“Igor, would you please tear yourself away from whatever you’re doing and explain one very simple thing to me? What is this ugly aluminum contraption doing in the middle of my room, and exactly why is my oak work desk now jammed hard against the cast-iron radiator?”
Alina stood in the doorway of her home office, still wearing her light beige coat and without even having had time to put her leather laptop bag down on the floor. The perfect order she obsessively maintained in this room had been destroyed with astonishing, almost barbaric carelessness.
The heavy solid-oak desk, which the two of them had struggled to carry in there a year earlier, had been crudely dragged into the darkest, least-lit corner. Its legs had left two deep, pale scratches on the expensive parquet floor. Two professional widescreen monitors were now squeezed together at an unnatural angle, while the complicated system of cables Alina had carefully secured with plastic ties had turned into an ugly nest of snakes hanging all the way down to the baseboard.
But the main source of her icy, concentrated fury was the object occupying the exact center of the newly cleared space. It was an old, sagging Soviet folding cot with peeling gray paint on its metal frame. On top of it lay a thin, lumpy mattress in a poisonous raspberry color covered with large yellow flowers.
The shuffle of slippers came from the hallway. Igor appeared behind Alina carrying a stack of cheap, starched bed linen still in its factory packaging and a synthetic pillow. A relaxed, condescending half-smile played across his face—the expression of a man sincerely convinced that he was doing something wonderfully generous.
“Oh, you’re already home,” he said casually, trying to squeeze past his wife into the room. “I’m just setting up a place to sleep. Don’t start getting worked up the second you walk in, okay? I only moved the desk a little so there’d still be room to get through. It’s for Svetka, my niece. She got a state-funded place at the construction institute. Her train arrives at Kazansky Station tomorrow morning.”
Alina did not move a millimeter. Slowly, she turned her head and looked at her husband with a long, appraising stare, as though she were seeing a complete stranger who had suddenly begun speaking a language she did not understand.
“What Svetka? What station?” she asked, pronouncing every word distinctly.
“My sister’s daughter, from the village,” Igor replied irritably, clicking his tongue as he tossed the pillow and bedding onto the raspberry-colored mattress. “I told you last week they were trying to figure out where she’d stay. There are no places in the dormitory; the waiting list is a year long. And renting an apartment in Moscow costs insane money these days. Nobody in their village earns that kind of salary. So I told them she could stay with us. What are we, heartless? She’s family, after all. Five years will fly by before we even notice.”
Alina blinked slowly. The information settled into her mind, forming a clear and utterly unacceptable picture of reality.
Five years.
Someone else’s teenage daughter.
In her personal space.
“You told them she would live with us,” Alina repeated in an even, emotionless voice. “And as accommodation for your relative from the village, you chose my office. The room where I spend ten hours a day, where I hold video conferences with business partners, and where I keep my documents.”
“Oh, Alina, can’t you be a decent human being?” Igor spread his hands theatrically, adopting the pose of a righteous man who had been unfairly offended. “Where else am I supposed to put her? We watch TV in the living room ourselves in the evenings, so she wouldn’t be comfortable there. And we only have one bedroom. Your office is perfect. There’s already a desk here. You two can take turns using it. She’ll be at lectures during the day, and in the evening she’ll come back, quietly do her homework in the corner, then sleep on this folding bed. She’s a quiet girl. You won’t even hear her.”
“Take turns using my desk?” Alina tightened her grip on her bag until her knuckles turned white. “So while I’m on work calls with clients, your niece will be in the background drying her hair or eating sandwiches on that squeaky thing? Or am I supposed to take my laptop into the kitchen every time she feels like changing clothes?”
“Oh, for God’s sake, just point the camera at the wall!” Igor snapped, beginning to lose his condescending patience. “Why are you making such a huge problem out of nothing? You’d think you were some government minister who needed private chambers. The girl needs help. We’re family!”
Alina stepped into the room, tossed her bag onto the windowsill, and walked right up to her husband.
“Family?” Her voice became frighteningly quiet, but there was steel in it. “You decided to play the noble, caring uncle—the great rescuer. Except for some reason I’m supposed to pay the price for your generosity with my comfort, my work, and my personal space. If you’re so worried about your niece’s future, then be a man all the way through. Take half your salary and rent her a separate room or a bed in a paid student hostel. Pay for her accommodation out of your own pocket for all five years.”
Igor snorted indignantly, red blotches beginning to spread across his face.
“Why should I give my money to strangers for rent when we have an entire empty room?” he raised his voice. “That’s irrational! We can fit everyone in perfectly well. We just need to squeeze in a little and be understanding.”
“We don’t have an empty room,” Alina cut him off. “This is my office. And I’m not squeezing in anywhere. Your plan to create a free hostel for relatives on my territory is canceled right now.”
“Are you serious? I already promised my sister the girl could live with us!” Igor’s face twisted with genuine outrage. He tried to block the doorway with his body, spreading his slippered feet wide apart. “You can’t just make me look like a liar in front of the whole family! They bought the tickets and packed their bags! The matter is settled, Alina. Stop making a scene over nothing!”
Alina did not even dignify him with a glance.
She walked over to the ridiculous object occupying the center of her carefully arranged workspace. With a sharp, disgusted movement, she swept the cheap synthetic pillow and stack of starched bedding onto the floor, completely ignoring her husband’s indignant puffing behind her. The poisonous raspberry-colored mattress followed, landing on the parquet with a dull, heavy thud.
Alina stepped forward decisively, found the cold, rusty metal catches at the joints of the old Soviet cot, and with one sharp, merciless movement folded the structure in half. The springs clanged loudly, and the metal tubes scraped against each other, sending a faint cloud of ancient dust into the air.
“Hey, have you completely lost your mind?!” Igor shrieked, finally abandoning his pretense of calmness. He rushed forward and grabbed the squeaking frame with both hands. “Have you gone crazy from all that work? Don’t touch it, I said! Put it back!”
Alina yanked the aluminum frame toward herself with all her strength. Igor, not expecting such resistance from his seemingly fragile wife, staggered and awkwardly slid across the parquet in his slippers.
Her face became a stone mask, and her voice was so sharp it seemed capable of cracking the paint on the walls.
“Your niece is going to live in my office while she studies at university?! Then where am I supposed to work?! On the doormat in the hallway?! You decided to save her parents money at my expense?! Let her rent a dorm room! I’m throwing her folding bed in the trash!”
She emphasized every syllable, her whitened fingers locked tightly around the metal.
She gave another pull, and the structure scraped horribly across the floor, leaving new scratches behind it.
“You’re not throwing anything anywhere!” Igor planted his feet firmly. His face had broken out in ugly red blotches and sweat appeared on his forehead. He pulled the cot toward himself like a stubborn teenager whose favorite possession was being taken away. “You’re selfish, Alina! All you care about is your own comfort! My sister earns thirty thousand rubles a month in the village. They count every kopek! Where are they supposed to get money to rent an apartment in Moscow?”
“And what exactly do your sister’s and her husband’s salaries have to do with me?” Alina twisted the frame hard to the right, making Igor lose his balance, and together with the clanging piece of metal they spilled out of the office into the wide hallway. “I’m not a charity for failures who can’t provide for their own children. If they can’t afford their daughter’s education and living expenses, then she has no business being here. Let her go to culinary school in their district town and live at home!”
“Do you even realize what you’re saying?” Igor hissed, breathing heavily. He shifted his grip on the pipe, trying to stop Alina from advancing toward the front door. “She’s my own niece! She’s my family!”
“Your family is me. Or rather, I was, until you unilaterally decided to turn our apartment into a free hostel for relatives moving in from the provinces,” Alina replied coldly.
Instead of continuing the pointless tug-of-war over the metal junk, she suddenly released her grip.
Igor, who had been pulling the cot toward himself with all his strength, flew backward from the momentum. He tripped over the abandoned mattress and crashed onto his back with a ridiculous bang, dragging several kilograms of aluminum down with him. The frame struck his knees painfully, and the echo of falling metal boomed down the hallway.
Alina stepped disdainfully over her struggling husband and looked down at him with undisguised contempt.
“Your main problem, Igor, is that you desperately want to look like a generous benefactor and successful Moscow relative, but only by spending other people’s resources,” she said methodically, as though reading out a harsh verdict. “You didn’t bother consulting me. You barged into my workspace. You damaged the floor and moved my expensive desk. And now you’re lying at my feet trying to convince me that I’m supposed to sponsor the accommodation of someone who means nothing to me. It’s not going to happen.”
Groaning and muttering curses, Igor got back to his feet. He brushed off his sweatpants, his nostrils flaring with rage. He was ready to resort to outright insults, but his wife’s cold, rock-solid logic was knocking the ground out from under him, depriving him of his usual position as the supposedly oppressed champion of justice.
“Here’s how it’s going to be,” he said, stepping threateningly toward Alina and pointing his index finger directly in front of her face. “I’m the man of this house. And I said Sveta is going to live here, whether you like it or not. You’re going to pick up that mattress right now, carry everything back inside, and we’re going to prepare the room properly. Or else…”
“Or else what?” Alina did not even flinch, watching his pathetic attempt to demonstrate artificial dominance with icy interest. “What are you going to do to me? Throw a tantrum? Take away my spending money? Tomorrow morning, that rusty scrap metal is going straight into the dumpster. And if your sister and daughter cross the threshold of this apartment with their bags, I’ll throw them straight back onto the landing, together with you.”
She bent down again, grabbed the folding cot by its side bar, and in one long, continuous motion dragged it across the laminate toward the front door. The old furniture’s metal joints scraped loudly and hideously, damaging the flooring, but Alina no longer cared.
To her, the sound was an anthem to order being restored.
Igor stared at her back, nervously clenching and unclenching his fists. His darting eyes contained a toxic mixture of helpless fury and wounded ego. He understood perfectly well that he was losing the argument on every front. His grand plan to demonstrate his importance to his relatives from the village was rapidly collapsing.
“You’re just a complete egotist,” he muttered through clenched teeth as he followed her down the hallway. “You’re ready to throw someone out onto the street over some piece of wooden furniture.”
“Over a piece of wooden furniture where I work my ass off day and night and earn three times more than you so we can afford this apartment,” Alina shot back without turning around.
She dragged the heavy folding bed all the way to the entrance and leaned it against the sturdy steel door. Metal struck metal with a ringing clang.
At that very moment, slicing through the apartment’s unbearably tense atmosphere, a sharp, prolonged, demanding ring sounded from the doorbell.
“Igor, open up already! My arms are about to fall off from carrying all these bags!” came a loud, brazen female voice from behind the steel door, accompanied by dull, impatient pounding.
Igor instantly wiped the expression of wounded, offended husband from his face. He hurriedly shoved the scratched folding bed aside, pushed Alina out of the way with his shoulder, fumbled with the locks, and flung the door wide open.
A heavy, stale mixture of train-compartment air, fried chicken, old sweat, and cheap cloying perfume immediately hit Alina’s nose.
Standing on the cramped landing, breathing heavily and wiping her sweaty forehead with the back of her hand, was a heavyset woman of about fifty in a shapeless gray cardigan. At her feet were three enormous red-and-blue checked shopping bags, swollen to absurd proportions and carelessly wrapped with brown packing tape.
Behind the woman stood a slouching young girl with a gloomy, dissatisfied expression, chewing gum energetically without taking her eyes off the screen of a cheap smartphone.
“Phew! It’s unbearably stuffy here in Moscow. You can hardly breathe!” Igor’s sister Zoya announced immediately as she stepped across the threshold as if she owned the place, forcing Alina deeper into the narrow hallway with her large body. “The taxi driver was some foreigner who couldn’t find the address. He drove us around the courtyards for half an hour while the meter kept running. Igoryok, why are you standing there like a statue? Grab the bags and bring them inside. Svetka has jars of pickles at the bottom, so don’t break them.”
She inspected the entryway critically, wrinkling her nose at the shoe cabinet, and finally deigned to notice the owner of the apartment.
“Hello. We decided to come a day early. We managed to get good tickets on a passing train. No point wasting time at stations, right?” Zoya attempted a friendly smile, but it looked more like a predatory grin.
Then her eyes fell on the aluminum structure blocking the passage.
“What kind of barricade is this? Igor, couldn’t you prepare properly for us? We’ve been traveling, we’re exhausted and hungry, and now we can’t even get through. Move this scrap metal. We’re going to the room. Svetka needs to change and unpack her things.”
Zoya confidently stepped forward, intending to squeeze past Alina deeper into the apartment, but Alina did not move a millimeter. She firmly blocked the way, crossing her arms over her chest and straightening her shoulders.
“Good evening,” Alina said in an even, icy voice. “I’m afraid you have the wrong address. There’s a cheap hotel two blocks from here. This apartment does not provide rooms where guests can change clothes.”
Zoya froze mid-step.
Her eyebrows rose, and an unhealthy crimson flush appeared on her sagging cheeks. She looked questioningly at her brother, who at that moment was unsuccessfully trying to drag the first impossibly heavy checked bag over the threshold.
“Igor? I don’t understand. What is this?” Zoya’s voice instantly lost its false friendliness and acquired shrill, market-stall tones. “You told me everything was settled! You said we’d arrive and get ourselves comfortably situated. And now your wife is laying down conditions for me right at the door!”
“Alina, please stop,” Igor fussed, dropping the bag in the doorway and positioning himself between the women. “They’ve just come off the train. They spent a whole day on upper bunks. Let’s calmly have some tea now, let them wash up and rest, and tomorrow we’ll discuss everything with clear heads. Zoya, Svetka, go into the kitchen. I’ll move this metal thing.”
“No one is going anywhere,” Alina said, raising a warning hand to stop the niece who had tried to slip past her mother. “There will be no tea and no one will be spending the night here. Your brother promised you something that does not belong to him. He has no right to dispose of my office or turn it into a lodging house.”
“Your office?!” Zoya snorted contemptuously, planting her hands on her hips. Her entire heavyset figure tensed as if she were preparing for a fight. “Look at the lady of the manor! She needs a whole private office! And you don’t care that Igor’s own niece will be left on the street? Relatives are supposed to help each other instead of showing off their fancy renovations. Nobody behaves like this in our village. When guests arrive, you give them the best bed and feed them until they’re stuffed.”
“You’re not in the village,” Alina replied coldly, looking straight into her sister-in-law’s furious eyes. “You are in my apartment. And I didn’t invite you here. You arrived without warning, a day early, demanding free accommodation for five years as if I owed you something. I work from home, and I need my space. I’m not going to let this place become a public thoroughfare.”
“Who cares about your space!” Zoya roared, spraying saliva. “The girl needs to study! She got a state-funded place—our clever girl! And instead of being happy for her and helping, you’re ready to strangle someone over a corner of a room! Greedy, calculating city princess! Igor, are you even a man or what?! Why is your woman giving orders here and treating your family like dirt?”
Igor turned pale, trapped in the narrow corridor between two opposing sides. He tried to grab his sister by the sleeve of her cardigan, avoiding his wife’s direct gaze.
“Zoya, don’t shout. The neighbors will come out,” he muttered, glancing nervously around. “Alina’s just tired after work. She’s stressed, projects are burning. We’ll sort everything out, really. Alina, at least let them into the kitchen. This isn’t humane!”
“Humane means planning your move in advance and paying for it yourself,” Alina replied, articulating every word. “What’s happening now is called shamelessness and an unceremonious invasion. Take your bags, call a taxi, and go to the nearest hostel. I’m not moving from this spot.”
The student, Sveta, loudly popped a bubble of chewing gum and rolled her eyes.
“Mom, I told you nobody wanted us here. Let’s leave. I’m already sick of the smell in this building and their arguing.”
“Keep quiet. You’re too young to interfere!” Zoya snapped, though she clearly had no intention of retreating.
She moved threateningly toward Alina and played her last and most brazen card.
“We’re not going anywhere! We barely have any money, only enough for transportation for the first few weeks! Igor said we’d live here, so we’re living here! And if you don’t like it, you can pack your own stuff and get the hell out! This apartment belongs to Igor just as much as it belongs to you!”
A heavy, ringing silence fell.
It seemed as though even the old elevator on the landing had stopped humming to listen.
Zoya’s statement was so ridiculous and absurd that for a moment Alina actually stopped being angry. Instead of burning rage, something icy, crystal-clear, and utterly merciless began spreading inside her.
Slowly, almost as if in slow motion, she turned her head and looked at her husband.
At that moment, Igor looked as though a concrete ceiling had suddenly collapsed on top of him. He hunched over, pulling his head down between his shoulders, while his darting eyes moved frantically around the hallway walls, carefully avoiding direct eye contact with either his wife or his sister.
“Igoryok,” Alina said in a deceptively quiet, almost affectionate voice, but the tone sent chills down the spine. “It turns out you’re quite the storyteller. Tell me, dear husband, did you forget to mention one small but extremely important legal detail to your wonderful relatives? Or did you deliberately mislead them to make yourself look more important?”
“Alina, please don’t. Don’t start. Not now…” he whimpered pitifully, backing toward the wall as though hoping to dissolve into the wallpaper.
“Oh no, now is exactly the time, since we’ve started discussing which one of us should pack their belongings,” Alina said, taking a decisive step forward. Now even the heavyset Zoya involuntarily stepped backward onto the dusty mat of the landing.
“Dear Zoya. I understand perfectly well that your brother wanted very badly to look like a successful Moscow resident who could generously hand out square meters of living space in the capital. But the harsh reality is that I bought this apartment three years before I ever met him. It is registered solely in my name. Igor isn’t even officially registered as living here. He doesn’t own a single stool in this apartment, let alone have the right to decide who gets to live here.”
Zoya blinked rapidly. Her mouth fell open, revealing a gold crown on one of her teeth. Slowly, as though unable to believe what she had heard, she turned toward her brother.
A deep crimson flush of anger began spreading across her sagging cheeks.
Even Sveta stopped chewing her gum and watched with undisguised interest as her gaze moved from her pale uncle to his unyielding wife.
“Igor?” Zoya rasped, breathing heavily. “Is that true?! You’re just a powerless live-in husband? You told me on the phone that the two of you had paid off the mortgage together and that you were a full owner here! You said your wife wouldn’t dare say a word because you supported the entire family!”
“Zoya, why did you have to say that in front of her…” Igor grabbed his head with both hands, his face burning with unbearable shame and humiliation.
The carefully constructed house of cards built from his lies was collapsing before everyone’s eyes.
“I only wanted what was best… I thought you’d arrive and then we’d sort things out once you were already here… She’s not a monster. She would have gotten used to it…”
“Gotten used to it?!” Zoya shrieked, her piercing voice echoing around the stairwell. “You made us look like complete fools! You had us drag these huge bags all across Moscow just so we could stand here humiliating ourselves on your landlady’s doormat?! You’re nothing but an empty braggart! Shame on you!”
Alina watched the ugly scene with the absolute calmness of a surgeon. All her anger had evaporated, leaving behind only disgusted exhaustion. She regretted nothing except the time she had wasted and the scratches on the laminate floor.
“It seems you’re finally beginning to assess the situation realistically,” she said evenly. “Sveta, take out your phone and search for the nearest hostel. They have vacancies. I checked half an hour ago.”
Alina bent down, firmly grabbed the handle of the enormous checked bag Igor had already managed to drag into the hallway, and with one controlled movement pushed it back onto the landing.
The bag struck Zoya’s legs with a heavy thud.
The ill-fated Soviet folding cot followed it. The metal pipes clanged loudly against the concrete stairwell floor, putting a decisive end to the question of where the relatives would be staying.
“My home is not a waiting room or a charity shelter,” Alina said firmly. “I work all day. I support myself and partially support your brother, who hasn’t been able to find a job for three months. Take your things and leave right now.”
Zoya drew a sharp breath of the stale stairwell air, preparing to unleash another tirade, but after looking at Alina’s cold expression, she suddenly stopped.
Her brazenness had shattered against the apartment owner’s rock-solid confidence.
She grabbed the nearest bag with disgust, shot Igor a look of undisguised hatred, and muttered through clenched teeth:
“Come on, Svetka. There’s nothing for us here. Let this pathetic henpecked loser keep scrubbing somebody else’s floors. I’m calling Mother in the village first thing tomorrow.”
Sveta picked up her backpack, and together the two women trudged toward the elevator, dragging the heavy bags along the floor.
“Igor,” Alina’s voice cracked like a whip. “You have one minute. Either you pick up that mattress right now, take your sister’s bags, and go with them to the hostel, paying for their stay out of your personal savings, or you close this door, pick up a mop, clean up all this dirt, and we never return to the subject of sponsoring your relatives at my expense again. The choice is yours.”
Igor stood in the middle of the corridor with his shoulders slumped, crushed and completely helpless.
The pathetic remnants of his pride were still fighting against his panicked fear of losing his comfortable life in the Moscow apartment.
The choice was obvious, and that realization made him feel even more pathetic.
“Zoya… I’m sorry…” he muttered under his breath.
He sighed heavily, looked away, and slowly, like a beaten dog, pulled the heavy steel door toward himself.
The lock clicked dryly and loudly, permanently separating their apartment from the outside world—and from the brazen demands of other people.
Alina did not say another word to him.
She turned around and silently walked down the hallway toward her beloved office. In the middle of what had once again become an orderly room, the cheap mattress was still lying on the floor.
Alina walked over to it, pinched the edge of the fabric between two fingers, and dragged it toward the balcony, where the trash bags were kept.
Then she returned to her expensive solid-oak work desk and carefully moved it back to its rightful place.
She lovingly ran her palm across its smooth surface and sank with satisfaction into her leather office chair.
As she switched on the monitor, she vaguely heard water running in the hallway and the squeak of a mop.
Igor was obediently cleaning up the traces left by his relatives’ visit.
Alina took a deep breath.
Her personal space belonged completely and unquestionably to her again.
And now she knew for certain: no one would ever dare cross that boundary again.
