Lidija was watering geraniums when she heard her maiden name below the balcony. A guide pointed toward her and told tourists about a young woman who had waited forty years for a sailor. He did not mention that Lidija was sixty four, her former husband was a dental technician, and after their divorce she had not waited for him even forty minutes. A tourist raised her phone. Lidija lowered the watering can and asked exactly whom the guide meant and who had given him her name.
He said it was a local legend. He knew the house and knew she owned it, but believed a little romance harmed nobody. His boss, who owned the small agency, later explained that people loved memorable stories. Lidija replied that she too liked remembering her life, only the version in which she had chosen to leave a bad marriage. She did not want to become decoration for someone's tour, especially decoration offered as evidence of endless female devotion.
The story had already appeared in a brochure without her surname but with a clear photograph of the balcony. Neighbors joked that she was finally famous. Her adult daughter suggested publishing everything online. Lidija did not want to answer with another performance. She wrote the agency a short request to stop using her house and recognizable life as purported fact. She offered a conversation, but not a public account of her divorce to prove the legend untrue.
The following weekend the guide brought another group. Lidija went downstairs before he began and calmly said she did not consent to the story. Some tourists apologized; others asked what the balcony woman's true fate had been. "At present she's making lunch," she replied. "The rest belongs to her." For the first time the guide had no beautiful ending and led the group toward the square. One traveler lowered her phone and wished Lidija a pleasant day without another question.
The agency withdrew the brochure and changed the route. Not every photograph or rumor disappeared, but groups stopped pausing outside her door. Several weeks later her former husband came for a box of old books finally found in the attic. Lidija told him the legend. He laughed and said he would like such a patient version of the past. She handed him the box and closed the door when he left. On the balcony waited flowers that genuinely needed watering before sunset.