Maybe you should go to a sanatorium, get your nerves treated? I checked, there are excellent options in Truskavets.
“I don’t need anything,” I grumbled, “I just need to be.”
“Being is understandable,” he nodded, sipping tea from Galya’s favorite cup. It made me cringe, but I said nothing. “But it’ll be tough for you here alone. The apartment is huge, eighty square meters. The utility bills in winter will be staggering. Your pension is decent, of course, but why throw money to the wind?”
Nadya stopped clattering the plates. She froze, standing with her back to us, her shoulders tense.
“What are you getting at, Vitaly?” I raised a heavy gaze to him.
“Nothing, Pavel Petrovich, just thinking out loud. Nadya and I are on top of each other in our one-room apartment in Troieshchyna, and you have an airfield here. The echo is just bouncing around.”
“Vitalik!” Nadya turned around sharply. “Not now, please, not now. Mom has barely cooled.”
“Why wait?” he shrugged, but lowered his tone. “Life goes on, Nadyush. Life continues.”
That evening, I didn’t pay it any mind. Who knows what nonsense a young fool might spout. But the seed had been planted. The next three months became a torment of loneliness for me. I wandered through the empty apartment like a ghost. I talked to Galya’s photograph on the dresser. I turned on the TV just to hear human voices. At night, I couldn’t sleep, listening to the wall clock tick loudly, mercilessly counting down my time.
Nadya would stop by once a week, bring groceries, quickly clean up, and run off. She had work, reports, the quarterly balance sheet. I saw she was torn. She loved me, I knew that. But she was under his influence. Vitalik—he’s so clingy. He knows how to get under your skin, find a weakness, and press, press, until he gets what he wants. In May, they came together. It was a Sunday, I was making borscht, the way Galya taught me, but it still didn’t turn out the same, somehow bland.
“Pash, we need to talk.” Vitalik didn’t even bother with my full name and patronymic. He walked into the living room, sat down in my armchair like he owned the place, and crossed his legs. “Nadya and I have been thinking, there’s a solid plan.”
Nadya sat on the sofa, her eyes lowered to the floor. She fidgeted with the edge of the tablecloth.
“What plan?” I wiped my hands on a towel and stood in the doorway.
“Look.” Vitalik pulled out his smartphone and started tapping the screen. “The market is at its peak right now. Your ‘Stalinka’ is worth a fortune. Ten, twelve million, if we approach it smartly. We sell it. We buy a large three-room apartment in a new building in a good neighborhood, but a little further from the center. The air is cleaner there, there’s a park nearby, shops. We renovate it to our taste and all live together. You get your own room—large, bright. We have ours. And a shared living room.”
And there will be money left over. We’ll put it into circulation; I’ve found a good deal. Supplies of construction materials from China. In six months, we’ll double the capital. You, old man, will be living in clover in your old age. We’ll get you a new car. We’ll scrap your rusty Niva. We’ll get a Duster or a new Chinese car.
I listened to him and felt a cold wave of revulsion rising inside me.
“I don’t want to sell the apartment,” I said quietly. “My whole life is here. Galya is here.”
“Galya is dead, Dad!” Nadya suddenly cried out. She raised her head, and I saw tears. “She’s dead, but we’re alive! Do you know how we live? We have loans, we have a mortgage hanging over us for that kennel. My boots have been glued for a third season. Vitalik is trying, hustling, but times are tough now.”
“Nadyusha…” I took a step toward her, wanting to hug her, but she pulled away.
“No, Dad, listen. You’re sitting here alone like an owl. Sniffing these walls, while our family is falling apart from lack of money. If we lived together, I would take care of you, cook for you, measure your blood pressure. When we have grandchildren, you could babysit. Don’t you want grandchildren?”
It was a low blow. Grandchildren. Galya’s dream. She never got to see them.
“A family should stick together, Pavel Petrovich,” Vitalik hissed softly, like a snake. “It’s the human thing to do, the Christian thing. Old folks with the kids, all under one roof. A full house. But what’s the alternative? You’ll wither away from loneliness here, and we’ll wither away from debt over there. Who’s better off?”
They worked on me for a month. Every weekend. Vitalik brought brochures with beautiful pictures of new residential complexes. Smiling people, green lawns, happy old folks on benches. Nadya cried, Nadya begged. Nadya said she was afraid for me. That I had a heart condition, that if I felt ill at night, no one would even be there to give me a glass of water.
And I gave in. I broke. I thought: maybe they’re right, what do I need these grand halls for? I can’t bring Galya back, and Nadya is my only blood relative. I’ll help them. And I won’t be alone. If only I had known then what kind of noose I was putting my own head into…
A buyer was found quickly. Some IT guy. A young man with a beard and wild eyes who wanted a ‘Stalinka’ specifically for a loft. Vitalik set the price high, as he had promised. They settled on ten million hryvnias. The deal was tense. I sat in the bank’s meeting room, signing endless papers, feeling like a traitor. I felt as if Galya was standing behind me, shaking her head in reproach.
“Why cash?” I asked when Vitalik said we were taking the money from a safe deposit box and bringing it home. “Everything is transferred to accounts now. It’s safe.”
“Pash, you’re like a child, honestly,” my son-in-law waved me off. He was agitated, sweating, his hands trembling. “What accounts?”
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