Friday
After lunch, Anya began preparing dinner and barely left the kitchen for the rest of the evening, moving almost soundlessly, trying not to let the dishes clink. By seven, the table was set: a white tablecloth, two plates aligned with ruler-straight precision, and the smell of roasted meat with spices—a warm, homey smell that in this frozen house felt sacrilegious.
Anya, too, had prepared for the evening. In her room, she took a dress from the wardrobe—bright red, striking, with no subtlety to it. One of the dresses Viktor had bought her at the very beginning, and one she had never worn until now.
After changing, she stayed in her room and waited.
When Viktor returned from work, the house already smelled of dinner. From her room, Anya heard muted footsteps in the entryway, then the creak of the stairs and, a little later, the soft click of a door upstairs. She waited a few more minutes—long enough for everything to go still again—and only then stepped into the hallway.
She went to his door and knocked.
“Viktor?” Her voice was clear and bright. “I made dinner. I’ll be very happy to see you downstairs.”
Silence.
“Please come down,” she added, a little more softly, but with the same confidence. “It’s my birthday today. I don’t want... I don’t want to spend it alone.”
She did not wait for an answer. She turned and went downstairs, knowing he would not be able to refuse that appeal. For Viktor, “rightness” mattered more than personal comfort. To ignore the birthday of his “highest value” would mean finally admitting that he no longer controlled the situation.
Ten minutes later, footsteps sounded on the stairs. Slow, heavy, dragging—nothing like before.
Viktor entered the kitchen.
Anya barely kept her face still. If he’d seemed tired on Wednesday, now he looked like a man returning from a war zone. His shirt was wrinkled, his face so drawn that his cheekbones had become sharp as scalpels. But the worst thing was his eyes: red, inflamed, shot through with broken blood vessels. He was not blinking. He was simply staring at the set table as if he were looking at a scaffold.
“Sit down,” Anya said with a smile, indicating the chair. “I’m so glad you came.”
Viktor sat. Slowly, as if his bones had turned to glass and might shatter from any sudden movement. He did not touch the cutlery. His hands lay on the tablecloth—gray, with a visible tremor he was not even trying to hide.
Anya served him meat and poured tea. She ate calmly, keeping up light conversation about the weather and how nice everything felt after the cleaning. She behaved as if the knife once raised over her head had never existed.
Viktor stared at his plate. At last he lifted his head. His lips twitched, and he swallowed, gathering strength.
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“Anya...” His voice was hoarse, cracked. “On Sunday... I...”
He fell silent, searching for words of apology meant to restore him to the image of a rightful master. He desperately needed her to see the incident as a mistake, something that could be repaired with words.
But Anya did not let him finish. She smiled gently and placed her hand over his trembling one—warm and steady.
“Viktor, please. Let’s not. Today is such a bright, happy day—why spoil the atmosphere with heavy talk? Everything is all right. I’m here with you, aren’t I? You protect me. I know that. That’s what matters most.”
She saw the spasm that crossed his face. By denying him the chance to apologize, she had left him alone with the guilt rotting inside him. She had left that guilt trapped inside him.
“You’ve hardly eaten anything,” she observed. “Wasn’t it good?”
“Everything was good...”
“That’s good, then. You know... there’s one gift I’d like to ask for. A small one.”
Viktor lifted his reddened eyes to her, a question in them.
“Let’s dance. In the living room. Just one dance. So I can feel that this day is real.”
He could not refuse. It fit the family model he lived by, the rules of his value system, and an older desire that no longer belonged to the present.
Viktor rose, unsteady on his feet, and they went into the living room. He turned on the record player. The room filled with an old waltz. The violins wept with polished, measured grace, creating the illusion of refinement and safety.
He placed a hand on her waist. His palm was icy and damp with sweat. Anya rested her hand on his shoulder and took the first step.
They began to move. One-two-three. One-two-three.
Viktor moved mechanically, looking somewhere beyond her. Anya, meanwhile, never took her eyes off him. Her bright red dress blazed in the sterile living room, and every movement seemed to cut through the air.
And while the violins traced their tender notes, completely different music began to play in her mind, in time with their steps: the beat of the nightcore version of Dance with the Devil. The bass pounded in her temples, drowning out Chopin. In her head pulsed the singer’s feverish command—to say goodbye to everything and, at the very moment of dancing with the devil, never under any circumstances look straight at him.
But she looked, without blinking, catching every faint, almost imperceptible movement of his muscles. He, on the other hand, looked away. And in that second, an icy question pierced her: which of them was really dancing with the devil now?
She drove the unwelcome thought away and moved a little closer. Enough for him to feel her breath.
“You’re such a strong man, Viktor,” she whispered. “You know, while we’re dancing, I suddenly realized... I feel so calm. As if I were being led by a very strong, very dependable father.”
Viktor missed a step. His fingers clenched convulsively at her waist.
“Don’t...” he breathed.
“Why not?” she asked, opening her eyes wide with innocent surprise as she kept moving with him through the waltz. “It’s true. Your own daughter would have been lucky. She would have had a daddy who would never let anyone hurt her. Who would always be there. Strong. Unyielding.”
She saw his pupils dilate until they swallowed almost all of his irises. His mind, worn down by sleeplessness, could no longer keep the layers of reality apart. By day she told him he was the perfect father. By night his daughter whispered at the door that he had abandoned her.
“You are everything to me,” she went on, her voice growing quieter, more intimate with every word. “My protector. My Architect. My father.”
Viktor started shaking. A real, violent tremor ran through his body. The music in the living room was still playing, but he no longer heard it. He heard only her whisper and the pounding rhythm of that devil’s dance, driven into him by her words.
When the music faded, he shoved her away.
“I... need... to lie down,” he forced out, without looking at her.
He turned and went toward the stairs, clutching the banister like a blind man. His steps were uneven. He was leaving, and Anya stood in the middle of the shining living room, a faint, cold smile at her lips.
“Say goodbye...” she whispered after him.