“Break the lock, she has to let us in!” But behind the door, a surprise was waiting for them.

“Break the lock, she has to let us in!” But a surprise was waiting for them behind the door
— Tanya, do you even realize what time it is?!
The call caught Tatyana bent over calculations for a road interchange.
She had barely managed to put down her pencil when Ksenia’s shrill scream burst from the phone speaker.
— Hello, Ksyusha. I’m perfectly aware. It’s already past eight.
— Past eight, she says! We’ve been standing outside your building in the wind for forty minutes! My teeth are chattering!
In the background, a truck engine roared loudly.
There was a metallic clang, followed by Kostya’s hoarse swearing as he argued with the driver.
— We’ve got a whole truckload of stuff! Aunt Valya is sitting on the steps, she’s chilled her back! Kostya and the driver are unloading boxes right onto the asphalt! Grab the keys and get over here in the first car you can find!
Tatyana pushed the blueprint to the edge of the desk.
— Ksyusha, who told you to go there?
— Are you kidding me?! We explained everything to you properly on Sunday!
The crackle of wind came through the phone.
— Our housing development has been completely frozen, and the developer disappeared without a trace! Where are we supposed to go? To the train station with our bags?! You’ve got an empty studio apartment sitting there locked up, and you never even go there! Get moving and come here. We’re paying for the truck by the hour!
— I already told you on Sunday, Ksyusha. The studio is closed. Nobody is going to live there.
— So what if you blurted that out because you’re greedy! Aren’t you ashamed to throw your own relatives out onto the street in front of the neighbors?!
The phone was practically ripped out of her sister-in-law’s hand.
Aunt Valentina Vasilyevna’s deep, dramatic voice burst from the speaker:
— Tanya! Have some fear of God! I’m nearly seventy years old, and I’m supposed to suffer in a draft?! Your godmother left you that apartment so you could torment your family?! Bring the keys right now! My blood pressure has shot up to almost two hundred!
Tatyana looked at the wall clock.
— Aunt Valya, take your blood pressure medicine. You’re not getting the keys.
— What?! — the woman gasped.
— We’ll call a locksmith! Kostya has already gone to the building management office! We’ll drill that lock out in no time if you’re going to be this shameless!
The call ended with a series of short beeps.
Tatyana got up from her desk and walked over to the coat rack.
She put on a dark green jacket and checked her pockets.
In the right one was the flat body of a laser distance meter.
In the inside pocket was a sheet of paper folded into quarters, bearing the round blue stamp of the sanitary service.
The studio in the old prefabricated apartment building had come into Tatyana’s possession seven months earlier after her godmother passed away.
The place looked more like an abandoned storage room.
Strips of wallpaper hung from the walls, the bathroom fixtures were rusty cast iron, the floor had swollen, and the smell of dampness had long settled into everything. The first thing Tatyana had done was remove the flimsy old plywood door and replace it with a sturdy metal one fitted with two locks. She had cleared out the broken junk and had been slowly buying renovation materials whenever they went on sale.
No sensible person would have agreed to live in that concrete box in its current condition.
But Ksenia and Kostya had never been especially strong when it came to logic.
After selling their room in a communal apartment and taking out several loans, they had invested everything in a dubious suburban development. A month earlier, construction had come to a complete halt, and the contractor had vanished along with the investors’ money.
Ksenia flatly refused to pay for a rental apartment.
Why hand their hard-earned money to some stranger when her sister-in-law had an unused place sitting empty?
At a family christening, Tatyana had immediately put an end to their enthusiasm.
She had said clearly that the studio was unfit for habitation and that she would not let anyone move in.
Ksenia had curled her lip, while Aunt Valya had pursed hers and announced that an easy life would eventually bring her niece nothing but trouble.
And now the relatives had decided to force their way in.
The tram reached the right stop in twenty minutes.
The scene unfolding in the courtyard was spectacular.
An old UAZ vehicle with a trailer had blocked the entrance to the apartment building.
The driver, wearing a grease-stained jacket, angrily smoked beside the open trailer. A mountain of belongings was piled on the withered grass near the flowerbed: boxes tied with string, plastic washbasins, a dusty rolled-up carpet, a microwave, and four wheels with rims.
Valentina Vasilyevna sat on a wooden crate wearing a blue wool scarf.
Nearby, Kostya paced around, furiously shouting curses into his phone.
The moment Ksenia spotted her sister-in-law, she rushed straight toward her.
Her coat swung open, and her burgundy-painted fingers began waving threateningly in front of Tatyana’s face.
— Finally! Your conscience woke up at last?! We’re freezing to death standing here! Open the door already. The men need to start carrying the things upstairs!
— Nothing is going upstairs, — Tatyana replied.
Ksenia froze with her hands on her hips.
— Have you lost your mind?! We rented the truck until noon! The meter is running! Open up now!
— I didn’t invite you here, Ksenia.
Valentina Vasilyevna immediately began lamenting loudly enough for the entire courtyard to hear.
— Good people, just look at her! She’s throwing her own brother out into the cold! His belongings are lying on the pavement, and she turns up her nose! Heartless girl! Not a drop of shame in her!
On the second floor, a window suddenly flew open with a bang.
A local elderly woman in a headscarf leaned outside.
— Hey, you people with that wreck of a vehicle! Why did you throw tires on the lawn?! I’m calling the local police officer about damage to the building grounds! Get your garbage away from the entrance!
— Lady, shut your window and mind your own business! — Kostya barked, shoving his phone into his pocket.
He walked right up to his sister.
— Listen, Tanya. Stop playing games. We’ve lost money, do you understand that? We need somewhere to spend the winter! We’ll pay for the electricity. It’s not going to bankrupt you! Why are you making a public spectacle out of this?!
— Put your hands down, Kostya. And lower your voice.
Ksenia squeezed forward, her eyes flashing.
— We don’t care about your whims! The locksmith from the housing office is coming with his tools right now! Kostya promised him some cash under the table. He’ll drill the lock cylinder out in a minute! We’ll bring our things inside, install our own lock, and then you can run around filing complaints until the end of time! Nobody is going to throw a family with an elderly person out into the cold. You don’t have the right!
— You’re waiting for the locksmith? — Tatyana gave a small smile.
— Fine. Let’s go upstairs. We can all admire your locksmith together.
She calmly walked to the entrance, entered the code on the panel, and pulled the door open.
Ksenia triumphantly nudged her husband with her elbow.
— See! We applied a little pressure and suddenly she became reasonable! Take the carpet, Kostya! Tell the driver to bring the boxes to the elevator! Aunt Valya, get up. Let’s move in!
What followed was a painful assault on the upper floors.
The freight elevator had broken the previous Tuesday, and even the rolled-up carpet would not fit inside the passenger elevator.
Panting heavily and swearing every few steps, Kostya dragged the dusty carpet roll up the concrete stairwell to the fourth floor.
Ksenia followed with a bundle of pots and a kettle in her hands.
Valentina Vasilyevna trailed behind, groaning loudly and telling every resident they passed how disgracefully she was being treated.
Tatyana reached the fourth floor first.
She stopped on the landing outside apartment number forty-four and slipped her hands into her pockets.
Kostya was the first to stumble onto the landing.
His face had turned crimson from the effort.
He dropped the rolled-up carpet onto the concrete, wiped his forehead with his sleeve, caught his breath—and suddenly froze.
A breathless Ksenia appeared behind him.
Her triumphant smile vanished instantly.
The entrance to apartment forty-four looked like the sealed entrance to an isolation room in an infectious diseases ward.
Wide yellow-and-black plastic tape had been stretched across the entire door in an X, sealing the door leaf, the frame, and even the keyholes.
Printed repeatedly across the tape in bold letters were the words:
“DANGER ZONE. ENTRY STRICTLY PROHIBITED.”
Two numbered paper seals bearing the blue stamp of the sanitary and epidemiological service were attached where the metal door met the frame.
And directly in the center was a laminated notice:
“WARNING! PREMISES HAVE UNDERGONE COMPLETE TREATMENT WITH HIGHLY TOXIC CHEMICALS. ENTRY WITHOUT SPECIAL PROTECTIVE EQUIPMENT IS STRICTLY PROHIBITED! DANGER OF CHEMICAL DAMAGE TO THE RESPIRATORY SYSTEM. DECONTAMINATION PERIOD — 40 DAYS. BREAKING THE SEAL WILL RESULT IN A FINE AND NOTIFICATION OF EMERGENCY SERVICES.”
A nauseating chemical odor drifted distinctly from beneath the door into the stairwell: a mixture of kerosene, rotting grass, and poisonous insecticide.
Valentina Vasilyevna finally shuffled up the stairs.
She looked at the yellow tape, sniffed the air, and immediately doubled over in a violent coughing fit.
— Cough, cough! Good heavens… Oh, save me! What is that smell?! It’s like someone poured poison over a rotting carcass!
— Tanya! — Ksenia shrieked, backing away while clutching the pots to her chest.
— What is this circus?! What did you stick all over the door?!
— It’s not a circus. You wanted to move in, didn’t you? You were planning to drill out the lock? Go ahead. Tear off the tape. Call your locksmith and let him work with a crowbar.
— You… who did you call here?! — Kostya jabbed a finger toward the warning notice.
— What poison?! Have you lost your mind?!
— Just standard sanitary treatment, Kostik. Remember the grocery shop in the basement? The tenant disappeared, and the electricity was shut off because of unpaid bills. Everything in the refrigerators spoiled. Rats died, and then bedbugs and fleas started crawling up through the ventilation from the basement. They spread through the entire vertical section of the building, from the bottom floor to the top. The neighbors filed complaints with every agency they could find. Yesterday morning, the exterminators flooded the whole place with toxic fog under pressure.
Tatyana took the folded document from her inside pocket and opened it in front of her brother’s face.
— Here. Read it. Certificate confirming toxic treatment. The chemical soaks into the brick and plaster. The required exposure time is forty days in a completely sealed room. Without a chemical protection suit, spending several hours inside is guaranteed to damage your lungs.
Kostya recoiled from the document as if it were red-hot metal.
— You’re lying… You arranged this on purpose! You called them just to keep us out!
— Why should I rearrange my life around your schemes? — Tatyana replied.
— I submitted the application to the sanitary service three weeks ago, back when you were still trying to unload your communal apartment room. Yesterday they sprayed the solution and sealed the apartment. So go ahead and bring in your belongings, dear guests! Roll the carpet out right here by the door. By morning, you’ll stop coughing.
Permanently.
Valentina Vasilyevna grabbed the collar of her coat and stared at the seal with bulging eyes.
— Kostik! Son! She invited us here to certain death! She knew everything and kept quiet! We could have gone inside and never come out again! She wanted to poison us!
— She’s lying! — Ksenia stamped her foot, although her face had noticeably gone pale.
— She printed that paper somewhere herself and stuck the tape on with adhesive! Kostya, break the lock! She has no right to leave us out on the pavement! Tear that rubbish down!
— Go on, Kostya. Pull it off, — Tatyana quietly encouraged him, glancing toward the ceiling.
— See that camera up there? The building manager connected it directly to the security console. The moment you touch that seal, a patrol will be on this landing in five minutes. You can explain to the sergeant carrying an automatic weapon why you decided to break into a chemically treated danger zone. And while you’re at it, you can pay the fine for interfering with sanitary control. It’s a nice large sum. You’ll probably be paying it off until retirement.
Kostya nervously looked at the black camera lens and then at the warning sign.
Dark red blotches spread across his neck.
— You’re poison yourself, Tanya. We came to you as family, like decent people! We dragged all our belongings across the entire city! And you unleashed bedbugs on us!
— Like family? — Tatyana stepped forward, and her stocky brother backed toward the stairs.
— Acting like family means asking permission instead of announcing your plans over the phone! It means accepting a normal refusal the first time instead of showing up at someone else’s property with a crowbar! You threw away your own money, buried yourselves in debt, and somehow I’m the one to blame?!
She looked around at her suddenly silent relatives.
— The studio is sealed until the end of November. There will be no locksmiths here. Now take your carpet and get off this landing before the neighbors call the police because you’re blocking the passage.
— May everything you own turn to dust! — Ksenia shouted as she backed down the stairs.
— You’ll remember us when you need help one day! We won’t even let you through the door!
— Somehow I’ll survive without your doorstep, — Tatyana said sharply.
— The air will be cleaner.
Heavy footsteps in thick work boots sounded from below.
The exhausted driver appeared on the landing.
— Hey, people! Are you unloading or not?! The time in our contract is up! Either you pay extra for waiting at double the rate, or I’m dumping all your junk on the grass and driving away!
— What payment?! — Ksenia shrieked.
— You’re supposed to take us back!
— Taking you back is a separate route, lady! — the driver snapped.
— Hand over another nice stack of cash, or I’m unloading everything straight into the mud!
Furious, Kostya kicked the rolled-up carpet.
The roll rocked and then went thundering down the stairs.
— Everybody shut up! Carry it all back!
The failed tenants’ retreat looked like a chaotic military withdrawal.
Kostya strained himself dragging the miserable carpet back down into the courtyard, stumbling at every turn. Ksenia noisily counted her pots, repeatedly breaking into shouting fits and cursing her husband, the greedy driver, and the whole world.
Valentina Vasilyevna wrapped herself tighter in her scarf and wailed throughout the building that she would never set foot in this cursed neighborhood again.
Tatyana stepped onto the open connecting balcony on the fourth floor.
Below, the argument continued at full volume.
The driver flatly refused to load the boxes back into the truck until Kostya paid him for the extra waiting time. Ksenia darted around the boxes, jabbing a finger toward her husband’s face. Their aunt sat on someone else’s tires with her head in her hands.
Eventually, Kostya reached into his pocket, counted out several banknotes for the driver, and the two men began throwing the bundles back into the truck.
The trailer gate slammed shut with a metallic clang.
The truck roared, released a cloud of bluish exhaust directly over the flowerbed, and slowly drove out of the courtyard.
Two months passed.
On a damp Thursday at the end of November, Tatyana once again climbed to the fourth floor.
The sanitary quarantine period had fully expired.
She took scissors from her pocket, cut away the faded yellow-and-black tape, and removed the dry paper seals.
The new key turned easily in the lock, and the metal door swung smoothly open.
Inside the studio, there was only the smell of cool air and dry plaster.
The insects were gone. The extermination crew had treated the cracks thoroughly.
Her phone vibrated in her pocket.
A long message had arrived from her cousin Nadezhda.
With obvious amusement, Nadezhda wrote that Kostya and Ksenia had eventually rented a cold corner room in an old wooden barracks at the far edge of an industrial district—and were paying quite a lot for it.
Half their furniture had been soaked by the prolonged autumn rains. They had fallen out completely with Valentina Vasilyevna over the moving expenses, and now the family had no money left at all while blaming everyone around them for being heartless.
Tatyana put the phone back into her jacket pocket and took out the laser distance meter.
A straight red beam appeared on the rough wall.
It was time to calculate how many tiles she would need for the bathroom.
The renovation promised to be long and thorough.
And most importantly, completely peaceful.