Again with this sour stuff? Lena, are you pouring vinegar into the borscht or what? I’ve told you a hundred times—my mother’s was sweet and rich. And this? Beet water. And sour on top of it.”
Pavel pushed the plate away with disgust, and the scrape of faience on the tablecloth cut Lena more sharply than any shout. She silently watched him get up from the table, open the fridge, and take out a stick of “Doktorskaya” bologna. The usual ritual. The knife thudded dully on the cutting board, slicing off a thick, uneven round of sausage. A slice of white bread. That was it. His dinner. He sank his teeth into his sandwich with greed, staring at her defiantly, as if to say, “Look, this is real food. Not your slop.”
It was like that almost always. Whatever she cooked was wrong. The soup—watery. The cutlets—dry. The mashed potatoes—lumpy. The stew—too salty. Every dish she spent time and effort on underwent a humiliating “expert review” and was compared to an unattainable ideal—his mother’s cooking. He poked at his plate with the air of a tired gourmet, delivering a verdict with the weight of a sentence, as if her life depended on it. And in a sense, it did. Each comment was a small nail hammered into the lid of her self-esteem.
But that Tuesday everything was going to change. She decided to go all in. She took the day off and went to the market first thing in the morning for the best veal tenderloin. She’d found a complex French recipe for a meat roulade with mushrooms, herbs, and a cream sauce in white wine. This wasn’t just cooking; it was a rite. She finely chopped the champignons, sautéed them with onions to a golden hue, inhaling the spicy aroma. She carefully pounded the meat into a thin sheet, salted, peppered, sprinkled it with fresh thyme. She rolled the roulade with such tenderness as if swaddling a newborn, tied it with kitchen twine, and slid it into the oven.
The whole house filled with a thick, maddening scent of roasted meat, garlic, and wine. When Pavel came home from work, the aroma greeted him at the door. He sniffed in surprise and went to the kitchen. Lena, her cheeks flushed from the heat, was just pulling the roulade from the oven. It was perfect: a ruddy, crisp crust, clear juices seeping out. She sliced it into thick pieces, and the cut revealed a beautiful spiral of dark mushroom filling.
“And what’s all this fancy stuff?” Pavel snorted, sitting down at the table.
She set a plate before him, bathing the meat in a velvety sauce. Her heart was pounding in her throat. Now. He’d taste it and be left speechless. It wasn’t just good. It was divine. He lazily speared a piece with his fork and put it in his mouth. He chewed slowly, the same bored expression on his face. Lena froze, barely breathing. He swallowed. Looked at her.
“Well, it’s edible,” he said indifferently and set the fork aside.
Then he got up. Went to the fridge. Took out the Doktorskaya and the bread. Right in front of her, next to the plate where her culinary masterpiece was steaming, he began assembling his primitive sandwich. He ostentatiously bit off a huge chunk, smacking loudly with pleasure.
“There! Simple, understandable food. Not this… French paste of yours. No taste at all.”
And at that moment Lena didn’t feel anything. No hurt, no anger, no urge to burst into tears. Something inside her clicked and went still. As if a crucial fuse had blown—the one responsible for trying to prove anything to this man. She simply looked at him, at his chewing mouth, the bread crumbs on the tablecloth, and one single thought formed in her head with absolute, icy clarity. Fine. You want simple food? You’ll have it.
The next evening Pavel stepped into the apartment and stopped short. He was met by an unusual silence and the sterile smell of cleaner. Normally by the time he came home the kitchen would already be carrying the aromas of dinner—one he would inevitably criticize. Now the stove was cold and dark, and there wasn’t even a plate of sliced bread on the table. Lena was sitting in the living room with a book; she raised at him a calm, almost indifferent gaze.
“And where’s dinner?” he asked, kicking off his shoes. The question came out more puzzled than demanding.
“There won’t be any dinner,” she said evenly, turning a page.
“What do you mean? You didn’t cook?”
“I cooked,” she put the book aside and stood up slowly.
He followed her with his eyes as she walked into the kitchen. She didn’t rattle any pots. She took down one pretty porcelain plate from the top shelf—the kind they used only on holidays. Set out a single set of cutlery. Took from the fridge a piece of meat wrapped in parchment. It was a perfect ribeye steak, laced with thin marbling. On a smoking pan with a drop of oil and a sprig of rosemary, the meat hissed, instantly filling the kitchen with a rich, teasing aroma.
Pavel stood in the doorway, watching the silent performance. She didn’t fuss. Her movements were precise and smooth. She seared the steak exactly three minutes on each side, let it “rest” on the board, and poured a little red wine into a tall glass. One glass. She sliced the meat into neat strips, laid it on the warm plate beside a handful of arugula drizzled with balsamic. And she sat down at the table.
She ate slowly, with visible, almost theatrical enjoyment. She closed her eyes as she cut another piece, chewed thoroughly, washed it down with wine. She didn’t look at him. She was completely absorbed in her dinner, her ritual. Pavel felt a dull irritation boiling up inside him. He wasn’t hungry—he could eat a whole stick of sausage if he wanted—but the act itself infuriated him. Her detachment. Her ostentatious pleasure.
“What’s this? You opened a restaurant for yourself?” he couldn’t hold back.
Lena swallowed, dabbed her lips with a napkin, and only then looked at him. There was no challenge or anger in her eyes. Only cold, polite calm.
“I’m just eating. And there’s sausage and bread in the fridge for you,” she nodded toward it. “You like simple food. I decided not to torment you with my dishes anymore. Eat what you truly enjoy.”
On the second day the story repeated itself, but on a grander scale. When he came in, the apartment floated with a divine smell of garlic, cream, and seafood. Lena sat at the table before a plate of fettuccine swimming in a delicate sauce with king prawns and mussels. Beside it stood a little dish of fresh Parmesan. Again, she ate alone, slowly twirling the pasta on her fork.
Pavel didn’t ask this time. He walked to the fridge in silence, yanked the sausage off the shelf with a crash, and slammed it on the table. He cut the bread as if hacking up an enemy. He didn’t look at her, but he could feel her calm with his skin. He choked down his dry sandwich, while that creamy-garlicky aroma stabbed at his nose—a taunt now, a personal insult. He couldn’t understand what was happening. She didn’t shout, didn’t cry, didn’t argue. She simply deprived him of the main thing—the power to pass judgment. She took away his role as the judge, leaving him alone with his “signature” sandwich, which suddenly tasted pathetic and flavorless. He finished, clenched his fists, and looked at her. She was just finishing her glass. Pavel’s gaze darkened. He was no longer surprised. He was furious.
The third day met Pavel with a scent that was almost offensive in its refinement. It was the thick, enveloping aroma of mushrooms fried in butter with thyme and garlic. The smell promised not just food, but pure, unclouded pleasure. He entered the kitchen like a battlefield, already wound tight. Two days of humiliating sandwich-eating accompanied by her quiet feasting had brought him to a boil.
Lena sat at the table. Before her, in a deep ceramic bowl, steamed a cream soup of wild mushrooms, garnished with golden croutons and drops of truffle oil. She lifted the spoon to her lips unhurriedly, with regal composure; her face was utterly unreadable. She knew he was standing behind her. She felt his heavy, ragged breathing, but didn’t turn.
“Had your fun?” His voice was low and hoarse, stripped of irony. The voice of a man whose patience had snapped.
She slowly swallowed, set the spoon on the napkin, and only then turned her head. Her gaze was cold as December ice. She said nothing, and that silence lashed him like a whip. He had expected anything—tears, screams, pleading—but not this icy, annihilating calm.
“I’m talking to you!” he barked, taking a step forward. “You think you can ignore me in my own house? Put on a circus of showy performances?”
“I’m just having dinner,” she said evenly, and that simplicity drove him over the edge.
Everything in him exploded—resentment simmering not only these three days but for years. All his wounded pride, all the rage that his familiar world, where he was king and god, had collapsed. With one motion he swept her bowl off the table. Hot soup and shards of ceramic flew across the floor. But it wasn’t enough. His eyes fell on the pot on the stove. He grabbed it and, with a wild roar, hurled it down. The thick mushroom mass splattered the walls and cabinets, leaving repulsive, steaming blotches.
Lena jumped up, recoiling. But he was already there. He grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her so hard her teeth clicked.
“Thought I’d put up with this?! Thought you were the clever one?!”
His hand flashed up, and a sharp, searing slap threw her against the kitchen unit. Her hip struck the edge of the counter, but she didn’t scream. She only clutched at her burning cheek, staring at him with eyes wide in shock. He swung again but punched the wall beside her head.
“I told you how it’s going to be!” he hissed into her face, gasping with rage. “From this minute you cook for me! What I say, when I say! And you’ll sit and watch me eat! You got that? Or I’ll beat the life out of you—you’ll regret you were ever born!”
He stepped back, breathing hard, surveying the fruits of his fury: the wrecked kitchen, the food smeared across floor and walls, his wife pressed against the cabinet. He felt victorious. He’d put her in her place.
But Lena straightened slowly. A livid mark was blooming on her cheek. She looked him straight in the eyes, and there was no shock or fear left there. Only a desert, burnt to ash.
“If my cooking is so disgusting to you, why the tantrum? Cook for yourself. You’ve got your signature sandwich. Go choke on it.”
She walked around him without touching and left the kitchen, leaving him alone amid the chaos he had created. He heard the bedroom lock click. Victory suddenly tasted bitter and hollow.
The night passed in a thick, viscous silence, divided by a wall and a locked door. Pavel didn’t sleep. He scrubbed the congealing splashes of soup off the walls and cabinets, washed the floor, gathered shards. He didn’t do it out of remorse, but out of a spiteful, stubborn desire to erase the traces of his defeat, to return the kitchen to its former state, as if nothing had happened. As if he were still master of this space, this order. In the morning he went to the bedroom door several times and knocked—first demanding, then almost conciliatory—but there was no sound in reply. That silence infuriated him more than any scream.
Around noon, as he sat in the kitchen drinking cold coffee, the doorbell rang. A short, authoritative ring, not repeated. Pavel jerked. He wasn’t expecting anyone. He opened the door and froze. On the threshold stood Viktor Danilovich, Lena’s father. A tall, heavyset man with a hard, unreadable gaze that always made people uneasy. He didn’t say hello. He simply stepped inside, forcing Pavel to back up.
Viktor Danilovich slowly took off his coat and hung it on the rack. His movements were unhurried but carried a hidden strength. He walked to the kitchen, and his nostrils twitched slightly, catching the faint sour whiff of yesterday’s soup that had seeped into the air. His eyes drifted over the suspiciously clean floor, the wall where a slightly darker, damp patch could still be guessed at. He said nothing. He just looked.
“Hello, Viktor Danilovich, we were just…” Pavel began, trying to sound welcoming.
“Where is Lena?” her father cut him off without raising his voice. The question didn’t sound like a question at all, but a statement of fact: I’m going to see her now.
At that moment the bedroom door opened. Lena came out. She wore a simple house dress; her hair was pinned up. She didn’t look at Pavel. Her eyes were fixed on her father. On her cheek the crimson print of the slap was still vivid, uglier for having ripened overnight. Viktor Danilovich looked at his daughter for a long time, at her cheek, then shifted his heavy gaze to Pavel. There was no anger in his eyes. Something worse—cold disgust.
“What is this?”
The voice was quiet, but so heavy and dense it seemed to fill the entire kitchen. Pavel, who was sitting at the table and staring blankly at the remains of his sandwich, flinched and turned. In the doorway stood Viktor Danilovich, Lena’s father. He wasn’t enormous, but there was something monolithic, immovable about him. He didn’t look at Pavel. His gaze slowly, with methodical distaste, took in the wrecked kitchen: the scraps of soup stuck to the wall, the dirty streaks on the floor, the shards of a plate by the baseboard.
Pavel leapt up, instinctively trying to assume a host’s posture, to pull his shoulders back. It flashed through his mind that Lena hadn’t locked herself in to cry, but to make a phone call.
“Viktor Danilovich… We… had a little quarrel. It happens, family matters.”
Finally, Lena’s father looked at him. His eyes, gray and cold like river stones, showed neither anger nor surprise. Only weary contempt. He stepped into the kitchen, and Pavel involuntarily stepped back.
“Family matters, you say?” Viktor Danilovich walked to the wall and ran a finger over a mushroom blotch, then looked at his soiled finger as if examining an insect. “Looks like a pigsty. Were you in here oinking?”
“She drove me to it!” Pavel’s voice took on a pleading yet aggressive note. “Putting on performances, eating by herself, mocking me! I’m the man of this house, after all!”
Lena appeared behind her father. She silently stood in the doorway, arms folded across her chest. The red print of a hand stood out sharply on her cheek. Viktor Danilovich glanced at his daughter; his face turned to stone for a second. Then he looked back at Pavel, and even the faintest trace of irony vanished from his voice. Only clean, cold steel remained.
“You’re not a man here. You’re a tenant. Temporary.”
Pavel was stunned. He had expected shouting, reproaches, lectures on how to treat his daughter. But that phrase knocked the ground from under his feet.
“What do you mean—a tenant? This is my home! Lena is my wife!”
“This apartment is mine,” Viktor Danilovich enunciated, taking another step and closing the distance to nothing. “I bought it for my daughter. And you live here because she allowed you to. The key word is ‘allowed.’”
The air in the kitchen thickened. Pavel stared at his father-in-law, and his swagger began to crumble like bad plaster. He wanted to object, to shout that he worked, that he contributed too, but his tongue glued itself to his palate. He saw not his wife’s father, but an owner. A man who could, with one word, erase him from this life.
“Pack your things,” said Viktor Danilovich as calmly as he had commented on the mess. It wasn’t an order; it was a statement of fact. As if he’d said, “It’s raining outside.”
“I’m not going anywhere!” Pavel yelled in desperation, trying to claw back a shred of control. “She’s my wife, and she’s staying with me!”
Viktor Danilovich looked at him in silence for several long seconds. Then he did the last thing Pavel expected. He smirked. A short, vicious smirk.
“You truly don’t get it. You have half an hour. Take what’s essential. You can pick up the rest later. Or not. I don’t care.”
He turned and left the kitchen, leaving Pavel alone amid the humiliating wreckage. Pavel stood there, glancing from his father-in-law to Lena, who didn’t so much as flinch. There was no gloating in her eyes, no regret. Nothing. A void. And that void was more terrifying than any sentence. He realized it was over. Completely and irrevocably.
He dashed into the bedroom, yanked a jacket from the hanger, shoved his phone and wallet into a pocket. When he stepped into the hall, Viktor Danilovich was already by the front door, holding it open. He didn’t hurry him; he just waited. Passing the kitchen, Pavel suddenly stopped, went back, grabbed the half-eaten stick of Doktorskaya and the leftover bread, and stuffed them into a bag. It was the last, pitiful, reflexive gesture—to take with him the symbol of his power, which had now become the symbol of his total collapse.
He walked past Lena without looking at her and stepped out onto the landing. Without another word, Viktor Danilovich simply closed the door behind him. The click of the lock sounded like a gunshot. Final.
