Inga Petrovna stirred the borscht with the air of someone brewing not a vegetable soup in chicken broth, but a magical potion for attracting good fortune. The kitchen was filled with that particular thick, heavy heat you get only in prefab apartment blocks in winter, when the radiators blaze as if trying to make up for the Ice Age, and you cannot open the vent window because the draft will go straight to your lower back.
The clock read 6:45. Time for strategic waiting.
Inga set down the ladle and gave the table a critical look. Lard with pink streaks, sliced into thin, almost translucent pieces. Black bread — the real Borodinsky, dense and moist. Sour cream in a bowl. Fresh herbs, a bunch so expensive these days that it would almost make more sense to grow dill on the windowsill instead of geraniums. Everything was ready for the arrival of the dear guest.
Dear in every sense of the word.
Valery Sergeyevich, a distinguished-looking man with noble gray at his temples and a way of wearing a scarf that made him look less like a taxi-dispatcher and more like an unrecognized artist, had entered Inga’s life three months earlier. They met in the classic way — standing in line at the clinic outside the physiotherapy room. Inga was treating her knee, Valera his shoulder. Shared pain, as everyone knows, brings people together better than shared fun.
At first there were walks. Valera spoke beautifully about politics, scolded young people for “living in their phones,” and admired the way Inga carried herself. Then the walks turned into tea visits. And over the last month, Valera had shifted into an all-inclusive arrangement, showing up for dinner with the punctuality of a German train.
The doorbell sang out imperiously in the hallway.
Inga sighed, smoothed her house dress, and went to open the door. Her heart did not give its old treacherous leap. It used to. But now, somewhere in her chest, some sort of counter had switched on, quietly tallying her losses.
“Bonsoir, my queen!” Valera stood in the doorway, rosy from the cold, smelling of the street and cheap tobacco. His hands were conspicuously empty. Not a flower, not a chocolate bar, not even a measly loaf of bread.
“Hi, Valera, come in,” Inga said, stepping aside.
Valera kicked off his shoes as usual — she really ought to wash the mat, he had tracked dirt in again — hung up his coat, and headed to the bathroom as if he owned the place. Water splashed, followed by a cheerful snorting sound.
“Ingusya!” came his voice from the bathroom. “Could I get a fresh towel? This one’s kind of damp.”
Inga took a clean terry towel from the cupboard.
Damp, is it? she thought, tossing it onto the washing machine. Of course it’s damp. You dried yourself with it yesterday too, and hanging it up to dry must be advanced mathematics. You’d need two university degrees for that.
At the table, Valera transformed. His eyes gleamed with predatory delight at the sight of the borscht.
“Oh, Inga Petrovna,” he purred, tucking a napkin into his shirt collar, “you’re a true sorceress. These days, when there’s nothing but chemicals and GMOs everywhere, finding a woman who keeps house like this is like digging up buried treasure.”
He ate greedily, quickly, smacking his lips with relish. Inga watched the lard disappear into his mouth, watched the bread dwindle, while figures spun through her mind. Pork had gone up fifteen percent. Chicken, ten. And Valera ate as though he had a small but ravenous tapeworm living inside him.
“Tasty?” Inga asked, propping her cheek on one hand. She herself had not touched the food.
“Divine!” Valera breathed, wiping his lips with a crust of bread. “My mother cooks too, of course, but everything she makes is diet food, steamed and bland. And a man, as you understand, needs energy. He needs meat.”
Mother. Zinaida Markovna. The invisible third participant at all their dinners. According to Valera, she was a woman of saintly soul and fragile health who constantly required financial support.
“Valera,” Inga began cautiously, while he helped himself to seconds, “I got the electricity bill today. It was pretty high. And the water bill too.”
For a second Valera froze, spoon halfway to his mouth, and his face assumed an expression of sorrow.
“They’re skinning working people alive,” he sighed mournfully. “At my mother’s place this month it’s a complete disaster. Imported medicine vanished, so we had to buy substitutes, and they cost three times more, can you imagine? I gave her everything I had. I’m walking around in my old shoes myself now, the soles are about to fall off.”
He demonstratively wiggled one foot under the table. Inga knew those shoes. Perfectly decent leather ones. They would last him another two seasons easily.
“What I mean, Valera,” Inga said more softly, trying not to sound accusatory, “maybe we could start chipping in somehow. At least for groceries. I’m not the daughter of a millionaire either. I work in an archive, not a gold mine.”
Valera set down his spoon. Hurt appeared in his eyes, like a wounded stag.
“Inga… I didn’t expect this. We’re talking about lofty things, about feelings… Can this contemptible everyday business really come between us? I thought you understood me. I’m going through a difficult period right now. Temporary hardships. As soon as I sort out my mother’s health, I’ll shower you in gold! I swear!”
Shower me in gold, Inga thought, staring at the borscht stain on the tablecloth. You could at least buy a pack of pasta once, gold prospector.
But aloud she said nothing. A woman’s pity is a terrible thing. You understand perfectly well that you’re being used, but you still hope: maybe now, maybe soon, he’s a good man, he’s kind, it’s just the circumstances.
The next week passed under strict austerity. To feed her “hussar,” Inga started resorting to tricks. She bought chicken backs for soup, hunted for two-for-one sales in the distant supermarket, lugged heavy shopping bags that nearly tore her arms off. Valera, meanwhile, came over, ate, praised the food, watched television on the sofa, and then went home to sleep, saying that “Mother worries if I don’t answer the phone late.”
The breaking point came on Friday. It had been a hard day: chaos at work, the boss in a foul mood, and outside a nasty mix of rain and snow had been falling since morning, turning the sidewalks into a skating rink.
Inga was coming home loaded down like a pack mule. In one hand she carried a bag of potatoes and cabbage — heavy, but cheap at the market. In the other, a net bag with onions and a bottle of milk. Her back ached, and the knee she had been treating reminded her of itself with a sharp pain at every step.
A taxi pulled up by the entrance. A yellow car with checkers on the side. The door opened, and Valera began heaving himself out of the back seat with a grunt.
Inga stopped to catch her breath and say hello. But the words stuck in her throat.
Valera was not alone. Or rather, he was alone, but he had cargo. From the back seat he hauled out two enormous, bulging, glossy shopping bags with the logo of an upscale gourmet store — one Inga entered only as a kind of excursion, to look at the prices and be horrified.
The bags were heavy. Their handles stretched tight like strings. Sticking out of the top, taunting the imagination, was the tail of a fine fish — not some cheap pollock, but noble trout or salmon. Through the semi-transparent side of the bag she could make out a stick of expensive smoked sausage, a jar of caviar — that unmistakable green-labeled one — and a box of costly chocolates.
“Oh! Ingusya!” Valera noticed her and looked flustered for a split second, then immediately pulled on his trademark smile. “I’m just… on my way to see Mother. Decided to bring her some treats. The poor old woman doesn’t have much joy left in life, only tasty food.”
Inga looked at her own bags. Dirty potatoes. Onions shedding papery skin. Milk bought at the discount price. Then she shifted her gaze to Valera’s “provisions convoy.”
“Nice treats,” Inga said, her voice gone hoarse. “Red fish? Caviar too?”
“Well, yes.” Valera adjusted the bags in his hands, his face reddening with the strain. “The doctor said she needs phosphorus, vitamins. And she loves smoked sausage, the kind you slice paper-thin and savor. I spare nothing for my mother. I’ll go hungry myself, but I’ll buy for her.”
I’ll go hungry, echoed in Inga’s head. In my kitchen.
“Listen, Ingus,” Valera shivered in the wind. “Since we’ve run into each other… You’re going home, right? I’ll just pop by your place, leave these bags in the hallway so I don’t have to carry them around. We’ll have a quick dinner — I’m starving, absolutely no strength left, been on my feet all day! Then I’ll call a taxi and take all this to Mother. My arms are falling off, honestly.”
There was such breathtaking simplicity and audacity in this proposal that Inga could not answer right away. He was suggesting using her apartment as a storage room and her as a catering point, so he could preserve the delicacies for somewhere else.
“Let’s go,” she said shortly.
They entered the elevator. It smelled of smoked sausage and expensive fish. The rich, festive scent seemed to push all the air out of the little cabin. Valera puffed, clutching the bags to himself like beloved children.
“Oh, the prices, Inga, the prices!” he began his familiar refrain as the elevator crawled up to the fifth floor. “You can’t imagine how much I left there. Half my advance pay! But this is sacred…”
“Sacred,” Inga echoed.
The doors opened. Inga unlocked the apartment. Valera bustled into the hallway first and, with a relieved groan, set his treasures down on the floor next to the shoe rack.
“Whew! My hands are shaking.” He began unzipping his jacket, already anticipating comfort. “So what have we got today, Ingus? I think I smell cutlets? Or meatballs? I could eat an elephant right now!”
Inga slowly set her own bags of potatoes on the little cabinet. Took off her hat. Looked at herself in the mirror. A tired woman with lines around her eyes, in an inexpensive puffer coat. Beside her stood a rosy, satisfied man who had dropped by “for a quick bite.”
And suddenly she saw it all with complete clarity: in a minute he would sit at her table. He would eat her meatballs, the ones she had spent last night mincing and shaping instead of watching a TV show. He would drink her tea with her sugar. And in the hallway, one meter away from him, would stand the caviar and the trout, bought with money he supposedly did not have for so much as a loaf of bread for this house.
It was not merely stinginess. It was disrespect. Total, deafening indifference wrapped in pretty words.
“Valera,” she said quietly.
“Hm?” He was already pulling off one shoe.
“Put it back on.”
Valera froze, one shoe in hand, balancing like a heron.
“I don’t get it. What’s wrong, Inga? Did something happen? A pipe burst?”
“It burst, Valera. My patience burst.”
“What are you talking about?” He was still smiling, but the smile had turned confused and foolish. “I’m hungry. You invited me yourself…”
Inga walked over to the glossy bags.
“You’ve stocked your mother’s fridge in grand style? Good for you. Well done. Son of the year. So go to your mother. Let her make you a caviar sandwich. Or fry you some fish. Because my social cafeteria, as of now, is closed for inventory. Permanently.”
“You… you’re throwing me out?” Valera lowered his stockinged foot onto the dirty doormat. His eyes went wide. “Over food? Inga, that’s low! To reproach a man over a crust of bread? I didn’t expect such pettiness from you!”
“Pettiness, Valera, is when a healthy moose spends three months eating at the expense of a woman who earns less than he does, while pinching every penny on her so he can buy delicacies for another house. That’s not pettiness. That’s piggishness.”
“But it’s for my sick mother!” Valera shrieked, and his noble baritone cracked into a squeak.
“Then go to your mother!” Inga raised her voice, something she rarely did. “Go and eat there! With all your phosphorus and omega-3! Maybe you’ll grow a conscience while you’re at it!”
She flung the front door wide open. Cold air drifted in from the stairwell.
“Take your rations and get out.”
Valera went red. Then pale. Then blotchy. He had understood that there would be no dinner. The meatballs were canceled. The warm kitchen and soft chair were canceled.
He hastily pulled on his jacket, tangling himself in the sleeves. Grabbed his bags. Glass clinked inside them.
“Idiot!” he spat, already standing in the doorway. “Hysterical woman! Old maid! Who needs you and your cutlets anyway? I only came to you out of pity!”
“Run along, Uncle Mitya,” Inga smirked, recalling the old saying. “Before your caviar gets warm and spoils.”
And she slammed the door right in his face. Loudly. Satisfyingly. Hard enough that plaster probably shook loose. She turned the lock twice. Then put on the chain for good measure. Then tugged the handle just to be sure.
Silence.
Inga leaned her back against the door and closed her eyes. Her heart was pounding somewhere in her throat. Her hands were trembling.
That’s it, she thought. Alone again.
She slowly walked into the kitchen. Picked up her own shopping bags. Emptied the potatoes into the drawer beneath the sink. Took out the milk.
On the stove, meatballs in tomato sauce were simmering in a pan. Fragrant, tender.
Inga took out a plate. Put three on it. Ladled over plenty of sauce. Cut herself a slice of black bread. Poured a shot — not valerian, no, but homemade cranberry liqueur she kept in the cupboard “for colds.”
“Well then. Here’s to seeing clearly,” she said to the silence.
She drank. Chased it with a meatball.
Good Lord, it was delicious. And most importantly, no one was smacking over her shoulder, no one was rambling about geopolitics with a full mouth, and no one was eyeing the food on her plate with silent calculation.
Her phone beeped in her pocket. A text. From Valera.
“Inga, you overreacted. I’m prepared to forgive your outburst. Let’s discuss everything calmly. I’m at the bus stop, it’s cold.”
Inga snorted, deleted the message, and blocked the number.
“Freeze, freeze, wolf’s tail,” she muttered, wiping up the last of the sauce with a piece of bread.
Ahead of her lay a long, peaceful evening. Tomorrow was a day off. And there was a whole pan of meatballs now, enough to last three days. And with the money she’d save, she could finally treat herself. Buy a pastry, maybe. Or a new pair of slippers.
