Part 1. The Dust of Ages and the Smell of Roast Duck
The hallway did not smell like home. It smelled like someone else’s feast. The thick, greasy aroma of duck roasted with apples mixed with the sour, heavy stench of an unwashed body and medicine drifting from the far room.
Nina pulled off her work boots with difficulty. They were stained with solvent and wood dust. Her back ached so badly it felt as if she had spent the whole day unloading coal wagons instead of restoring an antique sideboard.
The television blared in the living room. The foolish voices of a talk show drowned out the clinking of forks against plates.
Nina went into the kitchen, hoping to find at least a glass of water. The sink was piled high with dirty dishes. Plates with leftovers, greasy pans, glasses marked with lip prints. In the middle of the table, among the crumbs, lay the gnawed skeleton of a duck.
“Oh, she finally showed up!” her mother-in-law, Tamara Pavlovna, called from the living room. Her voice was not welcoming. It was demanding. “Anton, yours is here.”
Anton appeared in the doorway. Wearing a house T-shirt, his face flushed, he looked full and relaxed.
“Nina, why are you so late?” he drawled lazily, picking at his teeth with a toothpick. “My parents have been here for two hours. Mom brought pie, and no one has even poured tea.”
Nina looked at her husband. Her eyes stopped on a sauce stain on his shirt.
“You have two hands, Anton. The kettle is on the stove,” she answered dryly, turning on the tap. Water struck the metal bottom of the sink and splashed grease everywhere.
“Don’t be rude,” Anton grimaced. “Mom meant well. She made dinner. It’s a holiday, after all.”
“What holiday?” Nina turned off the water and looked at him.
“Bastille Day,” her father-in-law, Boris Ignatievich, laughed from the room. “Come on, hostess, arrange dessert for us. And, by the way, Grandma Valya seemed to be calling someone. You should go check on her. The smell is unbearable. We’re eating here, and it’s coming from there.”
Nina felt blood begin to pound in her temples.
She had worked twelve hours. She paid the mortgage on this apartment. She bought the food they had just devoured.
“I just walked in,” she said slowly. “I want to shower and sleep. Anton, change your grandmother’s diaper.”
Silence fell over the room. It was so dense that Nina could hear a fly buzzing over the remains of the pie.
Tamara Pavlovna appeared in the doorway, her lips pressed into a tight, chicken-like pout.
“What did you say?” she asked in an icy voice. “Anton? Change a diaper? A man?”
“She is his grandmother,” Nina said sharply. “And these are his parents, sitting here and giving me orders.”
“You ungrateful girl!” her mother-in-law shrieked. “We came to you with open hearts! We raised a son who puts up with you! And you find it hard to clean up after an old person? That is a woman’s duty!”
“A woman’s duty?” Nina gave a crooked, frightening smile. “And a man’s duty is to eat duck and watch television while his wife breaks her back restoring other people’s antiques to pay off your debts?”
“Don’t exaggerate,” Anton stepped toward her, trying to make his face look stern. “I’m going through temporary difficulties. You know that.”
“Temporary difficulties that have lasted three years?” Nina walked past him, brushing his shoulder. “I’m going to shower. If your grandmother is not clean and the table is not cleared by the time I come out, we’ll be having a very different conversation.”
“Look at her, the queen!” she heard behind her. “Borya, did you hear that? The girl has completely forgotten her place!”
Part 2. The Discovery in the Velvet Box
Nina stood under the hot shower, washing away the smell of solvent, but the feeling of dirt would not leave her. Her mother-in-law’s words scraped inside her like sandpaper against polished wood.
“Girl.”
That was what they had always called her behind her back. Now they said it to her face.
After leaving the bathroom, she wrapped herself in a robe and went toward the bedroom. All she wanted was to lie down, close her eyes, and disappear.
But the path took her past Grandma Valya’s room. The door was slightly open. A heavy smell of hopelessness came from inside.
Nina looked in.
The old woman lay on twisted sheets, staring at the ceiling with cloudy eyes. Her diaper was clearly overflowing. No one had come to her. Anton and his parents were still drinking tea in the kitchen and discussing the summer house.
“Water…” Grandma Valya whispered.
Nina clenched her teeth so tightly her jaw hurt. She went to the kitchen, poured a glass of water, and returned. She helped the old woman drink and adjusted her pillow. She had no strength to change the diaper, but she could not leave a human being like that.
After doing what needed to be done, Nina, barely holding back nausea from exhaustion and the smell, went into the bedroom. She needed a clean pillowcase. She opened the top drawer of the dresser, where she kept the bedding, and froze.
On top of a stack of simple cotton pillowcases lay a velvet case. Black, with gold embossing.
Nina knew the brand.
Very expensive watches.
Her heart dropped somewhere into her stomach. She opened the box. Inside, resting on a cushion, gleamed a set of watches. Massive, flashy, obscenely expensive. A receipt lay beside them.
The amount made her eyes widen.
One hundred and fifty thousand.
Nina slowly sat down on the bed.
One hundred and fifty thousand.
A week ago, Anton had said they had no money for a caregiver.
Three days ago, he had whined that he could not contribute to the utility bills.
Yesterday, he had asked her to transfer him five thousand “for gas” so he could drive to his parents’ place and pick up that damned duck.
He had money.
All this time.
While she breathed in chemicals restoring nineteenth-century oak tables, while she washed his paralyzed grandmother, while she endured his eternally dissatisfied mother, he had been spending her money on toys.
The door swung open. Anton came in, cheerful and flushed from tea, or perhaps from the cognac he had probably hidden somewhere.
“Ninulya, Mom is asking where your cherry jam is…” He stopped short when he saw the box in her hands.
His face changed color instantly. First it went pale, then red blotches appeared across it.
“Why were you digging through my things?” His voice became high and shrill. “It’s a gift! For my boss! The whole department chipped in! I just took it for safekeeping!”
“The receipt,” Nina said quietly, lifting the paper. “Paid by card. Your card, Anton. Last four digits: 4512. The same card I transferred seventy thousand to for your grandmother’s rehabilitation course. You said the clinic had closed and the money would be refunded.”
Anton froze. His shifty little eyes searched for an escape.
“Well… yes. I wanted it to be a surprise. An investment! Watches go up in value! Nina, you don’t understand business! I wanted to sell them later for more and pay for everything at once!”
“Business?” Nina stood up. The velvet box in her hand felt as heavy as a brick. “You stole your grandmother’s chance at treatment. You stole from me.”
“Don’t you dare talk to me like that!” he roared, switching to attack. “I’m your husband! I have the right to small pleasures! And you’re always walking around with that sour face! Nothing is ever good enough for you! You work day and night, the house is a mess, the old woman stinks! I’m tired of the depression in this home!”
The voices in the living room stopped.
His parents were listening.
“Small pleasures?” Nina repeated.
There were no tears inside her.
Only a black, smoky flame beginning to burn.
Part 3. The Coronation of Chaos
They went into the living room.
Tamara Pavlovna sat on the sofa like a toad on a mound, legs spread, holding her cup in the air. Boris Ignatievich picked his teeth with a fork.
“What’s all the noise? No fight yet?” he smirked.
“She was rummaging through my things!” Anton pointed at Nina. “Started interrogating me over money!”
Tamara Pavlovna rolled her eyes theatrically.
“Oh, Nina. Your greed will ruin you. Family is not about debit and credit. Anton is trying. He is making an effort. And you keep nagging him. You should think more about pleasing your husband than checking receipts.”
“And speaking of family,” her mother-in-law continued, placing her cup directly on the polished table without a coaster, “we talked it over. Grandma Valya needs round-the-clock care. You’ll have to quit your job. That tinkering with old wood of yours doesn’t bring in much anyway, and you’ll ruin your health. Anton is about to rise. He has a new project coming. So go ahead and write your resignation. We’ll have peace of mind, and you’ll have something useful to do. As for Valya’s apartment, we’ll rent it out for now. Anton needs money for development.”
Nina looked at them.
Three full, arrogant faces.
They had decided everything.
Her life. Her time. Her money.
They had divided her resources like vultures dividing the body of something that had not even died yet.
“Quit?” Nina asked almost in a whisper.
“Well, yes,” Boris Ignatievich nodded. “A woman should not work when there is an elderly person in the house. It’s tradition.”
Anton stood beside his mother with his hands on his hips. He felt the support of the pack.
“You wanted a family yourself, Nina,” he added patronizingly. “So show some care. We honored you by accepting you into our circle.”
Something inside Nina snapped.
The sound was dry and sharp, like a support beam cracking.
Fear disappeared.
Exhaustion disappeared.
Only pure, distilled rage remained.
Her fingers opened. The box with the watches fell to the floor with a dull thud.
“Honor?” Nina stepped forward. Her face twisted. Her lips trembled, not from crying, but from fury. “You call this honor? Eating my food, fouling my home, and giving me orders?”
“Hey, hey!” Tamara Pavlovna half rose from the sofa. “How dare you speak to your elders like that?”
“SILENCE!” Nina roared so loudly that her father-in-law dropped his fork.
Her voice was terrifying.
It was not the scream of a hysterical woman. It was the roar of a wounded animal cornered by spears.
“I pay for this banquet! I wash your old woman! I repair this home! And you… you decided I was your servant? A free attachment to square meters?”
Anton tried to grab her arm.
“Calm down. You’re acting insane…”
Nina threw his hand away so hard that he staggered back into the sideboard. Dishes rattled.
“I AM NOT YOUR GIRL!” Nina declared to her mother-in-law, father-in-law, and husband. “AND YOU CAN TAKE CARE OF YOUR OWN GRANDMOTHER YOURSELVES!”
Part 4. The Dance of Destruction
A pause hung in the room, the kind that comes just before a gas explosion.
And then the explosion came.
Tamara Pavlovna drew in air, ready to launch into a tirade, but Nina did not give her the chance. She grabbed the platter with the remains of the duck: greasy sauce, bones, pieces of skin.
“You like eating so much?” Nina swung the platter and smashed it onto the floor right at her mother-in-law’s feet.
Shards flew like a fountain. Grease splashed onto Tamara Pavlovna’s tights, the carpet, and the wallpaper.
“What the hell! Have you lost your mind?” her father-in-law shouted, jumping up.
“GO TO HELL!” Nina grabbed the vase of flowers her mother-in-law had “kindly” given her last birthday, a cheap thing from a discount sale, and hurled it at the wall ten centimeters from Anton’s head.
Water.
Stems.
Broken glass.
Chaos.
“You wanted renovation? You’ll get renovation!” Nina moved through the room like a fury. She was frightening in her anger. Her hair had come loose, her eyes burned with a mad fire.
She rushed toward the large television — Anton’s pride, bought on credit, which she paid for.
“NO! DON’T YOU DARE!” Anton screamed, understanding what she was about to do.
Nina picked up a heavy bronze horse figurine, another dust collector from Tamara, and drove it straight into the center of the screen with all her strength.
CRACK.
A spiderweb of fractures instantly spread across the black surface. The display bled into colored stripes.
“She’s sick! Call the police! Call the police!” Tamara Pavlovna shrieked, pressing herself into the sofa and pulling up her feet, now stained with duck grease. “She’ll kill us!”
“Call them!” Nina shouted, grabbing the watches from the floor. “Let them write a report! I’ll tell them you’ve been robbing me for three years!”
She raised the watches.
Anton lunged to intercept her, but slipped on a greasy piece of duck and crashed to the floor, landing hard on his tailbone.
The watches flew out the open window.
From the fifth floor.
Into the darkness of the courtyard.
“MY WATCHES!” Anton howled, rolling on the floor.
Nina stood in the middle of the wreckage, breathing heavily. Her chest rose and fell.
But suddenly she felt incredibly light.
As if a concrete slab had been lifted off her.
“Out,” she said.
Quietly now.
But that tone was more frightening than shouting.
“Out of my apartment. Right now.”
“This is my son’s apartment too!” her mother-in-law hissed, trying to wipe the stain from her skirt. “We’re not going anywhere! We have rights! Registration!”
Nina burst out laughing.
The sound was sharp, barking, broken.
She went into the hallway and pulled a folder of documents from her bag, the one she had brought from work because she needed to scan it.
She returned and threw the folder into Anton’s face as he still sat on the floor.
“Read, idiot.”
Part 5. A Cold Dawn
Anton opened the file with trembling hands.
“What is this?” he squinted, trying to read without his glasses.
“A fresh extract from the property registry. And a deed of gift.”
“What gift?” Boris Ignatievich butted in. “The old woman is still alive!”
“What does Grandma Valya have to do with it?” Nina looked at them with contempt, as if they were cockroaches. “This apartment, the one you are currently trashing, was given to me by my father two days before our wedding. And I renovated it with money from the sale of my grandmother’s house in the village. Anton, you are nobody here. You are not even registered here permanently. You had temporary registration. It expired a month ago. I simply forgot to renew it. And now I won’t.”
Anton looked from the paper to his wife.
His mouth opened and closed like a fish.
“But… we’re family… You said… shared money…”
“I said we were a family. You heard ‘cash cow.’”
Nina walked to the door and opened it wide.
“You have five minutes. Anything you don’t manage to take will go down the garbage chute.”
“And Grandma?” Tamara Pavlovna tried to play her last card. “Are you going to throw a sick old woman onto the street? Your husband’s own blood?”
“Oh, no,” Nina smiled, and the smile made Tamara Pavlovna feel cold. “Grandma is your problem. You take care of her. Take her with you. Right now.”
“Where?” her father-in-law wailed. “We have a one-room apartment! We have nowhere to go!”
“To the car. To a taxi. To the train station. I don’t care. You wanted to rent out her apartment, didn’t you? Then go live there with her. Oh, right. You don’t have the keys. Anton had them… once.”
Nina went to the small cabinet in the hallway, where Anton’s keys lay. He had dropped them there when he came in. She picked them up and demonstratively put them into her pocket.
“Grandma Valya’s apartment has been sealed by a notary. There are five years of unpaid utility debts on it. Debts you ‘forgot’ to tell me about, Anton. I found out today. So until you pay off three hundred thousand in debt, no one is moving in there.”
Their faces stretched.
Greed gave way to horror.
They realized that the free ride was not merely over.
It had snapped shut like a trap.
“GET OUT!” Nina roared.
It took them three minutes to gather themselves.
Anton tried to collect his game console, but the cables tangled. His father shoved his mother. Somehow, they dressed Grandma Valya, who moaned and understood nothing. Anton lifted the old woman onto himself.
They looked pathetic.
A group of looters driven away from the ashes.
When the door slammed shut behind them, Nina locked both locks and put the chain on.
She slid down the wall to the floor.
But not to cry.
She looked at the broken television, the grease stains, the overturned chairs.
Her phone chimed in her pocket.
A bank message: “Mortgage payment withdrawn.”
Nina stood up.
She took a broom.
“It’s all right,” she said to the empty room. “At least the air will be clean now.”
She walked to the window.
Below, near the entrance, Anton was trying to push his grandmother into the back seat of his financed Hyundai Solaris. His parents were yelling at each other and waving their arms. The car did not start on the first try.
Nina watched the red taillights disappear into the darkness.
“And the watches,” she muttered, remembering the flight of the hundred-and-fifty-thousand-ruble Breguet, “I still found a fake one on Avito when I was checking prices. A Chinese replica. Two thousand rubles. A thief stealing a club from another thief.”
She smirked, picked up the dustpan, and began sweeping up the shards of her old life.