The “bathroom” phase brought Anya the long-awaited physical relief, but strategically it turned out to be a dead end.
Viktor was devilishly cautious. Every time she stepped into the brightly tiled room, she saw only what he allowed her to see: a soft towel, a bottle of shampoo, a bar of soap. No razors, no chlorine cleaners, no dental floss that could be used to saw through anything. He even handed her the toothbrush himself and took it back immediately after she finished.
Time began to turn into a thick, viscous jelly. Morning—waiting. Lunch—a snack. Evening—the bathroom, dinner, dishes, the basement. Week after week. But Anya knew: to get the key to the house, she had to become part of it.
After another dinner, Anya didn’t head for the stairs right away. She stopped and, with a hint of embarrassment, almost guiltily, looked at Viktor.
“Viktor…” she began softly, picking at the edge of her sleeve. “Today I noticed… down there, in the basement, under the bed… there’s a layer of dust. And in the corners… it’s already hard to breathe. The place hasn’t been properly cleaned even once in all these months. I… I’m a little ashamed to live in such filth. May I give it a proper clean tomorrow? A real one. With a bucket and a rag.”
Viktor frowned, weighing the risks. On the one hand—activity. On the other—“nesting.” A sign that she accepted this place as her home, not as a prison.
“All right, Anya,” he nodded. “I’ll leave the supplies for you in the morning. You can get water from your sink.”
Anya spent the entire next day working. It might have looked like there was more to it than cleaning, but there wasn’t. There was nothing interesting in the basement. Her goal was simply to make the place spotless. She literally crawled over every inch of the concrete floor on her knees. She scrubbed the seams where the walls met and pushed the rag into the narrowest gaps behind the ventilation grille.
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And then, high up near the ceiling, in a barely visible crack in the plaster, her cloth slid over something smooth and cold. For a split second, Anya glanced sideways. A tiny black circle, no bigger than a match head, set into the wall. If you didn’t know where to look—and didn’t rub that spot with a rag—you’d never notice it. A lens.
She didn’t flinch. She didn’t freeze. She kept the same dull rhythm. With the dutiful diligence of a “good housekeeper,” she wiped the lens with the damp cloth, brushing the dust from it, and moved on—polishing the sofa legs and the bed frame until they shone. But now a map had appeared in her mind. She knew where the camera was. She knew what angle it gave him.
She washed and washed and washed. She poured the gray water into the toilet and fetched clean water again, until her hands began to sting from the alkaline soap.
In the evening, when Viktor came down, he stopped on the threshold. The air in the basement had changed—the smell of stale dust and concrete was gone, replaced by freshness. The floors gleamed; every piece of furniture was perfectly aligned, as if in a military barracks or an operating room.
“Look…” Anya met him with an expectant smile. “Now you can breathe down here. Do you like it?”
Viktor walked around the room, peering into the corners with a critical eye. His face lit up with rare satisfaction.
“Well done, Anya,” he said with respect. “This… is impressive. Order in the home means order in the mind. I’m glad you came to this yourself. You truly deserve the care I give you.”
Anya practically beamed at his praise. She looked up at him, and in her eyes was an almost childlike pride in a job well done.
Well, Gardener? Do you like my ‘housewifery’? See how hard I’m trying for my little nest? You think I’m scrubbing floors because I love cleanliness? No. I’m scrubbing them because I want to know every crack in this house by touch.
The basement is clean. The bathroom is empty. So it’s time to move on.