Two suitcases stood in the hallway, hastily zipped shut, with the sleeve of her favorite sweater sticking out from beneath one of the zippers. Nearby, Kirill was dragging a cardboard box out of the room, balancing it awkwardly against his chin. Polina stood a couple of steps away and didn’t move. There was no reason to. Not yet.
“Polina, let’s not make a scene,” he exhaled, lowering the box to the floor. “I’ve thought everything through.”
“Thought it through,” she repeated with a nod. “Clearly. Especially the part where you shoved my winter coat into a box full of cables. Brilliant strategy.”
“Enough with the sarcasm!” He straightened up. “It’s complicated, okay? I have a child.”
“Yesterday you told me you had a mistress. Today you tell me there’s a child. I wonder what tomorrow brings. A caravan of camels?”
“Yeah, laugh!” he snapped, yanking at another box until it scraped loudly across the parquet. “Go ahead. It’s easy for you!”
“It isn’t easy, Kirill. I’m disgusted. That’s a different emotion, though you’ve never been very good at subtle distinctions.”
 
He straightened again, wiped his palms on his jeans, and began speaking quickly, as though he needed to finish before he had time to hear how ridiculous he sounded.
“She got thrown out. Her husband kicked her out, do you understand? The apartment belonged to him before they got married. He gave her forty-eight hours. Forty-eight hours, Polina!”
“Generous man. I would’ve given twenty minutes.”
“She has nowhere to go!” Kirill nearly shouted. “She has a baby! You want her out on the street?”
“I want you to get that box off my parquet,” Polina replied calmly. “Where she goes is a question for the author of this whole disaster. Which would be you.”
“I didn’t plan this!” he yelled. “I wasn’t planning to have a child with anyone! She said everything was under control. She said her husband would never find out!”
“And you believed her. A woman who lies to her husband promises honesty to you, and you believe her. Do you know the difference between being gullible and being stupid? There isn’t one when you make the same mistake twice.”
“You can make jokes, but I’ve got nowhere to live!”
“You do have somewhere to live. You just want that somewhere to be here. There’s a difference between ‘need’ and ‘convenient,’ and it’s about the size of this hallway.”
He went silent for a moment, and in that brief pause Polina could practically hear him choosing his next tone.
He chose arrogance.
“Polina, this apartment was bought while we were married. Legally, that makes it joint property. So let’s handle this calmly. You pack your things, I’ll help you move, and I’ll even give you some money to get started. I’m not a monster.”
“You’re not a monster. You’re an accountant who can’t count.” She tilted her head slightly. “The apartment was purchased with money I inherited from my grandmother. The contract is in my name. The inheritance was transferred directly into my account, and the purchase price matches the amount down to the last ruble. You aren’t an owner here, Kirill. You’re barely an accessory to the doormat.”
“You don’t have the right…” He stopped himself. “You won’t be able to prove anything!”
“I won’t need to prove it. I’ll just show the documents. Much more boring. And therefore much more convincing.”
She took out her phone and dialed a number without taking her eyes off him. Kirill jerked forward, but the box in his hands slowed him down.
“Tamara Igorevna, hello. I have some news for you. Three pieces, actually. First: your son and I are getting divorced.”
“What are you doing?!” Kirill hissed. “Hang up!”
“Second: he has a child with a woman whose husband has just thrown her out of his apartment. Third—and you may want to sit down for this—your son intends to bring her here. Into my apartment. To replace me.”
 
There was silence on the other end, followed by a rapid, high-pitched voice.
Polina listened and nodded.
“No, I’m not exaggerating. My suitcases are already by the front door. Your son packed them himself. Not very skillfully, but he managed.”
“Give me the phone!” Kirill dropped the box.
“One second. And there’s a fourth detail. Possibly the best one. This woman also has a seven-year-old son from her first marriage. So prepare to welcome four people. Your son, his mistress, the baby, and a boy your son will also be supporting, because apparently she left marriage number two with nothing except experience.”
“Four of them?” Tamara’s voice came through so loudly that even Kirill could hear.
“Four,” Polina confirmed. “Double happiness. One grandchild and one completely unrelated child included as a bonus. Like a supermarket promotion.”
She held the phone out to her husband with two fingers, as if it were sticky.
“Here. They’re expecting you. Not for a visit.”
Kirill snatched the phone and walked deeper into the apartment, toward the far wall where he always went when he needed privacy to lie.
“Mom, listen. It’s not the way she made it sound. Mom! Yes, there’s a baby. Yes, he’s mine. Mom, I’m staying here. This is a perfectly good apartment, and Polina’s alone, she doesn’t need much. I’ll give her some money, she’ll manage…”
He spoke rapidly, almost choking on his own words, and didn’t hear the suitcase locks clicking shut in the hallway.
Polina carried both suitcases back into the room and placed them against the wall. Then she opened the wardrobe.
She didn’t sort anything.
She didn’t fold anything.
She gathered.
 
Shirts, sweaters, trousers, belts—everything went into her arms in great piles and then out through the open front door.
The first bundle landed on the concrete floor of the landing.
Then came the second.
Then his shoes, one at a time, hitting the floor with sharp knocks like nails being hammered in.
Jackets followed.
Then the books he had never read but always liked displaying.
“Mom, don’t start!” Kirill’s voice echoed from inside. “What DNA test? He’s mine. The baby is mine… What do you mean, ‘visits only’? Mom! Mom, you can’t forbid me from coming over!”
Polina brought out the final armful and carefully placed his desk lamp on top of the pile, just to complete the arrangement.
“Mom… Mom!”
Kirill lowered the phone.
“She hung up.”
He returned to the hallway and froze.
The suitcases were gone.
The front door was wide open.
And under the flickering bulb on the landing sat a mountain.
His mountain.
His clothes.
His shoes.
His belongings.
 
“You… have you lost your mind?!” He rushed into the hallway. “Those are my things! They’re on concrete! They’re getting covered in dust!”
“At least they’re getting fresh air,” Polina said from the doorway. “You always liked having space.”
“I’ll never forgive you for this!” He spun toward her and stepped closer, his face twisted with fury. “Do you hear me? Never! Who the hell are you to decide anything?”
“The owner,” Polina replied.
Then she slapped him.
A hard, open-handed strike across the face.
His head snapped sideways. He lost his balance, stumbled over one of his own shoes, and dropped straight into the pile of sweaters.
“You hit me…” he rasped from the floor. “You actually hit me… This is completely out of line!”
“The line was crossed earlier,” Polina said, standing perfectly straight. “When you packed my suitcases inside my own apartment so you could move your mistress and her two children in here. Considering the circumstances, I showed remarkable restraint. I only hit you once.”
“I’ll report you… I’ll tell everyone…”
“Go ahead. And I’ll tell everyone where our family money has been disappearing for the last two years. There’s a fascinating list. Flowers. Trips. Restaurants with beautiful views. I’m filing for divorce today. Cooperate, and we separate quietly. Fight me, and we’ll go through the finances together. When we’re finished, you may discover that you owe me money. With interest.”
“Polina, wait!” He struggled to his feet. “Polina, where am I supposed to go?”
 
“Go where you’re needed,” she said. “They’re waiting for you, aren’t they? You’re the hero.”
The door shut.
The lock turned twice.
Kirill remained sitting among his clothes, unable to decide what to deal with first.
His phone rang near his thigh, and he grabbed it like a drowning man grabbing a rope.
“Alice?”
“Yes. I’m…”
“I’ve left,” she said quickly, all business. “My things are in the car, the children’s stuff is in the trunk, and I’m already on your street. I’m coming upstairs.”
“Wait! Don’t come up!”
“Kirill, I have a baby in a carrier, and Matvey has been sitting in the car for an hour and a half. You promised me everything was settled.”
“It… it’s being settled,” Kirill said.
And then he heard himself.
He sounded like a schoolboy who had forgotten not only his homework, but his backpack and half his life at home.
He got to his feet and looked around.
Two rooms.
One door.
Behind that door was his wife, who had stopped being his life only minutes earlier.
And he was standing on bare concrete beside a lamp balanced on top of his sweaters.
“Well, that’s picturesque.”
 
The voice came from above.
Zhanna from the fourth floor was walking downstairs, a cardigan thrown over her shoulders and keys in one hand.
She studied the heap of belongings.
Then Kirill.
Then the heap again.
“Looks like you’ve been evacuated.”
“Zhanna, I… it’s temporary.”
“Everything is temporary except concrete,” she replied. “Listen, rescuer. I have an apartment one floor above. Empty. I rent it out. If you want it, you can move in today. But payment comes first, and I don’t do promises. Haven’t trusted anyone’s word since 1998.”
“How much?” Kirill asked weakly.
She named the price.
He stared at his banking app, looked at what remained in his account, and transferred nearly all of it before he had enough time to reconsider.
“That’s better,” Zhanna said, tossing the keys lightly in her palm. “Come on. Let’s inspect your new estate.”
The apartment door opened with a long groan like a siren.
 
Kirill stepped inside and flicked on the switch.
A bare light bulb illuminated a hallway that looked as if it hadn’t been renovated in his entire lifetime.
“Zhanna…” he began.
“It’s not a palace,” she agreed. “But it has a roof. My mother used to live here, God rest her soul, and she liked it.”
Kirill walked farther inside.
Every floorboard creaked differently, each with its own miserable voice.
The plumbing wasn’t merely old. It looked defeated.
The wooden window frames had been painted over at least ten times, and the glass seemed to be held in place by habit, putty, and prayer.
“But this place…” Kirill stopped.
A cockroach was calmly crossing the kitchen counter, strolling along as if it owned the property.
“Something lives here.”
“Then it means the building is warm,” Zhanna said. “I’ll bring the rental agreement tomorrow. We’ll sign everything properly. And you should thank me, by the way. I picked you up off the concrete.”
 
Then she left.
Kirill stood in the middle of someone else’s worn-out former life and listened to the pipes humming inside the walls.
His phone vibrated again.
“I’m at the door,” Alice said. “No one’s opening. Kirill, where are you? Matvey is crying.”
“Go one floor higher,” he said quietly. “Fifth floor. The door without a number.”
He lowered himself onto a squeaking stool and, in the space of a single minute, cursed everything.
The evening when he had first allowed his gaze to linger where it shouldn’t have.
His wife, who had turned out not to be soft at all, but made of steel.
Zhanna and her rescue that cost almost as much as a decent apartment.
His mother’s voice on the phone, cutting off his last possible route home.
From downstairs came the sound of a child crying.
 
It was getting closer.
Up the stairs.
Coming directly toward him.
And this time, it wasn’t going to pass him by.