The key turned in the lock almost soundlessly, so easily that it felt as though the door had been waiting for this very moment all day.
Sveta automatically thought that the lock mechanism really needed to be lubricated at last, because it had been getting harder to use over the past few months, but the thought disappeared just as quickly as it had come.
As the door slowly swung inward, all of her attention focused on the interior of the apartment.
The hallway light was on, even though nobody should have been home at this hour.
The yellowish glow gave the entrance hall a strange, unfamiliar atmosphere, as though she were looking at a completely different apartment rather than the one where the most important memories of her childhood had been made.
Beside the shoe cabinet stood two pairs of shoes, carefully placed next to each other.
One was a small pair of women’s sneakers that she was certain she had never seen before.
The other was a pink pair of rubber boots decorated with smiling unicorns whose manes shimmered in bright rainbow colors.
The smell of freshly brewed coffee drifted toward her from the direction of the kitchen, mingling with the scent of an unfamiliar fabric softener and the sweet fragrance of some kind of children’s cosmetic product.
The entire atmosphere of the apartment had changed.
The familiar smells had vanished, replaced by scents that felt completely foreign.
Sveta froze motionless in the doorway.
The keys slipped from her fingers and fell onto the laminate floor with a dull clatter.
The sound echoed through the silence with startling loudness.
A few seconds later, a woman stepped out from the direction of the living room.
She appeared to be in her mid-thirties.
She had a slender build, a tired-looking face, and ash-brown hair gathered carelessly into a loose bun.
What immediately caught Sveta’s attention was the robe the woman was wearing.
She knew it far too well.
Two years earlier, she herself had bought it as a birthday gift for her mother.
It was blue, embroidered with tiny cornflower patterns.
The woman did not seem frightened or confused.
Instead, she looked at Sveta as if she were someone who had interrupted her day at an inconvenient moment.
“I live here,” she said with mild irritation as she looked her up and down.
“And who are you?”
The question caught Sveta so completely off guard that she was unable to answer for several seconds.
“This is my mother’s apartment,” she finally said in a hoarse voice.
“Who are you? How did you get in here?”
At that moment, a little girl cautiously appeared from behind the woman.
She could not have been more than five years old.
Her light-colored hair was tied into two pigtails, and curiosity sparkled in her eyes.
One cheek still bore the faint imprint of a pillow.
She was clutching an old stuffed rabbit whose ear was half torn off.
Sveta’s heart skipped a beat.
She recognized the toy immediately.
The rabbit had spent years gathering dust on the top shelf of a wardrobe.
Ever since her childhood, it had remained in a room that her mother always referred to as the nursery, despite the fact that no child had lived there for decades.
“Mommy, who is that lady?” the little girl asked.
The woman instinctively pulled the child behind her.
The gesture was simple, yet it shook Sveta deeply.
Her own mother had done exactly the same thing whenever strangers approached them on the street or in a store.
“I’m calling the police,” she declared firmly as she pulled out her phone.
“Go ahead,” the woman replied calmly.
“I have a contract.”
“What kind of contract?”
“A free-use agreement. Galina Ivanovna gave it to me.”
Sveta’s entire body tensed.
“You’re lying.”
The woman walked over to the hallway dresser, pulled open the top drawer, and took out a document folder.
She handed it over without the slightest hesitation.
At first glance, the papers appeared completely official.
At the bottom of the pages was her mother’s signature.
That familiar, neat handwriting.
That signature written in purple ink which she would recognize anywhere.
Her mother had used purple pens exclusively for as long as Sveta could remember.
“I’m calling my mother,” she said shortly.
“Go ahead.”
With trembling fingers, she dialed the number.
The phone rang for a long time.
She was just about to hang up when she finally heard the familiar voice.
“Yes, Sveta? What happened?”
Her mother’s voice sounded calm.
Some kind of radio program was playing in the background.
“Mom, there are strangers in your apartment.”
A brief silence followed on the other end of the line.
The silence felt as though it lasted for several minutes.
“Don’t touch them,” her mother finally said.
“That apartment belongs to me, and I can let anyone I want live there.”
Sveta listened in stunned disbelief.
“Mom, what are you talking about?”
“Anna lives there, and that’s final. It has nothing to do with you.”
“What do you mean, it has nothing to do with me?”
“Because as long as I’m alive, you are nobody in that apartment.”
The sentence struck her like an unexpected slap.
In a single instant, all the air seemed to leave her lungs.
Standing there opposite the woman and the little girl, she suddenly felt as though she had wandered into another family’s home by mistake.
Her mother ended the call.
The short beeps echoed coldly and mercilessly in her ear.
Slowly, she lowered her hand.
The woman continued watching her with the same calm expression.
“Do you believe me now?”
Sveta did not answer.
She bent down to pick up her keys, but then her gaze fell on a photograph.
It stood on top of the dresser.
It had always been there.
At least for as long as she could remember.
The picture showed a young woman wearing a white headscarf.
In her arms she held a swaddled newborn baby.
The photograph was black and white, with one corner bent.
Yet now she noticed something she had never seen before.
Something that had somehow escaped her attention all these years.
The baby’s face had been damaged.
Someone had carefully yet angrily scraped away the surface of the photograph at that exact spot.
Where the tiny face should have been, only an irregular white patch remained.
Sveta leaned closer.
A chill ran down her spine.
“What is this?” she asked.
Anna glanced at the photograph.
For the first time, uncertainty appeared on her face.
“I don’t know,” she answered honestly.
“Galina Ivanovna put it there. I never touched it.”
For several long seconds, Sveta stared at the damaged photograph.
A disturbing feeling began to take shape inside her.
It was a feeling she could not yet put into words.
Every detail of the apartment suddenly seemed to carry a different meaning.
The children’s toys.
The robe.
The little girl.
The stranger.
Her mother’s unusual behavior.
Everything seemed connected to a single dark and incomprehensible story.
Finally, she headed toward the door without saying another word.
Anna made no attempt to stop her.
The little girl watched silently, still hugging the stuffed rabbit.
When Sveta stepped into the stairwell, the colder air immediately struck her face.
Only then did she realize how difficult it had been to breathe inside the apartment.
The elevator arrived slowly.
She stepped inside and raised her eyes to the mirrored wall.
The woman reflected there was thirty-eight years old.
She worked as a successful real estate agent.
She was happily married.
She wore an expensive coat.
Her hairstyle remained flawless despite the long working day.
And yet she looked like someone whose reality had just collapsed.
Fear and uncertainty lingered in her eyes.
It felt as though she had spent her entire life listening to a story that she had only now discovered was filled with lies.
The elevator doors opened.
Sveta stepped out slowly.
The same images flashed through her mind again and again.
The curious expression on the little girl’s face.
The stuffed rabbit with the torn ear.
Her mother’s voice on the phone.
And above all, that photograph.
That mutilated old photograph where the face of an unknown infant had been replaced by nothing more than an empty white scar.
Something deep inside her whispered that this was only the beginning.
Something much larger, much darker, and far more painful was hidden beneath the surface.
And although she still had no idea what secret awaited her, she felt more strongly with every passing second that her life was about to change forever.
