At the market, choosing vegetables, she loudly, for all to hear, told her friends and simply the curious absolutely monstrous things. She claimed that Anisa had known everything from the very beginning. Known that Kira was alive and sick, and had deliberately seduced David, taking advantage of his depressed state.
“She’s the factory director, she has an iron grip,” Regina proclaimed, shaking a bunch of dill in the air. “You think she didn’t check everything before dragging him to the registry office? She knew it all.”
“She saw a rich man with an apartment, with a position, and she latched on like a tick. And the fact that his wife was on her deathbed only played into her hands.” The poison worked flawlessly.
The town was small; everyone knew each other. And in this battle, David, Kira, and her mother were their own. They were from old, respected families.
And Anisa, although she held a high post, was an outsider to many. She had come to town after college, built her career herself, without connections or patronage. People had always been a little envious of her.
And now a perfect opportunity had arisen to vent that envy, hiding behind high moral principles. Anisa felt it immediately. First at work.
Subordinates who had been fawningly smiling at her just yesterday now, when meeting her in the corridor, lowered their eyes and tried to pass by quickly. Conversations stopped behind her back. Her orders were carried out.
But without the former zeal, with a kind of hidden hostility. She had become a stranger in her own team. Then it spilled out onto the street.
Acquaintances, meeting her in a store, pretended not to notice her and crossed to the other side. The salesgirl in her favorite coffee shop, who had always chatted with her about trifles, now served her in silence, with a stony face. She found herself in a social vacuum.
People were afraid of catching her shame. The phone calls started, too. Old friends of the Dobrynin and Malinin families called.
Mostly women. They didn’t yell. They spoke to her with icy, lecturing politeness.
“Anisa, we know you as a decent person,” the wife of the city’s chief architect said to her over the phone. “We all understand, the heart wants what it wants. But now, when Kirochka has returned, you must do the right thing.”
“You must leave. Leave quietly, without bringing it to court and an even bigger scandal. Have pity on David, have pity on Kira.”
“They’ve been through enough.” Every such call was a blow below the belt. They, the whole town, had already passed judgment on her.
She was guilty. Guilty of having been deceived. Guilty of simply existing.
The pressure was unbearable. She returned in the evening to the empty, cold apartment, which could cease to be hers at any moment, and felt utterly alone. The only person who remained on her side was Masha.
She called every day, supported her, brought groceries. So Anisa wouldn’t have to go out into the city unnecessarily. “Hang in there,” she said.
“It’s just froth. It will settle. The main thing is your work.”
“As long as you have the factory, you’re on top. They can’t do anything to you.” Anisa herself clung to work like a lifeline.
The factory was her world, her territory. Here, she was still the director; here, hundreds of people still depended on her. She buried herself in work, in contracts, in production plans.
She tried to build a wall between herself and the nightmare her personal life had become. She thought her professional reputation, earned through years of impeccable work, was out of their reach. She was mistaken.
The blow came from where she least expected it. One day, the secretary of the director of the Regional Trade Council, Mikhail Zakharovich Voronov, called her. “Anisa Nikolaevna, Mikhail Zakharovich asks you to come to an urgent meeting with him immediately.”
The Trade Council wasn’t just a client. It was their main partner. All major state and regional orders for uniforms for schools, hospitals, and municipal services went through them.
The long-term contract with the Council was the foundation of the factory’s financial stability. Anisa felt an unpleasant sinking sensation in the pit of her stomach. Voronov was a serious man, of the old school.
He didn’t call urgent meetings for no reason. She arrived at the administration building. Voronov received her in his huge office, with a portrait of the president on the wall.
He didn’t offer her a seat. He stood by the window, hands clasped behind his back, looking out at the city. “Hello, Anisa Nikolaevna,” he said without turning around.
“Hello, Mikhail Zakharovich. Is something urgent?” He slowly turned. His face was stern and impenetrable.
“Rumors are reaching me,” he began without preamble. “Rumors about your, so to speak, personal life. As you understand, I’m not interested in other people’s dirty laundry.”
“But there is one nuance.” He walked over to his desk and picked up a folder. “Our work together, the work of the sewing factory and the Trade Council,” he said, “is public.”
“We clothe children, doctors, public sector workers. We must be an example. Not only in terms of product quality but also in terms of reputation.”
He opened the folder. “I have received several letters. Anonymous.”
“And not so anonymous. In which concern is expressed, let’s say, about the moral character of the factory’s management.” Anisa went cold.
She understood where he was heading. “Mikhail Zakharovich, it’s all lies,” she said firmly. “I’m being slandered.”
“It’s a personal vendetta that has nothing to do with my work.” “Perhaps,” he nodded. “But there’s no smoke without fire, as they say.”
“And I cannot take risks. I cannot allow a shadow to fall on our joint projects from your personal scandal.” He pulled a sheet of paper from the folder and handed it to her.
“This is a notice. Of the termination of our contract.” Anisa looked at the document, not believing her eyes.
Official letterhead, an embossed seal, Voronov’s signature. Everything was in order. “On what grounds?” she whispered.
“We haven’t violated a single clause.” Voronov pointed his finger at one of the lines at the bottom of the document. “Read.”
Anisa brought the paper closer. There, in the “Special Conditions” section, in fine print, it was stated: “The contract may be terminated unilaterally in the event of reputational risks arising from unstable and immoral behavior of the enterprise’s management and the contractor.” Anisa held the notice of contract termination in her hands. The paper was thick, expensive, and the words printed on it felt like a brand seared into her skin. This was the end.
Not just the end of her career. It was the end of the factory. Without the Trade Council’s orders, the enterprise wouldn’t last six months.
Hundreds of people would be out on the street. And she would be blamed for it. She walked out of Voronov’s office and down the long, echoing corridor of the administration building.
She walked, seeing nothing in front of her. Kira had achieved her goal. She hadn’t just destroyed Anisa’s personal life; she had destroyed her life’s work.
She had turned her from a respected director into a leper whom everyone shunned. Returning to the factory, Anisa locked herself in her office and sat for a long time, staring out the window. Behind the wall, sewing machines hummed.
That sound had always calmed her, given her a sense of stability. Now it sounded like a countdown to catastrophe. She realized she had lost.
In a battle of rumors and public opinion, she could never win. Kira’s story—tragic, tear-jerking, full of righteous anger—was much more interesting and understandable to the average person than Anisa’s convoluted truth. “He said, she said”—in that game, the one who shouts louder and lies more skillfully wins.
And in that, Kira had no equal. So, she had to look for something else. Something that couldn’t be disputed.
Not rumors, but facts. Hard, irrefutable evidence. She had to find the real reason why Kira had disappeared five years ago….
