Olga stood in the hallway outside the door of her own apartment, brushing snow off her fur hat. Tiny white flecks fell onto the rubber mat she had bought two years earlier at the market near Moskovsky Station.
Then she dusted off her light-colored jacket, not wanting to carry any extra dampness into the house.
She had come back from the dacha a day early because that morning Valentina Petrovna, a neighbor from the holiday village, had called with important news. Valentina Petrovna also lived in Samara, in the same courtyard as Olga, and they often spoke on the phone about everyday household matters.
This time, it was about a gas inspection. You could not afford to miss those, the neighbor had warned. The fines were enormous, and they could even shut off the gas until the technicians returned for another visit.
Olga had not woken her husband and son at six in the morning. She had simply left a note on the kitchen table explaining everything and gotten behind the wheel.
The three-hour drive along the winter highway passed without incident. The roads had been cleared, and Olga reached the city faster than she had expected.
She pulled the keys from her jacket pocket and unlocked the door. It opened easily, and Olga stepped straight into the entryway.
On the floor stood a familiar pair of felt boots. Her mother-in-law had been wearing them for three winters already. The gray felt was stained with brown streaks from the chemicals spread on the streets, and the left boot leaned slightly inward, shaped by the peculiar way Galina Stepanovna walked.
Next to them stood a completely unfamiliar pair of high-heeled boots. Footwear like that looked absurd in Samara in January, with its icy sidewalks and snowdrifts.
Strange sounds were coming from the bedroom. Someone was shifting boxes, rustling fabric, clinking hangers together.
Olga slipped off her boots and walked down the corridor. The bedroom door stood wide open.
Her mother-in-law was standing in front of the open wardrobe, taking Olga’s clothes off the shelf. She grabbed each sweater, crumpled it carelessly, and tossed it into a large black garbage bag.
The bag was already half full. Next to her bustled a young woman of about twenty.
It took Olga a moment to recognize her as Oksana, her mother-in-law’s niece from Buguruslan. They had only seen each other twice, at a couple of family gatherings, and Olga had barely remembered her face.
Now Oksana was hanging her bright dresses and blouses from her own wardrobe onto the newly emptied hangers.
“What is going on here?”
Both women turned around at the same time. Her mother-in-law froze, Olga’s cashmere pullover still in her hands.
Oksana looked at the owner of the apartment without the slightest hint of embarrassment, as if Olga’s appearance in her own home were somehow the inappropriate thing.
Two years earlier, her mother-in-law had asked them for a spare set of keys. Just in case, she had said.
You never knew what could happen. What if a pipe burst? Someone ought to be able to get into the apartment in an emergency.
Olga had not objected, though she had felt a faint sense of unease. Her relationship with her mother-in-law had never been warm, but they had managed to avoid open conflict.
Galina Stepanovna lived about an hour outside Samara, in the settlement of Kinel, and did not come to their home often. Usually, she only visited for her grandson’s birthday and for New Year.
Olga and Andrei had spent three years fixing up the dacha. They had installed gas heating, insulated the walls with mineral wool, and put in good plastic windows.
Now the dacha could be lived in year-round. When the couple’s vacations happened to overlap, they decided not to waste money on expensive trips.
Why fly somewhere and stand in passport control lines when they could spend two quiet weeks surrounded by snow-covered pines? Alyosha was on school break, and the boy had been thrilled by the idea of living in nature for a while.
Olga had left with a completely calm heart. The apartment had been empty and securely locked.
She had expected no surprises.
“Why are you yelling?” her mother-in-law snapped, throwing the pullover into the bag and planting her hands on her hips. “You storm in here and don’t even say hello.”
Olga noticed that Galina Stepanovna had chosen aggression as her best form of defense. That suited her perfectly.
“I asked a simple question. What is happening here?”
“What is there not to understand?” her mother-in-law said in the tone of someone explaining the obvious to a slow child. “Oksana needs to study. She came all the way from Buguruslan to Samara for classes.
Three hundred versts, mind you. And you’re living at the dacha anyway, while this apartment just sits empty.”
Olga turned her gaze to the niece. Oksana had already made herself comfortable on the bed and had propped Olga’s pillow behind her back.
Her makeup was far too heavy, almost shockingly so in the daylight. Thick black eyeliner, red lipstick, blush in a dark shade that did not suit her at all.
It all looked painfully out of place in natural light.
Gold drop earrings glinted in Oksana’s ears.
Olga recognized them instantly. They were hers.
She decided to stay silent. She was curious to see how far her mother-in-law’s reasoning would go if she let her finish.
“We left for the dacha for only two weeks,” Olga said, trying to remain calm. “We’ll be back in one week. What kind of outrageous nerve does it take to move strangers into my apartment without my knowledge or consent?”
Oksana clicked her tongue without looking up from the glossy magazine she was leafing through. She had taken it out of her bag and was turning the pages with total indifference to the conversation unfolding around her.
A smiling model in an early-2000s dress was on the cover. Judging by the look of it, the magazine was very old.
At that moment, the doorbell rang.
“Don’t just stand there,” her mother-in-law threw over her shoulder. “Go answer it.”
Everything inside Olga trembled with rage at such brazen insolence. She clenched her fists so tightly that her nails dug into her palms.
Then she forced herself to take a deep breath, slowly counted to five, and went into the hallway.
Two men in blue work overalls stood at the door. One of them held a clipboard with papers, while the other carried a small toolbox.
“Gas service. Scheduled equipment inspection.”
“Please, come in. The kitchen is straight down the hall, at the end.”
Olga led the technicians to the kitchen. She showed them where the gas valve was and where the stove stood.
The men got to work, and Olga returned to the bedroom.
Oksana kept flipping through the magazine and did not even raise her eyes when the owner of the apartment came back in. She had spread herself across the bed as if she were in her own home.
Meanwhile, her mother-in-law continued sorting through the wardrobe as though nothing unusual were happening.
“Olya, put that attitude of yours away,” Galina Stepanovna said in a lecturing tone. “Oksana needs peace and quiet for studying. Andrei isn’t made of glass. He can sleep on the sofa in the living room for a while.
It won’t hurt him.”
“Exactly,” Oksana chimed in, still not looking up from the magazine. “That works for me.”
Olga wanted to make a scene loud enough for the entire building to hear. She wanted to grab the garbage bag stuffed with her clothes and dump it straight over the heads of both women.
She wanted to throw Oksana’s suitcase off the balcony. She wanted to finally say everything she had been thinking about her mother-in-law all these years.
But then, suddenly, she grew calm. In the span of a few seconds, a clear plan formed in her mind.
She decided to teach the brazen pair a lesson they would never forget.
“Give me the apartment keys,” Olga said.
“As if!” her mother-in-law actually laughed. “I gave them to Oksana. How else is she supposed to get in and out while she’s living here?”
Olga took another deep breath so she would not lose control.
“Ma’am!” someone called from the kitchen. “Could you come here, please? We need your signature.”
Olga left the bedroom and went to the kitchen. The men in overalls had already finished the inspection and packed their tools back into the case.
The older one held out the inspection report to her.
“Everything is in order. No gas leaks, the equipment is functioning properly, no issues to report.
Please sign here and here, where the check marks are.”
Olga read the document carefully, made sure everything had been filled out correctly, and signed where indicated. Then she walked the technicians to the front door and thanked them for their work.
After they left, she returned to the bedroom.
“I need to drive back to the dacha,” Olga said. “So I’m asking you one last time: leave my apartment.”
Her mother-in-law slowly shook her head, looking down at her daughter-in-law.
“Go on, then. Safe travels. Everything has already been decided without you.
You shouldn’t talk back to your elders. Look at the nerve of you.”
Without another word, Olga got dressed in the hallway. She pulled on her boots, zipped up her jacket, and put on her hat.
Then she stepped out of the apartment and took the stairs down, because she did not feel like waiting for the elevator.
Outside, the wind drove snow across the ground in low swirling sheets. Fine flakes slipped under her collar and prickled at her neck.
Olga reached her car, got behind the wheel, shut the door, and took out her phone.
“Police. Duty officer speaking.”
“Good afternoon. I want to report that there are unauthorized people inside my apartment.
I asked them to leave, but they are refusing to leave the premises.”
“Please give me your address.”
Olga recited the address, the apartment number, and the entrance number. The duty officer wrote everything down and promised to send a patrol car within half an hour.
Olga thanked him and placed the phone on the passenger seat.
She leaned back against the seat and closed her eyes.
The police arrived twenty minutes later. Two sergeants in winter coats and fur hats stepped out of a car with a blue stripe along the side.
They came over to Olga, and she explained the situation. Then she showed them her passport with the registration stamp for that address.
And the certificate proving ownership of the apartment, which she had grabbed when leaving.
The three of them went up to the third floor.
Olga rang the bell of her own apartment. Her mother-in-law opened the door and froze in the doorway, mouth hanging open at the sight of the police officers.
Oksana peeked out from the bedroom and froze as well.
“What is the meaning of this?” her mother-in-law found her voice first. “Why is the police here?”
“Is this your apartment?” one of the sergeants asked, looking at Galina Stepanovna.
“It belongs to my son!”
“Is your son registered here?”
Her mother-in-law had no answer. Andrei was not registered in that apartment, because it had belonged to Olga before the marriage.
She had inherited it from her parents.
Olga walked past her stunned mother-in-law and went straight to the niece. She stopped directly in front of Oksana and held out her hand, palm open.
“Take off my earrings and give them back,” Olga said. “Or I will file a theft report right now.”
Oksana went pale beneath her heavy layer of blush. She quickly raised her hands to her ears, unclasped the earrings, and placed them in Olga’s palm.
“And give me the apartment keys too.”
The niece hurriedly rummaged through her bag, pulled out the keyring, and handed it over.
Meanwhile, the police officers asked Olga’s mother-in-law to show identification. Galina Stepanovna spread her hands helplessly and explained that her passport was still at home in Kinel, because she had not thought she would need it.
The sergeants politely but firmly asked her to accompany them to the station to verify her identity. It was standard procedure, they explained, and would take no more than a couple of hours.
Oksana followed her aunt out.
Her mother-in-law complained all the way from the apartment to the elevator. She loudly declared that Olga would bitterly regret what she had done.
She threatened to tell her son, insisting that he would never forgive his wife for treating his mother this way. She promised to tell every relative what a cruel and ungrateful daughter-in-law Olga was.
The elevator doors closed, and at last her voice faded away.
Olga went back into the apartment and locked the door behind her. She walked into the bedroom and looked around.
The mess was substantial, but not disastrous.
Silently, she began gathering up the belongings of her unwanted guests. First she took all of Oksana’s dresses and blouses off the hangers.
Then she collected the girl’s underwear, cosmetics, hair dryer, and other odds and ends from the shelves. She stuffed everything carelessly into Oksana’s suitcase without worrying about neatness.
She zipped the suitcase closed and set it out in the hallway near the elevator.
Then she walked through every room in the apartment. She carefully checked whether anything else valuable was missing.
Fortunately, everything else was still in its place.
Olga carefully put the earrings back into the jewelry box on the dressing table. She took her own things out of the black garbage bag and arranged them back on the shelves.
The cashmere pullover had to be steamed because it was badly wrinkled.
At half past four in the evening, Olga got behind the wheel again. Ahead of her lay another three-hour drive along the winter road.
But it no longer seemed difficult. Andrei and Alyosha were waiting for her at the dacha.
Most likely, her husband had already chopped firewood for the evening and heated the bathhouse, just as they had planned that morning.
Olga decided she would not tell her family anything. Let the rest of the vacation pass peacefully, without unnecessary worry.
She would come back, say that the inspection had gone well, and they would continue отдыхать together.
She was completely certain that her mother-in-law would stay quiet about what had happened that day as well. The whole story was too humiliating to share with her son.
What mother would want to admit that she and her niece had been escorted out of an apartment by the police?
And if Galina Stepanovna did decide to tell him, Olga thought, then let her.
Olga had absolutely nothing to be ashamed of.
She had simply thrown uninvited guests out of her own home.
