“Natalya Nikolaevna, don’t get upset, but your former mother-in-law has opened a whole meeting by the third entrance. She says you drove the man to ruin.”
The voice of our concierge, Zinaida Pavlovna, sounded over the phone with the intonation of a theater prompter announcing a fire on stage.
“Drove him to ruin, did I?” I clarified, taking a sip of my morning coffee.
“Yes, she says you drove him to nervous exhaustion!” the concierge reported cheerfully. “She’s sitting there with bags and waving some plaid blanket around. Petrovna from apartment forty-two has already stopped by, and that neighbor with the pug too. You’d better come down, or she’ll start a support fund for your ex-husband.”
I hung up, calmly finished my coffee, and went over to the window.
For some reason, in our society, it is assumed that if a woman does not make a scene or tear her hair out after a divorce, then she is simply a heartless Snow Queen. And if the ex-husband looks worn out at the same time, society is immediately ready to chip in with pity for him, without bothering to sort out the details.
I threw on a light cardigan and went outside. Performances staged without my knowledge are something I prefer to watch from the front row.
Margarita Vasilyevna had indeed settled herself on a bench near the flowerbed with the grandeur of a Roman senator. At her feet stood two bulky supermarket bags, and an old woolen blanket had been dramatically spread over the back of the bench.
A small circle of grateful listeners had already gathered around her.
“I’m not asking for myself, good people!” Margarita Vasilyevna proclaimed, pressing her hands to her chest. “I’m asking for my son! A man without a home is a tragedy of national scale! Natalya has a huge apartment, an entire room is standing empty! Can’t she act like a decent human being?”
Petrovna from apartment forty-two clicked her tongue sympathetically. The neighbor with the pug shifted from foot to foot, clearly regretting that he had gone out to take out the trash at all.
“I am no ordinary woman, I know life!” my former mother-in-law’s voice rose higher. “When I worked at the cheburek shop, the chiefs of the local police departments used to come to me like pilgrims! Yes, yes! They would come in after their shifts, tired, take off their caps. And I would serve them hot, fresh chebureki! They ate, rested their souls, thanked me! I was the most respected person in the district! And this one… she threw her own husband out into the street like a kitten!”
“Good morning, Margarita Vasilyevna,” I said, stepping closer and calmly stopping in front of the bench. “Whom exactly did I throw out?”
My mother-in-law faltered. The audience turned their heads toward me in perfect unison. The pug sneezed quietly.
“Your Germashka! Your husband!” my former mother-in-law quickly recovered, her eyes flashing. “You’ve lost all conscience, Natasha! The man is wandering around, suffering!”
“So you came here to suggest that I let my ex-husband move back in?” I asked, tilting my head slightly to the side.
“Temporarily! Until he gets back on his feet!” Margarita Vasilyevna jabbed a finger at the blanket. “I even brought him some things for the first few days!”
“And why can’t he stay temporarily with you?” I asked reasonably.
“He’s already been living with me for a month!” my mother-in-law exclaimed indignantly, forgetting for a second her role as the great martyr. “I have blood pressure problems, I need peace! And he eats all day, mumbles on the phone, has flattened my sofa, and still hasn’t fixed the shelf in the bathroom! I’m a pensioner, it’s hard for me!”
“So the temporary arrangement has ended at your place, and you decided to pass it on to me?”
In the silence that followed, Petrovna from apartment forty-two could be heard quietly giggling into her palm. The performance was beginning to fall apart at the seams. The neighbors suddenly realized that this had nothing to do with great maternal compassion and everything to do with a banal attempt to dump an overgrown son, who had become annoying, back onto someone else’s shoulders.
At that moment, the hero of the occasion himself appeared from around the corner of the building.
German walked slowly, one hand tucked into the pocket of his light trousers. His face expressed the sorrow of an offended nobleman whose cruel fate had forced him to spend the night in a stable. True, the image was somewhat spoiled by the cup of expensive raf coffee from a trendy coffee shop in his right hand.
Seeing me in the middle of the crowd, he frowned with displeasure, but quickly got into character.
“Natasha, we could have discussed this quietly,” German said, coming closer and sighing sorrowfully. “But you’re the one who brought this out in front of people. Why all these public scenes?”
I looked at his coffee cup, then at the plaid blanket, and then into my ex-husband’s eyes.
“German, you came into my courtyard with your mother, a blanket, and a support group. The only way this could have been quieter is if you had brought a brass band with you.”
The neighbor with the pug turned away, hiding a smile.
“I just want a normal conversation!” German tried to raise his voice. “I left you everything! The apartment, the business! I walked away with one suitcase!”
“German, you walked out of someone else’s apartment and someone else’s business,” I corrected him calmly. “And now your mother is trying to return you because you refuse to fix a shelf and you eat too much.”
Margarita Vasilyevna flared up like a match.
“How dare you say that?! I came here like a decent person! Woman to woman!”
“Then let’s speak like decent people, Margarita Vasilyevna,” I said, taking a step toward the bench. “German is forty-one years old. He has two arms, two legs, and, according to him, an outstanding mind. If he has nowhere to live, he can rent an apartment. If he has no money to rent one, he can get a job. And if you want to help him, your pension and your living space are entirely at your disposal.”
I turned to my ex-husband.
“Gera, a grown man is not a parcel that his mother can return to his ex-wife through the neighbors because the recipient eats too much. End this circus.”
The neighbors began to slowly disperse. The performance had failed completely. Petrovna suddenly remembered she had soup on the stove, and the concierge, Zinaida Pavlovna, busily went off to wipe dust from the mailboxes.
German stood there, crimson with anger. He was furious because, once again, he had failed to regain access to a comfortable life, and his suffering had inspired nothing in the public except ridicule. Margarita Vasilyevna was even angrier, because she had realized the terrible truth: she would have to take her son back home.
“Come on, Gera,” she hissed, grabbing the bags. “A snake is a snake. I told you!”
She took a couple of steps, then turned around and barked:
“Take the blanket! I bought it on sale at GUM, no need to leave it here for strangers!”
German, trying to preserve the last remnants of dignity, awkwardly gathered the scratchy plaid bundle with one hand while trying not to spill the coffee in the other. He trudged after his mother, hunched over and hiding his eyes.
“Well then,” the neighbor with the pug said quietly when the procession disappeared around the corner. “And you said he was a man without a roof over his head. Now he has shelter. At least he has a blanket.”
I smiled at the neighbor, scratched the pug behind the ear, and went back to my entrance.
Inside, there was no guilt and no anger. Only absolute, transparent calm. My former relatives had once again tried to bring me someone else’s responsibility, wrapped in pity. But this time, the whole courtyard saw that I had no intention of accepting that package.