Tvaikonu Str. 5, Lv1007, Riga, Latvia May 2026

Marta Lapiņa. Tvaikonu str. 5, LV1007, Riga, Latvia.

Tvaikonu iela was a ghost of a street. Sandwiched between a new glass office tower and a vacant lot of weeds and rusted rebar, Number 5 was a building that shouldn't exist. It was a pre-war wooden tenement, leaning into its own decay like a tired old man. The paint was the color of a bruise. The windows, where they still had glass, reflected nothing.

Marta’s skin went cold, then hot. She touched the nearest teacup. It was warm. She lifted the folded paper. Beneath it, carved into the wooden chair’s backrest, was a name: Marta Lapiņa. tvaikonu str. 5, lv1007, riga, latvia

Curiosity, as it always did, pulled her across the city.

Marta checked her phone. No signal. Not low bars—zero. The air smelled of river silt and coal smoke, though the last coal plant shut down a decade ago. Marta Lapiņa

She woke on the floor of an empty apartment. Dust. Rot. Cold. The radio gone. The place settings gone. Her phone had one bar. The screen showed 11:47 AM, June 14, 2024. Exactly 83 years to the hour after the deportations.

Inside, the staircase spiraled upward, wrong. The steps were too shallow, the banister too cold, even for Riga in November. On the first landing, a single bare bulb flickered, casting shadows that didn't match the angles of the room. The walls were covered in layered wallpaper—1950s florals peeling over 1930s geometries, over something older: newspaper print in a language she almost recognized but couldn't read. Tvaikonu iela was a ghost of a street

She checked the address in her hand. The paper was still there. But now, beneath the list of nine names, a tenth had been added. Neatly typed.