“Listen, Galya, I’ve been thinking. This isn’t right. We’ve been together for five years, and the apartment is still registered in your name. So tomorrow we’re going to the notary, and you’ll transfer a share to me. I’m a man. I’m the master of this house. I’m embarrassed in front of the guys that I’m living here like some temporary guest. Can you imagine this insane situation?” Igor casually took a sip of the coffee I had just brewed and stared out the window with the expression of someone already deciding where to put his new billiard table.
At that moment, I was slicing cheese. A thin piece of discounted Gouda, bought for 150 rubles, slipped from the knife and fell onto the sticky floor. He had spilled something again and hadn’t wiped it up. Pig. I didn’t scream. I didn’t drop the knife. My fingers simply tightened around the handle so hard that my knuckles turned white.
The thick smell of overfried bacon hit my nose. Igor demanded breakfast “like in the best homes,” even though he hadn’t paid a single kopeck for that breakfast himself. In my ears, there was the irritating sound of the dripping faucet.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
Igor had promised to fix it a month ago.
The master of the house, my foot. Once he appears, you can’t erase him.
“What do you mean, transfer it, Igor?” I slowly turned toward him, wiping my hands on my apron. The apron was old and stained, but clean. Unlike my dear husband’s conscience. “I think you overdid it with yesterday’s beer. What exactly do you have to do with this apartment?”
“Oh, don’t start your usual whining,” Igor grimaced, as if he suddenly had a toothache. “We’re a family. Shared pot, all that. Did I nail the baseboards here? I did. Did I assemble the wardrobe in the hallway? I did. That means I have rights. But every time something happens, you immediately start with, ‘my apartment, my mortgage.’ You’re suffocating me, Galya. Suffocating me with your greed. So, tomorrow at two o’clock. I’ve already arranged everything.”
I slowly sat down on the stool. Suddenly, standing became difficult; my legs felt as heavy as lead.
Unbelievable. He nailed the baseboards. The same ones that fell off a week later and that I later fixed myself with liquid nails.
Let me tell you about this “shared pot.”
Five years ago, when we had just moved in together, I was flying. I was a fool. A fool in love.
I had fought tooth and nail for this apartment. Five years without a vacation. Two shifts at the pharmacy, night duties, side jobs online. I forgot what new boots looked like. I wore the same ankle boots for four years, gluing the soles back on with instant adhesive. Every ruble went to the bank. Every kopeck went toward early mortgage payments.
And Igor?
Igor was “finding himself” during that time. One day he was a realtor, the next he was a manager selling thin air, and then he was simply “in a creative crisis.” Out of five years of marriage, he worked for maybe a year and a half in total. But his arrogance was enough for a minister’s chair.
Imagine that: he tells me I’m greedy. Me. The one who pays for the electricity, the water, his cigarettes, and the very sausage he is now chewing so confidently.
“Listen here, master of the house,” I said in a quiet, icy voice. For me, that is a sure sign that everything inside has burned to ashes. “The apartment was bought before the marriage. The down payment came from the inheritance my grandmother left me. The mortgage was paid with my bonuses. You are registered here temporarily, out of the kindness of my heart. There will be no notary. The subject is closed.”
Igor’s face suddenly changed. The little smirk slid off, and his eyes narrowed. He slammed the cup down on the table so hard that the remaining coffee splashed onto my clean tablecloth. May you choke on it, you parasite.
“Oh, really? So I’m nobody here? A freeloader?” He stood up and loomed over me. He smelled of stale sleep and cheap tobacco. “Galya, you’ve completely lost your mind. I’m a man. I’m the head of the family. By law, everything acquired during marriage is shared property. I called a lawyer. He said that if I prove I invested in the renovation, I could get half. So either you give me a share peacefully, or I’ll drag you through the courts. You’ll fly out of here like a cork from a bottle. You really are cunning, aren’t you? Thought you’d found some fool?”
I looked at him and didn’t recognize him.
What did he mean, he had called a lawyer? So he had planned this? While I was working a shift until midnight yesterday, he was drawing up schemes for how to take my home from me?
Well, that was just wonderful.
I felt cold, sticky sweat crawl down my back. Something clicked inside me. You know that feeling when you endure something for a very, very long time, and then — snap — silence. Absolute silence.
“Invested?” I smirked. “Do you have receipts? For those three nails and the can of paint my mother bought?”
“I have everything!” Igor shouted, his face breaking out in red blotches. “And I have witnesses! The guys will confirm how hard I worked here! So, Galya, don’t piss me off. Either we go to the notary tomorrow, or I’ll establish such rules here that you won’t know what hit you. My house, my rules!”
He turned around and went into the room. A minute later, the sound of a drill came from there.
Whirr. Whirr.
Unbelievable.
He had decided to start “renovating” so he could record his “investments.”
I went into the living room. Igor, with a savage grin, was drilling holes in the hallway wall, right above my favorite mirror. Plaster was flying onto the rug I had picked up from the dry cleaner only a week earlier.
“What are you doing, you idiot?” I tried to snatch the drill away.
“I’m cutting into the wall! There aren’t enough outlets here!” He shoved me aside with his shoulder. “Move, woman. Don’t get in the way of a man working!”
I stood there and watched the gray dust settling on the furniture. The lime scratched my throat.
At that moment, I understood: that was it. The chapter titled “Igor and Galya” was over.
I had made a mistake. It happens. But a mistake has to be corrected quickly, before it devours your entire life.
I didn’t argue. I didn’t cry. I simply went out to the kitchen, picked up the phone, and dialed a number.
“Hello, Stepan Ivanych? Good afternoon. This is Galina from apartment forty-five. Yes, the mortgage one. Listen, I have an emergency here. An outsider is wrecking my apartment. Yes, he is threatening me. No, he is not permanently registered here. His temporary registration expired a month ago; I forgot to renew it. Could you check the database? Yes, I’ll wait.”
When Igor heard my conversation, he turned off the drill. He came out into the corridor, wiping his forehead with a dirty hand.
“Who are you calling? Have you completely lost it? What police? I’m your husband!”
“You were my husband, Igor. Until the moment you decided to divide my apartment. Now you are a citizen with no valid place of registration, illegally present on private property.”
“You… you wouldn’t dare!” He took a step toward me, swinging the drill like a club.
I didn’t move. I simply looked him straight in the eyes with that icy stare.
“Just try it. The district police officer will be here in three minutes. He is one of my regular customers at the pharmacy, and we’re on good terms. Do you want to spend fifteen days in detention for disorderly conduct? Go ahead.”
Igor deflated. Not immediately, but slowly, like a punctured tire. He threw the drill onto the floor. The crash of metal against laminate hit my ears painfully.
“Bitch,” he hissed through his teeth. “You snake. You ruined my whole life. The guys were right — you should never get involved with career women. You have calculators instead of hearts.”
“What I have instead of a heart, Igor, is honestly earned square meters. The ones you decided to steal.”
Five minutes later, the doorbell rang. Short and demanding. The scrape of a key, heavy footsteps in the hallway. Stepan Ivanych, a heavyset man in uniform who smelled of cheap tobacco and official duty, entered the apartment.
“So, what do we have here? Family drama again?” He looked around at the wrecked corridor, the hole in the wall, and pale-faced Igor.
“Stepan Ivanych,” I said, handing him a folder with documents. “Here is the ownership certificate. Here is the house register extract. This citizen is no longer registered here. I am asking for assistance in removing him from the premises. He is behaving aggressively and damaging property.”
Igor tried to mutter something about the “shared pot” and “the man of the house,” but the district officer only grunted and looked at him like he was a louse.
“Listen, master of the house. Do you have documents for this property? No? What about registration? Also no. Then here’s how it’s going to be: pack your things. You have five minutes. If you don’t manage it, we’ll process this as resistance. Galina, do you object to him taking his belongings?”
“Let him take them,” I nodded. “Just quickly.”
It is amazing how fast people pack when the law in uniform is standing over them. Igor dashed around the apartment, throwing his things into an old sports bag. Underwear, socks, phone chargers — everything flew into one heap. He didn’t fold them neatly the way I once had. He simply crumpled them, choking on his rage.
“You’ll regret this!” he shouted, pulling on his jacket. “You’ll crawl back to me! Who’s going to fix your faucet? Who’s going to put up your shelves? You’ll rot here alone inside these walls!”
“A repairman will fix the faucet for five hundred rubles, Igor. And I’ve already put up the shelf myself. Leave.”
Stepan Ivanych escorted him out by the elbow. Igor continued shouting something in the stairwell, slamming doors, promising heavenly punishment. The neighbors were probably already glued to their peepholes.
Fine. Let them watch.
The free ride was over.
When the door slammed shut, I didn’t slide down the wall. I simply locked the door with all three turns.
Click. Click. Click.
Silence.
God, what silence settled over the apartment. Even the faucet seemed to have stopped dripping. In reality, it hadn’t — I had simply turned off the water in the bathroom.
I went into the kitchen. I sat down on that same stool. His dirty cup with the remains of cold coffee was still on the table. I picked it up and, with some strange pleasure, slowly lowered it into the trash bin. The shards clinked — and it was the most pleasant sound of the entire day.
I took my hidden stash from the cupboard. A small bottle of cognac that I had kept “for compresses.” I poured some into a shot glass. I drank it. It burned.
Good.
You know, I only now realized how terribly tired I was. Tired of dragging around that misunderstanding of a man who considered himself the “master.” Tired of saving money on myself so he could “search for his calling.”
Am I scared? A little. Paying the mortgage will be harder now. Before, he at least threw in a few coins for groceries now and then. I’ll have to go back to working one and a half shifts. But at least no one will drill holes in my walls. No one will call me “woman” like an insult. No one will claim what I earned with my own sweat and sleepless nights.
Tomorrow I’ll call a locksmith. I’ll change the lock cylinder. That’s first. Second, I’ll patch that stupid hole in the hallway. I’ll buy putty, a putty knife… I’ll manage on my own.
It is unbelievable how much I can do myself, as it turns out.
How will I explain it to my friends? We had the same circle. I’ll tell them the truth. That it is better to be alone than with a rat waiting for the moment to bite the hand that feeds it.
Tomorrow is Saturday. My first day off in a month. I’ll get up late. I’ll make myself proper coffee. I’ll drink it slowly, looking at the clear sky. And no one will tell me I’m “greedy.”
An apartment is not just concrete and wallpaper. It is freedom. My personal freedom, paid for with years of labor.
And I no longer intend to share it with parasites.
I exhaled.
Calmly.
Would you allow your husband to claim your premarital apartment?
