"Gypsy" by Dina Rubina, summary Automatic translate

This book is a collection of short stories and novellas, published in 2005. The work combines family legends, twentieth-century historical tragedies, and travel writing. The author serves as the narrator, chronicling the real lives of people stranded in the Russian hinterland, Jerusalem, and the Italian provinces. The book is filled with vivid language, everyday details, and a profound compassion for human frailties.

Between times

Porcelain ideas

The writer interviews ninety-year-old Evgenia Leonidovna. The character was based on the sculptor Asta Brzhezitskaya. The elderly woman humorously recalls her childhood in Penza, her escape to Crimea during the civil war, the Red Gang’s raid on her train, and famine.

She recounts how she learned to sculpt in Moscow under the sculptor Matveyev, and then went on to intern at the Dulevo Porcelain Factory. There, she found creative freedom and created theatrical figurines, notable among them being "Princess Turandot" and "The Cherry Orchard." Working with clay became her raison d’être, and she compares the porcelain firing process to a divine miracle.

Murderer

The plot revolves around the author’s great-aunt, Bertha. In her youth, she became pregnant by her cousin. When the young man, on the advice of doctors, refused to marry, Bertha ambushed him and splashed sulfuric acid in his face. The young man died on the cobblestone street. A jury acquitted the girl. The brothers of the murdered man testified in her defense, saving their mother, who had attempted to hang herself in grief.

Later, Berta cunningly married engineer Misha Leshchinsky. They survived the evacuation in Tashkent, where Berta worked as a cafeteria manager and saved a considerable amount of money. By the end of her life, she had become a stingy, deaf old woman, methodically saving coal. She predicted her own demise and died alone at ninety.

Gypsy

The author explores the mystical "Gypsy blood." Her great-great-grandfather brought a real Gypsy woman home from a fair, who became his faithful wife, though she ran away to a camp in the spring. During World War II, the Nazis executed the Gypsy woman along with her entire Jewish family. Before her death, the woman cursed the executioners, vowing that they would devour the earth for her descendants.

Soon, the executioners were blown up by a mine. The narrator realizes that the shadow of the foremother invisibly protects her. Anyone who has hurt the author receives severe physical retribution, be it the broken arm of a school bully or the death of a cynical publishing editor.

Adam and Miriam

On a rainy day in Jerusalem, the narrator gives an elderly woman named Miriam a ride and treats her to soup at a Georgian basement restaurant. Accompanied by an ancient chorale, Miriam shares her horrific memories of the Grodno ghetto. During a mass shooting, she miraculously survived a mass grave, crawling out from under the bodies of the murdered.

She then hid in a barn for two days. A huge boar shielded her from German patrols with his body. Local peasants hid Miriam for two long years in a tiny hole dug under the floor. Out of fear, they dumped the emaciated fugitive at the camp gate. There, an American doctor nursed her back to health. Thirty years later, Miriam attended a congress in San Francisco and accidentally met her youthful love from the ghetto — the Israeli professor Adam.

Grandfather and Laima

The story is about the narrator’s grandfather, Moisei Gurevich, and his second wife, Laima. My grandfather miraculously survived Stalin’s camps and uranium mines, escaping execution. His first wife, Pania, died in 1942 from blood poisoning while saving orphans. In the camp, Moisei met a Latvian woman, Laima. The pregnant woman was liberated, and she gave birth to a son in an abandoned barn on the way to Riga. Moisei later found her, and they lived happily in Siberia. Through incredible luck, my grandfather achieved rehabilitation, accidentally found his children from his first marriage, and brought the whole family back together.

Ralph and Shura

A short story about the relationship between Ralph, a hunting dog, and Shura, a wayward cat. Shura raised Ralph from infancy and kept him in strict obedience, often slapping him. When hooligans killed Shura, the huge dog fell into a deep depression and cried out for his stern teacher.

Santa Claus’s staff

Young Spectator Theater actor Mikhail Martynov goes to work as Father Frost at a forest pioneer camp. Armed with only a prop staff and a ridiculous wig, he botches his performance. That night, the camp director takes Mikhail to his home, where a tense atmosphere of domestic squabbles between a son-in-law and mother-in-law reigns. The actor is sent to spend the night in an empty school gym.

The director’s daughter, a red-haired girl named Tanya, also arrives. Mikhail enthusiastically reads Edmond Rostand’s play "Cyrano de Bergerac" for her. Inspired by the sincere tears and gratitude of his only audience member, the actor flawlessly performs his cherished role, forgetting his failures and fatigue.

In Russia you have to live a long time…

Warm memories of the writer Lidia Borisovna Libedinskaya. The author admires her clear mind, elegance, and incredible freedom from the fears of the common man. Lidia Borisovna knew how to enjoy the little things, travel extensively, and wisely embrace her age. They travel together to Alexander Blok’s restored Shakhmatovo estate near Moscow. Lidia Borisovna recalls how forty years ago Korney Chukovsky philosophically remarked to her that to expect the estate’s revival, one simply needs to live a long time.

Between the lands

Fog

Investigator Arkady investigates the death of an Arab girl, Jamila, in the foggy city of Safed. Her brother, Salah, confesses to forcing his sister to drink poison to restore family honor. Jamila had been secretly dating a young soldier. The girl spent four days dying in terrible agony. Arkady is eager to punish the perpetrators, but Salah retracts his confession. An autopsy yields only circumstantial evidence. The investigator is forced to release the suspect.

Grief-stricken by the law’s powerlessness against primitive local customs, Arkady gets drunk in a night bar. There, he witnesses a philosophical debate between two Kabbalists about light and darkness. The next morning, the fog clears, bringing him resignation to the inevitable course of existence.

On the road from Heidelberg

Travel notes about a trip to Germany. In the ancient town of Michelstadt, the author and her friends meet a Russian-speaking émigré, Victoria. She works in the castle of a Portuguese princess and eagerly shares stories about the lives of modern aristocrats. She recounts scandals within a noble family and the purchase of forged royal documents for the Russian bride of a count’s grandson. Victoria is genuinely delighted at the opportunity to speak Russian, and her chatter betrays a profound longing for her native language.

The surface of the lake in the cloudy haze

Italian Diaries. The narrator travels with her husband along the Amalfi Coast, Naples, Pompeii, and the northern lakes. In Venice, they charter a gondola and are surprised to learn that the gondolier is a Pole from Łódź. He came to Italy for the sake of his young niece. His sister, Agnieszka, was killed by Sicilian mafia gangsters during an assassination attempt on her Italian husband. The author reflects on art, national characters, and the endless stream of tragic destinies that intersect along European tourist routes.

White donkey waiting for the Savior

A walk through Jerusalem begins with the old Christian cemetery of the Valley of Spirits. For a fee, the Arab caretaker, Meir, shows the graves of German Templar immigrants. These people came to await the Messiah, but were later expelled by the British for their ardent support of Hitler.

The women then visit the Russian Convent on the Mount of Olives. The abbess proudly displays the sixty-four-meter bell tower and ancient Byzantine mosaics. She introduces the guests to Alexandra, a talented nun and iconographer who grew up in an Arab family. The route concludes at the Tomb of the Minor Prophets. A large Arab family lives peacefully above the ancient caves, collecting fees from pilgrims. The mountainside is densely dotted with graves, and a white donkey stands meekly by the side of the road, ready for the coming Savior.