Chapter 3

Yuri quickly realized that joy on the path of revenge is fleeting. Pleasure leaves; consequences remain. And it would be one thing if he had gone all the way down that path, broken with his wife, left her without money and without an apartment ... but no. Because a man is cowardly and melancholy. It is easy to decide; hard to follow through. It is one thing to pour salt onto the head of the helpless Balkhi, another to give up the best woman in the world because of her betrayal. After all, Omar was finished now; his shovel lay useless in the street. And only the cleared snow still reminded anyone of him.

Well, yes, and even that only until the first snowfall. So, it would all stop, right? He only had to make peace with his wife. But that turned out not to be easy: she demanded that Yuri apologize to Balkhi! Enraged that he was being forced to apologize to the cretin who had taken his wife, Yuri furiously refused! But time grinds down pride. Living both with Annette and without her at the same time was impossible. During the quarrel, Yuri realized he was now more attached to his wife than when she had been faithful. Nothing binds people together like a shared fall from grace. And deep in his soul, Yuri understood perfectly well that although his wife had betrayed him, not the other way around, they had fallen together, and some of the guilt was his too. And the guilty are obedient.

So, Yuri decided it was better to save his family before the point of no return had been crossed. That was more important than the desire to behave like a real man. Yuri agreed to apologize to Balkhi.

It turned out Annette had taken his phone number in case “something cleared up about Omar’s situation.” So, the beautiful woman was able to call Balkhi, and soon 6 Maple Court had swallowed him.

“I’m sorry,” Yuri said, looking into Balkhi’s donkey eyes. “I have an unreasonable hostility toward Omar, and I should not have shifted it onto you. I behaved very badly, very unfairly. Forgive me.”