“We’ll eat for now, and you can watch TV,” I said to the uninvited guests.
They viewed the apartment three times before finally deciding. Roma walked from room to room, tapping the walls with his knuckles, checking the water pressure, opening and closing the windows—as if he were buying not a home, but a living creature that might turn out to be sick. Lisa stood in the middle of the empty living room, watching the October light fall across it at an angle, and thought: the sofa will go here, the table here, and in that corner Mitka will spread out his building sets and make something huge, pointless, and beautiful.
“We’re taking it,” she told Roma, and he stopped tapping the walls.
They moved in at the end of November, on a wet gray day when the snow couldn’t seem to decide whether to fall or not, and just hung in the air as a nasty fine mist. The movers carried boxes, Mitka dashed between them, getting underfoot and bothering everyone. Lisa unpacked the dishes and felt that special quiet happiness that exists only at the very beginning—when everything is still possible and nothing has become tiresome yet.
The neighbors from across the landing appeared on the third day.
First came a ring at the door, short and somehow timid. On the doorstep stood two people: a large woman with a kind, round face, and a man just behind her—short, with neat mustaches and the expression of someone who had just been woken up. Peeking out from behind them was a boy about Mitka’s age—shaggy-haired, in an unbuttoned cardigan.
“We’re your neighbors,” the woman announced in a tone that suggested this was excellent news. “I’m Sveta, this is Andrey, and this is Artyom. Are you here for long?”
“We hope forever,” Lisa smiled.
“Oh, how wonderful!” Sveta threw up her hands. “And I see you have a boy? Artyom gets bored too—he’s such a homebody, always staring at his tablet. Maybe we should introduce the children?”
Mitka was already standing beside Lisa, looking at Artyom from under his brows with the serious expression children wear when they size each other up for the first time, deciding some important internal matter.
“Do you play Minecraft?” Artyom asked.
“I do,” said Mitka.
That settled the matter.
Lisa invited everyone in for tea—as was only proper when meeting the neighbors. She put on the kettle, took out cookies, sliced some cheese. Andrey sat silently, looking around with polite interest. Sveta talked a lot and eagerly: about the building, about the elevator that often broke down, about the concierge Valentina Mikhailovna—a stern woman, but fair overall—and about the unspoken rule in their courtyard that you weren’t supposed to park right by the entrance, or there would be a scandal.
Roma, having finished with the boxes, came over, introduced himself, drank a cup of tea, and said he was glad to have neighbors. Later Lisa cleared the table and thought: nice people. Simple. We got lucky.
The first shared lunch happened almost by itself.
It was Sunday. Lisa was making borscht—a big pot to last several days, with marrow bone and proper sour cabbage. The doorbell rang. Sveta stood on the doorstep with Artyom, saying that Mitka had invited him over to play, and she just wanted to make sure they wouldn’t be a bother. Mitka, in fact, was standing right there nodding in agreement.
“Let them play,” Lisa said.
The children went off to the room. Sveta remained in the hallway, then somehow drifted into the kitchen, because the smell from the pot was real, rich, alive—and she said so out loud several times, with growing delight.
“I can’t make borscht at all,” she admitted, sitting down on a stool. “Andrey loves it, but I just can’t. My mother never taught me.”
Lisa stirred the soup and listened with half an ear. Then Andrey called—asking where Sveta had disappeared to. Sveta explained, and ten minutes later he too was standing in the kitchen with the look of a man who didn’t care where he went, so long as he wasn’t alone.
When the borscht was ready, Lisa served everyone—it was the only natural thing to do. She couldn’t exactly throw people away from the table. Sveta ate with such sincere joy that Lisa even felt pleased. Andrey asked for seconds. Mitka and Artyom came running at the smell and devoured big bowls.
“You cook amazingly,” Sveta said, dabbing her lips with a napkin. “Truly amazingly. I could never do that.”
Roma came in just as everything was ready and ate too—now in company. The table was noisy and cheerful, Andrey turned out to have a sense of humor, telling funny stories from work. Lisa cleared the plates and thought that shared lunches were, on the whole, a good thing. That was how it ought to be between neighbors.
Then the holidays began.
First came Artyom’s birthday. Sveta invited them over, which was fair and proper. She set the table—modest, but sufficient. There was champagne for the adults and lemonade for the children. Lisa baked a cake, because she loved baking and because coming empty-handed was impossible.
“You’ll bake something, won’t you?” Sveta asked over the phone the day before. “You cook so wonderfully. The guests will be expecting it.”
Lisa baked a honey cake.
Then came New Year’s Eve—they decided to celebrate together, since there was nowhere special to go, and this way it would be more fun. Lisa made Olivier salad, aspic, and a cabbage pie. Sveta brought mandarins and a bottle of champagne.
“I would have cooked something too,” she explained as she arranged the mandarins in a bowl, “but I just don’t have your talent. You cook like a restaurant chef—I’d only ruin it.”
Lisa took it as a compliment.
Then there was a Christmas table, then either Defender of the Fatherland Day or just some gathering for no reason, then March 8, and by spring Lisa suddenly realized that the neighbors were at their table about every week and a half or two weeks, and every time for a perfectly natural reason that seemed to arise all by itself: sometimes the children wanted to play, sometimes Sveta dropped by “for a minute” and stayed three hours, sometimes Andrey came over to borrow some tool and somehow imperceptibly found himself at dinner.
Roma noticed nothing—or pretended not to. Lisa washed the dishes and thought that something here wasn’t right, but she couldn’t put into words exactly what it was.
It became clear in June.
She ran into Sveta by the elevator—Sveta was coming back from the store with a small bag. They got talking. And Sveta said, as if in passing, as if it were the most ordinary thing in the world:
“I hardly cook at all now. Why waste the time? There are sausages, dumplings—we get by. We come eat at your place anyway.”
Lisa looked at her.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“Well…” Sveta smiled broadly and openly, “we eat at your place a lot. You cook wonderfully, and we enjoy it. Why should I go to all the trouble at home?… Continued just below in the first comment.”
They viewed the apartment three times before they finally decided. Roma walked through the rooms, tapping on the walls with his knuckles, checking the water pressure, opening and closing the windows—as if he were buying not a home, but a living creature that might turn out to be sick. Liza stood in the middle of the empty living room, watching the October light slant across it, and thought: the sofa will go here, the table there, and in that corner Mitya will spread out his building blocks and construct something huge, pointless, and beautiful.
“We’ll take it,” she said to Roma, and he stopped tapping on the walls.
They moved in at the end of November, on a wet gray day when the snow couldn’t seem to decide whether to fall or not, and hung in the air as a nasty fine drizzle. The movers carried in boxes, Mitya ran between them, getting underfoot and being a nuisance to everyone. Liza arranged the dishes and felt that special quiet happiness that comes only at the very beginning—when everything is still possible and nothing has yet grown tiresome.
The neighbors from across the landing appeared on the third day.
First there was a knock on the door, short and somehow shy. On the doorstep stood two people: a large woman with a kind, round face, and a man slightly behind her—short, with neat mustaches and the expression of someone who had just been woken up. Behind them peeked a boy about Mitya’s age—shaggy-haired, in an unbuttoned cardigan.
“We’re your neighbors,” the woman announced in a tone that made it sound like wonderful news. “I’m Sveta, this is Andrei, and this is Artyom. Are you here for long?”
“We hope forever,” Liza smiled.
“Oh, how wonderful!” Sveta clapped her hands. “And I see you have a boy? Artyom gets bored too—he’s such a homebody, always staring at his tablet. Maybe we should introduce the children?”
Mitya was already standing beside Liza, looking at Artyom from under his brows with that serious expression children wear when sizing each other up for the first time, as if deciding some important inner question.
“Do you play Minecraft?” Artyom asked.
“I do,” said Mitya.
That settled it.
Liza invited everyone in for tea—as one does when meeting the neighbors. She put the kettle on, brought out some cookies, sliced some cheese. Andrei sat silently, looking around with polite interest. Sveta talked a lot and readily: about the building, about the elevator that often broke down, about the concierge Valentina Mikhailovna—a stern woman, but fair overall—and about the unspoken rule in their courtyard not to park right by the entrance, or there would be a scandal.
Roma, having finished with the boxes, came over, introduced himself, drank a cup of tea, and said he was glad to have such neighbors. Later, as Liza cleared the table, she thought: good people. Simple. Lucky us.
The first shared lunch happened almost by itself.
It was Sunday. Liza was making borscht—a big pot meant to last several days, with marrow bone and properly sour cabbage. The doorbell rang. Sveta stood on the doorstep with Artyom and said that Mitya had invited him over to play, and she just wanted to make sure it wouldn’t be a bother. Mitya himself was standing right there, nodding in agreement.
“Well, let them play,” said Liza.
The children went off to the room. Sveta stayed in the hallway, then somehow drifted into the kitchen, because the smell from the pot was real and rich, and she said so out loud—several times, with growing delight.
“I can’t make borscht at all,” she admitted, sitting down on a stool. “Andrei loves it, but I just can’t. My mother never taught me.”
Liza stirred the soup and half-listened. Then Andrei called—asking where Sveta had disappeared to. Sveta told him, and ten minutes later he too was standing in the kitchen with the look of a man who didn’t care where he went as long as he didn’t have to be alone.
When the borscht was ready, Liza served everyone—it was the only natural thing to do. She couldn’t exactly throw people out at lunchtime. Sveta ate with such sincere delight that Liza was actually pleased. Andrei asked for seconds. Drawn by the smell, Mitya and Artyom came running in and polished off big bowls.
“You cook amazingly,” Sveta said, dabbing her lips with a napkin. “Honestly, amazingly. I could never do that.”
Roma came home to a ready meal and joined the company. The table was noisy and cheerful, and Andrei turned out to have a sense of humor, telling funny stories from work. As Liza cleared the plates, she thought that shared lunches were, all in all, a good thing. That’s how it should be with neighbors.
Then the holidays began.
First came Artyom’s birthday. Sveta invited them over, which was only fair and proper. She set the table—modest, but enough; there was champagne for the adults and lemonade for the children. Liza baked a cake, because she loved baking and because coming empty-handed was unthinkable.
“You’ll bake something, won’t you?” Sveta had asked on the phone the day before. “You cook so well. The guests will be expecting it.”
Liza baked a honey cake.
Then came New Year’s—they decided to celebrate together, since there was nowhere in particular to go, and it would be more fun that way. Liza made Olivier salad, aspic, and a cabbage pie. Sveta brought mandarins and a bottle of champagne.
“I would have cooked something too,” she explained, arranging the mandarins in a bowl, “but I just don’t have your talent. You cook like a restaurant. I’d only ruin it.”
Liza took it as a compliment.
Then there was a Christmas table, then maybe Defender of the Fatherland Day or maybe just an ordinary meal for no special reason, then International Women’s Day—and by spring, Liza suddenly realized that the neighbors were showing up at their table about every week and a half to two weeks, and every time for some perfectly natural reason that seemed to arise on its own: the children wanted to play, or Sveta dropped by “for just a minute” and stayed for three hours, or Andrei came over to borrow some tool and somehow ended up at dinner before he knew it.
Roma noticed nothing, or pretended not to. Liza washed the dishes and kept thinking that something wasn’t right, but she couldn’t put into words exactly what.
It became clear in June.
She ran into Sveta by the elevator—Sveta was coming back from the store with a small shopping bag. They got talking. And Sveta said, as if in passing, as if it were the most ordinary thing in the world:
“I hardly cook at all anymore. Why waste the time? We’ve got sausages, dumplings—we’ll get by. We come to your place anyway.”
Liza looked at her.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“Well,” Sveta smiled broadly and openly, “we eat at your place all the time. You cook wonderfully, and we love it. Why should I make a fuss at home?”
Liza didn’t answer. She nodded because the elevator had arrived and they had to get in, and she said something neutral—later she couldn’t even remember what. During the ride they were silent. They got out on the same floor and went off to their apartments.
Liza stood in the middle of the hallway and stared at the wall for a long time.
Then she went into the kitchen, poured herself some tea, and began to think. She went through all those Sunday borschts and holiday pies in her mind, all the “we’re just stopping by for a second” and “oh, that smells so good,” all the plates, all the cutlery, all that hospitality she had assumed was mutual and which, it turned out, was entirely one-sided—she just hadn’t noticed before.
Sveta had stopped cooking. Because they ate at Liza’s.
Liza set her cup down on the table and felt something unpleasant—not anger yet, but something that comes before anger. Something cold and clear.
Sveta asked for clothes at the end of July.
Artyom had outgrown his jacket—that’s what Sveta said over the phone. Mitya probably had something he’d outgrown too? That would be wonderful—it was so expensive to buy new things now, surely Liza understood how prices had gone up.
Liza did understand. Liza found a jacket—good, almost new, Mitya had worn it for less than a season. She gave it away. A week later Sveta asked for sneakers.
A week after that—for a school backpack, because the zipper on Artyom’s old one had broken, and buying a new one was expensive.
Liza stood in front of the open closet, looking at Mitya’s things she was sorting and folding, and thought: I’m giving my son’s clothes to people who come to our house for lunch and don’t even think it necessary to pretend this is mutual.
She shut the closet and told Sveta there was no backpack—Mitya was still using his.
Sveta was disappointed, but accepted it.
At the beginning of September Roma finally asked:
“Liz, what’s with you?”
They were washing dishes after yet another Sunday lunch—Sveta and Andrei had just left, taking part of the pie with them in a container that Sveta herself had taken from the cupboard and filled with the easy confidence of a hostess in her own home.
“They come here to eat,” Liza said.
“Well… they’re neighbors. That’s normal, isn’t it?”
“Roma. Sveta told me in the elevator that she barely cooks at home because they eat here.”
Roma fell silent.
“Maybe she was joking?”
“She wasn’t joking.”
Roma dried a plate and put it in the cupboard. He was quiet again for a moment. Then he said:
“So what do we do?”
“I don’t know yet,” Liza answered.
But a plan had already begun to form.
It happened on an ordinary Saturday.
In the morning, Liza had made soup—a big pot of chicken broth with homemade noodles—fried cutlets, and chopped salad. Just for her own family, for a long, peaceful weekend day. Roma was reading the newspaper. Mitya was busy with his building set in his room. Everything was quiet and good.
At half past twelve, the doorbell rang. Liza opened it and saw the whole family: Sveta, Andrei, Artyom. Sveta was smiling her open, simple smile.
“We were thinking maybe Artyom could come play here for a while?” she said. “So Mitya won’t be bored.”
Liza looked at them. At Sveta with her smile. At Andrei, already unzipping his jacket with practiced ease. At Artyom, looking at his phone.
She felt something tighten in her chest—not from anger, but from a kind of almost physical exhaustion. From this endless, undefined, self-imposed obligation to feed people who had long since stopped seeing it as anything unusual.
“Come in,” she said.
They entered. Andrei went straight into the living room, Artyom headed for Mitya, and Sveta stayed in the hallway with the air of someone about to go into the kitchen.
“We’re sitting down to lunch,” said Liza.
“Oh, we’re joining you!” Sveta was already reaching to take off her coat.
“No,” said Liza.
She said it calmly. Not rudely, not sharply—she simply said it, and in that “no” there was no room for discussion.
“We’ll eat now, and you can watch TV for a while,” she said to the uninvited guests.
The hallway went very quiet.
Sveta lowered her hands. The smile did not disappear from her face at once—it faded slowly, like a light going out because of bad wiring: one more second, then another, and then it was gone.
“What do you mean?” Sveta asked.
“Exactly what I said,” Liza replied. “Let the kids play. You can sit in the living room—there’s a TV there. We’ll eat and then come in.”
“You…,” Sveta stared at her. “You’re serious?”
“I’m serious.”
The pause lasted a long time. Then Sveta did something Liza hadn’t expected, though honestly she should have: she didn’t leave, and she didn’t go into the living room either. She straightened up, and something in her changed—the softness vanished, the openness disappeared, and instead of the familiar good-natured neighbor, another woman stood before Liza: offended and ready for battle.
“So that’s how it is,” Sveta said.
“How is it?” Liza asked.
“You’re stingy,” said Sveta. “I always suspected it, but I thought no, maybe I imagined it. But you’re stingy. We’re neighbors, we’ve been friends for almost a year, our children are friends—and this over a bowl of soup?”
“A bowl of soup?” Liza repeated.
“Yes!” Tears appeared in Sveta’s voice—real or not, Liza couldn’t tell. “We come to you like family. We’re friends, we spend time together, Artyom and Mitya are inseparable. And you say ‘go watch TV’! As if we’re not people!”
“Sveta,” said Liza. Behind her she heard the living room door open—Roma had come out and stopped in the hallway, silent. “Wait. You just said ‘over a bowl of soup.’ But you yourself told me that you don’t cook at home because you eat here. This isn’t one bowl of soup. It’s a system.”
“What system!” Sveta flung up her hands. “We come over as guests! You invite us!”
“I haven’t invited you in months,” Liza said evenly. “You come on your own. At lunchtime. Which you know because you’ve been here enough times to remember it.”
Sveta opened her mouth and closed it.
“So you count every time?” she finally said, and there was a new note in her voice now—not hurt, but genuinely angry. “You keep score? Like in a cafeteria—we came, we ate, now we owe you?”
“I’m not talking about debt,” Liza answered. “I’m talking about the fact that you stopped buying groceries and cooking. You told me that yourself.”
“I just said that casually!” Sveta shouted. “I exaggerated a little! And you remembered it and now—you do this, in front of the child!”
“The children are in the room,” said Liza.
“In front of Andrei! To humiliate me in front of my husband!”
Andrei appeared from the living room. He stood beside Sveta and looked at Liza with an expression she didn’t immediately understand—and only then realized it was neither anger nor resentment. It was embarrassment. He was embarrassed—the only one of the three who truly understood what was happening.
“Maybe we should go,” he said quietly to Sveta.
“No!” Sveta brushed him off. “No, I want to say this. Liza, do you think we’re parasitizing you? Is that what you think?”
Liza was silent for a moment. Then she said:
“I think it happened by itself. Gradually. I don’t think you planned it from the very beginning. But yes. That’s what happened.”
Silence.
“This is about the clothes,” Sveta said in a different voice—quieter, but no softer. “You’re still angry about the backpack.”
“I said there wasn’t one.”
“Because you begrudged it! You bought Mitya a new one—”
“Possibly,” Liza agreed. “But they’re my things and my son. I decide whom I give them to.”
“We’re neighbors!”
“Yes, neighbors.” Liza looked straight at Sveta. “Neighbors, not family. And even in a family it isn’t considered normal to come for lunch every two weeks, bring nothing, and leave with containers.”
Sveta opened her mouth again—and closed it.
Andrei took her by the hand.
“Let’s go,” he said again.
This time Sveta listened. She walked to the door in silence, then turned around right at the threshold—and Liza saw something on her face that made her uneasy: not anger, not hurt, but something more complicated. Something like recognition. As if Sveta, at that very moment, had understood something too—and she didn’t like what she understood.
“I thought we were friends,” she said.
“So did I,” Liza answered.
The door closed.
Roma came up behind her and put his hands on her shoulders.
“You did the right thing,” he said.
“That was awful,” said Liza.
“Yes. But you did the right thing.”
They stood there in the hallway for a while—in silence, listening. Voices came from Mitya’s room—the boys were playing, having heard nothing or paying no attention.
Liza went back into the kitchen. The soup was on the stove, the cutlets under a lid, the salad waiting on the table.
She took out plates. Put three on the table—for herself, for Roma, and for Mitya. Then she went to the door and called out:
“Mitya! Lunch!”
“Coming!” came the answer from the room.
“And Artyom?”
A pause.
“He went home.”
Liza nodded to herself. She put the soup on the table, served herself, served Roma. Mitya came running in, plopped down on his chair, and stared at his bowl as if he had just completed a long, difficult journey.
“Mom, why did Artyom leave?” he asked.
“Probably something came up at home,” Liza answered.
“That’s a pity. We were building something really interesting.”
“You’ll finish it another time.”
Mitya dug into his soup. Roma sat across from her and looked at Liza with an expression he rarely wore—attentive and somehow especially quiet.
“Good soup,” he said.
“I know,” said Liza.
Outside, it was an ordinary September day—not good, not bad, just ordinary. Strange children were playing in the yard. Unfamiliar people were walking down the street. In the world, all the things were happening that happen in the world on such days—nothing special and everything at once.
Liza ate her soup and thought that a boundary is not a wall. It is simply a line you draw when you realize that without it, things stop working. Not out of stinginess, not out of calculation—simply because without it, little by little, you stop being yourself. You give away a bit at a time—soup, pies, jackets, backpacks—and then one day you look in the mirror and no longer understand what happened to the woman who once stood in an empty apartment in October and thought about the sofa, the table, and Mitya’s building blocks in the corner.
That woman had not gone anywhere. She was sitting at her own table, eating her own soup.
A few days later, she and Sveta ran into each other by the elevator. Sveta looked straight ahead. Liza said hello. Sveta nodded shortly, without smiling.
The elevator arrived. They got in. They stood in silence. They got out on the same floor and went their separate ways.
Everything was as it had been—almost.
Only now Liza knew what stood behind that “almost.” And Sveta knew it too.
Artyom still came by from time to time to see Mitya—the boys had their own separate friendship, independent of the adults, and it did not care what was happening in hallways and kitchens. They built things, argued, made up, and built again—something huge, pointless, and beautiful.
