“Varya, fix your face. We go live in an hour, and you look like you just finished milking a cow,” Artyom said, adjusting his immaculate white cuff and grimacing at my reflection in the hallway mirror.
I silently straightened the collar of my blouse. I had not milked a cow in at least fifteen years—not since I left my village to study literature at university—but to Artyom and his little court, I would always be the “hayloft girl.” On television, he was Artyom Korkin: the conscience of the nation, the defender of the humiliated and offended on his talk show. At home, he was a man who examined grocery receipts like an auditor and fined me for putting too much salt in the soup.
“Dad, Mom’s face is fine,” Polina said quietly, without looking up from her thick book. “It’s called natural pigmentation. But your foundation is showing on your neck.”
Artyom jerked, rushed to the mirror, and muttered a curse. At eleven years old, Polya was my tiny partisan behind enemy lines. She devoured encyclopedias for fun, and her calm, measured voice often hit her father like ultrasound hits a dog.
Then the doorbell rang.
It had begun. The entourage had arrived.
Lidia Arkadyevna swept into the apartment as though she were stepping onto the stage of the Bolshoi Theatre and the rest of us were merely supporting cast. Gennady Pavlovich shuffled in after her, looking like a man whose only purpose was to carry the bags, and Veronika followed, wrapped in the scent of something sweet and expensive.
“Oh, Artyomushka!” my mother-in-law cried, rushing toward her son and nearly knocking me over. “You’ve lost weight! Is she not feeding you? Of course not—how would she know anything about balanced nutrition? Where she comes from, everything is fried in lard.”
“Good evening, Lidia Arkadyevna,” I said with the very smile I had perfected during parent-teacher meetings. “We ran out of lard, so we switched to oysters. But they squeal when you eat them, and Artyom gets nervous.”
My mother-in-law froze, blinked, processed what I had said, and then chose to ignore the sarcasm. She was too energized tonight to be thrown off. This evening was her moment of triumph.
Producer Mark had come up with the segment: Artyom Korkin surrounded by his loving family. But my mother-in-law had her own private obsession. She wanted the whole country to see how the noble Korkin family had “refined” a simple little nobody—and how that nobody still failed to rise to their level.
“Varya, darling,” Veronika began, dropping onto the sofa and crossing one leg over the other, “could you make me a coffee? I’ve had such a stressful day. My client was a nightmare. I told her, ‘This shade is energetically beyond your budget,’ and she threw a fit. People are so ungrateful.”
“Veronika,” I said calmly, looking at my sister-in-law without moving an inch, “according to the law of conservation of energy, if something decreases in one place, it must increase somewhere else. So if your energy went down, someone else’s money went up. Judging by your new bracelet, your stress was monetized very successfully. The coffee machine is in the kitchen. Button on the right.”
Veronika opened her mouth to protest, then stopped. Red blotches spread across her face.
“I… I’m a guest!” she shrieked.
“And I’m the lady of the house, not the help,” I shot back. “Go on, Veronika. Movement is life. Like a chicken still running even after its head is already in the soup.”
She snorted and stomped off to the kitchen, her heels hammering against the floor.
“Varvara!” my mother-in-law snapped in an icy voice. “Where is your respect? We came here, by the way, to save your husband’s reputation. Mark said ratings are needed. Viewers love drama. But we are going to show them class. I’m going to give you a little etiquette lesson right on air. Let people see how we teach you, how we pull you, so to speak, toward the light.”
“Toward the light?” Polina echoed, turning a page. “Grandma, do you mean luminescence or spiritual enlightenment? Because if it’s the second one, you should start by giving up pride. Dante Alighieri placed the proud in Purgatory, where huge stones were hung around their necks so they had to keep their eyes on the ground.”
Gennady Pavlovich, who until then had been silently chewing a toothpick, decided to jump in.
“Well now, granddaughter, don’t get clever. Elders are meant to be listened to. Back in my day, I held an entire trust in my fist. Discipline is the foundation! You can’t build a house without cement, so to speak.”
“Gennady Pavlovich,” I said gently, fluffing a pillow, “your trust did not collapse in 1998 because there was no cement. It collapsed because you wrote off a foundation of sand as if it were granite. That is called embezzlement on a particularly large scale, Article 160 of the Russian Criminal Code. The statute of limitations may have run out, but memory hasn’t.”
My father-in-law choked on air, burst into coughing, and suddenly looked like a puffed-up blowfish that had been pierced with a needle.
“What… what nonsense are you talking about?” he rasped.
“Historical truth,” I said with a smile.
At that moment, Mark came in with the cameraman. Lights, cameras, commotion.
Artyom changed instantly. His shoulders straightened, and that familiar wet gleam of “compassion and understanding” appeared in his eyes—the very look adored by housewives across the country.
“Rolling!” Mark called.
“Good evening, dear friends!” Artyom’s velvety baritone filled the living room. “Tonight, I’ve invited you into the holy of holies—my home. There are no masks here, only love and truth. Let me introduce you to my family…”
The camera moved across our faces. My mother-in-law struck the pose of an English queen. Veronika pulled in her stomach. My father-in-law arranged his face into what he probably thought looked intelligent.
“And this,” Artyom said, gesturing toward me with faint but unmistakable disdain, “is my wife, Varvara. The keeper of the hearth. Though sometimes the hearth gets a little smoky. But we’re working on that. Right, Mother?”
That was the cue.
Lidia Arkadyevna sighed theatrically and turned toward me, staring directly into the lens.
“Yes, Artyomushka. You know, dear viewers, when Varya first came into our home, she did not even know how to hold a fish fork properly. But we are cultured people. We understand that one’s origins are not a life sentence. Varya, my dear, tell us—what was the last book you read? Be honest now. Don’t be shy about your simplicity.”
Silence fell over the room.
Artyom was smirking out of the corner of his mouth. Veronika let out a little giggle. They were waiting for me to stumble, blush, mumble something foolish, or name a cheap romance novel. That was their setup: make me look like an ignorant peasant beside their so-called refinement.
I looked straight into the camera.
Right into the lens.
“Lidia Arkadyevna, you are astonishingly perceptive,” I began in the calm tone of a schoolteacher. “The last book I read was actually very much in your area of expertise: The Psychology of Manipulation and Gaslighting in Family Systems. Extremely informative. It describes a classic pattern: a narcissistic mother projects her unrealized ambitions onto her son, turning him into a dependent tyrant, while assigning the daughter-in-law the role of scapegoat in order to preserve the illusion of her own superiority.”
The smile slid off my mother-in-law’s face like badly glued wallpaper.
“What the hell are you talking about?” Artyom hissed, forgetting he was wearing a microphone.
“And,” I continued in the same even tone, “I also revisited the Family Code of the Russian Federation. In particular, the chapter dealing with marital property. Dear viewers, you probably assume this beautiful house is my husband’s achievement. But what very few people know is that Artyom, unfortunately, has a tendency toward risky investments… in thin air. This house was bought with money from the sale of my parents’ land in that very same ‘village,’ and secured in my name through a prenuptial agreement so that bailiffs would not seize it to cover your brilliant son’s debts.”
The room fell so silent that the hum of the camera fan could be heard.
Mark, the producer, did not stop filming. On the contrary, he was waving frantically at the cameraman.
“Close-up! Keep rolling!”
“You’re lying!” Veronika screeched. “Artyom is a star! He supports all of us!”
“Polina,” I said, turning to my daughter, “explain to Aunt Veronika what cognitive dissonance means.”
Polina adjusted her glasses and recited clearly:
“Cognitive dissonance is a state of psychological discomfort caused by the collision of conflicting beliefs. For example, believing your brother is rich while living in reality, where he asks his wife for money for gasoline.”
Lidia Arkadyevna clutched at her heart. The gesture was theatrical, but there was now a real note of horror in it.
“Turn off the camera!” Artyom roared, his face blotched red, his flawless public image shattering in front of everyone. “Mark, delete all of this!”
“No,” Mark said, and there was a predatory gleam in his eyes. “This is gold, Tyoma. Pure dynamite. Confessions of a Tyrant’s Wife. Ratings will explode. We’re airing this uncut.”
“I’ll sue!” my father-in-law bellowed.
“On what grounds?” I asked, looking at him with interest. “Article 152.1 of the Civil Code? Unauthorized publication of a citizen’s image? You all signed filming consent forms before coming in. I saw them myself. And as for the facts… I have documents. Every receipt, every bank statement, every contract. After all, as you like to say, I’m a crafty little village girl. I keep everything.”
Artyom sank into the armchair.
He understood: if I brought out those folders of documents right now, his career as the righteous judge of other people’s lives would be over. He would become a laughingstock.
“What do you want?” he asked quietly. For the first time in years, there was no command in his voice.
“I want this circus to end,” I said, sweeping my gaze across his family. “Lidia Arkadyevna, your etiquette lessons are over. Veronika, the coffee shop around the corner charges two hundred rubles a cup—you can afford it. Gennady Pavlovich, the foundation of your presence here has cracked. And you, Artyom… we are going to discuss divorce. Civilly. Without a show.”
My mother-in-law tried to speak. She drew in a breath, clearly about to launch into her usual, “How dare you, you freeloader—” but then she looked at the red light on the camera, at my calm face, at the amused expression on her granddaughter’s face…
“Shameless woman,” she breathed, pressed her lips together, and headed for the door. Her back was straight as a rod, but her steps were unsteady. Veronika and my father-in-law trailed after her like ducklings behind their mother—except these ones looked miserable and badly plucked.
When the door slammed shut, Mark gave me a thumbs-up.
“Varya, you’re incredible. If you go through with the divorce, I’ll give you your own show. The Revenge of the Simpleton.”
“I’ll think about it,” I said with a nod.
“Mom,” Polina said, coming over to hug me, “you crushed them like Socrates crushed the sophists.”
“How?” Artyom asked, still slumped in the chair.
“Beautifully and with evidence, Dad,” our daughter replied. “Knowledge is power. Lack of knowledge is what makes people invite guests over and humiliate themselves.”
I looked at my husband.
The tyrant was gone.
In his place sat a tired, frightened middle-aged man who had suddenly realized the set had collapsed—and behind it stood the brick wall I had built myself. And that wall was the only thing still holding a roof over his head.
“Shall we have some tea?” I asked. “With my pies. Sorry, no oysters today.”
Artyom nodded silently.
He understood the pattern now.
And the pattern no longer worked.