She stepped back from Kira, turned, and almost ran to the sofa. Her hands were shaking. She grabbed her huge bag, the blanket she had left there. Her movements were frantic, panicked. She rushed to where she had left her shoes, nearly falling as she bent down and hastily pulled them on, not even trying to sit. She forgot about her knitted slippers, lying forlornly under the sofa like the abandoned banners of a defeated army. Grabbing her coat, without saying goodbye, without another glance at anyone, she bolted for the front door, rattled the lock, and burst out onto the landing.
The elevator door slammed shut. It was over.
Only then did Roman snap out of it. He jumped up from his chair, his face distorted with despair and reproach.
— Kira! Why would you do that? — he shouted, his voice ringing with hurt tears. — That’s my mother! She’s an elderly person, she has a bad heart!
He looked at her as if she had committed a terrible crime. As if it were she, not his mother, who had just tried to humiliate and trample someone in their own home. In his eyes, she was a cruel, heartless monster who had offended a poor, defenseless old woman.
Kira looked at him in silence. All the love, the tenderness, all the hopes she had associated with him—all of it had been burned to ashes in the fire of this evening. Before her stood a pathetic stranger, an infantile mama’s boy who was ready to feed his woman to his insatiable mother, just to stay in his own comfort zone.
She didn’t answer. She simply raised her hand and silently pointed him to the door. The gesture was more terrifying than any scream, any accusation. It was final, irrevocable. It meant: “You’re with her? Then go after her. Your place is out there, beyond that door, not here.”
Roman froze. He looked from her to the door. Panic was in his eyes. He didn’t want this. He wanted everything to be as it was before, for Kira to be convenient and patient, and for his mother to be happy. He wanted her to cry now, to apologize, to ask him to stay. But she wasn’t crying. She stood tall, cold as a statue, and there was nothing in her eyes but emptiness.
— Kira! — he whispered.
She didn’t reply, just gave a slight shake of her head towards the exit. He understood. He understood that this was the end. Slumping, he walked slowly to the door. Near the threshold, he noticed the gray slippers. He bent down, picked them up, held them for a second as if they were the remains of something important, and then, without turning back, he left and quietly closed the door behind him. The lock clicked.
Kira was alone. The silence that washed over her was absolute. Not dead, like during the argument, but ringing, cosmic. There was nothing in it but the hum of the refrigerator in the kitchen and the beat of her own heart. She slowly surveyed her living room. Her own. She had won it back. She had defended it.
Her legs felt like jelly. She slowly walked to the armchair where Roman had just been sitting and sank into it. It still held his warmth. She ran her hand over the armrest. Nothing. No pain, no longing. Only fatigue. An endless, leaden fatigue…
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