When Marina Came Home from Her Shift, a Bald Man Wouldn’t Let Her Into Her Own Apartment. It Turned Out Her Husband Had Sold It
“Hey, lady, hand over the keys nicely!” A heavyset bald man in a leather jacket blocked the doorway. “And we’re taking that wardrobe too, so don’t scratch it.”
“What wardrobe? Who are you people?!” Marina gripped the handle of her own suitcase with whitening fingers. It was standing out on the landing. “Vadim! Vadim, come out here!”
Her husband shuffled out of the kitchen in house slippers. He avoided her eyes, nervously rubbing his unshaven chin.
“Marin, just don’t start screaming in the stairwell. People are watching.”
“What people?! Why is some strange man not letting me into my own apartment?! Where is Sonya?”
“Sonya is at Grandma’s. And the apartment… Marin, the apartment isn’t ours anymore. I sold it. The contract is signed, the money has already been transferred. We have to move out by tonight.”
“What do you mean, you sold it?”
Everything went dark before Marina’s eyes. The bag with kefir and bologna slipped from her hands and landed on the dirty tile of the stairwell. A white puddle began spreading toward the bald man’s boots.
“How could you sell an apartment bought with my maternity money and my inheritance?!”
“On paper it was in my name. You wrote the power of attorney yourself three years ago!” Vadim raised his voice, trying to sound confident. “Marin, I have debts. Who knows what they would’ve done to me! Do you want them to take me into the woods?!”
“That would’ve been better!”
“Listen, former relatives,” the bald man cut in, stepping over the kefir with disgust. “Get divorced outside. You have one hour to pack. After that, I’m calling the police.”
There was a roar in Marina’s ears. They had been married for fifteen years. Shifts at the dairy plant, endless saving on tights so Vadik could have a decent jacket. And now here she was, standing on the stairwell landing with spilled kefir and a suitcase.
“Marin, I already packed your things,” Vadim said ingratiatingly. “And Sonya’s too. They’re there in the hallway. I’ll stay with Pashka for now, and you two go to your mother’s.”
“Mom lives in a one-room apartment. How are the three of us supposed to fit there?” she asked hoarsely.
“Well, rent something! You’re a technologist. Your salary is official. That’s enough, Marin, don’t start.”
Silently, she stepped into the apartment, grabbed two plaid bags standing by the door, and turned around.
“May your life be empty, Vadik!”
That evening, she and Sonya sat on a sagging sofa in a room that smelled of mothballs. A communal apartment on the outskirts of ChTZ was the only thing Marina could afford with the money she had saved from her salary. The flowered wallpaper was peeling from the walls in yellow bubbles, and a crack stretched across the ceiling.
“Mom, I’m not living here,” Sonya said through clenched teeth, not looking up from her smartphone. “It stinks here. And the neighbors are some kind of drunks. There’s an old man walking around the hallway in his underwear!”
“You will, Sonya. We don’t have much choice.”
“What about Dad? He promised me a new phone for my birthday!”
“Forget about Dad. Dad gambled away our life.”
“You always make him out to be a monster!” Sonya jumped up, throwing her phone onto the pillow. “He just made a mistake! And you nagged him his whole life!”
“Sit down!” Marina barked so loudly that the faceted glasses in the sideboard rang. “A mistake?! He made us homeless! You’ll sleep by the wall. Tomorrow after school, you come straight here. No wandering around.”
There was a timid knock at the door. Their neighbor peeked in — Aunt Zina, an enormous woman in a faded housecoat.
“Girls, you’d better not put the kettle on the stove. One of the burners is shorting. It’ll shock you.”
“Thank you, Zinaida Mikhailovna. And where can I connect a washing machine here?”
“Oh, dear, nowhere. The pipes are rotten. Ilyushka from the corner room promised to take a look, but he’s on a shift at the depot.”
The next day, after twelve hours on her feet, Marina could barely stand.
“Marina Viktorovna, the acidity in tank three has jumped!” shouted Oksana, the lab assistant, over the roar of the centrifuges. “Twenty Turner degrees!”
“What do you mean, twenty?!” Marina grabbed the logbook. “What temperature was the pasteurizer set to?”
“Seventy-six!”
“I told you seventy-eight! Now we’ll have to reject the whole batch and send it for cottage cheese! They’ll dock our bonus again!”
She returned to the communal apartment furious. There was steam in the hallway as if someone had heated a bathhouse, and hot water squelched under her feet.
“Damn it!” Marina threw her bag onto the little cabinet.
A tall young man in a soaked gray T-shirt and sweatpants rushed out of the bathroom. He was clutching a heavy adjustable wrench.
“Bring rags! Now!” he barked when he saw Marina.
“What?”
“Rags, I said! And a bucket! The faucet blew off. We’re about to flood the downstairs neighbors to hell!”
Marina rushed into her room, grabbed old towels and a bucket, and ran into the bathroom. A strong stream of boiling water was blasting out of the pipe.
“Hold the bucket under the stream!” the young man commanded, wrapping white tape around the thread of a new faucet.
“It’s hot!” she cried when the water scalded her hands.
“Endure it!”
He leaned hard on the wrench, the veins in his forearms swelling with effort. The metal creaked, the stream grew thinner, and then suddenly stopped. The young man wiped his wet forehead with the back of his hand, breathing heavily.
“That’s it. Shut off.”
“Are you Ilya?”
Marina wrung the towel into the bucket, trying not to look at his wet clothes clinging to his broad shoulders.
“That’s me. And you’re the new neighbor who moved in instead of Semyon Petrovich.”
“Marina.”
“Well, hello, Marinka. FUM tape is in short supply around here, and I used my own faucet. You owe me five hundred rubles.”
“I only have a thousand right now, one bill.”
“No problem. I’ll bring the change later.” He picked up the wrench. “Rinse your hands with cold water, or you’ll get blisters.”
After a month, Marina had grown used to the smell of other people’s soup, the shower schedule, and the fact that Sonya withdrew into herself and cried into her pillow for hours.
Ilya turned out to be a welder from the local housing maintenance office. He lived alone, listened to old rock in the evenings, smoked by the kitchen window, and always cleaned the sink after himself. He was twenty-eight.
One evening, while Marina was peeling potatoes, he sat down on a stool across from her.
“Trouble with your daughter?” he asked, lighting a cigarette.
“Teenage years. Plus this place.”
“I heard you two screaming at each other yesterday. She wants to go to her father?”
“Don’t stick your nose where it doesn’t belong, Ilya.”
“I’m not. It’s just that she has the same hunted eyes you do. You should at least go for a walk. To the park or something.”
“With what money? I have to pay for the room, textbooks, and she needs a winter coat.”
“The park is free, Marinka.”
She put down the knife and looked into his eyes. For the first time, she truly studied him: coarse dark hair, a scar above his eyebrow, an attentive, almost sharp gaze — and not a trace of condescension.
“My husband threw us out into the street. A gambling addict. And now he calls at night asking for money for food.”
“And you give it to him?”
“Yesterday I transferred him a thousand. He’s Sonya’s father.”
Ilya spat into the sink.
“You’re a fool, Marina Viktorovna.”
“Go to hell!”
He smirked, put out his cigarette, and left the kitchen.
Vadim showed up on Thursday, just as Marina had come home from her shift and was struggling to pull the boots off her aching feet. There was a knock at the door, and Sonya shouted, “It’s Dad!” before rushing to open it.
Vadim looked awful: rumpled, with darting eyes, and his jacket smelled sour.
“Hi, girls!”
He tried to smile.
“Daddy!”
Sonya threw herself around his neck.
“What are you doing here?” Marina stood in the doorway of the room with her arms crossed.
“Marin, we need to talk, without extra ears.” He nodded toward their daughter. “Sonya, go sit in the room.”
Sonya reluctantly disappeared behind the door. Vadim stepped closer to Marina, lowering his voice to a hiss.
“I’m finished, Marin. They’ve put me on a meter.”
“That’s your problem.”
“No, now it’s ours. You have to take out a loan. Three hundred thousand. No more.”
“Are you out of your mind?!” Marina recoiled. “What loan?! I pay half my salary for this dump! We barely have enough to eat!”
“You have an official job. They’ll approve you!” Vadim grabbed her by the elbow. “Marin, you don’t understand! They’ll bury me!”
“Let go of me! I’m not taking anything out!”
“Oh, you’re not?” Vadim’s face suddenly changed. His features sharpened, his eyes filled with rage. He twisted her arm painfully. “Then listen carefully. If you don’t get the money, I’m taking Sonya. I’ll write to child services that you live in a flophouse, in unsanitary conditions! I have connections. They’ll arrange everything in no time!”
“You’ll die under a fence before child services even arrive!” Marina tried to break free, but he shoved her so hard that her back hit the doorframe.
The door to the neighboring room flew open so violently that it struck the wall with a pitiful crack. Ilya came out into the hallway.
He was wearing work pants and a white undershirt, his hands blackened with traces of fuel oil. His face was white with fury. The calm neighbor with the sense of humor was gone.
Now a predator stood before Marina.
“Listen, you animal,” Ilya said quietly, but the tone made Marina’s insides turn cold. “How are you treating a woman?”
“Who the hell are you, puppy?!” Vadim barked. “Keep walking. This is a family matter!”
Ilya’s reaction was instant and terrifying. He stepped forward, caught Vadim’s wrist with his left hand, twisting it with a crunch, and with his right, delivered a short, brutal blow.
Vadim wheezed, released Marina, and collapsed onto the dirty linoleum, gasping for air.
“Dad!” Sonya screamed, flying out of the room.
“Sonya, back!” Marina shouted, shielding her daughter with her body.
Ilya bent over the wheezing Vadim, grabbed him by the collar of his jacket, and lifted him slightly off the floor. The young man’s eyes were burning.
“Listen to me carefully,” Ilya hissed into his face. “If I ever see you within a kilometer of this building again… If you ever call her again… If you say one word about the child… I will bury you myself. And your creditors won’t even have time to be upset. Do you understand me?”
Vadim, drooling, nodded frantically.
“Get up!” Ilya roared, throwing him toward the front door. “And get out!”
Stumbling and clutching his throat, Vadim spilled out onto the stairwell. Ilya slammed the door shut with a crash and slid the iron bolt into place.
A dead silence hung in the hallway. Only Sonya was sobbing behind Marina’s back. Ilya stood there, breathing heavily, his chest rising and falling. He lowered his gaze to his trembling hands, then looked at Marina. The fury in his eyes slowly faded.
“Sonya, go to the room,” Marina said quietly but firmly.
The girl obediently ran off.
“Put the kettle on,” Ilya said in a low voice. “You’re shaking all over.”
The kitchen smelled of burnt matches and cheap tea leaves. Ilya smoked, looking out the window at the black factory pipes. Marina sat with her icy fingers wrapped around a cup.
“Why did you get involved like that?” she asked in a cracked voice. “He could file a police report against you.”
“Let him.” Ilya flicked ash from his cigarette. “I can’t stand it when the weak are eaten alive. My father tormented my mother the same way until he drank himself to death. I can spot that breed from a mile away.”
“Thank you.”
“It’s nothing. Tomorrow I’ll change the lock on the front door. Zinka will complain, but I’ll make keys for everyone.”
Marina looked at his profile: sharp cheekbones, stubborn chin.
“Ilya, I’m forty-two.”
He slowly turned his head, took a drag, and exhaled smoke through the half-open window.
“So what?”
“And you’re twenty-eight.”
“I learned math in school, Marina Viktorovna. What comes next?”
“I don’t have a penny to my name. I have a traumatized teenage daughter and a heap of complexes. And you’re a young man. You should be out having fun, chasing girls.”
Ilya smirked, walked over, took the cup from her hands, set it on the table, pulled up a chair, and sat directly across from her, very close. His knees touched hers.
“I’ve had my fun, Marin. I’ve been working since I was fifteen. I’m tired of coming back to an empty room. You come home from that plant of yours smelling of milk and exhaustion. And for some reason, I want you to rest. I want you to stop flinching at every sound.”
“That’s foolish,” she said, trying to turn away as a lump rose in her throat. “It’s all just pity.”
“Do I look like someone who pities people?” He took her by the chin, forcing her to look into his eyes. “I’m not kind, Marin. And I don’t give up what’s mine. And now you’re mine. Understand?”
She looked into his dark eyes and suddenly realized she believed him. Absolutely and unconditionally.
“I understand,” she whispered.
He leaned in and kissed her roughly but carefully. He smelled of tobacco and metal, but she did not care.
A year passed.
They rented a two-room apartment in a neighboring, more decent district. The communal apartment with Aunt Zina and the eternally leaking pipes was left in the past. Ilya had started working as a foreman at a private construction company. Marina still worked at the dairy plant, but she no longer took overtime shifts.
It was Sunday morning. Eggs sizzled in a frying pan in the kitchen. Sonya sat at the table in headphones, scrolling through her phone and chewing a sandwich.
Ilya came into the kitchen sleepy, wearing house pants and scratching his tousled head.
“Morning, everyone,” he rasped, kissing Marina on the back of the head.
“Morning,” she smiled, flipping the eggs with a spatula. “Go wash your face. Breakfast is ready.”
“Mom!” Sonya pulled out one earbud. “Ilya sent me money for a new coat. Lera and I are going to the mall today. Can I?”
“You can. Just wear a hat. It’s minus fifteen outside.”
“Mo-o-om!”
“No ‘Mom,’” Ilya cut in, pouring himself coffee. “Your mother is right. If you freeze your ears, you’ll treat them with your own pocket money.”
Sonya rolled her eyes but did not argue.
Marina watched them, leaning against the countertop. Thick Ural snow was falling outside the window, and water murmured quietly in the radiators. Domestic, boring realism. No drama, no shouting in the stairwell.
“Why are you frozen there?” Ilya wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling her close. “It’ll burn.”
“Nothing. Just thinking.”
“About what?”
“That the faucet in our bathroom is dripping.”
Ilya laughed loudly and sincerely.
“There’s a plumber in the house, Marin. I’ll fix it today.”
She pressed her cheek to his shoulder, breathing in the scent of shower gel and coffee.
The life that had seemed destroyed down to its foundation had turned out to be nothing more than a cleared space for something real.
And now she was no longer afraid at all.