The greenhouse door creaked. Lyudmila did not turn around. She kept examining the roots of an orchid. She already knew who it was. The heavy, shuffling breathing and the smell of cheap tobacco mixed with a pine-tree car freshener always entered the room before Oleg did. “Digging in the dirt again?” her husband asked in his usual nasal tone, already carrying a note of complaint. Oleg worked as a taxi driver. Or rather, as he proudly put it, he “drove fares,” as if that meant independence, freedom, and answering to no boss. In reality, it meant unstable income, endless whining about gas prices, and never-ending stories about the idiots he had to drive around all day. “Plants require care, Oleg,” Lyudmila replied calmly, brushing black soil from her hands. “Unlike some people, they are grateful when someone looks after them.” “Oh, here we go,” he muttered, waving his hand as he dropped into the wicker chair meant for customers. “Kostya’s birthday is on Saturday. He’s gathering everyone at the dacha. We have to go.” Lyudmila tensed inwardly. Oleg’s circle always filled her with a steady sense of disgust. A company of “unrecognized geniuses” and lifelong victims of circumstance. Still, refusing would be harder than enduring one evening. “Fine,” she said dryly. “But I’m not drinking.” “Who’s forcing you?” Oleg snorted. “Just try to look a little simpler. You always stare at everyone like… well, you know.” He did not finish the sentence, but Lyudmila knew perfectly well what he meant. Like they were losers. Because that was exactly what they were. Part 2. A Feast of Vultures The evening at the country house of Oleg’s friend Kostya looked like a meeting of people offended by life itself. The table was packed with greasy food, cheap alcohol, and salads drowned generously in mayonnaise. Flies lazily circled over the skewers of meat. Lyudmila sat at the edge of the bench, slowly sipping mineral water. Around her, voices rose and overlapped. The wives of Oleg’s friends—loud women with tired eyes—discussed supermarket discounts and the uselessness of their husbands, doing so with a strange kind of proud suffering. The men, already heavily drunk, were solving geopolitics, global conspiracies, and the secret structure of the world. Suddenly, Oleg, softened and swollen with vodka, jumped to his feet and tapped a fork against his glass. “And my Lyuska here,” he announced loudly, sweeping his cloudy gaze around the table, “she’s a real bourgeois lady. She’s got two apartments! Can you imagine? Two! And we’re still squeezed into my two-room place, the one my grandma left me.” A sticky silence settled over the table. Every pair of eyes turned toward Lyudmila. In them, she saw envy mixed with unhealthy curiosity. “Well, look at you, Lyus,” Kostya drawled, picking his teeth with a matchstick. “Why are they just standing empty? Rent them out and let the money flow in.” “I don’t need advice,” Lyudmila said evenly. “This isn’t about advice!” Oleg suddenly snapped, the alcohol striking his head. “It’s about principle! Are we a family or not? I’ve been thinking, Lyus—why don’t you transfer the one-room place to me? Just to be fair. Or the two-room one, huh? I’m your husband, after all.” The women at the table exchanged looks. Kostya’s wife, a plump woman in a floral dress, unexpectedly gave a short, mocking laugh. “Look at him. Wants her to transfer it to him. And what did you earn, Oleg? We all remember how Lyuda worked herself into the ground. You’ve just been turning a steering wheel.” Oleg flushed in blotches. Red stains spread across his face; his neck swelled. “You stay out of it, Lenka!” he barked. “This is between us! Lyuda, tell them! Tell them you wouldn’t deny your husband anything!” Lyudmila slowly stood up. She felt no fear. Only cold, thick contempt. She looked her husband up and down as if he were a rotten root that should have been cut away long ago. “You want an apartment?” Her voice did not rise, but it became so dense and sharp that it drowned out the music from the speakers. “Then earn one, dear husband. Get off the sofa, turn off the television, and work the way I worked. Until your hands blister. Until your nerves twitch. But demanding what is mine… that is what parasites do.” She picked up her purse and headed for the exit. “Just look at her!” Oleg shrieked after her, trying to save face in front of his friends. “Found herself a queen!” But no one laughed. The men shamefully lowered their eyes to their plates, while the women watched Lyudmila’s straight back with open respect. Part 3. A Family Operation Galina, Oleg’s sister, was a loud, permanently miserable creature. She had been living with her husband Viktor in a rented Khrushchev-era apartment for three years, and every day of her life was filled with suffering over the unfairness of the universe. The housing issue had ruined her character completely, turning envy into fuel for her very existence. Oleg came to see her the day after the party, hungover and humiliated. Galina listened to his broken, chaotic story while pouring him tea. “Just look at her,” the sister-in-law hissed, pacing around the cramped kitchen. “Two apartments sitting there rotting! And her own sister-in-law, your blood, is stuck wandering through rented corners! It’s disgusting, Oleg. She doesn’t respect you. She doesn’t see you as a man!” “I told her…” Oleg mumbled weakly. “You told her badly!” Galina cut him off. “Are you a husband or a floor rag? By law everything should be shared! Well, morally shared, at least. She lives with you, which means she’s obligated to share. That’s greed, Oleg. Pathological greed.” Viktor, Galina’s husband, a gloomy man with permanently dirty fingernails, nodded sullenly from the corner. “You need to push her, Oleg. If you don’t bend her now, she’ll sit on your neck. A woman has to be kept in line. These rich ladies start forgetting their place.” Galina stopped in front of her brother and planted both palms on the table. “Do you hear me? We’re going to your place. Right now. We’ll deal with her. We’ll be your support group. We’ll explain to that flower woman how family is supposed to work. You need to put the question bluntly: either she transfers the one-room apartment to you, or at least signs it over as a gift, or…” “Or what?” Oleg blinked. “Or you show some backbone!” Galina said, bulging her eyes meaningfully. “We’re with you. We’re family. She’s just a woman with money who got too comfortable. It’s time to dispossess her a little.” The plan was simple and stupid, just like the people who had created it: overwhelm Lyudmila with numbers and pressure. Galina was certain that Lyudmila, that quiet, intelligent woman with her flowers, would crumble under the weight of “family feelings” and scandal. Part 4. A Storm in a Glass of Water Lyudmila was at home, replanting a rare species of nepenthes, a carnivorous pitcher plant. The plant was being temperamental and required a special substrate. The doorbell rang insistently, almost aggressively. On the threshold stood a delegation: Oleg, looking like a beaten dog who had suddenly imagined himself a wolf; Galina, wearing the expression of a woman ready for battle; and Viktor, fulfilling the role of silent intimidation. “We need to have a serious talk,” Galina declared from the doorway, pushing past her brother with her shoulder and entering the hall without being invited. Lyudmila slowly removed her gardening gloves. Something dark and hot began to rise inside her. It was not simply anger. It was rage mixed with a hysterical urge to laugh. They had come into her home, her fortress, to dictate terms. “Speak,” Lyudmila said, remaining in the doorway of the living room and making no move to invite them farther inside. “We discussed everything,” Galina began, looking around the apartment with contempt, “and decided that things cannot continue like this. It’s not Christian, Lyuda. You have two apartments gathering dust, while we suffer. Oleg suffers. He feels diminished.” “Diminished?” Lyudmila repeated. Her voice trembled—not from weakness, but from restrained laughter that was dangerously close to becoming a scream. “And how exactly have I pinched his dignity? By earning my own future myself?” “Don’t be sarcastic!” Galina squealed. “You have to share! Family means everything is equal! You are obligated to transfer one of the apartments to Oleg. Or give it to us to use. Free of charge! We’re relatives!” Oleg stood slightly behind her, shifting from one foot to the other. “Lyuda, really,” he muttered. “Galya’s right. Why do you need two? Are you that stingy?” At that moment, the spring inside Lyudmila—the one compressed by years of patience—snapped. She did not scream. Instead, she began speaking very quickly, almost choking on the air, and it was more frightening than any shout. “Stingy? I’M STINGY?” She took a step toward them. Her face flushed in uneven patches, her eyes widened. “Do you have any idea what it means to work eighteen hours a day? You leeches! You people who never lifted a finger to build anything of your own!” “Hey, watch it!” Viktor tried to step forward, but Lyudmila turned toward him so sharply that he recoiled. “SILENCE!” Her voice broke into a shriek. “I said SILENCE! You came into my home to divide up my skin while I’m still alive? You thought I would cluck and please you? NO!” She sprang toward Oleg. He instinctively pressed himself against the wall. “If you, you worthless excuse of a man, ever open your mouth about my apartments again… If you so much as squeak one word about square meters… YOU WILL NOT BE HERE ANYMORE! You will go live on the street, in a refrigerator box! Do you understand me?” Oleg nodded rapidly. He had never seen his wife like this before. This was not a submissive woman. This was a fury. And he understood that she was not joking. Fear rolled through his insides in a sticky wave. “All right, Lyuda, all right, I understand,” he babbled. “I’ll be quiet.” “You rag!” Galina roared. “You’re letting her talk to you like that? She doesn’t respect you at all! Come on, say something to her!” The sister-in-law, having completely lost all sense of limits, decided to attack. She lunged toward Lyudmila, apparently intending either to shove her or claw at her face. “You greedy bitch…” That was a mistake. A fatal one. Galina’s greed collided with the primal fury of a woman defending her nest. Part 5. Sanitary Pruning Time seemed to slow down. Lyudmila saw Galina’s face twisted with malice, saw her open mouth spraying saliva as she screamed. Cold calculation instantly replaced the hot wave of hysteria. Lyudmila’s hand shot forward—not to strike, but to seize. Her fingers dug firmly, painfully, into Galina’s bleached hair. “OW! What are you doing?!” Galina shrieked, losing her balance. Lyudmila did not answer. She simply pulled. Hard and sharply, using the momentum of her whole body. Galina, who had not expected physical resistance, stumbled forward, bent nearly double. Like dragging a sack of garbage, Lyudmila hauled the screaming relative out of the living room and into the hallway. “Let go! It hurts! Vitya, help me!” Galina howled. Viktor froze like a statue, unable to believe what he was seeing. Oleg, driven by some foolish instinct, decided to interfere. “Lyuda, have you lost your mind?! Let go of my sister!” he shouted, rushing toward his wife and trying to grab her hands. Lyudmila did not even look at him. She moved on instinct, like an animal cornered and forced to defend itself. Her right leg, wearing a heavy gardening boot with a ridged sole, rose in a short, precise kick. The target was not his groin. Not his stomach. His nose. The crunch of cartilage sounded like a dry branch snapping. “A-a-ah!” Oleg grabbed his face as dark blood immediately poured through his fingers. With one hard motion, Lyudmila threw open the front door. First, she flung Galina out onto the stairwell landing. The woman rolled across the doormat, screaming and tangling in her own clothes. Next came Viktor, shoved in the back so abruptly that he stumbled out before he could react. Oleg stood in the doorway, swaying, clutching his broken nose. “GET OUT!” Lyudmila growled. “ALL OF YOU!” Chaos erupted on the stairwell. Neighbors began cracking their doors open. Galina, disheveled and wild-eyed, tried to get to her feet. “We’ll call the police! You’re insane!” she screamed. Lyudmila stood in the doorway, breathing heavily. Her chest rose and fell, her hair had come loose, but her eyes were absolutely clear. Icy. She turned her gaze to her husband. Oleg stood with one foot in the apartment and the other on the landing. Blood dripped onto his shirt, the floor, and his shoes. He stared at his wife in horror. He no longer saw a woman he could bend. He saw a force of nature that would sweep him away without noticing. “So, dear husband?” Lyudmila asked quietly, almost tenderly—and that tone made Oleg’s knees weaken. “Do you want to go with them? Do you want to discuss my apartments on the stairwell? Or perhaps you’d like to move in with your sister? I’m sure their rented place is very lively.” Oleg trembled. The pain in his nose throbbed, but the fear of losing his comfortable, well-fed life—and the fear of this new, terrifying Lyudmila—was stronger. He looked at his screeching sister, at his gloomy brother-in-law, and understood: over there was an abyss. Here, it was frightening. But here, there was food, warmth, and stability. He stepped backward into the apartment, away from the open door. “No…” he whispered, smearing blood across his cheek. “No, Lyuda. I don’t want to. Forgive me. I’ll never… I’ll never say another word about the apartments. I swear.” Lyudmila watched him for several more seconds, measuring the degree of his surrender. Satisfied that the lesson had been learned, she slammed the door shut in the face of the still-screaming Galina. The lock clicked. Then she turned to her husband. He pressed himself into the coat rack, expecting another blow. “Take a rag,” Lyudmila said in an ordinary tone as she walked past him toward the bathroom to wash her hands. “Clean up the blood. And in five minutes, I don’t want even the thought of them left in this house.” Oleg slid down the wall to the floor, sobbing softly and pressing his sleeve to his broken nose. He knew he would never dare open his mouth again. There was only one master in this house. And it certainly was not him.