Part 1: Sterile Stifling Air
The air in the private clinic room was so pristine it felt dead. It carried the smell of antiseptic, expensive plastic, and the lilies Georgiy had brought the day before. Polina lay on the tall bed, staring at the strange dance of shadows on the ceiling. After childbirth, her body felt unfamiliar, like a machine that had been taken apart and hastily reassembled, its pieces still not fitted together properly. She was a restorer of monumental sculpture, a woman used to moving massive stone blocks and spending entire days suspended high beneath cathedral domes, yet now she felt as delicate as a porcelain doll.
The door opened without a sound. Georgiy appeared in the doorway.
As always, he looked immaculate: a sand-colored cashmere coat, perfectly styled hair, and that expression of sorrowful concern he usually wore when telling clients that their “authentic eighteenth-century original” was nothing more than a very good imitation. Georgiy worked as an antique appraiser, but what he valued most was not old treasures. It was the comfort they could buy.
“Hi, love,” he said softly, gliding toward her and sitting on the edge of the bed. “How’s our little hero? Sleeping?”
“He is,” Polina replied quietly. “They just took him for some procedures. Gosh, you seem tense. Did something happen?”
Georgiy sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose with theatrical weariness. It was his trademark gesture whenever he was about to begin one of those long, tangled speeches meant to leave the other person feeling guilty.
“Polya, we need to talk seriously. While you’ve been here, I’ve been thinking a lot about us. About the future. About family.”
“About family?” she repeated, feeling an unpleasant chill in her stomach that had nothing to do with the open window.
“Exactly. My brother, Vitalik… you know things are awful for him and Zhanna right now. They’re suffocating in that tiny two-room apartment with Mom. The kids are practically on top of each other all the time. And Zhanna’s pregnant again, can you imagine?”
“And?” Polina tensed. Her instincts, sharpened by years of working with stone, told her a crack was about to split wide open.
“Mom and I talked it over,” Georgiy said, pausing and avoiding her eyes, “and we decided the fair thing would be to help them. While you’ve been here, I moved your things to Mom’s place.”
Polina blinked, trying to process what he had just said. His words landed like heavy stones.
“You moved my things where?”
“To Milena Petrovna’s. Into my old room. It’s small, but cozy. The three of us will be… warm there. And Vitalik and Zhanna are moving into your apartment. They need it more, Polya. They have children, they need the space. And really, how much room do we need with a newborn? Besides, Mom will help you with the baby.”
He spoke quickly, stumbling over his words, as though afraid she might interrupt. But Polina stayed silent. She looked at her husband and no longer saw the man she loved. She saw a slick, alien figure who, while she was weak and helpless, had taken it upon himself to dispose of the property she had inherited from her father, a well-known architect. Her father’s three-room apartment in a Stalin-era building with high ceilings. Her fortress. Her workshop.
“You gave my apartment to your brother?” Her voice came out dull and low. “Without asking me? While I was giving birth to your son?”
“I didn’t give it away, I let them stay there! We’re family, Polya! Don’t be so selfish. You’re emotional right now, your hormones are all over the place. I knew you’d make a fuss, so I handled it myself. I already gave them the keys. Your boxes are at Mom’s. The matter is settled.”
He patted her hand as if soothing an unreasonable child and stood up.
“All right, I have to run. I still need to put together the crib at Mom’s. You’re being discharged the day after tomorrow, right? I’ll come pick you up.”
He left, trailing behind him the scent of expensive cologne and the greasy feeling of betrayal. Polina lay motionless. Somewhere deep inside, instead of tears or hysteria, something dark and thick began to boil. The same kind of fury that had once helped her scrape centuries of hardened grime from the faces of marble angels.
Part 2: The Lair of the Caring Mother
The taxi stopped outside an old nine-story concrete apartment block. Georgiy fussed around the car, pulling the baby carrier out with their son inside. Polina got out on her own, ignoring the hand he offered her. Her movements were spare and sharp. During the two days since his confession, she had not shed a single tear, and that deeply unsettled him. He had expected shouting, rage, hysterics. Instead, he got nothing but ice-cold silence.
Milena Petrovna opened the apartment door. She was a large woman with a voluminous eggplant-colored hairstyle and a leopard-print robe. A wave of smells came out from the apartment: fried meat, old rags, and valerian drops.
“Oh, you’re here! Finally!” the mother-in-law cried, throwing up her hands, though she made no move to take the baby. “Come in, come in. Just keep it down, my blood pressure’s been acting up all morning.”
Polina stepped over the threshold. The hallway was cluttered with bundles, old skis, and boxes.
“Where are my things?” Polina asked without taking off her shoes.
“In Gosha’s room,” her mother-in-law said with a casual wave. “Though it turned out a bit cramped in there. We had to move your tools and those… stones of yours… into the basement. They create too much dust.”
Polina looked into the room. It was a narrow little box, barely three meters wide. Half the space was taken up by an old sofa, the other half by a pile of black trash bags. Her clothes, books, and personal belongings had been dumped there like garbage. In the corner, pressed against the radiator, stood the baby’s crib, half-buried under random rags.
“Cozy, right?” Georgiy appeared behind her, smiling so tightly it seemed his skin might split. “A bit cramped, but no harm done.”
Ksenia, Georgiy’s younger sister, peeked out from the kitchen. She was the only person in that family with both brains and a conscience. She worked as a veterinarian and spent whole days at the clinic just to avoid her mother and brothers.
“Polina…” Ksenia looked at her in horror. “I told them… I told them they couldn’t do this. They wouldn’t listen.”
“Quiet, brat!” Milena Petrovna barked. “This is none of your concern. Family should help family. Vitalik is having a hard time, he lost his job, Zhannochka is pregnant… and Polina is a rich woman, she can put up with it. The apartment came from her father, it’s not as if she earned it. It just fell from the sky.”
Polina slowly turned toward her mother-in-law. Her gray eyes had become as heavy as granite.
“My apartment,” she said very softly, but with perfect clarity, “came to me because I spent five years taking care of my bedridden father. And you decided you could handle my property like it was your own pocket change?”
“Oh, look at her, she found her voice,” Milena scoffed. “You’re married now, sweetheart. Everything is shared. And don’t you dare raise your voice in this house, or your milk will dry up.”
Georgiy tried to put his arms around her shoulders.
“Polya, don’t start. Mom’s right. This is temporary, three or four years at most, until Vitalik gets back on his feet.”
Polina shrugged off his hand with one sharp movement. She walked over to the trash bags and nudged one with her foot, checking what was inside.
“Ksyusha, hold the baby,” she said, handing the bundle to her sister-in-law.
“Where are you going?” Georgiy asked warily.
“Home. To throw out the freeloaders.”
“You will not!” shrieked Milena Petrovna. “There are children there! A pregnant woman! Georgiy, say something!”
But Polina was already leaving the room. The fury inside her had changed into something colder, more calculated. She no longer felt the pain of childbirth. She no longer felt tired. All she felt was the urge to tear everything apart.
Part 3: Feast of Vultures
Her apartment, her bright, spacious Stalin-era flat in the city center, greeted her with foreign sounds. Loud music was blasting, some primitive rap. The door wasn’t even locked. Polina pushed the heavy panel open.
Dirty shoes were scattered across the entryway. The expensive coat rack she had spent a month restoring was buried beneath jackets. Her beloved dark oak parquet floor was scratched, as if furniture had been dragged across it without care.
The living room was pure chaos. Vitaliy, Georgiy’s brother, soft-bodied, puffy-faced, with shifty eyes, was lounging in her father’s armchair with his socked feet on the coffee table. Zhanna was sprawled on the couch nearby, chewing pizza straight from the box. Their two sons, boys about five and seven, were jumping on an antique sofa, flinging popcorn at each other.
“Well, look who showed up, the lady of the house!” Vitaliy belched and stretched lazily. “What, no warning? Gosha said you’d be moping at his mother’s place.”
Zhanna gave Polina an irritated once-over, wiping her greasy fingers on the velvet upholstery.
“Hey, Polina,” she drawled, “tell your husband to get a repairman in here, the faucet in the bathroom makes this weird noise. And honestly, you could’ve freshened the place up before we moved in. Everything’s so old and gloomy. We’re thinking of tossing out these cabinets to make room for a big flat-screen.”
Polina stood in the middle of the room. She saw Vitaliy flicking ash onto the floor. She saw the boys smearing chocolate over the silk wallpaper. This was not simply a takeover. It was desecration. Contempt for her, for her work, for her father’s memory.
A moment later Georgiy came rushing in behind her, breathless.
“Polya, wait! Let’s talk calmly!” he gasped. “Vitalik, Zhanna, don’t provoke her!”
“And why’s she staring like that?” Vitaliy sneered. “She can go live with Mom. We live here now.”
Polina slowly took off her coat and tossed it over a chair. Then she rolled up the sleeves of her sweater. Her hands were a craftswoman’s hands: strong, sinewy, used to holding hammers, chisels, and grinders.
“I’m giving you five minutes,” she said in a flat voice, “to gather your junk and disappear.”
“Or what?” Vitaliy stood up, thrusting out his belly. “You gonna call your husband? Your husband let us in. You’re nobody here, woman. Know your place. Right, Gosha?”
Georgiy hesitated, his eyes darting between his brother and his wife.
“Vitalya, why be so rude… Polya, please, try to understand, they have nowhere else to go…”
Polina’s anger hit its peak. It was no longer simmering. It was a supernova going off.
Part 4: Rockfall
Polina did not scream.
She simply stepped toward the table, grabbed the edge of the tablecloth covered with beer bottles and food boxes, and yanked it with all her strength. Bottles went rolling with a clatter, pizza flew across the parquet.
“Have you lost your mind?!” Vitaliy roared and charged at her, drawing back his fist.
That was his mistake.
Polina had spent years working with stone, and stone does not forgive weakness. She dodged his clumsy swing, caught his arm, and using the momentum of his heavy body, pulled him toward her and down. Vitaliy crashed face-first onto the floor with a thunderous slam, landing right in the greasy pizza.
“They’re killing Vitalik!” Zhanna shrieked, jumping up from the couch.
Georgiy rushed at his wife, trying to grab her from behind.
“Polina, stop! Are you out of your mind?”
She spun around, shaking him off like an annoying insect, and shoved him hard in the chest. Georgiy, never expecting such force from a woman who had given birth only days ago, flew backward and slammed the back of his head against the wall, knocking into a painting.
“Out!” she roared.
“You have no right! We’re family!” Zhanna screamed, advancing with her stiletto-like nails outstretched.
Polina did not bother playing nice. She grabbed Zhanna by the back of her cheap sweater and by the waistband of her jeans, lifted her clear off the floor, and dragged her toward the door. Zhanna squealed, kicked wildly, and clawed at the doorframes, but against the strength of someone who manually maneuvers marble blocks for a living, she had no chance.
Polina threw her out onto the landing.
“Take your kids before I throw them out after you!” she shouted.
The boys, suddenly terrified into silence, ran out after their mother on their own.
Vitaliy, groaning, was pushing himself up from the floor, smearing tomato sauce across his face. The fear in his eyes turned to animal rage. He grabbed a heavy vase.
“I’ll kill you, bitch, I swear—”
Polina did not step back. She moved toward him instead, her face twisted with fury. Her hand closed around the nearest object within reach, a heavy bronze candelabrum, and she raised it. In her eyes, Vitaliy saw that she would not stop. She would swing. And she might very well kill him.
He dropped the vase, which hit the couch with a dull thud, and stumbled toward the door.
Only Georgiy remained.
He was pressed flat against the wall, staring at his wife as if she were some kind of monster. His face was white, his lips trembling.
“Polya… what are you doing… we just wanted what was best…”
Polina walked right up to him. Heat seemed to radiate from her. She grabbed the lapels of his beloved cashmere coat and ripped them apart with a harsh tearing sound. Buttons flew in every direction.
“What was best for whom?” she hissed into his face. “For your drunken brother? For your shameless mother? You betrayed me, Gosha. You betrayed our son. You brought rats into my home and expected me to live in a closet.”
Then she hit him. Not a slap. A hard, brutal punch straight to the solar plexus. Georgiy folded in half, gasping for air.
“Collect your parasites and get out of my sight.”
Part 5: Trash on the Landing
Ten minutes later, the stairwell looked like the aftermath of a battle. Vitaliy, Zhanna, and the children were huddled in a corner by the elevator. Georgiy sat hunched on the steps, clutching his stomach. His torn coat hung off him in pathetic strips, exposing an expensive shirt that had also been ripped during the struggle.
The apartment door flew open with a bang. Polina was bringing out their belongings. She wasn’t placing them down carefully. She was throwing them. Bags, shopping sacks, jackets, everything sailed across the landing.
“That’s mine!” Zhanna shrieked when her makeup bag burst open across the concrete floor.
“Then take it and leave!” Polina barked back.
The noise drew the neighbors. Uncle Misha from the floor below, a former boxer, stepped out in a tank top.
“Polina, need help?” he asked in his deep voice, taking in the sight of the disheveled but furious young woman and the frightened cluster of relatives.
“No, Mikhail, thank you. I already took the trash out,” Polina said loudly, staring straight at Georgiy.
Georgiy tried to stand, clinging to what little dignity he had left.
“Polina, you’re making a mistake. You’ll regret this. You won’t manage alone with a baby. Who’s going to want you like this… a lunatic?”
Polina stepped toward him. He instinctively recoiled and raised his hands over his head, expecting another blow. That gesture destroyed the last of him in the eyes of everyone present. The handsome aesthete, the connoisseur of beauty, had crumpled into a beaten stray dog.
“I’ll manage,” she said calmly, her voice echoing through the stairwell. “I have hands, I have a profession, and I have an apartment. You, Gosha, have nothing. You thought you married a wealthy intellectual’s heiress. You were wrong. You married a builder’s daughter who knows exactly how to break stone.”
At that moment the elevator dinged and the doors slid open. Ksenia stepped out carrying the baby. She looked at her brother, at the torn coat, at the terrified Vitaliy. Then she looked at Polina, disheveled, wild-eyed, but standing absolutely straight and unshaken.
“Polya, I brought him,” Ksenia said quietly, holding out the sleeping baby. “Mom’s having a meltdown back there, checking her blood pressure. She’s screaming that she’ll curse all of you.”
Polina gently took her son. Her face softened at once.
“Thank you, Ksyush. Come in. Are you staying?”
Ksenia nodded and moved to stand beside Polina.
“I’m staying. I’m not living with them anymore,” she said, jerking her head toward her brothers.
“Ksyukha, are you serious? Traitor!” Vitaliy howled. “We’re family!”
“You’re not family,” Ksenia shot back. “You’re parasites.”
Polina stepped back into the apartment.
“The keys,” she demanded of Georgiy.
With trembling hands, he pulled out the ring and tossed it onto the floor.
“Tomorrow, you bring back every last thing of mine, or I file a police report for theft. Now get out.”
She slammed the heavy oak door shut. The lock clicked.
Silence settled over the stairwell.
“So what now?” Zhanna snapped, elbowing her husband. “Where are we supposed to go? Back to that dump at your mother’s? There’s no room there!”
Georgiy slowly got to his feet. He was shaking. He still could not believe what had happened. He had been certain she, exhausted and carrying a newborn, would simply submit. He had always believed women were soft clay. Instead, he had run straight into granite.
He pulled out his phone to call his mother, to complain, to find comfort.
“Hello, Mom… Polina threw us out. Yes, completely. And she beat us… Mom, can I come stay with you…”
Milena Petrovna’s sharp voice blasted from the phone so loudly even the neighbors could hear:
“Stay with me? Where exactly? Vitalik and his family are on their way here now! Where do you expect me to put you, on the doormat? Are you a man or not? You couldn’t put your wife in her place, that’s your problem! Deal with it yourself, loser! I need providers, not whiners! And don’t expect any money from her now if she’s kicking you out!”
The line went dead.
Georgiy lowered the phone.
Vitaliy and Zhanna were already calling for a грузовое такси—no, a cargo taxi—without even glancing at him. They were saving their things. That was all they cared about. He had only ever mattered as a bridge into Polina’s apartment. And now that bridge had collapsed.
“Brother…” Georgiy started weakly.
“Oh, get lost, Gosha,” Vitaliy muttered, hoisting up the bags. “This whole mess is because of you. Deal with your own life now.”
They began trudging downstairs, cursing and shoving each other. Georgiy was left alone. In a torn coat, without an apartment, without money, with pain burning in his stomach and the full, merciless realization of total collapse.
The rats had scattered. The ship had sunk. And the captain stood there on the cold landing, finally understanding one thing:
he had been the one who drilled the hole in the bottom.
