The Knocks at 3:17

Nika arrived at Block 42 as the evening cooled and the streetlights blinked on, one by one, like tired eyes noticing her too late. The concrete stood with a damp smell, old heat trapped in the stairwells, boiled cabbage and dust and the metallic breath of pipes that had not rested in fifty years. She touched the chipped handrail. It felt warmer than the air, oily with the touch of a thousand palms, and carried a faint vibration she couldn’t name. Her backpack thudded against her hip with each step. It held a camera, mics, a cheap tripod, two notebooks, and a curled stick of white chalk she’d pocketed out of habit, the way some people carried coins.

At the call box she pressed the cracked button for the caretaker. The intercom hissed like a kettle left to boil, then a voice: “Who is it?” A woman, iron in her tone, smoke in her breath.

“Nika. Photographer. I called earlier.”

Keys clanged. The door opened with a hard tug. The woman who appeared had shoulders like a coat rack and hair the color of ash before rain. A keychain hung from her wrist like a bracelet.

“Galina,” the woman said. She wiped the doorframe with a rag, as if Nika might be dirt. “You’re the girl with the project.”

“It’s for an exhibit,” Nika said. “City bodies. Places that breathe.”

Galina snorted. “This building breathes. You’ll see. Come.”

Inside, the air changed at once, like stepping into a throat. The stairwell was painted in that municipal green that turned to mildew at the corners. Poor light carved caves behind the trash chute. Through open doors came the day: a radio tinny with folk songs, small cutlery, a kettle’s impatient stutter. Someone smoked on a landing, the end of the cigarette orange as a watching insect.

Nika lifted her camera. The lens reflected everything back at her in tiny. She photographed an old pair of boots by a door, a string bag hanging low with beets and apples, a calendar with a mountain nobody here would ever climb. The camera clicked. She felt her pulse steady.

“You stay the night?” Galina asked without looking back, climbing with heavy steps.

“If I can.”

“You’ll hear it.” A key turned in some private lock inside Galina’s throat; the words clicked free. “Three seventeen.”

“Three seventeen?”

Galina nodded, chin a rock. “The knocks. People get used to anything, even that. But the first time, you’ll think your heart is a door.”

They passed a door with kid drawings taped up. A cat watched them with cold coins for eyes. Nika smiled at it and it blinked, slow as sap. She filed the hour away. The number hooked somewhere behind her ribs and hung there, waiting.

On the fifth floor, Galina opened a room used for guests and tools. Two cots. A table. A kettle with a mouth scabbed with lime. The window looked into a courtyard with cracked swings that ticked in the wind.

“I’ll make tea,” Galina said. “You can set up. And don’t say your name if something asks.”

Nika turned. “If what asks?”

Galina’s face did not help. “If anything asks. You’ll know the difference.”

In Galina’s small office kitchen, the wallpaper peeled like old bandages. A pot clacked on the gas ring. The flame pulled blue and then red, as if confused about its nature. Galina tapped the lighter against her palm.

“My grandmother had rules,” Galina said. “In the old houses. Keep iron near the bed. Don’t whistle at night. Don’t feed what knocks.” She slid two cups across the table. The tea smelled like hay left in the rain and sweetened with something grudging. “People laugh. People still place forks under pillows.”

Nika wrapped her hands around the cup, grateful for the heat. “I’m here to record stories,” she said. “I don’t laugh.” She lifted her camera bag to the chair and dug out a tiny mic, showed it with a small smile. “I do listen.”

Galina looked at the stubborn flame. “Listen, then. The knocks come from walls, from inside. They can sound like an old neighbor who moved out. Sometimes like a child. Sometimes like you. They know names, but their mouths are wrong. If you answer, you open a way. If you keep quiet, they go away hungry.”

A draft moved through the room, making the curtain rise and fall as if the window had lungs. The hallway beyond their door sighed like the building had shifted weight. Nika swallowed. The tea tasted of dirt and mint.

“Why three seventeen?” Nika asked.

Galina shrugged. “Maybe that’s when the plaster learned to speak. Maybe that’s when the man died. People talk. I work. I tell them not to answer and I leave iron near the pipes.”

“So there was a man.”

Galina poured more tea. “In seventy-nine they poured a wall wrong. The worker who noticed tried to put his name in concrete to keep the seam together. He got mocked. Then he got buried in paperwork, not concrete.” She lifted an eyebrow. “Or so the old ones say. Nobody leaves a good story to die.”

Nika rubbed the chalk between her fingers in her pocket. It felt dusty, porous, eager to mark. “Can I stay in the guest room?”

Galina nodded. “If you hear a child cry from the chute, call me. If you hear yourself from the stairwell, call nobody.” She rose, rummaged in a drawer, and pulled out a little bundle. Inside lay a blunt nail and a length of red thread. “Hang this above your bed. If you don’t believe, do it for me. One night costs you nothing.”

Nika held the nail. It was cold and pitted, as if it had been asleep under water. The red thread left a faint mark on her palm. “Thank you,” she said.

“You’re welcome, girl with a camera. Set your alarms. Three seventeen comes even when you forget.”