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.”