When the Bolsheviks came to power, something terrible happened at the shelter on New Year’s Eve. He couldn’t remember the details, but according to legend, since then, Nikitishna had invisibly protected the house, and thanks to this, it had survived to this day in relatively good condition. Of course, only the walls, floor slabs, and roof remained from the original structure, but as they say, as long as the walls stand, the house stands.
It was unclear why he remembered this legend, though when you wake up late on a day off in a warm bed, and laziness whispers, “lie down a little longer, you don’t have to rush anywhere today,” the most unusual thoughts come to mind.
Be that as it may, he would have to get up – Leo thought with slight regret.
On the kitchen table stood a wine bottle, a glass, and two plates. On one of them lay a piece of cheese left uneaten from the previous year. Leo turned the bottle over the glass. A few drops fell out. He filled the kettle with water and put it on the stove.
After finishing his morning routine, he made tea, spread jam on a bun, and waited for the boiling water to cool.
The doorbell rang. Peering through the peephole, Leo saw the neighbor from downstairs, Aunt Varya. She was in a housecoat, holding a large gray cat that barely fit in her arms. Its tail hung like the end of a heavy rope. Aunt Varya was a friend of the landlady and often dropped by for a chat over a cup of tea and to treat Leo to cabbage pies.
Fried cabbage pies, as it turned out, went well with tea, even without jam. And yet, without a spoonful of cherry or plum jam, the taste of tea always seemed empty to him.
During their last tea party, Aunt Varya confessed: for her, there was nothing better than homemade pastries cooked on a griddle under a lid. And less hassle, she added, looking at the cast-iron frying pan that had come to Leo from the landlady, along with a teapot bearing a pre-revolutionary stamp on its side: “Partnership of Kolchugino.”
Aunt Varya loved to repeat:
“They knew how to make things back then. Both the teapot and the frying pan. They’ll last another hundred years, not like these Chinese ones.”
To which Leo, after an unsuccessful attempt to sip from the scalding cup and trying to maintain a dignified appearance, solemnly replied: