apples.
And she saw him. Valerka.
He stood in a dirty jacket by a tangerine stand, hauling heavy wooden crates. The cold had reddened his face. He spat angrily at the ground and barked something at the seller.
And in that movement, in that angry, sidelong glare, he was him. Stepan. Yegor.
Their eyes met for a second.
Of course he didn’t recognize her. He just glanced over another customer in line.
And Katerina looked at him. At the heir her husband had wanted to shower with blessings.
She didn’t feel gloating. Nor pity.
She felt only a cold relief. Justice, however wild, had been done. He had not received what did not belong to him.
She bought her apples and went home.
At home she decided to rearrange the furniture.
“Oleg, help me move the bed. I’m tired of it being in the same place for forty years.”
They pushed the heavy bed away from the wall.
On the floor, in a layer of dust, something glinted. A small plastic cufflink. Cheap, the kind men wore in the seventies. Not his. Not the kind she had bought him.
Apparently from that other life.
She picked it up. Turned it over in her fingers.
Before, she would have hidden it. Cried over it.
Calmly, she walked to the kitchen and tossed the cufflink into the trash.
The apartment smelled of apples and clean laundry. The alien, harsh smell had vanished forever.
Katerina Ivanovna looked out the window. It was snowing.
She didn’t become the widow of a monster.
She simply stopped being the wife of a ghost