Part 1. An Uninvited Visit
The doorbell drilled insistently through the hallway, tearing apart the thick silence of the apartment. Rimma, who had been sitting at a table buried under maps of old Moscow and reference books on nineteenth-century architecture, flinched. She was not expecting anyone. In her world, woven from dates, merchant surnames, and guided tour routes, unexpected intrusions were considered poor manners.
She went to the door and looked through the peephole. Distorted by the glass, yet painfully familiar, Stanislav’s broad face looked like a caricature of the past she had spent the last two years trying so carefully to erase from memory. Rimma hesitated, weighing the pros and cons, then clicked the lock open.
“Hello, Rimmochka,” Stanislav said, stepping over the threshold without waiting to be invited in. His heavy figure filled the narrow corridor, seeming to push the air out of it. He did not smell of cheap cologne, but of underground metallic dust and rubber — the eternal scent of his job as a train driver.
“Stas?” Rimma did not step back, blocking his way into the room with her shoulder. “You handed over the keys two years ago. Your conscience, apparently, you lost even earlier. WHAT DO YOU WANT?”
He smirked with that same self-satisfied smile that used to make her jaw tighten.
“Hospitality was never your strong point. I came on business. Serious business.”
He unceremoniously moved her aside with his hand, as if she were a turnstile in the metro, and walked into the kitchen. Rimma watched him with a look that held no fear, only cold scientific curiosity — the way an entomologist might study a beetle that had crawled onto a clean tablecloth.
Stanislav lowered himself onto a chair, which creaked pitifully under his weight. He looked around the kitchen: new wallpaper, the absence of his favorite chipped mug, stacks of books on the windowsill.
“I heard your granny, Agnessa Pavlovna, passed away,” he said, drumming his thick fingers on the tabletop.
“Six months ago. You didn’t come to the funeral, even though she used to feed you pancakes,” Rimma replied dryly, leaning against the doorframe.
“Work, schedules, you know how it is. The tunnel doesn’t let go. But this isn’t about pancakes. A little bird told me your grandmother left you more than a stack of old postcards. A little house in the village? Or maybe an apartment in the center that she quietly rented out?”
There it was. Greed. It oozed from him like oil from a faulty machine.
Part 2. The Mechanics of Someone Else’s Meanness
Rimma walked to the table and sat across from him. Her movements were smooth, polished by years of speaking before audiences. She was used to holding the attention of forty people at once, used to speaking over the noise of the street. But now she had a different kind of performance ahead of her.
“We are divorced. The property was divided. Notarized. Final,” she said clearly.
“Not final, Rimma. Not final at all!” Stanislav leaned forward. His face reddened, not from shame, but from excitement. “We were still married when your grandmother started getting sick. Did I drive her to doctors? I did. Did I buy her medicine? I did. That means I have a moral right. And maybe even a legal one, if we dig deep enough. I bet you spent money from the family budget on her, while the inheritance went to you alone? THAT’S NOT GOING TO HAPPEN.”
Rimma remembered exactly how he had “driven her.” Twice in five years, after which he had complained for a week about wasting gas and his day off. And his “buying medicine” meant she had transferred money to his card so he could stop by the pharmacy on his way.
“You’re petty, Stas. You always were. Remember how you checked grocery receipts to make sure I hadn’t bought an extra yogurt?”
“That’s called saving money! A family has a budget!” he snapped. “Don’t change the subject. Regina, my sister, said she saw the documents. You claimed the inheritance. A commercial property. Old building. City center. That’s millions, Rimma. Millions!”
Rimma smiled inwardly. Regina. Her former sister-in-law, who worked at the BTI archive and had always stuck her long nose where it didn’t belong.
“And what do you want?”
“Half. Or I’ll file a lawsuit to reopen the property division. I’ll find witnesses to say you hid income, that renovations here were paid for with my bonuses. I’ll ruin your life, drag you through the courts. You know I’m stubborn. Like my train — only forward.”
There was not a drop of warmth in his eyes, only a calculator counting zeros. He did not see the woman he had lived with for ten years. He saw a safe, and he thought he had almost cracked the code.
“Are you blackmailing me?” Rimma’s voice became even, dangerous.
“I’m offering a deal. You give me my share, and I forget you exist. I need money. I invested in something… unsuccessfully. I have to cut off my creditors before they cut off my oxygen. Not the kind they show in movies. Ordinary people. People who don’t like waiting.”
Part 3. The Illusion of Power
Stanislav felt like he was in control. In his mind, women were weak, timid creatures. Rimma had always avoided scandals, retreating from conflict into her books, into history. He was certain that if he pressed hard enough, frightened her with scandal and public disgrace, she would fold like a house of cards.
“So Regina dug everything up,” Rimma said thoughtfully. “Yes, there is a property. First floor, historic building, a former shop that belonged to the merchant Morozov.”
Stanislav’s eyes lit up. A merchant’s shop! That was a gold mine. Rent, boutique, restaurant — anything was possible.
“There, you see! And you kept quiet like a spy. Let’s do this: you sign over half as a gift. Or we sell it and split the money. We decide RIGHT NOW, or I start calling my lawyer. I know one. A real shark.”
“You think I’ll hand over something that belonged to my family just because you raised your voice?”
“You’ll hand it over because you’re weak, Rimma. You intellectual types are afraid of dirt. But I’ll make a scandal. I’ll ruin you, figuratively speaking. I’ll write about you on every forum, tell those guides of yours what kind of fraud you are.”
He leaned back in his chair and crossed his legs. His arrogance was so tangible she wanted to open a window. He believed he had cornered her.
Rimma said nothing. She looked at her former husband and saw not a person, but a collection of primitive instincts. He thought her silence was fear. He was wrong. It was the calibration of a sight before the shot.
She understood one thing clearly: he would not leave peacefully. Logic was useless here. Persuasion would only be seen as weakness. He needed a show. He needed to witness her defeat in order to feel powerful.
“You want a war, Stas?” she asked quietly.
“I want what’s mine. Don’t make me angry, Rimma.”
Part 4. A One-Woman Theater
Inside Rimma, somewhere around her solar plexus, a cold, sharp spring tightened. She remembered the acting lessons she had taken for theatrical guided tours. Anger is energy. Hysteria is a weapon — if you control every decibel.
She jumped to her feet. The chair crashed backward. Stanislav flinched.
“YOU WANT WHAT’S YOURS?!” she screamed so loudly that the dishes in the cupboard rattled. Her voice, usually melodic and well-trained, turned into the screech of a sawmill.
Stas froze. He opened his mouth, but Rimma did not let him say a word.
“YOU PARASITE! YOU WORTHLESS MAN! YOU THINK I’M AFRAID OF YOU?!” She grabbed a stack of papers from the table — drafts of her tours — and hurled them into the air. Sheets scattered in white chaos, creating the effect of an explosion.
“Rimma, what are you doing… calm down…” Stanislav muttered, shrinking into his shoulders.
“I FED YOU! I CLOTHED YOU! AND NOW YOU COME HERE MAKING DEMANDS?!” She advanced on him, waving her arms, her face twisted, her eyes burning with a wild fire. “DO YOU KNOW WHAT THIS INHERITANCE COST ME? DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA?”
She seized a heavy folder of documents from the counter and slammed it onto the table right in front of his nose.
Bang.
“Here! Choke on it! Devour it! You want a share? YOU WANT PROBLEMS? TAKE IT!” she screamed, deliberately pushing her voice to the edge, forcing red blotches to rise on her neck. “I’m tired! I can’t carry this anymore! You think this is a gift? It’s a curse!”
Stanislav was thrown off balance. Her reaction was abnormal, frightening. But through all the screaming, his greedy mind caught the most important thing: she was giving in. She was hysterical. She was ready to hand it over just to get rid of him.
“Quiet, you crazy fool… The neighbors will call someone…” he hissed, but there was no confidence left in his voice, only the desire to take what he could and get away from this madwoman as quickly as possible.
“LET THEM CALL! LET EVERYONE KNOW YOU’RE A THIEF!” Rimma grabbed a pen and a sheet of paper and began writing quickly, wildly, almost tearing the paper. “Here! I give it up! I’ll give you everything! The whole property! All of it! I don’t need it! Just GET OUT of my life!”
She shoved the sheet under his nose. It was an agreement to transfer the ownership rights to the property in exchange for his refusal of any further claims.
“You… you’re serious? The whole property?” Stas scanned the lines with his eyes. Greed fought with caution, but the sight of his trembling, screaming, seemingly shattered ex-wife convinced him: she had broken.
“SIGN IT! OR I’LL EAT THIS PAPER RIGHT NOW!” she shouted, spraying saliva. “Take that crypt! Go on! Be a man, take responsibility!”
Stanislav snatched the pen. Numbers spun in his head. Central Moscow. Rent. Sale. He was rich. And she was a hysterical woman who would be left with nothing.
He signed.
Rimma immediately, still keeping up the performance of heavy breathing and a nervous tic, pulled already prepared notarial forms from the folder. They had been there for another matter, but they fit perfectly as part of the spectacle.
“Tomorrow at nine in the morning, at the notary’s office. We’ll formalize the transfer of rights. I’ve already been there, everything is ready. Just leave me alone! I CAN’T STAND THE SIGHT OF YOU!”
“All right, all right,” Stanislav said, standing up and clutching a copy of the agreement to his chest. “You offered it yourself. I didn’t force you. Psycho…”
He hurried to the exit, afraid she might change her mind or lunge at him with a knife. The door slammed shut.
Rimma stood in the middle of the kitchen. Silence slowly returned to the apartment. She straightened her back, fixed her hair, and walked over to the mirror. There was no trace of madness on her face. Only a cold, wicked smile.
“Checkmate, darling,” she whispered.
Part 5. The Sarcophagus with a Secret
Two months passed.
Rimma was leading a tourist group through Zamoskvorechye. The autumn sun gilded the church domes, and the air was clear and fresh.
“Please pay attention to the building on the right,” her voice sounded calm and inspired. “A typical example of late nineteenth-century merchant architecture. A former shop. Unfortunately, the property is now in a deplorable condition.”
She noticed a familiar hunched figure standing near the entrance of that very building. Stanislav looked terrible. Gaunt, in a wrinkled jacket, he was gesturing furiously while speaking to two stern-looking people in uniform and a woman with a thick folder.
Rimma stopped the group a little distance away, supposedly giving them time to examine the façade.
“What kind of outrage is this?!” Stanislav’s voice carried over to her. “What restoration? I don’t have that kind of money!”
“Citizen, you are the owner,” the woman with the folder said sharply. “The building is an object of federal cultural heritage. According to the preservation obligation that passed to you together with ownership rights, you are required to carry out emergency foundation stabilization work within thirty days. Otherwise, you face a fine of five million rubles and possible seizure of the property. And here is the order requiring the removal of illegal alterations made by previous owners in the 1990s. The expert commission has estimated the cost of the work at twelve million.”
“But I didn’t know! My ex-wife tricked me!” Stanislav howled.
“Ignorance of the law does not exempt you from responsibility. You accepted the inherited property and signed the transfer act. Also, the land tax for commercial properties in this zone has increased as of this month. The invoices have already been sent to you.”
Stas clutched his head. Then he saw Rimma.
Their eyes met.
In his eyes there was pure animal terror. He understood. That performance, that hysteria — it had not been defeat. It had been a trap. She had known the building was a poisoned asset. The walls were barely holding together, the utilities had rotted away, and its status as an architectural monument prohibited demolition, reconstruction, or even changing the windows without a dozen expert reports, each costing as much as a new car. Agnessa Pavlovna had spent years fighting the property department in court and had only avoided fines by a miracle, thanks to old connections that Stas did not have.
Rimma gave him the faintest nod and turned back to the tourists.
“As you can see, history is not only beauty, but also great responsibility,” she said with a slight smile. “The burden of owning the past can be unbearable for those who see only profit in it. Let’s continue, friends. The Ostrovsky estate is waiting for us.”
She walked away with a light step, leaving behind her former husband standing at a broken trough made of elite, yet utterly useless brick. He had received his inheritance.
And now it was slowly, surely chewing him alive.