“Where’s the meat? I saw it this morning — a tray of pork was lying on the table, defrosting. The smell is all over the stairwell. It’s enough to make you choke on your own saliva.”

“I came home from work exhausted, and your mother handed me a list of chores for the dacha and said dinner had to be earned! I’m a husband, not a farmhand working for food!”
“Where’s the meat? I saw a tray of pork thawing on the table this morning. The smell is all over the stairwell — it’s enough to make your mouth water.”
Pavel threw his heavy work bag into the corner of the hallway and walked into the kitchen without even taking off his shoes. His legs were humming as if he had concrete blocks strapped to them instead of work boots. Twelve hours at the auto repair shop, three difficult full engine rebuilds, and endlessly dissatisfied customers had drained him to the point where his only desire was to fill his stomach and collapse into sleep.
Galina Petrovna stood at the sink, methodically scrubbing a greasy frying pan slick with oil. She did not even turn around at her son-in-law’s question, continuing to scrape the Teflon with such determination that it seemed she was trying to erase not the remnants of food, but the very memory of the dinner that had just been eaten.
“The meat is gone,” she said casually, without the slightest trace of apology, rinsing away the foam. “Father came home hungry. He needs to regain his strength. Unlike some people, he doesn’t just sit around wearing out his pants — he actually does useful work.”
Pavel froze. His stomach clenched treacherously, reacting to the thick, spicy aroma of fried onions and garlic that still hung over the kitchen like a dense cloud. On the table, covered with a floral oilcloth, stood his father-in-law Viktor Anatolyevich’s dirty plate. On it, like a mockery, lay pork ribs gnawed clean to a mirror-like shine and a lonely piece of half-eaten pickle. Beside it towered an empty salad bowl, with dried traces of mayonnaise clinging to its sides.
“Galina Petrovna, are you joking?” Pavel stepped toward the refrigerator and yanked open the door. “I worked like a dog. I bring money into this home. Don’t I have the right to a normal dinner?”
“I came home from work exhausted, and your mother handed me a list of chores for the dacha and said dinner had to be earned! I’m a husband, not a farmhand working for food!”
Inside the refrigerator, things looked bleak. A pot of soup, its lid pushed aside, revealed a cloudy liquid at the very bottom. On the middle shelf lay a stick of sausage, but the moment Pavel reached for it, his mother-in-law finally turned off the water and dried her hands on a towel.
“Don’t touch the sausage,” her voice lashed out like a wet rag. “That’s for Viktor’s breakfast. He has to drive to the dacha in the morning. If you’re hungry, take the porridge over there.”
She nodded toward a small enamel pot standing on the stove. Pavel lifted the lid. Inside, cooled pearl barley had clumped into one gray lump. Plain. No butter, no fried onions. Just boiled grain — the kind usually given to dogs, and even then only by an owner who doesn’t love his pet very much.
“Pearl barley?” Pavel slowly lowered the lid. The sound of metal hitting metal rang unnaturally loudly in the kitchen’s silence. “Seriously? Plain pearl barley? What am I to you, a convict in temporary holding?”
Galina Petrovna turned fully toward him. There was no anger or irritation in her eyes — only cold, accountant-like calculation. She looked at her son-in-law the way one looks at a faulty household appliance that consumes too much electricity and brings too little benefit.
“You haven’t earned delicacies, Pasha,” she said calmly, each word clipped, leaning her lower back against the countertop. “When was the last time you were at the dacha? A week ago. And what did you do there? Did you dig the beds? No. Did you fix the greenhouse that got knocked crooked by the wind? No. You came, lay down in the hammock, and said your back hurt.”
“My back really did hurt! I spend whole days bent double under car hoods!” Pavel felt a hot wave of resentment rise in his throat. “I’m not a robot!”
“Pain comes to those who work,” his mother-in-law shot back, folding her arms across her chest. “Yours aches from laziness. Viktor, by the way, is five years older than you, and he works for two. He fixes roofs and carries water. That’s why he eats meat. And whoever doesn’t want to work eats what’s cheaper. This is not a restaurant and not a charity cafeteria. Food is expensive these days, Pasha. Pork costs six hundred rubles a kilogram. Did you give me those six hundred rubles? No. You gave money to Kristina, and she wasted it on her trinkets. Your father and I live on pensions, and we are not obligated to feed healthy grown men delicacies for free.”
Pavel sat down on a stool, feeling his knees tremble. He wanted to stand up, overturn the table with the dirty plates, and say everything that had been boiling inside him for two years of living in this apartment. But exhaustion pressed down on his shoulders like a concrete slab. He simply wanted to eat. Physical hunger drowned out his pride.
“At least pour me some soup,” he said dully, staring at the worn linoleum floor. “There’s a little left.”
“It’s just water. Father fished out all the solids,” Galina Petrovna took the ladle but was in no hurry to pour. “And in general, Pasha, you should change your tone. You came into a ready-made life, live in our apartment, pay pennies toward utilities, yet make demands like a lord. Viktor and I talked it over and decided: enough. If you want to eat properly, contribute. If not with money, then with labor. You’ve arranged things nicely for yourself: come home, eat, sleep, and leave again. Even tenants bring more benefit.”
She finally scooped the remains of the soup from the pot and splashed them into a deep plate. The liquid was lukewarm; in it floated one lonely piece of overcooked potato and a bay leaf. The plate landed in front of Pavel with a thud. Beside it, she placed a slice of stale bread.
“Eat,” she ordered. “And say thank you that we left you anything at all. Others in your place would cook for themselves instead of waiting for their mother-in-law to serve them.”
Pavel picked up the spoon. His hand was dirty — he still hadn’t washed it, and machine oil ingrained in his skin traced black mourning stripes around his fingernails. He scooped up the cloudy liquid and brought it to his mouth. It tasted bland and watery. It wasn’t food. It was the lowest-grade fuel, just enough to keep the mechanism from shutting down completely.
He chewed the bread, feeling Galina Petrovna’s attentive, evaluating gaze on him. She did not leave. She stood over him like a guard in a prison cafeteria, checking whether the prisoner had learned his lesson.
“Tomorrow is Saturday,” she said when Pavel swallowed the first spoonful. “Viktor will need help. He made a list. So eat your porridge and go to bed. Wake-up is at six in the morning. If you think you’ll lie around again, then on Sunday you won’t even get pearl barley.”
Pavel gripped the spoon so tightly that the cheap aluminum bent slightly. He stayed silent, swallowing humiliation along with the cooled broth. Somewhere inside him, beneath the layers of exhaustion and hunger, a cold, angry fire began to burn. He did not yet know what it would lead to, but he understood one thing clearly: this was the last plate of plain pearl barley in his life.
Heavy footsteps in the hallway made Pavel flinch. He would have recognized that walk among thousands: shuffling, yet confident and proprietary. Viktor Anatolyevich appeared in the kitchen doorway. His father-in-law wore a stretched-out sleeveless undershirt and sweatpants with sagging knees. Between his teeth he clenched a toothpick, moving it from one corner of his mouth to the other — a sure sign that unlike his son-in-law, he had eaten well and enjoyed it.
Viktor cast a disgusted glance over Pavel’s hunched back, his dirty hands, and the plate of murky liquid. Not sympathy, not even polite interest, flickered in his eyes. He walked to the table, pushed aside the sugar bowl, and with a dull slap dropped a battered notebook with a fake-leather cover onto the oilcloth. A ballpoint pen landed beside it.
“Finish eating, Pasha, finish eating,” his father-in-law said, sitting opposite him. His voice was thick and hoarse, like that of a man accustomed to commanding a crew of loaders. “You’ll need your strength. I’ve roughly calculated the work front for the weekend. The weather promises to be dry, so it would be a sin to waste time.”
Pavel slowly lowered his spoon. His appetite, weak as it already was, disappeared completely. He stared at the notebook as if it were a death sentence.
“Viktor Anatolyevich,” Pavel began, trying to speak calmly, though everything inside him was boiling. “I had other plans. I wanted to sleep. This week was hell. The master is on vacation, and I’ve been working for two…”
“He has plans,” his father-in-law interrupted without even raising his voice. He opened the notebook, licked his finger, and turned a page. “Napoleon had plans, Pasha. You have responsibilities. Did we let you into the apartment? We did. Did we register you here? We did. Did you think this was a resort? All-inclusive?”
He jabbed a thick finger at the page filled with writing. The letters sprawled across it, large and sweeping, tolerating no objections.
“So listen to the task. Point one: a trench for the water pipe. From the well to the bathhouse. Depth — one meter twenty. Length — fifteen meters. The soil there is heavy, clay with stones, so I sharpened the shovel for you. Point two: redo the slate roof on the woodshed. It leaks, the firewood is rotting. You’ll take off the old sheets and put on the new ones. I bought used ones; they’re heavy, awkward for one person, but you’re a strong lad, you’ll manage.”
Pavel looked at his father-in-law and could not believe his ears. That list was enough for a full working week for a two-man crew, not “help around the property” on a day off.
“Viktor Anatolyevich, this is hard labor, not a dacha,” Pavel pushed the plate away. “I’m not digging a trench. I’ll end up with a hernia. Hire an excavator; an hour costs three thousand. I’ll chip in if needed.”
His father-in-law laughed. The laugh was dry, barking, unpleasant. Galina Petrovna, who had been standing at the stove like a silent sentry all this time, gave an approving snort.
“An excavator, he says,” Viktor scoffed, taking the toothpick out of his mouth and pointing it at his son-in-law. “Look at the lord we’ve got here! He’ll throw money around. First earn that money before offering it to me. Three thousand is real money! And your back is free. A renewable resource. While you’re young, you should work, not whine. At your age, I built a house with my own hands, and nothing happened to me — I didn’t fall apart.”
“You built it for yourself!” Pavel could not hold back; his voice broke into a shout. “And I can’t even rest at that dacha! You take me there like draft labor! I don’t rest there — I die there every time!”
Viktor Anatolyevich abruptly stopped smiling. His face filled with blood; he leaned forward, looming over the table.
“And who are you here to set conditions?” he hissed. “You’re a live-in son-in-law. You came to everything ready-made through my daughter. You live within my walls, walk on my floor, use my toilet. Have you hammered even one nail in this apartment that you bought yourself? No! Everything is mine! So while you eat my bread and sleep under my roof, you will do what I say.”
“I buy groceries!” Pavel objected, feeling his fists clench from helplessness. “I pay for the internet, for electricity! I bought Kristina boots last week!”
“Boots!” Galina Petrovna broke in, unable to hold back. “You decided to reproach your wife over boots? How petty! A man is supposed to provide, not collect receipts. And as for groceries — those two packs of pasta and carton of milk you brought on Tuesday are already gone. So don’t buzz in my ear. Your contribution is pennies, but your arrogance is worth a million.”
Viktor Anatolyevich tapped the pen on the table, calling for silence.
“In short, Pasha. The conversation is over. I’ve told you the list. There’s a third point too — spread manure in the greenhouse. A truckload came yesterday; excellent compost, but it stinks. Just the job for you, according to your abilities.”
His father-in-law snapped the notebook shut and fixed his son-in-law with a heavy, crushing stare. That look carried the full superiority of a slave owner certain that his slave had nowhere to run.
“Departure tomorrow at seven sharp. If you’re five minutes late, you’ll go by commuter train with a wheelbarrow in your hands. And God forbid, Pasha, that you slack off. I’ll check every meter of that trench. If it’s too shallow, I’ll make you dig it again. You know me.”
“I’m not going,” Pavel said quietly. Something inside him snapped. As if a fuse that had long held back a surge of high voltage had finally burned out.
“What did you say?” Viktor narrowed his eyes as if he hadn’t heard.
“I said I’m not going anywhere,” Pavel raised his eyes. There was no exhaustion in them anymore — only cold, angry determination. “I did not hire myself out to you as a farmhand. I am your daughter’s husband, not your property. And I will not dig your clay. Not tomorrow. Not the day after tomorrow. Never.”
Silence settled over the kitchen. Only the dripping of water from the badly closed faucet could be heard. Viktor Anatolyevich slowly rose from his chair. His face turned crimson; a vein bulged at his temple.
“You little puppy,” he growled. “So you’ve decided to stage a rebellion? In my house? You’re happy to eat my food, but when it’s time to work it off, suddenly you ‘won’t go’? Fine, Pasha. You asked for this. Just don’t whine later when life bends you over.”
He spat on the floor right beside Pavel’s boot, turned around, and left the kitchen, throwing one last command over his shoulder:
“Galya, clear the table. He hasn’t even earned swill. Let him live on air if he’s so proud.”
Galina Petrovna silently walked to the table and snatched the plate from under her son-in-law’s nose. Soup splashed onto the oilcloth, but she didn’t even flinch. Pavel remained sitting before the empty table, staring at the notebook his father-in-law had forgotten — where, in black and white, the plan of his voluntary slavery had been written out. A slavery that had just ended.
Pavel burst into the room he shared with Kristina, almost tearing the door off its hinges. It was the smallest room in the three-room apartment, more like a storage closet stuffed with old junk the parents could not bring themselves to throw away. In the corner, propping up the ceiling, stood a dusty glass cabinet with crystal dishes they were forbidden to touch, while their double sofa huddled by the window, squeezed between a wardrobe and Viktor Anatolyevich’s desk, which was piled with radio parts. This was not their home. It was a sleeping space for temporary staff.
He yanked a large sports bag from under the sofa — the one he usually took to the gym — and threw it onto the bed. The zipper screeched, opening the bag’s black mouth.
Kristina slipped into the room, closing the door behind her and glancing nervously toward the corridor. She was pale, wearing a house robe that she anxiously twisted in her hands. Her eyes were full of the familiar obedience that had been ingrained in her over years.
“Pasha, keep it down,” she whispered, rushing to her husband and trying to grab his hands as he was already sweeping T-shirts and jeans from the shelf. “What are you doing? Father will calm down soon. He’s just worked up, his blood pressure… Why did you have to clash with him? You could have said yes, and in the morning we’d have thought of something…”
Pavel pushed her hands away. Not roughly, but firmly, the way one moves aside an annoying obstacle. He stopped, breathing heavily, and looked at his wife as if seeing her for the first time in those two years.
“Thought of something?” he repeated, his voice ringing with tension like a pulled string. “What would we have thought of, Kristina? How I could escape the hard labor they signed me up for without asking me? Did you hear what they said to me in the kitchen? Did you see that empty plate?”
“Well, Mom just… she thinks it’s right,” Kristina mumbled, lowering her eyes. “They have their own ideas, Pasha. They’re old-school. For them, work is the most important thing. Just endure it. We’ll go to the dacha, you’ll help a little, and it will make them happy…”
“Happy?!” Pavel threw a bundle of socks into the bag with such force it might have been stones. “It makes them happy to humiliate me! It makes them happy to feel like masters who have a serf! Do you understand what’s happening?”
“And what, in your opinion, is happening?”
“I came home from work exhausted, and your mother handed me a list of chores for the dacha and said dinner had to be earned! I’m a husband, not a farmhand working for food! I’m sick of owing everyone in this house everything. We’re moving out, and my foot will never cross this threshold again!”
He stepped close to Kristina. His face was hard, gray with exhaustion and anger.
“I’m sick of owing everyone in this house everything. I owe them digging, building, silence, endurance. I pay for food they don’t give me. I fix faucets they then reproach me for using. I live here on sufferance, like a poor relation they let in out of pity as long as she washes the floors.”
“Pasha, where will we go?” Fear flashed in Kristina’s voice — real, animal fear of change. “At this hour? We don’t have money for rent right now. You said yourself we’re saving for a mortgage…”
“To hell with the mortgage!” Pavel barked. “I’d rather sleep on a bunk in a hostel than on silk sheets here under the supervision of prison guards.”
He returned to the wardrobe, pulling out everything at once: sweaters, shirts, underwear. Clothes flew into the bag in a chaotic lump. There was no care, only the desire to grab what was his and disappear.
“You choose, Kristina,” he threw over his shoulder without stopping. “Right now. Either you come with me — into the unknown, to a dormitory, to the middle of nowhere — but we live like human beings. Or you stay here, with Mom and Dad, finishing their soup and listening to their orders. But then without me. I won’t come back. This is the end.”
Kristina stood in the middle of the room, staring at the growing pile of clothes in the bag. She heard her mother clattering dishes in the kitchen beyond the wall and her father muttering under his breath. That sound, which had once seemed to her a symbol of stability and a “family hearth,” suddenly became the sound of a prison bolt. She understood that Pavel was not joking. He was not trying to scare her or blackmail her. He really would leave. In five minutes, that door would close behind him, and she would remain alone. Alone with parents who would devour her just as they had tried to devour him — only more slowly and more painfully.
“Wait,” she suddenly said in a completely different voice. Dry and businesslike.
She darted to the dresser, pulled out the bottom drawer, and took from it a large checkered shuttle bag folded several times.
“My down jacket is in the hallway wardrobe. Take it while I pack the underwear,” she ordered, throwing sweaters and jeans into her own bag with frantic speed. “The documents are in the folder on the desk. Don’t forget the laptop. Your winter tires are in Father’s garage — to hell with them. We’ll get them later, or they can choke on them.”
Pavel froze for a second, looking at his wife. The same anger that burned in him had appeared in her movements. The anger of a cornered little animal that had finally decided to bite the hunter. He nodded, grabbed his nearly full bag, and stepped into the hallway for the outerwear.
Behind the wall, things went quiet. The noise of packing — cabinet doors opening, zippers cracking, footsteps — was too loud to ignore. Viktor Anatolyevich and Galina Petrovna had surely heard every word, but they did not come in. They were waiting. They did not believe the slaves’ rebellion would go this far. To them, it was just noise, the grinding of gears in a machine that would need to be lubricated the next morning with another dose of shouting and threats.
Pavel swept jackets from the hanger — his and his wife’s. Shoes… boots, sneakers. Everything in a pile. He moved quickly, like a looter in a burning house, trying to save the most valuable things before the roof collapsed.
Kristina came out of the room three minutes later. She was dressed in jeans and a sweater, her hair pulled into a messy ponytail. In her hands were a swollen bag and the laptop. There was not a single tear on her face — only red patches on her cheeks and tightly pressed lips.
“Ready?” Pavel asked briefly.
“Let’s go,” she answered without looking toward her parents’ bedroom door. “Before I change my mind.”
They collided in the narrow hallway, blocking the passage with their bags. The air in the apartment had become stale and heavy, soaked with the smell of medicine and old dust. Pavel reached for the front door handle, but Viktor Anatolyevich blocked their way. He came out of the kitchen, still chewing his toothpick, but now there was no notebook in his hands. He planted his fists on his hips, blocking the exit like a barrier gate.
“Going far?” he asked mockingly, looking at the bags. “To a resort? Or running to complain to Mommy?”
“Move out of the way,” Pavel said quietly, looking his father-in-law straight between the eyes. “The conversation is over.”
“You’re not going anywhere until we have a proper talk,” Viktor took a step forward, invading Pavel’s personal space. “You, boy, think you can just take off when you’ve been assigned work? And who’s going to pay for the apartment? Who’s going to answer for your mother’s ruined nerves?”
The end was approaching. Harsh, dirty, without sentiment. The moment when family bonds tear with a crack, like rotten fabric. Pavel adjusted his grip on the bag handle. Now it was not just property. It was his only luggage into a new life.
Viktor Anatolyevich stood in the doorway, legs spread shoulder-width apart, like a goalkeeper preparing to block a penalty kick. In the cramped hallway of the Khrushchev-era apartment, cluttered with coat racks and shoe shelves, there was suddenly no air to breathe. Behind his father-in-law, peeking out from behind his broad shoulder, appeared Galina Petrovna. Her face was twisted with malicious anticipation — now the debts would be reconciled.
“Return the tools,” Viktor said quietly but weightily, extending his calloused palm. “They’re in your bag; I saw them. My reversible screwdriver and drill bit set. You took them when you hung the curtain rod. Put them on the cabinet. No need to waste state property.”
Pavel slowly lowered the bag to the floor. The sound of fabric hitting linoleum was dull and heavy. He unzipped the side pocket, took out the plastic case with drill bits and the screwdriver with a rubber handle.
“Here,” he threw the tools onto the shoe shelf. The plastic crashed against the wood, the case burst open, and the drill bits scattered across the floor in a fan, ringing against the tiles. “Choke on them.”
“Don’t throw things!” Galina Petrovna shrieked, squeezing forward past her husband. “Look how nervous he is! Things cost money! In two years, all you’ve done here is cause wear and tear. You dented the sofa, rubbed the wallpaper in the hallway with your shoulders, used up an ocean of water! You think we’ll just let you go? You owe us!”
She pulled a sheet of paper folded in four from the pocket of her apron. This was not a list of chores at the dacha. This was a bill.
“I’ve calculated it,” she began in a venomous tone, unfolding the paper. “Utilities for last month, plus electricity — you two kept the lights on at night while you sat on your phones. Plus groceries: potatoes, oil, laundry detergent. Total: fifteen thousand rubles. Right now. Otherwise I’ll file a report saying you stole money from me.”
Kristina, standing behind her husband, gasped convulsively.
“Mom, are you serious?” Her voice was hoarse, unrecognizable. “We gave you ten thousand three days ago! From Pasha’s salary!”
“That ten thousand went to cover debts from previous months!” her mother snapped, not even glancing at her daughter. “You live in our apartment and use our furniture. Rent is expensive now. Consider that we gave you a family discount. But since you’re so ungrateful, pay market price.”
Pavel smirked. It was not a smile, but a baring of teeth. The entire situation — the narrow hallway, the scattered drill bits, the mother-in-law holding a calculation sheet — seemed like an absurd theater of greed.
“Wear and tear, you say?” he asked quietly, stepping toward Viktor. His father-in-law instinctively tensed, but did not move aside. “Then let’s calculate my wear and tear. At market price.”
Pavel began bending his fingers, bringing his hand close to his father-in-law’s nose.
“Last summer, I reroofed the dacha. A crew charges forty thousand for that kind of work. I did it for free. In the fall, I changed the wiring throughout the entire apartment. The housing office electrician wanted fifteen thousand. I did it for free. I dug the trench for the bathhouse foundation for three weekends in a row. Day laborers charge two thousand a day. That’s another six.”
He spoke clearly and sharply, driving every word in like a nail into the coffin lid of their relationship.
“So, Viktor Anatolyevich, it turns out you owe me. Sixty thousand at least. And I’m not even counting the gasoline I used to drive you to the dacha and back, because your ‘little swallow’ of a car was always refusing to start. So who is going to pay whom?”
Viktor turned crimson. His neck filled with blood, the veins swelling. He was not used to people speaking to him in the language of numbers. He was used to the position of strength, where he was the master and everyone else was a freeloader.
“Don’t measure labor in money, you snot-nosed brat!” he roared, spraying spit. “You lived here! You were fed!”
“Fed?” Pavel interrupted, his voice turning icy. “Pearl barley cooked in water? Bones that even dogs would be ashamed to receive? You didn’t feed me. You maintained the vital functions of working cattle. But the cattle has rebelled, Viktor. The cattle is leaving.”
Pavel reached into the pocket of his jeans, pulled out a crumpled five-thousand-ruble bill — everything that remained of his advance after buying groceries — and threw it in his father-in-law’s face. The paper fluttered down onto the dirty doormat by the door.
“This is for your tea. For the service. You won’t get another kopeck from me.”
“Get out!” Galina Petrovna screamed when she saw that the financial blackmail had failed. “Out of here! And I don’t want your spirit in this house again! Kristina, if you leave now, forget you ever had a mother! I’ll cut you out of the inheritance! You’ll be homeless!”
Kristina silently squeezed past Pavel. There were no tears in her eyes, only emptiness. From her handbag, she took out a bunch of keys with a fluffy bunny keychain — a gift from her father when she came of age — and carefully placed them on the shelf, right on top of the scattered drill bits.
“Inheritance, Mom,” she said dully, looking her mother in the eyes, “is what people leave after they die. And you died to me just now. Live with your garden beds and your money.”
“You little filth!” Viktor raised his hand, but Pavel caught it. Firmly, powerfully, squeezing the wrist so hard that the old worker groaned.
“Don’t touch her,” Pavel whispered into his face. “Make one move, and I’ll forget you’re an old man. I won’t care about age or kinship. We’re leaving. Move away from the door.”
Fear flashed in Viktor’s eyes. For the first time, he saw before him not a “little live-in son-in-law,” but an adult, dangerous man pushed to the limit. He felt a strength greater than his own. The grip on his wrist was steel. His father-in-law slowly lowered his hand and stepped aside, clearing the passage.
Pavel grabbed the bags. Kristina had already opened the lock. The click of the mechanism sounded like a gunshot. They stepped out onto the stairwell landing, into the cool air of the entrance hall, smelling of tobacco.
“Don’t you ever set foot here again!” came the cry from the apartment. Galina Petrovna jumped out onto the threshold, shaking her fists. “You’ll crawl back! You’ll starve and crawl back to beg forgiveness! And we won’t let you in!”
Pavel did not turn around. He pressed the elevator call button. The cabin doors slid open, inviting them into a new life. They stepped inside and put the bags on the floor. Kristina pressed the button for the first floor.
As the doors slowly closed, cutting off the screams and curses, Pavel saw his mother-in-law’s distorted face and the confused, spiteful figure of his father-in-law, who was picking the five-thousand-ruble bill up from the floor.
The iron doors came together with a heavy clang. The elevator trembled and began to descend. Silence filled the cabin. No one cried. No one embraced. Pavel looked at his reflection in the cloudy elevator mirror and felt a strange lightness, despite the weight of the bags in his hands. His pocket was empty, and he had no idea where they would spend the night, but he knew one thing for certain: tomorrow morning, he would wake up a free man.
And there would be no pearl barley.
Never again…