The doorbell rang in a strangely uncertain way — not short and businesslike, the way strangers usually ring, and not casually familiar, the way family does. It was that uncertainty that made Lida pause for a second in the hallway before opening the door. She looked through the peephole and recoiled — there, on the landing, shifting from one foot to the other, stood Larisa.
Her sister.
Lida had not seen her for almost three years. Not since the day they last spoke — or rather, shouted — on the phone, when Larisa hung up and then did not answer her calls for a day, two days, a week. And then Lida stopped calling too. There was no point.
Still, she opened the door.
Larisa looked terrible. Not the way people look when they are simply tired or have not slept enough, but the way people look after they have been drowning for a long time and have finally almost reached the shore, yet still do not know whether they will be saved. There were dark circles under her eyes, her cheeks were pale, her jacket was wrinkled as if she had slept in it. In her hands was a bag full of some papers, which she was clutching as though afraid it might fly away.
“Lid,” she said. Her voice was different too — quiet, without the usual confidence with which Larisa used to speak about everything in the world. “Can I come in?”
Lida was silent for a second. Then she stepped aside.
“Come in.”
They went into the kitchen — small and cramped, with a window that looked directly onto the brick wall of the neighboring building. Lida put the kettle on, not because she wanted tea, but because she needed something to do with her hands. The children were at her mother-in-law’s, her husband was at work. The apartment was so quiet that the dripping faucet could be heard.
Larisa sank onto a chair and placed the bag on her knees. She stared at the tablecloth.
“I’m in trouble,” she finally said.
“I can see that,” Lida replied. She stood by the stove, leaning her back against it, her arms crossed over her chest.
“I didn’t know where else to go. There’s no one else.”
“I can see that too. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have come.”
There was no malice in those words — only a statement of fact. Larisa lifted her eyes and looked at her sister. Something in her gaze trembled.
“Lid, I understand that we… that things between us… I understand. But please, listen to me.”
Lida nodded. The kettle boiled. She poured hot water into two mugs, placed one in front of her sister, and took the other for herself. She did not sit down — she remained standing by the windowsill.
“Talk.”
And Larisa began to speak.
The story was long and confused — Larisa kept losing her train of thought, going back, clarifying details that in truth changed nothing. Lida listened in silence, without interrupting.
Their grandmother’s apartment — large, in an old building, with high ceilings and wide windowsills where they had both spent so many childhood summer holidays — had been transferred to Larisa as a gift. Lida knew that. She had learned it three years earlier, after their grandmother had passed away and the notary read out the documents.
Back then, it felt as if the ground had vanished from beneath her feet.
She had always thought the apartment would pass to both of them — as an inheritance, equally. She, her husband, and their children were squeezed into a rented one-room apartment that was far too small for four people, and Lida had waited quietly, patiently. She had not said it aloud — it felt awkward to count someone else’s property, their grandmother’s property, while she was still alive. But deep down, she had known: Grandmother’s apartment was big, it could be exchanged for two smaller places, and then she would finally have a home of her own. Not rented. Her own.
That did not happen.
After the funeral, she called Larisa.
“How did this happen?” she had asked then, not yet angry, simply trying to understand. “When was it arranged?”
“Grandmother wanted it that way,” Larisa replied. “I took care of her, Lid. You know she was ill, she needed help. I was there.”
Lida had been silent for a long time then. Because it was a lie, and they both knew it.
She had been the one who was there. She had traveled across the entire city to see their grandmother, with the children or without them, bringing groceries and medicine, sitting with her in hospitals, staying overnight when things got really bad. Larisa had appeared rarely — once every few months, with a box of chocolates, for an hour or an hour and a half, and then disappeared again. And when Grandmother became very ill in her final year, Larisa stopped coming altogether. “Work, Lid, you understand, I have no time at all.”
And it was precisely during that final year, before Larisa stopped visiting, that the gift deed had been drawn up.
“You took care of her?” Lida had asked over the phone then. Her voice trembled. “Lara, you hadn’t been to see her for more than a year. You know that yourself.”
“You don’t know how everything really happened.”
“I know exactly what I saw.”
“Grandmother made that decision herself. It was her right.”
“She was ill. She barely understood anything in her last months.” Lida felt her voice beginning to break and swallowed. “And you took advantage of that.”
“Don’t you dare say that!”
“How am I supposed to say it, Lara? How? I walk around this rented apartment where we live on top of one another because there’s no space, I waited for three years, I was there — not you, me — and you just…”
“That’s enough, Lid. I’m not going to justify myself.”
“You don’t need to. You already got everything you wanted.”
Then Larisa hung up. And for three years, she remained silent.
Now she was sitting in that very same kitchen, in that very same rented apartment, telling Lida what she had done with Grandmother’s apartment.
She had taken out a loan — a large one, for renovations. The apartment was old and needed investment; that was true. She had taken the loan against the apartment. She found builders — she had looked for cheaper ones for a long time, finally found them, and paid half the amount upfront. The builders took the money and disappeared.
“What do you mean, disappeared?” Lida asked.
“Just like that. Their phone is unavailable, there’s no one at the address. I went to the police, filed a report, but they say they’re searching and I should wait. For several months I went there every week, trying to push them…” Larisa fell silent. “While I was dealing with all that, a pipe burst in my apartment. That’s why I had decided to renovate — the pipes were old, everything there was old! I didn’t manage to do it in time — the builders were supposed to replace them, but they…”
“And what happened with the pipe?”
“The neighbors downstairs were flooded. Badly. Now they’re demanding that I pay for their repairs. It’s a large amount, Lid. A very large amount.”
“And you?”
“I can’t. I have no money — I put everything into that renovation, the loan is hanging over me, and the builders disappeared…” Larisa took some papers from the bag and placed them on the table. “I was also fired from work.”
“For what?”
“Absenteeism. I was constantly going places — to the police, to lawyers, to the neighbors… My boss warned me, but I… I couldn’t keep up. In the end, they fired me.”
Lida looked at the papers without touching them.
“And now?”
“The bank is demanding payments on the loan. I haven’t paid for several months. They sent a notice,” Larisa pointed to one of the sheets, “saying that if I don’t pay off the overdue amount within a month, they will seize the collateral. Meaning the apartment.”
The kitchen became completely silent. Only the faucet kept dripping.
“And you came to me,” Lida said. She did not ask — she simply stated it as it was.
“You’re my sister.”
“Yes. Sister.” Lida placed her mug on the windowsill. “Three years ago, you were my sister too. When I called you.”
“Lid…”
“Don’t interrupt.” Lida’s voice was even, almost calm — that frightening calm that comes when everything inside has already burned out and there is simply no strength left to shout. “I want you to understand something. Not to hurt you. Just so you understand.”
Larisa was silent.
“I have lived with what you did for three years. Three years. Seryozha and I are still renting this apartment. Every month I give money to the landlords — for someone else’s place. And every time I think: if it weren’t for you, we would have had our own. Not luxurious — just our own. A place where the children could say, ‘This is my home.’” She swallowed. “Do you know that in her final months, Grandmother didn’t always recognize me? Sometimes she called me Mother. I sat beside her, held her hand, and thought: she has completely stopped understanding what is happening around her. And you took advantage of that.”
“I didn’t…”
“Lara.” Lida raised her hand. “Don’t. We already said all of this three years ago. I listened to you then. And you know I’m right. You know it yourself. That’s why you stayed silent for three years — not because you were offended, but because you had nothing to say.”
Larisa lowered her head. Her fingers tightened around the bag even more.
“I’m asking for help,” she said quietly. “I’m asking you. If you can lend me anything — even a little — so I can pay at least part of the debt, so the bank won’t take the apartment…”
“I have no money.”
“Lid, come on…”
“No.” Lida shook her head. “No money. None at all. We live from paycheck to paycheck, I’m telling you honestly. Every month — down to zero. Sometimes below zero. We have no savings, no safety cushion, nothing. Because we rent. Because the money goes to rent. Do you understand?”
Larisa understood. It was visible on her face.
“But even if I did have money,” Lida continued, and her voice trembled slightly, “I wouldn’t give it to you. I’m sorry.”
“You haven’t forgiven me.”
“This isn’t about forgiveness.” Lida tiredly ran a hand over her face. “Maybe I have forgiven you. I don’t know, honestly. But that doesn’t mean I have to save you. You took out the loan yourself. You chose the builders yourself. You skipped work yourself. Those were all your decisions, Lara. Yours. And the consequences are yours too.”
The silence in the apartment seemed almost deafening.
“You, little sister, left me without an apartment, and now you’re asking for help?!” Lida suddenly almost laughed — bitterly, without joy. “You were the one who left me with nothing. You. Not me — you did it to me. And now you’ve come because there’s nowhere else to go. That isn’t fair, Lara. It isn’t fair to me. Solve your problems yourself.”
A long silence followed.
Larisa looked at her sister. There were tears in her eyes — real ones, not theatrical ones; Lida could tell the difference. And she herself felt something too, not anger, no. Something else. Pain, perhaps. Exhaustion. Pity, which she could not allow herself to feel.
“I have nowhere to go,” Larisa said.
“I know.”
“What should I do?”
“I don’t know.” Lida went to the table, gathered Larisa’s papers, neatly aligned the edges, and handed them to her. “Go to social services. Go to a lawyer — a free consultation, they exist. Talk to the bank — sometimes they make concessions if you explain the situation. Look for a job. I don’t know, Lara. But I can’t help you. I can’t, and I won’t.”
Larisa took the papers. She stood up. She held the bag in front of herself with both hands — like a shield or like a flag of surrender; it was impossible to tell.
“You never loved me,” she said.
Lida looked at her for a long time.
“That isn’t true,” she finally answered. “And you know it.”
They stood facing each other in that cramped kitchen — two grown women who had once run through the same courtyard, shared the same grandmother’s bed on summer nights, whispered under the blanket about boys and dreams. Between them there was something that had no precise name — not simply resentment and not simply love, but something complicated and alive, something that does not die even when one wishes it would.
“Go, Lara,” Lida said quietly. “Please.”
And Larisa left.
Lida stood by the window for a long time after the front door slammed shut. She looked at the brick wall opposite. The faucet kept dripping. She needed to call a plumber — she had been meaning to for a long time, but never got around to it.
She thought about Grandmother’s apartment. About the high ceilings and wide windowsills where, as a child, one could sit with legs tucked underneath and stare outside for hours. About how Grandmother baked pies on Sundays, and the smell filled the entire stairwell. About how she and Larisa had once broken Grandmother’s favorite vase and then stood before her, both talking over one another as they confessed — each taking the blame so the other would not be punished.
When had that been? They must have been about seven and nine.
She thought about what was happening to Larisa now — and it hurt, truly hurt, because no matter how you looked at it, she was her sister. Her own blood. And imagining her without a roof over her head was difficult.
But something else was even harder.
Lida remembered that evening after Grandmother’s funeral, when she had sat by the window just like this, trying to comprehend what had happened. That there was no apartment. The apartment they had waited for all those years — quietly, without telling anyone, ashamed even to think about it aloud — had been waited for in vain. That her children would grow up within someone else’s walls. That Larisa had known all of this — had known and done it anyway.
Was it betrayal? Yes. It was.
Could it be forgiven? Probably.
But forgiveness is not the same as rescue. Forgiveness is when you let go of anger and stop wishing harm on someone. Lida seemed to have done that already — or almost done it. But that did not mean she was obligated to offer her shoulder again and again. It did not mean she had to give the last of what she had to someone who had once taken from her something she had needed so badly.
Some consequences must come. Not out of cruelty — simply because otherwise, nothing changes.
A few weeks later, Lida learned by chance — through a mutual acquaintance — that the bank had taken the apartment after all.
Larisa had moved out. Where to, no one really knew.
Lida heard the news and sat for a long time at the kitchen table without moving. She was not happy. Nor did she feel bad — not in the sense one feels bad when one is guilty. Just something dull and heavy stirred somewhere inside her.
Grandmother’s apartment was gone.
That apartment where it smelled of pies, where one could sit on the windowsill and look out at the street — that apartment no longer existed as a family place. It had become merely an object — collateral, an item for auction, a line in bank documents. And that, perhaps, was the saddest thing.
Not that Larisa had lost it.
But that she had never understood what exactly she had held in her hands.
Lida got up, went to the faucet, and turned it tightly shut. The dripping stopped.
Tomorrow she needed to call the plumber.
And then pick up the children from her mother-in-law’s.
And then — go on living. In this small rented apartment, where the faucet dripped and a brick wall stood outside the window
