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Still… He drew a breath. When you considered it, for thirty-three what did he have to complain about? From what he could recall, at that age Jesus Christ had been dead.
    When he and Natalia had first moved into the apartment three years ago, just after Larisa had been born, the elevator had worked. But then six months ago their landlord – a young entrepreneur who had begun buying up flats the moment the privatization starting gun went off – had finally persuaded the last of the old tenants to sell their occupancy rights, and since then the breakdowns had become more frequent until one day the elevator had stopped running altogether. Since then the car had been converted into a kind of ground floor stock room from which the building superintendent – the owner’s brother-in-law – now traded his limited supply of light bulbs and other maintenance requisites to the neighborhood’s highest bidders.
    At least there were no secrets about the owner’s agenda. He’d been happy to lease out those flats he already owned while his game of Moscow Monopoly played out. Presumably the rent helped pay interest to some mafiya shark who had loaned him the money. But now that he’d won the game he wanted the building vacant. And why was that?
    The answer was easy. Quality pre-revolution building. Six floors with five spacious apartments each. Nice design, good location, good condition… well, comparatively speaking, anyway. And now just one owner to deal with. That meant, for a sale as it stood, their entrepreneur landlord could now probably expect to pick up $4.5 million minimum. Not bad on what Nikolai had calculated as a cost of less than one. Then the developer who bought it would spend another three or so renovating before tipping each apartment out at around half a million a time, to gross $15 million; maybe even more. American dollars of course. And all completely legal.
    So, now Nikolai and Natalia and Larisa were searching for somewhere else to live. It was a pleasant neighborhood, as Vari had observed, and while between Nikolai’s salary and their savings they could still afford the thousand a month this place had been costing, from what they’d seen so far, the likelihood of finding anything as good in Mira for that kind of rent was now little more than a dream.
    Nikolai passed the locked elevator car and rounded the corner to the staircase. At least it was only a three-flight climb. For now, most of the tenants from level four down were still hanging on. Everyone on five and above had given up and abandoned ship weeks ago.
    He reached his lobby, found the right key and let himself in.
    The apartment lay still and silent; in darkness save for the soft glow from Larisa’s nightlight that trickled along the hallway. Nikolai grimaced at his own guilt. Tonight – like so many others – he’d promised he’d be home early for dinner. By nine Natalia would have put Larisa to bed; by ten thirty she would have given up herself. He set his keys down quietly on the hall table, slipped off his shoes and padded along the corridor towards the bathroom.
    He undressed in the dark, hung his clothes behind the door, splashed some water across his face and made his way to the bedroom at the end of the corridor.
    The light from Larisa’s room pooled at the entry, falling across a shopping bag set on the floor just inside the doorway. Shopping. Forgotten anniversary. Broken promises. Guilt. Nikolai sighed, stepped around the obstruction and made his way across to the bed, slipping beneath the covers beside Natalia and lowering his head carefully onto the pillows so as not to disturb her. For a time he lay there quietly in the dark, staring up at the ceiling, wondering about his life and where it was taking him –where it was taking them all – then gradually the soft even flow of Natalia’s breathing and the warm scent of her body next to him began to wash the anxieties aside and he fell asleep smiling, despite himself, at all of